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33 BCE
Jesus of Nazareth
- first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader and figure of Christianity
- Christians believe he is the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited Messiah
- all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically
- he preached orally and was arrested and tried by the Jewish authorities and turned over to the Roman government
- he was crucified on the order of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect and after his death, his followers believed he rose from the dead 3 days later
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63
Rome Rule of Israel (begins)
- Mattathias Antigonus defeat and death brought Hasmonean rule to an end and the Land became a province of the Roman Empire
- Herod did many things in his life but failed to win the trust of his Jewish subjects
- hundreds of thousands of Jews died in the siege of Jerusalem and many more were sold into slavery
- even though the temple was destroyed the Jews and Judaism survived the encounter with Rome
- the cities were regained but also renamed Judea was Palaestinia and Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina
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64
Paul of Tarsus
- was an apostle who taught the gospel of Christ to the world
- he founded several churches in Asia Minor and Europe and he was both a Jew and a Roman citizen
- Paul was struck blind after he saw Jesus but after three days his sight was restored by Ananias of Damascus and Paul began to preach that Jesus is the Son of God
- Approximately half of the book of Acts deals with Paul's life and works
- It was almost accepted that Paul was the author of Hebrews but that view is now rejected by scholars
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64
Great Fire of Rome
- Began in the merchant shops around the Circus Maximus
- The fire lasted 6 days and 7 nights
- Nero blamed the fire on the Christian community which led to the persecution of the Christian's
- Gangs would spread the flames throughout the empire and also stop people from trying to put out the fire
- Out of Rome's 14 districts, 3 were completely destroyed, 7 were reduced to scorched ruins and only 4 escaped the damage
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182
Perpetua
- she was a Christian in the African city of Carthage
- Roman authorities arrested her and her friends for refusing to worship what the empire wanted
- she was baptized in prison and she kept her baby with her most of the time she was there
- she had a vision she climbed a ladder to heaven and saw God and she shared her vision with her brother that she had stayed loyal to Christianity
- she was stabbed between the ribs by a gladiator but she didn't die so she brought the blade to her own throat
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303
Great Persecution of 303 CE
- Diocles was a Roman emperor and in his reign he was known for the last great persecution of the Christians
- a series of edicts was made rescinding Christians' legal rights and demanding that they comply with traditional religious practices
- churches to split between those who had complied with imperial authority and those who had remained "pure"
- 3,000−3,500 Christians were executed under the Imperial edicts.
- Constantine and Licinius's Edict of Milan marked the end of the persecution
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306
Constantine the Great
- a Roman Emperor who ruled between 306 and 337 AD
- in 305, Constantius was raised to the rank of Augustus, senior western emperor
- he was victorious in war against emperors Maxentius and Licinius and became sole ruler of both west and east by 324 AD.
- he was the first emperor to convert to Christianity
- Constantine died soon after at a suburban villa called Achyron, on the last day of the fifty-day festival of Pentecost directly following Pascha (or Easter)
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312
Battle of Milvian Bridge
- between the Roman Emperors Constantine I and Maxentius
- Constantine won the battle and started on the path that led him to end the Tetrarchy and become the sole ruler of the Roman Empire while Maxentius drowned in the Tiber during the battle
- Maxentius' body was decapitated and his head was paraded through the streets of Rome
- the causes of the battle were the rivalries inherent in Diocletian's Tetrarchy
- Constantine had a vision before battle which led him to fight under the Christian God
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313
Edict of Milan
- a letter signed by the Roman emperors Constantine and Licinius that proclaimed religious toleration in the Roman Empire
- this letter put an end to the persecution of Christians
- the exact words of the edict aren't known
- there began a period when Constantine granted favors to the Christian Church and its members
- feud rose between them and after many peace attempts and a battle between them Licinius was defeated and hung to death
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347
Emperor Theodosius
- Roman Emperor from 379 to 395, and the last emperor to rule over both the Eastern and the Western halves of the Roman Empire
- campaigned against Goths and other barbarians who had invaded the Empire
- fought two destructive civil wars, successively defeating the usurpers Magnus Maximus in 387–388 and Eugenius in 394
- In 393 he banned the pagan rituals of the Olympics in Ancient Greece
- after his death his sons Arcadius and Honorius inherited the east and west halves of the empire
