Persecution and the age of martyrs
Christians spread through the Roman Empire despite waves of persecution, and the martyrs who die for their faith become the church's first saints.
- The Early Church — Henry Chadwick, Penguin (1993)
- A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2009)
- The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd revised edition) — F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press (2005)
Rome tolerated many religions, but Christians refused to offer sacrifice to the gods or the emperor, which looked like disloyalty and atheism. After a great fire in Rome in 64, Nero blamed the Christians and had many killed; the historian Tacitus records that some were burned as human torches. For two centuries persecution was mostly local and sporadic, but it could be lethal, as for Perpetua and Felicity, killed in the arena at Carthage in 203.
- The Early Church — Henry Chadwick, Penguin (1993)
- A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2009)
Empire-wide persecutions came under Decius in 250 and above all the “Great Persecution” of Diocletian from 303, when churches were destroyed and scriptures burned. Yet the church kept growing, through its care for the poor and sick, its tight-knit communities and the witness of the martyrs. “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,” said the North African writer Tertullian, in a phrase that is still quoted. In 311 the emperor Galerius finally issued an edict of toleration.
- The Early Church — Henry Chadwick, Penguin (1993)
- The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd revised edition) — F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press (2005)
Why it matters today
The martyrs are woven into Catholic life: their names are read in the Mass, churches are built over their relics, and many Catholics are named after them. The idea that faith may cost everything still resonates, especially where Christians are persecuted today, from Nigeria to the Middle East.