| |
Easton's Bible Dictionary
occurs only in the superscription (which is probably
spurious, and is altogether omitted in the RSV) to the Second Epistle to Timothy.
He became emperor of Rome when he was about seventeen years of age (A.D. 54),
and soon began to exhibit the character of a cruel tyrant and heathen debauchee.
In May A.D. 64, a terrible conflagration broke out in Rome, which raged for six
days and seven nights, and totally destroyed a great part of the city. The guilt
of this fire was attached to him at the time, and the general verdict of history
accuses him of the crime. "Hence, to suppress the rumour," says Tacitus (Annals,
xv. 44), "he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite
tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who are hated for their enormities.
Christus, the founder of that name, was put to death as a criminal by Pontius
Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius; but the pernicious superstition,
repressed for a time, broke out again, not only throughout Judea, where the mischief
originated, but through the city of Rome also, whither all things horrible and
disgraceful flow, from all quarters, as to a common receptacle, and where they
are encouraged. Accordingly, first three were seized, who confessed they were
Christians. Next, on their information, a vast multitude were convicted, not so
much on the charge of burning the city as of hating the human race. And in their
deaths they were also made the subjects of sport; for they were covered with the
hides of wild beasts and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set
fire to, and, when day declined, burned to serve for nocturnal lights. Nero offered
his own gardens for that spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian game, indiscriminately
mingling with the common people in the habit of a charioteer, or else standing
in his chariot; whence a feeling of compassion arose toward the sufferers, though
guilty and deserving to be made examples of by capital punishment, because they
seemed not to be cut off for the public good, but victims to the ferocity of one
man." Another Roman historian, Suetonius (Nero, xvi.), says of him: "He likewise
inflicted punishments on the Christians, a sort of people who hold a new and impious
superstition" (Forbes's Footsteps of St. Paul, p. 60).
Nero was the emperor before whom Paul was brought on his first imprisonment at
Rome, and the apostle is supposed to have suffered martyrdom during this persecution.
He is repeatedly alluded to in Scripture ( Acts 25:11 ; Philippians 1:12, 1:13
; 4:22 ). He died A.D. 68.
Hitchcock's Dictionary of Bible Names
(no entry)
Smith's Bible Dictionary
(no entry)
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
ne'-ro (Neron):
The fifth Roman emperor, born at Antium December 15, 37 AD, began to reign October
13, 54, died June 9, 68.
I. NAME, PARENTAGE AND EARLY TRAINING
His name was originally Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus but after his adoption into
the Claudian gens by the emperor Claudius, he became Nero Claudius Caesar Germanicus.
His father was Enaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus ("Brazen-beard"), a man sprung from
an illustrious family and of vicious character. His mother was Agrippina the younger,
the daughter of Germanicus and the elder Agrippina, sister of the emperor Caius
(Caligula) and niece of the emperor Claudius. On the birth of the child, his father
predicted, amid the congratulations of his friends, that any offspring of himself
and Agrippina could only prove abominable and disastrous for the public (Suet.
Nero vi: detestabile et malo publico). At the age of three the young Domitius
lost his father and was robbed of his estates by the rapacity of Caius. In 39
his mother was banished for supposed complicity in a plot against Caius. Nero
was thus deprived of his mother and at the same time left almost penniless. His
aunt, Domitia Lepida, now undertook the care of the boy and placed him with two
tutors, a dancer and a barber (Suetonius vi). On the accession of Claudius, Agrippina
was recalled, and Nero was restored to his mother and his patrimony (41 AD).
II. AGRIPPINA'S AMBITION FOR NERO
She cared little for her son's moral education, but began immediately to train
him for high position. She aimed at nothing less than securing the empire for
Nero. With a view to this she must gain influence over her uncle, the emperor
Clandius, who was very susceptible to female charms. At first the path was by
no means easy, while the licentious empress, Messalina, was in power. But on the
fall and death of Messalina (48 AD)--for which Agrippina may have intrigued--the
way seemed opened. With the assistance of the emperor's freedman, Pallas, Agrippina
proved the successful candidate for Claudius' affections. She how felt secure
to carry out the plans for the elevation of her son:
Her Nine Measures for Bringing Him to the Throne
(1) She secured his betrothal to Octavia, the daughter of
Claudius, having previously, by the villainy of Vitellius, broken off the engagement
between Octavia and Lucius Silanus (ibid., xlviii). Later, Nero married this unfortunate
lady.
