Rome often persecuted Christians after disasters such as the Great Fire in Nero's reign.?

Question

Rome often persecuted Christians after disasters such as the Great Fire in Nero's reign. What was their rationale for doing this? Why did Roman leaders feel so threatened by Christianity and its followers?

Answer 1

That was Nero's doing. He need a scrape goat and the Christians were a small unknown at the time. So Nero blamed it on the Christians. Nothing else.

According to Tacitus, the population searched for a scapegoat and rumors held Nero responsible.[110] To diffuse blame, Nero targeted a sect called the Christians.[110] He ordered Christians to be thrown to dogs, while others were crucified and burned.[110]

Answer 2

Well the Christians lived a strange lifestyle in the eyes of the Romans. I think from reading history the Jews were angry because the Christians were teaching that you should abandon Judaism and the synagogues were empty. The Romans were pagan and the Christian started abandoning the pagan temples. This caused a decline in the econemy. The pagan temples created a lot of income and when the Christians abandoned the pagan temples there was a decline in income. There are a lot of factors but viurutally Nero was a crazy guy. History believes the Great Fire was started during one of Nero's drunken parties. Nero used the Christians as a scape goat. From there on the Christians were labeled as enemies of Rome.

Answer 3

This, and the throwing of christians to lions, is a case of christian propaganda aimed at garnering sympathy for their cause. Nero (Emperor from about 54 to 68 CE) likely never even heard of christians. He died well before the myth of jesus christ was invented (about 70 to 90 CE). Even if he had heard of christians, he had much more impressive enemies right in Rome to blame things on than some obscure religious cult in far off Judea. It is also well known that Nero wasn't even in Rome when the great fire began. Later Emperors, such as Trajan Desius (Emperor 149 to 251 CE) did persecute christians, as they were considered a threat to the Roman gods and society.

Answer 4

Christians were not persecuted across the entire empire. It was isolated to certain regions (mainly in the east) where the local Christian communities defied the Roman orders to sacrifice to the pagan Roman gods. Other Christians did sacrifice to the Roman gods, were temporarily kicked out of the Christian church, and were readmitted a few years later when the persecution had passed.

Sacrificing to the Roman gods was seen as a symbol of your allegiance to the empire. Anyone who refused to do it was essentially a traitor. It would be like an American today who burned US flags and refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Some people today would say that such an "American" should be deported, or worse. Some Romans back then had similar opinions about Christians.

However, those persecutions were sporadic and didn't work. A new Roman emperor soon tried a different strategy. This emperor was Constantine. He made Christianity legal and stressed the similarities between it and traditional Roman paganism. He built statues of the "Good Shephard" (a pagan symbol for over 1,000 years that was also newly incorporated into Christianity) throughout Constantinople. The main temple in Constantinople, the Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), was named after a concept of traditional Platonic philosophy, but was also used for Christian worship.

Because of Constantine's actions to incorporate Christianity into the Empire, Christians today claim that he was a Christian and actually converted the empire to Christianity. This isn't true. At the same time he was building Christian churches, he was building temples devoted to worshiping his father as a deity. He was buried in a Christian church, but also depicted with traditional pagan symbols of divinity on coins after his death.

Like most pagans, Constantine believed in and worshiped many Gods. The only difference over his predecessors is that one of them was from Christianity. After his death, pagan administrators began to be appointed as Christian bishops (see St. Ambrose of Milan as an example) and Christianity eventually became the dominant faith of the Empire.

That is how the Roman persecution of Christians led to the rise of Christianity as a major world religion.

Answer 5

Nero wanted to make Rome into a city of gold. Unfortunately, there was a ghetto in the way. This was a cheap place to live, and was where all the Christians and Jews lived.
He had it burned down to make way for his new building project, but the fire got out of control, and burned down half the city.
Damage control had to be done, and it was blamed on the Christians and Jews, giving justification to get them out of the way so they couldn't rebuild.
The Romans were so filled with dread of Christians because of a mis-interpretation of Christian communion.
At the last supper, Jesus said to partake of his body and blood in the bread and the wine. He said this in a few other places in scripture, too.
The Romans were of the understanding that the Christians were practicing cannibalism, and teaching their kids to do the same.
While we know this is not true, the Romans leaders told this to the troops, who went about wiping out Christians with a vengeance.
Also, Christians retreated to the catacombs under the city. The Romans would not go there because of their morbid fear of the dead. For people to actually live down there repulsed them, and once again, every Christian that crawled out of that man-hole cover got his head lopped off.
And we also know through history that Nero was a Psycho-path, possibly messed up with lead poisoning. He declared himself God, and since Christians would not worship him as God they had to die. Paying taxes wasnt enough back then.

Answer 6

Not just Rome...Christians today in many countries are persecuted for their faith. Christians will obey the law of the land except where it contradicts God's law...Leaders even today are threatened by the fact that if their law isn't in line with what the Christians believe, the Christians won't obey them...How can they be an ABSOLUTE ruler if there are some people that don't obey them.

Answer 7

Before anyone gets too hard on the Romans, they did eventually convert to Christianity and because they did and because they were so widespread, you might give them some credit for spreading Christianity so far and wide.

Answer 8

I guess that the same as christians blaming witches for natural disasters during the dark ages. It's funny how history repeats itself.

Answer 9

Because they insulted the Roman Gods which was an act of treason. Why? Because church and state weren't seperate. Christians didn't like to respect other people's beliefs back then either it seems.

Answer 10

Actually no. There is no record of that except for stuff written by christians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_persecution_by_Christians
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians

Note that Tacitus did not write the Annals until after 109AD