where we've come from, and then at that point we will proceed on to today's lesson. So when we started out a few weeks ago, you might recall we discussed the condition of the early church, how they were initially regarded as part of Judaism, at least by the state, and so as such they were persecuted by the Jews who saw them as a dissenting sect, but they were not persecuted by the state who regarded them as Jewish people and therefore had enjoyed a certain measure of protection because Judaism was a protected religion at that time. So we moved there to the ensuing decades and century in which we saw a certain amount of heresy arise within the church. We talked about the Gnostics and that whole business. We read various books of the Bible that deal with the response of the church to the teaching of the Gnostics and the Donatists and to the Martinists and these types of folks. Then we moved in and we started talking about the great apologists and early teachers of the Christian faith. We talked about Origen and Tertullian and some others and the various viewpoints that they brought to bear and how it was that they fought against some of these heresies. And so today, we're going to alter our course slightly. We're going to stay in the same time period as we were, but we are going to focus, instead of the theological issues, today we are going to talk about some true heroes. And when we think about the heroes of the Christian faith, we look back in the Bible and we consider, for example, the example given by Daniel. Daniel, what happened to him? He was cast into the den of lions and he went in there bravely to face those lions and would rather face the lions than recant and be unfaithful to God. And so that is what happened to him. He was cast into the den of lions. But we also know that the Lord shut the mouth of the lions and that Daniel was spared. And so when Daniel was released the next day, he was unscathed and the lions hadn't harmed him and all was well. Such, however, was not the decree of providence for many that came in the early church. Those people also faced lions and bears and wolves and leopards and bulls and boars and many other dangers, and many of them died for the faiths. Many times we don't know who these people were. History doesn't always record the names of these heroes, but they are heroes nonetheless. We are fortunate today in that some of this information was captured by various sources, including Roman historians, including Jewish historians, including some of these people themselves who left written accounts of what had happened to them. And so we'll be looking into that today. And I think that you will find, as I find, these stories are simply fascinating. But before we get to them, Let's talk a little bit about why it is that people had to stand up for their faith and why it was that Christians were persecuted. And let's start out, of course, with that well-known persecutor of Christians, Nero. And Nero is somebody who we've talked about a little bit in the past. And when you think about Nero, just go over a couple of key dates again. He became emperor in 54 AD. When he initially came to power, he was pretty well received. But it didn't take long before that power went to his head and he became increasingly tyrannical. And the way that he behaved was very erratic. We see him doing things that no sane person would do. And it's obvious that there's really no check to his craziness here. He starts doing things that are, by any account, horrific. And so he persecuted Christians, as we said before. It was not only Christians that he persecuted. He was an equal opportunity persecutor. But when we think about Nero, what do you think about besides the Christians being persecuted? What is Nero well known for? Isn't there a story about Nero playing his violin or his fiddle when Rome burned, right? And so as the story goes, Nero actually started the fire because he had grandiose ideas of how he wanted to rebuild the city. And so he actually burned down the city so he could rebuild. And while this happened, he was playing his violin. Well, I don't know that that's the case. From the histories that I've read, that's probably not the case. I think that it seems likely that the fire actually started from some unintentional cause. It was probably not arson. Don't really know that, but it was probably not the fault of Nero. But Nero was so crazy and he was known for doing such crazy things that people did in fact suspect him. In fact, the suspicion of Nero was very strong in many quarters. And so he started to look around to say, okay, I'm trying to defend myself here. Nobody's believing me. Who else can I blame? He started looking for, you know, what we might do sometimes if we're blamed for things. We look for somebody else to blame, unfortunately. But this is what Nero did, and unfortunately when he did it, it had fatal consequences. So Nero blamed the Christians. Why would you blame the Christians of all people? It was a very small movement at that time in terms of population of the Roman Empire, very, very small. Why Christians? And that's something that gave me pause as I was doing some research for this, but I think we need to realize that at that time the Christian church was small, and it was looked down upon. It was the members of the church were often slaves, or they were members of the lower runs of society in many cases. And so the people who were Christians were looked down upon. Who did the Romans admire? They admired the Greeks, they admired the Greek philosophers, and they Many of them followed the traditional Roman gods, didn't necessarily believe in them, but they were traditionalists and they tried to follow the example given by these great Greek philosophers whom they admired. So, looking down upon the Christians was one issue. They were unpopular and therefore easy targets. Another key issue here is, according