If Jesus Returns Kill Him Again Nero

In the twelvemonth 64 during the Principate of Nero, in the nighttime between July 18 and nineteen, a burn broke out in Rome that within nine days destroyed or badly damaged a substantial part of the Metropolis, leaving many dead or homeless. Rumors circulated that the fire had been set by Nero, who, it was claimed, sought to divert blame from himself by holding responsible a new sect of aggressively proselytizing Jews, known as Christians. Most recent scholarship has rejected the popular view of Nero as an arsonist "who fiddled while Rome burned."Footnote ⁱ Largely ignored, withal, has been the question of whether the Christians, generally regarded equally innocent scapegoats of Nero, might in fact have played some role in the fire. This affiliate considers the problematic nature of Christianity and Roman attitudes toward Christians in the outset century CE and suggests based on this prove that Christian involvement is non out of the question.

14.i Nero and the Fire

Of the few surviving ancient accounts of the Great Fire of 64, the virtually detailed is that of Tacitus (Ann. 15.38–44), who wrote in the early second century. Virtually sources contemporary with Nero say goose egg about the fire, and it is not mentioned in Juvenal, Martial, or Josephus. Pliny the Elder (HN 17.1.5), who hated Nero, merely alludes to "Nero'due south conflagration" (Neronis principis incendia). The opinions of Nero's detractors appear to accept convinced after authors like Suetonius and Dio of Nero's culpability. In order to announced objective, Tacitus does not state categorically that Nero was guilty of arson. Even so, Tacitus leads his reader in that direction past means of innuendo, system of selective facts and suppositions, and at times the presentation of simply partial information.

Tacitus begins his narrative by expressing uncertainty as to whether the fire started by take chances or by the treachery of Nero (forte an dolo principis), since both theories, as he tells us, had their supporters (nam utrumque auctores prodidere). At the first of his business relationship, Tacitus notes that the burn down broke out in the Circus Maximus in the area betwixt the Palatine and Caelian Hills, where shops, jam-packed with flammable goods, were located. Although non generally noted, the fire may accept really started in one of the low-class eating houses or melt shops (popinae) along the side of the Circus Maximus, since Suetonius (Ner. xvi) comments that amongst the measures Nero took afterward the fire to assist prevent futurity conflagrations was an ordinance outlawing in such establishments the auction of anything cooked, except for pulse and vegetables.Footnote ² Winds swept the burn along the length of the Circus Maximus both to the northwest toward the Tiber and eastward toward the Caelian Hill (Figure 14.1). After spreading up the southwestern slope of the Palatine and over the Caelian, the blaze snaked around to the east and north sides of the Palatine, where it consumed much of the regal estates that Nero had joined to his own home, the Domus Transitoria, too as a number of the old aristocratic houses on the northeast slope of the Palatine. Only the House of Augustus, it seems, escaped the conflagration (Effigy xiv.two). Although the fire was extinguished on the 6th day at the pes of the Esquiline Colina, information technology broke out again on the "Aemilian estates of Tigellinus" (praediis Tigellini Aemilianis) (Tac. Ann. fifteen.xl). This was perhaps a suburban villa that once belonged to the old noble Aemilian family in the Campus Martius overlooking the Tiber River, simply that now belonged to Tigellinus, Nero's infamous Praetorian commander (Figure 14.three).Footnote ^three By the ninth twenty-four hours, Tacitus relates, perhaps with some exaggeration (Ann. 15.41), that when the blaze was finally extinguished, but 4 of the fourteen Augustan regiones remained intact, while 3 were leveled and the other 7 greatly damaged (Figure 14.4). This account has been more or less confirmed by the archaeological prove.Footnote ⁴

14.ane Twenty-four hour period one of the fire. Later on Panella 2011: fig. 10a.i.

(Southward. Borghini and R. Carlani)

fourteen.two Day 3 of the fire. Later Panella 2011: fig. 10a.three.

(Southward. Borghini and R. Carlani)

14.3 Twenty-four hours 7 of the burn down. After Panella 2011: fig. 10a.4.

(S. Borghini and R. Carlani)

xiv.four Solar day 9 of the fire. After Panella 2011: fig. 10a.half-dozen.

