Drich,
No one is claiming that the Romans practiced 21st-centry Western religious tolerance; rather, what modern scholars are claiming is that, 1) The Roman persecution of the early Christian communities was episodic and not widespread, 2) the persecutions were more for political reasons and not religious, and 3) of those Christians who were persecuted, just as many recanted and lived as those whom the Empire executed. And, finally, #4, the early Christian communities embellished and exaggerated the extent of the Roman persecutions.
Dawn
No one is claiming that the Romans practiced 21st-centry Western religious tolerance; rather, what modern scholars are claiming is that, 1) The Roman persecution of the early Christian communities was episodic and not widespread, 2) the persecutions were more for political reasons and not religious, and 3) of those Christians who were persecuted, just as many recanted and lived as those whom the Empire executed. And, finally, #4, the early Christian communities embellished and exaggerated the extent of the Roman persecutions.
Dawn
