A General Martyrology, Chapter 7
CHAP. VII. The First Primitive Persecution which began An. Christi, 67.
THis first Persecution was begun by Domitius Nero, the sixt Emperour, Anno 67. or thereabouts: the occasion whereof was this;Quinquennium Neronis. Nero having passed over the first five years of his reign somewhat plausibly, he then began to fall to all manner of prodigious impieties: and amongst other wicked designs, he had a great desire to consume the stately imperial City of Rome with fire; pronouncing King Priamus an happy man, because he beheld the end of his Kingdom and Countrey together; yea, said he, let not all be ruined when I am dead, but whilst I am yet alive: Nero sets Rome on fire.and for the effecting of this villany, he sent divers to kindle the fire in sundry places; yea, some of his own bed-chamber were seen to carry Flax, Toe, Torches, &c. to further it: and when any attempted to quench it, they were threatned for it; others openly hurled firebrands, crying, They knew what they did, there was one would bear them out. This fire first began amongst the Oyl-men and Drugsters; The night-watch and Praetorian guards did openly cherish it; and when it was throughly kindled, Nero went up to the top of Maecenas Tower, which over-looked the whole City, where he fed himself with the sight of infinite burnings, and sang to his harp, the burning of Troy.
The Circus burnt down.Amongst other stately buildings that were burned down, the Circus, or race-yard was one, being about half a mile in length, of an oval form, with rows of seats one above another, capable to receive at least a hundred and fifty thousand Spectators without uncivil shouldrings: but the particulars were innumerable, the damage inestimable; besides which, many thousands of people perished; the flame and smoak smothered some, the weight of ruins crusht others, the fire consumed others; others threw themselves into the fire out of sorrow and despair, and villains slew many.
But Nero finding that this fire, which continued burning nine dayes, brought a great Odium upon him; to excuse himself, he transferred the fault upon the Christians, as if out of malice they had done it,Nero charged it upon the Christians. and thereupon he raised this first persecution against them. For there was at this present a flourishing Church of Christians in Rome, even before St. Paul's arrival there,Raiseth the first Persecution. and Nero's own Court was secretly garnished and enriched with some of those Diamons, whose salutations the Apostle remembers in his Epistle to the Philippians. But whilst Nero with their blood, sought to quench and cover his own infamy, he procured to himself new envy; whilst many that abhorred Christians for their Religion, commiserated their sufferings as undeserved. Some he caused to be sewed up in the skins of wild beasts, and then worried them to death with dogs: some he crucified, others he burnt in publick,Several kinds of torments. to furnish his evening sports with Bonefires. Many he caused to be packed up in paper stiffened in molten wax, with a coat of sear-cloth about their bodies, bound upright to Axletrees, many of which were pitcht in the ground, and so set on fire at the bottom, to maintain light for Nero's night-sports in his gardens. Some of them were gored in length upon stakes, the one end fastened in the earth, the other thrust into their fundaments, and coming out at their mouths.
Nor did this Persecution rage in Rome alone, but it was extended generally over the whole Empire,Beastly cruelty. insomuch that a man might then have seen Cities lie full of mens bodies, the old lying there together with the young, and the dead bodies of women cast out naked in the open streets, without all reverence of their sex. Yea his rage and malice was so great, that he endeavoured to have rooted out the very name of Christians in all places. Whereupon Tertullian said, That it could be no ordinary goodness which Nero condemned; and, saith he, We glory on the behalf of our sufferings, that they had such a dedicator as he:Tertullians speech. but this great Persecution, like a blast, did spread the Religion that it blew, and having continued four years from the first rising, is expired in two most shining blazes, viz. in the Martyrdom of the two great Apostles Peter and Paul: Peter was crucified with his head down-wards, which manner of death himself made choice of, and whilst he thus hung upon the Cross, he saw his wife going to her Martyrdom, whereupon he much rejoyced; and calling her by her name, he bad her remember the Lord Jesus Christ. At the same time, also Paul, before Nero, made a confession of his faith, and of the Doctrine which he taught;Peter and Paul martyred. whereupon he was condemned to be beheaded, and the Emperor sent two of his Esquires, Ferega and Parthemius, to bring him word of his death: they coming to Paul, heard him instruct the people, and thereupon desired him to pray for them that they might believe; who told them, that shortly after they should believe and be baptized: then the souldiers led him out of the City to the place of execution, where he prayed, and then gave his neck to the sword, and so was beheaded. This was done in the fourteenth, which was the last year of Nero.
Collected out of the life of Nero Caesar, Eusebius, and the Book of Martyrs.