The Twelve Disciples created by the Jerusalem Church

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
andrewcriddle
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Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 12:36 am

Re: The Twelve Disciples created by the Jerusalem Church

Post by andrewcriddle »

Adam wrote:Andrew,
I think that in this forum with SO MANY mythicists, anti-Christians, and others who affect skepticism of Christians being persecuated, you should be more careful about your obvious use of sarcasm here--particularly in your closing sentence about the English recusants whom I assume you are saying were clearly persecuted even though their "crime" was not listed as "heresy" (being Roman Catholic) or such, but indeed persecuted nevertheless for refusing to sign a loyalty oath.
Unless you correct me by saying differently, I am stating that your view is that Christians indeed were persecuted (whether or not merely "as such" for being Christians) in the first three centuries AD of the Roman Empire (as well as in England for almost three centuries until the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829).
I would certainly say that by my definition of persecution Christians in the Roman Empire and Roman Catholics in England were persecuted. (FWIW I don't think the early 19th century situation in which Catholics could not be MPs etc was persecution. it was discrimination but not persecution.)

However one is entitled to say "what I mean by persecution is attempted genocide and things like that" and then say "by my definition Christians in Rome were not persecuted" as long as one is very clear what one is doing. The real problem comes when different meanings of a word become confused.

Andrew Criddle
andrewcriddle
Posts: 2817
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 12:36 am

Re: The Twelve Disciples created by the Jerusalem Church

Post by andrewcriddle »

Michael BG wrote:
andrewcriddle wrote: The "traditional history of Christian martyrdom" has Christians executed for refusing to take a loyalty oath to the roman emperor/and or perform a token gesture of allegiance to the official religion.
In general Christians were not executed for being Christians as such or for participating in Christian religious activities. There were exceptions (some of possibly questionable historicity) and being a Christian was often what led to one being put on trial, but there is agreement that the great majority of Christian martyrs were executed on grounds other than merely having been a Christian.

The problem is that to say that you are never being persecuted if you suffer for having genuinely deliberately broken a law is an odd definition of persecution. Applied for example to England in the 16th and 17th century it would mean that although a few Roman Catholics like Thomas More were executed for being Roman Catholics, the great majority of the Roman Catholics who were killed were lawbreakers not victims of persecution.
I don’t think Thomas More was executed for being a Catholic, he refused to accept that Parliament could make Henry VIII the head of the church in England. There were lots of Catholics who were not executed for being Catholics during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. I think everyone had to go to church once a month and if a person didn’t they were fined, but I don’t think they were executed for it. Some were executed for treason and wanting to replace Elizabeth with a Catholic monarch.

However even before the Glorious Revolution Catholics were discriminated against, but is that persecution?

I think it is strange that some people see King Charles I as a Christian martyr.
Thomas More was executed for not accepting the Royal Supremacy which it would have been impossible for him as a Roman Catholic to accept. The special issue about Thomas More is that he would have preferred to simply keep quiet about the issue (don't ask don't tell) but was not allowed this option.

Some Roman Catholic priests executed in Elizabeth's time were genuine traitors (or rebels against a false queen from their point of view) most weren't although they were clearly breaking the law.

Charles 1 could have probably saved his life by agreeing to abolish bishops.

Andrew Criddle
Last edited by andrewcriddle on Wed Oct 28, 2015 12:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
outhouse
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Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 6:48 pm

Re: The Twelve Disciples created by the Jerusalem Church

Post by outhouse »

HERE are some great resources to learn about Paul.

https://30daysofpaul.wordpress.com/start-here/
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