Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire

Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire began during the reign of Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) in the military colony of Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), when he destroyed a pagan temple for the purpose of constructing a Christian church.^[1] Rome had periodically confiscated church properties, and Constantine was vigorous in reclaiming them whenever these issues were brought to his attention.^[2] Christian historians alleged that Hadrian (2nd century) had constructed a temple to Venus on the site of the crucifixion of Jesus on Golgotha hill in order to suppress Christian veneration there. Constantine used that to justify the temple's destruction, saying he was simply reclaiming the property.^[3][4][5][6] Using the vocabulary of reclamation, Constantine acquired several more sites of Christian significance in the Holy Land.^[3]

From 313, with the exception of the brief reign of Julian, non-Christians were subject to a variety of hostile and discriminatory imperial laws aimed at suppressing sacrifice and magic and closing any temples that continued their use. The majority of these laws were local, though some were thought to be valid across the whole empire, with some threatening the death penalty, but not resulting in action. None seem to have been effectively applied empire-wide. For example, in 341, Constantine's son Constantius II enacted legislation forbidding pagan sacrifices in Roman Italy. In 356, he issued two more laws forbidding sacrifice and the worship of images, making them capital crimes, as well as ordering the closing of all temples. There is no evidence of the death penalty being carried out for illegal sacrifices before Tiberius Constantine (r. 578–582), and most temples remained open into the reign of Justinian I (r. 527–565). Pagan teachers (who included philosophers) were banned and their license, parrhesia, to instruct others was withdrawn. Parrhesia had been used for a thousand years to denote "freedom of speech."^{[7][8]: 87, 93} Despite official threats, sporadic mob violence, and confiscations of temple treasures, paganism remained widespread into the early fifth century, continuing in parts of the empire into the seventh century, and into the ninth century in Greece.^[9] During the reigns of Gratian, Valentinian II and Theodosius I anti-pagan policies and their penalties increased.

By the end of the period of Antiquity and the institution of the Law Codes of Justinian, there was a shift from the generalized legislation which characterized the Theodosian Code to actions which targeted individual centers of paganism.^{[10]: 248–9} The gradual transition towards more localized action, corresponds with the period when most conversions of temples to churches were undertaken: the late 5th and 6th centuries.^[11] Chuvin says that, through the severe legislation of the early Byzantine Empire, the freedom of conscience that had been the major benchmark set by the Edict of Milan was finally abolished.^{[12]: 132–48}

Non-Christians were a small minority by the time of the last western anti-pagan laws in the early 600s. Scholars fall into two categories on how and why this dramatic change took place: the long established traditional catastrophists who view the rapid demise of paganism as occurring in the late fourth and early fifth centuries due to harsh Christian legislation and violence, and contemporary scholars who view the process as a long decline that began in the second century, before the emperors were themselves Christian, and which continued into the seventh century. This latter view contends that there was less conflict between pagans and Christians than was previously supposed.^[13] In the twenty-first century, the idea that Christianity became dominant through conflict with paganism has become marginalized, while a grassroots theory has developed.^[14][15]

In 529 CE, the Byzantine emperor Justinian ordered the closing of the Academy at Athens. The last teachers of the Academy, Damascius and Simplicius were invited by a Persian ruler Khosrow I to Harran (now in Turkey),^[16] which became a center of learning. Paganism survived in Harran until the 10th century thanks to its practitioners bribing local officials. In 933, however, they were ordered to convert. A visitor to the city in the following year found that there were still pagan religious leaders operating a remaining public temple.