Persecution in the Early Church

In this essay I am going to research the area of persecution in the early church, I will be exploring where persecution began, what caused it and how the Christians themselves responded to what was happening. I will do this with a particular focus on the role the emperors of Rome During the first and second century.
Persecution of the church in the empire can be split into two main periods, the first being the persecutions under the Emperor Nero in AD 64 leading through until Decius’ reign in AD 250. The second period is from Decius’ reign to the end of persecution from the Roman Emperors under Constantine.
Firstly it is important to look at the background of early Christianity to understand what was happening. From the beginning Jews had a view that Christianity was not a new religion but was instead a heretical sect within Judaism. It is for this reason that in most of the New Testament it is the Jews who persecute the Christians and seek refuge under the Roman officials. However, as the church gained more converts from the Gentile population and the number of Jews in ratio to this shrank, the distinction between both religions became much clearer. It was this view of Christianity as a separate religion that was the beginning of two and a half centuries of persecution from the Roman state, starting at the time of Nero and lasting until till the conversion of Constantine.
The relationship between Judaism and Christianity is an interesting one and something that should be explored to gain better understanding. An important phrase to include is ‘religious licita’ which was coined by Tertullian when talking about the Roman tolerance of Judaism as a permitted religion. Usually the Romans did not interfere with the religious practices of people as they were content to add new deities to the pantheon that already existed and they were continually expanding the pluralistic religious environment of the empire. The Jews caused somewhat a problem with their strict

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