Today's commentary is the text of an address Dr Ian Elmer delivered at a conference in Melbourne last week. In it he's looking at one of the earliest places in the history of the Church where there was conflict between the Christian community and the State. These conflicts are still real in the world today and this commentary might help foster a discussion on what are the hallmarks that might characterise Christian attitudes towards the rest of society.

The Fire of Rome 64 CE...

In the year 64 C.E., reportedly following the great fire of Rome, the emperor Nero initiated a significant persecution of Christians in the imperial capital, signalling the first sustained confrontation between the Christian church and the political state. This confrontation is significant, not just because it was the first, but also because we have a number of texts, both Roman and Christian, which provide insights into the reasons for the conflict.

On the Christian side we have two contemporary texts, Paul's letter to Rome and Mark's Gospel, which afford windows onto the nature of church-state relations vis-a-vis the Christian communities in Rome during the years leading up to and following Nero's persecution. On the Roman side we have Tacitus' account of the fire and its tragic outcome (Annals 15:44), written under the emperor Trajan some 50 to 60 years later (110-120 C.E.).

All of these sources are not devoid of problems. Paul was most likely executed two years before the great fire and his letter was written possibly two years earlier again in about 58 C.E. Marks' Gospel makes no mention of the fire; it is a narrative account of events that occurred decades earlier in Palestine. But most scholars agree that it reflects a contemporary persecution of Christians; and the majority opinion holds that this is most likely that of events in Rome during the mid-sixties. Tacitus, on the other hand, has his own political agenda. He recounts these events with the express purpose of vilifying and condemning Nero, and scholars have questioned the veracity of several aspects of his account.

Nevertheless, all three texts do offer us an opportunity to trace the earliest steps toward what would become a turbulent relationship between the Christian church and the pagan Roman state. In this commentary, however, we shall consider only one question: why were the Christians targeted in Nero's persecution?

Origins of Roman Christianity...

We do not know when or how the Christian movement arrived at the imperial capital, but the available evidence suggests that it emerged first within the many Jewish synagogues that dotted the city.

It is significant that Paul writing to a community he addresses as Gentiles (e.g., 1:5-6, 13, 14; 14:1-15:13; 15:16), quotes from the Septuagint with a casualness that bespeaks his readers' familiarity with the Jewish Scriptures. However, if Romans 16 was an original component of Paul's letter, it is significant that the majority the names mentioned in its concluding salutations are specifically Gentile in origin.

These two factors alone seem to indicate that Christianity very rapidly emerged from its Jewish matrix as a separate and distinctly new religious movement — one which was increasingly Gentile in its membership. A supposition that gains further support from Mark's Gospel, which was written a decade later than Romans.

While Mark's Gospel contains traditions that must have originated in Palestinian Judaism, it is addressed to an audience who apparently no longer found some of its Jewish references intelligible or sufficient.

On the one hand, Mark's Gospel is laced with biblical quotations (e.g., 1:2-3; 7:6-7; 12:1011, 36) and riddled with biblical imagery (e.g., 6:30-44; 8:1-10, cf. Exod. 16:13-35; Mk. 9:2-8, 9-13, cf. Mal. 3:1-2; 4:5-6). On the other hand, however, the Gospel clearly addresses Christians who have little knowledge of Jewish practices and are unfamiliar with Semitic idiom (e.g., 7:11; 14:36; 15:8-5; cf. 7:3-4).

That Mark wrote primarily for a Gentile community is also demonstrated by the fact that even as new wine inevitably bursts from old wineskins (Mk. 2:22), the movement inaugurated by Jesus in Mark's Gospel has spilled out of Judaism into the Gentile world, whose communities (3:8; 5:1, 20; 7:31; 8:27) and customs (10:2-12) figure prominently in the narrative.

Moreover, while it appears that Mark does reproduce traditions that were preserved in the early Christian Jewish communities, these are often translated and interpreted by the author, and augmented by the addition of traditions that affirmed the legitimacy of the Gentile mission, for a community we must assume that was predominantly Gentile in origin. This suggests that Markan Christianity had its roots in Christian Judaism yet, by the time the Gospel was composed, had grown beyond them.

