Huon

Marcus Aurelius (161-180) :

The aggravation of the general situation, the pest, and the wars against the barbarians gave rise to violent movements against the Christians, especially in the towns. A majority of fidels, and especially the bishops, avoided provocations.

But the montanism, was in full expansion around 170. Montanus appeared as a new prophet in Phrygia in 156, at Ardaban on the frontier of Mysia, and found many adherents, among whom were Alcibiades and Theodotus. Under him, also, prophetesses appeared, - Priscilla and Maximilla. Prophecy was the most important feature of the new movement. Ecstatic visions, announcing the approach of the second advent of Christ, and the establishment of the heavenly Jerusalem at Pepuza in Phrygia, and inculcating the severest asceticism and the most rigorous penitential discipline, were set forth as divine revelations. Of course, the montanists did not support the Roman Empire, and would not accept the military service. The pagans would easily be confused and mix the montanists with the "regular" Christians. In a period of war, it was high treason.

Athenagoras of Athens wrote his anti-montanist Plea for Christians approximately in 177.

Melito of Sardis wrote c. 165-175.

Apollinaris Claudius, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia wrote polemical treatises against the heretics of his day. He wrote two books against the Jews, five against the pagans, and two on "Truth." In 177 he published an "Apologia" for the Christians, addressed to Marcus Aurelius, and appealing to the Emperor's own experience with the "Thundering Legion" (XII Fulminata) in 172 : this Legion was rescued from thirst by a "miraculous rain" through the prayers of an Egyptian magus. Of course, Apollinaris ascribes this miracle to the prayers of the Christian soldiers. None of his writings is extant.

Celsus wrote his work "True Discourse" as a polemic against the Christians in approximately 178.

yalla

I am out of my depth here because I have just started reading in this area [and even down the track I could still be struggling].
But it seems to me, from my initial research, that we really know very little at all about Melito, Celsus, Montanus and co.. particularly the former 2.
I have read many incidental references to them but note:
.... there are no extant writings and all we have to go on are alleged excerpts from the writings of their opponents
... alleged historical details can only be traced back to ''shonky'' assertions by later writers with possibly doubtful motivations
...Celsus may have been a strawman
... very little , if anything at all, is known about Celsus and Melito but I see frequent reference to "Bishop of Sardis"..."True Discourse" and other details as if based on solid evidence.
Basically I am just suggesting that we should urge caution before accepting anything posing as fact from this era.

Johnny Skeptic

Merriam Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary defines "martyr" as
"a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion." There is no evidence of large numbers of Christians voluntarily suffering death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce their religion. In other words, there is no evidence of large numbers of Christians being killed who were given a chance to recant their religious practices, refused to do so and were killed as a result.

Some Christians became martyrs, but there is good evidence of Christians themselves becoming persecutors. Consider the following:

The Microsoft Encarta 2002 Encyclopedia says "By the 3rd century Gnosticism began to succumb to orthodox Christian opposition and persecution. Partly in reaction to the Gnostic heresy, the church strengthened its organization by centralizing authority in the office of bishop, which made its effort to suppress the poorly organized Gnostics more effective."

Elaine Pagels says “For nearly 2,000 years, Christian tradition has preserved and revered orthodox writings that denounce the Gnostics, while suppressing and virtually destroying the Gnostic writings themselves. Now, for the first time, certain texts discovered at Nag Hammadi reveal the other side of the coin: how Gnostics denounced the orthodox. The 'Second Treatise of the Great Seth' polemicizes against orthodox Christianity, contrasting it with the 'true church' of the Gnostics. Speaking for those he calls the sons of light, the author says: '...we were hated and persecuted, not only by those who are ignorant (pagans), but also by those think they are advancing the name of Christ, since they were unknowingly empty, not knowing who they are, like dumb animals.'"

Larry Taylor says "How does this apply to the story of Jesus? Simply that all of the early critics are dead. Skeptical opinions were banned. Christian opinions, other than those of the establishment, were banned. Books were destroyed, and later, heretics were burned."

