What was Emperor Nero's impact on Christianity?

Answer 1

Answer

There are three Christian traditions that involve Nero in persecution of the early Christians.

• The first tradition is that he blamed the Christians of Rome for starting the Great Fire, and consequently persecuted them. If his claims were true, then any punishment of the Christians would be quite justified and not merit the term 'persecution', but there is no evidence of Christian involvement. Edward Gibbon places the number of Christians in Rome at this time at no more than seven thousand. Richard Holland says that those actually persecuted was a much lower figure, and casts doubt on the severity of the punishment meted out.

• A more serious Christian tradition is that Christians suffered widespread persecution under Nero. While it is probably true that some Christians in Rome were persecuted after the Great Fire, scholars say there is no evidence of more widespread persecution.
  

• Another tradition is that Saints Peter and Paul were executed during the reign of Nero, presumably at Nero's orders.
  
  There is no mention of this in Acts of the Apostles, written long after the time of Nero, and the first mention occurred during the second century, when Pope Anicetus (156-166) said that Peter was beheaded by Nero in Rome. The reason for this claim was that he had became locked in a conflict with the venerable Polycarp of Smyrna. Polycarp had tried to win the argument by insisting that he spoke with the authority of the apostle John. In response, Anicetus told of Peter's beheading and said that he spoke with the authority of Peter, as well as of Paul. Then in the third century, the Church Father Origen changed the story somewhat, saying that Peter, condemned to crucifixion, felt himself unworthy to be crucified the same way as his Lord, and so chose crucifixion upside down.