The Early Christians in Rome

by H. D. M. Spence-Jones

II
THE FIRE OF ROME, AND ITS RESULTS AS REGARDS CHRISTIANS—A.D. 64. HENCEFORTH THEY WERE REGARDED AS ENEMIES OF THE STATE

For a little more than thirty years, dating back to the Resurrection morning, with the exception of the occasion of that temporary and partial banishment of the Jews and Christians from Rome in the days of the Emperor Claudius, had the Christian propaganda gone on apparently unnoticed, certainly unheeded by the imperial government.

The banishment decree of Claudius, the outcome of a local disturbance in the Jewish quarter of the capital, was after a brief interval apparently rescinded, or at least ignored by the ruling powers; but in the middle of the year 64, only a few months after S. Paul’s long-delayed trial and acquittal and subsequent departure from Rome, a startling event happened which brought the Christians into a sad notoriety, and put an end to the attitude of contemptuous indifference with which they had been generally regarded by the magistrates both in the provinces and in the capital.

A terrible and unlooked for calamity reduced Rome to a state of mourning and desolation. The 19th July, A.D. 64,—the date of the commencement of the desolating fire,—was long remembered. It broke out in the shops which clustered round the great Circus; a strong summer wind fanned the flames, which soon became uncontrollable. The narrow streets of the old quarter and the somewhat crumbling buildings fed the fire, which raged for some nine days, destroying many of the ancient historic buildings. Thousands of the poorer inhabitants were rendered homeless and penniless. At that period Rome was divided into fourteen regions or quarters; of these three were entirely consumed; seven more were rendered uninhabitable by the fierce fire; only four were left really unharmed by the desolating calamity.

The passions of the mob, ever quickly aroused, were directed in the first instance against the Emperor Nero, who was accused—probably quite wrongfully—of being the incendiary: there is indeed a long, a mournful chronicle of evil deeds registered against the memory of this evil Emperor; but that he was the guilty author of this special outrage is in the highest degree unlikely. His wild life, his cruelties, his ungovernable passions, his insanity,—for no reader of history can doubt that in his case the sickness which so often affects an uncontrolled despot had with Nero resulted in insanity,—indeed, all his works and days, gave colour to the monstrous and absurd charges which a fickle and angry mob brought against the once strangely popular tyrant.

All kinds of wild stories connected with the fire were circulated; he had no doubt many remorseless enemies. Men said, Nero sitting high on one of the towers of Rome, watched with fiendish joy and exultation the progress of the devouring flames, and as Rome burned before his eyes, played upon his lyre and sung a hymn of his own composition, for he imagined himself a poet, in which he compared the burning of his Rome with the ruin of Troy.

Another legend was current, averring that the slaves of the Emperor’s household had been seen fanning the flames in their desolating course; another rumour was spread abroad which whispered that the mad and wicked Emperor desired to see Old Rome, with its narrow and crowded streets, destroyed, that he might be able to rebuild it on a new and stately scale, and thus, regardless of the immemorial traditions of the ancient city, to render his name immortal through this notable and magnificent work.

At all events these improbable stories more or less gained credence in many quarters, and the Emperor found himself execrated by thousands of thoughtless men and women who had suffered the loss of their all in the fire, and who were glad to vent their fury on one whom they once admired and even loved, though their admiration and love had been often mingled with that fierce envy with which the people too frequently view the great and rich and powerful.

Prompted by his evil advisers, among whom the infamous Tigellinus was the most conspicuous, the Emperor in the first instance accused the Jews of being the incendiaries: curiously enough the quarter of the city where they mostly congregated had been spared in the late conflagration. It was no difficult task to persuade the fickle people that the strange race of foreigners, who hated Rome and Rome’s gods, had avenged themselves and the wrongs they had suffered at the hands of the Roman nation, by firing the capital city.