The Early Christians on Persecution

Compiled by Vocab Malone of Roosevelt Community Church

This Sunday I will be preaching a sermon titled “I Heart Haters” based on John 15:18-
16:4. In this passage, Jesus warns his followers they will experience the hatred of the
world. Indeed the early Christians did. Read, sorrow, and then rejoice. I know I did.

“The race of the worshippers of God in Asia is now persecuted by new edicts as it
never has been heretofore; shameless, greedy sycophants, finding occasion in the
edicts, now plunder the innocent day and night.” - Melito, ca. 170 AD

“You allow us to be harassed, plundered, and persecuted. The crowds make war upon
us for our name alone.” - Athenagoras, ca. 175 AD (2.129)

“They persecute us, not from the supposition that we are wrong doers, but imagining
that by the very fact of our being Christians we sin against life.” - Clement of Alexandria,
ca. 195 AD (2.423)

“We prefer an obstinate persistence in our confession over our safety.” - Tertullian, ca.
195 AD (3.41)

“We are daily beset by foes; we are daily betrayed! We are oftentimes surprised in our
meetings and congregations.” - Tertullian, ca. 195 AD (3.23)

“You put Christians on crosses and stakes. … We are cast to the wild beasts. … We are
burned in the flames. … We are condemned to the mines. … We are banished to the
islands.” - Tertullian, ca. 195 AD (3.28)

“Although torn and bleeding under your tortures, we cry out, ‘We worship God through
Christ.’” - Tertullian, ca. 195 AD (3.36)

“With our hands thus stretched out and up to God, rend us with your iron claws, hang us
up on crosses, wrap us up in flames, take our heads from us with the sword, let loose
the wild beasts on us – the very attitude of a Christian praying is one of preparation for
all punishment.” - Tertullian, ca. 195 AD (3.42)

“What are we to think of the fact that most people so blindly knock their heads against
the hatred of the Christian name? So that when they bear favorable testimony to
anyone, they mingle it with abuse of the name he bears. For example, someone will
say, ‘Gaius Seius is a good man, only he is a Christian.’” - Tertullian, ca. 195 AD (3.20)

“We are regarded as persons to be hated by all men for the sake of the Name – just as
it was written.” - Tertullian, ca. 195 AD (3.645)

“Nor, indeed, are you Romans content with a brief endurance of our sufferings and with
a simple and swift exhaustion of our pains. You set motion slow tortures, by tearing our
bodies. You multiply numerous punishments by lacerating our vital organs… ingenious
cruelty devises new sufferings.” – Cyprian, ca. 250 AD (5.461)

“Rather than to be unfaithful to Christ and to cast off the oaths of the warfare of
salvation, slaves choose to be tortured by their masters as they please, wives to be
divorced, and children to be disinherited by their parents.” – Arnobius, ca. 305 AD
(6.435)

“They thirst for our blood, and for a long time they have been eager to remove us from
the generations of men.” - Arnobius, ca. 305 AD (6.419)

“Your flames, banishments, tortures, and monsters with which you tear in pieces and
rend asunder our bodies do no rob us of life. They only free us from our flesh.” -
Arnobius, ca. 305 AD (6.463)

“Why, indeed, have our writings deserved to be given to the flames? Why have our
meetings deserved to be cruelly broken up?” - Arnobius, ca. 305 AD (6.488)

“Officers of the church were seized … and together with their families led to execution.
In burning alive, no distinction of sex or age was regarded. And because of their great
multitude, they were not burned one after another, but a herd of them were encircled
with the same fire.” - Lactantius, ca. 304-313 (7.306)

“Some were swift to slaughter. For example, there was a certain individual in Phrygia
who burned a whole assembly of Christians, together with their place of meeting.” -
Lactantius, ca. 304-313 AD (7.147)

“Emperor Dia forbade the slaying of God’s servants, but he did command that they
should be mutilated. So the confessors of the faith had their ears and nostrils slit, their
hands and feet cut off, and their eyes dug out of their sockets.” - Lactantius, ca. 304-
313 AD (7.316)

“They torture, put to death, and banish the worshippers of the Most High God … yet,
those who hate us so vehemently are unable to give a reason for their hatred.” -
Lactantius, ca. 304-313 AD (7.135)
I also threw in a few quotes from an early pagan critic of Christianity named Celsus,
where he mocks the Christians of his day for their suffering in the name of Christ:

“Do you not see, good sir, that even your own demon is not only reviled, but banished
from every land and sea, and you yourself, who are as it were an image dedicated to
him, are bound and led to punishment, and fastened to the stake, whilst your demon -
or, as you call him, ‘the Son of God’ - takes no vengeance on the evil-doer?” – Celsus,
ca. 175 AD

“Those who crucified your God when present among men, suffered nothing for it, either
at the time or during the whole of their lives. And what new thing has there happened
since then to make us believe that he was not an impostor, but the Son of God? And
forsooth, he who sent his Son with certain instructions for mankind, allowed him to be
thus cruelly treated, and his instructions to perish with him, without ever during all this
long time showing the slightest concern. What father was ever so inhuman? Perhaps,
indeed, you may say that he suffered so much, because it was his wish to bear what
came to him. But it is open to those whom you maliciously revile, to adopt the same
language, and say that they wish to be reviled, and therefore they bear it with patience;
for it is best to deal equally with both sides, - although these (gods) severely punish the
scorner, so that he must either flee and hide himself, or be taken and perish.” – Celsus,
ca. 175 AD

*Two matters of clarification. In case you were wondering about those numbers in
parenthesis at the end of many of the quotations, they are the reference numbers from
the Ante-Nicene Fathers library. And “ca.” means “circa”.