Existentialism In Wilson's 'From Nero To Constantine'

From Nero to Constantine

After Emperor Claudius, who was supposedly poisoned by his wife Agrippina, Nero occupied the Roman throne. Usually, he was characterized as a poetic, sensitive soul, which is evidenced in his ban on blood shedding during the games he sponsored. He used to publicly perform his songs while strumming his lyre and by doing so, he managed to win a few competitions and get some arousing cheers from the crowd. There remains the question of honesty of those cheers and competitions. One of his rivals (note that he was Nero’s rival), as he lay dying, left a note for Nero, in which he expressed just how much he appreciated Nero’s poetic “talent”, that is, the lack of it. However sensitive or poetically inclined he might have

They have problems realizing that there is more to the world than what their ego narrows them down to. However, after the conquerors and criminals (or in this case, the Roman Emperors) do their misdeeds and leave the stage, like a tide sweeping the carnage comes the feeling of magic and mystery. And that spot is, according to Wilson, claimed by Christianity, which represents to him that philosophical enchantment of creation. It spread quickly because it began as a reaction against Roman materialism, which is a statement that requires belief in people wanting something other than superficial in their lives. Wilson says that nothing coming out of Roman culture should be of any interest to an imaginative man/woman. For him, Christianity stands on the opposite side as it is superbly inspiring and stimulating to the mind. However, that is a rather harsh view. Furthermore, the fact that those Christian texts cannot be considered as trustworthy is best demonstrated in the appearance of Jesus, who underwent considerable plastic surgery through medieval European reception of Christianity. Wilson gets excited by one author’s reconstruction of Jesus’ appearance, which is caricaturally funny, but doubtful in the same sense in which everything from that period is doubtful. The only thing that is certain is that

There are very interesting theories about Jesus as a leader of a Jewish political movement who crowned himself (not in the literal sense) as Jewish King in the fullest sense of that word. The twelve apostles are, in that case, the representatives of the twelve Jewish tribes (they were very often militantly depicted, especially in earlier depictions). However, those are just hypothesis without much tangible proof. Regarding religion, the Jews of that age were much divided. So it is no wonder that even the few followers that Jesus had, divided in two groups, messianic one and Christian one. The former believed that Jesus is a political messiah sent to rebuild the Kingdom of Israel, and the latter followed St. Saul/Paul who preached that Jesus was a son of God and that, in order to achieve salvation, all that people needed to do was believe in him. Nevertheless, Christianity was what prevailed in the end and had conquered the world (or Europe at least), and Wilson claims that it happened because Titus had brutally quenched the Jewish rebellion in 70 AD, by killing off most of Jewish sects. The Christians survived precisely because they were not accepted in Jewish community (Paul/Saul when journeying through the Mediterranean and spreading Christianity, is not at all spreading Christian religion for