Split of Early Christianity and Judaism - Status Under Roman Law

Status Under Roman Law

During the late 1st century, Rome considered Judaism a legitimate religion, with protections and exemptions under Roman law that had been negotiated over two centuries (see also Anti-Judaism in the pre-Christian Roman Empire). Observant Jews had special rights, including the privilege of abstaining from the civic rites of ancient Roman religion. Failure to support public religion could otherwise be viewed as treasonous, since the Romans regarded their traditional religion as necessary for preserving the stability and prosperity of the state (see Religio and the state).

Christianity at first had been regarded by the Romans as a sect of Judaism, but eventually as a distinct religion requiring separate legal provisions. The distinction between Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism was recognized by the emperor Nerva around the year 98 in a decree granting Christians an exemption from paying the Fiscus Iudaicus, the annual tax upon the Jews. From that time, Roman literary sources begin to distinguish between Christians and Jews. In his letters to Trajan, Pliny assumes that Christians are not Jews because they do not pay the tax. Since paying taxes had been one of the ways that Jews demonstrated their goodwill and loyalty toward the Empire, Christians were left to negotiate their own alternatives to participating in Imperial cult; their inability or refusal to do so resulted at times in martyrdom and persecution. The Church Father Tertullian, for instance, had attempted to argue that Christianity was not inherently treasonous, and that Christians could offer their own form of prayer for the wellbeing of the emperor. Christianity was formally recognized as a legitimate religion by the Edict of Milan in 313.