Dying for Christ

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church” — Tertullian

In 112 A.D. the Roman governor of Bithynia, part of what is modern-day Turkey, Pliny the Younger, was perplexed and fed up with these pesky Christians who refused to conform or comply with his demands that they bring sacrifices to the other gods apart from their own and bring wine and burn incense to the statue of the emperor, who is, after all, a god-king himself, so he wrote a letter to emperor Trajan to ask for his “divine” guidance in this thorny matter. This vile creed was spreading not only in the cities, but to the villages and farms in the countryside as well. Something had to be done, pronto. To Pliny’s surprise, Trajan recommended that he not kill those Christians outright, but give them a chance to renounce their faith and also that he not accept anonymous denunciations, but insist that those people who accuse others of being members of this seditious sect do so in public. If the Christians renounced their faith and prove it by worshipping the Roman gods, they would be spared.

Yet many Christians refused to repent and paid the ultimate price, for death was their punishment. Pliny described the Christians as stubborn, inflexible, and obstinate, possessed by folly. A folly that made them free.

Ever since people chose to believe in and follow Christ, some of them have been killed for their faith.

In the 3rd century, a North African theologian, Tertullian, living in Carthage, a Phoenician city state on the Mediterranean coast, founded by the Queen Elissa, better known as Dido, becoming an important trade center that spawned the famous general Hannibal, a great military leader who marched his army, including cavalry and African war elephants across the Alps to attack the Romans and win a stunning victory at Cannae, was the first church leader to write his works in Latin, earning him the title: “The father of Latin theology,” wrote the famous line: “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

Until the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 312 A.D., when he is said to have had a vision during the battle of the Milvian bridge in Rome, in which he saw a sign, a cross according to one account and the letters chi and rho, which are the first two letters of the word “Christ” in Greek, according to another account, as well as the words “In Hoc Signo Vinces”, which means “In this sign you will conquer,” Christians were often persecuted for their beliefs.

According to one account Constantine had his soldiers paint the symbol that he saw on their shields and after they won the battle, he credited his victory to the Christian God.

The earliest story of a follower of Jesus who was executed for his faith is that of Stephen, recorded in the Christian Bible in the book of Acts, who was stoned by Jews.

Acts also tells of the execution of James the Greater, so named to distinguish him from the other James, James the Lesser, who was also among Jesus’s twelve disciples, who, on the order of King Herod Agrippa of Judaea, was beheaded.

According to Christian lore, almost all of Jesus’s disciples died horrible deaths. It is almost certain that both Peter and the apostle Paul were killed in Rome, Peter, according to tradition, crucified upside down at a place called the Vatican,

and Paul, beheaded at the site of San Paolo alle Tre Fontane, a church dedicated to him.

Thomas is said to have died in India, speared to death while he was praying on a big hill near Madras,

and Andrew was supposedly crucified on an X-shaped cross, which is today represented on the flag of Scotland.

Initially Christians were outsiders in the Roman Empire. The Romans had a large pantheon of gods and did not like the Christians, who were monotheists, believing in only one God. They refused to make sacrifices to pagan gods or burn incense to the emperor, who was also considered a deity. Since Christians were often unpopular they were regularly reported to Roman authorities.

Their enemies spread many rumors about them. Because they were often persecuted they usually met in secret places like the catacombs of Rome.

These secret meetings made the other Romans, who heard about the rituals and ceremonies that the Christians practiced, very suspicious. Holy Communion especially caused them a great deal of problems and confusion. In this rite, still practiced in Christian churches today, bread and wine (or grape juice) represents or , according to some, changes into Christ’s body and blood. The parishioners then eat and drink the substance to remember Jesus Christ’s sacrifice by dying on the cross for their sins.

The Romans heard that the Christians ate flesh and drank blood. While doing this, they would say, Hoc est corpus meum which means “This is my body.” Romans did not understand the symbolism of the rite and they thought the Christians were performing witchcraft. Cannibalism was too much for the non-Christians in Rome, and they called Christians odium humani generis, “hatred of the human race.” Through the ages, people shortened Hoc est corpus to hocus-pocus. That’s why we associate this expression with the phrase magicians say when they perform magic tricks today.

Around the year 250 A.D., the Romans persecuted Christians all over the empire, intensifying their efforts to exterminate the faith. The most serious persecutions did not take place under Nero, that villainous fiddler who allegedly set fire to the Circus Maximus, eventually burning down ten of Rome’s fourteen districts, and then blaming it on the Christians, but from 284 to 305 A.D, during the reign of a general put into power by his soldiers, a man named Diocletian.

Christians believed that if they were killed for their faith, it guaranteed that they will be saved by Christ and live forever. By dying for the glory of God, they imitated Christ who they believe died for their sins on a cross at Golgotha, a hill near Jerusalem.

Christians preserved the stories of the martyrs who died for their faith so that they can pass them on to others to inspire them, serve as role models, and to pass on their clear moral lessons and edify the faithful.