(2) Vitellius again obliged by securing a modification of Roman law so as to permit
a marriage with a brother's (not sister's) daughter, and in 49 Agrippina became
empress.
(3) In the meantime she had caused Seneca to be recalled from banishment and had
entrusted to him the education of Nero for imperial purposes.
(4) The adoption of her son by Claudius (50 AD).
(5) She next secured early honors and titles for Nero in order to mark him out
as Clandins' successor.
(6) She caused Britannicus, Claudius' son, to be kept in the background and treated
as a mere child, removing by exile or death suspected supporters of Britannicus.
(7) Agrippina was farsighted and anticipated a later secret of Roman imperialism--the
influence of the armies in the nomination of emperors. For this cause she took
an active interest in military affairs and gave her name to a new colony on the
Rhine (modern Cologne). But she did not forget the importance of securing the
praetorian guard and Burrus the prefect.
(8) She persuaded Clandins to make a will in favor of her son. All was now ready.
But Claudius did not like the idea of excluding his son Britannicus from power,
and murmurs were heard among the senate and people. Delay might prove fatal to
Agrippina's plans, so
(9) Claudius must die. The notorious Locusta administered poison in a dish of
mushrooms, and Xenophon, Agrippina's physician, thrust a poisoned feather down
Claudius' throat on the pretense of helping him to vomit. Burrus then took Nero
forth and caused him to be proclaimed imperator by the praetorians. |
III. NERO'S REIGN
1. Quinquennium Neronis:
Nero's reign falls into three periods, the first of which is the celebrated quinquennium,
or first 5 years, characterized by good government at home and in the provinces
and popularity with both senate and people. Agrippina, having seated her son on
the throne, did not purpose to relinquish power herself; she intended to rule
along with him. And at first Nero was very devoted to her and had given as watchword
to the guard, "the best of mothers" (Tacitus, Annals xiii.2; Suetonius ix). This
caused a sharp conflict with Seneca and Burrus, who could not tolerate Agrippina's
arrogance and unbounded influence over her son. In order to detach him from his
mother they encouraged him in an amour with a Greek freedwoman, Acre (Tac. Ann.
xiii.12). This first blow to Agrippina's influence was soon followed by the dismissal
from court of her chief protector Pallas. She now threatened to bring forth Britannicus
and present him as the rightful heir to the throne. This cost Britannicus his
life, for Nero, feeling insecure while a son of Claudius lived, compassed his
death at a banquet. A hot wine cup was offered Britannicus, and to cool it to
taste, cold water was added which had been adulterated with a virulent poison.
The victim succumbed immediately. All eyes fastened on Nero in suspicion, but
he boldly asserted that the death was due to a fit of epilepsy--a disease to which
Britannicus had been subject from childhood. Such was the fate of Agrippina's
first protege. She next took up the cause of the despised and ill-treated Octavia,
which so incensed her son that he deprived her of her guards and caused her to
remove from the palace. Agrippina now disappears for the next few years to come
into brief and tragic prominence later. Seneca and Burrus undertook the management
of affairs, with results that justified the favorable impression which the first
5 years of Nero's reign made upon the Roman people. Many reforms were initiated,
financial, social and legislative. These ministers treated Nero to counsels of
moderation and justice, dictating a policy which left considerable activity to
the senate. But perceiving the bent of his evil nature, they allowed him to indulge
in low pleasures and excesses with the most profligate companions, thinking, perhaps,
either that the young ruler would in this way prove less harmful to the public,
or that, after sowing his wild oats, he would return to the serious business of
government. But in both ways they were sorely disappointed, for Nero, having surrendered
himself to the basest appetites, continued to go from excess to excess. He surrounded
himself with the most dissolute companions, conspicuous among whom were Salvius
Otho and Claudius Senecio.