(Southward. Borghini and R. Carlani)

Tacitus introduces into his narrative of the horror and devastation of the conflagration an interesting piece of information; namely, that a large number of unnamed individuals threatened anyone trying to extinguish the burn down, while others openly threw firebrands "shouting out that they were authorized – whether to comport out their annexation more than freely or whether by order" (Ann. 15.38).Footnote ^v The latter phrase "or whether past lodge" (sive iussu) is clearly intended to enhance suspicion that such a directive had come from above, ultimately from Nero himself. Yet, every bit Tacitus goes on to state, Nero at that time was at Antium (modern Anzio) and returned to Rome only when his ain palatial residence, the Domus Transitoria,Footnote ⁶ was threatened by the fire. Tacitean innuendo, however, would pb the states to believe that Nero had already given the lodge to set Rome ablaze and that his absence from Rome was to serve as an excuse. Why else would a "big number" of people have been preventing some of the urban population from putting out the flames, while setting more fires themselves? But anyone knowledgeable about the early days of urban firefighting or even contemporary woods or wild fire-fighting methods knows that to prevent fires from spreading, burn walls are created past controlled burning of areas in advance of the primary conflagration.Footnote ⁷ Suetonius (Nero 38) notes that rock granaries in the expanse of the Esquiline were demolished with war machines (bellicis machinis) and then burned, though he gives no hint that these were preventative fire-fighting measures. These actions are perceived instead as part of Nero'south plan to proceeds country on the Esquiline for the main wing of his time to come Domus Aurea, one of the reasons he allegedly started the fire in the starting time identify. That many individuals were involved in this endeavor indicates that Rome's substantial burn down-fighting strength, the "Night Watch," or Vigiles Urbani,Footnote ⁸ had sprung into action, creating fire walls equally role of its fire-fighting operations. Dio, in fact, states specifically (62.17.i) that amid those setting fires were soldiers and the vigiles (here, the "fire brigade"), simply he as well puts a negative spin on it by suggesting that their motive may have been plunder, rather than extinguishing the flames. Tacitus clearly knew why such fires would take been prepare, for later on in another context, he states (Ann. 15.forty), "And then, on the sixth day, the fire was extinguished at the pes of the Esquiline later buildings had been demolished over a vast area so that an area like an open up clearing would oppose the standing violence [of the flames]."

Tacitus recounts (Ann. 15.39) that many viewed with suspicion Nero'southward efforts to alleviate suffering after the fire. Nero's relief program included opening to the homeless Agrippa's structures in the Campus Martius and his own gardens (horti), likewise as putting upwards makeshift shelters. He besides ordered foodstuffs to be brought from Ostia and other nearby municipalities and lowered the cost of grain. Tacitus would accept us believe that Nero'due south only motive for these positive deportment was to divert attention from the suspicion that he was to blame for the conflagration, since Tacitus goes on to speak of rumors that during the bonfire Nero sang of the destruction of Troy from a stage in his home (scaena domestica). Suetonius and Dio have slightly unlike versions of this story. Suetonius (Nero 38.two) indicates that Nero, dressed in phase costume, sang of the Sack of Ilium from the "Tower of Maecenas,"Footnote ⁹ while Dio (62.18) speaks of Nero's singing of the capture of Troy in the garb of a lyre-player on the "palace roof," which apparently escaped the flames in the section of Nero's Domus Transitoria on the Esquiline Colina. This part of his villa had once belonged to the suburban estate of Maecenas, who willed it to his friend and benefactor Augustus. From such a high vantage point, Nero would accept been able to see what needed to exist washed to fight the fire. It would have been hardly surprising, in any case, if Nero – artist and author of the Troica (Juv. 8.220–1) – had been moved to reference the conflagration of Troy, as had Publius Scipio Aemilianus when seeing Carthage in flames in 146 BCE (Polyb. 38.22; App. Punica 132).

Suetonius (Nero 38.1) maintains that Nero "set the City afire because of his cloy with the unsightliness of its blowsy buildings and the narrow and winding streets." Co-ordinate to Tacitus (Ann. 15.twoscore), Nero wanted to re-found Rome, naming it later himself (i.e., equally Neropolis: Suet. Nero 55). No hard evidence, all the same, is produced for this claim other than the fact that he undertook a large-scale urban-building plan subsequently the fire had acquired massive damage. Other leaders of Rome did too both before and afterward Nero. If he were really responsible for the fire as a ways of improving the urban landscape, he would take logically started the blaze in the Subura, the slums backside the Forum of Augustus, which were apparently not badly damaged in the conflagration. Ironically, this expanse may in part take been shielded by the Forum of Augustus, with its roughly 100 human foot high retaining wall of fire-resistant peperino stone (lapis Gabinus), which was designed to comprise fires from spreading from the Subura. Even Nero'southward new planned constructions in burn down-resistant Gabinian and Alban stone and novel types of flat-roofed structures to help fight future fires (Tac. Ann. 15.iii; Suet. Nero 16) came under assail for no apparent reason other than that their writer was Nero.

