They could not endure these people who worshipped another
god than theirs and contemned their deities. Whenever famine or
epidemic occurred, the well-known cry was heard, "To the lions with
the Christians!" The people forced the magistrates to hunt and
persecute the Christians.
=The Martyrs.=--For the two centuries and a half that the Christians
were persecuted, throughout the empire there were thousands of
victims, of every age, sex, and condition. Roman citizens, like St.
Paul, were beheaded; the others were crucified, burned, most often
sent to the beasts in the amphitheatre. If they were allowed to escape
with their lives, they were set at forced labor in the mines.
Sometimes torture was aggravated by every sort of invention. In the
great execution at Lyons, in 177, the Christians, after being tortured
and confined in narrow prison quarters, were brought to the arena. The
beasts mutilated without killing them. They were then seated in iron
chairs heated red by fire. Blandina, a young slave, who survived all
these torments was bound with cords and exposed to the fury of a bull.
The Christians joyfully suffered these persecutions which gave them
entrance to heaven.
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