You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints.

This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an Apostolate helping Catholics understand, live, and share their faith.

Hi, welcome to Catholic Saints. My name is Mary McGeehan. I work here at the August Institute. And today I'm joined with Dr. John Seahorn.

Thank you for being with us.

Dr. Seahorn is the academic dean at the graduate school here and a professor of theology.

So today's episode, we're going to talk about the first martyrs of the Church of Rome.

What can you tell us about them?

Well, yeah, good.

To begin.

Yeah, no, that's exactly the right place to start.

So on June 30th, the church commemorates the first martyrs of the Church of Rome.

And this refers specifically to the Christians who lost their lives under persecution by the Emperor Nero.

Okay.

What was the time period of Nero?

Yeah.

So, well, this particular event happened in the year 64.

We can date it very well.

So in July of the year 64, there was just a devastating

fire that broke out in the city of Rome. I think it burned for five days before it was,

before it was put out. And what's interesting is that there were rumors that Nero himself, excuse me, was behind it.

Right?

And it does seem to be the case that he sort of took advantage of the ground that it cleared

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