Reasons for Roman Persecution

Opponents of Constantine argue that the Roman persecution of Christians had nothing to do with theology, but with the welfare of the state:

“Christians were a threat to peace and security because they were a pollution that aroused the wrath of the gods. Romans sacrificed Christians to protect Rome by fending off the unthinkable prospect of the end of sacrifice (27).”

But as Leithart observes, “to do political theology without attention to historical context and circumstance is to replace a Christian political thought with a Platonic one (29).” In other words, to assume the Roman persecution had nothing to do with the theology of the early church is to miss the complexity of the Roman Empire in the early fourth century (29).