Talk:Religious persecution in the Roman Empire

The introduction is so wrong and misleading... It says Rome was tolerant and Christianity and Christians "persecuted pagans" and makes no mention of the numerous persecutions of the Christians — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:F41:1CD9:22C1:B4F3:AAFF:16F3:1D8D (talk) 09:10, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

this is looking OK now, but still needs help
Has this been seriously cleaned up recently? I'm not seeing most of the problems identified by earlier people on the talk page. And it's quite useful as a reference to the shifting policies of the Roman emperors, from tolerance to mass murder and vandalism, and back. However, it _is_ too long, too unbalanced in quantity (there's just more material on some periods than others), and it's far too ill-defined -- when does ancient Rome stop being ancient or stop being Rome? For that matter, when does it *start*? Note that Republican Rome doesn't even get a mention! How about simply 'persecution of religion in the Roman Empire' for a more accurate title? 67.241.18.73 (talk) 13:52, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

split?
i think there needs to be a lot more information about persecution of judaism with the adoption of christianity under constantine and there on. if the information about the persecution of pagans and christians is split into a new article than this article needs to be renamed to not seem to be generally about religion but specifically about christianity. Amirman (talk) 22:39, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * "Ancient Rome" refers to Rome prior to the state adoption of Christianity as far as I am aware; therefore, your concern would seem somewhat misplaced. I am aware of articles like Christianity and antisemitism and Decline of Hellenistic polytheism which deal with the treatment of these religions under the rule of Christendom (although the former obviously has a much wider scope).--C.Logan (talk) 22:57, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd alwys thought of Ancient Rome as lasting, conventionally, until the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 475. Or, arguably, as late as 1453. I'd suggest that the early Byzantine persecutions of pagans, still going on under Justinian, could reasonably be included in this article too, and possibly the ongoing persecutions of Jews under the Christian empire. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:00, 7 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I disagree. While I'm not sure what I was thinking earlier (long day perhaps?), the fall of the Western Empire is certainly seen to be the end of the ancient period (and obviously therefore the end of "ancient Rome" as a concept). Byzantium is most certainly a resident of the Middle Ages, in most manners (though its position as an Eastern kingdom makes it a sore thumb, it is still a Medieval realm for all discernible purposes); 500AD seems to be the commonly given point at which this period begins. There's certainly some information which fits in with the given time period, of course; again, Christianity and antisemitism makes a rather nice home for such information (as it already seems to be in part).--C.Logan (talk) 10:51, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I see the point. I suppose the Decline of Hellenistic polytheism and articles on the suppression of witchcraft and low-prestige paganism would be the appropriate place to carry on other elements of the story after 475. Richard Keatinge (talk) 14:08, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

suggested improvements
This article can be improved simply by drawing together here material from Constantine I, Edict of Milan. Theodosian decrees, Theodosius I, Serapeum, Late Antiquity etc etc. With the assembled material as a base, and some reading, a more nuanced and accurate article could be assembled. --Wetman 21:14, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

article name
Shouldn't article this be titled "Persecution of Roman religious"? That would mesh with the style of the other articles on Template:Religious persecution. To the point, one cannot persecute religion, only religious people. &mdash; coe l acan t a lk  &mdash; 05:06, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

POV Problems with Hypatia Section
The section here on Hypatia suffers from POV issues. For a more balanced view see the main article Hypatia of Alexandria. It's problamatic to claim that Cyril ordered her murder,according to the preponderance of historical evidence.
 * Agreed.--Shtove 10:06, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

POV and cleanup
I'v marked this article both for POV and clean-up. The article is obviouly not to wiki standard. Much of it is very objectionnable, for instance :

-Constantius had been brought up by fanatical Christians who had free reign to indoctrinate him with their prejudices. These Christians naturally gained an inordinate amount of power that led to the implementation of their intolerant views on society.

-Julian [...], being taught by a Christian tutor, and his ideas concerning religion were therefore based on the intolerance inherent in Christianity.

-Julian did, however, forbid Christian rhetoricians and grammarians to teach unless they consented to worship the Pagan deities.He probably did this because he knew from experience that they were likely to spread intolerant ideas [...].

-...Ambrose, the narrow-minded Christian bishop of Milan. -Due to the riots caused by fanatical Christians in their attempts to destroy the temples... -[...] thanks to the fanatical Christians who did their best to destroy all works that disparaged their religion

I could go on.