Post-obit the devastation of much of his Domus Transitoria, Nero undertook the construction of his even larger manor, the Domus Aurea ("Golden Business firm"), which would cost an outrageous sum of money (see La Rocca, Affiliate 13 in this book). The project was highly criticized not only because of the new taxes levied for this extravaganza, but also considering Nero was in reality creating for his own pleasure a sprawling country mural villa of enormous proportions (ca. 300–350 acres) in the very heart of the City.Footnote ¹⁰ Highlighting the vastness of this enterprise, Martial (Spect. two.4) speaks of Nero'due south house taking up the whole City, while Suetonius (Nero 39) reports a popular lampoon that Rome was becoming a house and that Romans should migrate to Veii (ca. 16 km northwest of Rome), if Nero's habitation did not engulf that town as well. The largely destroyed properties of the nobility in and effectually the northeastern slopes of the Palatine, along the so-chosen Via Nova, were bought up by Nero to increase the size of his new palatial residence. Suetonius' statement (Nero 38.2) that "… the houses of the leaders of sometime were burned, however adorned with spoils of enemies …" is undoubtedly a reference to some of these backdrop. To requite further acceptance to Nero'south culpability for the fire, Suetonius comments (Nero 38.ane) that "his [Nero's] chamberlains (cubicularii) were caught with tow and torches on the estates of a number of those of consular rank." However, these cubicularii may in reality have been sent to convey orders by Nero to create burn down walls to stop the spread of the conflagration.

Having lost their estates, the resentful Roman dignity, many of whom already detested Nero, would have understandably been motivated to circulate the rumor that he had set the burn to acquire more land for his new palatial ambitions. Some of these aristocrats might likewise have been involved in the and then-called Pisonian conspiracy confronting Nero in 65, though Tacitus does not suggest this.Footnote ¹¹ He does note (Ann. 15.67), however, that when Subrius Flavus, one of Nero'southward Praetorian tribunes who joined the Pisonian conspiracy, was caught and examined, he reproached Nero for burning Rome, calling him an incendiarius. According to Tacitus (Ann. 15.l), Subrius Flavus had considered assassinating Nero on the night of the fire, merely feared being captured; the absence of any outcome hither makes it difficult to know Subrius' intent.

If Nero had sought past means of the conflagration to make available a vast tract of land for a new residence, why would he have started it on the opposite side of the Palatine from where the new great domestic wing of the Domus Aurea was built? Most of this state, particularly on the slopes of the Esquiline, was already function of his Domus Transitoria. Moreover, considering of the difficulty in controlling fires, it would non accept made sense to outset a burn down anywhere near the Circus Maximus, a burn down chance itself because of its wooden superstructure, which ran all along the Palatine Hill. Located here on the western slope of the Palatine were all of the imperial estates, including the House of Augustus and several of import temples, all embellished with great works of art. Every bit it was, the fire consumed much of the property on the Palatine that Nero had already annexed to create his Domus Transitoria. Many of the Urban center's other first-class and famous temples were also destroyed, along with their irreplaceable artistic treasures (Suet. Nero 38; Tac. Ann. 15.41) – far too corking a visual and religious heritage for a self-proclaimed lover of art like Nero to send up in flames! If the agency ascribed to Nero in the fire is problematic, and so where else do the voices from this era suggest we await?

14.2 Christians and Christianities

Information technology would announced that our earliest Roman source for Christians living in Rome and fomenting discord is Suetonius (Claud. 25.4).Footnote ¹² He recounts that probably around the year 49, not long before Nero came to ability,Footnote ¹³ Claudius had expelled "Jews" from the City because they were constantly making disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus (Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantis Roma expulit).Footnote ¹⁴ Though there has been much scholarly debate about who is meant by "Chrestus," this is about probable a reference to Christ.Footnote ¹⁵ There are at to the lowest degree three possibilities for the spelling as Chrestus rather than Christus: 1) a manuscript error in spelling, 2) confusion or mispronunciation of the proper noun of Christus,Footnote ^xvi or 3) an alternate spelling of Christus, since the ancients were not equally fixated on orthography as are moderns.Footnote ¹⁷ In fact, Tertullian states (Apol. 3.5) that Christianus was sometimes mispronounced equally Chrestianus. What is undoubtedly meant by the phrase impulsore Chresto is that Christ was ultimately the inspiration and driving force behind those followers who were now spreading his message in Rome.Footnote ^xviii Since Christ himself never wrote, these followers of Christ, who at this early date could exist chosen Jewish Christians or Christianized Jews, were going about interpreting what they thought Jesus' message was. But lacking whatsoever i accepted version of his message, these early Christian proselytizers were, in consequence, creating different simply related forms of Christianity, or more accurately, Christianities.Footnote ^xix With the Christian have-over of the Empire beginning in the 4th century, a number of these Chrisitianities would come up to be regarded as heresies by the so-called Orthodox Church building (Cod. Theod. 16.5).

