Talk:Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Bias

A professor gave this page as an example of bias today. I couldn't believe how awfully transparent the bias actually is, but that's the problem when the WikiProjects behind this page reveal this as an exercise in religious masturbation rather than anything approaching the rigour required of a genuine historical study. Once one actually sees the bias, it's amazing how convincing this page is for the idea that Christians were not systematically persecuted at all. I am truly disappointed Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.104.161.136 (talk) 19:39, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

You and your professor are welcome to give evidence for systematic persecution. I do find, however, that people are used to hearing this from the POV of Christian apologetics, are unfamiliar with the socio-religious context of the Roman Empire as studied by ancient historians and classical scholars, and are disturbed when the subject is presented dispassionately and neutrally. Maybe the page is convincing because the very real horrors of the persecutions have magnified their extent in our historical memory; after all, it's hard to see how Christians rose in Roman public life to become powerful enough to take over the Empire by the end of the 4th century if they were viciously persecuted in a systematic manner. Given that Christians were not violent, and most were not militant, they didn't take over the government by force, but through sufficient numbers rising to political and social prominence. How was that possible, if there was a consistent Roman policy of persecution or even discrimination? Cynwolfe (talk) 21:28, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I think you've misread me, my professor would not present an argument and evidence for systematic persecution except to combat it as he is opposed to the idea that most of the recorded persecution under pagan Rome actually took place. Plus, I said the opposite of what you seemed to have taken me as saying in this sentence: "[once one realises it's biased] it's amazing how convincing this page is for the idea that Christians were not systematically persecuted at all" when you said, "...the page is convincing because the very real horrors of the persecutions have magnified their extent in our historical memory."

This page ought to be, as it is a page describing supposed historical events on Wikipedia, from a neutral POV that you Wikipedians hold so sacred on paper. That it is allowed to remain in this state makes my professor's real point of the exercise: "don't trust Wikipedia as a source or reference." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.104.161.136 (talk) 07:08, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Not Waving but Drowning Yt95 (talk) 13:03, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

It's quite possible I misunderstood you. You seemed to me to say that the article, if one didn't know better, would convince you that the persecution of Christians was not "systematic." The article does take the position that Christians were persecuted at times quite horrifically, but that many of these episodes were local, and persecution otherwise was official policy throughout the Empire only for relatively limited periods of time. If that isn't the case, then again, please provide information to the contrary. You haven't been very specific about what passages you think have an inappropriate tone. I tend not to like extremism in either direction, but if you're looking for anti-Roman bias, I'm probably not your culprit. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:02, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

This article has been extensively revised and re-written since the above comments, I hope the bias the OP complained of has been removed.Smeat75 (talk) 23:33, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

On the subject of bias, I feel that the section under Martyrdom is written from a POV that is hostile to Christianity rather than one that is unbiased. Why does it begin by focusing neither upon martyrdom in context to Roman persecution nor in relation to Christianity in general, but upon the actions of a few individuals who were obviously outside the norm? It seems that such a move was calculated to make Christians appear to be inherently unstable individuals. This is followed by a statement that posits as fact that all numbers reported regarding Christian martyrs are not to be taken as fact. Again, the bias is all too apparent and seems hostile to Christianity. Please provide justification for these style choices in opposition to a more balanced presentation of the facts in true encyclopedia style. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Infinityseed (talk • contribs) 19:13, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

What specific suggestions do you have? As long as you are using modern reliable scholarly sources we can discuss this here on the talk page. I tend to agree that whilst the opening statement may indeed be an accurate representation of the source (and contemporary Roman opinion) it does lean a little, as you suggest, to portraying martyrs as being mad. Mention should also be made of Tertullians famous observation "the blood of the martyrs..." and maybe also a passage from Horace on the pax deorum (no wiki article?) Yt95 (talk) 17:24, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

New Testament-based passages

I understand the point that the only documentation that we have of persecution of early Christians by the Jews comes from the New Testament and that these allegations could be considered to be anti-Semitism rather than historical fact.

However, I believe that it is better to present the fact that these persecutions have been and still are considered by many Christians to be historical fact and then to present sources that challenge this view.

I would argue that the material that was deleted by User:Humus sapiens should be re-worked to present a more balanced view (i.e. to present the "facts" recorded in the NT as one perspective) rather than to delete it entirely.

I certainly think it is appropriate to point out to the reader that these allegations of persecution were the putative reason for anti-Semitism in later centuries.

--Richard 22:51, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Persecution of Christians#New Testament-based passages. Those antisemitic allegations have a long and sad history, so I suggest we should be doubly careful around those. You wnated to rework them but all you've done is blind revert. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 23:00, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Tangential: Richard, I see that you created this article almost 20 days ago. Should the duplicate content be cut & pasted rather than simply copied? ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 23:09, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

The author of the Book of Revelation debatable. Stating that John the disciple as the author of Revelation is not necessary in a discussion of of martyrs. Save authorship issues for a discussion on Revelation.Ulmy923 19:49, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Good catch. Actually, the whole paragraph is irrelevant to its section ("Persecutions narrated in the New Testament") and inappropriately sourced (Foxe's Book of Martyrs, from the 16th century), so I've removed it. EALacey 10:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Persecutions of Christians by Nero according to Tacitus

I think it should at least have been noted within this article that the persecutions of christians by Nero are merely allegory and by no means an established fact, even if it is something apparently found within the Annals by Tacitus due to the fact that according to Tacitus_on_Jesus there is no consensus among the scientific community as to the accuracy or even authorship of the relevant portion of the Annals. It is possible and maybe even likely that the alleged persecutions of christians by Nero is a later interpolation to the Annals by christian editors. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.63.93.239 (talk) 05:41, 12 July 2007 (UTC) 1 Also worth noting is the fact that the actual passage within the Annals asserts that christians may actually have been guilty of setting the fire, rather than asserting that Nero set the fire and placed the blame on the christians. It also doesn't say anything about wholesale persecution of christians but rather that christians who plead guilty of the crime were punished for it, though I find the means of punishment the more likely interpolation that would be original research on my part and not something to even consider for inclusion. Also when you consider the distance between Rome and Jerusalem, the apparent slowness of the spread of christianity throughout the world and the short span of time between 27AD and 68AD it becomes extremely unlikely that there was an "immense multitude" of christians in Rome to convict. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.63.93.239 (talk) 06:06, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

It has occasionally been suggested that the passage is an interpolation, but that's such a rare position that the general articles I've read on Roman persecution of Christians don't even mention it. (The source currently cited for that theory at Tacitus on Jesus is not very good.) And who considers Tacitus' account to be "allegory"? Regarding the "confession", Tacitus has been taken as saying that those who confessed to being Christians were punished (e.g., Furneaux's commentary), though the view that some Christians confessed to arson should indeed be mentioned. I agree that the section (and most of the article, in fact) needs work. EALacey 06:42, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually he said that those who confessed to the fire were punished. And the passage does NOT say that christians in general were punished, it doesn't go very far toward demonstrating the alleged persecution of christians under Nero at all. At least it doesn't when you limit your interpretations of what the passage means to what the passage actually says.

Persecutions under Trajan

This whole section is completely without citation. There are no sources to look into concerning the matter. And if the section is true it would be an extreme violation on the Roman's long standing policy of religious tolerance. If for no reason other than that violation of the long standing policy of Rome I think there should be some citation of sources here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.63.93.239 (talk) 05:55, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I've added citations of the relevant letters, and corrected a dating error. On Roman religious intolerance, cf. Bacchanalia. EALacey 06:59, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Persecution under Marcus Aurelius

There in fact is doubt that the law of Marcus Aurelius was targeted at Christians since the divinity of Christ was only actually established at the council of Nicaea and was not widely accepted as doctrine or fact, though it was accepted by some early christians. Also many other religious sects of the time were equally certain or more certain of the divinity of their own gods. As a further demonstration of the lack of the establishment of the divinity of christ you have, if not all four gospels of christ, at least the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke which never once have Jesus making any direct claims of divinity, or any subtle claims for that matter, and always making a clear distinction between himself and his God. Consequently the Gospel of John also never has Jesus making any direct claims to his own divinity, however the book of John does contain a sentence which many interpret as an assertion of the divinity of christ, this assertion does not come from jesus, however. Not even the author of the gospel of John would put those words into Jesus' mouth. I would suggest that either this section include more direct evidence that the laws of Marcus Aurelius really were directed directly at Christians and not all mysteries cults which existed at the time, such as the Mithrian cult and the worship of Isis, or this section be removed as it definitely does not establish with even the slightest degree of certainty that Marcus Aurelius intended to persecute christians, or that he even did persecute christianity as a whole.

- 5th August 2008 - It is notable that there are no citations for this section on Marcus Aurelius in relation to persecution of Christians. When we consider that there are two links in this section, one to persecution in Lyon and another to Marcus Aurelius, we might at least expect some agreement between these three pages. However, the first claims that Christianity was illegal during Marcus Aurelius' reign because of a law which remained from the rule of Emperor Trajan, not because of a personal disagreement with Christian doctrines by Marcus Aurelius himself. The actions are attributed to 'the authorities', not 'the emperor'. The link on Marcus himself is more specific: "Under Marcus' reign, the status of Christians remained the same since the time of Trajan. They were legally punishable, though in fact rarely persecuted. In 177 a group of Christians were executed at Lyon, for example, but the act is mainly attributable to the initiative of the local governor."

As such, it seems that the claim that Marcus found Christian views on the soul deplorable seems unfounded. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.190.202.30 (talk) 16:32, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

5th August 2008 - I appear unable to post an edit. Most likely because I do not have an account and am on a network which probably hides my IP. As such, here is my proposed edit if anyone fancies altering the relevant section:

"Belonging to the later Stoical school, which believed in an immediate absorption after death into the Divine essence. A law was passed under his reign, punishing every one with exile who should endeavor to influence people's mind by fear of the Divinity, and this law has been claimed by some to be aimed at the Christians. At all events his reign was a stormy time for the church, however the persecutions cannot be directly traced to him. The law of Trajan was sufficient to justify the severest measures against Christians, but while legally punishable, Christians were rarely persecuted.

It was originally believed that it was during the reign of Marcus Aurelius that Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was martyred, but newer estimates place it under the rule of Antonius Pius, and more specifically the proconsul of Asia Minor, Statius Quadratus. Later, there is record of "new decrees" making it easier for Christians to be accused and have their property confiscated.

One of the best-recorded large-scale executions of Christians in Marcus Aurelius' reign is the persecution in Lyons, which occurred in 177 AD. However, the act is mainly attributable to the initiative of the local governor rather than Marcus himself. Over 48 Christians were supposedly executed at this one event." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.190.202.30 (talk) 16:43, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The source for the persecution at Lyon is Eusebius, centuries after the event and an arch-propagandist, I wouldn't call this 'best recorded' to be fair. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.43.227.18 (talk) 06:20, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Not centuries, though the point is taken. Eusebius was born about a century after the incident in Lugdunum. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:32, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Tacitus forgery

It is accepted by just about all historians that the annals supposedly written by Tacitus are forgeries, created by Poggio Bracciolini in the fifteenth century. They were not quoted before this date and the structure of the language is full of mistakes a Roman would not make when speaking his own language but similar to mistakes made by Bracciolini in other of his works. It was claimed that there was a vast multitude of christians in Rome about 64 AD when at the time there was not even a vast multitude of christians in the whole of Judea or anywhere else. Paul however had reached Rome and was preaching there around 63-65 AD and Acts 28:30-31 tells us that he was preaching the gospel freely with "no man forbidding him". SBQ 10:28 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Pliny forgery

It is generally accepted that the letter from Pliny to the Emperor Trajan is a later forgery. There were many minor religions openly practised in the Roman Empire at the time and there would have been no reason for a Roman proconsul to crack down on any of them, let alone execute the worshippers and so stir up trouble. SBQ 10:37 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, very few historians have considered Pliny's letter to Trajan on the Christians to be a forgery, and most general treatments of Christian persecution don't even consider the possibility worth mentioning (see, for example, G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, "Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?", Past and Present 26 (1963) 6-38; or T. D. Barnes, "Legislation against the Christians", Journal of Roman Studies 58 (1968), 32-50). As for Tacitus' Annals, I'm not aware of any author since the 19th century who has considered them forged; the confirmation of numerous passages of the Annals by inscriptions discovered since the supposed date of forgery makes such a theory impossible to sustain. Do you have a source stating that the inauthenticity of either text is "generally accepted"? EALacey 09:48, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

*blows gathered dust off talk page*

Hi! So some of you may have noticed the recent renovations going on over at Persecution of Christians in the New Testament (previously Persecution of early Christians by the Jews). Yes, it's all very exciting, but after much dispute title neutrality has been achieved! Huzzah! So what am I doing over here? Well, basically, since that article now accurately chronicles the discussions of persecution deriving from the NT, I've moved some items from this article over here. However, in much the same spirit we have a couple odds and ends in that article, remnants of its Jews vs. Christians origins, that deal directly with early Christian history in the Roman Empire and not the NT. So, I proposed that this title be modified to Persecution of early Christians in the Roman Empire, thus incorporating that orphaned material AND making this article uniform with the subsequent section of the parent article Persecution of Christians entitled "Persecution of early Christians outside the Roman Empire.