One of the most important early martyrs was Ignatius, a disciple of the Apostle John and the bishop of Antioch, who was condemned to death because he refused to renounce his Christian faith, who wrote seven important letters to churches, in which he warned against false teachings, while he travelled to Rome, in imitation of the letters that the apostle Paul wrote as he made his way to the center of the Roman Empire. Ignatius urged his fellow Christians not to interfere when he would be thrown to wild animals, famously saying: “Allow me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose means it will be granted me to reach God. I am the wheat of God, and am ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ.”

Around the year 107, in the Flavian amphitheater, better known as the Colosseum, wild beasts, including lions, tore him to pieces. His example inspired other Christians to remain firm in their faith, and today he is venerated as a saint.

Around the year 155, a disciple of the apostle John, and the bishop in the city of Smyrna, modern Izmir in Turkey, Polycarp, a contemporary of Ignatius, refused to denounce Christ despite the threat of torture or death by declaring: “Eighty-six years I have served Christ, and He never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”

He was sentenced to be burnt to death at the stake. During the execution, it is said that the flames did not harm him. The Romans eventually killed Polycarp by thrusting a spear into him. His brave example earned admiration from Christians and non-Christians alike and his death became a symbol of Christian faith and resilience in the face of persecution.

These events were recorded in a document called “The Martyrdom of Polycarp,” a moving account of his arrest, trial and death, which became an important historical record, providing insights into the early Christian church and the experiences of early martyrs.

It inspired many believers to stand firm in their faith, even in the face of persecution. Today, he is venerated as a saint in various Christian traditions, including the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox Churches.

In the year 203, in the city of Carthage, in present-day Tunisia, during the reign of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus, Perpetua and Felicity, two Christian women, were put to death.

Perpetua was a young noblewoman and Felicity was her pregnant slave. Both women, along with several other companions, refused to renounce their faith and offer sacrifices to the Roman gods, leading to their arrest and imprisonment.

Perpetua wrote down her experiences and visions in a diary known as “The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity,” which was widely copied and read. It is perhaps the earliest surviving writing of a Christian woman.

Their families put pressure on them to renounce their faith. However, despite many hardships, the ladies remained steadfast in their Christian convictions and continued to profess their belief in Christ.

While in prison, Felicity gave birth to a son.

The women were sentenced to be thrown to wild animals in the arena as a form of public execution on March 7, 203 AD. In the arena, wild animals including a fierce cow attacked them. The cow threw them to the ground, but they managed to rise and regain their composure.

After the attack by the cow, they were taken to be executed by gladiators. Perpetua, who was still alive after the attack, guided the gladiator’s sword to her own throat to hasten her death. It is said that she died with a confident and resolute expression on her face.

Their strength in the face of violence, and their willingness to endure suffering and death rather than renounce their beliefs, left a profound impression on the witnesses, who were amazed by their courage and commitment to Christ. Their story became widely known and admired in the early Christian community, making them enduring symbols of Christian devotion and sacrifice, inspiring followers of Jesus to this very day.

They are venerated as saints in various Christian traditions and their feast day is celebrated on March 7th. They are often shown together in Christian artwork.

Most of the well-known stories of martyrdom come from the persecutions of the 3rd and early 4th centuries, including saints who are still widely venerated among many Christians today like St. Lawrence, who was executed by being roasted alive on a gridiron,

St. Catherine of Alexandria

who was ripped to pieces by a spiked wheel

and St. Lucy who was stabbed, although later versions of the story say her tormentors gouged her eyes out.

The Romans kept coming up with creative ways to torture and kill Christians, crucifying them, throwing them to wild animals like lions, bears and tigers, so that people can watch them get killed for entertainment, stoning them to death,

disemboweling them, burning them at the stake,

scouring them with shells, killing them by exposing them to the elements,

putting them in a bag with snakes or other dangerous animals and then throwing them into water so that they drown while being bitten or stung, tying them to trees and smearing them with honey that would attract bees and wasps, whose stings might cause their death by anaphylactic shock, burying them alive,

or sealing them up in small, confined spaces without food or water so that they will die a slow, agonizing death, or beheading them, a quicker way to die for the lucky ones.

Nero apparently used Christians as human torches for his garden parties, tying them to stakes and smearing them with tar or pitch and setting them alight while they were still alive.

St. Sebastian, widely depicted in Renaissance art, was killed by arrows.

These martyrs provide later Christians with heroic figures and clear moral examples to follow. Christians have honored them by naming their children after these brave men and women.

When the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the early 4th century, the “age of martyrdom” came to an end, but Christian have been martyrs all over the world, everywhere it has spread, and in every age. As Christianity expanded beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire, some Christians were killed in Scandinavia and central Europe, including in Germany in the 8th century.

Especially beginning in the 16th century, as Europeans travelled to other parts of the world to spread their faith, there were martyrs in the New World, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, including Japan,

and Vietnam.

