Nero Was Cool

or

Ancient Terrorism:

How a little band of faithful

burned Rome





The luxury of the court, thanks to Poppća, was unparalleled. When Nero moved abroad, hundreds of state carriages drawn by horses and mules shod with silver, driven by men dressed in scarlet, filled the road for miles; and the procession was headed by troops of picturesque African cavalary. The public entertainments given by the Emperor to the people were more magnificent than ever before; and it was his habit to fling to the crowd little balls each marked with a number which, when presented to the treasury, entitled the holders to presents ranging from a small piece of money to a mansion and estate, and including such gifts as food, clothes, jewels, pictures, slaves, animals, ships, and so forth. The curious story that he used a large emerald as a kind of eyeglass through which to watch the performances at the theatre has never been explained.

When he first met Poppća, it will be remembered, he was still under the influence of his thrifty mother: the palace was poorly furnished, the pennies were counted, and Nero deemed it a breath-taking extravagance to sprinkle a few drops of expensive perfume upon his friend, Otho. Now, however, he had learnt from Poppća and her friends how to live recklessly, and his artist's heart had responded to the training so fully that no man on earth could rival him in his gifts and expenditure. "He now thought," says Suetonius, "that there was no other use for money than to spend it lavishly, and he regarded those who kept their expenses within bounds as mean and sordid, while he extolled as noble and generous those who squandered all they possessed. He praised his uncle Caligula because he had in so short a time run through the vast fortune left him by Tiberius; and he himself was lavish beyond all bounds." He rewarded talent with enormous gifts: to Menecrates, a musician, he gave a house and estate worthy of the greatest in the land; and to Spicillus, a skilful gladiator, he made a similar present. When he gambled he staked huge fortunes on the throw of the dice.

The description of the fęte organized for him in Rome by Tigellinus one night in the early Summer of this year, A.D. 64, has come down to us. In the lake of Agrippa, near the Pantheon, he constructed a raft, carpeted with purple, upon which a gorgeous banquet was served, while vessels "striped with gold and ivory" towed it gently about. Along one shore of the lake pavilions were erected, where those guests who were not with the Emperor upon the raft were entertained. On the opposite shore were booths in front of which nude dancing-girls and musicians entertained the company. During the evening many of the guests, both men and women, strolled round to these booths and talked to the girls, with the result that some improper incidents occurred; and the fraternizing of the richly dressed women of fashion with these naked little hussies who made a business of what the society ladies regarded as an amusement, led to much scandalous gossip.





It will be recalled that after the musical festival of Naples Nero had wished to go to Greece, but had been prevented by the great danger of a revolution in his absence. At Naples, however, he had met a number of Egyptians, as has been recorded; and it seems that some of these had asked him to come to Egypt to sing to the Alexandrians. He now made up his mind, therefore, to make the journey, taking advantage of the calmness of the Mediterranean at this time of the year. The route usually chosen was that which, from Brindisi, passed along Greece, and thence southwards along the Greek coast to Crete, being almost all the way thus far in sight of land. From Crete to the coast of North Africa about 150 miles of open sea had to be crossed, after which the route followed the coastline eastwards to Alexandria. It was not a perilous journey at this time of year, and one of the big triremes with three banks of oars could accomplish it in a fortnight.





Nero's mind was more easy now about leaving Rome, for his popularity in the capital seemed to be re-established. The acclamations of the audiences before whom he had sung had given him a feeling of confidence, and his own friends at court had idolised him to such an extent that, diffident though he was by nature, he believed himself to be enthroned in the hearts of his people high above the turmoil of politics and the whispers of sedition. He therefore issued an edict assuring the citizens that his absence would not be of long duration, and that while he was away the State would continue in its wonted peace and prosperity; after which he fixed the day of his departure, and, on its eve, paid a formal visit to the temples to pray the gods for their protection upon his travels.

