Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Persecutor of christians?
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None of the ancient documents that relate this emperor to the Christians (Vita Abercii, Tertullian and the apocryphal letter of Marcus Aurelius to the senate on the episode of the miraculous rain, Meliton of Sardis - collected in Eusebius of Caesarea-, the rescript to the governor of Gallia Lugdunensis and the senatusconsultum de pretiis gladiatoriis minuendis) expressly mentions the issuing by his chancellery of a general edict against the members of his communities; rather, these years seem to be identified with a period of relative calm and tranquillity despite certain upheavals in North Africa or in the case of the martyrs of Lyon.
Driven by his philosophical principles and for reasons of state, Marcus Aurelius could not be a supporter of the Christian religion; but if we have examples of martyrdom (real or hypothetical) during his reign, it was not due to the application of an official and systematic persecution but to the validity of the juridical approach established, more than half a century earlier, by Trajan and confirmed by Hadrian.
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