to the history anyway that I've read, the quarters of Rome that did not burn, which was about 30% of the city did not burn, in those quarters there lived a high number of Christians and Jews. And so, of those two, Christians were probably the easier targets. And so, whom did he blame? He blamed the Christians. And so once he found this scapegoat, he started mercilessly persecuting them. We talked in the past about how he would tie them to stakes, burn them alive, and set them up as human torches, and dress them in the furs of animals, and then set the, dress them in the furs of, or the cloaks of sheep, and then he would set the animals upon them, wild animals upon them. And so they were mercilessly tortured And Nero was eventually deposed in the year 68 AD, there was a rebellion, he was deposed, he committed suicide, and probably if he hadn't committed suicide, there were enough other people who were willing to help him along in his transition to the next world. And so he died by his own hands. Though it seems that the laws that he enacted against the Christians were not rescinded, this was a period of great turmoil. So this persecution was followed by a time in which there were four emperors in fast succession. So Christians enjoyed a short reprieve from these persecutions. By the way, a lot of our material today will be taken from a couple of different sources. One of those key sources will be a book called The Story of Christianity, Volume 1, The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation by Justo Gonzalez. Great book, very informative on all these topics. So, a number of emperors came after Nero, And one of those emperors was Titus, and after Titus came Domitian. And you might have heard of the name of Domitian. I remember watching some of these early period movies that you can watch that dealt with Christian persecution, and the name Domitian comes up as somebody who, at least the writers of these movies, believed to be a great persecutor of Christians at the time. He probably was. He was emperor from AD 81 to 96. And the thing about Domitian, and we're going to see this with many of the subsequent emperors, is that he sought to restore the Roman traditions. So he regarded Rome, and we see Rome start to backslide. We see the glory of the empire throughout this time period and these ensuing decades and centuries start to start to fall, and Domitian, like some of his successors, wished to reinstate and to bring back the traditional Roman gods and the traditional Roman traditions, and so therefore, what are you going to do? There were certain people who would not go along with this idea, and of course, those people were the Christians and the Jews. And so, he persecuted both of these groups. And as we read the Scriptures, we read about the apostles praying for those in authority, even though they were being persecuted at the time, sometimes in prison. By the time we get to the book of Revelation, the Apostle John writes about the empire of Rome in a very negative light and speaks to a great extent about the persecution that they visited upon the church. So I'm going to take a moment here and read a couple of passages that speak to this period of persecution. I'm going to be looking at the book of Revelation and we will start out in Revelation 1 verse 9 and then we'll just read a few other similar texts so we can get a flavor of what's going on here. I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and testimony of Jesus. So in other words, John is exiled to Patmos, right? So we think a lot of us know that story. But you can see the theme of this persecution coming out in the book of Revelation here. I'm going to keep reading. Now, chapter two, verse nine. And in this point, he's writing to the church in Smyrna. Smyrna is a place where some of these famous church fathers came from, and we talked about that last week. And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write the words of the first and the last who died and came to life. I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich and the slander. of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are of the synagogue of Satan." So here this speaks a bit more to the persecution of those who say they are Jews. But at any rate, he talks about this tribulation that these people are suffering. And then it goes on to say, "'Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested And so it goes on about this tribulation that they will endure. So here we see this tribulation being visited upon these people. Let's keep looking here. Now I'm going to turn to chapter 13. And this is the vision of this first beast. And I saw a beast rising out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. So there's much here that we could unpack in terms of the symbolism that's a little bit beyond our scope today. But what we do know is that the temporal powers of the world are being described at this point as these horrible beasts, these frightening beasts of great power. And so this is a further testament to the persecution that the people endured. Moving on, looking at verse 10. If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes. If anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword he must be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and the faith of the saints." So, it is written in a period of great tribulation, persecution, and these people are being encouraged in this time, okay? Finally here, we'll wait a little bit until we get to the next one. just a point of introduction. Next he speaks of Rome as the great harlot drunk with the blood of the saints and martyrs. And I'm gonna turn now to chapter 17 and read a couple of those verses, verses one and six. Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bulls came and said to me, come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters. And then I'm going to Switch over to verse 6, and I saw a woman drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. So here again, the temporal powers of the world, the empire of Rome and other empires are being identified as those who persecute the church, and at this point, have drunk the blood of the saints and the martyrs. And if you think that is just meant symbolically, we're going to get into now a little bit more detail about what actually happened to some of these people. So when Domitian started his reign, we see him attempting, like some of these other emperors, to restore the Roman tradition and restore the greatness of Rome. And so this was one of the reasons why he executed these great persecutions against the church. Within time, Domitian became increasingly tyrannical, and he came to a bad end, as so many of these folks did. He ended up being murdered in his own palace. At that point, the Roman Senate decreed that his name be removed from all records so that there would be absolutely no memory of him. Obviously, he didn't succeed, because we still know him today. But such, he had fallen into disfavor. but he is believed by surviving documents as being a madman. After this point, again, as with Nero, Christians had a period of relative peace. So now we're going to move on from Domitian to the Emperor of Trajan. Trajan is kind of known for one particular thing. He's known for a dialogue and a series of writings that he had exchanged with a certain governor. And this governor was, the name of the governor was Pliny the Younger, and he was a governor in Bithynia, hopefully I'm saying that name right, a city which is in modern day Turkey. Pliny the Younger becomes governor, and within his realm, he starts encountering all these Christians. And he knows that Christians, there's been an edict against Christians. He knows that Christianity is not a religion that is permitted. And again, the reason why Christianity was in such disfavor with Rome was not only because Christians worshipped a different god. But if you think about it, what do we continually see about the Christians and the Jews in their response to the Roman attempts to force them to worship the gods of Rome? Denial, right? The Christians and the Jews refused to worship the traditional gods of Rome. So for the Romans, it was okay if you were the worshipper of this tradition or that god or this god. you could keep doing that, and they permitted that, as long as you went along with worshiping their gods, too. So if you would go and make sacrifices to the traditional Roman gods, if you would make sacrifices to the spirit of the emperor, and burn incense to his honor and in his name, then you could do pretty much anything you wanted as far as Rome was concerned. But the Christians, of course, would not do that. And because of this and because of other things, We talked in the past about how different they were in their lifestyle. They were looked upon with disfavor, and they were looked at sometimes as even traitors to the state, because the state, you know, in our day and age, we live in a very pluralistic society. Of course, in those times, people believed in many gods, but everybody believed in God of some sort, or most people did. And so if you did not support the god of the state, then you were regarded as not supporting the emperor and not supporting the state. And so this was treason in the eyes of many Romans. So Pliny comes along and he says, I've got all these Christians, what am I supposed to do with them? And he doesn't know, so he appeals to Trajan. He says, Trajan, what do I do with these people? And Trajan, writes back and he says, look, they're really not worth wasting the empire's resources upon. Don't bother these people. Don't go hunting them down. But if you do come across them, if somebody is charged as Christian, go ahead and try them. Give them an opportunity to recant and to reject their God. And if they do that, then you are to let them go and to not bother them anymore. But if they don't recant, then you are to punish them. So OK, this is what Pliny the Younger Pliny the Younger does, and Pliny is kind of confused by this whole business, because he's looking at these Christians, and he knows that they're in disfavor, and he's trying to figure out why. So he has some taken in, and he questions them, and the responses that they give him, he's just not finding anything that he can find so wrong. And so that is what brought this up, this correspondence. He said, I've tried these people, He brought in a couple of Christian ministers and actually tortured them to the point where, you know, he was sure he was getting the straight scoop from them, but he said, I'm just not finding anything to charge these people with. What do I do? So Trajan responds in the way that he did, and that had far-reaching effects. So this policy of, hey, don't go after them specifically, but if you do come across them, punish them if they refuse to recant. That becomes the policy of the state from here on throughout the ensuing decades, and was followed by subsequent rulers as well. So again, this is Trajan's reign took place in the years 98 through 117 AD. Okay. So now we are moving on from Trajan to Marcus Aurelius. There were rulers in between these emperors, but we are really focusing in on those rulers who had a name for persecuting Christians. Marcus Aurelius became emperor in 161 AD, so we've moved forward in time a bit. Now Marcus Aurelius was very unlike Nero and some of these other guys who were known to be mad. Marcus Aurelius was something of an intellectual, and unlike Nero, who just fancied himself to be an intellectual, Marcus Aurelius really was an intellectual. And he has written works which survive to this day, and you can actually go on Amazon, download them on your Kindle. There's a famous work that he did called Meditations, And this is a classical piece of literature. I'm not recommending it