Interesting read on early Christian Martyrs

[diverdog]

I found this to be really interesting and inspiring:


.“Martyrs were like the action heroes of the ancient world,” Moss says. “It was like getting your favorite athlete endorsing your favorite brand of soda.”

But how often did Romans force Christians to endure torture or die for their faith? Christianity took roughly 300 years to conquer Rome. The emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 312 and gave Christians religious freedom. Christianity became the official religion of Rome by the end of the fourth century, scholars say.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/30/christ-was-persecuted-but-what-about-christians/?hpt=hp_c1

[Turd_Ferguson]

Perpetua stopped keeping her diary just before she was sent into the arena. No one knows for sure what she felt when she faced her moment of death, but she did write what she expected to see afterward.

She wrote that God gave her a reassuring vision while in prison. In the vision, she saw a great bronze ladder ascending to heaven. At the foot of the ladder was a great serpent surrounded by swords and knives.
Perpetua said she ignored the serpent and climbed the ladder. When she arrived at the top, she saw a great garden and a white-haired man in shepherd’s clothing milking a sheep. He was flanked by thousands of others Christians dressed in white.
“And he raised his head and beheld me and said to me: Welcome child.”
The man gave Perpetua curds from the milk of the sheep, and she said it tasted sweet.
She then wrote:
“And I took it with joined hands and ate it up: and all that stood around said, Amen.”
Centuries later, millions of people who look to Perpetua are still saying amen.



Amen.

[diverdog]

Amen.

Even with her faith she had to be paralyzed by fear. I cannot even begin to fathom how horrible her death was in the arena.

I remember sitting in a Roman amphitheater in France and thinking it was a place of such evil as one could ever imagine. All I wondered was how many people had died for the entertainment of the empire.