St. Peter had it from his Master’s lips that he should follow Him in the manner of His death, but the day fixed by the Lord for that “birthday” (as the Christians called martyrdom) was hidden from him till almost the end. He was away from Rome when he heard that his once defeated adversary, the wizard-impostor, Simon Magus, was revelling there in the favour of Nero, and regarded by all as almost, if not actually, a god. The calling of the necromancer appealed strongly to Pagan sympathies at that time, and Nero was only too delighted to possess himself of the services of the famous magician. He showered gifts upon him, brought him to live in his own palace, and caused, or permitted a statue of him to be erected, of which the inscription attested his supposed divinity. So Simon Magus was the chief favourite, and was exercising whatever he had of unholy power, to make himself necessary to the Emperor and feared by the people. Although the fiercest of persecutions was raging, St. Peter at once came back to Rome to confront and confound the diabolical impostor, even as he had done in Samaria, years before, when he (from whom all traffic in holy things was named) offered the Apostles money if they would impart to him the power conferred on them by the Holy Ghost. Nero, after reigning for five years with unusual mildness for those times, had, with the murder of his mother, Agrippina, inaugurated a carnival of slaughter, and the Christians were suffering terribly. St. Peter hastened to sustain their courage and also their faith, fearing, as we are told, that the weaker brethren might be led astray by the skill of the magician, who, like all his kind, could sometimes command the powers of darkness and was able to supplement them by trickery when they failed him. St. Peter feared for the flock over whom he had ruled in person for some twenty-five years, so, as St. Jerome and other great authorities tell us, he made all the speed he could, and arrived in Rome to find the persecution at its height. It was at this time that she who had been Peter’s wife in his youth, but whom, ever since the hour when he was called by the Lord, he had regarded as a sister, and who had followed to minister to him in his wanderings, was led forth with other Christians to martyrdom. St. Clement of Alexandria describes the scene, and tells us that, as they passed before St. Peter, who had been blessing them and praying for them, his last farewell to this faithful woman was summed up in three words, “Oh, _remember the Lord_!”