Los pogroms anticristianos de Lyon (177) y Alejandría (249). Un estudio comparativo

Abstract

In the Acts of the Martyrs (“Acta Matyrum” in latin) recounts the death of the Christians during the period of the persecutions. In fact, the most frequent stories are the ones in which the leadership is represented by Christians in isolation or in small groups, whereas it is outstanding the death of Christians in multitudes. In two texts, which are drawn from the work of Eusebius of Cesarea (Ecclesiastic Church), describes the aggressive attack to a whole community. This fight is starred in uncontrolled groups, chronologically and geographically located in two key periods in the history of anti-Christian persecutions of the Roman Empire. Moreover, all these events are analyzed in this paper, paying attention not only to the social-religious context, but also the hypothetical impact of these or others may have reached in the Christian literature, mainly in the apocalyptic and eschatological thinking of the eyewitness. However, it is obvious a factor that may have influenced the Christian’s minds who lived between one episode and another (177-249 A.D.). For this chronological section have been dated the earliest texts of Nero Redivivus legend placement in a designated eschatological plane from authors like Tertullian or Melito of Sardes as the first pursuer emperor, linked to Antichrist from century III.