Nero started the Catholic Church?

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nickybr38

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Okay, I did a search of the forums but couldn’t find this topic. It has probably been discussed before many times. 🙂

It’s new to me though.

SO basically I’ve heard from a few people now that Nero started the Catholic Church as a means of controlling the people. It’s supposedly the perfect religion to use in population control.

I’ve heard similar statements about the Jewish faith (it was started as a way to control the people).

Now, I have NO idea where this is coming from or really how to dispute it.

I know that Nero persecuted the Catholic Church in 64-68AD, but is this the Nero they mean? How strange that he’d persecute the very religion he supposedly created. Which is how I answered this claim, a long with a little blurb about; if Nero started the Catholic Church then he must also be held responsible for the compiling of the New Testament letters, which would mean the New Testament is no longer reliable.

But I get this is a pretty flimsy response.

So, guys, help me out with this one. This definitely falls into the defense of the faith category and I’m at a total loss as to where this is coming from. 🙂
 
I was always taught that it was Constantine. 🤷

Both views constitute a total lack of knowledge of early Church history.
 
nickybr38 said:
Okay, I did a search of the forums but couldn’t find this topic. It has probably been discussed before many times. 🙂

It’s new to me though.

SO basically I’ve heard from a few people now that Nero started the Catholic Church as a means of controlling the people. It’s supposedly the perfect religion to use in population control.

I’ve heard similar statements about the Jewish faith (it was started as a way to control the people).

Now, I have NO idea where this is coming from or really how to dispute it.

I know that Nero persecuted the Catholic Church in 64-68AD, but is this the Nero they mean? How strange that he’d persecute the very religion he supposedly created. Which is how I answered this claim, a long with a little blurb about; if Nero started the Catholic Church then he must also be held responsible for the compiling of the New Testament letters, which would mean the New Testament is no longer reliable.

But I get this is a pretty flimsy response.

So, guys, help me out with this one. This definitely falls into the defense of the faith category and I’m at a total loss as to where this is coming from. 🙂
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Well, I give this goofy history credit for at least getting a closer date than the Emperor-Constantine-started-the-Catholic-Church folks. And better for “population control”? Sounds just about right for the Church that opposes artificial contraception. 🙂 Some theories are just so darn nutty that no sensible argument will suffice to sway those who hold it. IF they are serious then a look at the writings of, say, St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. Justin Martyr, might help.
 
ROFL, right nero started the catholic church so he would have more christians to burn as torches to light his parties, good one.
The Roman historian Tacitus explains what happened. The translator of Annals, 15.44 is not known.

But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called ‘Chrestians’ by the populace.
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Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular.
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Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.
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livius.org/cg-cm/christianity/tacitus.html
 
nickybr38 said:
SO basically I’ve heard from a few people now that Nero started the Catholic Church as a means of controlling the people. It’s supposedly the perfect religion to use in population control.

. . .
I know that Nero persecuted the Catholic Church in 64-68AD, but is this the Nero they mean? How strange that he’d persecute the very religion he supposedly created. Which is how I answered this claim, a long with a little blurb about; if Nero started the Catholic Church then he must also be held responsible for the compiling of the New Testament letters, which would mean the New Testament is no longer reliable.

But I get this is a pretty flimsy response.
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if they are their ignorance of basic western history is that ingrained I doubt any logical informed argument you use will carry much weight. getting a little dog-eared but the standard rebuttal remains: prove it. The ball is in their court to prove this remarkable and entirely illogical assertion.
 
That one is so totally ridiculous, the only appropriate response is laughter. Really, you can’t change the mind of anyone prepared to believe such drivel.
 
I have to admit, when I first saw this thread, I was immediately reminded of this passage from an article G.K. Chesterton wrote, because it seems so relevant.

“Some day, I think, I shall take a holiday and write a book full of opinions that I do not hold. Then shall the world see what a paradox is really like, and my enemies be confounded. I once made notes for several complete demonstrations of things I disbelieve entirely; demonstrations quite as elaborate and full of coincidences as the demonstration that Bacon wrote Shakespeare. One of them was that Shakespeare wrote Bacon. Another was that Nero was a Christian. I have no space to go into the details of it here. And if I were merely to say that Nero burnt Rome because he was a Christian, the elliptical expression might leave me open to some slight misunderstanding. My story was, I think, that he was urging militant methods which the other Christians refused to adopt. This would account both for the crime being done by him and its being attributed to them. Then, of course, there was the Christian slave-girl who scattered flowers on his grave. And there was that general real glory of the Christian Church, that it is the last refuge of a scoundrel. I do not believe that Nero was a Christian, but the arguments for it were overwhelming. I sometimes felt, in my arrogance, that I could convince almost anyone but myself.”

-May 10, 1913 Illustrated London News, “The Villians of History”
 
nickybr38 said:
She is a former Cradle Catholic (her own words) and current hardcore Baptist. 🙂
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It has been my experience that the most rabid anti-Catholics are former Catholics who have left the Church. I think subconsciously, they are trying to rationalize their actions.
 
Maybe the people I’ve been speaking to have just been confusing Nero with Constantine?

🤷

InnocentSmith - Neat Quote!

Scoobyshme - Former Catholics scare me. Haha. It’s a weird phobia.
 