Proposed: Move this article to Persecution of early Christians in the Roman Empire

Issue: The current title is alleged to be 1) lacking uniformity with parent's other sections, 2) too narrow, and 3) carries POV implications.

Lacking uniformity: Note that in the parent article, Persecution of Christians, the section following this article is titled "Persecution of early Christians outside the Roman Empire." Thus, Persecution of early Christians in the Roman Empire would be more appropriate for the section preceding, and by extension, this article.

Too Narrow: There are enough instances of persecution against Christians within the Roman Empire, but not committed by the Romans, that either a new section would need to be created in Persecution of Christians or this article would need to be expanded slightly in scope to accommodate them. I'm advocating for the latter in the interest of simplicity, neutrality, and to keep the number of subpages off of Persecution of Christians down as much as possible (to avoid readers having to bounce all over for information on what's really a single subject.

POV implications: The current title presupposes "the Romans" as having been responsible for the persecution of early Christians despite much dispute over the influence Jewish sects may have had over those decisions. Though this subpage was created from Persecution of Christians per WP:SIZE, a WP:POV fork unintentionally resulted. A similar example would be if the Responsibility for the death of Jesus article were to produce a fork called The Romans' responsibility for the death of Jesus. In regard to Descriptive names, WP:NCON states: "Choose a descriptive name for an article that does not carry POV implications. For instance, what do we call the controversy over Qur'an handling at Guantanamo Bay? The article is located at Qur'an desecration controversy of 2005. Note that the title makes no statement about who is the (more) guilty party: it does not "give away" that conclusion; in fact the article itself draws no conclusion." Since the current title does imply a particular POV, assign guilt, and "give away" a particular conclusion, this is not the appropriate title for this article.

Hopefully this proposal is clear and uncontroversial. Much <3 & Kittens, - CheshireKatz (talk) 08:00, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose - the title matches what people would think of and there is little doubt that it was the Romans who did the persecuting, regardless of whether they were incited to do so by the Jews or not. Besides, the "incitement by the Jews" is a minority POV, anyway. Finally, any persecution of the Christians which does not belong here or in Persecution of Christians in the New Testament could be placed in Origins of Christianity (which may be moved soon to History of early Christianity). --Richard (talk) 08:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

  Hrrrm, interesting point, I hadn't thought of that as an alternative. Do you want to incorporate the Bar Kohkba material there? - CheshireKatz (talk) 14:47, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

  Yes, there should already be a stubby section there now. Feel free to expand on it as long as it is relevant to the history/origins of early Christianity (i.e. don't make it a section about the revolt per se but about the impact on Christians such as the alleged actions of Bar Kokhba in reprisal for the Christians refusal to support him.) --Richard (talk) 16:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• support new title would be more neutral. Yahel Guhan 04:44, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Though I think Warrior4321's completion of the move was a little premature, I appreciate his support. Unfortunately, Richard's alternative proposal didn't address the primary concerns of neutrality & uniformity and I guess the best thing at this point would just be to wait & see what happens. - CheshireKatz (talk) 17:17, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Persecutions by Christians

Should persecutions by Christians after they gained power be mentioned as well? Richard001 (talk) 06:34, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

• Perhaps a section of Persecution of Christians by Christians. Did Constantine persecute Christians who refused to accept the Nicean Council's decisions? Did subsequent "Christian" Roman emporers persecute dissenters? DonaldRichardSands (talk) 13:30, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Constantine persecuted the Donatists and was no friend of the Jews. I think the consensus of scholarly opinion is that more Christians died at the hand of other Christians than during the periodic bouts of persecution carried out by the Roman authorities. The level of disputes and violence between different Christian groups is sometimes put forward as one of the reasons for the Roman persecutions -they disturbed the peace of society. Yt95 (talk) 13:43, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Delete 'Extent of persecutions'?

Apologies for barging in, but I think the article is better without this section; however, I moved it to the end of the following section on "Reasons for persecutions" and edited out some of the silliness. (Let me first say that I didn't write any portion of this article and come to it for the first time.) My personal sympathies lie with the "angry Pagans" that I deleted, but everything that's said in the "Extent" section is said better elsewhere in the article, and in a manner supported by specifics rather than innuendo (such as the now-deleted 'curiously enough'). Most of this article is carefully non-polemical; to have this section near the beginning was discouraging. The direct quotation from Workman struck me as utterly irrelevant. The statement about when persecution becomes a significant motif in Christian discourse is not 'curious,' but can and has been traced historically in patristic literature.

Here are the two grafs as they were:

"According to H. B. Workman, the average Christian was not much affected by the persecutions. It was Christian “extremists” that attracted the attention of angry Pagans. “Earthly institutions should not be judged by their averages, but by the ideals of their leaders”, Workman adds. Persecution of Christians only became significant, curiously enough, in the 3rd and 4th centuries, on the eve of the Christian triumph.

"The Roman persecutions were generally sporadic, localized, and dependent on the political climate and disposition of each emperor. Moreover, imperial decrees against Christians were often directed against church property, the Scriptures, or clergy only. It has been estimated that more Christians have been killed in the last 50 years than in the church's first 300 years."

As for that last sentence, does it mean "killed for their faith"? Otherwise it makes no sense.

Also, I am on a crusade (if I may use the word ironically) against the anachronistic use of the word "pagan". In the Roman Empire during the rise of Christianity from the 2nd to the 4th centuries, those who remained practitioners of the traditional religions of Europe and the Near East did NOT refer to themselves as pagans; if you can show me primary-source evidence of this before the 5th century I will apologize and be grateful for it. You WILL find it in patristic literature. "Pagan" was a derogatory term used by Christians to elide the diversity of religious practice that was characteristic of the empire. This is not about "political correctness" or "sensitivity", nor am I saying that we shouldn't label people or groups with words they didn't use themselves. Scholars need to apply categorical terms that organize the discourse of their discipline, but the point is precisely that the word "pagan" is intellectually useless. The need for an umbrella term to create an opposition is part of the monotheistic, dualistic good-and-evil impulse of Christianity; it is a grossly inaccurate label for all non-Christian religious practice and belief in antiquity.

I don't have references at hand, but in some early Christian authors (Prudentius is one, I think) the word "pagan" is used in works that literally preach to the converted, but not in works aimed at a general audience that would include non-Christians — because it would have been insulting. I am not trying to discourage those (living) people who take pride in calling themselves Pagan or Neopagan, but they should know that they are appropriating and redeeming a slur (rather like gay-pride appropriations of "queer").

Someone asks elsewhere on the talk page whether there shouldn't be a section on 'Persecutions BY Christians.' Not if you look at the title of the article; a treatment of that subject should be a separate article or section of an article, which could then be listed under 'See also' (the article 'Decline of Hellenistic polytheism' might also be good there). Cynwolfe (talk) 15:32, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Persecution? under Diocletian

This is how the section begins

Diocletian came to power in 284, and for twenty years upheld edicts of toleration made by a previous emperor. His wife and daughter were Christians, as were most of his court officers and eunuchs.

The reasons for this persecution are unclear, but Diocletian's actions may have been based on the influence of his junior colleague Galarius (an adherent of Roman religion), Porphyry (an anti-Christian Neoplatonist philosopher), or the usual desire for political unity.

Yeah, I'm really unclear. Was Diocletian tolerant or intolerant? The section says both. Was he tolerant for the first 20 years and then suddenly became intolerant? If so, some further explanation is needed because it says his wife, daughter & homeboys were Christian. When did he switch and why? Ileanadu (talk) 19:16, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Much of this article appears to be an interesting essay by its author and nothing more. The author goes about "explaining" how Romans (or the Roman state??, or the Roman emperors) viewed Christians and why they persecuted them. My guess is that there's no one explanation that everyone agrees on--just think of trying to "explain" why America discriminates against homosexuals. Whole books have been written on the subject--and this one as well most likely. This article should go about chronicling the views of those books. It should not be an explanation by the writer--no matter how well reasoned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.98.86.169 (talk) 04:13, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

range of article

Does this article include persecution of heretical Christians beginning with Constantine (for example the Donatists) and extending into the Byzantine Empire which some still refer to as the continuing "Roman Empire", or does "Roman Empire" end with Constantine for the purposes of this article? Whatever the case, that should be clarified in the lead section. 75.15.204.111 (talk) 17:49, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Persecution of Decius

Please cite properly the last paragraph. I don't know of any sources pertaining to contemporary public opinion around the mid-third century. I'd wager to say however if the source is over century old it is "unworthy of our time' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.50.175.161 (talk) 11:19, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Social and Religious Differences as Basis for Persecution

I found this article lacking in discussing the social basis for persecution. In the article one section is allotted to "Reasons for Persecution" where we find but one sentence treating the religious differences of the Christian philosophy at the time and its subsequent social stigmatization on the basis of the Christians socially ostracized lives, not necessarily as is debated by John Elliot in "1st Peter: A New translation with introduction and commentary" simply just because of the Christian title by which these individuals were legally charged as.

"On a more social, practical level, Christians were distrusted because of the secret and misunderstood nature of their worship. Words like "love feast" and talk of "eating Christ's flesh" sounded suspicious to the pagans, and Christians were suspected of cannibalism, incest, orgies, and all sorts of immorality"

The exploration in more detail of this socially motivated persecution which Elliot makes a claim that it is more evident, that is to say explicit, in the New Testament than the persecution of Chirstians by any Roman authority. Elliot explores this idea by citing 1 Peter as his proof of a sociological understanding of Christians as a group, instead of a politically targeted religion. He cites examples in 1st Peter in which he highlights the Christians as suffering from the punitive actions of the alienated; “They are surprised that you no longer join them.” (4:4), the suspicious; “but in your hearts sanctify Christ as lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you” (3:15) (2:15), the slanderous; “yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame” (3:16)(2:12) and the hostile; “Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called—that you might inherit a blessing” (3:9,13) local populations. Moreover Elliot highlights that in 1st Peter’s own words in 2:16, 17: “As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil. Honor everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honor the emperor.” Thus we can note a social stigma that was characteristic of Christians as a religious group, for no where in the gospels or New Testament is the early church incited explicitly to revolt or behave in an uncivil manner despite differences in religious beliefs. It was more so, as Elliot argues, the social abrasiveness that the Christians faced by being alienated, being suspect, verbally slandered, and by being recipients of hostile actions, actions headed usually by crowds, neighbors and members of the local population where these Christians resided. Their social isolation and negative perception was the main reason that Elliot argues, as shown in first Peter, that persecution was so prevalent among early Christians. This sociological placement of Christians and understanding their relation to the populations that surrounded them along with the mainstream religious thought upheld by these populations, helps us better understand persecution as a multilayered and heavily sociological phenomenon in the early Christian church.