Nevertheless, the shift in Mark from a Jewish past to a Gentile future is effected with considerable resistance, both among Jews (e.g., 2:1-3:6; 12:13-44) and among Jesus' own intimates, his disciples (e.g., 4:40; 8:14-21; 14:26-31), his neighbours (6:1-6), and his family (e.g., 3:20-21, 31-35). The same turbulent transition is evident in Romans.

In Romans, Paul appears to be addressing a divided community. The entire thrust of Romans 14:1-15:13, Paul's discussion of the "weak" and the "strong", appears to be an exhortation to ''Law-free'' ("strong") Christians to be sensitive to the scruples of the "Law-observant" (the "weak").

Something of this divide between Christian Jews and Law-free Christians at Rome is also implied by another later Roman document, 1 Clement, which presumes as its provenance "the church of God that sojourns in Rome" (1:1) founded upon the "pillars" of Peter and Paul (5:2; 42:4; 44:1-2) – the Apostle to the Circumcised and the Apostle to the Gentiles, respectively.

Paul counsels the members of the Roman house churches to be demonstrably good, law-abiding and tax-paying citizens of Rome. Only in this way might they avoid attracting the unwanted attentions of the roman authorities.

There is here an added political danger: Once separated from any association with the Jewish synagogues, the Christian communities risk attracting the ire of the Roman civil authorities. While Jews and Jewish practice, such as the dietary laws and Sabbath observance, were often the butt of Roman humour, Judaism was generally revered by the Roman authorities for its antiquity and its civil conservatism.

Prior to the war in 66 C.E., the Jewish priesthood had a strong history of support for Rome. The advent of Christianity, however, placed in jeopardy the relationships between Rome and both its Jewish communities and the newly emergent Christian house-churches.

Probably, not by happenstance, Paul encourages Christian solidarity among the various house-churches (e.g., Rom. 16:16), and reminds them of their responsibility concerning the obedience to the state (Rom. 13:6-7). In effect, Paul counsels the members of the Roman house churches to be demonstrably good, law-abiding and tax-paying citizens of Rome. Only in this way might they avoid attracting the unwanted attentions of the roman authorities.

The Fire of Rome...

By the mid-sixties the potential for conflict between the imperial government and the new religious movement became a reality as we find in Tacitus, who chronicled !he next major chapter in Roman Christianity's stormy political history: Nero's arrest, torture, and execution of Christians on !he trumped-up charge of culpability for !he great Roman fire of 64 C.E. (Annals 15:44).

Trastevere, the harbour in which many poor Christians were concentrated, suffered no damage from the fire, which may partially explain how Nero was able to make his scapegoating stick. Moreover, the grotesque punishments suffered by Roman Christians at the emperor's hand — dismembering by dogs, crucifixion, immolation — tally with our inferences of the Christians' social standing: Roman law forbade such execution for citizens of the state.

Tacitus states that "large numbers" were executed, and he presents the persecution as a personal subterfuge on Nero's part aimed at covering Nero's own responsibility for the fire.

There is, however, a problem with using Tacitus' report. "No other, Christian or pagan, in following centuries refer to Nero using Christians as scapegoats, [even] though tradition knew Nero as a persecutor". Echoes of Nero's persecution are possibly detectable in 1 Clement (5-6), that speaks of the persecution of Peter and Paul and a great multitude (Lt. ingens multitudo).

More importantly, Clement says that Peter and Paul were "persecuted and condemned unto death" due to rivalry and betrayal within the Roman Christian community (1 Clem. 5:2) and goes on to recount cruel punishments similar to those mentioned by Tacitus (1 Clem. 6:1-2).

Clement does not, however, specifically mention the great fire of 64, and the tradition that Peter met his death in Rome is questionable. The evidence for Paul's Roman martyrdom is much stronger, though it is usually dated prior to 64. Still, Nero's persecution of various marginal groups in Roman society was well known, and the martyrdom of Paul (and possibly also Peter) bears sufficient testimony that the life of a Christian at the imperial capital was fraught with constant danger.

