Re: The Early Christians - The State, Society and Martyrs

No humane endeavors, no princely generosity, no efforts to placate the
gods were able to dispel the scandalous suspicion that the burning of
the city was the result of an order. To silence this rumor, Nero pushed
the Christians forward as the culprits and punished them with ingenious
cruelty, as they were generally hated for their infamous deeds. 

The one from whom this name originated, Christ, had been executed during
the reign of Tiberius at the hands of the procurator, Pontius Pilate.
For a time this pernicious superstition was suppressed, but it broke out
again, not only in Judea where this evil thing began, but even in the
city itself where everything atrocious and shameful from all quarters
flows together and finds adherents. 

To begin with, those who openly confessed were arrested, and then a vast
multitude was convicted on the basis of their disclosures, not so much
on the charge of arson as for their hatred of the human race. Their
execution was made into a game: they were covered with the skins of wild
animals and torn to pieces by dogs. They were hung on crosses. They were
burned, wrapped in flammable material and set on fire as darkness fell,
to illuminate the night. Nero had opened his gardens for this spectacle
and put on circus games. He himself mingled with the crowd dressed as a
charioteer or stood up high on a chariot. Although these people were
guilty and deserved the severest penalty, all this gave rise to
compassion for them, for it was felt that they were being victimized,
not for the public good, but to satiate the cruelty of one man.	 

(In the year 64) Tacitus, Annals XV.44.

Megan R. wrote:

> The Christians form among themselves secret societies that exist
> outside the system of laws…an obscure and mysterious community founded
> on revolt and on the advantage that accrues from it.
> Origen, Against Celsus VIII.17; III.14.
>