Usually, in the early church now, and you might be a bit perplexed by that title, the martyrs who lived, the more conventional way to say it, I suppose, is martyrs who died. But I use that phrase in the title for this lecture because I read it some time ago in the writings of Alexander Men, a Russian Christian preacher, the Orthodox church, who perhaps himself almost certainly himself was a martyr for the Christian cause. He wrote these words, no living creature except for a man is able to take a risk and even the risk of death or the sake of truth. Thousands of martyrs who have lived are a unique phenomenon in the history of all our solar system. It puts the context rather large there. And as I thought about that expression, martyrs who lived, it appealed to me because I think Alexander Men understood the true nature of the martyrs' sacrifice. They do live on. These martyrs that we're going to talk about today, they live on in the memories of others, including ours, as we read about them, and they live on in their witness. Actually, as you know, the utestimate word for martyr means witness. These are modern martyrs, witnesses who lived in the early days of the Christian church. But even more important for them is the fact that they live on eternally with God in heaven. The dates of the deaths of the martyrs, the early Christian martyrs, were often remembered in the early church and even later as birthdays. It's really the day they died. But the church celebrated those days as birthdays because on those days they began their life in the presence of God in heaven. Going to begin with a prayer from one of the famous martyrs of the church, Robin Polly Carp, he lived in the late first century into the early second century. He was a disciple of John, so he studied with John who was a disciple of Jesus. Polly Carp was burned at the stake in the year 155. He made that famous speech because all these tells us the story in our textbook by Polly Carp when he was asked to deny the Lord, said, I've served him for 86 years, and he has done me no harm. How could I curse my king who saved me? We have an account of the prayer that Polly Carp prayed at the stake. And I'm going to use that prayer as we begin this lecture, not exactly the way Polly Carp prayed it because none of us are facing anything like being burned at the stake today. I think worse for most of us than a day of seminary studies. But there are pressures and problems that we all have, and we can relate this prayer in some ways to our own situations, I'm sure. But as we pray it, we'll think of this Ernest Man, an old bishop, 86 years old, who was not willing to give up his faith to save his earthly life. Let's pray. Now God and Father of thy beloved infested son, our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received knowledge of the old God, of the angels, and of all creation, and of all just men who live in thy presence, I thank thee that thou hast graciously granted me a portion among thy people, among the people of Christ. And to the resurrection of everlasting life may I be received in thy sight as a fruitful and acceptable sacrifice. Wherefore, for all this I praise thee, I bless thee, I glorify thee through the eternal high priest, Jesus Christ, thy beloved son, to whom with thee, and the Holy Spirit, the all glory, were all without end, amen. It's an amazing prayer to think of uttering those words, so proper, so complete in the face of imminent death. The martyrs who have lived, as we study the New Testament, particularly the Book of Acts and the Epistles and the Gospels, all the New Testament, we recognize that the persecution that came to the early Christians came first from the Jews. And especially in the Book of Acts, the persecutors or the Jews, sometimes pagans, and Rome is often the protector of the Christian Church. Paul appeals to Caesar in order to have a fair trial. But as we move to the Book of Revelation, as we move from the decade of the 60s in the Book of Acts to the decade of the 90s in the Book of Revelation, things have changed dramatically because Rome no longer is the protector of the Church, but the persecutor. Rome has become, as John describes her in Revelation, the great Babylon. So we'll move quickly to the Roman persecution. The Roman persecution lasted from the 60s of the first century to the 320s. So we have about two and a half centuries of persecution. I have summarized all of that on page 14 in the syllabus, giving eight main points, I'm not going to lecture through those main points, but this gives you something of an outline of the major times of persecution from the time of Nero in the 60s. Roman historian Tacitus left us that vivid description of the awful persecution of the Christians under Nero covered with skins of beast. The Christians were torn by dogs, the perished, or they were nailed across this, or were burned by flames to serve as nightly illuminations in Nero's gardens. This is from Tacitus, he's not particularly sympathetic to the Christians, he is just describing what happened. From that first persecution in the 60s, which claim the life almost certainly of Peter and Paul, and is described in the great novel Quovatus, we move all the way down to the last persecution under Diocletian. The final and fiercest attack on the Christian faith. Now as we think about that two and a half century period, let me make two points that I think are important for us to keep in mind. One is this, these persecutions were sporadic. We're not talking about two and a half centuries of intense, consistent, persistent persecution. Actually as you look at these points on page 14, there are two periods of long peace in the third century, interrupted by