Ben Witherington III - Priscilla: The Life of an Early Christian

Figure 1.2. Dog mosaic.

Collapsing on the Palatine Hill, reeling from all theyd witnessed, what she couldnt help but hear next chilled her despite the blasting heat of the fire below them. The comforting plucks of a lyre. And singing. When Prisca lifted her head she regarded her emperor, Nero, his face lit by the flames while watching, enjoying the scene as if some drama enacted for him alone.

As she huddled with the others taking refuge on this higher ground, rumors began to spread as quickly as the conflagration through the Eternal City that Nero himself had ordered the fire set so that he could rebuild and remake it in his own egomaniacal image and even, some said, rename it Neropolis. However, barely had that rumor been kindled when Nero shifted the blame onto what he called that atheistic sect that worshipped a crucified Jewish man named Christus.

And then the persecutions and martyrdoms in Roma had begun in earnest.

Prisca tossed on her bed as the dream mixed with remembered images of the eternal flame in the Temple of the Vestal Virgins, that one light meant never to go out. She snapped awake and pulled the blanket around her in the early morning as she struggled to banish the hellish dream of the devastating fire, in the tenth year of Neros reign.

Its only a dream, she told herself. But even though it had happened more than thirty years ago, Prisca could not eject this scene from her sleep. Her unmarried, adopted daughter, Julia, who slept in the cubicle next to Priscas sleeping quarters, struggled awake when she heard the rapid breathing.

Can I help you? Is it the dream again? her daughter asked with a concerned look on her face, rubbing the sooty sleep from her eyes.

Prisca nodded. It happened again, Julia. The same nightmare. Again. After all our prayers and all this time, its still impossible to erase the memory of those days. Ive been thinking lately, perhaps it would help give me some peace, some rest from the nightmares, to put it all in perspective. Perhaps I should have you write my story. Maybe I should even go back to the beginning. When the Master died, and I was but a young girl visiting Jerusalem for the first time, during the Feast of Shavuot.

Julia sat up straight, sloughing off the last of her slumber. Shed been in Priscas household most of her thirty years and longed to know more of her mothers fascinating life, but until now Prisca had kept these details to herself, reluctant to relive them. Unable to hide her delight, Julia quickly answered, a torrent of words tumbling over one another. I think its high time you tell the whole story! She got up and moved next to Prisca, speaking even more rapidly. You are one of only a handful of Christus followers who are still alive and were there from the beginning. Peter and Paulus have been dead for almost thirty years, and the word from Ephesus is that John the elder is near deaths door. Ill gather a stylus, my writing tablet, some papyri, and lots of ink. We can make a chronicle of how the good news of Christus came to and spread throughout Roma, as only someone like you can tell it!