(Marilyn.Rosales (talk) 06:39, 22 May 2012 (UTC))

I agree with "persecution as a multilayered and heavily sociological phenomenon in the early Christian church" and there is no single cause for the antipathy felt at times towards Christians. Since their faith animated their social life, sociological and religious reasons are intertwined in a way. Leaving aside for the moment the decrees relating to the offering of incense to the Emperor/Imperial standards, the reasons suggested, which are not treated in depth within the article, include the deep suspicion the Romans had for any kind of group, not just religious, that had overtones of secrecy since it was through such societies they feared sedition was fermented. (Catechumens were only allowed to know the full Christian mysteries when they had proven themselves sincere, being one example). The family in Rome can be viewed as a microcosm of the Empire at large and the authoritarian aspects of the latter mirror that of the former. The role of inheritance was of fundamental importance to ensure the stability of the family and the not uncommon giving away of Christian converts of the family wealth would certainly not have endeared them to traditional elements within the Roman community. Couple this with the call in early Christian literature, if needs be, to give up Mother, Father, family, then its not hard to see how this would be seen as a fractious new "superstition" by traditional Roman families i.e. promoting a gross form of filial impiety that undermined society. Furthermore prophecy was an important part of the early Church which the Romans, through experience, viewed with suspicion because it could lead to insurrections and destabilize the community. (when the Church gained the ascendancy it also had a very cautious attitude, for similar reasons). Couple this with the contents of the Book of Revelations (predicting the fall of Rome), and some Christians calling the traditional gods of Rome devils, (whom Romans believed had protected the city for centuries), and it's clear the early Christian community would at times be viewed by some as a threat to the stability of the family and, by extension, the Empire. Yt95 (talk) 15:41, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Christianity being a Greek-language phenomenon not a factor?

Ok, (and I might be displaying my ignorance here), I have searched this article, and its German version also, for the word "Greek", and it is not present. I cannot imagine how the fact that the new religion of Christianity was a primarily Greek language phenomenon, is not one of the factors relating to the persecution of early Christians. Wouldn't a new, flourishing religious movement written in Greek, and obviously originally having mostly Greek speakers, not be seen as confrontational to the Latin-language hegemony of the Roman Empire? The Romans clearly felt that they, and Latin, had replaced the Greeks, and here, in the midst of their powerful empire, was a powerful resurgence of Greek influence, with the Greek New Testament poised to become the new Holy Scriptures of the Roman Empire - kind of a slap in the face from the Greeks to the Latin-Romans who "replaced" them. It was not the Roman, Latin language which became holy for the Roman Empire, but the Greek language of the New Testament. I don't have sources, so I can't change the article, I'm just asking someone to clarify an obvious question. Thanks. Jimhoward72 (talk) 10:30, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

• Hi Jim and others. I have just begun looking for sources on this. Was the Greek language considered in competition with the Latin in the days of the early Christian Church? Do we have any evidence that Greek was persecuted by those who favored Latin? What was the practice of Rome regarding other languages. Today, English accepts other languages into its language, whereas French seems to be more protected, at least by France and Quebec. Did Rome take the attitude, like the USA has now with English, where Latin was the language? DonaldRichardSands (talk) 13:21, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

People like Arnaldo Momigliano treated the "N.T" as a product of Hellenistic culture[1]. The Latin Vulgate of Jerome, which became the Bible of the West was preceded by older latin version (Vetus Latina). The Greek Septuagint translation of the "O.T" is significant in terms of persecution because it contains the Books of the Maccabees which sets out what some take as being the exaltation of martyrdom which was passed through into Christianity via the Greek texts they used.[2][3] Yt95 (talk) 13:14, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

• Martyrdom is a value of the ante-Christian Second Temple period, as shown in the Greek language Maccabees, as Yt95 has said.
• The LXX seems to have been used by the earliest Christians and it contained the Maccabees stories of martyrdom. Thus Greek has a foundational role in Christian martyrdom conceptualization.
• But, were those who spoke Greek persecuted by those who spoke Latin on account of their difference in language? What sources do we have that address how Romans viewed the use of the Greek language in Rome, or elsewhere? Did the Roman empire have its own language police? DonaldRichardSands (talk) 15:22, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Pardon my bluntness, but this shows the dangers of writing about the Roman Empire when you clearly don't know the slightest thing about ancient Rome. The Roman ruling class were bilingual in Greek and Latin. Roman children of the upperclasses from the mid-Republic on were all taught by Greek teachers. Young Roman men considered it a privilege to study abroad in Athens the way a U.S. student today might long to study at Oxford or the Sorbonne, as a culturally elite experience. Greek literature was studied as models for Latin literature; our study of Latin literature today is impossible without understanding the dynamic relationship between the two languages. This is why departments of classical studies are dual: they contain both Hellenists and Latinists. Ancient Roman culture, including their religion and art, was pervasively influenced by that of the Greeks. Varro notes in addition that southern Gaul even in the late Republic was trilingual: around Marseilles they spoke Greek, Latin, and Gaulish. The Greek language had some influence even in Gaul and Hispania before the Roman conquest. Speaking Greek was a mark of culture; there was no stigma attached to it whatever. Laws and official government documents would of course be in Latin, but in the eastern provinces laws, edicts, and religious dedications are also issued bilingually in Greek. You might want to read Religion in ancient Rome and interpretatio graeca before you make assumptions about the nature of the socio-religious environment in ancient Rome. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:46, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

That is one of the answers I was expecting. Thanks for all your responses. I'm just wondering if the Romans saw Christianity as another upsurge of Greek cultural assertiveness, which they (the Romans) couldn't claim as their own invention, and for that reason, tried to suppress it. Later of course, they had to accept it, which meant that the Greek world, in the form of the Greek Christian scriptures, left it's permanent decisive mark on the root belief system of the entire Roman Empire. I'm asking if this could have been any kind of factor. I think that later you have the sense that the Roman Empire would like to imagine that the Latin translation (Vulgate) was the official Christian version of scriptures, while downplaying it's Greek origins, for example. I believe later a conflict develops just for that reason - some stick to the original Greek version, and others stick to the Vulgate and Latin rite. So this new, solely Greek movement (Christianity), could the fact that it was just that - a solely Greek movement, have been any factor in early persecution by the Roman Empire?Jimhoward72 (talk) 15:58, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

In short, there is no basis whatever for the idea that Christians, whether in Latin- or in Greek-speaking areas of the Roman Empire, were persecuted because of being associated with the Greek language. Roman emperors knew Greek, joked in Greek, even wrote books in Greek. I can give sources for each of these three statements. Knowledge of Greek and Greek literature was an essential part of education. Quintilian even said that a Roman boy's education should begin with Greek, leaving Latin for later. Esoglou (talk) 16:04, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Again, the Romans just didn't think that way. They didn't care about claiming things as their own invention. They liked being the recipients of tradition, and that was central to how they thought of themselves as a people (see mos maiorum). Their literature is full of notices giving credit to what other people invented. I think it's the Greek military writer Arrian who said that the Romans weren't inventors, but that their excellence lay in recognizing what was good among all the peoples they came in contact with, and integrating those things into the Roman way of life. That's why their empire was successful for centuries (and why the Nazis by contrast failed so quickly). They were adept at incorporating diversity. Their legal code and justice system formed the basis of law in the Christian West.

As an addendum on Greek, there was only one emperor after the conversion of Constantine who rejected Christianity, and that was Julian, a committed, even obsessive Hellenist who disliked Latin and wrote in Greek. That alone is a good indication that there was no association in the Roman mind between Christianity and the Greek language or the Greeks as alien. The conflict between the Greek East and the Latin West is, as you note, a Christian phenomenon. What began as an administrative division under Diocletian (see Byzantine Empire) ended with complete rupture under Christian rule, after Christianity had become the state religion of Rome. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:17, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the responses. I also apparently didn't realize the extent that Greek and Latin complemented each other during that time period. Just a question, would it be true that when Christianity was accepted by the Roman Empire, Greek was also the accepted language, in Rome also, for the Christian scriptures? I.e. that the Latin translations did not play any central role for the original Christianity of the Roman Empire?Jimhoward72 (talk) 17:28, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

That's a really interesting question that Vetus Latina doesn't address. You might start by working with that article. It doesn't seem to say when the first Latin translations started appearing. It says St. Augustine was aware of them, and (being the fine Latin stylist that he was) lamented their quality. But it doesn't say anything about the role of Latin translation in the transition to Christian rule of the Western empire, which would be extremely interesting to me, since Augustine himself adapted terminology from ancient Roman religion for new Christian uses (just a few examples include res divinae, verba concepta, portentum, and cultus and the word religio itself). Cynwolfe (talk) 18:05, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Jim, If you click the link given above to Arnaldo Momigliano's book and go to p. 142- he describes how Latin came to a point of absolute dominance in the west. The article in the old Catholic Encyclopedia may be of interest as well[4]. FWIW i think that though the liturgy of the earliest Christian services in Rome was Greek (and relics of it still remain in the West even today in the Kyrie) there must have been Latin translations of the gospels in Rome at an early date, no matter how rough, since the early Christians were predominately drawn from the poorer classes, e.g slaves, and hence the need for translated texts. Josef Jungmann S.J used to be the expert for this period but I no longer have his book on the early liturgy[5]. Just as an aside St. Augustine was poor in Greek. Yt95 (talk) 00:32, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

An overview of the linguistic situation in the Roman Empire during the formation of Christianity can now be found at Roman Empire#Languages. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:31, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Even the Prosecutions of the Christians on themselves here are canted as "Prosecutions against the Christians"

In the article is written: "...persecution of Christians did not come to a complete halt; instead, it switched to those deemed to be heretics." Who can take that what is written here as serious? Even the murders of Christians on their fellows here are called "prosecution on the Christians"! In addition, who has not the right to fight a religion goading humans even into hating their spouse, children and partents (see: Lu 14:26), while transgressing god's commandment of honoring one's father and mother (see: Ex 20:12)? What is wrong with such prosecutions? According to historian Karl Heinz Deschner the whole sum of Christian "victims" of prosecution is about 2000-3000 individuals. The Christians often murdered about ten up to thirty times more only in a few days, e.g. during the first crusade when conquering Jerusalem in July 1099. The sum of Christian murders, until now, is about 300 hundred millions of individuals. What here is written about purported prosecution on the Christians is a joke of the perpetrators' propaganda! It is hard to decide whether this article is a production of a lunatic asylum or aiding and abetting religious terrorism. Is Wikipedia obliged to Christian spoofs? Morsty Morsty (talk) 13:44, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

The passage you refer to in Luke also bothered me but Jesus also said "honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 19:17-19) so there is substance to the interpretation that what Jesus is calling for is not hatred of family but the need to put love of God before all other loves. That doesn't take anything away from the argument that it would indeed have caused friction between Christian converts within some Roman families. That post Constantine imperial Christianity became intolerant, and from being persecuted became persecutors, is not disputed except in scale by modern scholars. Christian "heretics" were suppressed by what became imperial Christianity and it wasn't until the modern age, and much spilling of blood, that concepts such as religious tolerance and religious freedom became accepted as the norm. Yt95 (talk) 01:24, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

This page makes no distinction between fact and fiction

The crucifixion of Jesus is not fact, but religion. In the NT, Pilate makes the Roman judicial system subservient to the will of the Jews. How does that add up to persecution of Christians. Did the other Romans suddenly grow a set of balls that Pilate lacked?

Pilate is depicted as acting in a politically expedient manner in an potentially explosive situation when many people had come to Jerusalem to partake in one of the great religious events of the year. Politicians have done it all times in all places. Yt95 (talk) 01:33, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Aside from the issue of whether the crucifixion is fact or fiction, the fact is that it is anachronistic and inaccurate to speak of "Christians" at all during the time of Jesus and the apostles as this article does in its very first sentence :"Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire began with the Crucifixion of Jesus." Wrong. Jesus, his disciples and the apostles were Jews, not Christians. Here is yet another WP article that is very very poor and needs lots of work.Smeat75 (talk) 17:59, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Why is the section "Persecution of early Christians in Judea" in this article?

