Empire and Saints: Roman Control in the Christian Context from Nero to Constantine (2012)

Undergraduate: Lawson Kuehnert

Faculty Advisor: Richard Talbert
Department: History

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The origins of the Christian church, its growth and persecution, and its relationship with Rome have been the subject of longstanding scholarly debate since at least Gibbon’s critique of Christianity in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Ironically, the academic interest surrounding early Christianity, especially in the years before the persecution of Decius, is largely an effect of the tremendous growth of the “sect” (McKechnie, 39) after the Edict of Milan and is markedly disproportionate to the religion’s relative importance in the empire from c.30-300. Still, the Romans could not and did not ignore the Christians, and they were compelled to find ways to control, either passively or actively, the adherents of the proselytizing faith. Roman control of early Christianity was motivated by a concern for both pagan discontent and the identity of Christianity, and the means of control, although initially reactionary and deliberately vague, became more definitive and aggressive in the 3rd century. The Romans approached the Christian “problem” as they did all other potential threats to their control: in proportion to its danger. Until Christianity became an empire-wide threat, Rome did not see it worthy of an empire-wide response: control was variegated according to time period, geographical location, and such variables as the disposition of the local pagans toward the sect, the attitude of the provincial governor, and the audacity of local Christians.