{"id":659712,"date":"1969-12-31T18:00:00","date_gmt":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lourdescatholic.org\/church\/news\/659712\/"},"modified":"2021-06-30T11:49:26","modified_gmt":"2021-06-30T16:49:26","slug":"first-martyrs-of-the-church-of-rome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lourdescatholic.org\/church\/saint-of-the-day\/659712\/","title":{"rendered":"First Martyrs of the Church of Rome"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"First\n<\/div>\n
\nImage:<\/a>\u00a0Christian heroes and martyrs<\/em>\u00a0| William A. Foster | The Library of Congress<\/h6>\n
\n

Saint of the Day for June 30<\/h4>\n

(d. 64)<\/h5>\n

Click here to listen<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

First Martyrs of the Church of Rome\u2019s Story<\/strong><\/p>\n

There were Christians in Rome within a dozen or so years after the death of Jesus, though they were not the converts of the \u201cApostle of the Gentiles\u201d (Romans 15:20). Paul had not yet visited them at the time he wrote his great letter in 57-58 A.D.<\/p>\n

There was a large Jewish population in Rome. Probably as a result of controversy between Jews and Jewish Christians, the Emperor Claudius expelled all Jews from Rome in 49-50 A.D. Suetonius the historian says that the expulsion was due to disturbances in the city \u201ccaused by the certain Chrestus\u201d [Christ]. Perhaps many came back after Claudius\u2019 death in 54 A.D. Paul\u2019s letter was addressed to a Church with members from Jewish and Gentile backgrounds.<\/p>\n

In July of 64 A.D., more than half of Rome was destroyed by fire. Rumor blamed the tragedy on Nero, who wanted to enlarge his palace. He shifted the blame by accusing the Christians. According to the historian Tacitus, many Christians were put to death because of their \u201chatred of the human race.\u201d Peter and Paul were probably among the victims.<\/p>\n

Threatened by an army revolt and condemned to death by the senate, Nero committed suicide in 68 A.D. at the age of 31.<\/p>\n

\n

Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wherever the Good News of Jesus was preached, it met the same opposition as Jesus did, and many of those who began to follow him shared his suffering and death. But no human force could stop the power of the Spirit unleashed upon the world. The blood of martyrs has always been, and will always be, the seed of Christians.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Popular<\/a><\/span> hbspt.cta.load(465210, ‘2c20e9ef-e12e-4f58-84ad-d428746622c1’, {“region”:”na1″}); <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image:\u00a0Christian heroes and martyrs\u00a0| William A. Foster | The Library of Congress Saint of the Day for June 30 (d. 64) Click here to listen First Martyrs of the Church\u2026Read More\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":659713,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-659712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-saint-of-the-day"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lourdescatholic.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lourdescatholic.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lourdescatholic.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lourdescatholic.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lourdescatholic.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lourdescatholic.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":659714,"href":"https:\/\/lourdescatholic.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659712\/revisions\/659714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lourdescatholic.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lourdescatholic.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lourdescatholic.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lourdescatholic.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}