Did Nero Persecute the Christians?

It's a common tradition that the Roman Emperor Nero was responsible for persecuting the Christians in Rome. However, after considerable research on the subject, I've decided that this probably isn't true. Rather, Nero probably undertook to persecute the Jews, but after the Great Fire the ethnic Jews, both Christian and otherwise, had fled Rome, so all he could get was the gentiles who had become Christians, then considered a type of Jew.

There are numerous Christian traditions regarding this persecution, but since they mostly originate during the second and third centuries, when such persecutions were common, they are highly suspect. The most important source, then, for scholars is the work of Tacitus, from whose Annals: 15:44 we have:

But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to torture-stakes, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.

Now this is pretty plain, on the face of it. However, like any historical document, it must be evaluated in context. Tacitus normally didn't name his sources, and he probably used many unreliable sources that he would then modify to correct for what he imagined their prejudices to be. Suppose, for example, that he had a typical Christian account. It's common in such accounts to include the brag that the more the Christians were persecuted, the more people converted to Christianity. If Tacitus, then, had started from an account detailing Nero's persecution and bragging how the more he persecuted the more people converted to Christianity, it's likely he would have considered this a gross exaggeration, and pruned it back sharply to the final "even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed."

As for the feelings about the Christians, that was common in his time, about half a century later than the events described. However, it was very common that ancient historians didn't really perceive change with passing time, and unless they were just about slapped in the face with the fact of a difference, would assume things in the past were the same as in their own time.

But why did the Christians brag so much about the conversions? Did they actually happen? Probably, although maybe not in the numbers described. But my question is this: were the persecutions the cause of the conversions, or the conversions the cause of the persecutions?

Did the Persecutions Cause the Conversions, or the Conversions Cause the Persecutions?

There were valid reasons for people of Rome to dislike Jews, to the point of rioting against them, because the Jews generally would not participate in the regular civic sacrifices, which were seen as staving off various divinely caused misfortunes. Of course, we don't have anything like that today, no preacher would think of claiming that "the widespread practice of homosexuality 'will bring about terrorist bombs, it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor.' " Except, of course, Pat Robertson

Nevertheless, this was a common attitude in the first century CE, not regarding homosexuality so much as failure to make the proper sacrifices, which was thought to anger the gods and cause all sorts of disasters we consider natural ("acts of God") today. Since the gentile Christians also refused to participate in the sacrifices, they also got such anger.

But there was another issue involved, one which is too large to go into in detail, but I'll touch on: circumcision. This operation was not the sort of thing most adult males were interested in doing to themselves, and it served as a strong negative incentive to keep people from converting to Judaism. But "Saint" Paul, and many of his fellows, said that such was unnecessary for gentile converts to Christianity, which meant that converts could get the benefits of becoming Jews, including not having to participate in the sacrifices, without paying the cost. No wonder it angered the pagans surrounding them, who were already very unhappy about the way Jews weren't required to participate in the sacrifices. Now, converts didn't even have to take a knife to a precious part of their bodies to convert.

The bottom line is that whenever there were large numbers of conversions to Christianity, there would be a strong reaction from the pagan community, and there were likely to be persecutions. And if there was something about Rome at the end of Nero's reign that would make people want to convert to a religion that promised them a better life after their resurrection, it would hardly have been surprising if there were massive conversions. And, yes there was. Nero was a horrible emperor, and Rome went steadily downhill during the last 5-10 years of his reign. Many people probably saw the "end of the world" coming, and what actually came wasn't much better.

About the First Christians

I've said that the people were know as Christians were considered a subset of Jews at that time, but what about the name Christians itself? In Greek, it's "Χριστιανούς" ("Christianous": plural masculine accusative). Here's the claim for the earliest time Jesus' followers were called Christians (Acts 11:26 (New International Version)):

The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.

And here's the quote from the Greek (Perseus):

χρηματίσαὶ τε πρώτως ἐν Ἀντιοχείᾳ τοὺς μαθητὰς Χριστιανούς.

What does the word Christian mean? Many people think that "Christ" is part of Jesus' name, or a title he had during his ministry, however that's not true. He probably was called "Mašíaḥ", or in English Messiah. Both words mean "anointed", from Wiki:

The (Greek) Septuagint version of the Old Testament renders all thirty-nine instances of the Hebrew word for anointed (Mašíaḥ) as Khristós (Χριστός). The New Testament records the Greek transliteration Μεσσίας, Messias, twice, in John 1:41 and 4:25.

