Why did the Romans prosecute the Christians?

Heart Break Kid

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I heard that part of a reason why Christian's were oppressed, was because they themselves were intolerant and disruptive to other religions? Is there any truth to that?

Any insight on why the Christians were oppressed would be gladly welcomed.
 
During the times that they were actively persecuted (which was only for rather short periods of time), it was ostensibly because they refused to perform the ritual to Jupiter, such as all conquered peoples were required to do. For polytheists this wasn't much of an issue, as they regarded Jupiter as just another god, whom the Romans happened to worship, but the Christians never equated Jupiter with the Hebrew God, so they refused to pay respect.
 
Its brutally oversimplified, and other posters are bound to come with better explanations, but here goes:

Christians believe in one god who is incomparable. Yet the Roman emperors were deified, which is incompatible with Christianity. Unlike the Jews - who some time before the Bar Kochba revolt - had a deal exempting them from such duties Christians didn't. Besides, Christianity was way more than a religion back then: It was also a social movement against the excesses of the Roman Empire. For the Roman political establishment, making any deals with Christians would simply be politically impossible. So persecution was the almost inevitable result.

Eventually, Christianity became too powerful for the Romans to contain and decided to tolerate, co-opt and finally adopt it. You also have that story Constantine seeing the Christian cross appearing on the sun enticing him to become a Christian and made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire (both untrue!) but I'm quite certain that's overromanticised pseudo-historical hogwash.
 
Because they recognized an authority higher than Caesar. So they tried to stamp out the religion, and failed. Governments have tried to destroy Christianity throughout history, but none have succeeded.
 
Governments have tried to destroy Christianity throughout history, but none have succeeded.

Well that's not really true now is it? Christianity used to be pretty damn common in the near East.
 
It's less common now, but no one has successfully destroyed it.

It has been effectively destroyed within the effective reach of those governments, which is a pretty good definition of 'destroyed by government'.
 
The Romans seemed to genuinely believe that performing certain religious functions were essential for receiving the good graces of the gods and that bad things would befall them if they didn't. There was also some aspect of being part of society that came with following ones religious duties. Finally, the deification of Emperors was a useful tool for the state imposing order among the populous.

Whether you think it was one of these reasons or a combination of all three, Christianity (and the refusal to perform these religious duties) threatened all of them.

There were also local reasons in Judea/Palestine to have problems with Christianity that threatened other aspects of local social order. I don't know enough about this time period to speak with confidence, but I know the Bible (if used as a historical source) suggests that much of the persecution was, at first, local in nature (Saul of Tarsus being a prominent example).
 
Which doesn't mean he didn't kill plenty of them though. During his "Holy War" stage, Tamerlane probably managed to kill more Muslims than anyone else.
 
In addition to Tamerlane, another example of successful government destruction of Christianity is Japan. In the late sixteenth century, Christianity was so successful there that people could plausibly anticipate that it would become a wholly Christian country within a couple of decades. By the early seventeenth century, Christians were being slaughtered so systematically that the religion was almost entirely wiped out. All that remained, when Japan re-opened to the west in the nineteenth century, were the Kakure Kirihorsehockyan, a small sect that had survived over the centuries but forgotten pretty much everything about their supposedly Catholic religion. They had no doctrine of the Trinity, rejected the authority of Rome, and all their images of Jesus looked like the Buddha.

On Constantine, Lactantius gives a different account of his conversion from Eusebius' more well-known one. Either way, both were surely telescoping a longer process into a simple story. However, I don't think the details of how Constantine converted are really important; what matters is what he did. (Which, in the first instance, wasn't all that much, as Christianity was already de facto legal in the western empire at that time, thanks partly to Constantine's father.)
 
About those underground Japanese Christians. There is a suite for wind band called "Gloriosa" which was inspired by this sect. Its thematic elements include a distorted and Japanified version of incantations, Japanese cultural influences, and the constant threat of discovery by the authorities.

Enjoy.

Link to video.
 
Been reading this book:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Myth-Persecution-Christians-Martyrdom/dp/0062104527
It seems like a a pretty good book although she obviously alienates a lot of people with her rather bombastic views and straw man argument that Christians think that their religion is a persecuted religion(or perhaps they all do believe that?).

But her point is that Christians were not persecuted to a great extent only generally disliked. The only active persecution was from 305 to 306 and even that was half hearted. The Romans didn't like them for because they didn't want to recognise Ceasar as a god,and they viewed them as generally intolerant and disruptive like the OP says(although we wouldn't consider that attitude intolerant by our standards today). So the Christians weren't treated exceptionally well, but except for a few instances they were never actually persecuted. There is also good evidence that Christians reached high up in the roman hierarchy long before Constantine. So the Romans treated Christians very much like they treated most other special interest groups.
 
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