Nero And His Inhumane Torture of The Christians In Rome.

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

Danielle McManus

December 5, 2003

Nero And His Inhumane Torture of The Christians In Rome

The persecution of Christians by the Roman emperors seems rather strange, when one considers their inoffensive ways of faith and worship. When one contemplates the skepticism that prevailed among the pagans, this harshness seems all the more remarkable.

Nero, a man with light blue eyes, a thick neck, a protruding stomach, and spindly legs, was a crazed and cruel emperor, a pleasure-driven man who ruled the world by whim and fear. It just goes to show the difference an upbringing makes.

Nero was born in Antium on December 15, AD 37. His mother, the plotting Agrippina, managed to convince her husband Claudius to adopt her son Nero and put him, ahead of Claudius’s own son, first in line for the throne. Maternal concern not satisfied, she then murdered Claudius, and Nero ruled the world at age seventeen.

Nero believed himself to be a great singer and poet. All the better dispositions of his nature had been stifled by his sensuality and moral perversity. The young Nero, having been tutored by the servile philosopher and pedophile Seneca, was actually repulsed by the death penalty. But he resourcefully fumed this weakness into strength; he eventually had his mother stabbed to death for treason and his wife Octavia beheaded for adultery. He then had Octavia’s head displayed for his mistress Poppaea, whom years later he kicked to death while she was pregnant. The Senate made thanks offerings to the gods for this restoration of public morality.

Unfortunately, this is but the tip of the bloody and treacherous iceberg of Nero’s reign. Yet such activities overshadow the few constructive things he attempted, albeit with success: the abolition of indirect taxes (to help farmers), the building of a Corinthian canal, and the resettlement of people who had lost their homes in the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64.

Nero tried to pin the blame for that fire on the city’s small Christian community (regarded as a distinct, dissident group of Jews), and so, appropriately, he burned many of them alive. Peter and Paul were said to have been martyred as a result.

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Nero was the Roman emperor from AD 37-AD 68, and was notorious for his viciousness and cruelty. It was never quite clear why Christians were hated so much by the Romans, but they were sometimes confused with Jews, who were accused of being rebellious and lazy, since they rested on the Sabbath. They were also detested by the Roman government because they refused to pay homage and accept the divine status of the emperor, which most “normal people” considered as nothing more special than a flag salute.

Most of the time, Christians were tolerated because they were a small group, a minority. They were viewed as anti-social by most of the Roman people. They were also viewed as strange because the Romans thought that they actually drank blood and ate the flesh of Jesus; therefore, Romans may have thought that Christians were cannibals. Romans believed that in order to live well and win war, they had to sacrifice regularly to the Roman gods. They wanted to keep the gods on their side so that the gods would be good to them.

Christians did not perform any worship to the Roman gods because they believed in only one God and worshiped Him in three persons; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As Romans believed that it was necessary to worship the gods so that they would be in their favor, Romans then considered Christians to be wicked, anti-religious, and unpatriotic.

Christians did not serve in the army because they might have to kill someone. Christians also refused to hold government positions or do anything to help in a corrupt system. They believed that the one true empire was in heaven. Because the Christians did not follow the state religion, the Roman government decided to persecute them.

The Christians were persecuted from the time of Jesus’ death on. The Roman magistrates considered themselves to be fair and merciful because they gave the Christians many opportunities to change their beliefs before being condemned to death in the arena or by formal execution.

The Romans could not understand why Christians could not make a simple sacrifice to the gods. If Christians did make these sacrifices, they would have all the privileges of a full citizen and would not have to endure a shameful and agonizing death. Because the Romans did not understand the Christian beliefs they considered them to be anti-social scum. They wanted them killed in the arena for public spectacle by being torn apart by ravenous wild beasts or forced to fight unarmed against trained skilled gladiators.

The source of many of the Christian persecutions was blaming them for things that needed blame. In AD 64 Rome underwent a catastrophic fire, which devastated the city. This fire single-handedly destroyed two-thirds of Rome. Some believe that Nero himself ordered the fire because he wanted to rebuild Rome and considered it squalid and ugly before, but in any case he easily blamed the Christians.

However, rumors still spread that Nero had caused the fire, which could have cost him his life and his reign. Because of this, he falsely accused a group of Christians, and had them executed publicly and with terrible ceremonies. At that time if a person admitted to being a Christian, then he or she would be admitting to being an arsonist. But still the rumors raged, so he arrested known Christians and gained information from them, seized a number of others, and made horrific displays of their executions. He did this not so much as punishment, but simply as hatred. The Christians were not just killed by a quick and painless death but by a very slow and agonizing one. He donated his gardens for the events, and as some were tied to crosses and burned, to be used as nightlights, others were made into games as animal hides were attached to them and dogs were set loose to rip them apart.

Rumors began to circulate that Nero had sung his own poem “The sack of Troy” (he did not “fiddle”) while enjoying the bright spectacles that he had ignited. The fact that he was singing was not unreasonable, for Nero had for many years made a fool of himself by publicly playing the lyre and singing before, literally, command performances.

Political turmoil finally forced the troubled emperor to commit suicide. His last words were, “What a showman the world is losing in me.” The sudden disappearance of Nero, whose enemies had spread the report that he had fled to the East, gave rise to the later legend that he was still alive, and would one day return to again sit upon the imperial throne.

Even after the reign of Nero Christians were still persecuted. This is because the loyalty of Christians to “Jesus as Lord” was impossible with the worship of the Roman emperor as “Lord.” Emperors such as Trajan and Marcus Aurellius, who were the most deeply committed to unity and reform, were the ones who recognized the Christians as a threat to those goals; therefore, they undertook to eliminate the threat by killing them.

The famous historian Tacitus had something to say about Nero’s persecution of the Christians in Rome. “So an arrest was made of all who confessed; then on the basis of their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much for the crime of arson as for hatred of the human race. 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 crosses, or were doomed to the flames. These served to illuminate the night when daylight failed. Nero had thrown open the 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 drove about in a chariot. 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 glut one man’s cruelty, that they were being punished.”

Jesus was persecuted to the fullest. He was taunted, tortured, and eventually killed. He paid the ultimate price, His own life, through a torturous crucifixion, for what He believed in, and it is believed that all Christians should be prepared to do the same. Jesus said that He would go to His Father in heaven when all is done. Eternal life is the gift from God that is rewarded to the faithful on earth when they die. It is their reward for suffering for their faith.