to you, but I'm just saying that he did write it. It is known yet today. And it is available, 4.5 stars on Amazon. Within this work, he describes Christians as obstinate. So Marcus Aurelius goes on to say and to praise stoicism and bravery in the face of death, unless you are just being obstinate like those Christians. There are those who say Marcus Aurelius didn't really say that, that those words were inserted by somebody who came later, who just read that into the passage and then added to that. I don't know if that's the case or not. What we do know is that Christians were known for the refusal to recant. So this Marcus Aurelius was, in a sense, like some of his predecessors, in that he was a traditionalist, and he really wanted to restore the glory of Rome, which again, for decades now, had really been sliding. And we think about what happened with the, we've all seen stories of the Romans fighting against the tribes of Gaul and the various Germanic tribes that eventually sacked the city, right? And so they were an ever-present threat. There were other catastrophes that were occurring. There were problems with the economy that the empire was suffering from. We can all relate to that to some small extent. And so Marcus Aurelius looks at this, and he's not so much looking at it for a scapegoat as to determine the reason for these declines and these setbacks, and he looks at the decline of the worship of the Roman gods as being a key cause of this backsliding. And so he wants to bring the traditional Roman gods back and in order to make this happen, again, he persecuted those who would not fall in line So it looks like he believed that the Christians were to blame for many calamities that had occurred because they had rejected the gods of Rome. His persecution of Christians resulted in the famous deaths, and many famous deaths, including that perhaps most famous martyr we call Justin Martyr, who was called martyr because he was martyred. After this, Marcus Aurelius died, and he was succeeded by somebody else named Commodus, who did not actively persecute the Christians. So as sometimes happened when there was a change in leadership, the Christians had something of a reprieve until the advent of the ruler Septimius Severus. So Severus comes to rule in 193 AD, and early in his reign, he did not persecute the Christians. But he came to power at a time of civil war. I think we've all seen these movies and read these stories about all the different civil wars that took place in the Roman Empire, and such was the case during the ascent of Septimius Severus. He came to the throne at a time of civil war. And so he wanted to unify the empire, and he's looking for a way to do that. And so what he came up with was an attempt to unify the empire under the Roman god Sol Invictus, which is, in English, the unconquered sun. A sun god. Now, this sun god had not been one of the major Roman gods. it was not perhaps the most famous of the gods that the people worshipped at the time, but I think his idea was that people could continue to worship all of these different gods, but he could try to align them all under this sun god, and so the sun god became the patron god of soldiers, among others. So you can imagine what happened in response to this attempt at syncretism, at this attempt to say, hey, you can worship your other gods, but let's all unite under the sun god. Who is going to go along with this and who is not going to go along with this? Who's not going to go along with this, of course, is, again, the Christians and the Jews, of course. So, as happened in the past, the Christians were persecuted. Jews and Christians refused to submit to this God and Severus determined to stop the spread of those two religions with a formal edict which he issued in the year 202 AD. So those who refused to recant were consequently outlawed upon pain of death. So up to this point, there was a lot of persecution of Christians sporadically throughout the empire by different rulers for different reasons. At this point, the focus moves not only from those who are Christians, but really goes to focus on those who convert from another faith to Christianity, okay? And these people become the focus point of this particular persecution. So this resulted, of course, in the focus persecution of converts and their teachers. And it's at this time that Irenaeus, remember Irenaeus? We talked about him a couple weeks ago. It's at this time that Irenaeus is martyred. And remember Origen? We talked about his Origen's father who was imprisoned and martyred. And Origen wanted to go be a martyr too, but his mom hit his pants, or his mom hit his clothes, and so he couldn't leave home. Can't leave home to be a martyr without your clothes. Well, that's when this happened. And this happened in the city of Alexandria. So we've talked about some of these famous examples of Origen's father and of Irenaeus, but there's another story that I hadn't been acquainted with, which I'd like to share with you today. A lot of times when we think about these heroes of the faith, they are Men like Daniel, right? The prophets who stand up to evil rulers. But at this time, those who are the focus objects of this persecution are converts and they're teachers. So the particular group that we're gonna discuss today came from the city of Carthage. And if you know anything about history, you'll recognize that name of Carthage as being a very, very important city. It was a rival to Rome for many years. It was an important part of the Roman Empire. It is in Northern Africa, near current-day Tunis, okay? Who are these martyrs? There were five of them. Some of them were women. One of them was a woman with a young child who was still nursing. Her name was Perpetua. Another one was a slave. Her name was Felicitas. Felicitas was pregnant with a child. In addition to these two, there were three others, some of them teens, some