Why did the Romans Persecute Christians？

When most people think of Romans persecuting the Christians, they think of this building, the Roman Coliseum, also known as the Flavian Amphitheater. Built in the late 1st century, it was essentially an ancient entertainment complex used for gladiatorial battles, animal hunts, and yes, executions. Although we don't have any direct evidence that Christians were executed in this particular amphitheater, the stadium execution motif shows up everywhere in early Christian literature. Some of these stories are very graphic, Christians are pulled limb by limb, they're disemboweled by the Romans, and in one story they're even thrown onto a frying pan. And although many of these stories are probably exaggerations, the historical evidence is pretty clear that Christians were occasionally executed by Romans. However, what is usually ignored is why. Why did Romans execute Christians? What was it about Christianity that attracted this sort of violent attention? When talking about the Romans persecuting the Christians, the general public tends to do two things that I want to correct in this video. One, they tend to downplay how well the Christians actually got along with their fellow Greeks and Romans. And two, they tend to exaggerate these persecutions, imagining that Romans were rounding up Christians by the thousands, kicking down doors, and throwing them to the lions. But in fact, the most accurate historical picture lies somewhere between these two assumptions. Persecutions were not quite as common as we might imagine, and the Christians actually got along pretty well with their fellow Greeks and Romans. So let's tackle our first assumption, which is the tendency to exaggerate these persecutions. For the most part, the Roman persecutions of Christians was not universal, but rather sporadic and local. Let's use Nero as an example, the Roman emperor who was probably the most famous persecutor of Christians. In 64 CE, a huge fire destroyed half of Rome, and in order to escape blame, Nero scapegoated the destruction on a weird new cult called Christianity. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, Nero inflicted the most exquisite tortures on these Christians for being implicated for arson. Now because of this, Nero goes on to become one of the most hated figures in early Christianity. But notice that this wasn't an empire-wide edict. Nero's persecution of Christians only occurred in Rome and only lasted a few years. We can assume that things were a little quieter for Christians elsewhere in the empire. Another early example comes from a Roman governor named Pliny. In a famous correspondence between Emperor Trajan and Pliny, Pliny asks for advice on how to deal with this new cult that has popped up in his province of Bithynia. He said he executed a few Christians, but by and large he really didn't know how to prosecute them. I have never attended hearings concerning Christians, so I am unaware what is usually And Trajan writes back with a surprisingly tolerant answer. Notice here that neither Pliny or Trajan have it out for Christians. There is no demonic anger here, or malicious intent. But rather we see two confused politicians trying to deal with what they see as a local problem. Christians by and large were ignored by the vast majority of Roman politicians throughout the empire. And this makes perfect sense, because even though we may view Rome as the paragon of legislative power, it actually was woefully undergoverned. There was just too many people and too few administrators. In fact, the historian Peter Brown, probably one of the greatest historians of late antiquity, surmises that even in a well-regulated province like Egypt, there was one administrator for every 10,000 people. So no wonder that most Christians were shipped under the radar. So yes, Christians did die under the legal system of the Roman Empire. Guys like Nero and Pliny did indeed execute Christians. But we should think of these events as more sporadic and local phenomena. Big events, empire-wide events, are much more rare and didn't start cropping up until much later in Christian history. The two that are best documented in our sources are the persecutions under Decius in 250 and Emperor Diocletian in 303. In 250 CE, Emperor Decius sent out an edict to prosecute anyone who refused to offer a sacrifice on behalf of the Roman Emperor. Although Christians are not explicitly targeted, many assume that the Christians were the intended target since many Christians would have refused to do this. So why did these persecutions happen? You may have noticed that I was calling Christianity a cult earlier in this video. That's because I'm trying to emphasize how the Romans would have viewed Christianity. Not the well-established world religion that we see today, but rather a small and poorly understood group that would have struck the Romans as very weird. Roman religion was not like modern religions. In fact, the Latin word religio, where we get our English word religion, really has nothing to do with our modern definitions of religion. Rather than a system of beliefs and practices as we try to define religion today, religio was the proper traditional honors paid to the gods. And this was done through action. Sacrificing to the gods at public state-funded temples, attending sanctioned festivals, and donating money to one of the civic cults. Everything about religio was public and deeply tied to politics. From the Roman point of view, religio brought order and harmony to the empire because it fostered good relations with the gods. Many scholars see this as the impetus underlying Decius' persecution in 250. He wasn't so much trying to target Christians as much as he was trying to bolster the patriotic piety of the Roman Empire. Christians were just caught in the crossfire. But not all religious actions were good and proper to the Romans' point of view. Religion that was considered excessive, irregular, and secretive was called superstitio, where we get the English word for superstition. Religio and superstitio are not so much polar binaries as much as superstitio is just a dangerous and illegitimate form of religio. It's a sort of social blunder that you do before the gods. And while religio was useful for maintaining Roman solidarity and social order, superstitio was a destabilizing factor to the Roman state. And according to the Romans, Christianity was solidly in the superstitio camp. Pliny, who I mentioned earlier, calls Christianity a depraved and excessive superstition. And though this might sound weird to us today because Christianity is so mainstream, to the Roman point of view it makes perfect sense. Christianity was a tiny illegal cult that could potentially destabilize social order. First of all, Christians don't participate in the civic sacrifices. If good and proper religion requires giving sacrifices and the whole city participating in the sacrifice, imagine how antisocial and isolationist this would have appeared if some Christians didn't participate. To make matters worse, they meet in small groups in their houses. That's way too secretive for good, proper Roman religio that requires you to be out in public donating statues and inscriptions to the major temples. And to seal the deal, not all, but many Christians refuse to sacrifice on behalf of the Roman emperor. This is like refusing to pledge allegiance to the state. You may as well out yourself as a potential traitor. So Christianity from the Roman perspective of good old time religio was too new, too secretive, and too weird to avoid suspicion. It was only a matter of time before Roman governors started to discourage Christianity through legislation or by force. Now the reasons underlying the Roman persecutions of Christianity are complex, but a lot of it has to do with Christianity being labeled as superstitio. Christianity along with a few other foreign cults were viewed as potentially problematic groups at different times. But we shouldn't ignore that many Christians lived perfectly normal lives under the Roman Empire. The Romans were relatively tolerant when it comes to foreign religions, and we have evidence like in the city of Douro Europos on the eastern border of the Roman Empire, that Christians and Jews lived peacefully side by side with traditional Greek and Roman religions. In fact, many Christians were perfectly happy to sacrifice to the emperor and attend their weekly meetings on Sunday. For most of its early history, the persecution of Christians was a local and sporadic phenomenon that really depended on the whims of a local population or politician. Even the largest and most extensive anti-Christian persecution under Emperor Diocletian in the early 4th century came to a quick end once Constantine came to power. With Constantine as a new political patron of Christianity, Christian groups were quickly able to establish themselves both politically and financially. Ironically, they turned the tables on the traditional Greco-Roman religions in just a few years. Within decades, Christian emperors were legislating the destruction of temples or outlawing public sacrifices for many of the same political reasons. I'm not saying this to absolve the Romans of blame or to paint the Christians as the real bad guys in antiquity, but rather to show that the reasons underlying religious persecutions are not always obvious and they may change depending on the context in which they occur. As always, thanks for watching and please subscribe.