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The Myth of Persecution : How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom by Candida R. Moss is a history book available to read on EtoBox.

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In The Myth of Persecution , Candida Moss, a leading expert on early Christianity, reveals how the early church exaggerated, invented, and forged stories of Christian martyrs and how the dangerous legacy of a martyrdom complex is employed today to silence dissent and galvanize a new generation of culture warriors. According to cherished church tradition and popular belief, before the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in the fourth century, early Christians were systematically persecuted by a brutal Roman Empire intent on their destruction. As the story goes, vast numbers of believers were thrown to the lions, tortured, or burned alive because they refused to renounce Christ. These saints, Christianity's inspirational heroes, are still venerated today. Moss, however, exposes that the 'Age of Martyrs' is a fiction--there was no sustained 300-year-long effort by the Romans to persecute Christians. Instead, these stories were pious exaggerations; highly stylized rewritings of Jewish, Greek, and Roman noble death traditions; and even forgeries designed to marginalize heretics, inspire the faithful, and fund churches. The traditional story of persecution is still taught in Sund

Who reads The Myth of Persecution : How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom?

Author

Candida R. Moss

Publisher

HarperCollins Publishers

Published

2013

Language

EN

ISBN

9780062104557

Category

history

Subjects

History, Christian, Religion

Rating

3.83 / 5 (236 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-13