There are misspellings and long paragraphs, and the whole text read more like a diatribe than an encyclopedia article. I recommend a complete rewrite.


 * Agreed, this article is terrible. Even if one completely believes its conclusions it is making conclusions in a way that's very unencyclopedic. (Print encyclopedias are a bit less obsessed with being neutral than Wikipedia, but I don't think any of them would go this far with villification)--T. Anthony 10:13, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I also concur. The paragraph beginning "By its very nature the exclusive faith...", appears to lay-out a Roman justification for any and all acts that followed. On what is this based? All the evidence is modern quotations that suggest a prejudicial perspective of the author. I strongly urge this be rewritten. 124.176.145.91 (talk) 12:51, 29 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The article is still not good. The intro have penduled over to apologize for the pagan Roman persecution, while painting the Christian totalitarianism in the kind of negative terms that formerly blackpainted the pagan Romans. The neutral formulation should be that religion in the Roman Empire was associated with the ruling power in such a way that the state religion by association became oppressive. The conflict between the pagan Roman power and monotheistic Judaism and Christianity was around the monotheism and the pagans perception of the disloyalty of Judaism and Christianity, while the later were regarded as disrespectful of adherents of other religions. The conflict Christian Roman power and other religions was also some kind of disloyalty suspicion, where the Christian emperor was elect of God to rule the State, and deviators from the faith of the Empire seen as a sign of rebellion. Whether bad or good. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 13:56, 5 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Only the intro, that is. The rest is better, maybe the Christian totalism too downplayed. In 381 all other religions than Christianity were forbidden. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 14:11, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Removal of tags
At this point, these generic templates are next to useless for an article this evolved. If someone contests specific statements or specific sources, use the appropriate tags in the actual article: Sections which are totally unsourced can be pulled intact to the talk page to be discussed or re-added later. Drive-by editors slapping templates on articles are not conducive to actual progress or consensus. Rather than raging against the wiki, why not contribute to the article? - WeniWidiWiki 15:52, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * produces
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 * well, the entire thing reads like an essay. The individual facts mentioned may be alright, but they are not so much "mentioned" as "built up" polemically, apparently by an outraged pagan out to denounce Christianity. I mean to say, the basis of the article is fair enough, but the language and tone needs a serious effort in WP:NPOV. Just report the facts as a neutral historian would, and let the reader decide for themselves whether they want to feel outraged, don't be outraged for them. dab (𒁳) 10:01, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Should be rewritten
The previous poster is right that the article reads like an essay, and that the author is outraged for the reader. I'v marked several passages that are very objectionnable and I could highlight several more. I believe this article should be entierly rewritten.

What the...
This article is terrible.

The amount of text alone makes it a nightmare to rewrite, considering that this may be one of the most blatantly biased articles I've ever read. (If you've seen worse, please share for good humor).

I agree that this sounds very much like an essay.

''In order to understand how Christianity was able to supplant Paganism we must go back to the time of Constantine. Prior to the time of Constantine, the Christians had simply pleaded for tolerance for their religion, but once they had won recognition they set themselves up on a Crusade to drive all other religious beliefs away. Galerius was the first emperor to issue an edict of toleration for all religious creeds including Christianity. Although Constantine was the first emperor to convert to Christianity, he never legislated against Paganism, in spite of what zealous Christian writers would have us believe. In fact, the Christian emperors down to Valentinian and Valens were not (except perhaps for Constantius) wholeheartedly devoted to the suppression of Paganism the way in which fanatical Christians would have liked them to be.''

Reading that is painful to my intelligence.

I mean, l... no, just no. You already know how poor it is. It needs no elaboration.

Can most of the sources actually be verified? Additionally, notice tidbits like this, in the 'References' section:

''The fanaticism of Julian led to his being criticized by Ammianus (Res Gestae 22.10.7, 25.4.20) who, like a true Pagan, believed that religion was a private matter. Eunapius, who studied under a Christian tutor in Athens, imbibed the intolerant spirit of the Christians and therefore seems to have approved of Julian’s religious policies (Eunapius Fragment 15). Zosimus, who seems to have been a true Pagan, ignored Julian’s fanatical religious policies, which he no doubt viewed as an embarrassment.''

Wow. Well, nothing more needs to be said about this one.

