'Unhinged': Time Mag Claims Christians Self-Immolated to Protest the Roman Empire Too

[Michie]

Did early Christian martyrs choose to be burned alive during the Roman persecutions? Earlier today, David wrote about Leftists celebrating the bizarre suicide of Aaron Bushnell, done in nominal protest of US policy in the war between Hamas and Israel.

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'Unhinged': Time Mag Claims Christians Self-Immolated to Protest the Roman Empire Too

hotair.com

 

[Michie]

On February 25th U.S. Airman Aaron Bushnell committed suicide by lighting himself on fire in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. Bushnell died while shouting “Free Palestine” and intended his death to be a form of protest against the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.

In an attempt to normalize suicide as “political protest,” Time Magazine described the history of self-immolation and said, “Self-immolation was also seen as a sacrificial act committed by Christian devotees who chose to be burned alive when they were being persecuted for their religion by Roman emperor Diocletian around 300 A.D.” Time cited a 2012 article from The New Yorker in defense of this claim which said that “around 300 A.D., Christians persecuted by Diocletian set fire to his palace in Nicodemia and then threw themselves onto it—presumably, to express their objections to Roman policy and not to the emperor’s architectural taste.”

But this is false.

The fourth-century Christian historian Eusebius describes the fire in Nicomedia (not “Nicodemia” as The New Yorker wrote) in book eight, chapters five and six, of his work The Church History. He says of the fire’s cause that “a false suspicion was laid to our people,” i.e., Christians. He is not aware of Christians purposefully starting it. He then writes,

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No, Christians Didn't Light Themselves on Fire

Following Aaron Bushnell's self-immolation protest, Time Magazine says that early Christians lit themselves on fire for similar reasons. But that's false.

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