Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/765

 publish their doctrines or to ordain clergy, under threat of severe civil penalties.

In 385 died Pulcheria, the emperor's daughter, and his wife Placilla. The archbishop asked Gregory of Nyssa to preach the funeral sermons on both occasions.

Towards the close of his episcopate Nectarius abolished the office of presbyter penitentiary, whose duty appears to have been to receive confessions before communion. His example was followed by nearly all other bishops. The presbyter penitentiary was added to the ecclesiastical roll about the time of the Novatianist schism, when that party declined to communicate with those who had lapsed in the Decian persecution. Gradually there were fewer lapsed to reconcile, and his duties became more closely connected with preparation for communion. A disgraceful occurrence induced Nectarius to leave the participation in holy communion entirely to individual consciences and abolish the office.

Nectarius died in 397 or 398, and was succeeded by St. John Chrysostom. (Theod. H. E. v. viii. etc.; Socr. H. E. v. viii. etc.; Soz. H. E. vii. viii. etc.; Theoph. Chronogr. 59. etc.; Nectarii Arch. CP. Enarratio in Patr. Gk. xxxix. p. 1821; Mansi, Concil. t. iii. p. 521, 599, 633, 643, 694, etc.; Hefele, Hist. Christ. Councils, tr. Oxenham (Edinb. 1876), vol. ii. pp. 344, 347, 378, 380, 382, etc.

[W.M.S.]

Nemesius (4), bp. of Emesa in the latter half of 4th cent., of whom nothing is certainly known but that he wrote a rather remarkable treatise, περὶ φύσεως ἀνθρώπου, de Natura Hominis, of which cc. ii. and iii. wrongly appear as a separate work, entitled περὶ ψυχῆς,  de Anima, among the writings of Gregory Nyssen. Le Quien (Or. Christ. ii. 839) places Nemesius fifth among the bishops of Emesa, between Paul I., who attended the council of Seleucia, 359, and Cyriacus, the friend of Chrysostom. The date of his writing is tolerably certain from his mentioning the doctrines of Apollinaris and Eunomius and the Origenists, but not those of Nestorius, Eutyches, or Pelagius. He could hardly have avoided mentioning Pelagius if his teaching had been known to him, in the part of his treatise relating to free will. That he was bp. of Emesa is stated in the title of his treatise in the various MS. copies, and by Maximus (ii. 153, ed. Combefis) and Anastasius Sinaita (Quaest. xviii. and xxiv.) in quoting his work. He is also quoted, though without his name, by Joannes Damascenus, Elias Cretensis, Meletius, Joannes Grammaticus, and others. The treatise is an interesting work which will well reward perusal, and has received much praise from able judges of style and matter. Nemesius establishes the immortality of the soul against the philosophers, vindicates free will, opposes fatalism, defends God's providence, and proves by copious examples the wisdom and goodness of the Deity. He gives indications that he was not ignorant of the circulation of the blood and the functions of the bile (cc. xxiv. xxviii. pp. 242, 260, ed. Matthaei). The best ed. is by C. F. Matthaei (Halae, 1802), reprinted by Migne in ''Patr. Gk.'' The treatise has been translated into most modern European languages, into Italian by Pizzimenti (no date), English, G. Wilkes (1636 and 1657), German by Osterhammer (Salzburg, 1819), and French by J. R. Thibault (Paris, 1844). Cf. M. Evangelides, Nemesius und seine Quellen (Berlin, 1882).

[E.V.]

Nero (1), Claudius Caesar, emperor (Oct. 13, 54, to June 9, 68). For our purpose the interest of Nero's life centres in his persecution of the Christians. For his general history see Merivale, cc. lii.–lv. During his early reign Christianity was unmolested and seems to have spread rapidly at Rome. No doubt it received a great impetus from the preaching of St. Paul during the two years after his arrival, probably early in 61. But before long a terrible storm was to burst on the infant church. On the night of July 16, 64, a fire broke out in the valley between the Palatine and the Aventine. That part of the city was crowded with humble dwellings and shops full of inflammable contents. The lower parts of the city became a sea of flame. For six days the fire raged till it reached the foot of the Esquiline, where it was stopped by pulling down a number of houses. Soon after a second fire broke out in the gardens of Tigellinus near the Pincian, and raged for three days in the N. parts of the city. Though the loss of life was less in the second fire, the destruction of temples and public buildings was more serious. By the two fires three of the 14 regions were utterly destroyed, four escaped entirely, in the remaining seven but few houses were left standing. Nero was at Antium when the fire broke out, and did not return to Rome till it had almost reached the vast edifice he had constructed to connect his palace on the Palatine with the gardens of Maecenas on the Esquiline.

The horrible suspicion that Nero himself was the author of the fire gained strength. This is asserted as a positive fact by Suetonius (c. 38), Dion (lxii. 16), and Pliny the Elder (xvii. 1), the last being a contemporary, but Tacitus alludes to it only as a prevalent rumour. Whether well founded or not, and whether, supposing it true, the emperor's motive was to clear away the crooked, narrow streets of the old town in order to rebuild it on a new and regular plan, or whether it was a freak of madness, need not be discussed here. At any rate Nero found it necessary to divert from himself the rage of the people and put the blame upon the Christians.

The only author living near the time of the persecution who gives an account of it is Tacitus. After describing the origin of Christianity he proceeds: "First were arrested those who confessed, then on their information a vast multitude was convicted, not so much on the charge of arson as for their hatred of the human race. Their deaths were made more cruel by the mockery that accompanied them. Some were covered with the skins of wild beasts and torn to pieces by dogs; others perished on the cross or in the flames; and others again were burnt after sunset as torches to light up the darkness. Nero himself granted his gardens (on the Vatican) for the show, and gave an exhibition in the circus, and, dressed as a charioteer, mixed with the people or drove his chariot himself. Thus, guilty and deserving the severest punishment as they were, yet they were pitied, as they