Also, what's with the bibliography? Isn't that what the 'References' section is for? --C.Logan 05:47, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, there is only one word to describe Christians - "fanatic". Have a look at Hypatia: there's a fair amount of debate on anti-christian stuff there, owing to the fact that most of the sources describing her death were pagan or part of church factions.--Shtove 22:04, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't understand what your point seems to be regarding this particular issue. Do the circumstances of Hypatia's death, and the subsequent Wikipedian debate somehow vindicate the article from the need to express a neutral viewpoint?
 * Religious adherents are imperfect, and should in no way truly represent the religion. By the way you have used such a blanket assumption, I can assume that you might feel otherwise (though I can't be sure). That sort of statement (which is untrue, unless you happen to know each member of the global Christian body, and can personally speak for them) is what generally leads to social relegation, and eventual persecution.
 * Mobs in general can be incited to do just about anything, regardless of religion, creed or culture. Indeed, it is expressed in an excerpt in the Hypatia article that the killing mob was composed by non-Christians as well.
 * However, this is not the point of my original talk post. If you read the article, regardless of the factual nature of the occurrences of persecution, it is clearly biased against Christianity, and favors the virtues of paganism. Regardless of your beliefs, it is not the author's (authors'?) job to decide for us how we should view elements of history.


 * This sums it up well, from Wiki's NPOV page:


 * ''Karada offered the following advice in the context of the Saddam Hussein article:


 * You won't even need to say he was evil. That is why the article on Hitler does not start with "Hitler was a bad man" — we don't need to, his deeds convict him a thousand times over. We just list the facts of the Holocaust dispassionately, and the voices of the dead cry out afresh in a way that makes name-calling both pointless and unnecessary. Please do the same: list Saddam's crimes, and cite your sources.


 * Remember that readers will probably not take kindly to moralising. If you do not allow the facts to speak for themselves you may alienate readers and turn them against your position.


 * There will never be a universal agreement; most Christians will always defend that such acts are not true to Christianity, while non-Christians will use it as one example of the negative effects of Christian society, now and in the past.


 * However, each reader will vehemently stand by his or her own belief.


 * Using terms like these won't "scare people away from Christianity". It will just cause them to disregard the article, which indeed hurts whatever agenda the author was trying to express.


 * Let the reader decide, just report the basic facts, with support from reliable sources.
 * --C.Logan 03:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Oops! I was being too sarcastic. I agree entirely with your original point. Anti-christians use "fanatic" as automatically as the words "zealous", "devout" and "stern" are used about protestants, catholics and puritans. It's a way of dismissing the facts of an individual case without having to think about them. What's happened on Hypatia is that long blockquotes from primary sources are left in because people can't agree on a balanced summary and prefer to champion certain tabloid-style statements from sensationalising ancient writers. This article is interesting, since it is biased but also well served by inline citations. It will take a lot of effort to unpick it and make it NPOV. And the title should mention suppression rather than persecution.--Shtove 12:12, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh my... I didn't pick up on your sarcasm. I agree about the article: the article is very well sourced and probably contains many historical, verifiable facts. Too bad it's all mixed up with the author's opinions.--C.Logan 23:01, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

What a nightmare...
I've spent the last hour trying to clean up this article...but it is nearly hopeless. The factual errors far outweigh the POV problems, which are really significant. I hope this wasn't an essay for a school class, cause if it was, it shoulda got a D-. This really shouldn't even be an article separate from the other related articles. For starters, the time period and persecution discussed was NOT against the Ancient Roman Religion - it was against ALL still-practicing ancient religions. Conflict between Christianity and "the pagans" started as early as 80CE, not with Constantine...who didn't "convert" until he was on his deathbed... what about Barnabus? Aristides, Clement, Hippolytus, Polycarp, Tatian and Justin the Martyr? They were all a hundred or more years before Constantine GoingGrey 17:40, 22 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I did what I could on NPOV and fixed the prargraphing. IMHO there is nothing wrong with having an article focusing on the Roman religion being persecuted... it doesn't exclude any other religious persecutions from happening simultaneously.  Constantine did not become baptized until he was on his deathbead, but could be considered or not considered a Christian since before that.  (RookZERO 15:57, 5 April 2007 (UTC))


