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<p>According to the Syriac <italic>Acts of the Persian Martyrs</italic>, the Sasanian
king Shapur II began persecuting Christians in Persia soon after Constantine's death
in 337 CE. Previous studies of the <italic>Acts</italic> (and related material) set
Shapur's persecution within the context of Constantine's support for Christianity
in the Roman Empire. Religious allegiances are said to have been further amplified
during the Roman-Persian war over Rome's Mesopotamian provinces that followed Constantine's
death. According to most interpretations, by the mid-fourth century <italic>Christianitas</italic>
had become coextensive with <italic>Romanitas</italic>: Persian Christians were persecuted
because they worshipped Caesar's god and, thereby, allied themselves with Rome. </p><p>By
contrast, this dissertation reconsiders Christian historical narratives, the rhetorical
and identity-shaping nature of the martyrological genre, and assumptions about the
clear divisions of religious groups in late antiquity. Although the notion of Christianity
as a "Roman" religion can be found in some of the historiography of persecution in
Persia, our knowledge about Christians in fourth-century Persia is a harmonized event
history woven from a tapestry of vague and conflicting sources that often exhibit
later religious, political, and hagiographical agendas. </p><p> </p><p>To demonstrate
how Shapur's persecution came to be interpreted as the result of religious changes
within the Roman Empire, the dissertation first reconsiders how Constantine is imagined
as a patron of the Christians of Persia in Syriac and Greek sources. The second part
looks at the ways by which constructed imperial ideals territorialized "religion"
in the post-Constantinian era. Finally, the third part presents the first English
translations of the <italic>Martyrdom and History of Simeon bar Sabba'e</italic>,
a fourth-century Persian bishop whose martyr acts are central to the historiography
of the period.</p>
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