The Roman Empire and Christian Persecution

From the thread on Evolution-Creationism debates:

Vandebaron:

Lanceleoghauni:

Carciofus:

vandebaron:

Midgetsnowman:

@Vandebaron: So, you'd attend a Roman religious ceremony, even though you, I suppose, do not believe in Roman deities in the least. And you think that the Roman policy of harassing and torturing early Christians because of their refusal to attend such ceremonies was not an unjust persecution, because they could as well have followed the "mall, insignificant, not-hard-to-follow rules" and betrayed their principles.

Using the same exact argument, one could argue that, let's say, a state which harassed people who do not go to Mass on Sundays would not be persecuting atheists — I mean, come on, spending one hour per week listening to prayers and the like is not precisely hard either...

@Midgetsnowman: If by "just humour them" means "humour them and attend their ceremonies", anyone who would say that is, to but it gently, utterly in the wrong. If you just mean the fact that, say, the 25 of December is a national holiday... well, most people are going to celebrate on that date anyway, it makes sense to have it as a holiday. As long as anyone can do whatever they want on that date, I don't see the problem.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I don't exactly know what you want to discuss, but just a point that is kind of important:

Monotheism was relatively rare in the Mediterranean (and later North-Western Europe). For most people it wasn't a big deal to worship some other gods occasionally (most of the time they just saw gods from other cultures as representations of the ones of their own). For the Romans it was more like showing your loyalty to the empire than spreading their metaphysical views. So when Christians refused to honor the god-emperors, they took that as a sign of defiance. In Roman eyes Christians were subversive traitors (well, most of the times the Romans left them alone though, there were only some periods when a emperor really hated Christians). As baron said, these festivals were more about community building.

If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied -Rudyard Kipling

Mostly, I wanted to debate whether the Roman Empire's actions against the Christians were justified, and whether they could truly be called a "persecution".

And I agree with you posted — even though, if I may add this, the very concept of "god-emperor" was a betrayal of what Rome stood for in its heyday.

But in any case... sure, the Romans did not particularly care what you believed in, as long as you attended the festivals; but that does not make forcing people to attend religious ceremonies any less of a violation of freedom of religion.*

edited 29th Sep '11 6:45:10 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I'd say that in general Roman treatment of other religions was fair for its day. They didn't really know how to deal with Christians because they didn't meet any of them before (well, except for the Isrealites, but they were restricted to one country). It would also be unfair to the Romans to perceive their persecution of Christian as a monolithic unity. Compare the excessive atrocity of Nero to letters from Pliny to Trajan.

I wonder what you mean by "what Rome stood for during it's heyday".

If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied -Rudyard Kipling

Freedom of religion as we understand it is quite a new concept. Why do we judge ancient societies with modern morals?

The mere fact of having a god-emperor means "no separation of church and state" and "don't expect full freedom of religion" in the first place.

For such a state, the Roman empire was actually an unusually tolerant one, if all your religion needed was to accept the God-Emperor.

edited 29th Sep '11 7:04:56 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

I can agree that, in general, the Romans were reasonably tolerant of other religion. They were not so with respect to Christianity, though, for the reasons that you mentioned — although, as you also mention, different emperors had different policies with respect to Christians.

I mean the ideals of the Roman Republic. They were not perfect, not by far, and contained many things that we would now consider ghastly; but a Roman from the period would have been horrified at the idea that, a few centuries later, Romans would have be governed by god-emperors wielding absolute power.

Morals evolve, sure — if we are lucky, towards greater and greater perfection. While freedom of religion, as a right, has been recognized only recently, it is still a principle that should have been followed always. It was horrific and evil when, say, post-Reconquista Spain forced Muslims and Jews to convert or be exiled; and it was horrific and evil when Rome forced Christian to sacrifice to Pagan gods or die horribly.

edited 29th Sep '11 7:07:59 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I don't think that the Roman Virtus was incompatible with the concept of emperors. One of the most well known propagators of these virtues, Livy, wrote his works during the reign of August. It was about loyalty to the state, seriousness and other things like these. You can be loyal to the state whether it was ruled by a council of rich people and occasional dictators *

or by emperors.

edited 29th Sep '11 7:13:45 AM by honorius

If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied -Rudyard Kipling

In a place ruled by a God-Emperor, denying the Emperor's divinity is a threat to the Emperor's legitimacy as well. The bond is even stronger than in Divine Right Monarchy.

So, intended or not, it was an act of rebellion.

edited 29th Sep '11 7:18:25 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Yeah. And that's precisely the problem — the Emperor's divinity was considered the foundation of the Roman Empire. That's the main reason why Christians considered the Empire an abomination, as mentioned by Vandebaron with regard to the Book of Revelation.

Frankly, I think that they were perfectly right in this.

edited 29th Sep '11 7:31:50 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Cut them some slack. Romans were awesome engineers and they founded the juridical system.

If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied -Rudyard Kipling

Funny Christians did exactly the same thing later:

France under Absolute monarchy was no better, and I guess the same of Spain, England, and most European nations in fact.

• King: Kneel Before Zod, appointed by God to rule Zodania!
• Infidel: Not my god.

How can it be interpreted as anything but seditious?

edited 29th Sep '11 7:37:54 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

I have a lot of admiration for the Roman Republic, despite its many defects, and for Roman Culture in general.