2. Poppea Sabina (58 AD):
The former had a wife as ambitious as she was unprincipled, and endowed, according
to Tacitus, with every gift of nature except an "honorable mind." Already divorced
before marrying Otho, she was minded to employ Otho merely as a tool to enable
her to become Nero's consort. With the appearance of Poppea Sabina, for such was
her name, opens the second period of Nero's reign. She proved his evil star. Under
her influence he shook off all restraints, turned a deaf ear to is best advisers
and plunged deeper into immorality and crime. She allowed, if not persuaded, Nero
to give her husband a commission in the distant province of Lusitania. Her jealousy
could tolerate no possible rival. She plotted the death of Agrippina to which
she easily persuaded Nero to consent. This foul crime was planned and carried
out with the greatest cunning. Anicetus, admiral of the fleet, undertook to construct
a vessel that would sink to order. Nero invited his mother to his villa at Baiae
at the Quinquatrus celebration. After the banquet she was persuaded to return
to Bauli by the vessel prepared. But the plan did not succeed, and Agrippina saved
herself by swimming ashore. She pretended to treat the matter as an accident,
sending a freedman to Nero to inform him of her escape. Anicetus, however, relieved
Nero of the awkward position by pretending that Agrippina's freedman had dropped
a dagger which was considered proof enough of her guilt. Deserted by her friends
and slaves except one freedman, she was quickly dispatched by her murderers. Nero
gave out that she died by suicide (Suetonius xxxiv; Tacitus, Annals cxli-cxlviii).
3. Poppea and Tigellinus:
Nero no longer made any secret of taking Poppea as his mistress, and, under her
influence, bid defiance to the best Roman traditions and plunged deeper into dissipation.
In 62 AD matters grew much worse by the death of the praetorian prefect, Burrus.
Seneca lost in him a powerful ally, and Poppea gained in one of the new prefects,
Sofonius Tigellinus, a powerful ally. She succeeded in causing Seneca to retire
from the court. Next she determined to remove Octavia. A charge of adultery was
first tried, but as the evidence proved too leaky, Nero simply divorced her because
of barrenness. Then Anicetus was persuaded to confess adultery with her, and the
innocent Octavia was banished to the island of Pandateria, where a little later
she was executed at Poppea's orders and her head brought to her rival (62 AD).
Poppea was now empress, and the next year bore a daughter to Nero, but the child
died when only three months old. Two years later Poppea herself died during pregnancy,
of a cruel kick inflicted by Nero in a fit of rage (65 AD). He pronounced an eulogy
over her and took a third wife, Statilia Messalina, of whom he had no issue.
Nero, having by his extravagance exhausted the well-filled treasury of Claudius
(as Caius did that of Tiberius), was driven to fill his coffers by confiscations
of the estates of rich nobles against whom his creature Tigellinus could trump
the slightest plausible charge. But even this did not prevent a financial crisis--the
beginning of the bankruptcy of the later Rein empire. The provinces which at first
enjoyed good government were now plundered; new and heavy taxes were imposed.
Worst of all, the gold and silver coinage was depreciated, and the senate was
deprived of the right of copper coinage.
4. Great Fire (July, 64):
This difficulty was much increased by the great fire which was not only destructive
to both private and state property, but also necessitated the providing thousands
of homeless with shelter, and lowering the price of corn. On July 18, 64, this
great conflagration broke out in Circus Maximus. A high wind caused it to spread
rapidly over a large portion of the city, sweeping before it ill-built streets
of wooden houses. At the end of six days it seemed to be exhausted for lack of
material, when another conflagration started in a different quarter of the city.
Various exaggerated accounts of the destruction are found in Roman historians:
of the 14 city regions 7 were said to have been totally destroyed and 4 partially.
Nero was at Antium at the time. He hastened back to the city and apparently took
every means of arresting the spread of the flames. He superintended in person
the work of the fire brigades, often exposing himself to danger. After the fire
he threw open his own gardens to the homeless. The catastrophe caused great consternation,
and, for whatever reasons, suspicion seemed to fix upon Nerio. Rumor had it that
on hearing the Greek verse, "When I am dead let the earth be wrapped in fire,"
he interrupted, "Nay rather, while I live" (Suetonius xxxviii); that he had often
deplored the ugliness of the city and wished an opportunity to rebuild it; that
he purposely set it on fire in order to find room for his magnificent Domus Aurea
("Golden House"); that when the city was burning he gazed upon it from the tower
of Maecenas delighted with what he termed "the beauty of the conflagration"; that
he recited in actor's costume the sack of Troy (Suetonius xxxviii; Tacitus, Annals
xv.38). In spite of all these reports Nero must be absolved of the guilt of incendiarism.