 * We had a similar discussion in it.wiki and our article started from a translation of this one. We discussed for a long time, and we had people writing from a neopaganic pov and from a catholic pov (and also, me, from an historical pov). I think we did a successfull job and now the italian article is ok for every one and, I think, it is quite historically accurate (with a lot of sources). If someone can read italian (I'm not so good in writing in english, I'm sorry), please have a look and see if it could be useful for you too. MM on it wiki 84.253.136.132 21:47, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

clean up ruthlessly. A "neopaganic pov" would not be that much of a problem if it was an erudite neopaganic pov. The problems we get are with "pop culture neopagans" who have a strong pov about things they don't know the first thing about. Don't be afraid to lose unsourced statements. The very "persecution" sounds unnecessarily whiny. Yes, there was persecution and mob killings, but it would be so much more encyclopedic to discuss them in context, say under a heading decline of Graeco-Roman polytheism. Lo and behold, we do have an aricle on that, at Decline of Hellenistic polytheism, and I suggest we merge whatever merit is to be found here into that. dab (𒁳) 17:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that the introduction is too dramatic and "Suppression of the Ancient Roman Religion" would be a better title than the one at present even though there are similar kinds of articles dealing with "Persecution of XYZ", including Christianity. There should also be links to pages dealing with persecutions of Christians up until the time of Constantine but I think the current article does a reasonable job of setting out what were the fundamental incompatibilities between Christian monotheism and the old religions that it faced though I think there should be better links between related articles as you suggest. The proposed article merges do not appear to be attractive since they do not capture the process of active suppression that did indeed take place - and the suggested merge articles seem to be poorly sourced in comparison to this one and too light weight. I don't think the references in the article are slanted towards a neo-pagan world view but rather rely, perhaps too much, on Christian historians with the primary sources they quote often given as well. I think also we should welcome more editors and assume good faith on their part rather than tar them them all as neo-pagans. A degree of sensitivity is required in these kinds of articles; with respect I think the "Jesus as Myth" debacle is a good example of how not to do this kind of remedial work, so lets try and be patient and avoid that here. GoldenMeadows 18:45, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the merge suggestion. While the subjects are related and should of course link to each other, the persecution is sufficiently significant with enough sources and material of its own to merit and retain its own article, where it can be kept in greater depth. (RookZERO 19:06, 17 June 2007 (UTC))

You're actually right about the fctual errors being the worse problem. For instnace, Hypatia never set foot in Athens and Cyril was a monophysite.

accusations of bias are clearly biased
Too bad if some people find it "objectionable" to point out the fact of christian intolerance, but facts are facts whether you like them or not. 50 million tortured and murdered for crimes of "heresy" at the hands of the Inquisition is a FACT. These deaths prove the intolerance of christians beyond any reasonable doubt. Christians also systematically destroyed pagan art, literature, and even science. It is amusing and disturbing to find that all the articles aimed at correcting christianized inaccuracies and lies in our traditional history have been beset by welters of (probably) christians who don't want the record set straight -- and so, while themselves oppressing, claim to be oppressed. ("Offended.") Bah. --FXMcD 10:52, 2 June 2007


 * As the above comment is an excellent example, it appears that those who ascribe to 'reason' rather than a religion (such as Christianity) are the most illogical, uninformed and intolerant individuals on the scene today. This makes the accusations of bias and intolerance all the more grating- it is apparent that such individuals can delude themselves into believing whatever they want to believe; they can magnify historical occurrences beyond their limits with histrionic phrasing and a 'victim' posture, and then they can proclaim their own half-baked arguments as capital-letter 'facts'.


 * It is painfully apparent that this individual possesses such a bitter and warped world-view that he cannot comprehend the massive, necessary changes which have been made to the article from it's original state- as a anti-Christian high school essay (which had the same tone as the above individual's comment)- and therefore does not comprehend the need for further improvement in this incompletely re-furnished article.


 * The great irony is that the individual's flawed logic, bitter attitude, intolerant posture and uninformed, unsupported opinion comes in the guise of an angry plea for 'objectivity'- this coming from an individual with a blaring anti-Christian bias. I'm sorry that you feel that way, FXMcD. Perhaps you should take some time to do some real reading on the subject- I used to have the same opinion as you, and I've since grown out of its confines. --C.Logan 17:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm not even a Christian (I'm an agnostic who tends to lean towards Deism), yet I will be the first to admit a lot of these articles are completely tempered with Atheist POV. In my own experience on wikipedia, it's ok if atheists deal with largely religious or atheist topics, but once they start pouring into topics based around historical scholarship it quickly degenerates into a POV fest on the part of Atheists. The funny thing is, and I say this also as a student of ancient history, a lot of what annoys me about both some Christians and Atheists is that they both promote pseudohistory in many cases, with Atheists this is especially annoying, because they (rightfully) get angry about pseudoscience such as creationism, but they feel they have carte blanche to read a couple of volumes of Gibbon and then act like they're ####### Tacitus reborn or something, its pathetic.--NeroDrusus 15:13, 9 June 2007 (UTC)


