RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Neri Nerses
all other attempts to appease the populace had failed. The precise reason why the Christians were especially chosen as the victims is unclear. It is certain, however, that it was not jealousy of the Empress Poppaaa for the alleged Christian mistress of Nero, Acte, as Aube supposed; or a religious motive of making the Christians, as despising the Roman temples, an expiation for their destruction, as Renan held. Nor can Hilgenfeld's theory that the persecution was due to paganism's instinctive fear of its approaching doom be maintained, for Christianity was not yet regarded as in itself a " forbidden religion." It would seem, therefore, that a prime factor in the selection of the Christians was the popular hatred of Jews and of orientals in general, the Christians being involved because they were still regarded by the heathen as a Jewish sect. The situation was complicated, moreover, by the messianic expectations of the Jews which led them to proclaim divine judgment on the heathen and to see such a visitation in the burning of the metropolis of the world. On the other hand, the Christians, with their expectation of an immediate second advent, looked for the destruction of the world by fire (cf. Minucius Felix, Octavius, xi. 1; Rev. xviii. 9 sqq.); they thus afforded a ready basis for the suspicion that they had kindled the conflagration. The restriction of the accusation was not due to Jewish charges, as some have thought, but to the fact that, on the one hand, the Jewish population of Rome was so large and that the Jews were already intensely embittered against the Romans, and, on the other hand, that the Christians were regarded as the greatest fanatics and as guilty of grave vices, besides being the instigators of Jewish riots (cf. Suetonius, Claudius, xxv.). While the precise course of investigation is not absolutely certain, Tacitus (Annates, xv. 44) seems to imply that certain Christians were first arrested, and that in consequence of their statements the Christians were seized and condemned en masse, their mere adherence to Christianity and their alleged hatred of all the rest of the human race being regarded as sufficient evidence of guilt, without proving their actual incendiary acts in every case.
The execution of the Christians was made a festival of the Roman populace. In Nero's gardens, the present Place of St. Peter's, some were crucified or sewn in skins and torn by dogs, and others were rolled in pitch and burned at night as living torches. According to Tacitus, moreover, Nero himself appeared as a charioteer at the circus games given in connection with these executions and mingled with the people; yet even so he was unable to avert the suspicion among the populace that the Christians were not being sacrificed to the public weal but to the cruelty of an individual.
It is clear from Tacitus and Suetonius, notwithstanding the assertions of Orosius (vii. 7) and Sulpicius Severus (ii. 28), that the persecution was restricted to Rome; nor is the allusion to the martyrdom of Antipas at Pergamus in Rev. ii. 13 sufficient evidence for a more general persecution. But though the actual scene of the Neronian persecution was local, its effects were far-reaching. In the burning of the great metropolis and the bloody
reaction of paganism against Christianity was seen the approaching end of the world, and this belief was confirmed by the events of the years following— the fall and death of Nero, the Jewish war, and the savage internecine strife for the throne of the Caesars. Nero's demoniac figure became interwoven in the eschatology of the time (cf. Rev. xviii.). Escaping from his murderers, or, in another version, raised from the dead, he was to return as Antichrist to wage the last great war of annihilation against the followers of Christ, only to be crushed by the Messiah appearing in judgment.
(Robert Pohlmann.) Bibliography: E. T. Klette, Die Christenkatastrophe unter Nero nach ihren Quellen, Tubingen, 1907; B. Aube, in Comptes rendus de Vacademie des inscriptions, 1866, pp. 194 sqq.; idem, Hist, des persecutions de Veglise, p. 421, Paris, 1875; E. Renan, L' Antichrist, chaps, vi.-viii., Paris, 1873, Eng. transl., London, 1889; T. Keim, Aus dem Urchristenthum, pp. 171-181, Zurich, 1878; idem, Rom und das Christenthum, pp. 132 sqq., ib. 1881; G. Uhlhorn, Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism, pp. 241— 250, New York, 1879; C. F. Arnold, Die neronische Christenverfolgung, Leipsic, 1888; A. C. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, pp. 627 sqq., New York, 1897; Schaff, Christian Church, i. 376-390; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ed. J. B. Bury, ii. 79 sqq.; articles in ZWT, by Hilgeufeld, xii (1869), 421 sqq., xxx (1890), 223 sqq., by Hildebrand, xvii (1874), 94 sqq.; and by E. Zeller, xxxiv (1891), 35-7 sqq.; and in general, works on the church history of the apostolic period and on the history of the Roman empire
NERSES, ner'siz: The name of several Armenian prelates.
1. Nerses I. " The Great ": Armenian catholicos; b. of royal (Arsacidan) lineage — also a direct descendant of Gregory the Illuminator (q.v.) — at Vagharshabad (now a village near Echmiadzin) c. 310; d. after 381. He studied in Greece and returning became chamberlain of King Arshak. King and people united in urging him to renounce civil and military pursuits and honors and to assume the duties first of bishop (c. 364) and afterward of catholicos or patriarch (c. 366). He was active alike in combating heathenism, which still survived, and the more primitive forms of Christianity, which resisted the intrusion of Greek doctrine and practise. In the interest of the Church he founded schools and charitable institutions. He was sent as an ambassador by King Arshak to the Emperor Valentinian I. and was able to restore amicable relations between these rulers. He failed in a similar embassy to the Emperor Valens, whose Arianism he disapproved, and was banished by him to a desert island, where he was obliged to remain until liberated by the Emperor Theodosius the Great (381), who recalled him to Constantinople and detained him for awhile to participate in the second ecumenical council. Returning to Armenia he found that he had been supplanted by Chad of Bagravand and was out of favor with the king. Still more unfriendly were his relations with the succeeding King Pap, who is said to have caused his death by poison (384). If Moses of Chorene is correct in stating that Nerses was catholicos for thirty-four years, he must have been installed about 350, which is several years earlier than other authorities indicate.
2. Nerses II.: Armenian catholicos 524-533. He was called " Nerses of Ashtarak " from his native town in Bagravand. A reforming synod was
Nerses Nestor