Quote:I wonder what you would say about the following passage from the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus in Annals XV, 44:
Not that you have any wish to hear it but for the others.....
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Atrium/3678/Nero.htm
Quote:According to Tacitus, alone, Nero blamed the Christians for the fire in Rome. Annals, XV. This passage is not referred to in any other pagan, nor Christian writings until 400 CE. The Fantastic details of the sufferings of the Christians - dressed in animal hides and torn apart by dogs, crucified, and used as human torches - fits the pornographic masochistic obsession of the early Church.
C. 404 AD, the Christian writer, Sulpicius Severus wrote Chronica and in Book 2, #29 he makes some reference to Nero blaming xtians for the fire and indulging in all sorts of barbaric tortures, which is what the author refers to above.
Severus, however, does not mention the Pilate or Christus portions of your Tacitus reference. Those show up in a manuscript which dates to the 11th century.