5. Persecution of Christians:
Such public calamities were generally attributed to the wrath of the gods. In
the present case everything was done to appease the offended deity. Yet, in spite
of all, suspicion still clung to Nero "Wherefore in order to allay the rumor he
put forward as guilty (subdidit reos), and afflicted with the most exquisite punishments
those who were hated for their abominations (flagitia) and called 'Christians'
by the populace. Christus, from whom the name was derived, was punished by the
procurator Pontius Pilatus in the reign of Tiberius. This noxious form of religion
(exitiabilis superstitio), checked for a time, broke out again not only in Judea
its original home, but also throughout the city (Rome) where all abominations
meet and find devotees. Therefore first of all those who confessed (i.e. to being
Christians) were arrested, and then as a result of their information a large number
(multitude ingens) were implicated (reading coniuncti, not convicti), not so much
on the charge of incendiarism as for hatred of the human race. They died by methods
of mockery; some were covered with the skins of wild beasts and then torn by dogs,
some were crucified, some were burned as torches to give light at night .... whence
(after scenes of extreme cruelty) commiseration was stirred for them, although
guilty and deserving the worst penalties, for men felt that their destruction
was not on account of the public welfare but to gratify the cruelty of one (Nero)"
(Tacitus, Annals xv.44). Such is the earliest account of the first heathen persecution
(as well as the first record of the crucifixion by a heathen writer). Tacitus
here clearly implies that the Christians were innocent (subdidit reos), and that
Nero employed them simply as scapegoats. Some regard the conclusion of the paragraph
as a contradiction to this--"though guilty and deserving the severest punishment"
(adversus sontes et novissima exempla meritos). But Tacitus means by sontes that
the Christians were "guilty" from the point of view of the populace, and that
they merited extreme punishment also from his own standpoint for other causes,
but not for arson. Fatebantur does not mean that they confessed to incendiarism,
but to being Christians, and qui fatebantur means there were some who boldly confessed,
while others tried to conceal or perhaps even denied their faith.
But why were the Christians selected as scapegoats? Why not the Jews, who were
both numerous and had already offended the Roman government and had been banished
in great numbers? Or why not the many followers of the oriental religions, which
had proved more than once obnoxious?
(1) Poppea was favorable to Judaism and had certainly enough
influence over Nero to protect the Jews; she was regarded by them as a proselyte
and is termed by Josephus (Ant., XX, viii, 11) theosebes, "god-fearing." When
the populace and Nero were seeking victims for revenge, the Jews may have been
glad of the opportunity of putting forward the Christians and may have been encouraged
in this by Poppea. Farrar (Early Days of Christianity, I, chapter iv) sees "in
the proselytism of Poppea, guided by Jewish malice, the only adequate explanation
of the first Christian persecution."
(2) Closely connected with this was doubtless the observation by the Roman government
that Christianity was an independent faith from Judaism. This may first have been
brought home to the authorities by the trial of Paul before Nero, as suggested
by Ramsay (Expositor, July, 1893). Judaism was a recognized and tolerated religion,
a religio licita, and Christianity when divorced from Judaism became a religio
illicita and punishable by the state, for Christianity first rose "under the shadow
of licensed Judaism" (sub umbraculo licitae Judeorum religionis: Tertullian, Apol.,
xxi).
(3) As Christianity formed a society apart from Roman society, all kinds of crimes
were attributed to its followers, Thyestean feasts, nightly orgies, hostility
to temples and images. These flagitia seemed summed up in odium humani generis,
"hatred for the human race."
(4) They were easily selected as being so numerous and making most progress in
a line opposed to Roman spirit; compare ingens multitudo (Tacitus, Annals xv.44;
Clemens Rom., Cor 1:6, polu plethos; compare also "great multitude" of Revelation
7:9; 19:1).
(5) No doubt, too, early Christian enthusiasm was unequivocal in its expressions,
especially in its belief of a final conflagration of the world and its serene
faith amid the despair of others. |
6. Conspiracy of Piso (65 AD):
In the meantime Tigellinus' tyranny and confiscations to meet Nero's expenses
caused deep discontent among the nobles, which culminated in the famous conspiracy
at the head of which was C. Calpurnius Piso. The plot was prematurely betrayed
by Milichus. An inquisition followed in which the most illustrious victims who
perished were Seneca the philosopher, Lucan the poet, Lucan's mother, and later
Annaeus Mela, brother of Seneca and father of Lucan, T. Petronius Arbiter, "the
glass of fashion." Finally, "Nero having butchered so many illustrious men, at
last desired to exterminate virtue itself by the death of Thrasea Paetus and Barea
Soranus" (Tacitus, Annals xvi.21 f).
