[lit-ideas] Ancient Roman Religion
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 21 May 2014 19:11:06 -0400 (EDT)
In a message dated 5/21/2014 6:23:46 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
there was a Roman emperor who after gaining power declared Christianity
illegal and many renounced their belief in order to save their lives. There
was controversy (after the emperor’s death) about whether such people,
people who renounced their faith in order to save their lives, could be
accepted back into the church. It was eventually decided that they could if
memory serves me, but it wasn’t a simple matter.
Interseting. This passage below, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religio_licita
makes an interesting point regarding collocations like 'religio licita'
and 'religio illicita' -- collocations which did not seem to make a lot of
sense to the Romans themselves. There is a reference to 'human sacrifice',
too, and how the Ancient Romans avoided it.
"Some scholars have argued that Christianity was declared a religio
illicita (an impermissible or illegitimate religion) by Domitian in the 80s AD.
Though this term appears nowhere, it has been conjectured that a declaration
of Christianity as illicita was the legal basis for official persecutions.
There was, however "no law, either existing section of criminal law, or
special legislation directed against the Christians, under which Christians
were prosecuted in the first two centuries." Rome lacked a uniform policy or
legal code pertaining to foreign cults, and before Christian hegemony in
the 4th century, there was no legal language to designate a concept
analogous to "heresy" or crimes against orthodox religion. Under Constantine
the
Great, Christianity and other religions became tolerated with the Edict of
Milan in 313. Toleration did not extend to religions that practiced human
sacrifice, such as Druidism. This state of affairs lasted until 380, when
Nicene Christianity was adopted as the state religion of the Roman Empire,
after which time persecution of non-Christian and non-Nicene cults began.
Priscillian was executed for heresy in 385, and Theodosius I began outlawing
Rome's traditional religious rituals in 391."
Cheers,
Speranza
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
