Thread by @MalvagioMarco

Due to the christian dominance in the West, the persecution of Christians in early Rome has a massive presence in popular imagination.
Time for an entirely unbiased thread about the roman persecution of early christians.
🔥✝️DIOCLETIAN DID NOTHING WRONG✝️🔥

(CW: violence, persecution, making fun of christianism)

How people imagine the roman persecution of christianity:
christians: "hide underground! pray in silence! if the emperor finds us, we'll be killed!"
Emperor: "AHAHA! I FOUND YOU! YOUR BOOKS WILL BURN, AND YOU WITH THEM! I'LL FEED YOU TO THE LIONS!"
pic: COOL KIDS get martirized

Christians: "My Lord, please give me strength to endure these endless persecutions!"
*diesromantically in the colosseum with a dramatic choir in the background*
Emperor: "ALL CHRISTIANS WILL BE FOUND AND SACRIFICED TO OUR BLOODTHIRSTY GODS!"

Reality was, err, a little different.
First thing to keep in mind: romans didn't care much about religion, really.
They were kind of suspicious of judaism due to revolts in Palestine, but never actually forbid it.
So how did Christianism get banned?

Basically like this.
Pagans: "what a lovely first century day, I..."
Christian: "YOUR GODS ARE FAKE! THE LORD SHALL SMITE YOU! EMBRACE CHRIST FOR ETERNAL SALVATION!"
Pagan: "excuse me sir WTF?"
pic: St. Paul annoying innocent Pagans

Early christians were pereceived as overly zealous and, most damningly, refused (very vocally) to perform the sacrifices which were part of roman public life.
(think it more like "they refused to touch the constitution" in modern terms, to understand how romans viewed it)

Note that Jews refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods, too, but because their religion was ancient, and they didn't insist to get others to do the same, the romans were "ok whatever just pay your fucking taxes".
So refusal to sacrifice, per se, didn't get a religion banned.

So we have the first imperial letters mentioning christians. Paraphrasing, but not even much:
(Pliny was a provincial governor, writing to emperor Trajan)
Pliny: I have a bunch of people telling me there are christians in town
Trajan: who cares
pic: Emperor Trajan not caring

(for the record, Pliny PESTERED Trajan with questions ALL THE TIME and the emperor usually sounds kind of annoyed in answering)
Pliny: but some people actually say they're christians! they insist they won't do sacrifices!
Trajan: come on it's just a fad it will blow over.

Early christian trials went like that:
Christian: "I'M SO CHRISTIAN! I WON'T SACRIFICE TO YOUR EVIL GODS!"
Magistrate: *sigh* "look, can't you just say you recant and we both go home"
C: "I'LL GLADLY DIE IN THE NAME OF THE LORD"
M: "You mean Lord Jupiter, right? Right?" *wink*

Christians who absolutely refused to recant, and to perform even symbolic sacrifice, WERE executed. Usually in extremely bloody manner but that was standard in the roman empire tbh.
pic: romans believed in a range of different approaches to criminal punishment

But emperors were usually RESTRAINING their subject from seeking christians, gave them every possibility to recant to the very last moment, and some (like Hadrian) ruled that being christian was no crime by itself.

Of course, by modern standard that's still a religious persecution.
But compared to medieval hunts for heretics or witches, it looks a slap-on-the-wrist approach.
Roman sources mostly sound confused about the whole thing - they had little experience of religious zeal.

So they sound like they have literally idea of what their deal was.
"THERE ARE PEOPLE SCREECHING AGAINST THE GODS ALL OVER MY PROVINCE, WHAT DO I DO?" would have topped google searches in the second century mediterranean.

As the empire entered a crisis in the third century, christianism kept spreading (possibly helped by its promise of salvation, in sucky times).
Emperor Decius, who ruled for about 20 minutes, trying to restore stability, ordered every imperial citizen to sacrifice to the gods.

