Persecution and the Limitsof Religious Allegiance
Persecution and the Limitsof Religious Allegiance
This chapter attempts to evaluate the degree of groupness associated with the category “Christians.” It moves from an analysis of when and how Christianness mattered at the level of the individual to an analysis of when and how Christianness was a basis for group-formation. It considers, in particular, how Christians responded when they were targeted as a group by outsiders. A review of episodes of persecution in North Africa from the end of the second until the beginning of the fourth century shows that, despite of their leaders' incitement to do so, Christians seldom opposed a communal response to the persecutors, and that a significant number of them chose to suspend, if only temporarily, their Christian membership. Additionally, when Decius gave the order that all inhabitants of the Roman Empire must sacrifice to the gods for restoration of order and security, the majority of Christians complied. They considered the sacrifice a requirement of their membership in the imperial commonwealth, and they did not activate their Christian membership in this context. On the other hand, with the emergence of the strong figure of a “monarchical bishop,” Christians began bonding around their leader.
Keywords: North African Christians, religious groups, groupness, religious allegiance, group formation, Christianness, religious persecution
Cornell Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