From what piffling we know about the historical Jesus, information technology would appear that he saw himself as a reformer of Judaism who wished to unite Jews and bring them back to the path of righteousness, as reflected in the gospels. For example, Matthew (ten:5–6) states, "These twelve [disciples] Jesus sent out with the following instructions: 'Go nowhere amid the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, only go rather to the lost sheep of the firm of Israel')." In Matt. fifteen:24 Jesus says to his disciples, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the firm of State of israel." These passages make clear that he did not see himself as the founder of some new religion that was to exist spread to all peoples of the Roman Empire.Footnote ^xx That appears to take been essentially the thought of Saul of Tarsus (St. Paul), who went on to found mainstream Christianity, or what can be called Pauline Christianity.Footnote ²¹ To make this new brand of Christianity more adequate to non-Jews, Paul did not require a convert to find all the traditional Jewish religious restrictions and requirements (specially its dietary prohibitions and circumcision) that non-Jews constitute so unpalatable and repugnant. This revolutionary alter, nevertheless, went against the Torah-based class of Christianity of the and so-called Jerusalem Church building, headed by the apostles James (the brother of Jesus) and Peter (Gal. 2).Footnote ²² Still, information technology was Paul'southward version that won out in the end, becoming mainstream Christianity. Paul's overly dramatic, miraculous story almost a blinding low-cal that caused him to fall off his horse and his vision of Jesus on the route to Damascus (Acts 9:i–9; Cor. fifteen:9; Gal. 1:11–17) was undoubtedly invented to give Paul churchly authorisation, since he was not a disciple of Jesus, nor did he fifty-fifty know him.Footnote ²³ It is but at the very terminate of Matthew (28:xviii–20) and of Luke (24:47) that the resurrected Jesus appears to his followers to tell them that they were now to go forth to preach and convert the gentiles of all nations. This new and very specific directive is found only in the gospels of Matthew and of Luke, aside from of course Acts (esp. fourteen–15), which follows Paul's theology. The story in Matthew and Luke is like the "longer ending" of the resurrection story found in the before gospel of Mark 16:nine–20, but which lacks Jesus' mandate to convert gentiles.Footnote ²⁴ This directive was probably an invented interpolation, added later on to promote Paul's version of Christianity.

Whether Torah-based or not, all forms of Christianity were regarded by mainstream or orthodox Jews as blasphemy and heresy.Footnote ²⁵ Even the notion of "converting" a Jew to some other religion or a heretical form of Judaism was punishable by death under Jewish religious law (Deuteronomy 13:viii–10). Conflict, which often resulted in physical violence, was inevitable for those who subscribed to a organized religion whose central belief arrangement rested on universal monotheistic notions of a singular "God" and a singular "Truth" for all peoples. When Paul turned upward at the Yahweh Temple in Jerusalem, for example, he was seized by fellow Jews, who trounce and threatened to kill him. He was saved simply by soldiers of the Roman cohort in Jerusalem, who protected him considering he revealed to the commander that he was a Roman citizen.Footnote ²⁶ Conversely, St. Stephen, the first of the so-called Christian martyrs, was not a Roman citizen, for which reason, according to Christian tradition, he was stoned to expiry by Jews (Acts 7:58–lx) in accord with Jewish law.Footnote ²⁷ It is a mistaken notion that only Rome could carry out the death penalisation in such religious matters.Footnote ²⁸

With Christianity rejected equally a heresy by most traditional Jews, aggressive Christian proselytizers like Paul were forced to begin targeting more than receptive non-Jews, including Roman citizens. Different monotheism, ancient polytheistic religions themselves (that is, as cults) make no pronouncements virtually the validity of other peoples' gods, for which reason polytheists could freely adopt or adapt strange cults or aspects of them, without the necessity of giving up their own traditional gods. Novel and/or exotic religions, especially mystery cults, that promised a better life to come up in the future were particularly attractive, specially among the credulous lower classes, whose existence was often grim and who saw lilliputian justice in life. Being "weak in mind" (imbecilli), according to Cicero (Div. 2.81),Footnote ²⁹ such people were all the more susceptible to superstitio, while Columella (Rust. 1.8.6; 11.1.22), writing at the finish of the first century CE, speaks of vana superstitio ("false superstition") that seduces rudes animos ("ignorant minds") to flagitia ("vices"). Both superstitio and flagitia were specifically associated with Christianity in Pliny the Younger's famous letter to Trajan (Ep. 10.96.2, 8–nine), while those Christians who could be characterized as being rudes animi were the very people (townspeople, villagers, and rustics) whom Pliny reports (Ep. 10.96.ix) were being infected by the "contagion of this wretched superstition" (superstitionis istius contagio).