But the Roman Empire is a whole different thing. Quite frankly, I think that its fall (at least, the fall of its Western part) was not a bad thing at all. I'd have preferred if it would not have suborned Christianity to its interests before doing so, though — in the long view, that damaged it far more than the persecutions ever could.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

The Roman republic wasn't that great. During its earlier period only a few patricians held power, and when the brothers Gracchi gave the proletariat some power it became consumed in civil wars between populares and optimates.

If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied -Rudyard Kipling

I think people here are constantly conflating modern freedom of religion with ancient freedom of religion. The typical practice of "freedom of religion" back in the Roman times was "I don't kill you all for practicing a different religion". They were unprecedented in the amount of freedom they afforded people, and everyone loved it... except monotheist religions. However, monotheist was just the Jews at one point and for a long time, Romans didn't differentiate Jews/Christians, they figured they were all Jews and Christians was just a specific sect.

Typically, the Romans viewed Christians as terrorists. They wouldn't pay tribute respect to the Roman Gods like everyone else did with a shrug. And they didn't fear death because of martyrdom-ism. So Romans weren't really sure what to do with the Christians. By Rule of Law, Christians had to be executed if they committed treason, or otherwise punished for displaying disloyalty to the Republic. That's how it works in any society at the time and the fact that the Romans did not commit genocide displayed a lot of reservation on the Republic's part, as screwed up as that sounds for today's morals.

Here's some of the stuff:

Basically, the Christians were equivalent to our fears of Islamic takeover of today... except it turned out true. So I don't know... since I hate that argument. I'd probably just argue more that Rome fell apart and Christianity was a better marketed religion than the other polytheistic ones.

It was not perfect, no. But it was a good attempt, for the time — basically, an oligarchy with some small democratic elements and which at least tried to have laws and regulations and respect them. And it lasted for almost 500 years — yeah, it had the problems you mention, and other beside (such as its, frankly, excessive militarism, which contributed to its downfall), but I can at least respect what it tried to stand for.

The Empire, on the other hand, was nothing but tyranny.

The Republic was long gone at the time of the persecutions.

edited 29th Sep '11 7:58:45 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Actually, the Empire was both stable and prosperous. Yes, the oligarchs were under the grip of an all-powerful tyrant, but standard free Roman citizens had free food and entertainment, and they were pretty much left alone.

edited 29th Sep '11 8:00:53 AM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Stability and prosperity, as long as the Emperor was OK with it. They were cattle, nothing else. And this in exchange to the loss of even the meager political freedoms they had in the Roman Republic.

Rome was richer and more stable during (certain periods of) the Empire than it ever was during the Republic, true; but everything about Rome that was valuable and worthy of respect died with the Republic.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I just finished reading a book *

on religion in Rome. It as kinda interesting how it worked. It was a sort of assimilating ploytheism.

Anyway, as for the Christian persecution, I kinda would point out, that within a hundred years of becoming first an accepted religion, it became the state religion, and after that, first banned all other religions and then all other forms of Christianity. So new boss, old boss, you know the drill.

It was just earlier today when I last cursed the Romans for not feeding their lions well enough (there's aa debate about gay marriage here right now, and the newspapers and comment sections are full of the usual suspects).

I never said the Roman Empire was any good. What I said was that it had a legitimate reason to whack the Christians, different from mere "religious persecution".

And the Christians were happy to do the same thing a few centuries later.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Oh, agreed. Christians can be, and have been, intolerant pricks just like anyone else. I have no more sympathy for Emperor Theodosius I than I do for Nero — less so, actually: Nero just tortured and killed people, but Theodosius destroyed the Library of Alexandria (OK, only the part of it that was in the Serapeum, but still).

I fail to see how "they refuse to worship the God-Emperor" is different from "religious persecution".

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

See my post above about divine right monarchy. It's about ruler legitimacy, religion is only a means to this end.

They didn't kill Christians because those didn't pray 5 times a day or put the knife on the wrong side of the plate, but because they threatened the Emperor's power.

edited 29th Sep '11 8:30:52 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

All right, but it's still religious persecution. They had a further motive, sure, but that can be said of most other cases — if one looks deep enough, most religious conflicts are not actually about religion at all.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Carciofus: "Morals evolve, sure — if we are lucky, towards greater and greater perfection. While freedom of religion, as a right, has been recognized only recently, it is still a principle that should have been followed always. It was horrific and evil when, say, post-Reconquista Spain forced Muslims and Jews to convert or be exiled; and it was horrific and evil when Rome forced Christian to sacrifice to Pagan gods or die horribly."

As many others have said in this forum: rights are social construction. Stating that one right has always being around in a form we define it is a try to legitimate the said right as some kind of universal truth without having to proof it. If our society is based on universal truths, our society is the best and we can go and conquer other societies, because they'll be so much better off with rights we give to them.

And here is where I disagree with you. True and false, right and wrong are not social constructions. They are absolute, and embedded in the very fabric reality just as deeply as any physical law — nay, far more so.

You may reject this, of course; but if do, you don't have ground to criticize, well, any social rule, no matter how aberrant. If you pull relativism out when it comes to the persecutions of the Roman Empire, you cannot put it back in the box when it comes to criticizing the Inquisition, or slavery, or genital mutilation.

Our society is almost certainly not the best that can possibly be; hopefully, in the future we will be able to do better. But I am very confident that religious freedom is right, and that what the Roman Empire did against Christians was a great evil.*

edited 29th Sep '11 8:59:26 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.