Nero and Simon the Magician

Luke told the story of what the apostles did up to the time when Paul was brought to Rome under the emperor Nero. As for Nero, I will not say that he was the worst of kings; I will say that he was rightly considered the vilest of all men, and even of wild beasts. It was he who first began a persecution. And it may be that he will also be the last to carry one on, if indeed we accept what many are inclined to believe, that he is yet to appear just before the coming of Antichrist. My subject would lead me to set out his vices at some length, if it did not go against the purpose of this work to take up so vast a topic. I will content myself with saying that he showed himself in every way most loathsome and cruel, and in the end went so far as to murder his own mother. [a]

After this he also married a certain Pythagoras, in the manner of a formal wedding. The bridal veil was put on the emperor, and the customary dowry, the marriage bed, the wedding torches, and in short all the other ceremonies were there: things that even in the case of women are not looked on without some sense of modesty. As for the rest of what he did, I am not sure whether describing it would stir more shame or more sorrow.

He was the first to try to abolish the name of Christian, in keeping with the fact that vices are always hostile to virtues, and that the wicked always feel good men to be a reproach to them. For at that time our divine religion had spread widely in the city. Peter was carrying out the office of bishop there, and Paul too, after he had been brought to Rome when he appealed to Caesar from the unjust judgment of the governor. Crowds then came together to hear Paul. Moved by the truth they were given to know, and by the miracles of the apostles, which they were performing so often at that time, they turned to the worship of God. For it was then that the well-known and celebrated encounter of Peter and Paul with Simon took place. By his magic arts Simon had flown up into the air, held up by two demons, to prove that he was a god. But the demons were put to flight by the prayers of the apostles, and he fell to the earth in the sight of all the people and was dashed to pieces.