To pursue the issue further, we must note that while Tacitus in his determination to vilify and damn Nero, presents the persecution as a personal and unjust vendetta, Christians were not hunted down by Nero's personal staff and summarily executed. There was a due process, presumably before the praetor's courts that heard criminal cases. Under torture, those examined had implicated a large number of other persons who were arrested and duly convicted and executed.

The punishments they received may seem harsh by our standards; but, the executions of such criminals condemned to capital punishment were regularly used as spectacles in the arena, even the private arena of the emperor. And, in the eyes of the state, the Christians were criminals.

Although Tacitus insists that the need for scapegoats for the fire was the true reason for the persecution, the charges that he reports as actually raised against the Christians are not those of arson. This itself is curious, and leads us to suspect that he has been so carried away by his desire to use the gratuitous cruelty to the Christians to damn the memory of Nero that he has overlooked the real charges that would have stood, even if there had been no fire along with other disasters of Nero's reign. They were convicted, Tacitus has to admit, "not so much on the charge of arson, but for their hatred of the human race". But what were these charges?

The Charges against the Christians...

Tacitus informs us that what "Christus" had begun under Tiberius in Judaea and had now spread to Rome itself was a "superstition bringing destruction (exitiabilis superstitio)". Christians were "hated for their outrageous conduct (per jlagitia inuisos)", which had disturbed the pax deorum, the "peace of the gods".

The word superstitio refers, not to general irrational and pathological forms of religion as in our sense, but to alien and foreign religious practices. Such practices did not only "bring destruction (exitiabilis)", upon those who perpetrated them themselves, but upon their fellow members in society.

Although Tacitus gives us no specific information about alleged early Christian practices, he does speak of "all things horrible and shameful" coming from Judaea and infecting the Capital. Tacitus' near contemporary, Pliny, expressed the similar idea that Christianity was "a depraved and immoderate superstition (superstitio praua et immodica)". Athenagoras a few years later explains that Pliny's charges involved atheism, cannibalism, and incest — an interpretation later confirmed by Tertullian. Similarly, Celsus accused Christians of an "atheism" (refusal to worship Roman deities) which was linked with "sorcery" and "black magic".

Christianity was seen by the Romans as a malign force disturbing the metaphysical peace of nature and of society, and witnessed in criminal behaviour and sexual depravity. Such was their perversity that the fire was the direct result — that is, their perversity had upset the equilibrium not only in human affairs but also the natural world; they had upset the "peace of the gods".

Although Tacitus does not provide a complete picture of the charges levelled against Rome's Christians, we can probably safely assume that their public refusal to participate in the state religion was seen as theatrical obstinacy deliberately flaunting Rome's gods. The Christians were seen as the practitioners of secret magical rites involving incest and cannibalism that would produce portents indicative of an upset nature as stars moved from their natural order in the form of comets, or lakes turned to blood, or young women gave birth to serpents, or fires destroyed large parts of Rome.

Mark's Gospel...

Turning to Mark's gospel, there is probably no feature of this Gospel that enjoys a greater degree of exegetical consensus than Mark's acknowledgment of the turmoil, even persecution, to which Christians, as the followers of the crucified Christ, are inevitably subjects. Though clothed in the stock motifs of prophesy and apocalyptism (cf. 2 Chron. 15:6; Isa. 19:2; Rev. 16:18), some of Jesus' warnings at Olivet (Mk 13) may not be merely imaginative.

Emperor Nero

For example, to ''be hated by all because of [Jesus] name" need not be interpreted as mere rhetoric or religious paranoia. In his account of Nero's persecution of Christians at Rome, Tacitus (Annals 15:44) reminds us of the indiscriminate contempt heaped by many at the imperial capital upon that "depraved and immoderate superstition".

