Thread by @DouayRheims1

30th JUNE: THE FIRST MARTYRS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME

~thread~
1. Tertullian observes, that the sanctity and purity of the manners of the Christians was a sufficient motive to stir up the rage of Emperor Nero,
#FirstMartyrsOfTheChurchOfRome #EarlyChurch #Christianity #Jesus

2. himself an avowed enemy of all virtue.

He took the following occasion to discredit them: The city of Rome had been set on fire, and had burned nine days, from the 19th to the 28th of July, in the year 64. During this horrible tragedy,

#RomanEmpire #History #Emperor #Nero

3. Nero came from Antium to Rome, and seated himself on the top of a tower upon a neighbouring hill, in the theatrical dress of a musician, singing a poem which himself had composed on the burning of Troy. The people said he caused fire to be set to the city

#Iliad #Troy

4. that he might glut his eyes with an image of the burning of Troy.

Some contemporary writers suspected Nero of having no interest in the fire being extinguished too soon, since he had an extravagant passion to make a new Rome, which should be built in a more sumptuous manner,

5. and extended as far as Ostia to the sea; he wanted room in particular to enlarge his own palace; accordingly, following the conflagration, he immediately rebuilt his palace of an immense extent.
The tyrant seeing himself detested by all mankind as the author of this calamity,

6. to turn off the infamy of such an action from himself, and to gratify his hatred of virtue and thirst after blood,he charged the Christians with having set the city on fire.

The Christians therefore were seized, treated as victims of the hatred #Christian #virtue #martyrs

7. of all mankind, insulted even in their torments and death, and made to serve for spectacles of diversion and scorn to the people.

According to Tacitus, some were clothed in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to dogs to be torn to pieces: others were hung on crosses

8. set in rows, and many perished by flames, being burnt in the night-time that their execution might serve for fires and light.

They suffered martyrdom in the year 64, before the apostles SS. Peter and Paul, who had pointed out the way to them by their holy instructions.

9. After this commencement of the persecution, laws were made, and edicts published throughout the Roman empire, which forbade the profession of the faith under the most cruel torments and death, as is mentioned by Sulpicius Severus, Orosius, and others. #CatholicTwitter

10. Yet the people of God increased the more in number and strength the more they were oppressed. (Excerpts from Butler's "Lives of the Saints")