Is this article about persecution of Christians by Romans? or persecution that happened anywhere in the Roman empire, in which case it should be renamed "Persecution of Christians from 30 AD to (date it stopped)" since persecution of Christians at early dates did not happen anywhere else. What badly-written rubbish this section is, just for instance " According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus preached against the growing corruption by religious leaders of the time. He stood up for the poor and oppressed. He socialized with outcasts and healed the sick. More importantly he spoke against the Jewish ruling class (the Herodians) and King Herod who were appointed by Rome to control the people." This is referenced to Matthew 23 1 -37 where Jesus is not quoted as saying a word about King Herod. That Herod was appointed by Rome to control the people is a highly dubious statement to say the least, not supported by that passage from Matthew. Who decided that Jesus' (non-existent) speaking against King Herod is "more important" than standing up for the poor and oppressed and healing the sick? Then we get an uncited assertion : "This kind of talk outraged the Sanhedrin and caused Rome much concern." There is no evidence whatsoever that "Rome" paid any attention whatsoever, or even knew about, Jesus' "talk". This section is junk, junk, junk. What's it doing in this article? The whole article needs to be re-written. I have added a "multiple issues" tag.Smeat75 (talk) 14:56, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I left this message days ago, I tagged the article, I have asked for more eyes, more opinions everywhere I can think of on WP and have had no response, so as it seems that as it is up to me for the moment at any rate, and as I cannot understand why this section is in the article at all as it is nothing to do with Rome, and as there is another article on the subject of Persecution of Christians in the New Testament, out comes the section "Persecution of early Christians in Judea", every word.Smeat75 (talk) 03:28, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

The persecution articles are all a bunch of POV forks. One thing I've been thinking is that Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire and Persecution of pagans by the Christian Roman Empire should BOTH be merged into Religious persecution in the Roman Empire. That article would have a Background section on religion in the Greco-Roman world, as well as a background section on the Republican era, mainly the suppression of the Bacchanals in 186 BC. The introduction should make the scope clear, and should refine the article title to cover restrictions and suppression as well as what's conventionally known as "persecution". It should be organized chronologically, with forks permitted in order to look at specific edicts, acts, the policies of a particular emperor, or persecutions as defined by RS (like the well-done Diocletianic Persecution.

One problem I see in these articles is that many contributors don't know anything about ancient religion: they're just out to compete in claims to victimhood. The Christian POV-pushers don't seem to think that "real" religions existed in the Greco-Roman world, and the Pagan POV-pushers seem to think there was something called Paganism that was a religion in antiquity: they don't understand the differences between the "religion of Numa" and Imperial cult, or how they relate to mystery religions or local and regional "ethnic" religions, or private practices generally called "magic". If it were up to me, nobody would be allowed to edit any persecution article without spending a month studying the religious life of Gallo-Roman Lugdunum (site of the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls) and in the East Dura-Europos, based on inscriptions and archaeology as well as literary texts. Both these cities show how the norm in the pre-Christian empire was religious pluralism. That doesn't mean we should idealize Roman attitudes in light of modern values. But if the context isn't presented correctly, we can't ask the right questions about why Christianity was suppressed, and why after gaining control of the Empire the Christians suppressed everybody else's religion and their own heretical sects, and arrive at neutral answers. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:30, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Cynwolfe, thanks for your input. I deleted the section ""Persecution of early Christians in Judea"" and userUpper lima 65 put it straight back in again with the edit summary:'you cant delete this just because you do not like it. Mark where RS are needed, and then if they are not orovided delete them later. Judea was in the RE. I went to his or her talk page to type an invitation to discuss the matter here, and see that s/he has just been blocked indefinitely as a sock puppet. I know I don't have to tell you this, but there are major problems with using the New Testament as a source of accurate historical information, which is why I thought that discussion should take place on the well-titled article Persecution of Christians in the New Testament. In the case of the Roman persecutions there are surviving documents, such as the libelli, one of which I put a photo and translation of into this article in the section "Under Decius", court transcripts, such as the one I put here in the section "Under Valerian" and eyewitness reports, as well as comments from Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius, and other historians. That sort of material does not mix well in my opinion with accounts that are taken solely from the Gospels or Acts of the Apostles. Your idea of an article on Religious persecution in the Roman Empire is a good one but that would be a very very big project, much more than I could embark on. It would have to include not only the NT stories but persecution of "heretics", and you would get people saying that it should go all the way up to 1453, since the "Byzantine Empire" is really the Roman Empire [[6]], haha, or maybe up to 1806 when the Holy Roman Empire went kaput.

What I do think is needed quite urgently is a well-written, well sourced article on Roman persecution of the early Church pre Edict of Milan, ie 313. I was going to try to turn this article into that but now I don't know if it's worth the trouble or not. I was going to try to reduce the length of the first long section, and cut the sections on "Persecution as a central theme in Christianity" and "Martyrdom", theology can be discussed elsewhere, and try to have an article that presents what is known about Roman attempts to suppress Christianity from as much of a strictly historical point of view as possible, trying to omit the many legends, fabrications, theological implications and idealisations that have accreted to the subject as one can. Actually it's really not that hard, here is a Christian website that does a fair and neutral job in my opinion [[7]], up to the section "Two Christian Responses". WP needs an article along those lines, we can expand it more with quotes, more sources, etc.

So what I am now wondering, before I do a lot of work here that someone comes along and reverts, is this - should this article be re-named "Roman Persecution of the Early Church before the Edict of Milan?" (or along those lines, just so you don't have to include Bible stories or persecution of heretics). Or should I start a new one with that or a similar title? There again I don't want to do a lot of work on it and have someone come along and say "lots of duplication here, merge this article into Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire and put it back with this junk. The article on "Roman persecution of the early church pre 313" could be a fork of your Religious persecution in the Roman Empire, if that ever comes to fruition. Thanks for your advice!Smeat75 (talk) 18:03, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I can see that you are thinking about this very carefully, and I wish I could help more. My view on having the one central article (the existing Religious persecution in the Roman Empire) is that it would end up more or less as a series of summary sections, which requires that the individual articles be in good shape. Also, I don't know what "persecution" means. Some of the edicts have to do with confiscating Church property; not quite the same as getting thrown to the lions, and in general a hazard of being rich when an emperor needed to replenish his treasury. There's an article on a specific persecution (the one at Lugdunum in 177) that I'll almost certainly work on one day, but truthfully, I have too many other things that interest me more. But if you need help on anything specific, please don't hesitate to ask. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:05, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Should this article be about persecution of the early church by the Romans?

This article has had several name changes in the past. In my opinion it should be moved again to a name along the lines of "Persecution of the early church by the Romans" and be solely on that subject. As it is now, the lead starts by talking about the stoning of Stephen, a story from the New Testament and nothing to do with the Romans except that it took place in the Roman Empire. Then the lead goes on to say that the article will cover persecution of Christian heretics by the Christian Roman empire, but in fact it never does. Wikipedia does not have an article that covers solely the important subject of Roman persecution of the early church, in my opinion there certainly ought to be one, I would like to rename and rewrite this article (in collaboration with anyone else who is interested of course) to be on that topic alone and I would like to hear other editors' views.Smeat75 (talk) 19:03, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Did not want that RfC to be too long - right now WP has articles called Persecution of Christians which tries to cover all persecution of Christians, everywhere, in all periods, Religious persecution in the Roman Empire, covering persecution of all religions by the Romans, and Persecution of Christians in the New Testament, which is where the story of the stoning of Stephen belongs. There ought to be an article about Roman persecution of the early church from a historical point of view which does not have to try to include Biblical stories, cover heresy or any other subject, those theological musings on " Persecution as a central theme in Christianity" and " Martyrdom" ought to go also. Here is a Christian website which covers the subject neutrally in my opinion, up to the section "Two Christian responses", I do not want to copy it but it shows the areas this article ought to cover in my opinion. [8] I have left other comments earlier on this page on how I think this article should be improved.Smeat75 (talk) 19:20, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

• Support. I think Persecution of Christians by the Romans is a better title and focus, and the Stephen stoning was not by Romans, of course. There is no question that the early church in Jerusalem and Antioch etc. was given a hard time by their fellow Jews, but that is a different story from what the Romans did. Saying "early church" does not telegram the idea in the title. And the year 361 does not fit the "early church" characterization but should certainly remain here. Even 281 is not really early church. My only caution would be not to give too much attention to Candida Moss' ideas until they have received enough comments by other scholars in the next 3-5 years. But overall, the article needs help, and Smeat knows the topic better than others around, so do it... History2007 (talk) 03:19, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. Comment. Who are "the Romans"? After the Constitutio Antoniniana, all free inhabitants of the Empire were Roman citizens, including Christians. Brent, for instance, argues in Cyprian and Roman Carthage[9] (a book I recommend highly) that universal citizenship was one of the conditions that led to the Decian persecution. Universal citizenship required that all citizens participate in a novel universal supplicatio (a rather incomplete article) that forced Christians to take a stand. I have no expectation of persuading on this point, but I think there should be one overview article called Religion persecution in the Roman Empire, organized chronologically and covering the period outlined at Roman Empire, with summary sections on the specific persecutions or aspects of the topic. Dividing the topic into "persecuting Christians" and "Christians persecuting everybody else" will always result in decontextualization and POV forks. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:33, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

You are technically correct. Colloquially speaking, Romans here really means "Romans with muscle", the likes of Nero and the other gentlemen there who would kill people before lunch. My feeling is that the reader will understand "Roman" as "Roman authorities" , else can be clarified in the title. History2007 (talk) 16:02, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) History2007 and Smeat75 both know how difficult I can be on these points, so apologies in advance for my bullheadedness, as I respect both of you very much as editors. It isn't a technicality. It lies at the heart of the persecution narrative that there was a dichotomy of us vs. them, which in fact does not exist as such pervasively even (or one might say especially) for the Church Fathers, who are often at pains, even while debunking everybody else's religions, to show that they too can be good citizens and are an integral part of Imperial society. Tertullian, for instance, one of the fiercest polemicists, actually praises the pax Romana and its benefits for the spread of Christianity, if somewhat backhandedly, and insists that Christians are part of the social fabric, participating in commerce, going to the baths, and the like, while refraining only from those aspects of social life that jeopardize their religious beliefs (hence no ludi). The much-vexed phrase religio licita in regard to Judaism was formulated by Tertullian precisely to argue that all Christians wanted was to be both good Romans and good Christians. (At the same time, of course, it's true that the dualistic minds of Christians created the Christian-pagan dichotomy, but actual Roman society did not operate on those terms until Christian hegemony.) The major and best-documented persecutions that issued from the central government occur after the extension of universal citizenship. The persecution of the early "church" would not be about what happened to individuals, but would be be about formal measures taken against the Church as an organized entity that under Roman law was regarded as a sodalitas or collegium—all of which were regulated to limit the power of private associations, and had been since the Twelve Tables. (For how these typically worked, see College of Aesculapius and Hygia; there is an extensive scholarly literature on how the Romans strove to understand and deal with the early Church in terms of these associations, since the political model of working with Jewish authorities and "Jerusalem" as at least a notional capital had no Christian counterpart.) I guess what I'm saying is that the current title is correct, if we want to include ad hoc acts of retaliatory violence like Nero's, anti-Christian outbreaks under local government as at Lugdunum in 177 (which no serious scholar thinks was ordered by Marcus Aurelius), and empire-wide persecutions like the Decian and Diocletianic enacted by the central government. Keep in mind that St. Paul was a Roman citizen. It seems better to keep the title "in the Roman Empire" as a geopolitical entity, and not ascribe agency vaguely to "the Romans". Cynwolfe (talk) 17:39, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I think your have a valid point about the need for an article on "general/across the board" religious persecution by Roman authorities. In fact I just realized I know nothing about that. Beyond Jews and Christians who else was persecuted and how? So that is needed. Yet the persecuted Christians as a group are notable enough to get this article and it should get 2 paragraphs and a Main link in the broader article. History2007 (talk) 17:26, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Druidism and Manichaeism come to mind (though I'm not alone in thinking that the suppression of druidism was about political control, since the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls was specifically designed to perpetuate Celtic religion in a form acceptable to the Roman authorities). Also, the Roman Empire was under Christian rule when it "fell", and the Christians not only suppressed everybody else's religion, but their own heretics, and banned Jews from holding political office (which was not the case under Roman rule, since there are laws specifically exempting local officials who are Jewish from performing their duties on the Sabbath). So to me the overarching narrative is how the central government used religion to control and create unity in the Empire, regardless of who was in charge. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:39, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the above, you have not been difficult in my experience, but have thought of you as a pretty nice person in fact. And I will not get to see the difficult side of you, for I am signing off next week. So I will leave it there. You two take care. History2007 (talk) 18:20, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Removed reference to stoning of Stephen from first sentence of lead

The first sentence of the lead stated "Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire began with the stoning of the deacon Stephen and continued intermittently over a period of about three centuries" etc. I have omitted the reference to the stoning of Stephen so it now says "Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire occurred intermittently over a period of about three centuries" etc. The story of the stoning of Stephen comes from the Biblical book "Acts of the Apostles", which contains many stories of miraculous events and highly dubious historicity, Stephen's existence and his execution cannot be confirmed outside the pages of the New Testament so that story does not belong in an article about events that can be confirmed as historical. The article has considerably improved since I put the tag on it months ago, so I have also removed the tag.Smeat75 (talk) 21:56, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Smeat. I actually have a different objection to that sentence since, dubious or not, Stephen was not stoned by the Romans. He was stoned by the enraged members of the Jewish Council (per Acts 6 & 7). Ckruschke (talk) 19:16, 18 March 2014 (UTC)Ckruschke

Categories

Some editors certainly seem to enjoy fussing around with the "categories" articles are placed in, I never pay much attention to that, very possibly I do not understand the way the system is supposed to work. User Marcocapelle deleted the category "Christianity under the Roman Empire" from this article with the edit summary "remove redundant category", leaving the article in one category only "Persecution of early Christians". Why? The article certainly is about Christianity under the Roman Empire, if the article is only allowed to be in one category I think it should be that one rather than "Persecution of early Christians". I see lots of articles in multiple categories, I don't understand why this article is apparently only allowed to be in one. Could someone please explain, I would appreciate it. Also I have restored the category "Christianity under the Roman Empire".Smeat75 (talk) 12:51, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Too many uses of the word "persecution"?