of them somewhat older, and these three others were men. This group was found to have converted to Christianity. They are a very disparate group. Perpetua was an upper-class Roman woman, a wealthy woman. Felicitas was her slave. Perpetua's brother was also a recent convert, although he doesn't seem to have been included in this group, if I understand this correctly. Perpetua was being guided, as was custom, by a Christian education teacher, and this teacher was not charged in this particular incident. So these catechumens, as we call them, these people that were preparing to join the church, were charged with their conversion. But this teacher, his name was Satyrus, Satyrus was not charged. But upon seeing his catechumens charged, he volunteered himself to the Roman authorities. It's amazing the bravery of these people, right? We think about the horrors of torture that people and the persecution that people endured, and all we might think about, perhaps, is how we would perhaps escape from such torture and martyrdom. But this person actually, though he was not included in this group, he volunteered himself. He didn't want his catechumens to go without him. He was a good shepherd. When the group was arrested, Perpetua's father was not a Christian. He found out about this and he begged his daughter, please, recant your faith. Abandon Christ so that you can live. Think about me, I'm old. Think about your child, whom you're still nursing. What's gonna happen to your child? And you can put yourself in the position of these people and think about how truly horrific this was for them. I can't imagine having my wife, We had a child at that age that she would undergo such a thing. So her father tried to save her life and persuade her to recant multiple times. It didn't work. She remained faithful. Finally, when her father was attempting to get her to recant, she was sitting at a table, and she looked to a water jug which was sitting at the table. And she said, you see that over there? What is the name of this object? He said, well, this is a water jug. And she said, It's a water jug. That's its name. That's what it is. I am a Christian. That is my name. You can say what you want, but that's who and what I am. You can't call me by any other name. And so that was kind of the end of that discussion. Felicitas was pregnant, as we said, and she was deeply afraid. When I first read this, I thought Felicitas would be afraid because she was going to undergo this torture and potential martyrdom. But her fear had little to do with these things, and rather to do with the fact that she was concerned because of certain Roman law, which dictated that if a woman was pregnant while she was in prison, she was to remain in that prison until she gave birth, and then the woman could be thrown to the lions and the child would not. So she was concerned that her her friends and her brothers and sisters in Christ would undergo this ordeal as Christians, and that she would be thrown in a different prison and simply executed as a common criminal with other criminals. She didn't want this to happen. So she prayed, and the group all got together and prayed fervently that Felicitas would remain with them, and that she would undergo this ordeal together with them. Not long after this, Felicitas actually went into labor, and she conceived a daughter. And this was in her eighth month. Her daughter was adopted by a woman in the church, in their church. So this little girl was taken care of. And Felicitas was free to remain with her friends. So while this is all going on, the Roman guards are watching this, and they're seeing her going to labor pains. and they are as sometimes callous Roman warriors were, they kind of mocked her, you know, and they said, you think you're going through a hard time now, just wait until you get into the arena. Hard to imagine a worse bedside manner. Well, her response was one for the history books. She said, right now I'm suffering in my pains of labor, but when I'm in that arena, It won't just be I who is suffering. There will be another who will be suffering for me and with me because I am suffering for him. And so this was a tremendous testimony to Christ and to the bravery of these early Christians. Think about this. This is not somebody who's been a Christian for many years and has become strong in the faith and knows a lot about theology. This is a young girl, okay, who just converted and just gave birth. And you can imagine the state of mind that she must have been in to begin with. So the group is thrown into prison. The Romans at that time, not unlike many people today, were very superstitious people. And rumors went around that they had some sort of, these Christians had some sort of special power that would enable them to escape from the prison. When I read that, I had to think about the biblical account of Paul, right, and of Barnabas and the others who had escaped prison and were freed by the angel. But at any rate, these Romans came to think that that was a significant threat. So the Roman Tribune, being thus appraised by his soldiers, decided to throw them in a heavily guarded prison with the worst, this was like maximum security. He throws them into maximum security prison, which is the worst place to be. So in they go to this horrible prison, or dungeon, and as you can imagine, they were suffering, it was crowded, it was hot, it was nasty, they didn't have the basic needs taken care of, and so they were really suffering. To the extent that one of their number actually died in prison, and this was a young man. So Perpetua comes before the Roman Tribune and says, and you gotta admire her pluck and her courage to stand up in front of a Roman tribune, this young woman, but she was an upper-class Roman woman, was probably used to speaking with people like that, and she said, listen, you want us to appear in the arena. And by the way, the day