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
Quotes to Explore
I'm trying to grow. I don't want to stay on the same page.
Flavor Flav
He's protected the football, which is very important. I think he has made good decisions when things aren't there, which is really important. Everybody is going to hit something that's open. But when it's not there, Mark has played well.
Joe Gibbs
When we become advocates of a creed, something dies; we do not believe God, we only believe our belief about Him.
Oswald Chambers
Here's a tip...If you leave a girl crying you're probably not doing your Don Juan routine right, asshole.
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.
T. S. Eliot
As we passed over the dark bridge her wan face fell lazily against my coat's shoulder and the formidable stroke of thirty died away with the reassuring pressure of her hand.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
There is power through prayer. For many Christians, prayer is nothing special, just something we're supposed to do - go to church, tithe, read the Bible, pray. But prayer should be so much more than an item on our "to do" lists.
Edward McKendree Bounds
The only people I would care to be with now are artists and people who have suffered: those who know what beauty is, and those who know what sorrow is: nobody else interests me.
Oscar Wilde
I have always had a liking for pilgrimages, and if I had lived in the Middle Ages would have spent most of my time on the way to Rome. The pilgrims, leaving all their cares at home, the anxieties of their riches or their debts, the wife that worried and the children that disturbed, took only their sins with them, and turning back on their obligations, set out with that sole burden, and perhaps a cheerful heart.
Elizabeth von Arnim
In what he suffered, as in all true suffering and in true joy, there was the quality of eternity. He could not believe it would ever end.
Elizabeth Goudge
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
