For today's post my partner and I chose to have our topic be about the story of the Early Christian Church and how it rose in popularity and power.
The story of the rise of the Early Christian Church is very complicated.
In the first few centuries AD Christians were prosecuted and punished, often with death, there were also periods when they were more secure. Christians were first, and horribly, targeted for persecution as a group by the emperor Nero in 64 AD. A colossal fire broke out at Rome, and destroyed much of the city. Rumors abounded that Nero himself was responsible.But the Emperor blamed the Christians in Rome for the fires as he built himself a palace in the empty places left by the fires. But even from the hate of Nero, Christians were only sporadically persecuted. It was not until the mid-third century that emperors initiated intensive persecutions.
Why were Christians persecuted?
Much seems to have depended on local governors and how zealously or not they pursued and prosecuted Christians. The reasons why individual Christians were persecuted in this period were varied. In some cases they were perhaps scapegoats, their faith attacked where more personal or local hostilities were at issue.It was hardly surprising that a series of emperors ordered savage empire-wide persecutions of the Christians.
When did persecutions stop?
The turning point in the ending if Christian persecutions was when a Roman emperor byt he name of Constantine converted to Christianity after he claimed to have been visited by an angel telling him that victory in war would be his if he fought in the name of God. After that Christians increased in numbers and among Constantine’s successors only one, the emperor Julian in the 360s AD, mounted concerted action to re-instate paganism as the dominant religion in the empire.