Yet while he was in the temple of Vesta he happened to seat himself upon a bench, and, when he got up, the skirt of his robe became caught - a very bad omen - while at the same time a fit of dizziness, due, no doubt, to indigestion or a touch of the sun, caused him a momentary dimness of vision. The unusual sensation scared him, for he had hardly known any illness in his life; and, suddenly thinking that it was a warning from heaven of some peril before him, he began to wonder whether he was wise in going away. The more he thought of it the more troubled he became, and at last, a few hours later, he abandoned the whole project. He then issued a second edict stating that since every other consideration with him was overruled by his love for his country; since he had noticed the anxiety of the citizens in regard to his long journey and had remembered that they had complained even at his short absences, accustomed as they were to turn to him in all thir troubles; and since the people of Rome were to him like his family circle whose wishes had to be considered, he had decided to give up his journey and remain near them.





At this, to the surprise of Tacitus who records the fact, the people were obviously relieved and delighted; and this historian attributes their sentiments to their fear lest in his absence there might be mismanagement and a scarcity of food, or something of that sort, as well as the inevitable cessation of the usual gaieties of the city. These, no doubt, were the chief reasons for their rejoicing; but it is clear that amongst the masses at his time Nero was still beloved by the majority and tolerated by the others, and that his proposd absence was genuinely regretted. He had now reigned nearly ten years, and was 26 years of age; and thus far, it will be agreed, there had been little to suggest that he was to become in history the most hated of men. The divorce and death of Octavia had certainly made him temporarily unpopular, but he had re-established himself, and public opinion seems to have decided that Octavia, obsessed by hatred, had been quite as impossible as, formerly, Agrippina had been. Nero's government had been good, he people acknowledged; the country was prosperous; civil wars and rebellions had been frustrated by quick and drastic action; and the Emperor himself, if unconventional to the point of eccentricity, was, in their opinion, undoubtedly an extraordinary genius, a wonderful singer, a patron of the arts and sciences, an enthusiastic racing man and athlete, and, above all, a friend of the common people.

Thus far...but now there occurred that terrible catastrophe, the burning of Rome, as a consequence of which the whole picture of Nero was smudged over not only in his own time but in subsequent history. The Emperor was spending the height of the Summer at his seaside palace at Antium, thirty-five miles from the city, when, during the night of July 19th, A.D. 64, a conflagration broke out in the wooden sheds and small shops at the east end of the Circus Maximus, at the foot of the Palantine and Cćlian Hills towards the Esquiline, and also along the wider valley between the Palatine and Aventine Hills; and in either direction the dry woodwork of the crowded houses provided fuel for the blaze. The narrowness of the streets allowed the flames to leap quickly from the burning buildings at one side across to those as yet unharmed on the other, while the intricate windings of the lanes and alleys carried the fire in unexpected directions.

For six days the city blazed; and then, when the catastrophe was thought to be over, the flames broke out again and continued there destruction for three days more. These nine days provided scenes of horror far transcending those when the smaller Rome of four and a half centuries earlier had been burnt by the Gauls, far transcending, also, hose of the great fire of london in 1666 which lasted only four days. Panic soon took hold of the citizens, and duing the first days of the disaster the confusion was apppalling. The screams of the women and children, the cries and shouts of the men, were incessant; and the noise and smoke, the crashing of the buildings, and the heat and glare of the leaping flames, bereft he people of their senses. Distractedly they ran to and fro, often finding themselves hemmed in when they had waited too long in helping the aged or the infirm to escape, and in salvaging their goods. In the sudden panics and rushes that occurred as street after street were attacked, scores of people were trampled underfoot or suffocated; scores more were burnt to death as they attemped to rescue their friends or relations or save their belongings; and it is said that many went mad and flung themselves into the flames which had destroyed all they loved or possessed, or stood dumb and motionless while their retreat was cut off.

To add to the confusion, thieves were soon at work, assaulting and robbing the householders who were carrying their treasures into the streets; and Dion Cassius states that soldiers and police, bent on plunder, were sometimes seen themselves to set fire to the houses of the wealthy so that they might steal the valuables which they were pretending to save.

The flames early began to move up to the eastern and southern slopes of the Palatine Hill, on the summit of which stood that vast conglomeration of buildings of various ages which formed the straggling Palace of the Cćsars; and when news was brought to Nero that the conflagration could not be extinguished, and that the palace with all its treasures and works of art, was in danger, he decided immediately to go back to the city and take command of the operations. The wind being from the south, clouds of smoke must have been blowing across the Palatine Hill from the fires which raged all around its southern slopes and which cut off the approaches to it on that side; and Nero, obliged to enter the city on the north-east, must have made his way to the undamaged Forum - which lay just under the north-west end of the Palatine - and thence up the steep incline to the palace, with the smoke beating into his face, and the scorching wind driving the smuts and sparks into his eyes.