 * At least on Wikipedia nobody is forced to sit on the side lines if they see something is in error by way of fact, balance or style; constructive edits are always welcomed to improve an articles worth. If someone is sure of an error they should go ahead and change accordingly or, if there is doubt, bring up the specific point on the talk page for discussion. GoldenMeadows 10:06, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've had a brief go at NPOV in the earlier parts - hope you like the results! I'd also agree with the suggestion to merge most of this article with Decline of Hellenistic polytheism. It seems to me that the main form of encouragement to change religions - until the complete christianization of the remaining Empire at any rate - was social discouragement rather than gross violence. And most of this article strikes me as quite a good account of Imperial edicts on the subject of paganism, which admittedly is relevant background to the genuine persecutions, but isn't actually the persecution itself any more than is, say, damaging your career for having the "wrong" religion. Anyone disagree with the idea of "persecution" including only violence against persons or property?

I've also changed a few things; I don't think there's any actual evidence that pagans specifically encouraged Maxentius, for example. If there is, and it's relevant, it needs reference.Richard Keatinge 13:56, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Reverting merge with Decline of Hellenistic polytheism
There was no agreement to make such a change and I have reverted. The merged title does not capture the main content of the article and appears to me to be misleading in its scope. There already is a page Religion in ancient Rome that gives a better overview whilst this branch treats in more detail the active process that took place (acknowledged by Christian historians). It merits a separate articleGoldenMeadows 11:21, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * if you're going to oppose the merger, will you invest some work in order to clean up this confused piece? If this is going to be about "persecution of religion in ancient Rome" in general, it is going to have to be completely rewritten. religio licita should probably be merged here. It needs work. Just reverting and then letting it lie in disarray will not do. dab (𒁳) 08:15, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Tags Removed
There has been a lot of work done on the article since the alert tages were placed. I have removed them and now ask for specific and detailed doubts to be expressed here on the talk page in order that they may be dealt with individually rather than the previous generalized blanket condemnation. GoldenMeadows 10:43, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I am sorry, but what is this article even supposed to be about? It is essentially an essay on the general topic of "Rome and religious persecution". Does it have a scope? A structure? How about the significant overlap of clear-cut topics like decline of Hellenistic polytheism and Constantinian shift? This article as it stands is essentially a rambling pov-fork dab (𒁳) 08:17, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Much better, still problems
This article is a lot better than it has been. The blatent Anti-Christian POV has been removed but there is still a distinct sense of an anti-Christian essay running throughout, if of a more sophisticated sort. The whole article is far too long to go through, but just taking the first paragraph, for example:

The opening quote from Gibbon doesn't even make sense to my elementary knowledge. For a start if Gibbon thought that the dissapearence of Roman Paganism was the only time that an ancient religion has dissapeared from the world, then he's displaying a wierd level of ignorance. Secondly, the implication that the religion suddenly dissapeared in the reign of Theodosius (presumably due to the persecution of the article title) is blatently contradicted by the repeated assertions in the article that paganism enjoyed a vast revival after the death of Theodosisus and repeated assertions about the continuing strength of Paganism, based on complete extrapolations, into the 5th and 6th Centuries.

