Lecture 8: Forms of Witness—martyrdom and
apologetic
circa 165; his trial before the Roman prefect was recorded
and is extant. When the prefect orders him a final time to offer
sacrifice to the gods, Justin refuses, saying, “Through prayer
we can be saved on account of our Lord Jesus Christ.”• Evidence also exists for the arrest, imprisonment, and execution of
relatively unknown Christians.
o A letter from the churches of Vienne and Lyons attests—shortly
after the event—to the suffering and death of a considerable
number of Christians in Gaul under Marcus Aurelius in 178.o Later in the 2nd century, the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs
likewise provides evidence of North African martyrs.o The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity is an account, close
to the events, of the imprisonment and death of Christians in
North Africa in 203.• The most passionate statement concerning the ideal of martyrdom
is found in Origen of Alexandria’s Exhortation to Martyrdom in
235: The death of the martyr is the closest possible conformity to
the witness of Christ. Origen speaks of the inducements to turn
away from the pain of suffering and says, “if turning from all of
these we give ourselves entirely to God ... with a view to sharing
union with his only begotten son and those who have a share in
him, then we can say that we have filled up the measure of bearing
witness” (3.11).Apologetic Literature
• A second response to persecution is the composition of apologetic
literature. Such literature also had its roots in Judaism and in the
New Testament.• Apologetic literature arose among Diaspora Jews, such as Philo and
Josephus, who responded to anti-Semitic charges of misanthropy
with histories and philosophical treatises that demonstrated that the
Jewish Law and manner of life were actually philanthropic.