For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Confused Ape]

I don't have time to reply to this right now ( busy day) but this is nothing but xtian tradition.

I know it's nothing more than Christian tradition but I thought that part of this discussion was about how Christian tradition developed over the centuries. 5th Century Severus wrote that Peter and Paul had been martyred even though Clement of Rome who's supposed to have died in AD 99 probably didn't say it - there's a different translation to the one you quoted but I'll get to that in a minute.

In Clement of Rome's First Epistle - and Clement of Rome was probably a later fiction himself! - he (or whoever) writes.

5:4 Peter, through unjust envy, endured not one or two but many labours, and at last, having delivered his testimony, departed unto the place of glory due to him.

That's the general translation but the Roberts-Donaldson one says something different about Peter and Paul.

Let us set before our eyes the illustrious apostles. Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labours, and when he had finally suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him. Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned. After preaching both in the east and west, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, and come to the extreme limit of the west, and suffered martyrdom under the prefects

Somebody called J B Lightfoot wrote about Clement and said -

But more precise and definite facts are contained elsewhere respecting the earlier and more severe assault on the Christians in the latter years
of the reign of Nero, where reference is made especially to the martyrdoms of St. Peter and St. Paul.

As I don't know Latin I can't check the untranslated text of the Epistle and see what it actually says for myself. My guess is that some people could have been influenced by what Severus said at the end of his description of Nero's spectacle.

It was in this way that cruelty first began to be manifested against the Christians. Afterward, too, their religion was prohibited by laws which were given, and by edicts openly set forth it was proclaimed unlawful to be a Christian. At that time Paul and Peter were condemned to capital punishment, of whom the one was beheaded with a sword, while Peter suffered crucifixion.

The way he worded it suggests that Peter and Paul were supposed to have been martyred after the fictitious laws were introduced. I just think it odd that anyone forging the Tacitus passage didn't jump at the chance to hint that Peter was crucified during the spectacle.