Religious tolerance in the Roman Empire

Textbooks about antiquity usually deal with religion in the Roman Empire. But they usually do not have long discussions about religious toleration. A German textbook from Bavaria is an exception. It says that religious toleration helped the Romans to rule over conquered peoples, and it stresses two main points. Firstly, that the Romans allowed these people to worship their gods. And secondly, that the Romans often saw the other gods as versions of their own gods, just as they thought that Gallic god Teutates (Toutatis) was the equal of Roman main god Jupiter. On the other hand, this textbook does not turn much attention to the often problematic relations between Jews and Romans. In the same time, there are separate chapters about the relations of the Romans with Germanic peoples and also about Christianity. Jews are discussed in a special chapter only during the Medieval time.

Christianity in the Roman Empire: the context

The early days and spread of Christianity are among the most popular topics in European history textbooks. They usually describe differences between Christianity and Judaism. Sometimes, they also mention hostile relations between Jews and early Christians. Similarly, most textbooks describe relations between Christians and non-Christian Romans as hostile. As we can see, persecutions of Christians are often stressed in textbooks, perhaps giving an impression that they were persecuted all the time. But there are some textbooks that deal with these relations in more detail. They state that in most times, Christians and non-Christians coexisted peacefully. Another important topic is the rise of the Christianity in the 4th century, when it became Rome’s state religion. Some textbooks do not describe how this affected other religions. Most of the textbooks say that other religions were forbidden. But only very few of them specify the impact of the forbidding to these religions.