The place was already doomed, and Nero, on may suppose, could do no more there than give orders about the removal of some of the works of art; and then, coughing and choking, he seems to have returned to the Forum and the have made his way around the Capitoline Hill and across the Tiber to that part of the city which was south-west of the conflagration and therefore free of smoke. He appears to have made his headquearters there, in his pavilion in the gardens where his private theater was situated, and where he used to hold his "Festivals of Youth"; and from its roof, during the following days of terror, he watched his palace go up in smoke and flame. The loss of hundreds of ancient books and documents of extreme value and interest, the destruction of paintings and works of art, appalled and infuriated him. One by one, he saw the famous buildings and monuments of antiquity, or which he had been so proud, devoured by the flames - the ancient temple of the Moon, on the northern slope of the Aventine, overlooking the Circus Maximus, built by King Servius Tullius in the early days of Rome's history; the temple and altar dedicated to Hercules by the mythical Evander the Arcadian, at the foot of the Aventine; the shrine supposed to have been built by Romulus himself, Rome's founder, to Jupiter Stator; the original temple of Vesta, on the Palantine, believed to have been erected by King Numa at the dawn of the city's history, and containing the Household Gods of Rome; the ancient palace of Numa, nearby, afterwards restored by Augustus: all these and many others were burnt.

Fortunately much of the Forum and Capitol was built of stone, and protected the walls and open spaces, that these famous groups of buildings escaped; but the fire, licking the southern end of the Capitoline Hill, passed north-westwards into the Campus Martius, and there destroyed, amongst other buildings, the great amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus, erected about a century earlier. Meanwhile, however, the eastern wing of the conflagration was checked at the foot of the Esquiline - to the north-east of the Palatine - by the drastic destruction of the houses in this area, by Nero's orders, so that the fire would have nothing to feed upon; but, just when hopes were high that the end had come, the flames broke out in the area betwen the northern end of the Forum and the souhern slopes of the Quirinal, where the houses and gardens of Tigellinus were situated, and these, likewise, were burnt, together with all the surrounding buildings. It was not until July 28th that the fire was finally extinguished, and by that time about two-thirds of the city had been reduced to ruins and ashes, and the losses in human lives, in property, and in works of art and learning, were incalculable.

The measures which Nero took for the relief of the distress during the height of the blaze, and afterwards, were regarded by his contemporaries as very praiseworthy. He gathered the refugees together in that part of the Campus Martius which was free from danger, housing them in the Pantheon, the baths of Agrippa, and other large buildings there situated, and erecting temporary shelters for them in his own private gardens across the river, in the Vatican neighborhood. As soon as the fire had passed from any area he placed guards there to protect the ruins on behalf of the owners of the property; and he instituted a search for the dead at his own expense. He brought up stores from Ostia and other towns to feed the homeless, and he reduced the price of corn to bring it within reach of those who, though impoverished, did not need to be fed by the State. During all these days of horror he worked with indefatigable energy, directing these operations and attempting to calm the terrified people; and although he had heard that those who had conspired against him on previous occasions were now taking advantage of the catastrophe to arouse hatred of him and to bring about his death by assassination, he went fearlessly about his business, appearing amongst the distracted people without guards or companions and showing himself everywhere, in the smoke-darkened daytime or in the flame-lit night, in complete contempt of danger. The loss of Rome's ancient treasures, and particularly the destruction of nearly everything he loved in his own palace, must have very nearly broken his heart; and he worked in rage and despair.





Standing one night on the roof of his pavilion beside his garden-theatre, across the Tiber, where he had established his headquarters, Nero was so moved by the distant spectacle of the burning city that, in the manner of a professional mourner at a funeral, or one of the bards of old, he took his harp and began to sing a sort of dirge, a lament for Rome, likening the disaster to the burning of Troy; and his powerful voice, carried by the wind, came to the ears of the frenzied refugees gathered on the outskits of the gardens, who soon spread the story that the Emperor, thrilled by the beauty of the conflagration, had dressed himself up as a professional musician, and was callously singing songs in his theatre.

