‘The Persecution of Christians from Nero to Hadrian' By James Harrison

https://www.academia.edu/144867811/_The_Persecution_of_Christians_from_Nero_to_Hadrian?nav_from=697b12cb-0669-447c-b04f-ba2b935d1998 The persecution of Christians has become hot property in academic circles once again with the publication of Candida Moss’s 2013 book The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom. At one level, interest in the persecution of the early believers and their successors has never waned. The popular book of the English historian and martyrologist, John Foxe (1517–1587), has been in print and read continuously since its original 1568 publication. However, the provocative thesis of Moss, beyond the scope of this chapter to investigate, has grabbed the attention of the popular media and has posed the question anew regarding the motivations for the persecution of the early Christians, the extent of its occurrence under the Roman empire, and the veracity of the later Christian martyrological accounts. Moss argues that Christians “were very rarely the victims of imperial persecution.” In many respects, Moss has revived the famous critique of the Christian persecutions by the Roman historian, Edward Gibbon (1737–1794). This book chapter explores the evidence for the persecution of the first believers from Nero until the reign of Hadrian. ...