64 AD - Nero's Torches - Christians in Flames

Published on: 2025-07-11 15:33

Nero’s persecution of Christians following the 64 AD Great Fire of Rome; early martyrdom and its theological, historical, and emotional impact on the church.

The flames had already consumed half the city.

Wooden homes cracked and split under heat. Stone temples glowed orange from the inside out. Livestock ran loose. Families screamed for lost children. Rome—the capital of an empire—was now a city of smoke, ash, and accusation.

And in the emperor’s private gardens, a new kind of fire was lit.

They were human.

Christians, arrested in the chaos, were tied to stakes, smeared with pitch, and burned alive at nightfall. Not in secret. In front of guests. As decoration.

Some were sewn into animal skins and torn apart by dogs. Others were crucified. A few were spared for gladiatorial games. But many—many—were burned. Torches to light Nero’s path.

Not because they’d committed arson. But because they wouldn’t deny Jesus.

What do you do when the most powerful man in the world blames your faith for burning down his city? How do you survive… if survival means betraying Christ?

This wasn’t just cruelty. It was a war on identity. And somehow, the church didn’t just survive it. It lit a fire of its own.

One the empire would never put out.

From the That’s Jesus Channel, welcome to COACH—where we are tracing the story of Church Origins and Church History. I’m Bob Baulch. On Mondays, we stay between 0 and 500 AD.

Today, we’re stepping into 64 AD, a year scorched by tragedy—and one that changed the future of the church forever.

The setting is Rome. The emperor is Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus—young, theatrical, erratic. His reign began with promise but quickly descended into paranoia and brutality.

In July of 64 AD, disaster struck.

A fire broke out in the shops near the Circus Maximus. Fueled by narrow streets and flammable materials, the flames spread uncontrollably. They raged for nine days. Ten of Rome’s fourteen districts were damaged. Three were completely destroyed.🅉

The public was outraged. Rumors spread that Nero himself had ordered the fire, perhaps to make space for his ambitious building projects or to satisfy his twisted artistic fantasies. One legend says he played the lyre while watching the city burn.🧭

To deflect the blame, Nero looked for a scapegoat.

He found one in a small, strange sect of Jews… …who worshipped a man the empire had crucified… …who refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods… …and who spoke of judgment, resurrection, and fire.

The Christians.

And so, in one of the most horrifying decisions in imperial history, Nero unleashed public punishment on an entire faith community—not for their crimes, but to cover his own.

This wasn’t just history. It was a pattern.

One that would repeat again and again… until the blood of martyrs became the seed of the church.

By 64 AD, Christianity had spread beyond Judea. House churches were forming across the empire. The apostles Peter and Paul were likely in Rome. Christians worshipped quietly, met in homes, broke bread, and waited for Jesus to return.

They weren’t political. They weren’t violent. But they were invisible—and that made them dangerous.

To the Roman mind, Christians were atheists—they denied the gods. They didn’t honor Jupiter or Mars or the emperor’s divinity. They didn’t attend festivals or burn incense. They sang strange songs to someone they called “Christus,” and they talked about drinking blood and eating flesh.

And worst of all? They didn’t fit.

They weren’t a race. They weren’t a class. They weren’t a club.

They were a kingdom within the empire, and they refused to bow.

When Nero blamed the fire on them, the public believed him. Tacitus, a Roman historian writing decades later, admitted it. He said (verbatim):

“To suppress the rumor, Nero falsely charged with guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians… an immense multitude was convicted.” (Tacitus, Annals, 📌)

Tacitus didn’t like Christians. But even he called the punishment a cruelty out of proportion.

The Christians were accused not just of arson, but of “hatred of the human race.” That vague charge gave Rome permission to do anything.

What followed was one of the first systematic persecutions of Christians in recorded history.🅉

They were arrested in waves. Some were tortured to confess. Others were used to name more. Then, they were executed—not in secret, but in Nero’s gardens, his amphitheaters, his courtyards.

For entertainment.

This wasn’t just persecution. It was theatrical cruelty. And the church remembered.

Christian tradition holds that during this wave of persecution, both Peter and Paul were executed.🅉

Peter, the apostle who once denied Christ, was said to have requested crucifixion upside down—unworthy, he felt, to die like his Lord. Paul, a Roman citizen, was spared the slow agony of crucifixion and likely beheaded with a sword outside the city walls.

Their deaths weren’t documented by official Roman records. But early Christian writers like Clement of Rome, Tertullian, and Eusebius spoke of them with reverence. Not as legends. But as martyrs—witnesses whose blood testified louder than their voices ever had.📌

But it wasn’t just the apostles who suffered.

Ordinary believers—slaves, widows, teenagers—were dragged into Nero’s purge. Some were torn by beasts. Others, like we said, were drenched in tar and used as human torches.

This is not metaphor. Tacitus describes it with horror. (verbatim):

“They were covered with the skins of beasts and torn by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or doomed to the flames… to serve as nightly illumination when daylight had expired.” (Tacitus, Annals, 📌)

He goes on to say that pity arose, even among Roman citizens, not because the Christians were innocent—but because the cruelty was so barbaric that it dishonored the empire itself.

That’s remarkable.

Even Rome—accustomed to violence—was shocked by Nero’s savagery.

And yet…

The Christians didn’t fight back.

There’s no record of riots. No uprisings. No plots of revenge.

Just prayer. Letters. Fellowship. And a deepening resolve.

