TACITUS AND THE PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS: AN INVENTION OF TRADITION?

Tacitus' description of Nero's punishment of Christians for the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64 has made a great impact on later understandings of Christian history. However, several questions have been raised concerning the accuracy of this account, and recently the historicity of a persecution of Christians under Nero has been denied altogether by Brent Shaw. This article discusses the most important objections and tries to achieve a better understanding of the events by combining an analysis of the narrative functions of this persecution in Tacitus with a new consideration of the earliest Christian reports. The article ends with an Appendix containing an updated analysis of the emergence of the name "Christian".