Nero and the Apostles’ Deaths

When Nero’s rule was now firmly established, he drifted into unholy pursuits and took up arms against the very piety toward the God of the universe. To describe how depraved he became is not the business of the present work. Many have handed down his story in very exact accounts, and anyone who wishes can see from them the coarseness of the man’s monstrous madness. Under its sway, after destroying countless numbers without any reason, he went on to such bloodguilt that he did not spare even his closest relatives and dearest friends. His mother, his brothers and his wife, together with countless others of his family, he did away with by various kinds of death, as though they were private and public enemies. [a] But with all this, one thing more had to be written against his name: that he was shown to be the first of the emperors to make himself an enemy of piety toward God.

The Roman Tertullian mentions this too, in words like these: “Consult your records. There you will find that Nero was the first to persecute this teaching, especially when, having subdued the whole East, he was savage toward everyone at Rome. We glory in having such a man as the author of our punishment. For anyone who knows him can understand that nothing would have been condemned by Nero unless it were some great good.” [b]

So it was that this man, proclaimed the first of all as a fighter against God, was roused to the slaughter of the apostles. It is recorded that under him Paul was beheaded at Rome itself, and Peter likewise was crucified; and the record is confirmed by the names of Peter and Paul, which have kept their hold to this day on the burial places there. [c] It is confirmed no less by a churchman named Gaius, who lived when Zephyrinus was bishop of Rome. In a written dispute with Proclus, the leader of the Phrygian opinion, he says this about the places where the sacred remains of these apostles have been laid: [d] “But I can show you the trophies of the apostles. For if you are willing to go to the Vatican or to the Ostian Way, you will find the trophies of those who founded this church.” [f]

That both were martyred at the same time is stated by Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, in a letter he wrote to the Romans: “By such an admonition you too have mingled together the planting that came from Peter and Paul, of both Romans and Corinthians. For both of them planted in our Corinth and taught us alike; and alike they taught together in Italy, and were martyred at the same time.” I have set these things down so that the facts of the history may be still more firmly established. [g]