The whole “Constantine founded Catholicism” argument was dumb enough, now Nero? Who’s next, Calligula?!!:p:p:D
 
gurneyhalleck1 said:
The whole “Constantine founded Catholicism” argument was dumb enough, now Nero? Who’s next, Calligula?!!:p:p:D
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I’ve heard that Calligula was the ‘Beast’. As in THE Anti-Christ…

But if someone says he founded the Catholic Church I will pass out. Really! I will!
 
FCEGM said:
nicky, here is a fuller exposition of and argument against “The Trail of Blood”:

turrisfortis.com/trail.html
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Thank you!!! This is great stuff. I need to study up for the next time I run into this particular lady and anyone else who uses these arguments to convince me NOT to join the Church! Haha. As if they could. 😛
 
nickybr38 said:
I know that Nero persecuted the Catholic Church in 64-68AD, but is this the Nero they mean?
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Since the Nero who persecuted the Catholic Church was one of Rome’s most deranged rulers, incapable of caring about anyone or anything beyond himself, who used to order entire Roman legions to attend his concerts and applaud wildly on pain of death, who cleared the entire middle area of the city to build his imperial Golden Palace, who was so chronically incapable of governance (much less “population control!”) that he managed to single-handedly destabilize and ultimately ruin the entire Julio-Claudian dynasty, resulting in a disastrous civil war after Nero’s death, which by the way was a suicide inspired by the Senate, for the first time in history, ordering the execution of an emperor as a public enemy, and whose sole interest in Christianity was in using a local and unpopular minority group to deflect blame for the Great Fire from Nero, who was otherwise the prime suspect for having started it… I am going to have to say, no, your friends couldn’t possibly mean that Nero, because they would be revealing themselves as the most historically ignorant people this side of Jack Chick.

Presumably they meant Nero, the famed miner and “last of the Romulan Empire” who became a refugee in the 23rd Century when he sought vengeance on Spock for the destruction of Romulus in A.D. 2387.



It appears that your friends buy into the somewhat popular fan theory that, after his battle with Captain James T. Kirk near Earth, Nero survived the destruction of the Narada and fell further backwards into time. Landing on first century Earth, it is possible that our time-traveling Romulan, bent on population control, revenge, and universal domination, was able to seize the heart of the early Christian Church and pervert it into the dark, powerful, militaristic, and shadowy organization today known as the Roman Catholic Church. Nero’s ultimate plan, of course, is to use the Catholic Church to conquer Earth, and then, just as mankind achieves interstellar space travel, to reveal its true name: the Romulan Catholic Church!

I am not kidding when I say that “the Catholic Church was founded by a fictional time-traveling Romulan” is considerably more plausible than “the Catholic Church was founded by Nero, fifth emperor of Rome.”

EDIT: Ah. It was a mixup with Constantine. Well, I can’t make fun of that crazy idea nearly as effectively.
 
Wowbagger said:
Since the Nero who persecuted the Catholic Church was one of Rome’s most deranged rulers, incapable of caring about anyone or anything beyond himself, who used to order entire Roman legions to attend his concerts and applaud wildly on pain of death, who cleared the entire middle area of the city to build his imperial Golden Palace, who was so chronically incapable of governance (much less “population control!”) that he managed to single-handedly destabilize and ultimately ruin the entire Julio-Claudian dynasty, resulting in a disastrous civil war after Nero’s death, which by the way was a suicide inspired by the Senate, for the first time in history, ordering the execution of an emperor as a public enemy, and whose sole interest in Christianity was in using a local and unpopular minority group to deflect blame for the Great Fire from Nero, who was otherwise the prime suspect for having started it… I am going to have to say, no, your friends couldn’t possibly mean that Nero, because they would be revealing themselves as the most historically ignorant people this side of Jack Chick.

Presumably they meant Nero, the famed miner and “last of the Romulan Empire” who became a refugee in the 23rd Century when he sought vengeance on Spock for the destruction of Romulus in A.D. 2387.

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/_...humb/7/77/Nero,_2258.jpg/292px-Nero,_2258.jpg

It appears that your friends buy into the somewhat popular fan theory that, after his battle with Captain James T. Kirk near Earth, Nero survived the destruction of the Narada and fell further backwards into time. Landing on first century Earth, it is possible that our time-traveling Romulan, bent on population control, revenge, and universal domination, was able to seize the heart of the early Christian Church and pervert it into the dark, powerful, militaristic, and shadowy organization today known as the Roman Catholic Church. Nero’s ultimate plan, of course, is to use the Catholic Church to conquer Earth, and then, just as mankind achieves interstellar space travel, to reveal its true name: the Romulan Catholic Church!

I am not kidding when I say that “the Catholic Church was founded by a fictional time-traveling Romulan” is considerably more plausible than “the Catholic Church was founded by Nero, fifth emperor of Rome.”

EDIT: Ah. It was a mixup with Constantine. Well, I can’t make fun of that crazy idea nearly as effectively.
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You just made my day. I laughed so hard there are tears in my eyes.

👍 Star Trek fans… ah yes, my favorite kind of fans.
 
If Nero started the Catholic Church he sure knew how to shoot himself in the foot when he personally ordered the execution of the first Pope!
 
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