Just a brief note: I manually counted over 100 uses of the word "persecution" in this article (I could have miscounted, consider it an approximate number). As a contrast, the article currently named Anti-paganism_policy_of_late_Roman_Emperors has about 20. The slaughter of the Pagans by certain Christians is well known, but in the article about that, the word choice chosen to represent this is "Anti-paganism policy". However, in this article, the word "persecution" is used, and hasn't been changed to "Anti-Christian policy". This seems highly biased to me. Gzuufy (talk) 13:17, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Agreed! 90.231.152.181 (talk) 08:55, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Reduced the incidence. Many not removable as they are direct citations etc Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:38, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

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Persecution prior to Nero

This article could use some material from Suetonius on Christians. It is not clear to historians whether Roman authorities were actually aware of the difference between Jews and Christians prior to the second century (see sources at the article). Thus, some of Suetonius's notes in The Twelve Caesars (published AD 121) should be relevant. According to Suetonius, the Jewish religion in its entirety had been banned under Caligula in AD 38 (put into practice by Claudius starting in c. AD 41), and in AD 49 Claudius issued a special edict which emphasized that the ban also regarded "those Jews who follow Chrestos". As you can see at the linked article, there's a sizable number of scholars who believe that this could be an early reference to anti-Christian persecution in Rome and that the event could be referenced in the Acts of the Apostles. --79.242.222.168 (talk) 12:08, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 21 April 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Andrewa (talk) 12:46, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

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Anti-Christian policies in the Roman Empire → Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire – This page was moved some years ago from the old title with the single edit summary "NPOV." Presumably the idea was that "persecution" seems judgmental whereas "anti-Christian policies" seems "neutral." But it is a freshman mistake. Much of the relevant persecution, including during crucial formative periods in early Christianity, was from neighbours and community members not as a matter of Roman "policy." The perception that Christianity was from the start an illegal religion subject to heavy state repression is a popular, not a scholarly one. The title is thus extremely misleading (unless there was some intent to split the article into one about "anti-Christian policies" and another for popular discontent with Christianity, but there is no evidence that this was intended.) TiC ^(talk) 09:25, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

• Keep The bulk of the article is about state policy. There are few mentions of actions by community members. States do not institute "persecutions"; they issue degrees and laws suppressing treacherous or impious individuals and groups. That becomes state policy. For the treacherous or impious individuals and groups, it of course feels like "persecution". And yes, the term is NPOV - who has a problem with that ? Laurel Lodged (talk) 15:48, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

I mean your personal thoughts about whether the Christians "deserved" the title of "persecuted" or were in fact "treacherous or impious" are really not relevant here, please spare me.

Reply "Deserves"? Now that really is POV. The sources are, in the main, legal ones. The language that they use is of course legalistic and self-justifying. So phrases like "treason" and "impiety" recure as a common theme. That's what the sources say. It's not a question of "deserving", it's a matter of giving what the sources say. Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:11, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

"The bulk of the article is about state policy" implies that some of the article is not, in fact, about state policy. More to the point, the underlying topic is not about state policy. As any scholar of the period can tell you, much of the danger and conflict associated with being a Christian in Mediterranean antiquity flowed from what your neighbours would think not from "policy."

Reply "the underlying topic is not about state policy". Actually it is. That is the point of the current name. Want to do a word count on the state vs community elements of the article? Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:14, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Note that this has actually been discussed quite a bit previously on the talk page (#Requested move, #Social and Religious Differences as Basis for Persecution, #Should this article be about persecution of the early church by the Romans?) and I would particularly call your attention to User:Cynwolfe's incisive and factual points, viz:

>The current title is correct, if we want to include ad hoc acts of retaliatory violence like Nero's, anti-Christian outbreaks under local government as at Lugdunum in 177 (which no serious scholar thinks was ordered by Marcus Aurelius), and empire-wide persecutions like the Decian and Diocletianic enacted by the central government. Keep in mind that St. Paul was a Roman citizen. It seems better to keep the title "in the Roman Empire" as a geopolitical entity, and not ascribe agency vaguely to "the Romans".

Did you get any discussion at all before you moved this page on 7 December 2014? Because it seems to me that your sole consideration here was discomfort with the perceived POV victim narrative implied by "persecution" and you are ignoring what is a fairly important point. Please read some basic source informed by modern scholarship (here is a semi-random Christianity Today article) because this is a point they pretty much all emphasize. "The Romans had a policy of suppressing Christianity as impious and treasonous" is a popular myth. TiC ^(talk) 21:18, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Reply It sounds like your "persecution" wish might be best met by writing a new article that contains only community based persecution as opposed to the current one which is about state-directed policies. Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:04, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Your idea that "States do not institute "persecutions" seems a very personal OR view of the meaning of the word, not supported either by dictionaries or normal usage. Johnbod (talk) 14:09, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

• Support change back to previous title for the reasons given by TiC.Smeat75 (talk) 22:06, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
• Support the proposed move. I'm about as pro-Roman as it gets, but I think the current title is a bit silly. It reads as "politically correct" (a phrase I use with great hesitation), or if you prefer, "hypercorrect". If we were living in pagan Rome today, then this title would make sense. But historically "persecution" has been used to refer to this category of events, as well as similar events, such as the persecution of "heretics" in post-Constantinian Christianity, and to a lesser extent, the persecution of pagans in late antiquity, and then the persecution of Jews in medieval and modern Europe, and many others. Persecution is the right word, both definitionally and historically. There's a time and a place to make things sound more neutral, but this isn't it. Let's call a ficus a ficus, and a fossa a fossa. P Aculeius (talk) 14:07, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
• Leave as is. It is necessary to distinguish between state policy and the people's movement. It is necessary to clearly define: Christians persecuted who? Jews, Zoroastrian, or the state? Did it come from "above" or from the people? Sulh220 (talk) 06:07, 23 April 2017 (UTC) — Sulh220 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• Comment: I've already voted, and I'm not changing my position, but I think some of the responses so far call for a rebuttal. The article was at the proposed title for some time before Laurel Lodged moved it here without any discussion two years ago. The edit summary for that move simply stated, "NPOV", and that's still the basis for said editor's argument for keeping the current title: that "anti-Christian policies" is more neutral than "persecution of Christians". It's true that NPOV is a core principle of Wikipedia. However, rather than adhering to the NPOV policy, in this instance the current name violates both WP:POVNAMING and WP:FALSEBALANCE.

The first policy clearly states that article names may include terms that some readers may view as biased, if the subject of the article is so described in reliable sources and likely to be known to readers by that name. Historically speaking, the topic of this article has always been referred to as "persecution", not as "anti-Christian policy". Countless sources over hundreds of years have so described it; probably everyone who has ever studied Roman history in English knows it as "persecution", and not "anti-Christian policy". This dovetails nicely with the primary policy about choosing article titles, WP:NAMINGCRITERIA, the first two of which are recognizability and naturalness. The former title is clearly more recognizable; one naturally expects that "persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire" should cover the persecution of Christians under Nero, Domitian, and Diocletian, among others, as well as martyrdom and related subjects. The title "anti-Christian policies in the Roman Empire" is much more ambiguous, and might be supposed to represent some subset of laws or administrative procedures separate from the former subjects, perhaps not even addressing specific instances of persecution or its effects on early Christians. The former title is also more natural; since everyone has heard of the article's subject in terms of "persecution", readers are much more likely to look under that than under "anti-Christian policies".

The second policy under NPOV, WP:FALSEBALANCE (also implied in a number of the other sections on the page), states that articles (and presumably, their titles) should not elevate minority or fringe viewpoints to equal status with majority or consensus opinion under the pretense of maintaining neutrality. That's precisely what the current title does; it creates the impression that early Christians were not really "persecuted" under the Roman Empire, on the grounds that "persecution" must be avoided as a non-neutral term.

I can't see any legitimate reason for the current title other than to convert the notion of active persecution of early Christians (whether by state or private actors) in the Roman Empire to one of mere passive or systemic bias in the empire's legal and bureaucratic framework. Let me be perfectly frank: early Christians in the Roman Empire were deliberately persecuted by various state actors up to and including several emperors. They didn't just happen to be affected by pre-existing policies that just happened to be biased against Christians. I'm not saying anything about the animus of the emperors or any other officials, or whether early Christians were completely blameless in the process. But instead of removing the appearance of bias, recasting the "persecution of Christians" as mere "anti-Christian policies" intentionally distorts the record in a way that makes Wikipedia's coverage of the topic appear to be biased. The first step in remedying this problem is to move the article back to its former title. P Aculeius (talk) 16:56, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree with all of what P Aculeius says above and in fact, as the article states, there was not really a clear cut "policy" or "policies" from the Roman authorities with regard to Christians for most of the first three hundred years of Christian history, it was mostly left to the discretion of provincial governors and their actions with regard to Christians varied, so I think the current title is rather misleading.Smeat75 (talk)

I agree with you User:P Aculeius that "persecution" is a far better-known term and it's not really Wikipedia's job to "correct the record" by inventing a relatively bloodless neologism to replace it. I just want to add that even if one remains convinced that "persecution" is POV, the current title is still pretty awful because of the focus on top-down "policies" when the true topic is anti-Christian intolerance, whether as part of a considered "policy" or a more grassroots social conflict. "Persecution" is still probably the best title but if we absolutely had to do the faux-balance thing, something like "suppression of Christianity in the Roman Empire" would be preferable.

I would note in fairness to User:Laurel Lodged that they proposed a parallel renaming of Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire so this is more about a general preference for bloodless language, which is legitimate, and not a specific bias on their part. TiC ^(talk) 01:17, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

In this process there are 3 sides: states, Jews and pagans. It is necessary to find out separately: who is involved in the persecution (is it involved at all?)? Who of them participated (or did not participate) in the persecution? Sulh220 (talk) 03:10, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

• Support, per P Aculeius. "Persecution of Christians" is the WP:COMMONNAME, and I am not convinced that ignoring the fact that "persecution" is the word which has consistently been used by reliable sources is less POV than calling it persecution. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 13:23, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
• Support, per several, on WP:COMMONNAME, Johnbod (talk) 14:09, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
• Support. "Anti-Christian policies" is so broad and vague (and pov - allowing abortion would be an "anti-Christian policy" according to some religious povs) as to be meaningless. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:14, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
• Support. Chicbyaccident (talk) 17:22, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
• Support. The word "Persecute" or "Persecution" appears no less than 88 times in the article. The phrase "anti-christian policy" or "anti-christian policies" appears 8 times.

"It is generally agreed that from Nero's reign until Decius's widespread measures in 250, the anti-Christian policies by Romans were limited to isolated, local incidents."--Policies are not incidents, and, by definition, policies are not typically "isolated".

"Evidence from ancient documents suggests that anti-Christian policies by the Roman government did not occur until the reign of Nero."--Policies do not occur.

The term "Policy" itself is ill-suited to descriptions of ancient cultures. I certainly don't see how it encompasses the topic.

