The Fire at Rome and the Deaths of Peter and Paul

Meanwhile, when the number of Christians was already very large, it happened that Rome was destroyed by fire while Nero was staying at Antium. But everyone’s opinion laid the blame for starting the fire on the emperor, and he was believed to have sought in this way the glory of building a new city. And in fact Nero could not, by any means he tried, escape the charge that the fire had been set on his orders. So he turned the accusation against the Christians, and the cruelest tortures were inflicted on the innocent. New kinds of death were even invented. Some were covered in the skins of wild beasts and died by being torn to pieces by dogs. Many were crucified or killed by fire, and a good number were set apart for this purpose: that when the day came to an end, they should be burned to give light during the night. In this way cruelty against the Christians first began. Afterward their religion was also forbidden by laws that were passed, and by edicts publicly posted it was declared unlawful to be a Christian. At that time Paul and Peter were condemned to death. Paul was beheaded with a sword, and Peter suffered crucifixion. [a]

While these things were going on at Rome, the Jews, unable to bear the wrongs they suffered under the rule of Festus Florus, began to rebel. Nero sent Vespasian against them with the powers of a proconsul. He defeated them in many important battles and forced them to take refuge within the walls of Jerusalem. Meanwhile Nero, hateful now even to himself from the knowledge of his crimes, vanished from among men, leaving it uncertain whether or not he had taken his own life. Certainly his body was never found. So it was believed that, even if he did kill himself with a sword, his wound was healed and his life preserved, as was written about him, “And his mortal wound was healed,” so that he might be sent out again near the end of the world, to practice the mystery of lawlessness.