“I can see in your troubled eyes, Poppaea, the signs of a headache coming,” I said hurriedly. “Let us briefly summarize the matter. The Jews deny all connections with the Christians. They look upon themselves as devout. They believe ill of the Christians, good of themselves. That is all.” When I saw the bitter countenance of the Jews, I went on: “Perhaps there are among the Christians some former criminals and rogues who have reformed and have had their sins forgiven. Their king is said to have come especially to seek out the sinful and not the proud. But in general the Christians are meek and peaceable, they feed the poor, help widows and comfort prisoners. I. know nothing evil of them.” Poppaea was curious.

‘What is this guilt they mention?” she asked. “There’s something suspicious in all this which I don’t understand.”

“You must have heard the absurd rumors that have been spreading among the people about the cause of our national disaster,” I said sarcastically. “I think the Jews are now trying to explain in a roundabout way and somewhat belatedly that it was not they who set fire to Rome, They consider that such a statement would be as irrational as to accuse the Emperor of the same thing,”

But my sarcasm was wasted. Poppaea was much too afraid of the magic of the Jews. Her face brightened at once.

“Now I see!” she cried. “Go in peace, you holy men. I shall not allow anyone to suspect you of anything evil. You did right to inform me that you do not acknowledge the Christians as Jews.”

The Jews blessed her in the name of their god Hallelujah and they left. “You realize that they hate the Christians out of envy,” I said when they had gone. “The Christians have won over many of their adherents and both Jerusalem and the synagogues have thus lost many gifts.”

“If the Jews have reason to hate the Christians,” said Poppaea, “then the Christians must be both dangerous and harmful. You yourself said that they are criminals and rogues.”

And she would not listen to any more explanations, for there would be no room for them in her lovely head. I think she went straight to Nero and told him that it was the dangerous Christian sect who had set fire to Rome and that the sect consisted of nothing but criminals.

Nero was pleased to hear this and at once ordered Tigellinus to see what could be found to substantiate this accusation. But the Jews were not to be involved in the investigation, for their faith had only apparent similarities to the dangerous teachings of the Christians.

349

An investigation of this kind should have been undertaken by the City Prefect, but Nero put more trust in Tigellinus. In addition, the Christian faith stemmed from the East and its adherents were mostly immigrants from the East. Tigellinus was not interested in religious matters. He simply obeyed orders and turned to the lowest orders in Rome in his researches.

This was not a difficult task. In a single afternoon his minions rounded up about thirty suspected men who willingly admitted that they were Christians and were very surprised when they found themselves immediately arrested and taken to the dungeons of the Praetorium. They were sternly asked whether they had set fire to Rome the previous summer, and this they denied emphatically. Then they were asked whether they knew any other Christians. In all innocence, they gave as many names as they could remember. All the soldiers had to do was to go and fetch the men and women from their homes, and they came without protest.

By nightfall, about a thousand Christians had been rounded up, mostly people from the lowest classes. The soldiers said that all they had had to do was to go into any crowd and call out a question as to whether there were any Christians there, and then these madmen just gave themselves up to be arrested.

Tigellinus was worried by the large numbers of people he had to inter-rogate. As there was not room for them all, he thought it best to thin them out a little. At first he released all Jews who could show that they were circumcised. He spoke firmly to two members of the Noble Order of Knights who had come with the crowd, and then released them for what he thought was a sensible reason, that one could hardly accuse a Roman knight of setting fire to the city.

Several more well-to-do citizens, upset by the kind of people they had landed among, said they were sure it was all some mistake and offered the Prefect gifts to clear up the misunderstanding. These Tigellinus willingly released, for he thought the branded criminals and deserter slaves were the most guilty. He wished to undertake a thorough weeding out of the whole of the underworld of Rome which now after the fire was making the city unsafe at night. Such was his conception of the Christians.

At first the prisoners were calm, appealing in the name of Christ as they talked among themselves and not understanding what they were accused of. But when they saw people being sorted out and released at random and when they heard from others that everyone was being asked whether they had taken part in setting fire to Rome or knew anything about it, they began to be frightened and even distrust each other.

350

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270