And, lastly, it is by far the most common name for the topic. Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 06:58, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

• Support change I find it hard to add to the points P Aculeius wrote above, but I want to point out the present title "Anti-Christian policies in the Roman Empire" sounds pompous & silly. And to repeat many other people here, common usage has always referred to these acts by the Empire & local governments as "persecutions". -- llywrch (talk) 21:50, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

• Support. It's all been said above, and said very clearly. (I'll just add that official and popular attitudes to Christianity and other "suspect" religious groups varied immensely throughout the provinces. And so did the treatment of the same, at any given time). Haploidavey (talk) 09:35, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

• Support. If not to "persecution" then maybe to "Discrimination against Christians in the Roman Empire" or "Oppression of Christians in the Roman Empire" to represent the fact that outright persecution was neither consistent nor widespread (although the Diocletian Decrees were meant to be implemented nation wide, it was short lived and often ignored by local magistrates). Christians, like Manichaeans and Jews, would have been seen as the other and were often the victims of persecution throughout the Empire's history. It's important to distinguish the difference between being second class and the term "persecution" may infer a constant attack on Christianity when, in practice, it was rather sporadic and inconsistent. Psychotic Spartan 123 19:16, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

• Support. Read the arguments, convinced by the "support" camp. I wouldn't worry too much about NPOV because the Roman Empire is long gone, I wouldn't worry too much about libeling them or harming their reputation. WP:AT is the operative rule, and Recognizability and Naturalness tell us to use this more common title. Apparently according to the above arguments it is both more command and more technically correct (often these are in conflict), so win-win to move the article. Herostratus (talk) 00:18, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Defective citations?

Are these correct:

he is thought by many scholars today to have exaggerated their numbers.<ref name="ReligionFacts"/><ref name="Moss">Moss 2013</ref>{{rp|217–233}}

he is thought by many scholars today to have exaggerated their numbers.

Only for approximately ten out of the first three hundred years of the church's history were Christians executed due to orders from a Roman emperor.<ref name="Moss"/>{{rp|129}}

Only for approximately ten out of the first three hundred years of the church's history were Christians executed due to orders from a Roman emperor.

Are they supposed to look like this? Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 03:56, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree that the article relies to a disproportionate extent for many of its claims on a single source. I'd like to see some other sources cited and dissenting views, if any, also cited. Laurel Lodged (talk) 16:01, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

"Are they supposed to look like this?" Yes, the small numbers in black are the page numbers. "the article relies to a disproportionate extent for many of its claims on a single source" Major sources are listed near the bottom. There are fourteen cites to the Barnes book listed, six to Moss, six to Frend, sixteen to de Ste. Croix as well as more than fifty other sources cited in the article.Smeat75 (talk) 16:19, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

@Smeat75: @Laurel Lodged: Shouldn't they be in the footnote instead of the passage itself? Why are they in separate brackets like that? Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 03:34, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Okay, I got a little more guidance and I understand this is the "Reference page" template now, however are they to be used to this extent? Informata ob Iniquitatum (talk) 03:59, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

"Dubious" tags added throughout article

An IP went through the article and added "dubious" tags in many places, right after the citations that support the statements. That is arguing with the sources, which is not allowed on WP. See WP:DUBIOUS. All the statements are sourced to WP:RS, I have removed those tags.Smeat75 (talk) 19:44, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

You beat me to it. Thanks Smeat! Ckruschke (talk) 19:34, 10 May 2017 (UTC)Ckruschke

Recent changes and additions to the article - "replaced public interest with expanded social and religious causes"

I can see that Jenhawk777 has put a lot of work into re-writing and expanding the section near the beginning of the article under "reasons" which was called "Public interest" and has now been re-named "Social and Religious causes". I'm afraid I don't see it as an improvement, on the whole, but it seems rude just to press the "undo" button and revert it all so I thought I would discuss some of the numerous problems I see with the re-written section here.

First of all I am not happy with the quote from Edward Gibbon being removed. He was the only named authority in the original, much shorter section and of course he is very famous, virtually everyone likely to read this article will have heard of him. The quote succinctly presents the reasons why the Roman state regarded early Christians with distrust or viewed them as an abhorrence - By embracing the faith of the Gospel the Christians incurred the supposed guilt of an unnatural and unpardonable offence. They dissolved the sacred ties of custom and education, violated the religious institutions of their country, and presumptuously despised whatever their fathers had believed as true, or had reverenced as sacred. Why remove this? I think it is an extremely valuable quote. And it was followed by a summary of his other views on the matter - Gibbon argued that the seeming tendency of Christian converts to renounce their family and country, their dislike for the common business and pleasures of life, and their frequent predictions of impending disasters instilled a feeling of apprehension in their pagan neighbours. I don't see any reason to remove that either.

Gibbon's name has been replaced by others who a general reader is most unlikely to have heard of - "Professor and Dean of Religion Margaret McDonald","Paul Veyne","Theologian Earle E. Cairns","Historian Natalie Dohrmann et. al","T.D.Barnes", "Anti-Christian Marxist historian G.E.M. de Ste. Croix", "editors Michael Whitby and Joseph Streeter". Adding scholars' names like that to the body of the article does not add any value in my opinion, they should be in footnotes. I would like to take them all out and for sure I am going to remove the description ""Anti-Christian Marxist historian" from the name G.E.M. de Ste. Croix. Calling him "anti-Christian" and quoting someone else saying that he "did not regard Christianity as a good thing", also saying that he was a Marxist - so what? - is wholly unnecessary, as much as it would be to identify another scholar used as a source as " an evangelical Christian Trump supporting historian". Historians' religion or lack of it, political views should not be mentioned like that, it can be taken as an attempt to discredit them on irrelevant grounds.

The paragraph on McDonald and rumour should be drastically shortened, I think it is a bad idea to replace Gibbon's simple and elegant prose with sentences such as "When analyzing public opinion about early Christianity it is evident that image and reality both are operative." In fact I would like to restore the Gibbon and cut out everything that has been added until the sentence "Christians did not participate in feast days or processionals or offer sacrifices or light incense to the gods as proscribed by their teachings, but to the Roman, offering incense didn't prevent one from privately practicing a second religion".

The paragraph on syncretism is also too long and we do not need sentences such as " Historian Natalie Dohrmann et. al. focus on the need for "Romanization" in the provinces Rome absorbed, using them as an example to extrapolate the modalities and limitations of local practices leading to Romanization." Too wordy and nothing to do with reasons for persecution of Christians. The point about frequent religious festivals is a good one.

The next paragraph has lots of stuff in it I have strong objections to. Christianity contained a theme of universalism not found in the social caste system of Roman empire and was therefore perceived by its opponents as a disruptive and, most significantly, a competitive menace to the traditional class/gender based order of Roman society. If a judgement like that is going to be inserted then I would want to point out that, for instance, the famous Eleusinian mysteries in Greece, very popular throughout Roman times, could also have been considered universal and admitted everyone but those convicted of serious crimes on an equal basis [10] - open not only to Athenian male citizens, but to non-Athenians, women, and slaves- there were other mystery religions like this. But this article is long already and I don't think there is space for such discussion, or to quote the same source saying Christianity allowed women to evangelize and have leadership roles as though that was something new, without pointing out, for instance, that Roman religion had priestesses of Isis (in the Imperial period) and the Vestals. These latter women, the Vestal Virgins, served for 30 years in the cult of Vesta and they participated in many religious ceremonies, even performing sacrificial rites, a role typically reserved for male priests. There were also several female festivals such as the Bona Dea and some city cults, for example, of Ceres [11] and of course the Roman Catholic church prohibits female priests to this day. Again, I don't think we can have the statement "Christianity encouraged people to think independently" unless we are going to balance that with a discussion of some early Christians' hostility to "pagan" philosophy and these issues are too complex to go into in this short space.

And then, sorry, but I don't think we need a discussion among scholars on the question "Were the Romans really tolerant or not?" - just present the facts and let the reader decide, this is only the beginning of a long article which is going on to discuss the history of the various persecutions.

Also I don't see the quote that concludes this section "Christians were not persecuted for what they did, so much as they were persecuted for who they were" as a good summation at all since we have established that a lot of the suspicion and bad feeling towards Christians arose from what they didn't do, i.e. participate in community-wide festivals honouring the gods and light incense for the emperor.

So I would like to remove most of these additions and have the article say (leaving out citations on this talk page)

Public opinion

Social and Religious causes

Without agitation from the public, the Roman government had little motivation to persecute local Christians. However, because of the secrecy of their rituals, Christians frequently aroused suspicion among the pagan population accustomed to religion as a public event; beliefs developed that Christians committed flagitia, scelera, and maleficia— "outrageous crimes", "wickedness", and "evil deeds", specifically, cannibalism and incest (referred to as "Thyestian banquets" and "Oedipodean intercourse")— due to their rumored practices of eating the "blood and body" of Christ and referring to each other as "brothers" and "sisters".Christians' refusal to participate in public religion was as problematic to the populace as it was to the elites, and contributed to the general hostility toward Christians. Much of the pagan populace maintained a sense that bad things would happen if the established pagan gods were not respected and worshiped properly. Edward Gibbon wrote:

By embracing the faith of the Gospel the Christians incurred the supposed guilt of an unnatural and unpardonable offence. They dissolved the sacred ties of custom and education, violated the religious institutions of their country, and presumptuously despised whatever their fathers had believed as true, or had reverenced as sacred.

Gibbon argued that the seeming tendency of Christian converts to renounce their family and country, their dislike for the common business and pleasures of life, and their frequent predictions of impending disasters instilled a feeling of apprehension in their pagan neighbours.

Christians did not participate in feast days or processionals or offer sacrifices or light incense to the gods as proscribed by their teachings, but to the Roman, offering incense didn't prevent one from privately practicing a second religion. Christians refused to offer incense even to the Roman emperor, and in the minds of the people, the welfare of the state and the welfare of the emperor were inseparable, so Christians were seen as disloyal. By the end of the second century, the Christian apologist Tertullian complained about the widespread perception that Christians were the source of all disasters brought against the human race by the gods. 'They think the Christians the cause of every public disaster, of every affliction with which the people are visited. If the Tiber rises as high as the city walls, if the Nile does not send its waters up over the fields, if the heavens give no rain, if there is an earthquake, if there is famine or pestilence, straightway the cry is, "Away with the Christians to the lions!'

The Roman empire practiced religious syncretism and did not demand loyalty to one god, but they did demand loyalty to the state demonstrated through the practices of the state religion. Everyone was required, with a few exceptions such as the Jews, to participate in Roman religious practices, with numerous feast and festival days throughout the year. Christians'refusal to engage in these activities aroused hostility but as Christianity became more widespread and better understood, however, these suspicions faded away.

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I will wait a day or two before changing the article this way and give Jenhawk777 a chance to respond.Smeat75 (talk) 02:31, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

But I did go ahead and remove the outrageous characterisation of G.E.M. de Ste. Croix as an "Anti-Christian Marxist historian" and the utterly unnecessary quote that he "did not regard Christianity as a good thing." Smeat75 (talk) 04:23, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

@Smeat75: To begin I want to say thank you. Not for reverting all my work of course, but for handling this with tremendous respect and grace. I can hardly express how grateful I am for that. Considering all the objections you had, it demonstrates genuine good will on your part that you did not just blow your top! I want very much to respond in kind, so if my response is long--please forgive me--your assessment of my "wordiness" is completely justified. :)

First, Gibbon. There is no doubt everyone has heard of him and his famous work and he and his interpretations have dominated this area of study for 200 years. Those are absolutely facts. Giving him a nod as a kind of "father" of the field would be fine if we were doing a study of its history, but for most modern scholars, Gibbon's work is history and not contemporary scholarship. Some of his views have been found unsustainable by modern historians. For instance the dichotomy of a 'tolerant Rome' and 'intolerant Christians' is no longer supported and is not 'sustainable' by modern scholarship. Rather than argue which of his views are valid and which are not--for example, your quote above includes the statement 'their dislike for the common business and pleasures of life' which is contraindicated by the evidence--and since that debate began as soon as his work was published and has only slightly abated--and since other people cover his legitimate ideas without all the hoorah, I opted to skip him. That was mostly a choice to go for contemporary rather than historic scholarship.

