Outline the Roman Empire's attitude to Christianity until the end of the first century.

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Niall Dumigan                                                                                                                                                                             R.E. Essay

Q: Outline the Roman Empire’s attitude to Christianity until the end of the first century.

        The Christian church from its outset has faced many challenges as a result of external influences; one of the most important of these influences was the persecution of the Christian people by the Roman Empire. From the year 64AD onwards the church was persecuted by the Roman authorities in an intermittent and sporadic manner, not on account of their beliefs, but was a result of chance and circumstance. Christianity was born out of Judaism and appeared as an entity after the death of Christ. Of course Jews of the time felt threatened by the emergence of Christianity as a faith, and so the earliest persecutions of Christians occurred at the hands of Jewish Sadducees, who branded Christians ‘blasphemous’. Indeed it is clear that the Jews played a part in persecution of Christians as late on as AD156 in the persecution of Polycarp. The persecution of Christians in the first century by Jews however were minimal in comparison to the much more widespread and systematic persecutions by the Roman authorities from the year AD64 onwards. Before this date Christians were accepted as a national sect of Judaism, and therefore they enjoyed the status of ‘religio licita’- a lawful or tolerated faith. The Roman Empire even protected many Christians against Jewish attack in the early years. This all changed however in the year 64AD, during the reign of the emperor Nero.

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        64AD was by general concurrence of early Christians, the beginning of imperial repression of Christianity. This fact was supported by early Christian writers such as Tertullian, Eusebius and Sulpicus Severus. This date coincides with the fire of Rome, a devastating blaze which destroyed almost half of the city. The pagan writer Tacitus reports to us in 115 of the fact that Despite Nero’s efforts the accusation that the fire was ordered could not be quashed. The mounting suspicion had a disastrous effect on Nero’s popularity (which had been very high before then), so Nero set about searching for a ...

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