The Inferno
The Beast
The dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names. (Revelation 13:1)
In the early years of his reign, Nero’s counselors, Burus and Seneca, kept the beast on a short leash. Burrus (the captain of the Praetorian Guard who once showed Paul kindness) died from a tumor. Popular rumors suspected that Nero poisoned him to death. The emperor replaced him with his childhood friend, Ofonius Tigellinus. The despicable Tigellinus became Nero's closest advisor, a slavish yes-man who told the emperor whatever he wanted to hear. He advised Nero to get rid of Seneca, the last vestige of restraint holding the megalomaniacal emperor in check. Tigellinus especially impressed Nero with his capacity for evil. He had a reputation for sexual depravity that stunned even the Romans and inspired Nero.
Nero was the antichrist of the mid-first century. The apostolic community referred to Nero as "the beast." So did his contemporaries. For example, the first-century writer Philostratus said, "As to this wild beast, which many call a tyrant, I know not either how many heads he has, nor whether he has crooked talons and jagged teeth" (Life of Apollonius of Tyana). The nickname "beast" might have come from one of Nero's psychotic spectacles. For the entertainment of the crowds in the circuses, the emperor disguised himself "in the skin of some wild beast, and when let loose from the cage, he violated men and women bound to the stake" (Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars).
Nero believed that every man secretly harbored the same lustful degeneracy that he did. Therefore, he despised all chastity, modesty, and virtue as deceitful. He only respected men who shamelessly indulged themselves in lewd depravities. Nero surrounded himself with men and women dedicated to debauchery. We will not dirty our studies with descriptions of the dissolute wantonness practiced by the aristocrats of Nero's Rome, "for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret" (Ephesians 5:12). Paul explains, "God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper" (Romans 1:28).
For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. (Romans 1:26-27)
The Apostle John described Rome as "Babylon, the great mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth" (Revelation 17:5). He described the empire as a seven-headed "beast" on which a harlot rides. John explains to "the mind which has wisdom" that "the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits" (Revelation 17:9). Rome was called the city that sat on seven hills.
Nero envied and emulated his uncle Gaius Caligula. He made it his goal to live more lavishly than him and outspend him. Gaius Caligula was the wicked emperor who wanted to make war against the Jewish people and place an idol of himself in the holy of holies. Nero picked up Caligula's demonic legacy and took it to new extremes. In every way possible, Nero became the agent of Satan on earth, the incarnation of evil and the spirit of antichrist.
He considered himself to be a great artist. He embarrassed the conservatives of Rome by actively participating in the arts and entertainment com-munity. He wrote poetry, played parts in drama productions, and took the stage as a musician and professional singer. He sponsored arts performances, and he competed in talent shows that functioned like Roman versions of the "American Idol" competition. He insisted on being judged on the same scale as the other competitors, but, of course, he always took first prize in every category. The sound of applause intoxicated Nero.
Nero loved the circuses and games, and he filled them with sex and violence. The Roman population thrived on spectacular entertainments, live-action gore, and gratuitous obscenity. Nero combined the gladiatorial spectacles with drama productions. Thousands of roaring fans crowded into the theaters and arenas to witness Nero's retelling of Greek myths and stories. He used condemned men and women as extras to stand in for the actors when it came time to depict murder scenes, battlefield bloodshed, and other scenes of violence. He also had a passion for chariot racing. Not only did he sponsor chariot races in the circuses, he himself drove in the races. He had his own racetrack: Circus Neronis.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Fire of Roma
A second time they said, "Hallelujah! Her smoke rises forever and ever." (Revelation 19:3)
The artist within him dreamed of recreating a new Rome and calling it Neropolis. He envisioned Rome on a grander scale. He wanted to make the city into a monument to himself. At the very least, he needed a larger, more extravagant palace.
Just to get the process going, "he made a palace extending all the way from the Palatine to the Esquiline, which at first he called the house of transition" (Suetonius). He called it the "house of transition" because he built it of temporary materials, intending to replace its structures with costly stone. Rome lacked the space necessary for the expansion. The city's cramped conditions did not allow the amount of acreage he needed to complete his dream.