Believe it or not, I thought it would avoid the controversy that surrounds him! I would like to negotiate on how to go about putting him back in if you are truly adamant that he must be in. We'd have to find a quote that hasn't already been undermined by later critique. I did not do research on Gibbon for this page since I had done so in the past and decided to leave him out of this one, but I can and would be happy to do so if you think I don't know what I'm talking about. He does still have some followers, but keeping in mind the goal of Wiki pages is to focus on the majority view with alternate views getting a 'mention', in today's climate, Gibbon deserves no more than a mention.

Now about Ste.Croix being anti-Christian. It is not outrageous or a slander or a slight in any way to call him anti-Christian--it is what he claimed about himself. This book: "Christian Persecution, Martyrdom, and Orthodoxy" is an homage to Ste.Croix by two editors who do him justice. It's isbn is 978-0-19-927812-1 so you can find it with that. Begin reading on page 10 and go to 12. Here you will find the information that he was raised by a widowed mother who belonged to a Christian sect Ste.Croix himself called "the lunatic fringe". He says one feature of his upbringing that influenced him was the violent future punishments his mother anticipated for any opponents of her sect. His "abhorrence of Christian polemic is apparent in a number of his essays" and his renunciation of Christianity took "an extreme form". He frequently "treated ancient Christians as though contemporaries and attacked with ferocity". "In an interview given shortly before his death ... he boasted the book he was then working on was going to be 'completely anti-Christian'." He had a "rather fundamentalist" approach to Marxism. Designating him as an anti-Christian Marxist is not so much a comment on him as it is relevant to his work. It was one of his strengths in some ways and one of his weaknesses in others, but either way it did influence his writing and therefore it should be mentioned in the same way we are always careful to say "Christian apologist" so and so. That seems unarguable to me.

You dislike the paragraph about universalism and comparing the Roman social caste system and offer the mystery religions as evidence I'm wrong--but that is a kind of straw-man argument. Please don't take offense. What I mean to say is the mysteries stood outside the Roman social mainstream and do not represent the social hierarchy to which I refer and whether or not the mysteries included concepts of universalism is beside the point. It doesn't really have anything to do with the two things being compared: Roman social castes and Christian universalism. It is only relevant that those two things existed in history and were problematic. This book "Christian Identity in Corinth: A Comparative Study of 2 Corinthians" by V. Henry T. Nguyen isbn # 978-3-16-149666-0 is one of many books I read but did not reference. However, if you begin reading on page 24, it says "Roman social heirarchy was a significant feature of Roman society. With its orderly stratification of rank and status, the social heirarchy delineated one's identity in Roman society." It goes on to quote E.A.Judge's work: 'rank is meant to denote any formally defined position in society while status refers to influence..." Hierarchy was built on inequality that protected the elite minority.

As for Christian universalism, this book is probably the best assessment: "Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue" edited by David L. Balch, Carolyn Osiek, isbn # 0-8028-3986-X. Begin on page 77, "Early Christian Equality as 'Social Context'". It discusses Galatians 3:28--there is no Greek or Jew, no slave or free, etc.--and on page 78 it says "our early Christian sources do document behavior that does correspond to the construct of 'irrelevant worldly differences'. Women ... Jews ... slaves... "the equality of congregational members was part of the constructed social reality of the first Christian generation." It's possible to tell from Pliny's letters to Trajan that 'construct' was still going on by the early second century for Pliny also refers to diversity in those he arrested as Christians.

I didn't explain all of that because I thought everyone knew these things, and that was probably a mistake on my part. I can fix that if you agree! But these points are accurate.

As for the relative obscurity of the other authors--not Gibbon--I would say they are well known in their field. If you are not a student of mathematics, do you know the names of current living leaders in the field? Philosophy? How about todays leaders in neurosurgery? None of us know their names--unless we are in that field of study and keeping up on current scholarship. Which happens to describe me. Margaret McDonald is well known in feminist studies. She's quite brilliant but hasn't died yet so she isn't in any of the history books--but I have a feeling she will be. She has done some monumentally significant work in "Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion: The Power of the Hysterical Woman" that will continue to impact modern scholarship for years to come. The others are names people studying early Christianity (and Rome) run across frequently.

I am so sorry you didn't like my treatment of this truly very complex and highly controversial subject. I looked at over forty books--well, read most of them since I have been working on this for weeks in my sandbox--and I thought I condensed the main points from the leading ideas pretty well. I hope we can come to some consensus concerning leaving some of it in at least. What is above does not accurately represent current scholarship well in my view. For instance, cutting out the discussion of rumor and gossip in the Roman Empire--(a subject whole books have been written on)--while still including that there were 'slanderous' rumors aimed at Christians seems incomplete to me when discussing "reasons" for the persecution that resulted from those rumors. It's like four points on a circle yet this only mentions the one point. I do tend to be wordy--and you can edit that out all you want and I won't argue--but editing out pertinent information (determined by the topic and heading) just seems wrong to me.

Man! No matter how much we may disagree on the details--you stated your issues and have given me a chance to respond accordingly and I really am thankful. You didn't call me any names or tell me I was incompetent or make religious slurs or any of the things I have run into lately on Bible /Christian topics. What a genuine pleasure! I was surprised to get reverted--but I won't fight over it and I won't attempt to put any of it back till we can come to some agreement. I think if you check my references you will find everything is well supported. I hope you will agree this is a more thorough discussion of the subject. I hope. But even if we disagree, I still thank you just for being decent about it. I look forward to hearing from you. Jenhawk777 (talk) 07:24, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

P.S. I looked back at what you wrote and see I neglected to address your last two points, but since this is already so long, perhaps it's okay if we leave that for next time. I just wanted you to know I'm not blowing you off! Jenhawk777 (talk) 07:35, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

I was surprised to get reverted--but I won't fight over it and I won't attempt to put any of it back till we can come to some agreement.-I didn't revert you Jenhawk777 , the only change I made to what you wrote was to remove the reference to Ste.Croix as "an "Anti-Christian Marxist historian" and someone else saying that he "did not regard Christianity as a good thing." No matter how true this is, it is irrelevant. We do not go through sources or scholars and label them "Christian" or "anti-Christian" or "Marxist" or "neoliberal". Plus this article is not about Ste.Croix, there does not need to be any discussion whatsoever about him.

If you think Gibbon's reference to Christians' seeming "dislike for the common business and pleasures of life" is outdated I don't mind removing that. Please specify what else it is in the quote from him that is wrong. In my opinion the Gibbon quote accurately and clearly gives the reasons why Romans regarded the new Christian sect with hostility, the main reasons being rejecting the religion of their fathers and refusing to participate in communal festivals honouring the gods.

This encyclopedia is for general readers, and this is an important topic that gets a lot of views, putting in a lot of unfamiliar scholars' names into the body of the text is likely to be off-putting.

Yes Galatians 3:28 says--"there is no Greek or Jew, no slave or free" but I have already referenced the Eleusinian mysteries which was the same. I am not saying that there was no universalism in Christianity but that it would be wrong to give the impression that this was completely new. It wasn't. Same thing with women in positions of leadership in Christianity, that was not new either. These issues are too complex to go into here.

That's all I have time for right now.Smeat75 (talk) 14:02, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

One more note - this has to be a shortish section, not a full article. What are the main reasons the Romans persecuted early Christians? Let's see if we agree about that -

• Christians were rejecting the religion of their fathers. Romans respected tradition in religion, that is why they exempted Jews from participation in festivals honouring the gods and from lighting incense for the emperor. Jews were following their ancestral traditions. On the other hand, Romans were very suspicious of religious innovation and here was a new sect utterly rejecting their own ancestral tradition.
• Christians refused to participate in public ceremonies honouring the gods which seemed disrespectful and sacrilegious to the Romans.
• Christians refused to light incense for the emperor and say a prayer for his well-being, roughly equivalent to an American refusing to pledge allegiance to the flag today. It seemed seditious.
• Christian references to "eating the body and drinking the blood" of Christ and "brotherly love" were misunderstood at first by Romans as Christians literally practicing cannibalism and incest. Perhaps that is what is meant in the references to "gossip?"

If we agree that those are the main reasons, I think that is enough. Going into universalism, the position of women, Christian independence of thought is moving into areas of secondary importance and also these are points that would not meet with more or less total agreement among scholars in the field as I think the above points would.Smeat75 (talk) 15:26, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

This is good--this is helpful. I have been on Wiki less than a year and am still learning how things are done here. I originally thought I should make this a separate article--discussion of causes only but in detail--for someone who did want a more in depth discussion, and then I thought no, I'll just expand this one, but I am thinking you're right--this is just too long and too detailed for this particular article. What are the main reasons Romans persecuted the Christians? That is the perfect question--and the answer should not be written so that it "apologizes" for either view--is that not correct? That is NPOV right? (If I understand correctly). The list above is all "Christians did..." That is Gibbon and Ste.Croix but not contemporary scholarship. Contemporary scholarship is putting everything in context more. As one guy points out about Gibbon, he wrote long before there were our modern standards of historiography. He wrote in the enlightenment style and from that point of view. Ste.Croix based much of his own work non Gibbon. (Most of Ste.Croix's work stands up to critique better than Gibbon's does. He did follow modern standards.)

In context then, "Monotheism vs. the primacy of the state" should be at the top of that list. The requirements of monotheism: refusal to honor other gods, etc. vs. the state requirement that nothing receive more loyalty than the state itself and how that was required to be demonstrated.

The stuff about "tradition" should include Roman policy on superstitio. That is its context. Some details of how Christians violated tradition should be in this one and that should include some mention of women and the household. The point about Judaism is valid and might should also be included. The simple fact Christianity was new was a cause.

"Private vs. public religion" was a main cause--it led to those rumors and accusations and misunderstandings about what Christians did--that issue of "secrecy". This should at least include a mention of the anonymous pamphlets etc. It's easy to focus on governmental authority and overlook the significance of public opinion and mobs and even the individual persecutions of local governors and other local magistrates

"The caste system vs. Christianity's inclusivity" was a major cause of problems and not a minor one that people disagree about. Every scholar who discusses the causes of persecution will mention Rome's social castes--every one. The context of why that was an issue includes how and why Christianity disrupted it--which includes the rejection of earthly social divisions. Christianity's inclusiveness--vs. their exclusivity from the 'world'--is a primary subject of discussion. ("Universalism" is actually a theological doctrine; though sometimes the term is used when inclusivity is meant, it's better to specify inclusivity.) Maybe try looking up 'inclusivity in the early church' that should get you get numerous hits in googlebooks. It was a major cause of conflict with the Roman system and part of what they saw as disruptive to order--their order, their hierarchy--and threatening.

So if you want to list only main points then I think, according to my understanding of what the sources discuss the most, there are only the four with some details as explanation underneath.

Also, I thought it was Wiki policy to include names and their qualifiers in inline references. I have been corrected by others for not doing so! You don't like it and it reads better without it, I agree with you, but I got jumped all over for not doing it on another page! I think I read on the NPOV 'how to' page that whenever there's a possibility of POV from a source, that should be mentioned, and since Ste.Croix makes an issue of his POV himself, it seemed important to include a mention of it. His work is of a pretty dependable quality and I don't think most people challenge his overall conclusions, but I wouldn't include a Christian theologian's opinions on this without mentioning their POV--would you? I won't say they are biased--let the reader decide as you say--but the information needed to make that decision should be included. If we include a Christian POV and don't say that's what it is, that does seem like withholding necessary information to me. And the same principle applies to everyone right? Anyway, I can redo this and make it shorter and reflect only these four main points with a little explanation if you agree.Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:32, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

This is why. [[12]]Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:50, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

I agree,Jenhawk777, that this discussion is helpful. I also agree that there is easily enough material and enough sources for the subject of this section to be an entire article on its own. Here it can only be a short introduction to a long article so there is not a lot of room for detail and nuance. You added information to the article about the Christians' refusal to participate in the many religious feast days and festivals and their refusal to light incense for the emperor which appeared disloyal so we agree about that also. And we agree that the Romans exempted the Jews from these requirements because Romans respected tradition in religion but were extremely suspicious of the Christians because they were a new cult which conducted their rites in private as opposed to the public ceremonies of Roman religion. So there is quite a lot of agreement here.

On the question of attributing views to named scholars in the body of the text, to do that once or twice in a section is OK but you have eight names in there at the moment that no one but specialists in the field is at all likely to have heard of. Better for them to be cited in footnotes.

