No, Tacitus didn't write about Nero persecuting Christians

When I got in discussion with Nero biographer John Drinkwater about Nero, I eventually wrote a follow-up piece, suggesting that odds were 60 percent this was an interpolation by Sulpicius Severus, 30 percent that it was Tacitus doing a double bank shot, retrojecting from knowledge of Christians at his time back to Nero, and 10 percent chance this was actual history.

Well, after a discussion with something who had posted in r/AcademicBiblical? Chrissy Hansen and I chatted, and with this, while they agree no actual persecution happened, their doubling down on the bankshot and refusal to consider the interpolation idea?

(Note: This is part two of what will be a three-part monologue disputation against Hansen. Part one, about dating of 1 Clement, is here.)

I reset my odds now at 80 percent interpolation, 20 percent bank shot, and 0 on actual history.

Hansen first claimed, in her comment, 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 think the 1 Clement idea is — well, I first thought it was very interesting, then not so much.) But back to Tacitus.

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 above? Tertullian regularly cited Tacitus, so why not here?

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?

Elsewhere, via another comment, linking to a piece of hers? She claims Tacitus is dependent on Pliny. Then, we're at an Aristotelian recess. Why didn't Pliny mention this elsewhere, as in his letter to Trajan, if nothing else? Even if that were, in turn, dependent on Christian tradition, it would have been a place for Pliny to interject it.

Anyway, I promised Crissy the last word. On Reddit, not here. My last word here? Why am I arguing with someone with less academic background than me, who's getting dishonest puffing on r/AcademicBiblical to boot?

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.