Cristofobia e Perseguição: entre usos e interpretações dos atos de perseguição aos Cristãos na Antiguidade

Christophobia and Persecution: Between Uses and Interpretations of the Acts of Persecution of Christians in Antiquity

Abstract

The Persecution of Christians is seen by religious groups as part of a single meta-narrative of Salvation History that would unite the past, the present and future of the “Persecuted Chuch”. In this view, the argument about “Christianophobia” – the notion that there would be persecutions of Christians in the Contemporary World – gained prominence in political discussion in Brazil nowadays. In this article, we aim to outline the fundamentals of persecution acts against Christians in the Roman Empire as a way of deconstructing the anachronistic interpretation that blends, in a single account, the persecutions in Antiquity to a contemporary “Christianophobia”.