Again in the opening paragraph, how in any way is the last sentence relevent? It may indeed be thought that "In the past[5] the Church may be thought to have behaved inconsistently, claiming toleration and liberty for herself, but being intolerant of all other religions.[6]" but I fail to see what this has to do with a historical article on persecution of Roman paganism. It sounds rather like one hell of a leading question and, as others have said, the start of an essay.
 * Gibbons is not writing about a single religion but all the diverse spiritual traditions that were then practiced in the Roman Empire that are generally classed as pagan. The policy of extermination carried out by the state is acknowledged by Christian historians and the article gives an example adjacent to Gibbons quote where Karl Hoeber, a Catholic scholar, asserts that "He stamped out the last vestiges of paganism" and "that he took severe measures against the surviving remnants of paganism". Another Christian scholar asserts:
 * ""The God of the Christians was indeed a jealous God who tolerated no other gods beside him. The Church could never acknowledge that she stood on the same plane with other religious bodies, she conquered for herself one domain after another" and this was partly achieved by active persecution. What you say is "one hell of leading question" is basically a quotation from another Christian scholar, read the article given in the ref, but I will try and reword this later to make it clear that at one time in its history this was indeed the outlook of the Church in such matters and that it did not regard it as persecution but a legitimate right that they could invoke since they believed they worshipped the "One True God". I would not like to delete it since it gives to the reader an idea of why these things happened rather than just list a series of "facts". I may supplement it with the opinion of other Christian scholars that the common viewpoint that "error has no rights" was to lead to the denial of human rights. If you think the article is anti-christian then please correct the errors of fact or supply sholarly refutations of the examples given in the article though I would point out that it is largely from Christian sources that the unpalatable information comes. As to a difference in scholarly opinion as to the extent of paganism during the 5th century: I would rather have this reflected in an article rather than smoothed away, but I will try and research this further when I get time, this article seems to attract a lot of sideline critics who do not contribute edits. GoldenMeadows 11:46, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, you appear to have misunderstood me, let me clarify myself. I do not deny either the persecution of paganism or that the sentence itself is from decent scholarship, my point is that it is inappropriate in a Wiki article of this type, and that the quote from gibbon does not mesh with what else is in the article, or indeed is accurate. Also I take the use of the term religion just as a shorthand, I mean no ideological judgement by it, as in the title of the article, persecution of ancient roman religion.

The point is that the article itself has a whole section devoted to the "Pagan revival despite continued persecution". The law of non-contradiction alone states that you can not have "total extirpation of any ancient and popular superstition" followed by a Pagan revival. Either paganism was "totally extirpated" or not, either way the article as it stands is gibberish. What Theodosius undoubtalbly did was get rid of the last state subsidies or official status of paganism. He declared Catholic Christianity the sole official state religion, that is not denied. Also Gibbon statement is unecessarily and misleading hyperbole as the collapse and removal of Ancient Roman paganism was obviously not the "the only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular superstition" and therefore Gibbon is wrong, indeed trivially wrong if you think about it. Between these two points, firstly it is misleading hyperbole and secondly it is blatently contradicted later in the article is the problem. Either way it is sloppy and unbecoming of an Encyclopedia.

I agree my second example is a lot less watertight, but I just think it is indicative of a wider, though I admit slight, problem with the whole tone of the article. It reads like an essay not an Encyclopedia article. 90.199.0.125 17:28, 26 July 2007 (UTC) .

Pagan literature
The article is still one-sided but it is difficult to correct without simply starting again. It makes several references to pagan historians and intellectuals. For some balance, at least until the article is rewritten I'd suggest the following, which I wrote, on whether Christians tried to irradicate pagan literature. http://www.jameshannam.com/literature.htm I suggested the same article on the Decline of Hellenistic polytheism page as I expect that they will be merged. James Hannam 12:25, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

so?
will anyone adopt this article and do something about its apalling state, or will it just sit there and wait for another merger attempt? I really cannot be bothered to clean up a 60k essay. If people aren't willing to fix it, we'll have to prune it and merge the encyclopedic bits into a well-kept article with overlapping scope. dab (𒁳) 08:23, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I hope you take my humble efforts as an improvement. Richard Keatinge 18:05, 10 November 2007 (UTC)


 * This article demonstrates baldy that we need more academic editors. I mean, if I find the time I am going to work on it until we are on the level of academic history with it - not that they have an agreement about the Christians-Pagans-Persecution issue. I would urge everyone to read that article by H.A.Drake. If possible, we should have an historical part only about the facts (which doesn't accuse specific emperors of religious intolerance, but only gives the facts. And then we can have another section that discusses what historians have made of the facts. Was Constantine I intolerant towards the pagans (because Christianity is per see intolerant, as Gibbon appears to argue), or was he a cunning politician who used violent rhetorics to keep the Christians militants quiet, as H.A.Drake argue: "To read Constantine's writings is, thus, to read a casebook study in how to neutralize militant groups." (p.22) Like the whole Christian debate on persecution and toleration, this is an interesting topic - as soon as you step outside the black and white frame of tolerant Pagans and persecuting Christians or vice versa. Zara1709 (talk) 02:03, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