7. Visit to Greece (66 AD):
Having cleared every suspected person out of the way, he abandoned the government
in Rome to a freedman Helius, and started on a long visit to Greece (66-68 AD),
where he took part in musical contests and games, himself winning prizes from
the obsequious Greeks, in return for which Nero bestowed upon them "freedom."
Nero was so un-Roman that he was perfectly at home in Greece, where alone he said
he was appreciated by cultured people. In the meantime the revolt of Vindex in
Gaul commenced (68 AD), but it was soon quelled by Verginius Rufus on account
of its national Gaulic character. Galba of Hither Spain next declared himself
legatus of the senate and the Roman people. Nero was persuaded to return to Rome
by Helius; he confiscated Galba's property, but his weakness and hesitancy greatly
helped the cause of the latter.
8. Death of Nero:
Nymphidius Sabinus, one of the prefects, won over the guard for Galba, by persuading
the irresolute emperor to withdraw from Rome and then told the praetorians that
Nero had deserted them. Nero was a coward, both in life and in death. While he
had the means of easily crushing Galba, he was revolving plans of despair in his
Servilian gardens, whether he should surrender himself to the mercies of the Parthians
or to those of Galba; whether Galba would allow him the province of Egypt; whether
the public would forgive his past if he showed penitence enough. In his distraction
a comforter asked him in the words of Virgil, "Is it then so wretched to die?"
He could not summon the courage for suicide, nor could he find one to inflict
the blow for him:
"Have I then neither friend nor foe?" Phaon a freedman offered him the shelter
of his villa a few miles from Rome. Here he prepared for suicide, but with great
cowardice. He kept exclaiming, "What an artist I am to perish!" (Qualis artifex
pereo, Suet. xlix). On learning that he was condemned to a cruel death by the
senate, he put the weapon to his throat and was assisted in the fatal blow by
Epaphroditus his secretary. A centurion entered pretending he had come to help:
"Too late--this is fidelity," were Nero's last words. His remains were laid in
the family vault of the Domitii by his two nurses Ecloge and Alexandria and his
concubine Acte (Suetonius L). Thus perished on July 9, 68 AD the last of the line
of Julius Caesar in his 31st year and in the 14th of his reign. |
IV. DOWNFALL AND CHARACTER
1. Seven Causes of Downfall:
The causes of his downfall were briefly:
(1) his lavish expenditure leading to burdensome taxation
and financial insecurity;
(2) tyranny and cruelty of his favorites;
(3) the great fire which brought dissatisfaction to fasten suspicion on Nero and
the consequent enlargement of his private abode at the expense of the city--especially
the Golden House;
(4) the unpopular measure of the extension of Roman franchise to Greece and favored
foreigners;
(5) the security engendered by the success with which the conspiracy of Piso was
crushed;
(6) the discovery of another "secret of empire," that an emperor could be created
elsewhere than at Rome, that the succession of emperors was not hereditary but
rested with the great armies, and
(7) the cowardice and weakness which Nero displayed in the revolt which led to
his death.
His reign is memorable for the activity of Seneca, the great fire, the persecution
of Christians, the beginning of the bankruptcy of the later Roman empire, the
Armenian disaster of Paetus (62 AD) retrieved by Corbulo and the humiliation of
Parthia, the outbreak of the insurrection in Judea (66 AD), which ended in the
destruction of Jerusalem. |
2. Character:
Nero ranks with Gaius for folly and vice, while his cruelties recall the worst
years of Tiberius. Very effeminate in his tastes, particular about the arrangement
of his hair and proud of his voice, his greatest fault was inordinate vanity which
courted applause for performances on non-Roman lines. He neglected his high office
and degraded Roman gravitas by zeal for secondary pursuits. Nero, like his three
predecessors, was very susceptible to female charms. He was licentious in the
extreme, even to guilt of that nameless vice of antiquity--love of a male favorite.
His cruelty, both directly and through his instruments, made the latter part of
his reign as detestable as the quinquennium had been golden. He loved the extravagant
and luxurious in every exaggerated form. He was a weakling and a coward in his
life, and especially in his death. Of his personal appearance we are told his
features were regular and good; the expression of his countenance, however, was
somewhat repelling. His frame was ill proportioned--slender legs and big stomach.
