First Conflicts with the State (Part 3) - Nero

Our Scripture passage today is Hebrews 9:28 which reads: "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation."

Our quote today is from Origen. He said: "To those who ask us whence we have come or whom we have for a leader, we say that we have come in accordance with the counsels of Jesus to cut down our warlike and arrogant swords of argument into ploughshares, and we convert into sickles the spears we formerly used in fighting. For we no longer take ‘sword against a nation,’ nor do we learn ‘any more to make war,’ having become sons of peace for the sake of Jesus, who is our leader, instead of following the ancestral customs in which we were strangers to the covenants."

Today, we are discussing "First Conflicts with the State" (Part 3) from Justo L. Gonzalez's fine book, The Story of Christianity (Volume 1).

Persecution Under Nero
Thanks to his mother's intrigues, Nero reached the Roman throne in October of 54. At first he was a reasonable ruler, not entirely unpopular, whose laws in favor of the dispossessed were well received by the Roman populace. But he became increasingly infatuated by his dreams of grandeur and his lust for pleasure, and surrounded himself with a court where all vied to satisfy his every whim. Ten years after his accession to the throne, he was despised by the general population as well as by the poets and artists, who were offended by the emperor's claim that he was one of them. Soon the rumor began circulating that he was mad.

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