The tale took hold of the unbalanced minds of the people, and on all sides the question was asked whether Nero himself had fired the city in order to provide a dramatic setting for the singing of his own poem on the siege of Troy. Recalling the behaviour of the thieves who had set fire to houses, as has been recorded above, for the purposes of robbery, people declared that they must have been Nero's agents; and the fact that the wise measures taken against the spread of the fire had involved the apparently ruthless destruction of undamaged buildings gave color to the ridiculous tale that the conflagration had been deliberately planned. Some said that Nero had wished to destroy the city so that it might be built again on a more elegant plan, others that he just wanted a big thrill; but whatever might have been his supposed reason, the belief that he was the cause of the disaster gained ground. Maledictions were heaped upon him, or, rather, upon those were thought to have set the city on fire at his orders, for, as Dio says, the actual name of the Emperor was not cursed; and the result, Tacitus tells us, was that all his exertions and all his deeds of bravery were overlooked. Somebody said that once when the Greek quotation "After I am dead let fire devour the world" had been uttered in Nero's hearing he had replied "No; let that happen while I am alive." Somebody else declared that it had always been the Emperor's fixed purpose to make an end of Rome and of the Empire during his lifetime, and that he had often remarked that Priam of Troy was happy in that he had seen his city burnt up in the same hour in which his reign had ended.





The absurdity of supposing that Nero was responsible for the catastrophe is recognized, of course, by most modern historians, but in ancient times only Tacitus, amongst our authorities, is bold enough to state that the Emperor's guilt "is not certain." Today, however, the picture of Nero as author of the disaster, standing upon the roof of his palace, and "fiddling while Rome burnt," is impressed upon the popular imagination, and will hardly be obliterated by the facts that he strove desperately to extinguish the blaze which was destroying all that he most valued, that his palace was in flames, and that his dirge was sung, elsewhere, to the accompaniment of a harp, not a fiddle.

Nero was cut to the quick by these accusations, the more especially because the evidence did certainly suggest that the fire, or rather, its spread, was not wholly accidental; and, eager to exonerate himself, he held an enquiry into its origin, as a result of which his agents brought an accusation against the Christians, at that time a rapidly increasing sect, under the intellectual leadership of Paul of Tarsus, whose members were largely drawn from the ranks of slaves and aliens.

This new sect, being wholly misunderstood, was held in the greatest odium throughout those parts of the Roman empire where it was known, the chief criticisms against it being that its doctrines were socialistic and anarchical, and were taught to slaves and to the scum of the earth, putting insubordinate ideas into their heads, and that its members were haters of the human race, who believed that the end of the world was at hand, and that mankind, except themselves, were to go into perdition. Nero's agents knew little about the origin of this sect, but they understood that it had been founded by a man called Christus or Chrestus, who had been executed in Judća some thirty years ago; and that this personage said that he would return in glory to judge the world, for which event the members of the sect were excitedly waiting, performing secret rites meanwhile, and shunning the society of other men, whose happy indifference pained them, and whose gods they cursed.

Their leader, Paul, a Jew but a Roman citizen, had appealed to Nero when accused of sedition in the provinces, and had been bought to Rome in about A.D. 61 or 62, where there is reason to suppose, he was acquitted of these charges against him, but was later arrested again, after which he was permitted to live in his own hired house under the eye of a soldier, and was not forbidden to preach to the numerous Christians, many of whom were slaves in Nero's own household. There was another man, Peter, also a Jew, who was one of the leading spirits amongst them. The Emperor Claudius, it was recalled, had banished the members of the sect from Rome, because they "were continually causing disturbances"; but others had taken their place, and were now quite a multitude.

Enquiries seem to have shown that when the city was blazing these weirdly misanthropic persons had been in a state of ecstacy, crying out that the end was at hand, that Rome, like Babylon, was being destroyed by this Christus, who would at any moment appear above the smoke and flames of the conflagration to take the elect to heaven and to annihilate Nero and all his people; and it was said that when they were asked by their distracted fellowmen if, then, they were glad to see Rome burn, they had replied that this was heaven's fiery vengeance for which they were waiting, nor would they raise a hand to extinguish the flames.