On July 18, 64 CE, a fire broke out in a small shop in Rome. It quickly spread to other shops, packed with flammable goods, and became the greatest conflagration Rome would ever know. As the fire picked up momen-tum, it leapt across narrow streets, swept up crowded tenement blocks, and devastated everything between the Palatine and Capitoline hills. People went shrieking from the blaze, crowding into the streets and roads, fleeing from one burning quarter to the next.
The fire raged for six days, and then, just when it seemed to have run its course, it reignited on the estate of Tigellinus. Spreading from there, it burned for three more days. When the people of the city could finally assess the damage, they found that the flames had spared only four of Rome's fourteen civic districts. Nothing but ash and rubble remained of some districts, and others had been reduced to charred and blackened walls.
The fire killed hundreds and displaced hundreds of thousands. It took away the homes of poor and rich alike. Even the temples of the gods burned to the ground:The kings of the earth, who committed acts of immorality and lived sensuously with her, will weep and lament over her when they see the smoke of her burning. (Revelation I8:9)
At the time of the blaze, Nero was staying in Antium, some thirty miles outside of the city. Even at that distance, he could see the flames lighting up the nighttime sky. Legend says he played the lyre while watching the city burn. Suetonius says he viewed the conflagration from the top of a tower, dressed in his stage costume, exulting in "the beauty of the flames" and singing an ode about the burning of Troy. That may have been true, but he also responded to the emergency with alacrity. He ordered immediate relief for refugees fleeing the flames. He opened the Field of Mars, several public buildings, and his own private gardens on Vatican Hill to shelter the homeless. He opened the granaries and distributed emergency food supplies and did everything he could to organize and implement relief measures for the disaster.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Neropolis and the Golden House
The devastation of Rome offered Nero a chance to rebuild the city according to his own designs. Nero submitted his plans to rebuild a greater, more glorious Rome. He proposed new regulations and building codes that would prevent future conflagrations. Streets were to have porticoes and colonnades added to prevent flames from spreading so easily from city block to city block. He invested enormous amounts of capital into the rebuilding efforts.
In addition, he began the construction of the new imperial mansion that dwarfed his old residence on Palatine Hill. They called the colossal structure the "Golden House." It consisted of several luxurious villas and lavish monuments of architecture surrounding a central lake. The gardens and lawns were to have full vineyards, pasturage, woodlands, and wild animal habitats. The complex filled the entire valley between the Palatine, Esquiline, and Caelian hills and covered hundreds of acres. The central palace included an enormous, octagonal hall topped by a dome. A river and waterfall flowed through the hall. The ceiling over the central dining hall, painted with designs depicting the day and nighttime sky, constantly revolved by means of some mechanical device. To top it all off, he erected a 120-foot bronze idol of himself in the vestibule of the new palace-the image of the beast.
The enormous Golden House engulfed valuable Roman real estate, displacing thousands. People began to whisper that Nero himself had set the blaze to clear room for his dream palace. Like the fire, the rumor spread quickly, and soon it engulfed much of the city. People said that, on the night of the fire, some men were seen throwing firebrands. Another rumor said that some men, acting under Nero's authority, had actually hampered efforts to fight the fire. When the fire had been brought under control, it burst up fresh on the property of Nero's right-hand man, Tigellinus.
The speed with which Nero's new plans for Rome went into action, particularly the Golden Palace, increased suspicion. It seemed obvious to everyone that Nero had started the fire in order to clear space for his palace and remake Rome according to his dreams.
Nero realized that he needed a scapegoat. He chose the Christians.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Appeasing the Gods
Neither human effort, nor imperial generosity, nor all the methods of appeasing the gods could stifle or dispel the belief that the fire had been set by [Nero's] order. (Tacitus, Annals 15.44)
As the rebuilding efforts commenced, the people of Rome turned their attention to appeasing the offended gods. Obviously, the fire indicated the gods' displeasure, and the conflagration of their temples demanded propitiation. They offered public prayers to Vulcan, Ceres, and Prosperine. They sprinkled Juno's idol with water. They conducted ritual banquets and all-night prayer vigils.
In the midst of these efforts, the Jews and God-fearing believers stood out suspiciously. They did not participate in the appeasements. Worse yet, some of them seemed to consider the fire justly deserved, a judgment foretold by their oracles. They seemed pleased with the devastation of the temples.
