Dr. David Gwynn

But most importantly, up until the beginning of the 3rd century crisis, the Christians had never been systematically attacked by emperors.

They were always regarded as suspect.

They could be attacked if there was a particular reason, such as Nero needing someone to blame for when Rome burnt down.

But the overall imperial policy in the first two centuries AD is the one laid down to Pliny the Younger by Trajan.

which is that Christians are illegal.

If you ask someone if they're Christian and they repeatedly say, yes, they die, but don't go looking.

As Trajan famously told, we're not hunting them down and we're not interested in anonymous claims that, oh, my neighbor's Christian.

But if a Christian is brought forward, you can be killed for just being a Christian, not for any other reason.

So they are certainly suspect.

but they haven't been systematically attacked.

That changed in the middle years of the third century crisis.

Above all, because one of the basic religious principles of the ancient world is when things are going wrong, the gods, the goddesses must be angry.

What's brought down divine wrath?

It's a concept sometimes best summarized as the Pax Deorum, the peace of the gods.

If you break the Pax Deorum, the gods punish you.

Well, around the year 250, the Roman Emperor Decius, who was facing major problems in every direction, decided he had to address this problem of divine anger.

We don't actually think he meant to persecute Christians.

What he did was pass an edict ordering everyone to sacrifice to the gods across the empire.

It turned into the first great empire-wide attack on Christians when the Christians refused to do it because, of course, Christians won't sacrifice to the ancient gods and goddesses.

So you have a short-lived persecution by Decius around 250, which was ended because Decius was killed by the Goths in 251.