Laws Ending Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire

Questions for Further Study

• 1. Religion historically has often served as the “glue” that held the social order together, uniting people in a set of common beliefs and practices. To what extent did religion serve such a purpose in the Roman Empire? How successful was it in doing so?
• 2. Defend or refute the following statement: Laws ending the persecution of Christians were less the result of a new tolerance for Christian belief and more the result of political infighting and rivalries within the Roman Empire.
• 3. Why were Christians persecuted in the Roman Empire prior to the laws ending persecution? What did authorities, particularly in the empire's cities, find offensive about Christians and Christianity?
• 4. Later Christians wrote documents that belonged to a genre called hagiography. This type of writing, literally, was about Christian saints, but the term also connoted the development of legends and stories designed to inspire Christians by focusing on the miracles and martyrdom of early Christian saints. To what extent did the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire contribute to the development of hagiography and to Christian legend?
• 5. The Roman Empire distinguished between private religious beliefs and public religious practices. To what extent does this distinction between public and private in matters of religion continue to be debated in the modern world?