You say I think I read on the NPOV 'how to' page that whenever there's a possibility of POV from a source, that should be mentioned, and since Ste.Croix makes an issue of his POV himself, it seemed important to include a mention of it. I don't remember seeing that and I don't remember seeing other articles saying anything along the lines of "one of the sources we use in this article is really biased but we are using it anyway." A source is reliable or not, if not it should not be used, if it is reliable that doesn't mean that everything in it is equally valuable, of course.

Areas where we are in disagreement although we may be able to get there eventually - you say the main motivation for persecution was monotheism vs the primacy of the state. If that is so, then why did they exempt the strictly monotheistic Jews? Also to be honest I think these abstractions, monotheism, primacy of the state, are a little too complex for this section of this article, it can be simpler - the Christians wouldn't honour the gods or the emperor which seemed sacrilegious and seditious.

If you insist on having material about how the Christian inclusivity was a threat to the Roman caste system then I will insist that the article point out that there was not anything new about such inclusivity as the Eleusinian mysteries, very popular throughout Roman times, were just as inclusive. Then the question arises,why were the Eleusinian mysteries OK and Christianity wasn't? I don't know and I think that is just too much to go into here.

I do have a couple of red lines - I am not prepared to delete the Gibbon quote. I asked you to say what you think is specifically wrong with that quote other than early Christians' "dislike for the common business and pleasures of life", which I agreed can be removed, but you have not told me which other of those exact words in that quote you object to, you object to Gibbon being used at all because he is, you say, outdated and biased. But I don't think that quote is outdated or biased and will not agree to Gibbon being banned altogether from this page. Also I will not accept that final quote being used as a summation "Christians were not persecuted for what they did, so much as they were persecuted for who they were". I think that is just incorrect.

I hope I don't come across as hostile or aggressive,by the way, I don't mean to be.

I am going to work on the section, combining some of the material that was there (a lot of which I wrote) with the material you added that I find acceptable. Then you can revise that if you like and we can take it from there. Smeat75 (talk) 00:17, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

You have not been either hostile or aggressive--and believe me I have met that before! From that prior experience I assumed you had reverted everything I wrote and was simply pleased you didn't leave nasty comments to boot! I have only had that problem with one individual but believe me--once was enough! No--you've been great--completely reasonable in my mind. If you don't feel like this article is "yours" and are willing to make some additions, then I don't see that anyone could have cause for complaint.I have no reason to think every word I write is 'golden' and must be accepted in totality!  :-)

I do say one of the main motivations was monotheism vs primacy of the state because that is what contemporary sources say. For example, isbn # 0-8028-1339-9, "A Short History of the Early church" beginning on page 45 has a short discussion of "The central cause" that says exactly this. The final comment on Christians being persecuted for what they were is in the first two sentences under #3, Persecution for the Name, on page 47. But in reality, all four of these are main motivations. And I ask you to please, use them as such. If you think the words themselves are problematic, then by all means rephrase--but don't re-idea!  :-) That's what the source says, and what other sources indicate, and it's just accurate. The nature of monotheism vs, the nature of the Roman state. Take away either one of those and there is no persecution.

I also have support for the uniqueness of some of Christianity's early ideas, including the manner in which they practiced inclusivity. Different classes did join the Eleusian mystery cult, however, they did require that you to speak Greek and most slaves were uneducated, and pay a not insubstantial fee in order to join, which would have been an effective deterrent for those at the bottom of society. (City of Sokrates: An Introduction to Classical Athens, page 33). Christianity did spread like wildfire--during that time when there was no official persecution--what was its appeal? Other religions offered immortality. I know that is not an aspect of the discussion on this page but in assessing the key causes of persecution it seems to me it's important to see the big picture. It was the aspects of Christianity that made it popular that were seen by others as threatening--why?

Did you know no one was forced to sacrifice--and many didn't--before Decius made that law aimed at Christians? Before Christianity--they didn't care! Why did they start caring? Pliny's letter --written in 112 --indicates Christians had already had trials before Pliny came up with his litmus test that became the general approach for the next hundred years for identifying Christians. They failed Pliny's test, absolutely--but they were suffering persecution before he came up with it. So a refusal to sacrifice doesn't really explain it completely. There is more to it than that.

I apologize for neglecting to answer more fully on Gibbon but I ran out of time. If you have a 'red-line' concerning Gibbon then I will step-back accordingly. The Gibbon quote is usable as it is, if the paraphrase after it is removed, and if it is put into context. It's wrong to discuss Christian behavior as though it were something that happened in a vaccuum. The environment of Rome that contributed to the problems must also be mentioned--that is the state of current scholarship-- which is probably at least partly the result of the invention of sociology--which is post-Gibbon. So I will honor your red-line about Gibbon but ask--beg--that you at least give equal credence to more modern work that includes things Gibbon just didn't have--the rules of historiography, sociological perspective and the guidelines of higher criticism. Please get other references that put it in context.

I have been redoing this today in line with our current talks as well, but I will back off and then come back as you have requested. You can ping me when you're ready if you like. But I have kind of a red-line too--without being too pushy about it--so I am asking: please arrange what you rewrite around the four of these areas as the primary aspects of the social and religious causes of persecution. Please include context--which means as much on Rome as on Christianity itself. Persecution didn't happen in a vaccuum. It was not an inevitable aspect of Christianity wherever it went--it was the confluence of aspects of empire as well as aspects of Christianity itself. Please be sure to write whatever you write from that POV which is both neutral and contemporary and accurately reflects modern sources.

This is as far as I got today--I hope you will use what you can.

• Before 250 AD, persecution was not empire wide; it was localized, sporadic and usually mob-led, often prompted by public opinion, toward a minority with practices that set them apart from the majority. Reasons for persecution were in four main areas: 1) Monotheism vs. the primacy of the state; 2) New ideas and practices vs. tradition; 3) Private vs. public religion; and, 4) Christianity's inclusivity vs. the Roman social caste system. These contributed to what theologian T.D.Barnes describes as "Christian violation of the mos maiorum", that unwritten code from which those in the ancient Roman empire derived their social norms. That was "sufficient to arouse hostility."

• 1) "To Christians, even a nominal amount of incense on an altar to Caesar was to break the command to worship God only. For the Romans this was a test of political allegiance, which the Christians failed, and it was for this that the infant church was so violently persecuted." (p.60, A Brief History of the Middle East, By Christopher Catherwood, Chapter Three, From Christ to Christendom: The Early Church) The Roman empire practiced religious syncretism and did not demand loyalty to one god, but they did demand loyalty to the state, first and foremost, above all other loyalties. One method of demonstrating patriotic loyalty was the "litmus test" of state religion. The temples were a manifest symbol of Romanism, and provided a focal point for belonging among the diverse people of the empire. Christians didn't go; Christians did not participate in feast days or processionals or offer sacrifices to or light incense to other gods "because of their monotheism" (Consummation of the Ages vol I, By Henry Epps, page 121), but to the Roman, offering incense didn't prevent one from privately practicing a second religion. Christians refused to offer incense even to the Roman emperor. In the minds of the people, the welfare of the state and the welfare of the emperor were inseparable so Christians were often seen as disloyal to Rome.

• 2) In his letter to Trajan about "what to do about Christians" Pliny uses superstitio (superstition) to characterize Christian beliefs, as do Tacitus and Seutonius in writing about Christianity in the second century.

Good luck! Jenhawk777 (talk) 01:56, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

made a change Jenhawk777 (talk) 02:01, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

As you can see, I have redone the section according to the way I said I thought it should be here on this page, adding the references. I have not taken out all of your additions or sources. Go ahead and add back in what you feel is essential, please try to add sentences not paragraphs. If I have problems with what you put in I will certainly let you know. Your point about how you had to speak Greek and pay a hefty fee to become an initiate into the Eleusian mysteries is a good one.Smeat75 (talk) 02:34, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Okay, will do. I have to say I'm disappointed. It repeats 'Christians did...' three times with basically the same list of 'offenses', but it doesn't add the context of Rome I was looking for. If Christians had not been in Rome where they defined 'superstition' as they did, and punished it as they did, there would have been no persecution no matter what Christians did or didn't do. If Romans hadn't made the demands that people put the state first, there would have been nothing for Christians to disobey. Both those factors played a role--both in combination are the reasons for the persecution that occurred--Romans being all Roman, and Christians being all Christian, and the two --not one--but two--both contributed to what followed. I'm sorry. I'm exasperated. In my mind, this is what comes of using Gibbon as your primary source.

[[13]] Wiki says: "If you are inclined to delete something from an entry, first consider checking whether it is true. If material is apparently factual, in other words substantiated and cited, be extra careful about deleting. An encyclopedia is a collection of facts. If another editor provided a fact, there was probably a reason for it that should not be overlooked. Therefore, consider each fact provided as potentially precious. Is the context or overall presentation the issue? If the fact does not belong in one particular article, maybe it belongs in another."

I agreed with the need to shorten what I wrote originally, but I would like to add a few facts back in. I will keep it as short as possible in keeping with your standard for this page. Then you can see if you agree, but I ask that you check to see that what I am saying is from a collection of sources--not one source--and I ask that there be a valid objection if you decide to remove something. That objection shouldn't be 'this isn't what Gibbon says' it should be 'the consensus seems to be something else'.

Again, thank you. We have genuinely worked together in an effort to cooperate and I feel sure the end result will be superior. Then we can start all over on the legal section!  :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 10:33, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Have you looked at the section "Government motivation"? There is a discussion of superstitio there."Once distinguished from Judaism, Christianity was no longer seen as simply a bizarre sect of an old and venerable religion; it was a superstitio. Superstition had for the Romans a much more powerful and dangerous connotation than it does for much of the Western world today: to them, this term meant a set of religious practices that were not only different, but corrosive to society, "disturbing a man's mind in such a way that he is really going insane" and causing him to lose humanitas (humanity). The persecution of "superstitious" sects was hardly unheard-of in Roman history: an unnamed foreign cult was persecuted during a drought in 428 BCE, some initiates of the Bacchic cult were executed when deemed out-of-hand in 186 BCE, and measures were taken against the Druids during the early Principate." Also the references of the text that doesn't come from your additions are not only Gibbon but your favourite De Ste Croix, A N Sherwin-White and Bart Ehrman. I knew, as I said, that you wouldn't accept that revision but I thought it was better for you to add what you feel is needed than for me to try to put myself into your mind and do it myself.Smeat75 (talk) 12:26, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

These observations regarding superstitio are consistent with all the specialist sources I've read on the topic. Excessive religiosity was particularly threatening to the state when it involved control of initiates by a secretive "priestly hierarchy", with its own agenda and values, as in the Bacchanalia. Haploidavey (talk) 12:55, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you Haploidavey for your input and please keep an eye on this talk page and the article. It seems we are embarking on major revisions here and I would rather this is not just a two way ding dong between Jenhawk777 and me, third party contributions very welcome.Smeat75 (talk) 14:26, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Putting yourself into my mind would be very unpleasant I'm sure.  :-) I did see the discussion of superstitio there--and that is probably where it should stay. I am trying to keep politics as a separate topic--but it isn't easy to keep politics and religion separate in ancient Rome. Jenhawk777 (talk) 12:46, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Haploidavey, let me echo Smeat75 and say thank you. You are absolutely right in what you say and I have agreed to leave that discussion where it is in this article.

Smeat75--not major revisions--no! Really this page does not need major revisions. It was well done--nothing you said was incorrect--it was just incomplete. My problem is I started collecting material for a separate article, then decided against it--then used the material here because I had it. I should have culled the material and just added the points I thought this was missing. I didn't think of that until you objected to the length and pointed out this article should only contain a short synopsis. I agreed you were right and redirected accordingly--then I didn't explain. No major revisions--just the addition of a few facts, that's all. Please check out my sandbox. [[14]] Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:25, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

@Smeat75: Installed-- but there is something wrong with the Bart Ehrman reference at the bottom--#20. I can't figure out what the problem is. Can you? Software drives me crazy! Jenhawk777 (talk) 01:59, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

I think I've got your Bart Ehrman reference cleaned up. Alephb (talk) 02:02, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you so much! I could not figure out what the problem was! Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:18, 22 January 2018 (UTC)