The trouble with Christianity, as with Judaism (and Islam later on), was that it immune for belief in just 1 God, whereas it considered the gods of other peoples false or "demonic" and their worship "idolatrous" (e.g., i Corinthians 10:20).Footnote ³⁰ It is trivial wonder, so, that Christians were unremarkably reviled by polytheists for their "impiety" (asebeia) and "atheism" (atheotes), in the sense that they denied the existence of the gods of other peoples.Footnote ³¹ Blasphemous insults and flagrant disrespect of the religious beliefs of others, moreover, posed a threat to the pax deorum ("peace of the gods"), the divine equilibrium Romans sought to maintain through religious devotion and cede for the well-being of the state. Whatever acts that resulted in the disruption of the pax deorum, which past clan threatened the stability of the Roman state, were considered insania ("insanity") and amentia ("madness"), specially with regard to the frenzied beliefs of fanatics.Footnote ³² In fact, amentia is the very term Pliny the Younger (Ep. 10.96.4) used in referring to the Christian superstitio. It was undoubtedly Paul's blasphemy against the goddess Artemis/Diana that acquired a near riot in Ephesus, when a mass of polytheists, equally we are told in the book of Acts (19:34), rushed to the city'south theater and chanted in unison for two hours "not bad is the goddess of the Ephesians."Footnote ³³ Co-ordinate to the Acts (xix:26), the Ephesians said that Paul was preaching to them that "gods made by human hands are not gods at all." In brusque, Paul was as well reviling the Ephesians every bit "idol-worshipers." To polytheists, Christians like Paul were preaching hatred of whatever did not accommodate to their narrow religious view of the world – a message that earned them the enmity of non but mainstream Jews but as well the wider polytheistic populations of the Empire.

Unlike Christians, Jews by and large kept largely to themselves (see Tac. Hist. five.five.4) and, accordingly, were not on some specific aggressive mission to convert others to their religion.Footnote ³⁴ Because of the antiquity of their religious beliefs, they were exempted from straight participation in the imperial cult. Instead, they expressed their loyalty to Rome by offering prayers and cede to their god for the safety of the emperor, which, in event, was equated with the rubber of the state.Footnote ³⁵ It should exist remembered that in antiquity there was no meaningful sectionalization betwixt the state and organized religion, so that when people pledged loyalty to Rome during the Empire, it could only exist done through cede to the Genius of the Emperor and gods of Rome, an act that was not a problem for the polytheistic peoples of the Empire.Footnote ³⁶ Considering of their irreconcilable differences with traditional Judaism, Christians eventually no longer considered themselves even Jewish Christians. Consequently, as non-Jews, they could no longer savour certain privileges, exemptions, and concessions that Rome made but to the Jews.Footnote ³⁷ The loyalty of the Christians became doubtable, and their aggressive proselytizing, especially among Roman citizens, became a business concern to the Roman country as Christianity spread, since Roman citizens were expected to proceed to revere the Roman gods, fifty-fifty if they added foreign gods to their pantheon. For those who became exclusive Christian monotheists,Footnote ³⁸ tensions and problems were inevitable. Early on, Christianized Jews preaching in Jewish communities had caused ceremonious discord and disruption of the peace, and later on on, the same things occurred when they proselytized among non-Jews. Christian communities sometimes expected converts to go exclusively monotheistic and to avoid polytheists and even their families who worshiped the gods. This could atomic number 82 to familial discord, particularly because all aspects of Roman life revolved around worship of the gods, including domestic cults.Footnote ³⁹

Every bit their numbers increased over time, especially after the Emperor Gallienus legalized Christianity in 260,Footnote ⁴⁰ more and more problems arose with Christians, especially among competing Christian sects or factions, every bit well as the more fanatic trouble-makers and aggressive proselytizers amongst them. Merely long before the post-Gallienic period, most Christians had initially refused to serve in the Roman army or to presume civic responsibilities.Footnote ⁴¹ Because such antisocial and anti-Roman behavior went confronting Roman mores and values (the mos maiorum),Footnote ⁴² as well as the religious beliefs of other peoples, Christians were defendant of hatred of the human race (odium generis humani, Tac. Ann. 15.38–44).Footnote ⁴³ Their hostile mental attitude toward the gods and traditional Roman values became of keen concern to Roman authorities.Footnote ⁴⁴ Rumors had likewise begun to circulate about foreign and obnoxious Christian cult practices (Tac. Ann. fifteen.44), some of which the Romans clearly misunderstood, while others they did not. In the early days, many Christianities had their own interpretation of what it meant to be "Christian." Some more orthodox Christian writers, for example, condemned sects like the Christian Carpocratians for their bizarre rites and libertine sexual habits (Clem. Al. Strom. 3.2.ten).Footnote ⁴⁵

