64 AD - Nero's Torches - Christians in Flames

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