In this case, "Anointed" refers to anointed by God, which means God made the appointment, which was celebrated by a ceremonial anointing. To quote Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (via Wiki):

The Hebrew word for “Messiah” is “Moshiach” The literal and proper translation of this word is “anointed,” which refers to a ritual of anointing and consecrating someone or something with oil. (I Samuel 10:1-2) It is used throughout the Jewish Bible in reference to a wide variety of individuals and objects; for example, a Jewish king (I Kings 1:39), Jewish priests (Leviticus 4:3), prophets (Isaiah 61:1), the Jewish Temple and its utensils (Exodus 40:9-11), unleavened bread (Numbers 6:15), and a non-Jewish king (Cyrus king of Persia, Isaiah 45:1).

Thus, we can see that any group of people who were named "Christians" were named after the Messiah. And that, in turn, means that there's no reason to assume that among the millions of Greek-speaking Jews in the Roman Empire, only the believers that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah were called Christians. Any messianic Jew would properly be called a Christian.

This has bearing on the first purported mention of "Christ", early during the reign of the emperor Claudius, by Suetonius: Claudius:25:

Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome.[J. C. Rolfe tranlation]

Here's another translation (by Alexander Thomson.):

He banished from Rome all the Jews, who were continually making disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus.

I don't like either. Here's the latin text, from Perseus Suetonius: Claudius:25 section 4 (Latin):

Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantis Roma expulit.

By calling up the link and clicking on each word, you can get the case and meaning, listed here:

- Iudaeos (no info)
- impulsore (noun sg masc abl) one who incites, an inciter, instigator
- Chresto (noun sg masc abl/dat) A Jew at Rome under the emperor Claudius (?)
- assidue (noun sg masc voc) common talk/(adv)/(adj sg neut/masc voc) by the busy anvil
- tumultuantis (part pl pres part act masc/fem acc)/(part sg pres part act masc/fem/neut gen) to make a disturbance, be in confusion, storm, rant, talk at random, etc.
- Roma (noun sg fem abl/nom/voc) Rome, the mother city
- expulit (verb 3rd sg perf ind act) to drive out, drive away, thrust out, eject, expel

There's no info regarding the case of "Iudaeos", it has probably been borrowed from the Greek. But it's hard to believe that it's in the accusative. In fact, the only word that's even possibly in the accusative is "tumultuantis" a present participle that means something like "making disturbances" or "ranting". While I'm no Latin scholar, I would (loosely) translate this as "He banished from Rome the constant Jewish disturbances over 'Chrestus'". Or perhaps "He banished from Rome those who were constantly making Jewish disturbances over 'Chrestus'".

The biggest controversy is whether Chrestus referred to Jesus (Christ), but IMO if it referred to Christ it meant Messiah, and not necessarily Jesus. There were many other claims for who was the Messiah, as is demonstrated by the (probably ex post facto) prophesies in Mark (and parallels in Mathew and Luke):

At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'Look, there he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect—if that were possible. So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.

Thus, I would say that most probably, the expulsion during Claudius' reign was of Jews arguing (and likely rioting) over the identity of the Messiah, Jesus may have been one of the contenders, but likely not the only one.

Separating the Christians from the Jews

We've seen that the Jews were unpopular, there were often riots against them when some major misfortune occurred, and that the "Christians" were generally considered a subset of the Jews. The key question for whether Nero undertook to persecute "Christians" was whether anybody made the distinction in his time. Here, I'm on a little more shaky ground, but IMO the best time to set the separation is during the reign of Domitian. According to Wiki, "A tradition based upon 4th century writings by Eusebius of Caesarea maintains that Jews and Christians were heavily persecuted toward the end of Domitian's reign." There's no mention of persecution of Christians by Suetonius, although he does mention that:

Besides the exactions from others, the poll-tax on the Jews was levied with extreme rigour, both on those who lived after the manner of Jews in the city, without publicly professing themselves to be such, 1 and on those who, by concealing their origin, avoided paying the tribute imposed upon that people. I remember, when I was a youth, to have been present,2 when an old man, ninety years of age, had his person exposed to vitw in a very crowded court, in order that, on inspection, the procurator might satisfy himself whether he was circumcised.

There are Jewish traditions, however, that it was about this time that many "heretics" were "expelled from the synagog". In my reconstruction, what happened was that the general unhappiness over Christian proselytizing and taking converts without requiring circumcision resulted in a demand by the emperor that the Jewish authorities in Jamnia define doctrinal or procedural borders around their religion, excluding the gentile Christians and any other "heretics" who didn't require circumcision.

