One of the finest books I ever read about Christianity in antiquity is the work by Harold Mattingly titled Christianity in the Roman Empire (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1967). Mattingly considered various reasons why Rome seemed to act vehemently toward Jews and Christians. He posits a number of reasons why diverse waves of persecution occurred and I would recommend that you consult his book to see his argument in context. However, I want to share a couple of pages with you from that work. You can check out the book here: https://archive.org/details/christianityinro0000matt
I know in recent scholarship this notion has been challenged (for example, by Candida Moss), but the way it's often presented is that persecution=a centralized policy of specifically targeting Christians, which is a ridiculous standard for persecution, and even so you do have that various times during the Roman empire.
ReplyDeleteAlas,the time would come when it would be "Christians" doing the persecuting.
ReplyDeleteRoman, I'm not that impressed with Moss and I think you mention one problem with her approach. I also think that we either have to deny or rewrite history for her hypothesis to work. Granted, the notion that Domitian vehemently persecuted Christians has been heavily challenged from many corners, but that still leaves the Neronic persecution, what happened with Diocletian and other documented examples. Mattingly cites the primary literature, including Tacitus and Suetonius plus he assesses their claims.
ReplyDeleteServant, the persecuted became the persecuting ones.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/fcm-X7g-8p4
ReplyDeleteI agree, and the approach kind of strawmans how one usually talks of persecution, given her model communists and socialists were never persecuted during the red scares in the US, which is nonsense.
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