Notwithstanding, as we know from Trajan's correspondence with the Pliny the Younger (Ep. 10.97), who was the governor of Bithynia-Pontus in the early second century, Christians were not to be sought out and arrested, but "if they are brought to trial and proven guilty, they must be punished" (si deferantur, arguantur, puniendi sunt). Those almost likely to be arrested and convicted were the ringleaders and troublemakers, who were aggressively proselytizing and promoting civic unrest and discord, while Christians who minded their ain business organisation and practiced a harmless form of Christianity in private were left alone. Those falsely accused of beingness a Christian (unremarkably by neighbors with grudges) could, of form, be exonerated but past offer wine and incense to the Genius or Tyche of the Emperor and/or the gods.Footnote ⁴⁶ Nor were all Christians who confessed to beingness Christian systematically executed,Footnote ⁴⁷ except very briefly under Nero because of the charge of arson. In curt and contrary to popular belief, Christians were not systematically "persecuted" and martyred over the three centuries of Roman hegemony and on the rare occasions that they were actually executed, it was for a cursory period of time.Footnote ⁴⁸ Those who did perish tended to be recalcitrant clergy and/or those with fanatical tendencies, or the credulous who believed they were going to a better identify. Therefore, it is largely a myth that at that place were three centuries of continuous Roman "persecution" of Christians. This notion was perpetuated past Christian religious propagandists in order to spread Christianity by creating the impression that these innocent Christians were willing to sacrifice their lives for the "Truth" of the Christian bulletin – hence the erroneous claim that the seed of the Church was the blood of the martyrs (Tert. Apol. 50).Footnote ⁴⁹ In fact, many of those said to exist martyrs were fictitious.Footnote ⁵⁰ Instructive, likewise, is the case of Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch, who appears to have had a great desire to become a martyr.Footnote ⁵¹ While en road to Rome for his trial during the Trajanic period, Ignatius was allowed past his Roman baby-sit to meet with local Christians, to preach to them, and fifty-fifty to write letters to various Christian congregations along the way. None of these Christians were arrested and thrown into prison and/or executed. Christians – like Paul – who were punished were those who had caused borough disturbances, normally every bit a consequence of their aggressive proselytizing mission and blasphemy against the gods.

The fomenting of discord by Christianized Jews, who preached in Jewish communities that which orthodox Jews considered blasphemy and heresy, was undoubtedly the reason that Jews – Christianized or notFootnote ⁵² – were expelled from Rome under Claudius, as Suetonius noted. This activeness would likewise be consistent with what we know from Christian sources nearly the Christianized Jew Paul beingness beaten by Jewish authorities and driven out of Jewish communities throughout the Empire (ii Corinthians 11:25).Footnote ⁵³ In that location has, withal, been much scholarly debate almost the nature of the expulsion from Rome – including whether at that place was one or maybe two banishments – and virtually exactly who the expelled "Jews" were. This controversy is partly due to the argument of Dio (sixty.6.6) that because of the great numbers of Jews resident in Rome and Claudius' reluctance to crusade a tumult among them, he "did not miscarry them, but ordered them, while practicing the way of life of their fathers, non to have meetings." As has been rightly argued, Dio was probably referring to another incident that occurred before, at the beginning of Claudius' Principate in the year 41.Footnote ⁵⁴ Suetonius' annotate about expelling "Jews" subsequently on in 49 did not mean that Claudius was expelling all Jews, which, equally Dio noted, would have been incommunicable, especially since a number of them were Roman citizens. Suetonius' comment was most likely a generalization, as in the instance of the expulsion of members of other problematic groups, like astrologers, philosophers, and Egyptians.Footnote ⁵⁵ Moreover, identifying the troublemakers – whether proselytizing Christianized Jews or reactive orthodox Jews – would probably not have been particularly difficult at a formal inquest, since there were bound to have been informers and opponents who would have blamed one some other.Footnote ⁵⁶ Equally a result, all those who could exist identified would have been expelled from Rome. Although Claudius was not interested in sectarian Jewish theosophical disputes, he did accept seriously his responsibility for maintaining peace and order in the Metropolis.

