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Why Were So Few Christians Crucified?

van Wingerden,Ruben
Abstract
Despite the presumed prominence of crucifixions of Christians in Early Christianity, we have a surprising lack of sources on crucified Christians. While recent research collected a mere six sources – but not all are agreed upon – one would expect many more instances: crucified like Jesus Christ would be the summum of the Imitatio Christi! Curiously, the reason why we have so few sources on crucified Christians is not addressed. In this short note, I suggest two answers: (1) Perhaps crucifixion was not as common as modern scholars tend to assume, and (2) because crucifixion was reserved for slaves, rebels and peregrini, the great spread of Roman citizenship in the third century likely reduced the chance of crucifixion.
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2023-06-01
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Tilburg University Research Output Collection
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Keywords
Early Christianity, Nero, Peter, crucifixion, martyrdom
Citation
van Wingerden, R 2023, 'Why Were So Few Christians Crucified?', NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion, vol. 77, no. 2, pp. 86-95. https://doi.org/10.5117/NTT2023.2.002.WING
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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14602/78939
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