In later years his face was covered with pimples. |
V. "NERO REDIVIVUS"
It seems as if there was something lovable even about this monster, which led
a freedman to remain faithful to the last, and his two old nurses and cast-off
concubine to care affectionately for his remains, and for a long time there were
not wanting hands to strew his grave with spring and autumn flowers and to display
his effigy (Suet. lvii). But, whether from the strange circumstances of his death,
or the subsequent terrible confusion in the Roman world, or from whatever cause,
there soon arose a belief that Nero had not really died, but was living somewhere
in retirement or had fled among the Parthians, and that he was destined in a short
time to return and bring great calamity upon his enemies or the world (quasi viventis
et brevi magno inimicorum malo reversuri:
Suetonius lvii). This belief was a force among the Parthians who were ready to
take up arms at the report of a pseudo-Nero (Tacitus, History i.2). In the confusion
of the year of the four emperors, Greece and Asia were disturbed by the report
of the advent of Nero (Tac. Hist. ii.8), and the historian promises to mention
the fortune and attempts of other pseudo-Neros. This belief was taken up by the
Jews and amalgamated with their legend of Antichrist. In Ascension of Isaiah 4
(1st century AD), the Antichrist is clearly identified with Nero: "Belial shall
appear in the shape of a man, the king of wickedness, the matricide." It occurs
again and again in both the Jewish and Christian sections of the Sib Or (3:66;
4:117,135; 5:100,136,216 f). How far Nero was regarded by the Christians as the
historical personage of Antichrist is a disputed point. That the common belief
of the revival or advent of Nero should influence contemporary Christian thought
in days of social and political turmoil is highly probable. Bousset (Commentary)
regards the beast of Revelation 13 as Rome, and the smitten head whose "deathstroke
was healed" as Nero, and some scholars take Revelation 17:10 f as referring to
Nero. The "scarlet-colored beast" of 17:3 may be intended either for the Roman
government in general or for Nero in particular. That the number 666 (Revelation
13:18) represents in Hebrew letters the numerical equivalent of Neron Kesar is
significant, for the Jewish Christians would be familiar with gemaTriya' (the
numerical equivalent of names). See NUMBER. Compare Farrar, Early Days, chapter
xxviii,. section 5. In later times the idea of a twofold Antichrist seems to have
arisen--one for the Jews and one for the Gentiles; compare especially Commodian,
Carm. Apol. (926): "to us Nero became Antichrist, to the Jews the other" (nobis
Nero factus Antichristus, ille Judaeis). There was an alternate theory that Nero
had really been killed, but that he would rise again (Sib Or 5:216; Augustine,
De Civ. Dei, xx.19: unde nonnulli ipsum resurrecturum et futurum Antichristum
suspicantur).
VI. NERO AND CHRISTIANITY
1. Nero and the New Testament:
The name Nero does not occur in the New Testament, but he was the Caesar to whom
Paul appealed (Acts 25:11) and at whose tribunal Paul was tried after his first
imprisonment. It is quite likely that Nero heard Paul's case in person, for the
emperor showed much interest in provincial cases. It was during the earlier "golden
quinquennium" of Nero's reign that Paul addressed his epistle to the Christians
at Rome, and probably in the last year of Nero's reign (68 AD) Paul suffered death
near the city, though Harnack (Chronologie) places his death in the first Neronian
persecution of 64. Although the New Testament gives no hint of a possible visit
or sojourn of Peter in Rome, such a sojourn and subsequent martyrdom are highly
probable and almost certain from the early persistent tradition, especially in
Clement of Rome, Ignatius and Papias, and later in Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria
and the Liber Pontificalis (catalogue of popes). His execution at Rome under Nero
is practically certain.