There can be little doubt that this must have been their attitude, for their Lord's immediate return was, in actual fact, the mainspring then of the faith, the Second Coming being the supreme event which the elect were hourly expecting; and so great a disaster could not possibly have been thought by these fervent souls to be anything but the beginning of this tremndous event for which they had yearned so long. Jesus was coming! The heavens would open now at any moment, and they would see Him riding upon the fiery clouds. These blazing houses, that stupendous bonfire upon the Palatine as Nero's palace was consumed, the mansions of the mighty belching smoke and flames, the temples of the old gods crashing in ruins, the shrieks of the panic-stricken crowds - all these things were just what their leaders had told them to expect at the approach of their divine Lord and Master.

When the behavior of these Christians was reported to Nero it seemed to him almost certain that they had originated the fire, or, by their magic arts, had called it down upon the people they hated. He himself was being cruelly accused of having burnt the city; but here, evidently, were the real culprits, who, apart from the general destruction, had deliberately burnt the amphitheaters, the symbols of the pleasures of this world, then his palace, and then the house of Tigellinus, who was equally hated as the Emperor's chief agent. Says Tacitus:

These persons were commonly called Christians, and were hated for their enormities. The founder, whose name was Christus, had been punished as a criminal by Pontius Pilatus in the reign of Tiberius, but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again not only throughout Judća were the mischief originated, but in the city of Rome also, whither all things horrible and atrocious flow from all quarters, and where they are encouraged. Accordingly, first those were denounced who confessed; then, on their information, a large number were convicted, not so much on the charge of burning the city as of hating the human race. (Tacitus, Annals, xv, 44.)

The authenticity of this passage can hardly be in doubt. "Those were denounced who confessed." The phrase has been the subject of much argument. What was it they confessed? That they had set Rome alight? This cannot be, for Tacitus is quite clear that, though guilty in general, they were wrongly accused of incendiarism. Simply, then, that they were Christians? This, too, is unlikely, for Tacitus makes it equally clear that they were accused, although wrongly, of incendiarism. It seems to me more probable that what they admitted was that they had made no attempt to extinguish the flames, because they had believed at the time that the conflagration was the signal of the coming of Christ in glory, and they believed that it was one of the signs of the beginning of the end. It is probable that they admitted their satisfaction at the disaster, and implored their accusers to turn from their earthly allegiances, and to enter the service of Christ, while yet there was time. These admissions, voluntarily made before arrest, as the words of Tacitus imply, were doubtless understood to be tantamount to confessions of guilt - brazen confessions, they seemed, accompanied by no feeling of shame, no sense of wrongdoing, but revealing a fervor, an exultation, which was sufficiently uncanny to suggest the influence of Magic - that dreaded power in which Nero and almost every other man firmly believed.

There are celestial bodies and there are terrestrial bodies but the glory of the celestial is one and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust let us also hear the image of the man of heaven.

Lo! I tell you a mystery. This perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is thy victory?
O death, where is thy sting?

~ Paul of Tarsus


It is not known with certainty that St. Paul was at this time arrested and executed, but he is traditionally believed to have been one of the first to be put to death, probably by decapitation, and the evidence points to this conclusion. Tacitus says that his followers were punished with terrible tortures, and that they were made the subjects of sport by the furious Romans, some of them being worried to death by dogs set upon them, others being lynched or crucified, and yet others being burnt as they were supposed to have burnt the victims of the fire.

Tacitus goes on to relate that the executions of certain of the condemned by retaliaory burning were carried out after dark in the Emperor's own gardens, so that the spectacle was like a display of nocturnal illuminaions; and he says that Nero organized some chariot races on this occasion, and freely mixed with the people, who, however, were not pleased at his barbarous severity, and "felt pity for the victims, guilty though they were and deserving to be made examples of by capital punishment." This story, however, is not confirmed by Suetonius, who merely states with approval that "Nero inflicted punishments on the Christians, a sect of people who held a new and odious superstition"; and in the Apocalypse, which, as will be explained presently, was written four years later, there is no reference to these burnings, though the victims are said to have been beheaded. The horror, however, may possibly be fact. Tigellinus, who acted for the Emperor, was probably beside himself with rage at the destruction of his beautiful mansion and gardens. Nero, too, was furious at the devastation of Rome and at the loss of his palace and its treasures; he was exasperated at being accused, himself, of having planned the conflagration; and he may have been determined both to let the people see what he thought of such criminality, and to give them an unforgettable lesson of retaliation. He had always been troubled by the thought that the vast number of the slaves living in Rome might give them courage to rise against their masters; and on one occasion, when there had been mutiny in the house of a certain rich man who had, as a result, been killed, Nero had refused to intervene when all the slaves in that household were condemned, innocent and guilty alike. These Christians were largely slaves, and it was essential, he may have felt, to terrorize them. Arson, moreover, called for particularly severe punishment. Those who burnt property should themselves burn: there must be no pity for the incendiary.