persecution in the mid-third century, so for much of this period, Christians are not actively being persecuted. We should not think of it as a consistent period of extreme persecution. Persecution could break out almost anytime and almost any place, but many Christians live their lives in relative peace during these first centuries of the Christian Church. The other point to be emphasized is this, we are not really thinking until we come a little later actually to the mid-third century of systematic empire-wide persecution. Till the middle of the third century, persecution tended to be localized. It might happen in North Africa, could happen in Leon, could break out in Asia-Mina, and it did from time to time. Stride Christian people in all of those places, but until the first empire-wide systematic persecution under DCS in 250, we don't have a concerted effort to wipe out or destroy the Christian Church that stretches across the empire. There are many wonderful accounts of Christians who suffered, who were persecuted, and who were faithful. There were many Christians who were not faithful. We're going to talk about those in a few minutes. Many people apostatized. Not every Christian was able to stand like polycar, and say, yes, I serve the Lord, and I will serve Him in my death as I have served Him in my life. Many who failed, but there were many who were faithful, and I have included the records of some of those in the syllabus, which you've been able to read for today. There is the amazing account of Perpetua, 22-year-old young woman, mother of an infant child. She wrote her diary in prison. She was in prison in Carthage in North Africa, and she wrote her diary, and that diary part of that is what appears in the syllabus. It's probably the first writing that we have from a Christian woman, the diary of Perpetua, and that is a wonderful account of courage and faith in the midst of awful tension and eventual death. And then in the syllabus, too, is the famous account of polycar, the old bishop who died in Smyrna, in Asia. And I have also included one of my favorite stories from this part of church history, the account of the martyrdom, of the 40 martyrs of Sevastia, to place in Asia. These martyrs were from the Roman province of Cappadocia, and actually the martyrdom of these 40 soldiers happened in the year 320, which is after persecution had ceased in the western part of the empire because it's after the date of the edict of Milan in 313, but persecution continued in the east for some years. I know that Gonzales has a picture, a mosaic of the 40 martyrs, and he speaks of it as the legend of the 40 martyrs, but Cambridge ancient history refers to it as actual history with undoubtedly legendary elements added to it. Many of the stories that we get from this period are going to be enhanced or elaborated by certain legendary elements that grow through the years, but I think that there's good reason to believe that the story of the 40 martyrs actually took place. I've mentioned the book Quovatis, that is an exciting story of persecution of the Christians and what happens to some of them during the time of Nero, a much more competent book, another novel, but a historical novel that will teach you a great deal about this period is the book The Flames of Rome, written by Paul Meyer, and I have given information about that in the syllabus. That's a very enjoyable book and a very accurate book. Dr. Meyer is professor of history and Lazarus and Ed Lutheran pastor, and if you pick up The Flames of Rome, you'll notice that it has about 50 pages of footnote, so there's a lot of history in that book and an exciting story as well. Well, let's come to the question why, why were the Christians persecuted? The reasons and many reasons were given. Here is a wanted poster that someone has created, wanted Christians, anyone having information about those belonging to that dangerous superstition notice Christianity, is to report to the authorities without delay. This is an insidious movement and must be stopped. Christians are charged with a following. Now I'm going to comment in a few minutes on whether anything like this was ever posted on a tree or anywhere in the Roman Empire like things like this were posted in the days of the Old West and America, not for Christians, but for bank robbers and other people. But let's look at the list. Some of the charges against Christians could be easily refuted. The first charge on this list was cannibalism. It seems strange that Christians would be charged with cannibalism, certainly was not true, but Christians did speak in their worship about eating someone's body and drinking someone's blood, and you can see how it would not take too long for rumors to spread that cannibalism was being practiced in these secret meetings often held before dawn and out of the way places. When Pliny reported to the Emperor Trajan, Pliny was a governor in Bethinia in Asia. He didn't quite know how to handle the Christians in his province and he wrote to the Emperor Trajan to get some suggestions and he tried to describe the Christians as he saw them. He said they eat only ordinary and harmless kind of food. So this Roman governor was careful enough to do research and discover that the charge of cannibalism was grossly unfair and untrue. Christians were charged with disruption of business. Well, perhaps in some way they could be charged with that as in Acts chapter 19, Paul's preaching certainly disrupts the business of those engaged in the worship of Diana or Artemis. And as people became Christians, they did not buy the sacrificial items or other items that were involved in false worship. Gross immorality is the next charge, including incest. This