Paper Topic:

Why the Romans were so intolerant of Christianity

INTOLERANCE OF ROMANS AGAINST CHRISTIANITY

The Roman Empire and the Non-Roman Religions

According to the politician and public speaker , Cicero , the Romans had excelled all other people in the distinctive wisdom , which made them discern that everything is subordinate to the rule and direction of the gods . However , the Roman religion was not based on divine grace . It was grounded on mutual trust between god and man . The object of the Roman religion was to secure the benevolence , cooperation , and peace of the gods (pax deorum . The Romans had maintained that such

divine aid would make it possible for them to conquer and govern over unknown forces surrounding them , which inspired both anxiety and awe . Thus through this mentally , Romans had maintained that they would be able to live successfully . More so , the jus divinum or divine law was established as a body of rules that ordained what had to be avoided or done

For many centuries , these principles had contained barely any moral element . They had consisted of directions for the correct performance of rituals . The Roman religion had set almost unique emphasis on cult acts , providing them with all the sanctity of loyal tradition (Christianity in Ancient Rome ) The Roman ceremony was very meticulous and conservative . In fact , if the different partisan accretions , which had grown upon it , can be eliminated , remnants of very early discipline can be discovered near the surface

This presents one of the many differences between the Roman religion and Greek religion where such remnants tend to be deeply obscured . When the Greeks first began to document themselves , they had already gone a long way toward abstract , sophisticated , and daring conceptions of divinity and its relevance to man (Smith , 351 ) The Romans , on the other hand had never given up their old practices as they were ly , relatively inarticulate , and legalistic . Furthermore , the Romans had lacked the Greek taste for perceiving their deities as personalized human form and endowing them with mythology . The Roman religion did not have any creed . The Romans had only performed the right religious actions where one was free to think of what he or she liked about the gods . Thus without the creed , the Romans had detested emotion as out of place in worship acts

On the other hand , non-Roman religions were divided into religiones licitae or licensed worships and religiones illicitae or unlicensed worships . The Romans had introduced non-Roman cults as means of conciliating the numina or the divine power because of famine pestilences , earthquakes , or military disasters (Huxley , 21 ) This meant that non-Roman religions were able to perform with impunity by their foreign supporters . The Romans had legalized the association which was necessary for these worships where Roman citizens were excluded by law . However , any person who resided in Rome was allowed the freedom of its own native worship as long as the exercise did not corrupt the morals of society or interfere with the peace of the state

The Romans had soon discovered oriental and Greek...

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