they were supposed to go to the arena, that was a special holiday that was being celebrated to mark the birthday of the son of the emperor. She says, you want us to go into that arena. How is it going to look for you if we go in there and we can barely stand? How is it going to look for you if we can't even show up because we've died in imprisonment? So the Tribune, recognizing the logic in all of this, allowed, relented, it allowed them to be taken into a more comfortable prison where they could They had better food, they had better living conditions, I think they had the ability to meet with people, people could come in and visit them, and so things went better for a while. And it was during this time that Perpetua and some of these others experienced these special dreams. And in this dream, in some of these dreams, Perpetua came to see a number of things which she accepted as a vision. She believed that she would be martyred. She saw herself approaching a ladder that went up to heaven, and she was being encouraged to go up to that ladder. But where the ladder was set, there was a serpent that was poised as to strike her, and the person ascending the ladder said to beware of the serpent. But in her dream, the serpent seemed to be afraid of her. So she was able to surpass the serpent and ascend onto this ladder. She came to believe that this meant that whatever salvation she would have would not be in this world. She would be called, as others were before her, to go up into heaven. And that was her destination. She had other dreams as well. In one such dream, she was in the arena, and she was facing not an animal, but a man. And in this dream, she came to understand that she would be facing the devil himself. She was not the only one to have such dreams during this imprisonment. Their leader, Satyrus, also had certain dreams, and so did some of these other members of this group. But at any rate, they came to believe very strongly that they would in fact be martyred, and these dreams gave them a certain amount of courage and tenacity as they went through this. The day before this ordeal, The group was given a last meal. You might have heard that it's customary in prison, those who are going to be executed to get this last meal. Sometimes they can say what they want to eat for the last meal, and so it was at the time of Rome. People could enjoy a special final meal before they were executed. And so this group of cadcumens and their teacher sat together and had a last supper in which they rejoiced and they encouraged one another and they broke bread for the last time. But this all came at a price, because while they were eating their last meal, the populace was invited to come in to observe them. And so, as you can imagine, some of these people doing, they came in to mock those, not to comfort, but to mock those who were about to be executed, and to laugh at them. And so the group sat there for a while, and they just endured this while they had their last meal. And finally, their leader, Satra, stood up. to the person who was mocking them and said, how dare you mock us? Isn't tomorrow enough for us? Today you are a friend, tomorrow you are an enemy. And he said, mark these faces well, remember these faces, so on that day you will recognize them. Well, this was sort of a turn of the phrase, on that day. This meant on the day of their execution, but it also meant on the day of judgment, the final judgment. People would be tried for this, and on that day he's saying, mark our faces because we will be watching you then. And so there were enough people in that crowd that knew enough of what was being stated that they were shaken by this whole ordeal. So they came in to mock and to tease, but the group left and they were shaken. And some of them eventually converted to Christianity themselves through this witness. So as you can imagine, on a day like this, this special games day in the arena, what did the people expect to see? What did the Romans expect to parade around these people? They expected to parade a group of terrified young people whom they could mock and then would cower on their knees as they were killed and give them some good sport. But instead of this, Perpetua and the others walked into the arena singing hymns Can you imagine? They walked into the arena singing hymns and warning the spectators about the final judgment that would come to them. So they had not been cowed into submission, as it were. They were very brave in this face of adversity. This is not what people expected to see. When this was going on, they signed to the procurator, the Roman procurator, what you're going to now do to us. will be visited upon you." So on it went. The first three to be killed were the three males of the group. They were sent to the arena first, and they were killed by leopards, bears, and wild boars. And such was the ferocity of these animals that at least one of the animal handlers was killed during the process. Again, I'm reminded of the time that the person feeding that fiery furnace in that Old Testament account was actually killed by the heated furnace. In this case, one of the animal handlers was killed by the ferocity of the animal that he was failing to adequately handle. So the men were killed. After this came the women. These two young women, one with an infant child, both with infant children, they were stripped, they were draped over with nets, and pulled around the arena so that the crowd could see this and jeer and be spectators to this event. Well, such was the horrific treatment of these women that even that crowd, it was too much for them. So they started to jeer and to complain about the way these women were being treated. So the girls were taken out, they were properly dressed, and they were sent back into the arena to face the beasts. At this point, the women were attacked by a bull. at least perpetual was. She was attacked