As one second-century writer later put it (summarized): “The more we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow. The blood of Christians is seed.”

That phrase wasn’t written during Nero’s reign. But it was born from it.

Nero thought he could burn Christianity into silence.

Instead, he branded it with courage.

In the aftermath of the persecution, something unexpected happened: the church became stronger.

The stories of those who suffered under Nero didn’t disappear—they spread. From Rome to Antioch to Asia Minor, tales of martyrs lit a fire in the hearts of believers.🅉

Church fathers like Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian would later reference Nero by name—not just as a villain, but as the beginning of the long tradition of martyrdom.📌

The Book of Revelation, written just a few decades later, may even reference Nero in symbolic form—as the beast who makes war on the saints.🧭

Why did the early Christians remember Nero’s brutality?

Because it taught them something about their faith: That Jesus wasn’t calling them to safety—He was calling them to endurance.

The persecution also had theological consequences.

It forced the church to ask hard questions:

Why does God allow His people to suffer? Is martyrdom a gift? A punishment? A calling? What does it mean to conquer… if conquering means dying? And out of that struggle, a theology of faithful suffering emerged.

One that said:

“Do not fear those who kill the body… but cannot kill the soul.” (Matthew 10:28, 📌)

One that remembered Jesus’ words:

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:10, 📌)

The church didn’t just survive Nero. It found its voice through the smoke.

And it told the world: We will not worship Caesar. We will not curse Christ. And we will not stop… even if the empire burns us for light.

The flames of 64 AD didn’t consume the church. They refined it.

From that point forward, every generation of Christians knew what they might be called to suffer. The stories of Nero’s torches became a kind of baptism into boldness—a warning, yes, but also a badge of honor.

The Roman Empire didn’t stop persecuting Christians after Nero. There would be waves of violence for two more centuries. But in every trial, believers remembered what happened under Nero—and refused to break.

Even more importantly, the persecution under Nero helped shape Christian identity.

It reminded the church that:

Our hope is not in political power. Our allegiance is to a kingdom not of this world. Our witness doesn’t come from winning arguments—but from living and dying with courage. Early theologians wrestled with the legacy of martyrdom. Some went too far—romanticizing it, seeking it out. But the truest voices always came back to this:

Martyrdom is not about death. It’s about faithfulness. And sometimes, faithfulness costs everything.

Today, in a world where many Christians enjoy safety and freedom, Nero’s torches still challenge us:

Would we stand firm if our jobs, our reputations, or our freedoms were at risk? Would we love Jesus if it cost us everything? Do we treasure comfort more than conviction? And maybe most painfully…

Are we raising a generation that would rather be liked… than loyal?

Nero’s victims are nameless to history. We don’t have their sermons or letters. But we have their legacy.

Because they died singing, burning, bleeding—and still believing.

Nero’s torches lit more than a garden path.

They lit the fire of a faith that would not die. A faith that wasn’t built on comfort, applause, or social safety… But on the conviction that Jesus is Lord, even when the emperor says otherwise.

So what about us?

Do we live like that’s still true?

Would we stand if the world turned against us? Would we sing while chained? Would we follow the Way of the Cross—even when it burns?

Or have we settled for a faith that fears discomfort more than disobedience?

Maybe this week, take time to ask yourself:

What are my torches? What am I unwilling to surrender? What would it take to silence my faith?

Because if Christians could stand firm while burning alive under Nero… Maybe we can stand a little firmer today.

If this story of Nero’s persecution challenged or encouraged you, would you consider sharing this episode with a friend? You never know who might need to hear it. Leave a review on your podcast app? Or follow COACH for more episodes every week?

You never know what we’ll cover next on COACH—every episode dives into a different corner of early church history. But if it’s a Monday, you know we’re staying somewhere between 0 and 500 AD.

And if you’d rather watch me tell these stories while staring at my ugly mug, you can find this episode—and every COACH video—on YouTube at the That’s Jesus Channel.

Thanks for listening to COACH – Church Origins and Church History. I’m Bob Baulch with the That’s Jesus Channel. Have a great day—and be blessed

REFERENCES

6 Numbered Parallel Interpretations within the Orthodox Framework

Frend, W.H.C., Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (Oxford University Press, 1965), ISBN 9780198265085 [Summarized] [used as: specific historic cross-reference: persecution context] [also 🧭 1]

6 Numbered Direct Challenges or Skeptical Positions

Moss, Candida, The Myth of Persecution (HarperOne, 2013), ISBN 9780062104551 [Summarized] [used as: specific historic cross-reference: localized persecution] [also ⚖️ 1]

31 Numbered Footnotes

Tacitus, Annals, trans. Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (Oxford, 1876), ISBN 9780198145523 [Verbatim] [used as: fact verification: Nero’s persecution] [📌] [Note]

12 Numbered Z-Footnotes

The Great Fire of Rome occurred in July 64 AD and lasted for 9 days [used as: fact verification: fire timeline] [🅉] [Z-Note]

Amazon Affiliate Links for References and Equipment

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Below are Amazon affiliate links for the non-biblical references and equipment cited in this episode, where available. Out-of-print editions are replaced with modern editions, and unavailable sources are excluded.

Tacitus, Annals: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0198145523?tag=thatsjesuscha-20

Audio Credits

Background Music: “Background Music Soft Calm” by INPLUSMUSIC licensed under Pixabay Content License, available at https://pixabay.com/music/upbeat-background-music-soft-calm-335280/