" ... and so we went toward Rome. And from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us ... whom, when Paul saw, he thanked God
and took courage.”
“And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.”
THUS St. Luke's narrative ends. He tells us of the arrival at the Eternal City of Paul the prisoner, who had been accused by his own nation, and had claimed his right as a Roman citizen to answer for himself before the imperial courts. The Cesar who wore the purple at this time was the terrible Nero, with whose name the first Pagan persecution of the Christians is coupled for all time.
Of sonic of those who suffered then we doubtless catch a glimpse among the little band who, in the year 61, went as far as the village of Appii Forum to meet the apostle, as he drew near Rome. The meeting between the prisoner, worn with toil and shipwreck, as he came along the road, guarded by Roman soldiers, and those poor "brethren," mostly slaves, at sight of whom Paul "thanked God and took courage," must have been a very touching one. But it was unattended by any thought of danger; none among the little company could foresee the terrible storm which was so soon to burst upon the heads of all who named the name of Christ in the proud heathen city.
By those brethren, as they started on their journey to meet one whose face they had never seen, the opening words of his letter to them must have been well remembered. He had written to them from Corinth, addressing them as "beloved of God, called saints," and his salutation to them was, "Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." He had told them how he gave thanks for them, that their faith was spoken of throughout the whole world, how without ceasing he made mention of them always in his prayers, making request if by any means he might now at length have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto them. They knew how he had longed to see them, and had many times purposed to visit them, and now the time had come; the apostle and the beloved ones, over whom he had so longed, saw each other face to face, and their hearts were comforted.
How fully the desire of Paul, expressed in his letter, to preach the gospel to the Roman Christians, was answered, during the time which passed before he left Rome, who shall say? But one short year, and many a humble follower of Christ who had learned from Paul's lips in his own house the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, should pass through a fiery gate to the presence of Him whom, having not seen, he loved.
At this time Rome was still mistress of the world, almost every country then known being subject to her. But she was not a persecuting power. The nations which were subdued by her were allowed to retain each its own particular form of idolatrous worship; even the Jews, who worshipped one God, were unmolested, and we find Paul appealing to Caesar for protection against those of his own nation who sought to persecute him. But, on the other hand, Rome would give no protection to those who had turned from the worship of the many gods, whose magnificent statues of gold and ivory adorned their chief cities, to the worship of Him of whom even the Jews could only say that He was "one Jesus, who was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive.”
Of this wicked Roman world, where Paganism was universal, St. Paul speaks to us in the early part of the Epistle to the Romans, and in the words of one of the philosophers of the time we find a strange commentary upon the picture there drawn. "The world," he says, "is filled with crimes and vices; things are gone too far to be healed by any regimen." Other writers tell us of the splendor of the heathen temples, of the magnificent shows, the fights of gladiators, the chariot races and games, the theaters and spectacles. None, however, speak of the little companies of those in that terrible world, yet not of it, who had found in the gospel of Christ that remedy for sin for which the philosopher Seneca looked around in vain. We know not whether Paul was brought to trial, nor by what means he obtained his liberty, but he was absent from Rome when, in the year 64, the fearful scenes took place which, for the first time, brought the Christians to light upon the page of history. A terrible conflagration raged for six days and seven nights, during which time more than half Rome was destroyed. The people, horror-struck, and unable to find any cause for the calamity, tried to discover some means by which the offended deities, who had sent so tremendous a judgment upon them, might be propitiated. At this time of terror and dismay, the Emperor Nero, probably aware that some among his subjects had dared to whisper that he, who had sat upon a tower and watched the flames in their resistless march, while he sang to his harp of the burning of Troy, was himself the author of their disaster, accused the Christians of the crime of having set the city on fire.
The story is told briefly by a Roman historian, who was a child at the time.
“Nero," he writes, “exposed to accusation, and tortured with the most exquisite penalties a set of men hated for their crimes, whom the common people called Christians. Christos, the founder of their sect, was put to death in the reign of Tiberius by the Procurator Pontius Pilate, and the deadly superstition, suppressed for a time, began to burst out once more, not only throughout Judæa, where the evil had its root, but even in the city, whither, from every quarter, all things horrible and shameful are drifted, and find their votaries. To put a stop to the popular clamor, Nero falsely accused this people of the conflagration, and subjected them to the most barbarous treatment. Those who were first seized, confessed" (that they were Christians?); "then a vast multitude, detected by their means, were convicted, not so much of the crime of burning the city, as of hatred to mankind. Insult was added to their torments; for being clad in the skins of wild beasts, they were torn to pieces by dogs; or they were affixed to crosses to be burned, and used as lights to dispel the darkness of night when the day was gone. Nero devoted his gardens to the show, and held games, in which in the dress of a charioteer he mingled with the rabble, or drove round the circus; so that although the guilty suffered, compassion was excited because they were put to death, not so much for the public good, as to satiate the ferocity of one man,”
The great cathedral of St. Peter now stands upon the spot where the gardens of Nero were once lit up by the flare of living torches. This dreadful form of punishment seems to have been invented for the occasion, that those who were said to have set the city on fire might be seen by the excited populace as they were themselves slowly consumed; for Seneca explains the torture of the "shirt of flame" by saying that the dresses in which the Christians suffered were "besmeared and interwoven with combustible materials.”
The names of these unknown martyrs are written in no earthly record; none can tell us how they bore themselves in that fiery trial; but we know that they suffered because they bore the name of Christ, and that it was the grace of Christ that alone could have kept each one of them true to that Name. By each of those nameless confessors life might have been purchased, and death in such fearful guise avoided, by denying that he belonged to the hated company of those called Christians—the infatuated people who refused to pray to any of the gods which others worshipped, and who were never seen at the great heathen festivals, or gorgeous spectacles and processions. "Haters of the human race," men said of them, as they had often said of the Jews—yet we can now see that in accusing the Christians, Nero accused the most harmless and peaceable of his subjects, the only ones, as has been remarked, in all his empire, who prayed for him. At that time the cry that they not only worshipped one God, but had also brought in a new religion, and thus provoked the heathen deities to jealous rage, found a ready ear among the common people. They only knew that the Christians had no temples and no gods, and imagination readily lent itself to the task of giving form to the dark hints which were whispered concerning a people whose worship was so obscure.
We delight to think that to many a martyr in Nero's circus, the words of the letter of the apostle, whom he had so lately seen, must have been as an "anchor of the soul." "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" he had asked. "Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution?" And triumphantly he had answered, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us, for I am persuaded that neither death... nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
This first Pagan persecution is believed to have continued, more or less, until the death of Nero. The year 67 is given as the date of the martyrdom of both the apostles Peter and Paul; the former probably having been crucified at Rome, where the latter was beheaded.
There is little doubt that St. Paul returned to Rome to be again imprisoned, and that the confident expectation, not of release, but of "departing to be with Christ" by a violent death, of which he spoke when writing his second letter to Timothy, was speedily realized. Of the place and manner of the death of the apostle Peter, that "putting off his tabernacle," of which his Lord had showed him beforehand, we have no certain knowledge.