by this bull, and if any of you have seen a cow or a bull in close up and in person, you know what big powerful animals they were. I'm reminded of my grandfather was a dairy farmer. One day, one of his bulls got out of control. He was unloading it from a truck, and it somehow broke free and came down, was on top of him, was trying to gore him with his horns. The bull horns had been shorn, So it didn't have its horns anymore. So it thought it was goring my grandfather, but didn't have its horns anymore. So thanks to that fact and the fact that my grandfather's dog distracted the bull long enough for him to get away, he was able to escape and were able to sit here and have this conversation. But I can just about imagine how terrifying that must have been. Well, this animal had not been shorn of its horns. And so it lifted up, it struck Perpetua, and she was thrown into the air. She came down again, having been gored and having been thrown into the air, but she was still alive. And when this occurred, her hair came loose. Loose hair was a sign at the time of mourning. So women would wear their hair loose, apparently, if they were in mourning. But for her, this was a day of triumph and victory, and she didn't want to be regarded in that light, so she stopped. She had the presence of mind to fix her hair. after being gored by a bull, this young mother of an infant child. Hard to imagine. So she fixes her hair. She goes back to some fellow Christians who were watching at the gate and said, for me, it's over. This tribulation is coming to an end. And she encouraged those people to stand fast in the faith. She goes back into the arena. And having been injured by this animal, she's tied to a stake, and the Roman soldier came along and ended her life with his sword. And so at this point, Perpetua, Felicitas, Satyrus, and the rest of these catechumens lay dead in the floor of the arena. And testament to their bravery and their witness to Christ, one of the Roman guards who had overseen them actually converted and became a Christian. Later, a church was built over the graves of these martyrs. And not long after this, the persecution diminished and the Edict of Severus was not broadly enforced throughout the empire. During the next 50 years, multiple rulers would come and go, and persecutions against Christians was not actively pursued. There were many converts, and the church grew rapidly, not only among the lower classes, which had been common, but among the upper classes as well. Finally, moving on now to Decius. Decius came to power in 249 AD, so we've gone forward in time a bit. His ultimate goal, again, like many of the others, was to convert or to bring back to Rome her ancient glory. At this time, the barbarians beyond the borders were becoming more and more of a threat. The economy is poor, as we were saying. The ancient traditions of the Romans were being abandoned. Decius determined that Rome must return to its gods, and he believed that the abandonment of these gods was the source of the decline of the empires. It's a very familiar story, is it not? We've read that about the others as well, some of these others as well. To this end, there was a vast and universal campaign for the restoration of the traditional gods of Rome, and those who refused to worship these gods were considered guilty of treason. At that time, to show that you were a member of good standing of the empire, if you made a sacrifice to the emperor, or to these gods, you would be given a certificate. If you didn't have a certificate, that meant that you were a traitor. And so that's gonna play into something that we're gonna get into a couple of minutes, but just bear that in mind. At this point, bear in mind now, this is 249 A.D., this is decades after, long after the events that we just described. Christians had enjoyed peace for a long time, and as such, many were taken unawares and unprepared for this persecution that came under Decius, and so there were those that recanted. But many also stood firm. So we don't have a lot of time left. It's 20 after. If I can take just a couple of moments here and go beyond my time, I would like to share just a few other things with you because this is kind of the last time that we're going to get to talk about this for a while. Next week, in fact, Fred Steele will be talking about a different topic, and we will hopefully come back to this in the course of time. But wrapping up now, Let's talk a little bit more about the persecution of the state by Decius. Under this campaign, the goal was conversion, not death. Torture was applied to those who endured. Torture was applied, and those who endured were known as confessors. So it became quite something. If you had the title of confessor, that was a title that received a lot of respect within the church. So there were many people that had endured this persecution, that had survived it, because again, death was not the goal. He didn't want to create martyrs. He wanted to create apostates. And he wanted to convert people. So these confessors, really had a special position within the church. Eventually, Decius was succeeded, AD 251, by Gallus and Valerian. Under these rulers, persecution continued somewhat, but later experienced another period of peace. So, we talked about the fact that these events caught some people unawares, and it's caught some Christians unprepared. And so, there were those who stood firm in the faith, and that there were others who lapsed and who recanted. Some of these people worshiped the emperor, some of these people offered incense, and some of them simply purchased falsified records that showed that they had done these things, although they really hadn't. So what do you do with all these people? What do you do? I mean, the Christian church is all about forgiveness, is it not? Repentance, forgiveness, living a new and godly life, These are people who failed the greatest