For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Confused Ape]

Agreed. Can you see a later xtian writer inserting a couple of lines though?

This is why I take the attitude that Tacitus's mention of Christians might be true even though most modern scholars consider the passage to be authentic. I'm going to answer this post from the point of view that the mention is authentic, however, because it's just a trivial passing reference in what is a history of Nero's reign.

Read the Annals. The description of the fire actually begins well before the single reference in #44. The actual description of the blaze and aftermath starts in #38. Tacitus manages to talk about the fire for a good long time without ever mentioning xtians....if he mentioned them at all.

I have read the annals using the Internet Classics version and quoted part of the first line about the fire in Post #108.

Tacitus Fire Account

A disaster followed, whether accidental or treacherously contrived by the emperor, is uncertain

Tactitus isn't just reporting the fire - he's also reporting that the Romans suspected Nero of starting it. Why?

And no one dared to stop the mischief, because of incessant menaces from a number of persons who forbade the extinguishing of the flames, because again others openly hurled brands, and kept shouting that there was one who gave them authority, either seeking to plunder more freely, or obeying orders.

Tacitus tells us how nothing Nero did stopped people thinking that he started the fire.

But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order.

Nero got fed up with all the gossip.

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations,

Fixing the blame on a hated class can't be a fabrication. Nero made the sickening executions a public spectacle and everyone in Rome got the message - "Shut up about the fire or else...!!"

It's possible that Tacitus's original work mentioned some other hated class and this was changed to Christians later on but, in the context of the report, the information about them isn't anything special.

Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus,

As I said in Post #109, Tacitus had no idea that Christianity was going to be a major religion so he gave a very brief explanation of who the Christians were for the benefit of future readers. All he says is which dead Messiah they were associated with because, from a Roman point of view, there was more than one dead Messiah - Simon of of Peraea (c. 4 BCE), Athronges (c. 3 CE), the one executed by PP and Menahem ben Judah

Israelite rebel leader, son of Judah the Galilean. He led the group known as the Sicarii in the war against Rome (66-70), successfully attacking the stronghold of Masada, and gaining victory over the Romans in Herod's palace. Later he antagonized Eleazar ben Hananiah and his followers, who killed him.

As Tacitus wrote the Annals in 109 AD he would have known about Menahem ben Judah. He then has a bit of a rant about superstitious nonsense ending up in Rome.

and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular

His attitude towards Christian beliefs (whatever they were at the time) reminds me of some of the posts in this forum. The mention of Judea isn't anything Earth shattering, though , because all the dead Messiah's had been Jews in Judea. (The rant about superstition is also very restrained in comparison to his rant about Nero in the paragraph before the start of the fire. See PS for the quote)

Tacitus then reports what the Romans thought of Nero's public spectacle.

there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.

This is very important in the context of Nero's reign because everything was going downhill and Nero was generally detested.

Meanwhile Italy was thoroughly exhausted by contributions of money, the provinces were ruined, as also the allied nations and the free states, as they were called.

There were rumours that Nero had tried to poison Seneca.

According to some writers, poison was prepared for him at Nero's command by his own freedman, whose name was Cleonicus. This Seneca avoided through the freedman's disclosure, or his own apprehension, while he used to support life on the very simple diet of wild fruits, with water from a running stream when thirst prompted.

Meanwhile .....

During the same time some gladiators in the town of Praeneste, who attempted to break loose, were put down by a military guard stationed on the spot to watch them, and the people, ever desirous and yet fearful of change, began at once to talk of Spartacus, and of bygone calamities.

Yes, everyone was getting very fed up with Nero.

Soon afterwards, tidings of a naval disaster was received, but not from war, for never had there been so profound a peace. Nero, however, had ordered the fleet to return to Campania on a fixed day, without making any allowance for the dangers of the sea. Consequently the pilots, in spite of the fury of the waves, started from Formiae, and while they were struggling to double the promontory of Misenum, they were dashed by a violent south-west wind on the shores of Cumae, and lost, in all directions, a number of their triremes with some smaller vessels.

They were even more fed up with him after he wrecked the fleet. At the end of the year everyone was talking about ill omens. Finally -

Silius Nerva and Atticus Vestinus then entered on the consulship, and now a conspiracy was planned, and at once became formidable, for which senators, knights, soldiers, even women, had given their names with eager rivalry, out of hatred of Nero as well as a liking for Caius Piso.

So, the executions of people belonging to a hated class was reported because it's part of the build-up to a conspiracy to assassinate Nero.

PS: The rant about Nero.

Nero, to win credit for himself of enjoying nothing so much as the capital, prepared banquets in the public places, and used the whole city, so to say, as his private house. Of these entertainments the most famous for their notorious profligacy were those furnished by Tigellinus, which I will describe as an illustration, that I may not have again and again to narrate similar extravagance. He had a raft constructed on Agrippa's lake, put the guests on board and set it in motion by other vessels towing it. These vessels glittered with gold and ivory; the crews were arranged according to age and experience in vice. Birds and beasts had been procured from remote countries, and sea monsters from the ocean. On the margin of the lake were set up brothels crowded with noble ladies, and on the opposite bank were seen naked prostitutes with obscene gestures and movements. As darkness approached, all the adjacent grove and surrounding buildings resounded with song, and shone brilliantly with lights. Nero, who polluted himself by every lawful or lawless indulgence, had not omitted a single abomination which could heighten his depravity, till a few days afterwards he stooped to marry himself to one of that filthy herd, by name Pythagoras, with all the forms of regular wedlock. The bridal veil was put over the emperor; people saw the witnesses of the ceremony, the wedding dower, the couch and the nuptial torches; everything in a word was plainly visible, which, even when a woman weds darkness hides.