Guest
Guest
 |  Subject: Why Diocletian’s Great Persecution Of Christians Reminds Of Today’s America  Thu Sep 21, 2017 9:07 am | |
| Why Diocletian’s Great Persecution Of Christians Reminds Of Today’s America
September 21, 2017 by SkyWatch Editor
 The rise of Christianity in Rome was neither linear nor neat. At various times, it was met with resistance and bloodshed. Yet prior to the rise of Emperor Diocletian (244 A.D. – 311 A.D.), Christians had lived relatively free of state persecution for many decades, a period Eusebius called “the little peace of the Church.” While Rome in the third century had begun to codify anti-Christian laws, persecution was “relatively limited and local,” according to Bruce Gordon, a professor at Yale University. And that persecution mostly came to a halt following the death of the emperor Valerian (d. 260 A.D.). This changed at the beginning of the fourth century when Diocletian issued what became known as the Great Persecution, a series of laws that began to purge Christians from public offices, destroy Christian churches and literature, and punish those who refused to offer sacrifice to traditional Roman deities (like Tom Horn’s new SABOTEURS will unveil). (READ MORE) |
|