two came from unfounded rumors. Christians call one another brother and sister. They had the habit of greeting one another with a holy kiss. And the love that Christians had for one another was transposed in the Roman mind to sexual extravagance and even insist. But those charges were fairly easily answered. Christians were charged with being anti-family, seems like a strange charge. Today when Christians are very much pro-family, but what happened here, I think, was that Christians like the young woman perpetua. Christians were willing to say, we must for say, father and mother and husbands and wives, and take up our cross and follow Jesus Christ. And people could not understand that in the account of perpetua. You know her father pleads with her, don't forget me, don't forget your mother, don't forsake your sisters. What about your infant child? And it seemed like this woman was just not concerned about them. Well, she was concerned about them, but her allegiance to Christ meant that she could not deny him even to maintain her place in that family. Christians were charged with poverty. Well, as we saw last time, that was largely true. But it was more a source of ridicule than persecution. And the Christian apologists, like minutious phalics, already quoted in the earlier lecture, said that many of us, or poor, is not our disgrace, but our glory. And then a strange charge, Christians were charged with atheism. Christians were atheists. After all, they did not worship all of the gods. Well, they did worship one god, but he's invisible. And so it doesn't count. And to the Romans, Christians were atheists. You know, at polycarps, martyrdom, he was in the stadium, and the pro-console was there, and the great crowd was there, because people would come to see what would happen to these Christians. And the pro-console ordered him to say, away with the atheist. But you see, by that, the pro-console meant for this bishop, polycarp, to say, away with the Christian. So, away with the atheist. Just say, away with the atheist, and we'll let you go. Well, this was a feisty sort of bishop, and he waved around to the great crowd and pointed to them, and said, away with the atheist, but a different group in mind, and as a result, died for his faith. Another charge was novelty. This is new. It's kind of a strange charge, because all sorts of new religions were pouring into the Roman Empire from the East, not only Christianity, but the mystery religions as well. And the Christians were well able to answer this, and they did over and over again. Our faith goes back all the way to the beginning of the Old Testament. This is not new. This is the continuation of the religion of Israel. And then the charge was often made that the Christians were not patriotic. Christians, it is true, did not participate in some of the civic festivals, because in morality was practiced in connection with those festivals, and improv worship was part of the civic duty in those festivals, and so Christians would absent themselves from the festivals and the celebrations, and consequently were charged with lack of patriotism, and Thai social behavior. Just aren't very nice people. Staying by yourself over in the ghetto and not associating with other people. Well, that wasn't really true. Christians were separate and different in significant ways. But Christians said over and over again, we live in the same cities. We work side by side with you. We are part of Rome, or Alexandria, or Carthage, or Thessalonica. But in some ways we have to be different. But as Tacitus put it, these Christians were loathed for their hatred of the human race. People are different and separate themselves. Some others are going to charge them with hatred of the human race. And then a charge that was frequently repeated, you are the cause of the disasters that are happening. Now this would be a charge that would more and more affect the Christians as Rome begins to crumble. People thought, well, we were strong and things were going fine until these Christians came in. That's why St. Augustine writes the city of God that we will discuss in some detail later. But Christians were blamed for it, almost anything that happened. To tell you in the church father, put it this way, if the Taiber reaches the walls, if the Nile does not rise to the fields, if the sky does not move, so there's drought, or if the earth does move, so there's an earthquake. If there is a famine, if there is a plague, the cry as it wants the Christians to the lions. And that was a charge that was repeated consistently through this period. But I doubt if there were any wanted signs like this hanging up anywhere in the Roman Empire. Trajan's letter to Pliny, the younger, the governor of the Thinion, which I have referred to already, about the year 112, set forth the policy that was generally followed until the Empire-wide persecution under Diceus in the year 250. And that is, Christians are not to be sought out. Don't go looking for them. But if somebody denounces someone as a Christian, then bring that person in, question that person. And if that person refuses to recant and worship our gods, then they should be punished. That was the way it usually worked. So it took a jealous neighbor, or an invias associate, or somebody who was spiteful to bring a charge. And then the Christian would be arrested and tried. So Christians lived under the cloud of the possibility of persecution almost all the time. Now there was a more serious charge that really began to affect the Christians in every part of the Empire. And that was these people simply refused to worship the Emperor. And Christians did refuse to worship the Emperor. Jews did too, but Jews were