The Catholic Church has canonized groups of martyrs in Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam, and Uganda. Many Christians also died in the most recent century, for example, in Germany in the Third Reich, like the German theologian and pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who resisted the German National Socialists, Nazis for short, during the Second World War.

After Hitler came to power, Bonhoeffer was active in the Confessing Church, which rejected the Nazi-dominated state church and he became a leader of an underground seminary. Bonhoeffer wrote two influential books, Ethics and, prophetically, The Cost of Discipleship. He did not just preach against their evil deeds, but also assisted Jews to escape Germany and he joined a group of conspirators who tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer’s involvement in the resistance eventually led to the Gestapo, the German secret police, to arrest him in 1943.

A few months before he was arrested, Bonhoeffer wrote that the person who stands fast in difficult times is not the one whose standard is reason or conscience or freedom, but he or she who is willing to make any sacrifice in exclusive allegiance to God.

Even in prison, he continued to inspire and support his fellow detainees. His letters and writings from this time show that he had unwavering faith, was committed to the church and its mission, and that he longed for a Germany free from the Nazis. His time in prison taught him to live a life of trust and faith and to rely on God for all things.

On April 9, 1945, just weeks before Germany’s surrender, the Nazis executed Bonhoeffer by hanging him at the Flossenbürg concentration camp, probably on the command of Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, the Schutzstaffel, a powerful German paramilitary organization that, among other evil endeavours, ran the concentration camps.

Maximilian Kolbe, was a Polish Franciscan monk, who found a new Franciscan monastery near Warsaw known as “Marytown,” which soon became the largest Franciscan house in the world. He also establish a mission in Japan and printed a newspaper there, eventually settling in a house on the outskirts of Nagasaki, which, incidentally, remained standing after the Americans dropped the second atom bomb.

Kolbe returned to Poland and established a radio station from which he preached Catholic piety. He was also very critical of the Nazis in Germany and the atrocities committed by the Communists in Russia. In 1941, the Germans arrested him and send him to the death camp at Auschwitz.

Here, despite prohibitions of prayer, he continued to work as a priest, hearing confessions, praying with inmates, and even holding masses.

One day, one of the men in his barracks escaped. When someone escaped, the Germans selected ten men who they would starve to death in a dungeon, collective punishment. One of the men chosen to die, Francis Gajowniczek, begged for mercy because he had to take care of a wife and two children. Kolbe stepped up and asked to take this man’s place. The Germans let Kolbe, with the other nine, starve to death; he was the last to die, holding the hands of the others as they perished one by one, eventually killed by a lethal injection, praying to the end.

Francis Gajowniczek survived the end of the war and spent many years spreading Kolbe’s story. Pope John Paul II, also a Pole, canonized Maximilian Kolbe in 1982, with Francis Gajowniczek present at the ceremony.

Like Christ, Kolbe was willing to give his life for others.

In the Soviet Union and its satellite states many Christians were persecuted by the Communist regimes, who saw religion as “the opium of the masses” and tried to replace it with atheism.

In recent years, Christians have been killed in such countries as Algeria and Pakistan.

Christians have sometimes also killed each other. Catholics have killed Protestants and Protestants have killed Catholics, like in the St. Bartholomew massacre, which took place in 1572 in France where Catholic authorities attacked French Huguenots, leading to the death of thousands.

The brave young men who stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, on the 6th of June, 1944, as part of the Allied forces’ drive to free Europe from the tyranny of the Nazis, one of the most evil regimes to ever defile the human race, are often held up as the epitome of courage, yet, I will argue that the Christian martyrs were every bit as brave and deserve our respect and admiration just as much.

The stories of the martyrs can continue to inspire us. They are role models for all those who follow Christ. We should remember them, learn about their brave deeds, and pass it on to our children, so that they can remain steadfast in their faith, especially in a world that is growing more hostile to our creed, a world that wants to force uniformity and compliance on us, while we serve a higher Master, and know in our hearts that the law of Gods supersede all others.

Catholics and Orthodox Christians keep many of these stories alive through their system of saints. By dedicating each day of the year to a different saint, believers are reminded of what that person did and they can be inspired to follow in their footsteps. Calvinist Protestants, and perhaps Evangelicals too, do not pass these stories on to their young, which is a gap in their education, and we should rectify it by learning about these martyrs, writing, talking, and making films about them, and teaching our children about these brave Christians whose blood has seeded our Church.

They show us the truth of Tertullian’s belief that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church in the early Christian centuries, as well as in modern times.

Christians must be aware that in order to remain faithful to God, we too might be called to sacrifice our lives for our faith. Let us hope that there will not be more blood required to seed the Church, but that if we must die for our faith, let us trust in God for all things, let us be willing to stand fast, like Bonhoeffer, in exclusive allegiance to God, and let us face it bravely, no matter how horrific it might be, like these blessed men and women who went before us, and who serve as an inspiration and bright, burning lights that show us the way through the dark.

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