Università Roma Tre

The course intends to analyze the problem of the legal basis of persecutions against the Christians. It is divided into two parts, dedicated respectively to the examination of the sources, where the ‘persecutiones’ fron the 1st to the 4th century A.D. appear to be founded on simple belonging to the ‘nomen Christianum’; the second, aimed at reconstructing in detail the text of the four edicts – or, more probably, of the single ‘edictum’ – with which Diocletian unleashed the last persecution in 303 A.D.

M.U. Sperandio, ‘Nomen Christianum’. La persecuzione come guerra al nome cristiano, Torino, Giappichelli, 2009;
M.U.Sperandio, Diocleziano e i cristiani. Diritto, religione, politica nell'era dei martiri, Napoli, Jovene, 2013