If this is true, then in Nero's day the Christians would not have been distinguishable. When the Great Fire broke out, the ethnic Jews would have known a persecution was coming, and fled Rome before it could start. Only the Gentile Christians converted by Paul and his associates wouldn't have known to flee, or would have decided to stay, trusting in God. Thus, only they would have been available for Nero to persecute. They would have carried stories forward, orally at first, then written, providing Tacitus with his source(s) for the statements that eventually supported the Church's claim that Nero had persecuted Christians.

Was Jesus a Psychopath?

I just finished reading Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend by Barbara Oakley, and after reading her description of various personality traits exhibited by psychopathic and/or "borderline" world leaders, business leaders, religious personalities, and so on, it occurred to me that there's a good model for the "real historical Jesus" in this.

Consider that Mao Zedong was just about worshiped as a "god", as was Kim Il Sung. According to Oakley, both "borderliners" and many psychopaths want adoration. In John, Jesus met Andrew (Simon Peter's brother) when he was baptized. Did Jesus join John's organization? Were Andrew and Phillip already members? If Jesus was like most power-hungry psychopaths, he would have made a beeline for the power involved in this organization. Could he have become a section leader, or whatever it was called?

Reconstructing Jesus' Career (An Online, parallel bible may be found here.)

The story of Jesus' career in Mark shows clear signs of being "topical" rather than chronological. The "timing" is for the Proselyte's journey through Jesus' teaching, not Jesus' actual career. Even the timing of his death, which doesn't match John (being the day after the Paschal sacrifice rather than the day of it) is clearly symbolic: it equates the Eucharist with the Paschal feast. As Papias relates:

Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements. (From Wiki)

Mathew and Luke clearly follow Mark in this, as they have taken much of Mark's text into their own.

John is different, although his setting of the Crucifixion on the day of the paschal sacrifice is also clearly symbolic: Jesus is the "Lamb of God", God's firstborn son sacrificed for his people in an act reminiscent of the sacrifice of lambs during the Exodus. Thus, we really can't even be sure Jesus died at Passover at all, since both our sources are riding a symbolic hobbyhorse.

Despite its sometimes symbolic timing, John's "Gospel" is probably more reliable, or rather less unreliable, than Mark and the other synoptics for timing, especially when there's no obvious motive for tweaking it. Both, however, need to be evaluated based on the likelihood that any particular event would have been "too well known to dink with": A well-known oral tradition could at best have been "respun". It couldn't have been flatly contradicted.

Consider the "Cleansing of the Temple": Mark places it late in Jesus' career, both because everything in Jerusalem is late, and because it's part of the reason the "authorities" want to crucify him. John places it very early, for no obvious reason, thus likely enough because that's when it happened. Now, the temple was a huge place, and the court of the gentiles, where the moneychangers and sellers of animals were located, took up a great part of it.


Figure 1: plan of the Temple. (From TempleMount.org.)

Could one man have actually driven out all the moneychangers and animal vendors? Doubtful. But if Jesus had led a bunch of John's followers on a "raid"; well, imangine: he stands on one wall of the Court of the Gentiles carrying on for about 10-15 minutes, perhaps braiding his whip while ranting, then jumps down and attacks. At that point, all the followers he brought with him pull out whips and do likewise. Tables falling over, coins rolling everywhere, animals running around, everybody grabbing for rolling coins: a riot. Great fun for a bunch of rebels.

What does this have to do with Jesus being a power-hungry psychopath? Quite a bit, actually. We have very limited information just what John the Baptist was about, but it seems plausible enough that making this kind of trouble wasn't part of his agenda. Jesus could well have hijacked a bunch of his more excitable followers for an adventure that gave him lots of "cred" with the whole crowd while putting John (well known to the authorities) in a vulnerable position. Since Jesus was newly joined, it's likely he wasn't known, and the authorities would probably have blamed John anyway, since he was the best known.

The next incident I want to discuss is at the beginning of Mark (1:14-21):

1:14 Now after John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God,

1:15 and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the gospel.

1:16 And passing along by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishers.

1:17 And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.

1:18 And straightway they left the nets, and followed him.

1:19 And going on a little further, he saw James the `son' of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending the nets.

1:20 And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and went after him.

1:21 And they go into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day he entered into the synagogue and taught.