Who was to say that the Jews and the "atheists" were not to blame for the fire? Did not their very existence insult the gods by denying them their due worship?
Prior to the hire of Rome, the Romans made little, if any, distinction between Jews and disciples of Yeshua. Most disciples were Jews or converts to Judaism. To the Romans, the God-fearers were just people under Jewish influence.
After the fire, the Romans learned to distinguish between Jews and Yeshua-followers. The fact that Nero and the Romans were suddenly able to make a distinction between Jews and believers suggests that an inside party must have cooperated with the persecution and provided the Romans with information.
Simon Peter's disciple, Clement of Rome, indicates that some third party served as informants.
Clement described those who died in the persecution as "the most recent spiritual heroes" and "examples from our own generation." He claimed that "envy" instigated the persecution. In the context of his epistle, Clement used the word "envy" to describe baseless, fratricidal hatred. Clement said, "It was through jealously and envy that the greatest and most righteous 'pillars' were persecuted, and contended like athletes, even unto death" (I Clement 5:I-2).
The informants might have been former brothers. Disenfranchised believers (or ex-believers) quickly become bitter foes of the community to which they once belonged. It is not difficult to imagine disillusioned ex-believers following in the path of scariot and betraying the community to the Roman authorities.
Alternatively, influential members of the Jewish community might have alerted the authorities. The Jews of Rome had friends in the government and access to Nero through the pro-Jewish sympathies of his wife, Poppaea. (In late 64 CE, Poppaea was pregnant with Nero's second child. Several months later, during a fit of rage, Nero killed both mother and child when he kicked Poppaea to death.) As the Romans looked for someone to blame for the fires, the Jewish community would have been wise to distance themselves quickly and publicly as far as possible from the disciples of Yeshua and the God-fearing Gentile believers in their midst. In self-defense. Jewish leadership might have pointed out that they were not responsible for the multitudes of Roman Gentiles who had abandoned the worship of the gods. At the very least, they might have provided information to help the authorities pick out the disciples from their midst. It was in the best interest of the lewish community to make it abundantly clear to Nero and his administration that not all Jews were associated with the hated sect. Their failure to make that distinction during the reign of Claudius led to a general expulsion of all Jews from Rome:
It was when Nero was already emperor that Peter arrived in Rome; after performing various miracles- which he did through the excellence of God Himself, since the power had been granted to him by God- he converted many to righteousness and established a faithful and steadfast [living] temple to God. This was reported to Nero; and when he noticed that not only at Rome but everywhere great numbers of people were daily abandoning the worship of idols and condemning the practice of the past by coming over to the new religion, Nero, abominable and criminal tyrant that he was, leapt into action to overturn the heavenly temple and to abolish righteousness, and, as first persecutor of the servants of God, he nailed Peter to the cross and slew Paul. (Lactantius, de Mortibus Persecutorum 2)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Christians
To dispel the report [that he had started the fire,] Nero fixed the guilt and inflicted the most unique tortures on a class of people already hated for their abominations. They were called "Christians" by the populace. (Tacitus, Annals 15.44)
At the time of the great fire of Rome, the historian Tacitus was not more than ten years old, but he was an eyewitness to both the fire and its after-math. Tacitus explains that Nero selected the "Christians" as a scapegoat because they were already unpopular and "hated for their abominations." By the title "Christians." Tacitus meant both Jewish and Gentile followers of Yeshua. (Remember that Christianity was not yet a religion distinct from Judaism.) By the word "abominations," he referred to a variety of slanderous defamations that the Romans attributed to the new sect.
The Romans speculated about what the secretive sect did at their private meetings. According to the rumors, the "Christians" clandestinely participated in incestuous sexual debauchery, exercised ritual cannibalism, drank the blood of their own infants, and performed forbidden, magical ceremonies. The seemingly anti-social behavior of the believers lent apparent credence to the rumors. Why else did the Christians meet privately in one another's homes? Why did they refuse to participate in civic functions, common table fellowship, and state rituals with the good citizens of Rome? Why did they direct their devotion toward Jewish superstitions?