14.three The Christians and the Fire of 64 CE

As for the Christians and the burn down of 64, interestingly no ancient source other than Tacitus (Ann. 38.44) connects them with this great conflagration. Dio, for case, does not speak of the Christians at all at the time of Nero, and Suetonius, who does mention them, does not associate them in any way with the conflagration, perhaps because neither Dio nor Suetonius wanted to deflect blame from Nero. This may also explicate why after Christian writers, who selectively followed earlier sources, generally do not mention Nero's blaming the Christians for the fire,Footnote ⁵⁷ since that might raise questions about their possible involvement in causing the conflagration and divert attention from their being punished supposedly but for being Christians.Footnote ⁵⁸ The 5th-century Christian writer Orosius, who is not always reliable, goes further, asserting (seven.7.10) that not only was Nero the first to "persecute" Christians for their religious behavior, merely also that he did this throughout the Empire, despite no evidence to support any such Empire-wide persecution. We know only that Christians were punished in the City of Rome on the accuse of arson.

There was besides another aspect to the case against the Christians. Suetonius (Nero 16) notes that during Nero's rule numerous abuses were dealt with severely and that amid those punished were Christians, "a grade of people who practiced a new and nefarious superstition" (genus hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae). Tacitus, for his part, characterizes this new cult as a "destructive superstition" (exitiabilis superstitio, Ann. fifteen.44). The Romans generally regarded Christianity, similar Judaism, as superstitio Footnote ⁵⁹ in role considering Christians were prone to go across proper religious behavior by, as noted before, professing their hatred of the gods of Rome and of the religious beliefs of other peoples, too as non recognizing the ultimate authority of the Emperor, but rather only that of their god. In addition, Christians preached the second coming of Christ, which would mean the destruction of Rome,Footnote ⁶⁰ and promoted zealotry and fanaticism among adherents.Footnote ⁶¹ They as well were considered to practice magic.Footnote ⁶² In short, Christianity was regarded as a perversion of religion and was eventually accounted illegal formally by royal rescript past the fourth dimension of Trajan.Footnote ⁶³

Picayune did the Romans realize in these early days how great and real a danger Christianity would ultimately pose to the polytheistic peoples of the Empire, offset with Constantine'south cover of Christianity in the fourth century. It was but after the defeat in 324 of Licinius, the polytheistic Emperor of the East, that Constantine publicly declared that he was a Christian. All the same, it was probably not long after 324 that Constantine began to outlaw officially forms of polytheistic religion, especially blood sacrifices, which were at the core of institutionalized polytheistic religion.Footnote ⁶⁴ This marked the beginning of the start assault on traditional polytheistic religions throughout the Empire. Constantine and his successors – except, of course, for Julian – gave the Church increasing power and help over fourth dimension in implementing an intolerant and dogmatic ideology in an endeavour to eradicate polytheism and to Christianize the Empire.Footnote ⁶⁵ From the fourth dimension of Constantine on, Christians began not simply to persecute polytheists, non-orthodox Christians ("heretics"), "apostates," Jews, and Samaritans, equally evidenced in the Codex Theodosianus (16.5–x), but also to destroy and desecrate a great deal of the religious and fabric civilisation of the polytheistic peoples of the Empire.Footnote ⁶⁶

Given the cardinal nature of Christianity, how is the penalisation of Christians following the burn to exist understood? Were they more often than not viewed every bit in some way a crusade of the conflagration or were they just scapegoats for Nero? Tacitus provides data well-nigh perceived Christian culpability for the burn and Roman animosity toward the Christians. He indicates (Ann. 15.44) that they were blamed and cruelly punished not so much for arson equally for their hatred of the human race (haud perinde in crimine incendii quam odio humani generis convicti).Footnote ⁶⁷ He also speaks of Christians as loathed for their vices (flagitia)Footnote ⁶⁸ and of Judaea equally the dwelling house of this evil (originem eius republic of mali). Following the fire, some Christians were burned alive, which was a well-known penalization for arson, since the Romans tended to make the penalty fit the offense whenever possible.Footnote ⁶⁹ Although St. Peter is said to have perished in Rome nether Nero, in that location is no difficult evidence for this. Had he actually died there, he would probably accept been burned live and his charred remains either thrown into a common burial pit or dumped in the Tiber like most criminals. This, of form, is at variance with the unreliable Christian tradition that has him crucified upside down and buried under St. Peter's Basilica.Footnote ^seventy His burial in Rome, supposedly like that of Paul, who was probably executed and buried in Spain after being acquitted in Rome,Footnote ⁷¹ was undoubtedly intended to imbue the City of Rome with sanctity (Peter and Paul became the patron saints of Rome), in order to brand it the nigh holy city of the West, as Jerusalem was for the East. Being burned alive for arson was a penalisation however employed nether Christian emperors, as the Codex Justinianus makes clear (Digest 49.nine.9). When Nero blamed Christians for the great fire of Rome, his accuse of arson would take been viewed past the Roman populace as credible, for even if Christians had non fix Rome ablaze by their own hands or helped rekindle it after it had died downward, they deserved to be punished because their irreverence had angered the gods, who did not protect Rome against the conflagration.