(amusingly, they got a piece of paper with written "I SACRIFICED TO THE GODS!", kind of like a bumper sticker.) Jews were exempt for the usual reason - but Christians weren't.
It's debatable whether this was a bug or a feature in Decius' mind.
pic: I SACRIFICED TO THE GODS!

Once again, they could just burn a fucking incense stick and be done with it, but many christians refused to, and for the first time they were actively sought out by imperial forces.
It lastes a single year, but it made an impression on christians.

Specifically, they *loved* it!
Martyrdom became the maximum spiritual aspiration for any christian.
VERY Gruesome stories of martyrdom (the Legenda Aurea) were the most popular book after the bible, centuries later.

Stuff like this happened:
MAGISTRATE: "Unrepentant christians won't be tolerated! They'll be put to death unless..."
Christian: "I'M A CHRISTIAN! I'M SO UNREPENTANT! FEED ME TO LIONS!"
M: "WHAT THE FUCK?"
C: "oooh, or maybe you have bears?"
M: "Your kink weirds me out"

(of course the kinkiest saint was my ever-beloved St. Sebastian.
I mean, look at this painting.
It's, uh, clearly a commentary about the spiritual value of suffering?)

Finally, in 290, emperor Diocletian - a great emperor in many ways - launched the one real, long and aggressive persecution of christians.
Churches (yes, they could openly be built) were sacked and christian priests burned.
pic: A MAN WHO DID NOTHING WRONG

Even then, it lasted only the 15 years of Diocletian's reign, and some of his co-rulers, while condemning christianity, refused to apply the persecutory edicts.
A good chunk of the (still majority) pagan population refused to join the persecution.

His successor, Constantine, converted to christianism, and from then on christianism was always the preferred (and soon official) religion of both halves of the Roman Empire. Except for the brief reign of Julian, who was pagan, and you'll be surprised to know, one of my faves.

The comparatively brief - but very real - persecution by Diocletian became a huge part of the fondative myth of christianity, all the more since the first generation of christian public leaders had lived through it.

And that's how a comparatively limited persecution, which lasted barely more than a decade in about half of the empire, became so preeminent in christians' idea of history.
To this day, I was taught about it with gruesome enthusiasm for details in sunday school.

Of course, coming from a history of persecutions, christians behaved very different after they became a preeminent...
[checks notes]
Oh, wait, strike that.

christians: "please, stop killing us! We just want to worship our lord in peace!"
pagans, in 310: "ok, persecutions are over. Now we can have an age of religious peace again."
christians: "WHAT DID YOU SAY, FILTHY HEATHEN?"

The very first christian leader, Constantine I, sacked pagan temples and smelted down their idols.
(ironically, it was a GREAT move for the economy, finally stabilized inflation)
In less than 100 years, worship of the pagan gods would be outlawed.

Religious tolerance would be very limited in the eastern roman empire, and nonexistent in the territories of the western, for more than 1000 years to come.
Diocletian was a tyrant, but when he feared christians would kill his own religion, the truth is he was right.

Boring notes: When did being an unrepetant christian start being a crime?
Possibly under Nero. But it's not really clear, and everything about Nero is dubious, so I just skipped to the first sure imperial declaration about christians, in Trajan's letter.

The bit about christians asking to be martirize is kind of dubious, but BOTH christians and romans claim that. And the church had to make clear "it's not martyrdom if you asked for it", so at least they thought it would be a possibility.

Finally: I don't want to paint it too rosy.
I'm sure Christian faced some kind of discrimination even before Dacius and Diocletian.
After all, if the emperors kept telling people to chill about christians, it means someone was not chill about them.

Bonus: in serbian folklore, there's a devil-like figure, an evil entity called Dukljan, who is chained in a river and gnaws at his chains to get free and destroy the world.
It's emperor Diocletian.
The good ol' tyrant would be proud tbh.

Enjoyed this? I make fun on more people than christians. Even if I do have a soft spot for christians. Here my history threads!

https://twitter.com/MalvagioMarco/status/1323041047388311558