Simon Peter referred to these popular animosities when he wrote, "If anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name" (I Peter 4:16). He advised his readers, "Keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in the Messiah will be put to shame" (I Peter 3:16). Even if the sensational, slanderous lies could be refuted, none could deny that the Christians refused to participate in public ceremonies and thereby exposed all men to the wrath of the gods. Moreover, they refused to worship the emperor, indicating disloyalty to the state.
Tacitus explains that the abominable "Christians" derived their name from a certain "Christus," a man put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate during the era of Emperor Tiberius:
The Christus from whom the name was derived had suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate, and the pestilent superstition was stopped for a while, but began to break out again, not only in Judea, the birthplace of the evil thing, but also in Rome, where everything that is horrible and shameless flows together and becomes fashionable. (Tacitus, Annals 15.44)
Tacitus admits that, in Rome, the dreadful sect had become fashionable. A "vast multitude of people had joined themselves to the superstition. The combined number of Jewish and Gentile believers must have numbered in the thousands.
Some of them were people of rank and significance. Paul's influence among the Praetorian Guard and Caesar's household made an impact in high society. Many believers belonged to the class of freedmen and therefore had Roman citizenship. Most of the Christians, however, were common Jews and Gentile plebeians.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Arrests
Accordingly, some were arrested and confessed. Then, on their testimony, a vast multitude was convicted, not so much for responsibility for the fire as for hatred against humanity. (Tacitus, Annals 15.44)
The citizens of Rome spent the summer and early fall recovering and rebuilding from the fire. The first arrests came in November or December of that same year. Tigellinus and Rufus, the captains of the Praetorian Guard, rounded up a small group of suspects. Someone had supplied them with a list of names. They immediately subjected their prisoners to hideous tortures, demanding their confession of guilt. Tigellinus was especially adept at inflicting pain.
Under excruciating torment, some of the believers confessed that they had lit the fire-or so Nero claimed. No one really believed the story. Even if the Praetorian Guard had obtained such a confession, it did not mean much. A person under torment might be compelled to confess to any crime the tormentor demands.
We may suppose that Tigellinus and Rufus pressed their victims for the names of other believers. They launched investigations, conducted interviews, and drew up lists. When they had generated rolls containing several hundred names (perhaps thousands of names), they began the second wave of arrests.
In the second wave of arrests. "a vast multitude was convicted." The authorities dropped the pretense of arson. They considered all believers henceforth guilty by association with the so-called arsonists who set the blaze. Even though they might not be directly responsible for the fire, they were to be punished for the crime of misanthropy-hatred against human-ity. Romans often accused Jews of misanthropy (woavApwra), a hatred of fellow human beings.
The second wave of arrests probably caught the believers by surprise. Rome had never before officially sponsored direct persecution against the believers or singled them out from Jews in general. Suddenly, for the first time in history, being a disciple of Yeshua was a crime and grounds for arrest. Panic spread through the community. Some fled, but Tigellinus and Rufus had prepared for that.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Quo Vadis
Acts of Peter 35
Simon Peter may have been arrested in the second wave of arrests. According to the story in the apocryphal Acts of Peter, the wife of a Roman official sent word to the believers that the authorities had decided to arrest the apostle.
The brethren warned him to depart from Rome. He replied, "Shall we live as fugitives then brethren?"
They replied, "No, but so that you may yet survive to serve the Master!"
Simon Peter obeyed their voice. He disguised himself and went out, saying, "Let none of you go forth with me, but I will go alone, having changed the fashion of my apparel." The encratic Acts of Peter does not mention Peter's wife, but, of course, she went with him.
As they went to pass out of the city through the gates of Rome, Simon Peter suddenly saw the Master entering the city through the same gate. He asked, "Master, where are you going?"
The Master said to him, "I go into Rome to be crucified again."
Simon Peter asked, "Master, are you to be crucified again?"
He replied, "Yes, Peter, I am to be crucified again." Then the apostle came to himself. The vision was gone. He turned back and returned to the brethren in the city.
While the brethren wept, behold, four soldiers took Simon Peter and led him away. They jailed him with his wife and a great host of other believers while Nero and his crew prepared for an extravagant series of shows and spectacles. We do not know how much time elapsed between the arrests and the executions, but it may have been several days or even several weeks while the Praetorian Guard (under Tigellinus) interrogated them, gathered more information, and made more arrests.
