Spices were so desirable because they added flavor and variety to the monotonous European diet, evoked the scent of the Garden of Eden and divinity itself. They were used as flavoring, oils, religious rituals, medicines, and dyes.…
They were not common with other groups and their principles were treated with doubt. They were after all self-proclaimed supporters of Jesus who had been legitimately executed by the Roman governor of Judea. In 69 AD, a huge fire ruined Rome and caused chaos in the city. Nero blamed Christians of starting the fire to move guilt away from himself. Nero started up a precedent where an Emperor could proclaim the Christians to be public enemies. Nero was interested in the East and was able to turn Armenia into a kingdom and secured the borders with the Parthians. Nero’s victory against the Parthians intended peace for the Eastern…
B) Growing social awareness – the realization that the slaves are living under the conqueror’s principles and religious belief.…
-Religious persecution throughout Europe and Asia as religion was used as a political tool (official faiths)…
In “The Rise of Christianity”, Rodney Stark identifies several factors that contributed to the spread and acceptance of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire from 0 to approximately…
(1) The historical influence of Christianity in the West (Europe and the Americas) and in Africa and Asia…
In 202 CE, a young woman named Perpetua was arrested in Carthage for being a Christian. She was taken and imprisoned along with her young child and brother. In her own words she said there were, “crowed conditioned and rough treatment by the soldiers and the heat was unbearable”. They were seen as the enemy because they didn’t believe…
Anyone who was ambitious enough to start their own church, or create their own view on Christianity, was labeled a pagan or heretic. Their property was seized, and they and their followers were murdered. Practices of the Roman Catholic Church encouraged indulgences. Indulgences were when a priest would say that your loved one would be sent to heaven, if you provided a payment.The pope established the practice of selling indulgences to be applied to the dead, thereby establishing a new stream of revenue with agents across Europe. When Martin Luther came to Rome, he was disgusted. (The 95 Theses of Martin Luther)…
Christianity an influential religious system that has been within western society for countless amount of years. Although it doesn’t originate in the west its influence and prescene has shaped the west and many of its important philosophers and scientist. The presence of Christianity in the west has shaped the west with its influence over spiritual and intellectual growth over the course of time. This is noted in varied intellectual movements such as the Renaissance, Reformation, and Scientific Revolution. Through these movements Christianity is used as a weapon of control and subject to criticism. It has been used as a weapon to control persons in society since (but not limited to) the times of the Spanish Inquisition and the globalization…
This was a small and random act of repression but soon lead to The Roman persecution of the Christians when the Christians are blamed by Emperor Nero for the great fire in Rome that almost destroyed the city(even though many Romans believed Nero started the fire). Later in 67 CE, paul one of the disciples was put to death in Rome. This forced the religion to move underground, despite this, is against the law, and the bloody executions and beheadings, Christianity grew…
Christians were an easy blame for disastrous events. In Asia Minor, the provisional governor, Pliny asked a group of Christians to reconsider their religion, and freed those who denied Christianity, while executing those who refused to. This did not stop the spread of Christianity, in fact many times in which Rome oppressed those who believed in one god, ended fueling a mindset to continue their practice, especially in the early stages of Christianity, when the Jews were being oppressed and enslaved for their particular beliefs. It was easy for Rome to blame the Christians because it was very different from their own beliefs, it affected their traditional values, roles, and sacrifices for the gods as people branched away from the old ideas, it was a quick blame. Those branching to new religions were traitors not only of the religion, but also of society as a…
The wars and plagues cost the Romans a lot, especially in lives. People died day after day and soon they were searching for a hope that the wars would end and that the tragedies that they had to endure would end. Christians believed in an afterlife of eternal happiness with their Heavenly Master. As they went around teaching others--mostly those that believed in a different religion or were pagans-- of their ways, people started to convert knowing that they had a hope to look forward to as the wars raged on and the plagues…
There can be no dispute that the prominence of Christianity, during the Middle Ages, has done more to shape the world, as it is today, than possibly any other religion. This is primarily because Christianity offered a unifying, stabilizing force throughout Europe, where a majority of areas had an “incoherent jumble of laws and customs, difficult to adjust to each other and hard even to understand. The survivals of barbaric codes of law jostled with varying mixtures of Roman law, local custom, and violence”. (pg 15) Christendom provided Europe with a unified identity in language, government, and education.…
In the article "Days of the Martyrs" By Jeffery L. Sheler it tells up why Christian communities where prosecuted just because of there beliefs. By the second century Christian numbers started to drop drastically mostly because of the persecution by the government authorities. These government authorities where concerned of the out lawed movement of "Atheist." Atheists were Christians that rejected Rome's pagan pantheon and decided to worship one invisible god. At the time when the persecutions of Christians started to begin the emperor of Rome was Nero, and Nero was somewhat behind it all. For example, In A.D 64, Emperor Nero started a fire that devastated Rome then put all the blame on the Christians so that he could kill many of them. During about A.D. 111, the emperor of Rome was now emperor Trajan. During emperor Trajan’s rule the persecution of Christians became much more infrequent. Emperor Trajan did no longer go out of his way to kill some innocent people. Just because he didn’t try to kill every Christian he sees doesn’t mean he didn’t kill them at all, if any Christian was charged and convicted the were to be executed unless…
(1) Persecution is more than a policy; it is a mentality. Why did Romans persecute Christians? How did Christians…