1/23/2024 0 Comments Pagen culrsFor example, in 341, Constantine's son Constantius II enacted legislation forbidding pagan sacrifices in Roman Italy. None seem to have been effectively applied empire-wide. The majority of these laws were local, though some were thought to be valid across the whole empire, with some threatening the death penalty, but not resulting in action. įrom 313, with the exception of the brief reign of Julian, non-Christians were subject to a variety of hostile and discriminatory imperial laws aimed at suppressing sacrifice and magic and closing any temples that continued their use. Using the vocabulary of reclamation, Constantine acquired several more sites of Christian significance in the Holy Land. Constantine used that to justify the temple's destruction, saying he was simply reclaiming the property. Christian historians alleged that Hadrian (2nd century) had constructed a temple to Venus on the site of the crucifixion of Jesus on Golgotha hill in order to suppress Christian veneration there. Rome had periodically confiscated church properties, and Constantine was vigorous in reclaiming them whenever these issues were brought to his attention. Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire began during the reign of Constantine the Great ( r.306–337) in the military colony of Aelia Capitolina ( Jerusalem), when he destroyed a pagan temple for the purpose of constructing a Christian church. National Archaeological Museum in Athens. The Christian cross on the chin and forehead was intended to "deconsecrate" a holy pagan artifact. Late Roman Empire persecution of pagans Head of Aphrodite, 1st century AD copy of an original by Praxiteles.
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