At some point, the guards separated the men from the women. Nero was devising ghoulish, gender-specific torments. According to a tradition preserved by Clement of Alexandria, when Peter saw the guards leading his wife away, he shouted her name and kept calling out, "Remember the Master! Remember the Master!"
When the blessed Peter saw his own wife led out to die, he rejoiced because of her summons and her return home, and called out, encouraging and comforting her, addressing her by name, and saying, "Remember the Master!" (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.30.2)
She remembered the Master. She remembered the Sabbath afternoon when Simon and Andrew brought Him home with them after the synagogue service in Capernaum. Her mother was sick in bed with a fever. The Master took the sick woman by the hand, and the fever left her. She got up and began to serve the Sabbath meal. That was the first time He had come under their roof. For the next three years, He made His home with them. Simon's wife witnessed His extraordinary miracles; He performed many of them in her own home. She heard His teachings while she played the role of hostess to His disciples. She raised her children in the dust of His feet. As the Romans led her away to her doom, she remembered His suffering, and she took courage.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Circus Neronis
Nero loved shows, theater, entertainments, and spectacles. When it came time to avenge the burning of Rome, he decided to make the punishment of the Christians into a public spectacle in the circus at Vatican Hill.
Vatican Hill was outside the city walls. It is the closest hill on the west side of the Tiber River, opposite the old city and the seven hills of Rome. The entire region around Vatican Hill belonged to the city's fourteenth administrative district. In the days of the apostles, the district was rural and poor. Brickmakers and low-budget wineries accounted for the chief industry. The Romans also used a portion of Vatican Hill as a cemetery.
In stark contrast to the poverty that characterized the district, a portion of Vatican Hill reflected imperial pomp and splendor. Nero's uncle, the wicked emperor Gaius Caligula, kept his imperial gardens on the hillside. He also constructed a circus at Vatican Hill called the Circus Gai.
A Roman circus was an open-air stadium for the exhibition of horse and chariot races, staged gladiatorial contests, wild animal displays, and other entertainments. A typical Roman circus consisted of a long oval race course with stadium seating running parallel to the sides of the race track and arcing in a crescent around one of the ends. The largest circus in Rome could seat up to 25,000. Aristocrats, noblemen, and imperial favorites occupied the lower seats for the best view.
At the center of the Circus Gai, Caligula placed an eighty-foot Egyptian obelisk of red granite. A gilded ball sat atop the monument. Some Pharaoh of the fifth dynasty (circa 2500 BCE) originally erected the obelisk in Heliopolis, Egypt. Emperor Augustus moved the obelisk from Heliopolis to Alexandria; Caligula brought it to Rome. Standing on its base, it towered more than one hundred and thirty feet over the circus of Gaius. It still stood there in the days of Nero, and it still stands on Vatican Hill today at the center of the piazza at St. Peter's Basilica.
Nero loved chariot racing. He improved on the Circus Gai and renamed it Circus Neronis. He hosted chariot races in the circus, and he himself drove in the races, coursing around the track beneath the enormous, frowning obelisk. Outside the circus, he maintained the lavish imperial gardens where he could entertain guests in connection with the races and spectacles of Circus Neronis.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Show on Vatican Hill
Mockery and every sort of insult was added to their deaths. Dressed in the skins of wild animals, they were torn apart by dogs and died. They were nailed to crosses or doomed to the flames and burnt alive to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero granted the use of his gardens for that display, and gave a circus performance. He mixed with the common people in the costume of a charioteer or standing aloft in a chariot. (Tacitus, Annals 15.44)
Nero arranged for several days' worth of spectacles and races, and he invited all of Rome to come watch the shows at Vatican Hill. He set up crosses in the Circus Neronis and crucified some of the victims, nailing them up in obscene positions for the amusement of the crowds. Simon Peter may have been among those crucified beneath the great red obelisk at the center of the circus.
The emperor used the rest of the victims as unwilling players in a series of drama productions. He re-enacted battle scenes by unleashing gladiators on victims. He conducted mock hunts by dressing victims in the skins of wild animals and releasing vicious dogs on them.
