He got a number of people to confess. On their evidence a number of Christians were convicted and put to death with dreadful cruelty. Some were covered with the skins of wild beasts and left to be eaten by dogs.
Others were nailed to the cross. Many were burned alive and set on fire to serve as torches at night. The dangers faced by the Christians in Rome meant that they had to meet in secret. They usually used underground tombs as these were literally out of sight. Rome had a large number of poor people within its population and Christianity continued to grow. In AD , the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal and for the first time, they were allowed to openly worship.
Early persecutions of Christians were probably carried out at the whim of provincial governors and there was also occasional mob violence. The first — and most famous — great persecution was the work of Emperor Nero. With rumours that the Emperor himself was behind the fire circulating, Nero picked on a convenient scapegoat and many Christians were arrested and executed. Decius ordered every inhabitant of the Empire to make a sacrifice in front of Roman officials. The edict may not have had specific anti-Christian intent, but many Christians did refuse to go through the ritual and were tortured and killed as a result.
The law was repealed in AD. Diocletian, the head of the four-man Tetrarch, instituted similar persecutions in a series of edicts from AD, calls that were enforced in the Eastern Empire with particular enthusiasm.
He gave money and land to the Christians and founded churches himself, but also patronised other religions. He wrote to Christians to tell them that he owed his success to their faith, but he remained Pontifex Maximus until his death.
His deathbed baptism by Pope Sylvester is only recorded by Christian writers long after the event. After Constantine, Emperors either tolerated or embraced Christianity, which continued to grow in popularity, until in AD Emperor Theodosius I made it the official state religion of the Roman Empire.
Relaxing the rules This meant taking a more relaxed approach to ancient Jewish laws about food and circumcision. It was a slap in the face for Jewish tradition, but it was also the central reason for the rapid spread of Christianity.
As the Christian movement began to accept non-Jewish members, it moved further away from the strict rules imposed on Jews. In so doing, it gradually became a new and separate religion. An easy target Despite its growing popularity, Christianity was sometimes misunderstood and membership could bring enormous risks. Widely criticized after the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, the Emperor Nero tried to divert attention away from his own failings by providing an easy scapegoat: the Christians.
Although the followers of Jesus were working hard to spread the message, there were still very few Christians in Rome. They were regarded with suspicion.
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