Justin Welby: babies and bathwater

Don’t throw the belief out with the religion

“One spring day in 203 AD, a young Roman woman, mother of a small baby, was thrown to the wild beasts in an amphitheatre not unlike [Nîmes]. She was taunted, she was whipped and maimed by the animals, but not killed. The gladiator came to finish her off, and after one painful mis-hit, she calmly took his blade in her hands and guided it to her throat.

“Her name was Vibia Perpetua. Her crime was to be a Christian.

“This was Romans attacking Romans. We tend to assume that the Romans loved the spectacle of Christians being thrown to the lions in the amphitheatre, but it really wasn’t that simple.

“It’s hardly surprising that her prosecutor tried to get her to think of her young baby and to recant her faith; and it’s hardly surprising that the crowd, as they watched Perpetua die, both jeered … and shuddered.”

Mary Beard, “Why Did The Roman Empire Collapse?”