"Another was that Nero was a Christian"

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, The Illustrated London News