Late Ancient Religious Violence, Martyrdom And Political Legitimacy

This thesis attempts to study the religious violence of late antiquity，analyzingthe religious violence of Christianity from the angle of the Christian martyrs，andintends to point out that the experience of martyrdom during the pagan persecutionsdetermined the ways in which later Christians would use violence under the Christianempire, And as an entry point to explain in late imperial politics, especially theimportant change on the relationship between church and state.First chapter introduces the definition of violence, the relationship betweenreligion and violence in the Roman world, and The Christian experience of violenceduring the pagan persecutions, which sparked the cult of the martyr and saints, andshaped the ideologies of martyrdom.The second chapter is the main part of the paper, with the Christianization of theRoman empire, religious violence of Christianity emerged across the empire,analyzing the Callinicum events and Ammonius events, this chapter concerns therelationship between the image of the martyrs and religion violence, The Christianexperience of violence during the pagan persecutions determined the ways in whichChristians would both use violence in fourth and fifth century, and the ideologies ofmartyrdom and persecution became a powerful means of Christianity against thegovernment. Later Julian adopted a policy of restoring the paganism, this policyforced the Christianity changed its own martyrdom theory, the standard formartyrdom also changed, the violent action became the new standard for the Christianmartyrs, religious violence became a reasonable means to fight against the enemy ofany faith, and has been recognized by the Church.From the angle of religious violence, the last chapter analyzes the politicalchanges of Christian empire, and explores a reasonable means for the imperialgovernment to suppress religious violence, but on the other hand, the relationshipbetween the church and state has changed, Christian bishops gradually took thehighest religious authority which was only owned by the emperor during the paganperiod, so the bishop had a significant influence on the maintenance of the legitimacy of the imperial government, coupled with the flexible definition of martyrdom andpersecution, the bishop took the power of religious discourse. So the government hadto endure the disorder of religious violence, this allows Christians to take violentmeans to fight against the enemies of the faith.