Bart Ehrman Quotes
Nero did not, technically speaking, prosecute Christians for being Christian. He executed them for committing arson.
True, they probably were not guilty, but that was the charge. Being a Christian was not punishable, but setting fire to Rome was.
Nero’s persecution was localized. It involved only the city of Rome. Nothing indicates that Christians elsewhere in the empire suffered any consequences.
Even more significant, it appears that none of Nero’s successors down to Trajan (ruled 98–117 CE) persecuted Christians.
Between Nero in 64 CE and Marcus Aurelius in 177 CE, the only mention of an emperor’s intervention in Christian affairs, apart from the episode involving Trajan found in Pliny’s letters, is a letter from the emperor Hadrian that gives instructions to a local governor to conduct his trials against the Christians fairly.
Bart Ehrman
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Rachel Caine
Composing on the typewriter, I find that I am sloughing off all my long sentences which I used to dote upon. Short, staccato, like modern French prose. The typewriter makes for lucidity, but I am not sure that it encourages subtlety.
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Richard Pryor
Rafe asks him, could the king's freedom be obtained, sir, with more economy of means? Less bloodshed? Look, he says: once you have exhausted the process of negotiation and compromise, one you have fixed on the destruction of an enemy, that destruction must be swift and it must be perfect. Before you even glance in his direction, you should have his name on a warrant, the ports blocked, his wife and friends bought, his heir under your protection, his money in your strong room and his dog running to your whistle. Before he wakes in the morning, you should have the axe in your hand.
Hilary Mantel
Men judge of Christians by taking as fair samples those that lie rotten on the ground.
Henry Ward Beecher
Nero did not, technically speaking, prosecute Christians for being Christian. He executed them for committing arson.
True, they probably were not guilty, but that was the charge. Being a Christian was not punishable, but setting fire to Rome was.
Nero’s persecution was localized. It involved only the city of Rome. Nothing indicates that Christians elsewhere in the empire suffered any consequences.
Even more significant, it appears that none of Nero’s successors down to Trajan (ruled 98–117 CE) persecuted Christians.
Between Nero in 64 CE and Marcus Aurelius in 177 CE, the only mention of an emperor’s intervention in Christian affairs, apart from the episode involving Trajan found in Pliny’s letters, is a letter from the emperor Hadrian that gives instructions to a local governor to conduct his trials against the Christians fairly.
Bart Ehrman