Furthermore, though fraternal betrayal doubtless occurred in various historical contexts, Tacitus' account of the manner in which the persecution was conducted — "Nero had self-acknowledged members of this sect arrested. Then, on their information, large numbers were condemned" — confirms the fact that occasionally, as Mark notes, "brother [did] betray brother unto death" (Mk. 13:12).

Mark may even have Paul's martyrdom in mind as he spoke of internecine betrayal within the Christian community. Clement of Rome (1 Clem. 5:2) later testifies that Paul was "persecuted and condemned unto death" due to rivalry within the Roman Christian community. Pertinent here is the fact that 1 Clement was written as a warning that internal quarrels amongst Christians reach "also those who dissent from us so that ... you are creating dangers for yourselves" (1 Clem 47:7).

A similar notion is echoed in Philippians (1:15), traditionally assigned to Paul's final years in Rome, where it is out of "envy" that some are preaching the Word so as to "stir up trouble" for Paul during his Roman imprisonment (1:17). All of which may imply that Paul's execution resulted, at least in part, from trouble stirred up by his Jewish and, perhaps even Christian Jewish, opponents in Rome.

In an intriguing parallel, Mark notes (15:10) that the high priests handed Jesus over to Pilate. If for Mark, the persecution and death of the Christ at the hands of the Jews and Romans prefigures the treatment of Christians in his own time, and in his own community, then might he not have had in mind the death of Paul — "the greatest example of endurance" (1 Clem. 5:5-7), the one who fulfilled to the letter Jesus' prediction that his disciples would be handed over to sanhedrins, beaten in synagogues, and stand before governors and kings to proclaim the good news to all nations (Mk. 13:9-10)?

One final aspect of the Gospel bears note — its treatment of the Roman authorities. Whereas no illusions are harboured about "those whom [the Gentiles] recognise as their rulers" (10:42), the evangelist draws on traditions that effectively endeavour to repair Christians' relationship with the Empire thus the delicacy of Jesus' position on paying Caesar's taxes (12:13-17) and the presentation of Pilate as feckless but not malicious (15:1-15).

Furthermore, although its theological reasons are complex and irreducible to merely political motivations, surely the mystery in which the Second Gospel enshrouds Jesus' identify as the "Messiah, Son of God" (1:34; 3:11-12; 8:27-30) has the practical effect of defusing, among Mark's contemporaries, any charge that Jesus and his successors were downright seditious.

Such forms of jeopardy, implied by Mark, are poignant but ill-defined, much as the experience of those Roman Christians who found themselves subject to the first significant persecution of their faith under the emperor Nero.

Final Reflections...

In seeking to determine the actual events addressed by Mark, however, we have little if any solid evidence aside from the warnings of suffering that colour the pages of the Gospel. If, as the majority of Markan commentators argue, that Mark was written at the imperial capita during Nero's persecution, then such warnings make perfect sense.

What does all this mean for us today? Christianity does remain subject to persecution in many places around the world. In such places Mark's community lives on. However, while we may not be subjected to such persecution in Australia, Britain or the US, the stories of the great fire of Rome and the resultant tragedy for Roman Christianity does remind us that we will always be "strangers in a strange land".

While Christians are "part of the world", we do not belong to it. As an identifiable sub-culture, Christianity often functions to support, underpin and, even at times, critique the dominant culture. This situation can sometimes mean that we are feted by governments and politicians while, at others, we are pilloried and ridiculed.

Mark is critical of the abusive use of authority by all the powerbrokers of his society — even the twelve disciples. But the author, like Paul before him, sought to remind their readers that the "secret" of Jesus' true identity and authority, which they possessed, was beyond all political realities of the day; greater than kings and queens, governors and rulers, synagogues and sanhedrins.

We cannot completely escape those political realities — we must involve ourselves in the political process. However, we should never completely align ourselves with any one political movement or campaign. As John's Jesus in a generation after Paul and Mark would say, "my kingdom is not of this world" (Jn 18:36).

Photo Credits:
Clicking on the photos used in the body of the commentary will take you to the original source.

©2010 Dr Ian Elmer

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