The consequent executions were hardly as terrible as the burning of Christians by Christians in the Middle Ages; they were hardly as terrible as the punishments inflicted by the otherwise saintly Marcus Aurelius upon the Christians of his time, whom he flung wholesale to the wild beats in the arena; but they were terrible enough, and one can no longer regard Nero as the mild and self-controlled ruler revealed by his previous record - a man who put to death only those who were actually conspiring against his life, but, with these exceptions, respected human life in a degree which is remarkable for his bloodthirsty age. His only excuse is his exasperation, his anxiety, his nervousness in these days of disaster, when a fiendish plot seemed to him to have been afoot: with his own eyes he had seen men and women trapped in their houses and burnt to death, their shrieks still ringing in his ears, and his heart had no pity for those whom he believed to have perpetrated this enormous and unspeakable atrocity in the name of this Christus who was said to have been the gentlest of men.

The punishment the Christians - the persecution as we now call it - was short and sharp; and during the remainder of the Summer the survivors, though living in terror, gradually came to realize that their danger was passing and that they were not to be exterminated. Paul, their beloved leader, and scores of their friends, were dead, but Peter was living, and was passionately encouraging them to hold fast to the faith, and to believe still that the Master would soon come now to take them to their heavenly home. Their disappointment was intense that the conflagration had failed to be the sign they had expected, and that He had not come; yet still they hoped, still they gazed at the sky with longing eyes, daily watching and praying for the Advent of their Lord.

It was at this time - in August or September, perhaps - that Peter wrote the epistle which is incorporated in the New Testament, addressing it from "Babylon" - the contemptuous name by which Rome was now known to the little band of faithful - to the Christians in other parts of the world, but intending it, no doubt, to be read also by the remnant of his immediate flock. The letter is a passionate appeal to them not to be frightened, and not to deny the name of Jesus Christ, though for a season they are heavy of heart and though their faith be tried with fire indeed. He begs them to create no disturbances, but to fear God and to honor the Emperor, whom, therefore, he must have regarded as well-meaning, and no fiend; and he tells those who are slaves to submit themselves to their masters. He writes:

"If ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye; and be not afraid of this terror, neither be troubled. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, having a good conscience, that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse you.

"The end of all things is at hand, therefore watch and pray. Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; and if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed. When the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your cares upon him, for he careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour, whom resist, steadfast in faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Jesus Christ, after ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, and settle you."

I Peter, i, 6, 7; ii, 13, 17, 18; iii, 14, 15, 16; iv, 7, 12, 14, 16; v, 4, 6-10.



This statement from the First Epistle General of St. Peter is thought by Lightfoot, Hort, Renan, Henderson, and the majority of scholars, to date from this time. The Second Epistle is now fully recognized to be by another hand, and to date from nearly a century later.

Peter did not long survive the writing of this letter. Tradition says that he was arrested and executed at about this time, and there is no reason to suppose otherwise. An early tradition that he and Paul suffered on the same day seems to be out of the question. It is said that on the day before his death he had the opportunity to escape, but that he did not avail himself of it, feeling that the Master perhaps needed, for the sake of the faith, "to be crucified a second time in his little servant," according to St. Ambrose's Epistle. He was bound to a cross, yet at his own request he was placed ignominiously head-downwards, so that there should be in his death none of the sacramental majesty which was already attached to the uplifting of Jesus Christ upon the immemorially sacred tree.


~ from Nero - The Singing Emperor of Rome, by Arthur Weigall (Garden City Publishing, Garden City, NY, Fall 1930).








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