Tacitus and the Persecution of the Christians: An Invention of Tradition?

• Authors: VAN DER LANS BIRGIT , BREMMER JAN N.
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Tacitus’ description of Nero’s punishment of Christians for the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64 has made a great impact on later understandings of Christian history. However, several questions have been raised concerning the accuracy of this account, and recently the historicity of a persecution of Christians under Nero has been denied altogether by Brent Shaw. This article discusses the most important objections and tries to achieve a better understanding of the events by combining an analysis of the narrative functions of this persecution in Tacitus with a new consideration of the earliest Christian reports. The article ends with an Appendix containing an updated analysis of the emergence of the name “Christian”.

Keywords

EN

Nero; persecution; Christians; Tacitus; Great Fire; narrative

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY
• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Eirene. Studia Graeca et Latina
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 53
• Issue: 1-2
• Pages: 299-331

Contributors

author

VAN DER LANS BIRGIT

• University of Bergen, Postboks 7805, N-5020 Bergen, Norway

author

BREMMER JAN N.

• University of Groningen, Oude Boteringestraat 38, 9712 GK Groningen, Netherlans