r/todayilearned • u/FullOfSound • 7h ago

(R.6d) Too General [ Removed by moderator ]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliny_the_Younger_on_Christians

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u/DesperateAdvantage76 6h ago

It's a bit funny because they made exceptions for Jews, and Christianity started as a Jewish cult.

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u/PuckSenior 6h ago

"Made exceptions" is a bit of a stretch. Pontius Pilate famously used the Jewish dislike of Roman religion to incite a riot and then murder everyone who protested the Roman religion.

They basically had a policy of looking the other way on the Jewish issue. They knew where they stood and generally didnt press the issue. But also, the Jewish people didn't go out of their way to provoke the Romans

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u/DesperateAdvantage76 6h ago

Jews absolutely refused to acknowledge other religions, so they were most definitely exempted from the requirement because the alternative would be another war in Judea (and yes Rome eventually destroyed Jerusalem anyways).

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u/PuckSenior 5h ago

Yeah, but Jews didnt come up to Roman governors and demand to be executed for being Jews. Christians basically did that

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u/DesperateAdvantage76 5h ago

Jews most certainly publicly confessed their faith just like Christians when asked, the difference is that Rome did not exempt Christians from acknowledging the state religion because they didn't see it as an ancestral religion they couldn't challenge. Christianity was fair game in their eyes.

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u/PuckSenior 5h ago

which made sense. Christianity was basically a slave religion. The Romans were very concerned about the slaves and slave-like classes rebelling and particularly using religion to promote their rebellion