Early Christian Chapter Summary

The persecutions of the martyrs strengthened Christianity because the martyrs if they were willing to be killed for their faith then it must be very significant to them. The martyr’s suffering mirrored Jesus’ suffering and reinforced faith among Christians. “They looking upon her in her conflict, beheld with their eyes, through their sister, Him who had suffered for them in order to persuade those who trust in Him

In the source “The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas,” the narrative of a few early Christians who died for their beliefs is told. The two martyred women, named Perpetua and Felicitas, along with a few other followers of the religion were imprisoned because they identified themselves as Christians and refused to offer sacrifice to the Roman Emperor. The Christians were sentenced to death by beast for this. The source illustrate the problems Christians had in navigating the cultural realities of life in the Roman empire. This can be observed along with the struggles involved in class, family, and gender.

Christian’s were martyred, because they believe what they saw and believe in their heart no matter what we must keep cling too the truth, willing to face persecution, imprisonment, torture and death. Paul suffered persecution, beatings imprisonment and execution for his steadfast commitment of Christ’s

During the persecutions, churches and scripture were destroyed. Many were killed and tortured. Despite this, many remained brave and unafraid according to accounts. The idea of redemption and a magnificent afterlife led many Christians to almost fervently pursue martyrdom. These martyrs were glorified, and miracles were reported to have occurred in their presence. They refused to reject Christ and, in turn, were subjected to torture and humiliation. Eusebius describes the proceedings during the Great Persecution: “…the rules in question brought a certain man into a public place and commanded him to sacrifice. When he refused,

• Refers to rapid spread of Christianity among all classes of people, as well as Roman citizens that are sent to Rome for trial. “They have high ethical standards and if they repeatedly admit they honor Christ as God they are executed”.

In Jerusalem, Jesus was treated fairly by everyone, but Romans and Jews didn’t except him, so he had to be executed. This shows that Romans and Jews would kill anyone who was dangerous, or threatening. Till this day, Jesus is a major part of believe and religion.

According to Gaddis (2005) some of the Christians were tortured as well as being burnt alive, while others were publicly executed. Furthermore, it would seem that the more the Romans persecuted them, the more their hatred grew for them, as they believed them to be disobedient and a danger to the Empire. As such they did everything in their power to rid themselves of the Christians. The only consequence for the Christians at this time was, they either obeyed the law by sacrificing to the Pagan Gods or face persecution. However, Gaddis (2005) suggests that some of the Christians looked at the Roman persecution as not so much a Roman persecution, but one from their own God, who was testing their faith so that they could repent for their

In contrast to the persecution experienced by early Christian followers, Christianity today does not experience the level of outward persecution. Christianity is practiced in an atmosphere nearly void of violence. It was not until the reign of Constantine when Christians were authorized to practice their chosen faith. The “Ediet of Milan”(313 A.D.), gave official recognition to the Christian faith, thus ending persecution within the Roman Empire. Before Constantine’s rule, there were many rulers eager to drive out the Christians. The Emperor Trajan (98-117 A.D.) established the first official policy relating to Christians and how they should be dealt with. Diocletion and the Apologists were the last of the persecutors in this era before Constantine. This marked the end of open persecution

The homily presented in chapter nine of William Reese’s Christian Theology dives into the theme of ethics. The children’s father created a rule about not seeing PG-13 or R rated movies, but the boys attempted to find loopholes for this rule. Because they created a list of pros and cons and insisted on seeing a certain PG-13 or R rated movie, the father became extreme. He baked some excellent brownies that contained a small amount of dog poop, and he told his children they could see the movie with trace amounts of profanity if they could look past the trace amount of dog poop in the brownies and eat one. The author expresses the theme of ethics in a shocking way by possibly disgusting his readers, but he forces them to look for the underlying message, which is that God wouldn’t want his followers to allow evil in to their lives simply because there is some goodness involved.

During the reign of Diocletian, Christians were severely persecuted because of their unwillingness to give up religion. Emperor Diocletian issued “The Edicts of Persecution” which were a series of laws that took away the rights of Christians and demanded them to comply with traditional Roman religious practices. The first edict ordered that churches be destroyed, Holy Scriptures burned and dishonored those who continued to work in a Christian profession and denied them freedom2. He later commanded that all the rulers of the churches in every place should be “first put in prison and afterwards compelled by every device to offer sacrifice”3.

Since the time of the first apostles, Christians had been dealing with persecution. There would be times of peace, but the persecution would resume. The Roman

Jews, with the murder of Christ became the living embodiment of Heresy, an ultimate rejection of faith. This crime gripped the heartstrings of the Christians so much so that any response had to be momentous. It became an irrational action to an unfathomable misdeed.

In addition to your post, I think that the initial respond to the Christians from the Romans was reprimand. Later, cruelty and punishment came along with this reprimand. As I wrote in Deionna’s first post, there was an understanding in Romans that it was called piety. Piety was about being united and loyal to their emperors that the Romans were not able to see these virtues in Christians because they were believing differently and had different perception on the world, politics, military and economic issues. Why Pliny was punishing them might be lack of piety in Christians that the Romans thought that Christians had no piety related to the Roman religion.

“The grandeur of the ancient city is evident in the remains uncovered by archaeologists, including the ruins of the Artemision, the civic agora, the temple of Domitian, gymnasiums, public baths, a theater with seating for 24,000, a library, and the commercial agora, as well as several streets and private residences” (Holman, np). This was a big city, full of culture, and full of ungodly people and activities. Among the many religious groups in the city, there were many Jews there who were brought the gospel right after Pentecost (Orr, np). Because of the pluralism of religions in the city, new Christians didn’t know exactly what to believe or how to worship. On top of this, the city was constantly bombarded with false teachers trying to tell people that salvation came from works, not faith (MacArthur, np).

cut up like meat-the procedure at Alexandria” (269). He makes the case that the Church leaders who