Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Grim topic, apologies.

Burning at the stake was practiced in Antiquity, before the Church. What were the first recorded burnings of "heretics" by the Christians? The timeframe I'm interested in is 100-300 AD and specified heretics preferred.

Some early Xian atrocities listed here:
https://churchandstate.org.uk/2016/06/c ... rsecution/

billd89 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 05, 2022 12:14 pm Grim topic, apologies.

Burning at the stake was practiced in Antiquity, before the Church. What were the first recorded burnings of "heretics" by the Christians? The timeframe I'm interested in is 100-300 AD and specified heretics preferred.

Some early Xian atrocities listed here:
https://churchandstate.org.uk/2016/06/c ... rsecution/

Your link is to this source:
Vlasis Rassias, Demolish Them!… published in Greek, Athens 1994,
Diipetes Editions, ISBN 960-85311-3-6.
and it covers the years from 314 to 988 CE starting with:


Some historians name Constantine as being the one who introduced the burning of people into the Roman law codes. The earliest such law code I am aware of is this:

billd89 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 05, 2022 12:14 pm Grim topic, apologies.

Burning at the stake was practiced in Antiquity, before the Church. What were the first recorded burnings of "heretics" by the Christians? The timeframe I'm interested in is 100-300 AD and specified heretics preferred.

Some early Xian atrocities listed here:
https://churchandstate.org.uk/2016/06/c ... rsecution/

Grim response, my apologies. Since in the recent past you refused to condemn left-wing terrorists that fire-bomb pro-life offices, I now wonder do you support the burning of Christian Trump supporters at the stake?

Polycarp of Smyrna was burnt at the stake in 155 CE. It was done not by Christians but rather by left-wing pagan worshipers.

John T wrote: ↑Fri Aug 05, 2022 5:16 pm It was done not by Christians but rather by left-wing pagan worshipers.

Why call them left-wing?

John T wrote: ↑Fri Aug 05, 2022 5:16 pmPolycarp of Smyrna was burnt at the stake in 155 CE.

The historical integrity of all such Christian martyrologies is highly suspect and IMO is equivalent to "Fake News" (like fraudulent federal US ballot summaries).

Technically - according to the Martyrdom of Polycarp (see WACE) - his death was not by burning but rather instead he was stabbed because "the fire failed to consume his body."

ABuddhist wrote: ↑Fri Aug 05, 2022 5:28 pm

John T wrote: ↑Fri Aug 05, 2022 5:16 pm It was done not by Christians but rather by left-wing pagan worshipers.

Why call them left-wing?

That's what hateful right-wing evangelicals do, they associate Evil with left-wing - because their "Christianity" is not settled in faith that comes from love, but in politics that come from "religion"

mlinssen wrote: ↑Fri Aug 05, 2022 8:46 pm
That's what hateful right-wing evangelicals do, they associate Evil with left-wing - because their "Christianity" is not settled in faith that comes from love, but in politics that come from "religion"

So, you are saying all pagan worshipers are right-wing?
Emperors like Nero who burn Christians alive were right-wing?

Anarchists are extreme right-wing and very much evil.

Rome during the fore-mention time period (100-300 CE) was pro-pagan and anti-Christian.
The government of Rome was a political force. Where they left-wing or right-wing?

Of course there was no such thing as Christian martyrdom before the rule of Decius, even maybe Diocletian, as already figured by Stuart G. Waugh; and this was for thre refusal to sacrifice to certain gods in times of war, not for any particularity of Christian faith.

The onebiggest lie of Hollywood is of course that of Nero's measures against Christians.

I can't find any examples of a Christian government killing by burning a heretic before the year 1000 CE. (I am excluding death by burning for offences other than heresy and execution for heresy by means other than burning. )

After 1000 we have examples in East and West. Basil the Bogomil was burnt in 1110 in Byzantium.
In 1022 supposed heretics were apparently burnt in Orleans.
The routine use of this method of execution for heresy develops in the West in the late 1100's.

Andrew Criddle

John T wrote: ↑Sat Aug 06, 2022 3:11 am

mlinssen wrote: ↑Fri Aug 05, 2022 8:46 pm
That's what hateful right-wing evangelicals do, they associate Evil with left-wing - because their "Christianity" is not settled in faith that comes from love, but in politics that come from "religion"

So, you are saying all pagan worshipers are right-wing?
Emperors like Nero who burn Christians alive were right-wing?

Anarchists are extreme right-wing and very much evil.

Rome during the fore-mention time period (100-300 CE) was pro-pagan and anti-Christian.
The government of Rome was a political force. Where they left-wing or right-wing?

mlinssen is claiming to explain your views, not to believe your views. You are free to explain to us why you described a certain group of pagans as left-wing here:

John T wrote: ↑Fri Aug 05, 2022 5:16 pm It was done not by Christians but rather by left-wing pagan worshipers.