More importantly, I remain convinced that Nero did not scapegoat Christians as arsonists, mainly because there weren't enough Christians in Rome to be on his radar screen circa 64 CE to be fingered. Rather, while agreeing with Nero revisionist historian John Drinkwater that the fire was an accident, as I excoriated him in an extended review of his book, I reject that there was any scapegoating followed by persecutory death.
Rather, this appears to have been Tacitus trying to bank-shot two smears for the price of one. Taking what he claimed to know about Christians 50 years later, which of course was itself scurrilous, he retrojected that 50 years. Since, in reality, Christians not only weren't scurrilous, but as I also say at that link, were too small a percentage of Rome's population, at probably no more than 1/10th of 1 percent, and ALSO, circa 64 CE, were not self-identified separately from Jews, they simply would not have been on Nero's radar screen to persecute. Tacitus, rather, is grasping a chance to show his Roman readership that Nero was so odious to the odious Christians for them to evince sympathy from Romans. Why Drinkwater can't see this bank shot as it is, or seems to be to me, I don't know. In any case, he's flat wrong on the number, and group identity, of Christians in Nero's Rome.
He's not alone. Tom Holland, in his book "Dynasty," with even less analysis, repeats the way-too-precise claim by Jerome that exactly 979 Christians were killed by Nero.
That said, there remains the issue of Tacitus' story perhaps being an interpolation. Drinkwater rejects that; Holland doesn't discuss it, if he's even aware of it. Per that link, Christians appear not to have discussed the Great Fire and alleged Christian martyrdom before circa 400 CE, that is, before Jerome and his suspiciously precise claim.
Furthering my idea that this was, if anything, a general messianic Jewish disturbance either mislabled by Suetonius and/or Tacitus, or Tacitus doing a bank shot? (Suetonius, in the expulsion at the time of Claudius, is almost certainly a mislabeling, not a bank shot. BUT? Drinkwater seems to believe there were Christians even back then.) Holland notes that, according to Valerius Maximus, the first Roman expulsion of Jews happened way back in 139 BCE.
Update, May 26, 2024: A person at r/AcademicBiblical, in chat with me about a main comment of hers there, where she claims that 1 Clement, stripped of legendary accretions, is about Peter and Paul being killed by fellow Christians, nonetheless, in response to me, claims that the Tacitus is not an interpolation.
I offered as a sidebar the Option B, that, if genuine by Tacitus, it's still a double-bankshot smear, projecting back from his own interactions with Christians, of what was a non-event, so that he could smear Nero even more than Christians.
As for said person's claims rejecting the interpolation idea? They note that the Correspondence of Paul and Seneca
mentions the Great Fire earlier. Two counterpoints: First, on a late
dating, only about 20 years earlier. So, it's in the same milieu, even
if earlier. Second, the 11th letter of said correspondence is generally
believed to be by a second forger than most other letters. Severus
himself? Third counterpoint? As mentioned here? Tertullian regularly
cited Tacitus, so why not here? (That link notes that Tertullian regularly quoted Tacitus, but has no Great Fire and Christian persecution piece. Even more damning, as I see it, it notes that Celsus never raises this as one more issue to throw in Christians' faces: "Look, you people tried to destroy our capital and our nation!")
Finally, if you've read both, Severus just reads a lot like Tacitus.
Said person does reject an actual persecution, so they're solid there.
I raised the Tertullian and Celsus issues, and got pretty much a handwaving response.
That one is rather easily explicable. The Annals does not look like it was ever completely finished by Tacitus, or did not receive the full editing required, and so it also wasn't distributed nearly as widely. In fact, Tacitus' works in general were largely ignored, and the Annals was probably just in disrepair. So this isn't surprising nor indicative of much.
We'll agree to disagree. As I said in response, at the time of Severus, Jerome references all 30 books of Annals plus Histories. And, Tertullian wrote no more than a century later. And, got more handwaving in return:
Handwaving, half-truths and more.
Jerome is also writing after Sulpicius, so the Annals were at that point becoming known to Christians, so Jerome isn't surprising or pertinent there.
And as we know, from the late second century to the early fourth century, Tacitus' works were actually in disrepair and the Annals was not read either by Christians or by Greco-Roman authors. It was just a text almost entirely unknown until there was a revival effort to try and bring his works into public eye (by pagans specifically). Read more
First, Jerome is relevant because it shows he knows them all, and he was enough of a historian for that era to probably have looked at all of them. And, ergo, it directly refutes the "and as we know" of the second paragraph.
I had debated about direct-quoting, even with the first exchange, but this confirmed in me to direct quote both. Especially because it gets even worse after that:
No, actually it doesn't. It shows that from Tacitus' writing, until 250 years later, there is no knowledge the Annals even existed.
And as a case in point, you can read Anthony Barrett's book Rome is Burning, which specifically notes a Roman emperor actively went out of his way to rejuvenate Tacitus' works because they had fallen into disrepair and obscurity. This was the Emperor Tacitus (reigned in 275 CE to 276), who specifically ordered Tacitus' works be revived.
As Barrett notes, even in the sixth century, Cassiodorus still refers to a "certain Cornelius [Tacitus]", using distanced terminology that implies his readers probably would have no familiarity, again speaking to Tacitus' poor reception.
Both Sulpicius and Jerome are writing *after* Emperor Tacitus' attempt to revive his ancestor's work. So no, nothing here is incorrect and is in perfect alignment with the historical record. The Annals were a habitually neglected source, and it was only after Tacitus' reputed descendant the Emperor Tacitus revived his reputation that the Annals started coming to people's attention. Thus, around 70 years later, Sulpicius finally reads the Annals and sees that passage, and Jerome finally knows of them later.
OK, an Emperor who is in the middle of the The Imperial Crisis, aka The Decline of the Third Century and reigns 6 months really has time to puff his namesake? And, certainly doesn't have the reign to make it happen, even if he ordered it? And, the Anthony Barrett who barely touches 4 stars with one book, and can't crack 3.5 on most? And, a handwaving interpretation of what Cassiodorus meant, while continuing to reject my comment about Jerome?
Anyway, I promised Crissy the last word. On Reddit, not here.
And, here's why I think that Correspondence piece can't earlier than 380 CE on the 11th letter. Yes, Christianity was legal before that under Constantine. It didn't become the state religion until 380 CE, under Theodosius I's Edict of Thessalonica.) Obviously, despite failings here and there, the Correspondence knew better than to reference a comment from Tacitus if a legitimate one existed.) Before that, no Christian writer would have felt safe blaming Nero. But, once the gloves were off, people besides Severus could simply have reference Tacitus without creating an interpolation, if the actual Tacitus had written something.
(Update: Per my review of a Melvin Goodman book, this isn't the only bit of suspiciousness from Sulpicius Severus, either.)
And, this leads to me offering further thought on the WHY.
After making Christianity the state religion, Theodosius launched the first attacks on paganism. A Sulpicius Severus would have written his own piece, as well as "dropping a dime" inside Tacitus as alleged proof, in support of these attacks.
"Look at the old Rome! Since the start of Christianity, it has persecuted us!"
Rather than the approach of the biblical gospels and Acts, to have gloves fully on vis-a-vis Rome, it was now time to take the gloves off in service of the New Rome.
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