exempt. For reasons I won't go into, to go back in the history of that, to pick up that. And this was a country, a nation, but these Christians are everywhere, and they come from all nations, and they're not exempt. Well, the Christian response to this was we can't worship the Emperor. The worship god alone and to worship the Emperor would mean that we were no longer Christians, but we respect the Emperor as the chosen of our Lord. Caesar is more hours than yours, because he's appointed by our God. That was a good answer, but it did not satisfy the Romans, probably infuriated them, for these Christians to say, we don't worship the Emperor, but he belongs to us more than he belongs to you because God, our God, put him on his throne. When we really come down to it, eventually, particularly in the later part of this period, possibly at any point in this period, people who were Christians suffered simply because they were Christians. They suffered because they bore the name of Christ, and they were prepared for this. First Peter 4, 16 said, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. You can imagine that that text was often quoted in church meetings in the second century and the third century and the early fourth century. In fact, as we read that amazing account of the witness of Perpetua in Carthage, remember her father was pleading with her to announce her faith, and you can feel the attention there. She had to remain a Christian and reject the pleas of her father, which to Romans, that was unthinkable, that a young woman would do that. But she said, this father, do you see this water pot here? He says, yes, of course. Well, that's what it is, she said. It isn't something else. Can it be called by any other name than what it is? He said, no. She said, then I can't be anything other than what I am, and I am a Christian. It's a very moving story, I think, because she really stood firm at a point where it would have been easy to cave in, and she knew that she was going to suffer simply because she was a Christian. I won't go into the story of Talameus, but he died during the reign of Antenina's pious. The judge said, are you a Christian? He said, yes, and they took him out and executed him. Execution was practiced quickly after the sentence. Somebody objected to that, and the judge said, are you a Christian? He said, yes, so they executed him. The third person said, well, this isn't right to be executing these people simply because they're Christians, and the judge said, you sound like a Christian too, and he said, yes, I am, so they executed him. A Justin later, himself a martyr, we call him Justin martyr, heard about this, and in protest, wrote a letter to the emperor, it's called the second apology of Justin martyr. Now, what was the Roman state really trying to do in persecuting the Christians? Two things, really the main purpose was to cause Christians to become apostate. Most of the Romans, the emperors and the officials, did not want to kill the Christians. They just wanted them to stop being Christians. So, pressure was put on in various ways different times and places in the empire to try to produce apostates. Christians, people at large, including Christians, if they were going to get through the persecutions, were required to have a little certificate, kind of like a social security card. A lot of bellos, it was called. And if you worship the emperor, that was a very simple thing, you just bowed your head slightly, or took a pinch of incense and dropped it on a flame in the place where the emperor's symbol or portrait was being displayed, and you could go, it's easier than signing your name, or easier than anything. It's easy to worship the emperor. You said to make the gesture and then you got your card. So, Christians did become tempted and many of them actually bowed their heads and took the pinch of incense. So, what would you have done in a situation like that? Well, they did it, many of them did it, they got their cards, and they went their way. It's going to create a problem in the church later that we'll have to talk about the donatist controversy because after persecutions over, many of these same Christians were sorry they had done it, and they wanted back into the church, and the big question now is, can we let them back in? Well, I'm going to answer that because down the centuries of it, but we'll come to that eventually. Apostasy of Christians, and then martyrdom of the obstinate, if people just refuse, like Perpetua, and Justin Martin, Polycar, then they ought to be put to death, and many were put to death. That's the purpose, the results. I think we can summarize the results of persecution in the early church in these two points. Persecution purified the church, and persecution extended the church. The results were not really what the Romans planned. Actually, as FF Bruce puts it in the spreading plane, Christianity was organized for catastrophe. Church was ready for this. Actually, we just have to read the New Testament a bit to see that Christians must be prepared, organized for catastrophe. Jesus said, if they persecuted me, they will persecute you also, so they weren't surprised. Christians were not surprised. They were expecting it, and we read also, blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The church was ready for this. Actually, we'll see some point, I think, a kind of problem developed because Christians began to want to be persecuted. And the church fathers had to say, if you are brought before the authorities, don't deny Christ, die like a Christian, but don't try to be persecuted. Don't try to be martyred. Might seem strange to us that people were trying to be martyred, but they did try to be