Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Jesus Christ was crucified and died on a cross on Friday 7 April in the year 30 and on the third day, Sunday 9 April, He rose again. Fifty days later the descent of His Holy Spirit began the work of evangelisation to announce this Good News to all men and women. After Saint Stephen was martyred in 34, the community dispersed, the Apostles and other disciples left Jerusalem and Christianity began to spread rapidly throughout the Roman Empire first of all wherever there were Jewish communities.
The Church of Antioch (capital of Roman Syria) was founded around the year 37. St Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, informs us, «it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians » (Acts 11, 26).
Christianity soon reached Rome. It is not known who were the very first Christians to arrive. However the Acts of the Apostles narrate the founding of the Church in Corinth by St Paul: «After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth, where he met a Jew called Aquila whose family came from Pontus. He and his wife Priscilla had recently left Italy because an edict of Claudius had expelled all the Jews from Rome» (Acts18, 1).
The edict mentioned by Suetonius may date to the year 49, and was taken following trouble in the Jewish community in Rome with regard to a certain “Chrestus”.
In the Autumn of the year 60, Paul, a prisoner of the Romans, was taken at his own request to be judged by Cesar in Rome (Acts 25, 11-12). Between 61 and 63 the city was under strict control of the Roman army. On the sea voyage to Rome Paul was shipwrecked in Malta and remained there for several Winter months (Acts 27, 28). Paul’s first stop was in Syracuse, then Puteoli (Pozzuoli), in the Bay of Naples, and then at last Rome (Acts 28): « where we found some brothers and had the great encouragement of staying a week with them. And so we came to Rome. When the brothers there heard about us they came to meet us, as far as the Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns. When Paul saw them he thanked God and took courage. On our arrival in Rome Paul was allowed to stay in lodgings of his own with the soldier who guarded him.». Paul was given his freedom in 63 and perhaps it was then that he travelled to Spain.
Martyrdom of St Peter and St Paul
The Church in Antioch claims Peter as the first Bishop of that community. Peter was also the first Bishop of Rome. We have St Peter’s own testimony of his presence in Rome in his 1st Letter: « Your sister in Babylon, who is with you among the chosen, sends you greetings; so does my son, Mark» (1Pt. 5, 13). The Apostle refers to Rome in a negative way, a corrupt city of idolatry, images familiar to readers of the Old Testament. Various early writings recall the martyrdom of both Peter and Paul in persecutions ordered by Emperor Nero. The earliest record, the first Letter of Clement of Rome, dated 96, does not actually name the place, but several elements point to Rome. More explicit, twenty years later, we have Ignatius of Antioch in a letter to Christians in Rome, and a passage of a letter written in the late 2nd century, quoted by Eusebius of Cesarea, to a certain Procleus, who boasted that his country possessed the tomb of the Apostle Philip, Roman Gaius replied: «I assure you, my friend I can show you the tombs of the Holy Apostles. If you go the Vatican Hill and to the Ostian Way you will find the burial places of those who founded this Church». According to an apocryphal Acts of Peter, the Apostle was crucified head-downwards.
St Peter’s martyrdom was foretold by Jesus as John recalls in his Gospel (21, 17-19): « In all truth I tell you, when you were young you put on your own belt and walked where you liked; but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt round you and take you where you would rather not go.' In these words he indicated the kind of death by which Peter would give glory to God.».
In the Acts of the Apostles St Luke tells of Paul’s presence in Rome and the announcement of the Gospel, first among the Jews there. Peter arrived in Rome when Paul had already been released. Paul returned to Rome at the end of his last missionary journey after the massacre ordered by Nero in which Peter and about 900 other Christians perished. Arriving back in Rome around the year 67 Paul finds a Christian community, humiliated and decimated. He too is immediately reported, arrested and condemned to death. As a Roman citizen Paul was granted the swift death of decapitation. According to Eusebius, Paul was martyred in the 14th year of the reign of Nero sometime between July 67 and June 68. A tradition, endorsed by St Gregory the Great, affirms that Paul’s head severed from his body bounced three times causing three fountains to gush forth. The place still to be seen today in a little Church in the grounds of the Three Fountains monastery not far from the Basilica of St Paul’s outside the Walls built over the tomb where Paul’s body was laid to rest awaiting resurrection on the Last Day”. (J.M.) (Agenzia Fides 8/11/2006, righe 53, parole 808)
