Rome [Empire] and Other Religions
In short: the initial Roman beliefs were animistic, but the Romans progressively began to take on the formal gods of their neighbors, the Etruscans, and then the gods of the Greeks [Rome admired the Greeks greatly].
The developing Roman Empire required conquered nations to worship the Roman gods, but they could also worship their own gods as well.
At times the Romans took on important gods of the conquered nations as a god of their own.
The Romans under Augustus and Tiberius tolerated the Jewish religion and allowed Jews a ‘pass’ on worshiping the Roman gods [partly out of respect for the perceived antiquity of Judaism…I would also say because of political issues].
As a Jewish sect, the early Christians seem to have been provided the same tolerance. The Jewish revolts of 66-73 CE [The Great Revolt], 115-117 CE [Kitos War] and 132-135 CE [Bar Kokhba’s] changed this tolerance. As a Jewish sect, Christianity would receive sporadic mistreatment or persecution just as the other Jews but, it was not for religious issues…it was because of the insurrection.
In 64 CE Emperor Nero, is said to have blamed either the Jews of the Christians for the Great Fire of Rome, but there is no direct evidence of this. Contemporary historians; Josephus, Dio Chrysostom, Plutarch and Epictetus make no mention of the event and Pliny the Elder barely makes a passing note about the event and say nothing about who was blamed for the act. The only historian who mentions Nero blaming the Christians is Tacitus but, this seems to be another Christian forgery.
With all the Jewish-Roman tensions [which began in 6 BC when Judaea became a Roman province] it would be nothing out of the ordinary if Nero really did blame Christians [a small Jewish sect].
There is no real evidence of the persecution of Christians by the Romans before at least 97 CE which were sporadic periods of persecution at best. When the persecutions happened, it was usually because Christians refused to worship the gods, thus risking divine fury [which some Romans might have wanted to appease their gods by punishing Christians]. In retrospect by that time the Christian sect would have lost their ‘pass’ because of the Jewish revolts and their splitting with Judaism.
Filed by Frank at September 4th, 2008 under Religion