The first thing is, we have no real description from the "Gospels" of why John was arrested, but it seems likely enough that it was the "raid" on the Temple. With John out of action, Jesus was free to collect some of the people who had been on the "raid", and continue to make trouble. What sort of trouble? Perhaps they told the following story (recounted as "true" by Mark):

6:17 For Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife; for he had married her.

6:18 For John said unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife.

6:19 And Herodias set herself against him, and desired to kill him; and she could not;

6:20 for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and kept him safe. And when he heard him, he was much perplexed; and he heard him gladly.

6:21 And when a convenient day was come, that Herod on his birthday made a supper to his lords, and the high captains, and the chief men of Galilee;

6:22 and when the daughter of Herodias herself came in and danced, she pleased Herod and them that sat at meat with him; and the king said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee.

6:23 And he sware unto her, Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, I will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom.

6:24 And she went out, and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The head of John the Baptizer.

6:25 And she came in straightway with haste unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou forthwith give me on a platter the head of John the Baptist.

6:26 And the king was exceeding sorry; but for the sake of his oaths, and of them that sat at meat, he would not reject her.

6:27 And straightway the king sent forth a soldier of his guard, and commanded to bring his head: and he went and beheaded him in the prison,

6:28 and brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the damsel; and the damsel gave it to her mother.

If there's one point that Oakley makes very clear, it's the way that psychopaths and "borderliners" can play people off against one another, and manipulate rumor to their own advantage. Consider how this rumor, if spread immediately after John's arrest, would have benefited a psychopathic (or "borderliner") Jesus: John's in jail, but everybody thinks he's dead. Herod (Herod Antipas, king of Galilee, son of Herod the Great) was being blamed for his death, portrayed as completely without scruples but weak enough to be manipulated by a dancing girl.

Everybody's angry and leaderless, and there's Jesus ready to lead. By the time John's friends get him out of jail, if they ever do (even Josephus says he was executed), Jesus has already established himself as a leader on his own, having hijacked many of John's followers.

Thus, the beginning of a psychopathic ministry, not unlike those of modern televangelists.

Skipping directly to the end of his life, two points. First, Jesus was executed for being the "King of the Jews":

19:19 And Pilate wrote a title also, and put it on the cross. And there was written, JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.

19:20 This title therefore read many of the Jews, for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city; and it was written in Hebrew, `and' in Latin, `and' in Greek.

19:21 The chief priests of the Jews therefore said to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews.

19:22 Pilate answered, What I have written I have written. [John 19]

Was Jesus the King of the Jews? Consider, from Mark:

14:3 And while he was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster cruse of ointment of pure nard very costly; `and' she brake the cruse, and poured it over his head.

14:4 But there were some that had indignation among themselves, `saying', To what purpose hath this waste of the ointment been made?

14:5 For this ointment might have been sold for above three hundred shillings, and given to the poor. And they murmured against her.

14:6 But Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me.

14:7 For ye have the poor always with you, and whensoever ye will ye can do them good: but me ye have not always.

14:8 She hath done what she could; she hath anointed my body beforehand for the burying.

Although many theories have been made regarding the identity of this woman, could she have been a prophetess? The bible of that time made many mentions of prophetesses. If so, and she proclaimed Jesus King, legally he was. There's precedent in II Kings, chapter 9.

We've all heard about Barabbas whom the crowd demanded be released instead of Jesus:

15:7 And there was one named Barabbas, which lay bound with them that had made insurrection with him, who had committed murder in the insurrection.

What insurrection? The word (Stasis) was also used for riots. Did Jesus start a riot?

Finally, consider the crucifixion itself: it's well known there were two "thieves", one on either side of him, but they actually weren't thieves, but "lestas", ("λῃστάς"), a word used for both bandits and rebels/revolutionaries, including rioters. Here's the relevant phrase in greek (Mark 15:27 from GreekBible.com): "Καὶ σὺν αὐτῷ σταυροῦσιν δύο λῃστάς, ἕνα ἐκ δεξιῶν καὶ ἕνα ἐξ εὐωνύμων αὐτοῦ." ("And with him they crucify two robbers; one on his right hand, and one on his left.")

Overall, then, we have the picture of a power-hungry psychopath who got his patron (John the Baptist) arrested and executed, grabbed control of his organization, had a career of some length as a religious leader, got himself proclaimed king, started a riot, and was executed, along with some of the other leaders. He was charismatic and encouraged his followers to worship him. After his death, his followers claimed he had returned from the dead.