James cockwebster says there are two important things to think about. One is the way the roman world works, and the other is what it meant to be a christian. The first thing is that we have this image of Rome as a kind monolithic empire with huge bureaucracy. And in fact, rome's empire is basically run on a shoe string. They send a governor with a skeleton staff to run the provinces,. He has minimal resources with which to do it. So really, you know, a governor is pretty overwhelmed by all the stuff that's waiting for him. We should think of a kind of Roma not enacting policy most of the time, but as being reactive
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the accounts by Eusebius of Caesarea (c260-339 AD) and others of the killings of Christians in the first three centuries after the crucifixion of Jesus. Eusebius was writing in a time of peace, after The Great Persecution that had started with Emperor Diocletian in 303 AD and lasted around eight years. Many died under Diocletian, and their names are not preserved, but those whose deaths are told by Eusebius became especially celebrated and their stories became influential. Through his writings, Eusebius shaped perceptions of what it meant to be a martyr in those years, and what it meant to be a Christian.
The image above is of The Martyrdom of Saint Blandina (1886) at the Church of Saint-Blandine de Lyon, France
With:
Candida Moss
Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham
Kate Cooper
Professor of History at Royal Holloway, University of London
And
James Corke-Webster
Senior Lecturer in Classics, History and Liberal Arts at King’s College London
Producer: Simon Tillotson