of tests. What do you do? What do you say when somebody abandons Christ? What if you were somebody like the family member of Perpetua or Felicitas or some of these other people you've just seen, your wife, your daughter, your family member, your friend, who endured these terrible persecutions Is Sari going to cut it? Hard to say. So there was a big question about, this became a crisis of the time, what do we do with these lapsed? There were differing views. One person who took one position was named Cyprian. Cyprian was a bishop of Carthage, where some of these things had taken place. He was an admirer of Tertullian. Cyprian actually fled the persecution, and he maintained good communication through his church with correspondents with them. So there were a lot of people that looked at Cyprian and said, you abandoned the faith. And so his standing within the church was diminished, although he was a bishop. There were many that said, the confessors should be taken the authority to make decisions as to what to do at this critical time. Ultimately, Cyprian did himself become a martyr, and so his valor and his bravery in the face of these trials, he was proven once and for all. But something of a schism occurred within the Church of Carthage and within neighboring churches, and so a synod was called to deal with this. the action of the confessors undermined the unity that the church had had of those confessors who wanted to take this authority upon themselves to make these decisions. So the Synod said, no, the confessors will not be making this decision. Rather, the church authorities, properly instated authorities, will be making this decision. So ultimately, it was decided by the Synod that Those who had purchased certificates without actually having sacrificed would be immediately readmitted to the church. Those who had sacrificed would be readmitted only on their deathbeds or when given a new opportunity to prove the sincerity of their faith during persecution. Those who showed no repentance would not be readmitted at all, of course. And, of course, the governance of these actions would be undertaken by the bishops. So Cyprian understood the church to be the body of Christ, outside of which there was no salvation, and declared no one can have God as father who does not have the church as his mother. I had always thought that that came from Augustine, but apparently that came from Cyprian. But Cyprian disliked the idea of admitting the lapsed too easily, because idolaters and apostates had no place in the church as he saw things. So as we wrap it up here, And I'll take just a couple more minutes. I want us to leave you with a couple of thoughts. Again, this idea of what do you do with these lapsed, and is sorry gonna cut it? And the answer being, well, not always. You have to be truly sincere in your faith, you have to be truly sincere in your conversion, and for those people who denied Christ and who sacrificed to the emperor, and to other gods, they were dealt with as we have discussed. This whole notion of a simple repentance, and I'm sorry, not being enough, And while I say this, I also have to make the point that repentance is more about just saying that you're sorry, of course, it's leading a new and godly life, of course, and it's shorting away from your sins. But these people had kind of missed that opportunity, or so it was seen, right? They had had their opportunity to prove their faith, and they had rejected Christ. Ultimately, this is one of the factors that led to the doctrine of penance. Those of you who have Roman Catholic background might understand a little bit about penance, the whole doctrine of penance. What do you do in the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church today? How do you exercise penance? Well, first the priest greets you and you pray in the sign of the cross and he invites you to trust in God. You confess your sins. That's not the end. The priest gives a penance to be performed. You don't just say you're repenting, you have to do something now. That is the point that we're about to make. Do you see how this all ties together? This is coming from a background where people were being persecuted and they lapsed. And they rejected Christ consequently. And so these are grievous issues. And this whole notion of penance comes into being at that time. you don't just say you're sorry, you don't just repent as it were. To prove the sincerity of your repentance, you have to do something. Much later, the 16th century came around, and there was a rediscovering of the doctrines of salvation by faith through grace, right, which flew in the face of this idea of penance. but I want us to understand where this notion of penance came from and why it would have been seen as important and perhaps why it's seen as important today. There are reasons for this. Later, penance was not seen to be sufficient. And so, in addition to penance, there was the doctrine of indulgences in which the implication, the idea that sins could not be simply forgiven through repentance or that punishment for these sins must be some way borne by the sinner, so comes the doctrine of indulgence. And we won't go into all of that, but I just want to leave you with this. You get the idea. the ordeal that the early church was facing, why some of these doctrines came into being, why it would have made sense for them, and how that all tied into the 16th century Reformation, and why it is that we're sitting today here at Falls Presbyterian Church with our focus on the doctrines of grace and our identification with the Reformation. So I hope that was fascinating for you as it was for me. So concludes our current discussion about the ancient church. Our topic was to be the first 500 years. We've made it through about 250. So Lord willing, we will come back to this topic at some point. For now, thank you for being here, and let's close with prayer.