Quo Vadis: A Story of St. Peter in Rome in the Reign of Emperor Nero

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

What a marvellous, involuntary homage paid to virtue by evil! And knowest thou what strikes me? This, that it is done because transgression is ugly and virtue is beautiful.

Hope looks for something every morning, otherwise life would be impossible.

“Christ’s command to love men was higher than that to hate evil, for His religion is not hatred, but love.”

At last, in spite of every effort of Tigellinus and his assistants, the opinion kept spreading that the city had been burned at command of Cæsar, and that the Christians were suffering innocently. But for this very reason Nero and Tigellinus were untiring in persecution. To calm the multitude, fresh orders were issued to distribute wheat, wine, and olives. To relieve owners, new rules were published to facilitate the building of houses; and others touching width of streets and materials to be used in building so as to avoid fires in future. Cæsar himself attended sessions of the Senate, and counselled with the “fathers” on the good of the people and the city; but not a shadow of favor fell on the doomed. The ruler of the world was anxious, above all, to fix in people’s minds a conviction that such merciless punishments could strike only the guilty. In the Senate no voice was heard on behalf of the Christians, for no one wished to offend Cæsar; and besides, those who looked farther into the future insisted that the foundations of Roman rule could not stand against the new faith.