We'll work on it. As a note to all of you: instead of sitting around here complaining, please give some suggestions, like Zara did, and do something yourself. BlackPearl14 [ talkies!•contribs! ]

Sibylline Oracles
The Sibylline oracles were sacred texts in Roman polytheism. I hope someone with more expertise and time can expand upon the subject.--71.107.216.168 (talk) 03:03, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Editorial note
Having just made an edit, thought I should point out a change in user name from (user:GoldenMeadows) since last I contributed to this article. Taam (talk) 20:38, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Christian heretics were executed??
That can't be true. According to the history book by Coffey there was only ONE incident of executions for heresy in the whole late Antiquity. I can't look it up right now, but he is quite definite on it. Christians who did not conform to the "totality of the Catholic faith" were persecuted and probably killed by a mob, but they were not 'executed' as it later happened in the Middle Ages. Please be so kind and give a full quote of the passage you are referring to, Taam. I would get the book myself, but will take a few days and I can only get the German edition from the library anyway. Zara1709 (talk) 14:19, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Zara, the passage reads as follows : "The State Church...What a revolution! In less than a century the persecuted Church had become a persecuting church. It's enemies, the "heretics" (those who "selected" from the totality of the Catholic faith), were now also the enemies of the empire and were punished accordingly. For the first time Christians killed other Christians because of the differences in their views of the faith. This is what happened in Trier in 285 {n.b typo is in original text}: despite many objections, the ascetic and enthusiastic lay preacher Priscillian was executed for heresy together with six companions. People soon became quite accustomed to this idea." The copy I have is a translation so if when you check the German edition you find an ambiguity has been introducd then of course change the text, but at present I read it as the State Church rather than mobs of Christians acting without any authority. Taam (talk) 14:40, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, there is ONLY THIS ONE CASE. This is why Coffey wrote something like: In the late Antiquity the execution of heretics was very rare indeed, this is the only certain case. The whole *execution for heresy thing* didn't start until 1022, against the Cathars, I think. This doesn't mean that Christian heretics were not persecuted in the late antiquity, but most often they were not "executed". I'll remove the sentence from the lead. If you think that this is important (what I suppose you do), you might want to add it back in at the bottom of the page, under evaluation. This is an 'interesting' viewpoint, but it is an evaluation after all. Küng is quite notable as theologian, so it would be notable - but this "quite soon" really irritates me. I mean, there must be at least a 600 year gap between Priscillan and the time when executions for heresy became common.  Zara1709 (talk) 14:55, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't include it all if it was only Kungs poorly translated opinion that seems to indicate a much more widespread practice than what actually happened. On the issue of the execution of Priscillian and six companions, yes I would mention this within the main body of the article because it marks a turning point. Taam (talk) 15:02, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * This whole article is poor and betrays Wikipedia's primary weakness: the bias of its editors. Somebody needs to undertake a full-scale cleanup/rewrite. את אמא כל כך שמנה, היא יושבת ליד כולם (talk) 22:54, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Change of title ?
Any objection to changing the title to "Religious persecution in the Roman Empire". Originally the focus of the article was on the suppression of paganism but at some point it was changed, without consultation, to the present title. There needs to be less detail relating to the suppression of paganism (transfer to its own article) and more higher level info on the issues relating to the persecution of Christians, Jews, pagans. ma&#39;at (talk) 16:06, 30 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Regarding your second point, could you elaborate a bit what it is you want done? I am not quite sure I follow your meaning. --Saddhiyama (talk) 19:34, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that most of present article content is focussed on the suppression of paganism (really needs its own article) whereas the existing title indicates a more comprehensive treatment including all the main groups that were subject to coercion and so on.. This would include, for example, the various groups considered "heretics". It would not be possible imo to go into any great detail due to size considerations but it might be useful to give a fuller account for the motives behind the persecutions to get the bigger picture and leave daughter articles for the details. ma&#39;at (talk) 15:21, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Merging "Persecution of Pagans in the Late Roman Empire"
Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire is a separate article that is redundant in scope with this one. I think we reached an agreement on its talk page that it is a content fork. I would like to propose merging the relevant information from "Persecution of Pagans" into this one. This article can house a high-level summary of anti-pagan policies in chronological order, and then link to relevant sub-articles (e.g., "Religious Policies of Constantine") for readers to find more historical background and detail. — Uiscefada (talk) 13:04, 12 April 2022 (UTC)