• PugJesus@piefed.socialOPMEnglish
    10·
    1 month ago

    Explanation: One of the slanders regularly leveled against Early Christianity by Romans was the charge of atheism.

    However, to the Romans, this had a somewhat different meaning - the gods didn’t care if you believed in them, but refusing to perform rituals by their name was dangerous - even if you don’t believe, if you’re unwilling to do something as part of the community, you may risk their wrath - or else you mark yourself as in some way anti-social. That Christians refused to do this in the name of the traditional gods was consider being without gods. Just light the incense and say the words, pal! You have every other day of the year to not care about the gods!

    Emphasizing this difference of definition, numerous Romans and provincials were atheists by modern definition - ‘not believing in the existence of deities’. The Late Republican politician Cicero, for example, would be an agnostic or atheist by modern definitions… yet was elected as a priest and performed his duties there all the same! What did it matter if you believe, so long as you make the sacrifices properly? Does that tax man care if you ‘believe’ in taxes, so long as you pay him? Give unto the gods what is owed to the gods!

    The Romans were very fond of slander and reputational damage as a means of attacking one’s enemies. For most of the Empire, the only directly religiously-related legal charge that could be leveled was that of refusing to make oaths of loyalty to the Empire, which were accompanied by sacrifices and invocation of Roman gods, regardless of whether or not you believed in them. Sometimes Christians were spared this obligation, sometimes they were not.

    Christianity, however, managed to run afoul of the law (or what passed for it) by several other charges, however, almost always presented by provincial and local governments, rather than the Empire. Most commonly ‘obstinacy’ (read: “Any provincial not doing what a governor demanded of them”), various charges of conspiracy (“We TOLD you that you CAN’T gather in secret. Gathering in public? That sounds dangerous too!”), and witchcraft (yes, an actual charge - though infamously difficult to prosecute under Roman law).

    • CanadaPlus@futurology.todayEnglish
      3·
      1 month ago

      and witchcraft (yes, an actual charge - though infamously difficult to prosecute under Roman law).

      Oooh interesting. Why was that?

      • PugJesus@piefed.socialOPMEnglish
        2·
        1 month ago

        The simple question that later European witch-hunts often failed to ask.

        How can you prove it?

        If you could gather up the same level of evidence that someone had been practicing witchcraft, in the context you specified, as you could with any other crime, you could get someone condemned.

        If memory serves, poisoning was prosecuted under the same law/name, despite the much, uh, clearer cause-and-effect of poisoning, so even when the law comes up, it’s not always related to magic.

        But if you couldn’t prove that they were practicing it, just that someone was in the area? If you couldn’t prove that they were practicing witchcraft, and not perfectly licit rituals (“What’s the difference?”, you ask? Whatever sounds most convincing. “This is an old and honored practice performed by our forefathers, and I can prove it” is convincing), if you couldn’t prove that the rituals were used or meant to harm you or someone else?

        And what is your proof? Do you have a confession? Intent? Can you prove they had the ability to do so? Can any proof be credibly argued to be forged by someone else, even if not necessarily you? Witnesses? Did the witnesses actually see the crime in action, not just its effects? Are the witnesses reliable? Roman law was all about credibility of testimony, to an insane degree.

        Witchcraft was criminal, so it had high standards for obtaining a conviction, and most often, when you see actual successful prosecution of witchcraft in the Empire or Late Republic, it’s just one accusation out of many, the sort of “And you can SEE this person is the kind of fellow to do these horrible things, because they TRIED witchcraft too!” more than an attempt to actually prove the individual charge - an attempt to lend credence to the other charges by circumstantial evidence (which was not invalid by Roman law).

        Most Roman law was civil rather than criminal, and that was much more “He-said-she-said”, where whoever had the better argument would come out the victor. That being said, if both parties were credible and no clear evidence in a civil trial presented, oftentimes the defendant would just be asked to take a public oath that they were innocent of what they were accused of, and that would be the end of it. After all, a good, upstanding citizen wouldn’t ruin their reputation and risk the wrath of the gods on their head, would they?