Describe the persecution of Christians in Rome by Nero

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

Enok Cheon 10 alpha Hebron School Nero and Persecution

(a) i Describe the persecution of Christians in Rome by Nero.

Nero (AD 37-68) was a Roma Emperor, who ruled for 14 years since AD 54 until when he suicides himself. He is well known for fiddling his lyre when Rome was burning in AD 64. Afterward when the fire ceased, he built an enormous palace in the middle of the area which burned. This rumored that Nero himself caused the fire to build him this palace. In those days, the small groups of Christians were developing; however, the Christians were seen as outcasts and were very unpopular. Nero also hated the Christians, so this was the perfect opportunity for him to blame it on the Christians.

There were many reasons behind how it started. Rome actually tolerated other religions as long as they show their alliance by giving offerings to statues of the emperor. However, the Jews and Christians didn’t do this because of the belief that they shouldn’t worship any gods’ statue and also not worship any other gods except God. As they multiplied, Christians were more suspected of being a secret society doing strange things; like only baptised Christians were allowed to the Eucharist and were also suspected of cannibalism because rumour that Christians eat body and blood during Eucharist. The Emperor Nero used this reputation ...

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Many Christians were put to death when the persecution started. Tacitus explains that Nero just didn’t kill; he used this persecuting Christians for amusement. Many were crucified or eaten by animals or killed by the gladiators. Tacitus also tells us that ‘others set on fire to serve to illuminate the night when daylight failed...’ It is also known that Nero persecuted Peter and Paul

Persecution means to eliminate a group of people for their belief and idea. In the early Christian age, many people were persecuted for their belief in God. I believe that we should also have that courage that they had and keep our faith.

The whole paragraph’s information is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero#Jewish_tradition

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