The Christianizing Empire | Prof. Thomas Clemmons
The Thomistic Institute
The Thomistic Institute
4.8 • 873 Ratings
🗓️ 18 August 2022
⏱️ 55 minutes
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Summary
This lecture was given on June 14, 2022 at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. as part of The Civitas Dei Summer Fellowship: "The City of God in Modernity: Culture and Ecclesiology." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Thomas Clemmons, a native of South Florida, is assistant professor of theology in Church History at the Catholic University of America. Dr. Clemmons joined the STRS faculty in 2016 after completing his Ph.D. in the History of Christianity from Notre Dame, where he focused on Latin Patristics, early medieval theology, and Augustine. He also holds an M.A. in Early Christianity from Notre Dame and an M.T.S. from Vanderbilt. Dr. Clemmons’s teaching and research interest focus on Latin Patristics, Augustine, particularly his thought through the Confessions and his anti-Manichaean works, Late Antiquity, especially in North Africa, and the medieval reception of Augustine.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This talk is brought to you by the Tamistic Institute. |
| 0:04.0 | For more talks like this, visit us at Tamistic Institute.org. |
| 0:08.0 | In February of 303, Diocletian published his Edith against the Christians. |
| 0:17.0 | Prior to this, Diocletian had issued imperial condemnations against the Manichaeans and seeming other Christians in 298-299. |
| 0:25.2 | These persecutions were explicitly aimed at the destruction of Christianity. |
| 0:30.5 | Diocletian ordered the raising of churches, the burning of Bibles, and the arrest of clerics. |
| 0:34.9 | Much as in the Valerian persecution of 257, Diocletian seized ecclesiastical land and buildings and the arrest of clerics. Much as in the Valerian persecution of 257, |
| 0:37.6 | Diocletian seized ecclesiastical land and buildings |
| 0:40.9 | and the property of clerics. |
| 0:43.3 | In addition, Diocletian prohibited Christians |
| 0:45.7 | from celebrating liturgies and from worship. |
| 0:49.0 | He also removed the rights of Christians |
| 0:50.6 | to defend themselves in court |
| 0:52.4 | and withdrew citizenship rights from elite Christians and re-enslaved Christian Friedman. |
| 0:57.0 | The penalty of being a Christian was beyond social stigmatization. |
| 1:01.0 | It was to the complete removal of the Christian's rights to a trial, property, and ownership, as well as bodily integrity, |
| 1:09.0 | for a citizen had the right to demand a trial |
| 1:11.6 | and a freedom for physical torture. Justice St. Paul, famously in Acts did. When citizenship |
| 1:17.7 | is revoked, the Christian no longer had the right to claim a trial, and the right to not be |
| 1:22.7 | tortured was removed. While Diocletian recommended this persecution, called the Great Persecution, |
| 1:29.3 | take place without bloodshed, his co-emperor, Galerius, urged that Christians be burned alive. |
| 1:36.7 | Many Christians throughout the Eastern Roman Empire, North Africa, and the Balkans, North Italy, |
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