EXPLORING THE ROMAN CULTURE

Chapter 5: The First World Civilization: Rome, China and

the Emergence of the Silk Road

Background on Christianity

Who was Jesus?

Paul of Tarsus 25-67 C.E.

Helped spread the word of Jesus ChristHebrew name was SaulWas a Pharisee, a strict adherent to Jewish

lawPersecuted early Christians but underwent a

conversion on the road to DamascusSupported the position of the Hellenist Jews

who saw Christianity as a new, universal religion

The Persecution of the Jews/Christians

At first, Roman officials were indifferent to the new religion

But soon there were problems because the Christians would not worship ancient pagan deities or the emperor and were accused of disloyalty, atheism, and crimes such as cannibalism, infanticide and were blamed for plagues, floods, famines

Examples of what was said by prominent Romans

Christians began to be persecuted and found safety in the catacombs like those under the city of Rome

History of the Catacombs

In the first century, Rome’s Christians did not have cemeteries. If they had land of their own, that is where they buried their dead

In the first half of the second century, the Christians received grants and donations of land and then started to build catacombs

More on Catacombs

Many catacombs were family tombs who were new converts to Christianity

These families allowed fellow Christians outside of their own families to be buried there.

There are more than sixty catacombs in Rome with hundreds of miles of galleries and ten of thousands of tombs

There are also catacombs in North Africa, Naples, eastern Sicily

These catacombs are basically cemeteries

However, catacombs are cemeteries with a story!

Other images from the catacombs

The catacombs gave us great examples of early Christian art

More of the most important images is that of Christ

Another image of Christ

The catacombs allow us to know the lives of early Christians

Triumph of Christianity

In 303, Diocletian launched a serious persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire

However, such persecution could not stem the tide of the growing Christian community which was bolstered by the example of martyrs

The conversion of Diocletian’s successor, Constantine, (312) and Constantine’s lavish support for the church and encouragement of conversions transformed the Christian community

In 394, Theodosius forbade the practices of pagan cults and by his death, Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire

Chronology of the Triumph of Christianity

Jesus of Nazareth is born in ca. 4 B.C.E.Crucifixion of Jesus in ca. 30 C.E.Gospels written in ca. 70-100 C.E.Major persecutions by Decius and Valerian in ca.

250-260 C.E.Persecution by Diocletian in 303 C.E.Conversion of Constantine to Christianity in 312

C.E.Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E.Christianity becomes official religion of Roman

Empire in 395 C.E.