1. What persecution flared up in Rome about 64 C.E., and for what apparent reason?

ONCE again Paul was a prisoner in Rome. However, the circumstances of this second imprisonment were much more severe than those of the first. It was approximately 65 C.E. A great fire had swept through Rome in July 64 C.E., causing extensive damage in 10 of the city’s 14 regions. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, Emperor Nero was unable to “banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. . . . An immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle . . . There arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man’s cruelty, that they were being destroyed.”a

2. Under what circumstances did Paul write Second Timothy, and why does he speak appreciatively of Onesiphorus?

² It was likely about the time of this wave of violent persecution that Paul again found himself a prisoner in Rome. This time he was in chains. He did not expect to be released but awaited only final judgment and execution.

Writing under the shadow of death, Paul styles himself “an apostle of Christ Jesus through God’s will according to the promise of the life that is in union with Christ Jesus.” (1:1) Paul knew that life in union with Christ awaited him. He had preached in many of the chief cities of the known world, from Jerusalem to Rome, and perhaps even as far as Spain. (Rom. 15:24, 28) He had run the course faithfully to the finish.​—2 Tim. 4:6-8.