martyred. Church father, origin, when he was a teenager, so his father taken out, his father was martyred, and origin wanted to go to, and his mother had to hide all his clothes in the house. So he didn't have anything to wear, and he was ashamed going out with anything on, so he was not martyred. Well, good for his mother because origin plays an important role in the history of the church later on. But persecution did purify the church, that's easy to see, isn't it? I mean, if you live in a time like this, when the very fact that you are a Christian could give somebody grounds to accuse you, bring you before the judge, if that's what it means to be a Christian, then people are not going to be Christians lightly. They realize that to be a Christian means to take up one's cross and to be crucified, a friend. To Talian, who I quote so often because of all the church fathers, he has the facility of saying things in the Christmas and most memorable way. To Talian said, that persecution was God's winnowing fan, which even now cleans the Lord's threshing floor. Persecution would just blow through and blow the chaff away and leave the good grain. So persecution did purify the church. We come to the time of the end of persecution under the emperor Constantine. The church has a new problem, nominalism, because pretty soon it's going to be the thing to become a Christian. But before Constantine, it's not the thing to become a Christian. One is a Christian in the face of very serious threats and even the possibility of death. And then persecution extended the church. And again, to Talian says it in a famous quotation, blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. And over and over again, we read stories like the 40 martyrs of Sebastia, where persecution extends the church. You know, in that story, if you read it already, there were 40 Christians taken out on this lake to suffer and die frozen lake overnight. And they were seeing 40 good martyrs. 40 youth soldiers are Christ. And in the middle of the night, one of them left the lake in the ice and the certain death to go back to the heated Roman bathhouse that was available for anybody who would apostate times. So out on the lake comes the song now 39 good soldiers are Christ. And then according to the story, the jailer who had been watching all of this through the night, rips off his clothes and goes out on the lake. And then again, 40 good soldiers are Christ. So you can see in that story, both the temptation to apostasy and the effect that this had upon people persecution and the way Christians, most Christians, many Christians, spaced it, had a fun the watching world, this case, Roman jailer. Well, persecution did extend the church. I think though we should say something I have not always said at this point in this lecture. And that is, it doesn't always work that way. Reading Samuel Moffitt's history of Christianity in Asia, there were times in Asia, persecution just stayed there. There was no let up. And finally, the church was destroyed. So it is not true that always persecution extends the church. But in the history of the church and the early Roman Empire under God's providence, mercy, persecution did extend the church. As many people came into the church because they saw something in Christians who suffered that they had never seen before and they could never forget it. Like Paul likes back to never forget the stoning of Stephen until it finally breaks through into his mind and heart that God wants him to go the same way. Before we close, let me just say this, we usually think of the history of the early church as the time of persecution in church history. It was a time persecution in church history. But people had said, and I think they're right, that more people have been martyred for Christ in the last 50 years, certainly in this century, perhaps in the last 50 years, than in the first 250 years of the church's history. Now part of that is because there are more questions today. They're all over the world and many places they are being persecuted and martyred. So we should not think that as we think of persecution, this is something that is finished with and will never happen again. We know that it's happening many different places in this world. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us run with perseverance. The race is marked out for us. The question is these cards, the lovelace that Christians or anybody must have in order to be safe in an area of persecution. Those were certainly checked from time to time. Let me read you one. This is what it would sound like. It's more than just a paragraph, but this is a typical lovelace. To the commission chosen to superintendent the sacrifices at the village of Alexander's Isle, from Aurelius Diogenes, 872, with a scar on the right eyebrow. We had to have some little identification there to be sure you're talking about the right person. I have always sacrificed to the gods and now in your presence, in accordance with the edict, I have made sacrifice and poured a libation and for taken of the sacred victims. I request you to certify this below farewell. I Aurelius Diogenes have presented this petition and this man got his lovelace and he would keep it with him in his house if he was charged with being a Christian he could produce it. So I expect they were checked, but again remember it's very sporadic. There would be times of intense persecution when a whole city or a whole province would be subject to this. Depended on the mood of the emperor back in Rome it depended on whether catastrophes were threatening locally but all sorts of things could produce a persecution and then it was important for a person to have the certificate.