Clement of Rome recounted the atrocities:
A great multitude of the elect endured many indignities and tortures because of envy, and became a splendid example in our midst. Because of envy, women were persecuted like Danaids and Dices, who endured strange and impious outrages, and completed the strong course of faith, receiving the glorious prize, though weak in body. (I Clement 6:1-2)
In Greco-Roman mythology, the gods banished the daughters of Danaus (the Danaids) to the lower parts of Hades where the god of the underworld forced them to endlessly fill water barrels that were riddled with holes. Nero chose that particular spectacle, no doubt, to remind the spectators of their futile attempts at dousing the fire that consumed so much of the city. He punished the believing women by casting them in a theatrical depiction of the punishment of Danaids, forcing them to carry water in leaking buckets. His creative artistry probably found ways to make his Danaids suffer all the torments of Tartarus.
The Greek myth of Dices tells of a wicked, scheming mother-in-law who finally received her comeuppance when her son-in-law tied her hair to the horns of an angry bull. Nero provided the spectators with a theatrical version of this story by tying the hair of believing women to the horns of bulls. The angry bulls gored, mauled, and trampled their victims while the crowd roared with applause. So far as we may surmise, Peter's own wife suffered and died among those pious women.
Other men and women died as victims of gladiatorial jousts. Perhaps Nero devised a way to creatively incorporate chariot races into his assaults on victims. Disguised as a charioteer, he drove one of the chariots himself, circling the track around the blood-red obelisk and the thick forest of crosses planted at the center.
To cap off a day at the show, Nero opened his royal gardens on Vatican Hill to the spectators. Throughout the gardens, he positioned Christians tied or crucified to stakes, wrapped in heavy fabrics soaked with pitch and oil. As the sun set, Nero's servants lit the men and women on fire, and their pyres provided illumination for the festivities. The screams and cries of the dying echoed through the night as the people of Rome reveled in Nero's extravagance.
Nero probably found the human torches an appropriate, final touch to his theatrical production. What could be more appropriate for men convicted of arson than to burn them alive?
The civilized citizens of Rome packed into the circus to feast their eyes on the carnage. They were "drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Yeshua" (Revelation 17:6). The roar of the crowd eclipsed the screams of the victims.
Tacitus observed that Nero's obscene cruelty aroused some sympathies for the believers. Some of the spectators felt a twinge of remorse as they watched the carnage. They could plainly see that these were innocent people who had committed no crime. They knew that Nero was using them as a diversion and a means to glut his own thirst for savagery.
Thus, even though they were criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, a feeling of compassion arose, since it seemed that they were not being put to death for the public good as much as to satiate the cruelty of a single man. (Tacitus, Annals 15.44)
They had never before seen a people so abused, humiliated, and tor-mented, who nonetheless died so nobly. As the brothers and sisters in the Master wept over one another and commended one another to God, they remembered Yeshua's sufferings on their behalf. They looked to the cross on Golgotha for courage, and they looked to the empty tomb for hope. Though they had not seen Him, they loved Him, and holding fast, they proved their faith, like precious gold tested by fire. Through their faith, they obtained the salvation of their souls.
Despite admitting a flicker of sympathy for the Christians, Tacitus insisted that "they were criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment" simply because they belonged to such an abominable supersti-tion. He admitted that the Christians were innocent of the crime of arson, but he justified their condemnation, all the same, on the basis that they were public enemies.
In his historical biographies titled Lives of the Caesars, Suetonius roundly condemned Nero for his barbarity and excessive vices, but he praised him for his campaign against the Christians: "Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of people dedicated to a new and sinister superstition."
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Upside-Down Cross
Publicly declaring himself as the greatest among God's chief enemies, Nero was led on to the slaughter of the apostles. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2.25.4)
Clement of Rome reports that Simon Peter passed through many trials before finally bearing witness with his death:
Let us set before our eyes the noble apostles. Peter, through unrighteous jealousy, endured not one or two, but many trials, and so he bore witness and went his way to the place of glory which was his due. (I Clement 5:3-4)
All the sources agree that Peter suffered crucifixion in Rome during the reign of Nero. Simon Peter was already an old man, possibly in his seven-ties, when he stretched out his hands and they girded him and led him out where he did not wish to go (John 21:18).
