The Roman Martyrdom

The Acts of the Apostles leaves Paul preaching at Rome under house arrest and tells nothing of his death; the tradition of his martyrdom comes from other and early sources. From Clement of Rome (c. 96) through the second-century witnesses preserved by Eusebius to the apocryphal Acts of Paul, the Church has held with remarkable consistency that the apostle died at Rome, under Nero, by beheading — as befitted a Roman citizen — about the same time as Peter. This file sets out those witnesses, the contested date, and the manner of the death, distinguishing the early and firm from the late and legendary.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

The Silence of Acts and the Problem It Poses

The Acts of the Apostles ends abruptly: Paul, having appealed to Caesar, dwells two whole years at Rome “in his own hired house,” “preaching the kingdom of God… no man forbidding him” (Acts 28:30–31). It narrates neither a trial before Nero nor an execution. Why Acts ends here is itself debated — whether because it was written before Paul’s death, or because the author chose to close on the gospel’s triumphant arrival at the capital, or for other reasons. What is clear is that the martyrdom tradition is not drawn from Acts but supplements it from other early sources, and that its outline was firmly established well before any surviving narrative of the death itself (Murphy-O’Connor, Paul: A Critical Life, 1996; Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free, 1977).

The Earliest Witness: Clement of Rome

The earliest external testimony to Paul’s death is Clement of Rome, writing from Rome to Corinth around A.D. 96 — within living memory of the apostle. Clement names Peter and Paul together as the supreme recent examples of those who suffered for the faith, and of Paul he says that, after manifold labors, bonds, and preaching “in the east and in the west,” and “having reached the farthest bounds of the west [to terma tēs dyseōs], and having borne his witness before the rulers, he so departed from the world and went unto the holy place, having become the greatest example of endurance” (Clement of Rome, 1 Corinthians 5; trans. Holmes 2007; Lightfoot). Clement does not specify the manner of death, and his phrase “the farthest bounds of the west” has been read by some as implying a journey to Spain (which Paul had hoped to make, Rom. 15:24, 28) before his death; but the passage firmly attests, very early, that Paul “bore his witness” (was martyred) under “the rulers” — understood as the Roman authority (Clement, 1 Cor. 5; on the Spain question, see below).

The Second-Century Witnesses in Eusebius

The fuller tradition is preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea, who gathers the second-century testimonies. He reports that Paul was beheaded and Peter crucified at Rome “in his [Nero’s] reign,” and cites as witnesses Gaius, a Roman churchman of c. 200, who points to the “trophies” (tombs/memorials) of the apostles at the Vatican and on the Ostian Way, and Dionysius of Corinth (c. 170), who writes that Peter and Paul “taught together in like manner in Italy, and suffered martyrdom about the same time” (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2.25; trans. NPNF II/1). Eusebius elsewhere notes the tradition that Paul was beheaded at Rome under Nero (Eusebius, HE 2.22; 3.1). Tertullian likewise attests that at Rome Paul was crowned with a death “like John’s” — that is, by beheading (Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics 36; trans. ANF 3). The convergence of these independent second- and early-third-century witnesses on death at Rome, under Nero, by the sword, is the substance of the firm tradition.

The Manner: Beheading by the Sword

That Paul was beheaded rather than crucified is consistently reported (Eusebius, HE 2.25; Tertullian, Praescr. 36) and is fittingly explained by his Roman citizenship: a citizen condemned to death was, by custom, executed by the sword rather than subjected to the more shameful and prolonged death of crucifixion reserved for non-citizens and slaves (on the citizenship, see Saul of Tarsus). The contrast with Peter, traditionally crucified (and, in later tradition, head-downward), is part of the joint memory of the two apostles’ differing deaths (see The Two Chief Apostles). The traditional site of the beheading is marked at the abbey of Tre Fontane on the Ostian Way outside Rome, and the traditional burial place on the same road is where the great basilica later rose (see Veneration and the Feast).

The Date

The date of the martyrdom is contested within a narrow range. Two figures dominate the tradition. Many place Paul’s death in the Neronian persecution of c. A.D. 64, which followed the great fire of Rome and in which, as Tacitus records (Annals 15.44), Nero made the Christians scapegoats and put many to death — a context into which Paul’s execution naturally falls. Others, following a later chronological tradition, place the deaths of both apostles in c. A.D. 67, near the end of Nero’s reign (which ended in 68); this date became established in much of the later martyrological tradition [Disputed: the date of Paul’s martyrdom is given as c. A.D. 64, in or near the Neronian persecution after the fire of Rome (favored by many modern scholars, e.g. Murphy-O’Connor 1996), or as c. A.D. 67, the traditional date carried in later martyrologies and the Eusebian-Hieronymian chronology; the sources do not allow a precise determination]. Both dates agree on the reign of Nero and the city of Rome; the range is a matter of a few years (Riesner, Paul’s Early Period, 1998, for the chronological framework).

The Spain Question and the End of the Career

A further uncertainty concerns whether Paul, after the imprisonment with which Acts closes, was released and traveled further — perhaps to Spain, as he had planned (Rom. 15:24, 28), and as Clement’s “farthest bounds of the west” may imply — before a second arrest and execution. The Pastoral Epistles, if Pauline, presuppose movements (to Crete, Macedonia, Nicopolis; Titus 1:5; 1 Tim. 1:3; Titus 3:12; 2 Tim. 4:13, 20) that do not fit the career known from Acts and the undisputed letters, and are often taken to support a release-and-second-mission hypothesis. Whether this “second career” is historical or a construction of the later tradition is bound up with the authenticity of the Pastorals (see The Disputed Letters and the Corpus) and cannot be settled here [Disputed: whether Paul was released from the Roman imprisonment of Acts 28, journeyed further (to Spain and/or the East), and was martyred only after a second arrest is argued from Clement’s “farthest bounds of the west” (1 Clement 5) and the travel-notes of the Pastorals, but is contested and depends partly on the authenticity of the Pastorals (Murphy-O’Connor 1996; Bruce 1977)].

The Late and Legendary: The Acts of Paul

The apocryphal Acts of Paul (later second century) and its martyrdom-section, the Martyrdom of Paul, supply a circumstantial narrative of the beheading — Paul preaching at Rome, condemned by Nero, beheaded, and milk rather than blood spurting from the wound, with post-mortem appearances to Nero. These details are late, legendary, and theologically embellished, and are reported here as what the apocryphal Acts claim, not as historical fact (per METHODOLOGY §3.5); the same work transmits the celebrated Acts of Paul and Thecla and a famous physical description of Paul as “a man small in size, with a bald head and crooked legs… eyebrows meeting, nose somewhat hooked, full of grace” (Acts of Paul and Thecla 3; trans. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament, 1993) — a description of uncertain value that nonetheless shaped the iconographic image of the apostle. The firm tradition — Rome, Nero, the sword — does not depend on these later embellishments but on the early witnesses of Clement, Dionysius, Gaius, and Tertullian.

References

The Holy Bible, King James Version. The Acts of the Apostles 28; the Epistle to the Romans 15.
Clement of Rome. First Epistle to the Corinthians 5. Trans. in Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers, 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.
Eusebius of Caesarea. The Ecclesiastical History 2.22, 2.25, 3.1. Trans. in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol. 1.
Tertullian. The Prescription against Heretics 36. Trans. in Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 3.
The Acts of Paul and The Acts of Paul and Thecla. In J. K. Elliott, ed., The Apocryphal New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.
Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. Paul: A Critical Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Bruce, F. F. Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977.