2. Neronian Policy and Christianity:
The first persecution to which Christianity was subjected came from the Jews:
the first heathen persecution took place under Nero. Up to this time the Roman
government had been on friendly terms with Christianity, as Christianity was either
not prominent enough to cause any disturbance of society or was confounded by
the Romans with Judaism (sub umbraculo licitae Judeorum religionis: Tertullian,
Apol., xxi). Paul, writing to the Christians of the capital, urged them to "be
in subjection to the higher powers" as "ordained of God" (Romans 13:1), and his
high estimation of the Roman government as power for the good of society was probably
enhanced by his mild captivity at Rome which permitted him to carry on the work
of preaching and was terminated by an acquittal on the first trial (accepting
the view of a first acquittal and subsequent activity before condemnation at a
second trial). But soon, whether because of the trial of Paul, a Roman citizen,
at Rome (about 63), or the growing hostility of the Jews, or the increasing numbers
and alarming progress of the new religion, the distinction between Christianity
and Judaism became apparent to the Roman authorities. If it had not yet been proscribed
as a religio illicita ("'unlicensed religion"), neither had it been admitted as
a religio licita. Christianity was not in itself as yet a crime; its adherents
were not liable to persecution "for the name." According to one view the Neronian
persecution was a spasmodic act and an isolated incident in imperial policy: the
Christians were on this occasion put forward merely to remove suspicion from Nero.
They were not persecuted either as Christians or as incendiaries, but on account
of flagitia and odium humani generis, i.e. Thyestean feasts, Oedipodean incest
and nightly orgies were attributed to them, and their withdrawal from society
and exclusive manners caused the charge of "hatred for society." The evidence
of Tacitus (Ann. xv.44) would bear out this view of the Neronian persecution as
accidental, isolated, to satisfy the revenge of the mob, confined to Rome and
of brief duration. The other view is, however, preferable, as represented by Ramsay
(Church in the Roman Empire, chapter xi) and E. G. Hardy (Studies in Roman History,
chapter iv). Suetonius speaks of the persecution of Christians as a permanent
police regulation in a list of other seemingly permanent measures (Nero xvi: afflicti
suppliciis Christiani genus hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae), which
is not inconsistent with the account of Tacitus--who gives the initial step and
Suetonius the permanent result. The Christians by these trials, though not convicted
of incendiarism, were brought into considerable prominence; their unsocial and
exclusive manners, their withdrawal from the duties of state, their active proselytism,
together with the charges of immorality, established them in Roman eyes as the
enemies of society. Christianity thus became a crime and was banned by the police
authorities. Suetonius gives a "brief statement of the permanent administrative
principle into which Nero's action ultimately resolved itself" (Ramsay, op. cit.,
232). No formal law needed to be passed, the matter could be left with the prefect
of the city. A trial must be held and the flagitia proved before an order for
execution, according to Ramsay, but Hardy holds that henceforth the name itself--nomen
ipsum--was proscribed. A precedent was now established of great importance in
the policy of the imperial government toward Christianity (see, further, ROMAN
EMPIRE AND CHRISTIANITY). There ls no reason to suppose that the Neronian persecution
of 64 AD extended beyond Rome to the provinces, though no doubt the attitude of
the home government must have had considerable influence with provincial officers.
Paul seems to have gone undisturbed, or at least with no unusual obstacles, in
his evangelization after his acquittal. The authorities for a general Neronian
persecution and formal Neronian laws against Christianity are late; compare Orosius
(History vii.7, "(Nero) was the first to put to death Christians at Rome and gave
orders that they should be subjected to the same persecution throughout all the
provinces"). |
LITERATURE
(a) Ancient:
Tacitus Annals xii-xvi; Suetonius Nero; Dio Cassius in Epit. of Xiphilinus 61;
Zonaras xi.
(b) Modern:
Hermann Schiller, Geschichte des rom. Kaiserreichs unter der Regierung des Neron
(Berlin, 1872); Merivale, Hist of the Romans under the Empire; Ramsay, Church
in the Roman Empire and The Expositor, 1893; E.G. Hardy, Christianity and the
Roman Government and Studies in Roman History; Mommsen, "Der Religionsfrevel nach
rom. Recht," Histor. Zeitschr., 1890; C. F. Arnold, Die Neronische Christenverfolgung;
Farrar, Early Days of Christianity; Baring-Gould, Tragedy of the Caesars: G.H.
Lewes, "Was Nero a Monster?" in Cornhill Magazine, July, 1863; B.W. Henderson,
Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero, with important bibliography of ancient
and modern authorities (London, 1903); Lehmann, Claudius u. Nero. |
S. Angus
Tags:
666, bible commentary, bible reference, bible study, christian persecutor, emperor of rome, history, lucius domitius ahenobarbus, nero, nero claudius caesar germanicus, nine steps that brought nero the throne, tyrant
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