The legends unanimously place his crucifixion in the vicinity of Circus Neronis and Vatican Hill. Most likely, he died along with a host of other believers as a part of the spectacles. A tradition reported in the apocryphal Acts of Peter claims that Peter requested to be crucified upside down. The Romans complied and crucified him head down with the crossbeam placed low on the stake. Origen confirms the legend: "At last, having come to Rome, he was crucified head-downwards; for he had requested that he might suffer in this way." Jerome says, "He received the crown of martyrdom being nailed to the cross with his head towards the ground and his feet raised on high, asserting that he was unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as his Master."
Peter's final request to be crucified head downward sounds like an apologetic to explain a historical memory of an upside-down cross. More likely, the Romans hung Simon Peter upside-down to add insult to the injury: "Mockery and every sort of insult was added to their deaths." Roman soldiers enjoyed crucifying victims in comical or obscene positions. Josephus reports seeing crucifixion victims nailed in different poses "by way of jest." Legend says that the Romans also hung Philip upside-down in Hierapolis. Seneca testifies to having seen crosses on which men were hung upside-down:
Some hang their victims with head toward the ground, some impale their private parts, others stretch out their arms on a fork-shaped gibbet; I see cords, I see scourges, and for each separate limb and each joint there is a separate engine of torture! (Seneca, Moral Essays: To Marcia on Consolation 20.3)
Some church traditions place the death of Peter in December. Jewish tradition commemorates his death on the ninth of Tevet, which, in the year 64 CE, fell in December.
We do not know how many days Nero's grisly show ran or how many died during the course of it, but Nero's administration continued to make arrests and put believers to death throughout the rest of the emperor's tenure. A passage in the apocryphal Acts of Paul depicts the people of Rome eventually asking Nero for clemency on behalf of the believers:
After that, Nero went on at Rome, slaying many Christians without a trial, by the deeds of the evil one, so that the Romans stood before his palace and cried, "It is sufficient, Caesar! For the men are our own! You are destroying the strength of the Romans!" At that, he was persuaded and ceased, and commanded that no man should touch any Christian, until he should learn thoroughly concerning them. (Acts of Paul 7)
According to Christian tradition, believers recovered Peter's body. Recovering a specific corpse would have been a difficult and dangerous task in the days following the hideous carnage. Slaves cleared the corpses from the field by dragging them with hooks into the spoiliarium, where the victims formed a gruesome mass of human gore, maimed, mangled, charred, and trampled. After the show was over, the slaves responsible for the task loaded victims onto wagons and dumped them into a mass grave or into the Tiber.
Nevertheless, Simon Peter was buried in a nearby cemetery on Vatican Hill, not far from Circus Neronis. The believers in Rome revered the tomb and preserved its location. In 200 CE, the Roman Christians could still point out the tomb of the apostle, which they had marked with a monument:
Peter was crucified under Nero. This account of Peter and Paul is substantiated by the fact that their names are preserved in the cemeteries of that place even to the present day (324 CE). It is confirmed likewise by Gaius, a member of the Church, who arose under Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome (199 CE). He ... speaks as follows concerning the places where the sacred bodies of the aforesaid apostles are laid: "But I can show the monuments of the apostles. For if you will go to the Vatican or to the Ostian way, you will find the trophies of those who laid the foundations of this church." (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2.25.6-7)
Christians in the fourth century still honored the location. When Emperor Constantine turned toward Christianity, he ordered the construction of a church over the top of the site. Today, the Basilica of St. Peter preserves the location.
Modern excavations beneath the basilica have revealed a Roman cemetery containing second-century, pagan mausoleums. The mausoleums probably belonged to wealthy freedmen who could afford richly decorated tombs. First-century tombs from the time of Nero have also been discovered in the vicinity. Among the mausoleums beneath the basilica, archaeologists discovered a second-century Aedicula (shrine), which may have marked the site of the original, first-century burial of the apostle.
Today, the blood-red obelisk of Circus Neronis stands at the center of Saint Peter's Square, the circular piazza in front of the basilica. A Christian cross sits atop it. Its shadow on the encircling pavement marks off the hours like a massive sundial while the souls of those slain because of the Word of God and because of the testimony that they maintained continue to cry out, "How long, O LORD, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" (Revelation 6:9-I).
Do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of the Messiah, keep on rejoicing. (I Peter 4:12-13)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.