I sometimes get asked (once just a few days ago) about what we can say about Paul’s death. We don’t have any historical records (i.e., historically reliable accounts), but there is one relatively early reference to it and an intriguing legend from about a century after the event, whenever and however it happened.

Here is what I say about it in my book Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene.

 

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The Martyrdom of Paul

We do not have any contemporary accounts of Paul’s death, although traditions from several decades afterwards indicate that he was martyred.  The earliest reference comes in the letter from the church of Rome to the church of Corinth known as 1 Clement, written around 95 CE, some thirty years after Paul’s death.  This anonymous author refers to the “pillars” of the Christian faith who were persecuted for their faith, “even to death.”  He refers especially to the apostles Peter and Paul.  About Paul, he states:

Because of jealousy and strife Paul pointed the way to the prize for endurance.  Seven times he bore chains; he was sent into exile and stoned; he served as a herald in both the East and the West; and he received the noble reputation for his faith.  He taught righteousness to the whole world, and came to the limits of the West, bearing his witness before the rulers.  And so he was set free from this world and transported up to the holy place, having become the greatest example of endurance.

It appears that this author knows of a tradition that Paul accomplished the plan he himself mentions in his letter to the Romans, to go on to Spain, “the ends of the earth,” to proclaim the gospel there.  But eventually he was put on trial and, evidently, executed for his faith.

About a century after the writing of 1 Clement we get a narrative of what happened leading up to Paul’s martyrdom.  This comes in the Acts of Paul, and like most of the book’s narrative, it is based on legendary accounts rather than historical events.  Paul is said to have arrived in Rome and to have rented out a barn to meet with the Christians there.  Among those listening to Paul is a young man named Patroclus, who happens to be the cupbearer of Nero himself, one of his favorite servants.  Patroclus is sitting in the window on an upper floor.  After a while he begins to dose off, falls from the window, and dies. Word is rushed off to Nero. The emperor is not pleased.

In the meantime, Paul performs one of his patented miracles, going down to the corpse and restoring it to life.  When Patroclus later shows up for work at Nero’s palace, the emperor is terrified and astounded: “Patroclus, is this you?”  I thought you were dead!  Patroclus replies that he was dead, but that the “master of the universe, the Lord Jesus Christ,” has raised him from the dead.  Nero, rather than expressing his gratitude for the miracle, becomes immediately envious of the miracle-working ability of this Jesus, and suspicious of him as a potential usurper of his own power.  He interrogates Patroclus and learns that he considers Christ to be the king of all (isn’t the emperor supposed to be the king of all?).  In his rage, Nero sends Patroclus, and two other self-proclaimed Christians in the court, to prison to be tortured.

And this is what leads to the persecution of Christians at the hands of Nero.  He orders the followers of Christ to be rounded up and punished.  Only after wiser heads prevail does he agree that no one should be punished without a court trial.

Paul himself is arrested and brought before Nero, who threatens to execute him for his faith.  Paul, however, shows no trace of fear but rather a haughty self-assurance in the face of death.  He tells Nero that if he kills him, he will rise from the dead and appear to him alive afterwards.  Nothing can keep a good man down.

Nero orders his execution.  The executioners spend some time talking to Paul before they do the deed.  As might be expected in a story of this kind, he actually converts them before they perform their duty.  But at his death a miracle occurs: once Paul is beheaded, it is not blood that spurts from the wound but milk.  It is difficult to say what the milk is meant to signify.  It is, of course, a symbol of life, in that it is the food that sustains a newborn after birth.  So maybe it means that Paul is being born again into his new life with Christ in the other world.  Moreover, in his own letters, Paul himself speaks of nourishing his converts with the “milk” of his teaching (1 Cor. 3:2).  So maybe the milk spurting from his neck signifies the edifying message that his death will bring to others, that death is not the last word, for it can be followed by eternal life with the Lord.

In any event, Paul fulfills his vow to Nero.  To the emperor’s shock and dismay, the apostle appears to him after his execution, as full of life as can be.  The emperor does not repent in the story, but one could scarcely expect him to do so.  There is a limit, after all, to how far pious legend can distort the historical facts, and most people in the early church thought of Nero as an unrepentant despot till the time of his own death.