Some other of import factor in Nero's blaming Christians was probable to have been his married woman Poppaea, who is referred to by Josephus (AJ 20.195) every bit a "god-fearer (θεοσεβὴς) … [who] pleaded on behalf of the Jews."Footnote ⁷² But rather than being a convert to Judaism, Poppaea, like certain other non-Jewish intellectuals, was probably interested in Jewish philosophy and would therefore have been sympathetic to the Jewish indicate of view, especially regarding Christians, who were hated by mainstream Jews. She would undoubtedly have had ties to the leadership of the Jewish quarter of Rome and would have been a strong advocate for them.Footnote ⁷³ Poppaea probably learned from them of the heretical sect of Jews (i.e., Christianized Jews) who was stirring up problem not only in Rome but throughout the Empire, so who better to blame than the Christians? Past planting in Nero'south heed the idea of Christian involvement in the fire, Poppaea would accept been instrumental not only in bringing down the wrath of Rome on these Christianized Jewish heretics, but likewise in providing an alternative to rumors of Nero's declared culpability. In curt, she was blaming the Christians because of what her Jewish sources said or unsaid. This hypothesis would exist in keeping with belatedly Christian writers, who say that the Jews denounced the Christians for the fire.Footnote ⁷⁴

It is also non out of the question that more than fanatically inclined Christians may in fact have played an active role in the conflagration. Tacitus tells us (Ann. 15.44) that those Christians who were apprehended confessed. Although he does not state to what they confessed, it is reasonable to conclude that under torture they probably would take admitted that they were guilty of arson – whether that was really true or not – and implicated others. Tacitus' merits (Ann. 15.44) that a swell many Christians were bedevilled (eorum multitudo ingens) is undoubtedly an exaggeration, since at the time of Nero there could not have been a big number of them in Rome,Footnote ⁷⁵ especially then soon after Claudius' expulsion. A few Christian extremists may take interpreted the Great Fire of 64 as the showtime of the predicted fiery apocalypse and the second coming of Christ, which Christians of that time believed was imminent, rather than something that would take place at some distant time in the future.Footnote ⁷⁶ Some might even take felt that it was their duty as Christians to hasten this day of judgment so helped to spread the flames or at to the lowest degree refused to do anything to extinguish them.

The Christian message of a fiery apocalyptic end and of eternal damnation for "idol-worshipers," besides as for those who did not take Christ, was not a new idea. It had a long history in the apocalyptic literature of Hellenistic Judaism and in the Jewish Sibylline Oracles, which Alexandrian Jews had modeled on the oracular sayings of the Greeks and which the Christians afterward further adapted.Footnote ⁷⁷ Dozens of books of Christian revelations were found along with Gnostic gospels in the 1945 Nag Hammadi finds in Upper Egypt.Footnote ⁷⁸ The most infamous vision of this burn-and-brimstone myth, of course, is captured in the Book of Revelation, probably written in the late autumn of 68 C.E. by a malcontent Christianized Jew, possibly by the name of John, non to exist confused with the Apostle John.Footnote ⁷⁹ The Book of Revelation reads like the rants of a lunatic, in which Nero is cast as the Antichrist who will return from death (xiii:3), and the eternally detested Rome will in the end be destroyed with the second coming of Christ (17:6, 18:24, nineteen:2). With such predictions of the destruction of Rome, little wonder that Christianity was idea to exist a superstitio and the product of a mens insana ("insane mind"), going beyond proper religio and causing disruption in the fabric of society.Footnote ^eighty The invention of such a fiery apocalypse was intended to terrify and at the same time reassure believers – whether Jews or Christians – of their righteousness and to requite them hope that their suffering on earth would be rewarded with their final triumph over the "wicked idolaters" of the world – potent motives peradventure for some unhinged Christian fanatic(due south) to resort to arson. In the cease, withal, whether a few Christians helped to spread the fire, specially afterwards it had died downward, should remain an open question. What is far more certain is that many Romans of that time would have believed that the Christians were guilty of arson or at least indirectly responsible for the Smashing Fire because of their denigration of the traditional gods, leading to the disruption of the pax deorum and consequently the loss of divine goodwill and protection, resulting in the fiery holocaust of 64.

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Source: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-the-age-of-nero/burning-rome-burning-christians/174BE1274DF70D5C6088BDAFC163F837

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