In his book titled ‘The Religious Quests of the Graeco-Roman World,’ Christian author S. Angus, Ph.D., D.Lit., D.D., says the following:

“No one could have dreamed that the Christians, who had themselves suffered so much from persecution and protested so vehemently against the injustice and futility of persecution, would so quickly have turned persecutors and surpassed their Pagan predecessors in fanatical savagery and efficiency, utterly oblivious of the Beatitude of the Divine Master (Matt. V. 10, 44, 45). It became ominous for subsequent history that the first General Council of the Church was signalized by bitter excommunications and banishments. Christians, having acquired the art of disposing of hostile criticism by searching out and burning the objectionable books of their Pagan adversaries, learned to apply the same method to the works of such groups of Christians as were not in power or in favour for the time; when this method proved unsatisfactory, they found it expedient to burn their bodies. The chained skeleton found in the Mithraic chapel at Sarrebourg testified to the drastic means employed by Christians in making the truth conquer otherwise than by the methods and exemplified by the Founder. The stripping and torture to death with oyster-shells in a Christian church and the subsequent mangling of limb from limb of Hypatia, the noblest representative of Neo-Platonism of her day, by the violent Nitrian monks and servitors of a Christian bishop, and probably with his connivance, were symptomatic and prophetic of the intolerance and fanaticism which Christianity was to direct throughout the centuries upon its disobedient members and troublesome minorities until the day – yet to dawn – when a purer, more convincing because more spiritual, Christianity gains ‘the consent of happier generation, the applause of less superstitious ages.’�

The largest colonial empire in history by far under a single religion was conquered by Christian nations by means of persecution, murder and theft of property. The victors often warred among themselves for the spoils of victory.

Joseph McCabe says "Even the most orthodox reader will recognize the force of the modern criticism of martyr-legends when so retrograde a work as the 'Catholic Encyclopedia' is compelled to admit it. Usually its writers deny the most certain facts of science or history with an ease that must command the envy of a politician." The quote is taken from an article by McCabe here at the Secular Web. He shows that various Roman Catholic writers grossly exaggerated the numbers of Christian martyrs and were rebuked by a number of Roman Catholic scholars.

All that it takes for a person to be willing to give his life for his religion, and that is by no means unique to Christians, is a perception of what is true, not necessarily what is actually true.

Huon

Another idea. Every day, the calendar quotes the names of some saints who should be remembered of, at least in Catholic Europe. For instance, today Thursday, June 28th is the day of St Samson. You and I know pretty well that St Samson was born in Wales in 490, evangelized Armorican Cornwall, and died in Brittany around 565.

So, every day has its saints. Say 6 saints for each day, that makes approx. 2,000 saints. Many of them are recent, historically undiscuted saints. But, if we admit 2,000 saints in the Roman Empire, it might be a good estimation of the number of registered christian martyrs.

However, it should be noted that there are "registered martyrs", venerated by the modern Xians, and "unregistered non-martyrs", who have been rejected by the official churches, because they were heretics. Montanists, for instance, but not only montanists.

Unbeliever

Perhaps this page will help shed some light on the subject of saints and early Christian martyrs, most of which, if not all, were entirely fictitious:

Bogus Saints

Huon

Diocletian had a wife Prisca and a daughter Valeria, both of whom reputedly were Christians.

Diocletian attempted to use the state religion as a unifying element.

Diocletian's name is associated with the last and most terrible of all the ten persecutions of the early Church. Nevertheless it is a fact that the Christians enjoyed peace and prosperity during the greater portion of his reign.

Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., VIII, I, 5), who lived at this time, writes : "And one could see the rulers in every church accorded the greatest favor by all officers and governors. But how can any one describe those vast assemblies, and the multitude that crowded together in every city, and the famous gatherings in the houses of prayer ; on whose account not being satisfied with the ancient buildings they erected from the foundation large churches in all the cities ?"

At the same time he goes on (Hist. Eccl., VIII, I, 7) : "But when on account of the abundant freedom, we fell into laxity and sloth, and envied and reviled each other, and were almost, as it were, taking up arms against one another, rulers assailing rulers with words like spears, and people forming parties against people, and monstrous hypocrisy and dissimulation raising to the greatest height of wickedness, the divine judgement with forbearance, as is its pleasure, while the multitudes yet continued to assemble gently, and moderately harassed the episcopacy."

Diocletian and Galerius, at a council held at Nicomedia in 302, resolved to suppress Christianity throughout the empire. The cathedral of Nicomedia was demolished (24 Feb., 303). An edict was issued in march 303 "commanding that the churches be levelled to the ground and the Scriptures be destroyed by fire; and ordering that those who held places of honour be degraded, and that the household servants, if they persisted in the profession of Christianity, be deprived of freedom." (Euseb., Hist. eccl., VIII, II, 4).

Three further edicts (303-304) marked successive stages in the severity of the persecution: the first ordering that the bishops, presbyters, and deacons should be imprisoned; the second that they should be tortured and compelled by every means to sacrifice; the third including the laity as well as the clergy. The atrocious cruelty with which these edicts were enforced, and the vast numbers of those who suffered for the Faith are attested by Eusebius and the Acts of the Martyrs.

(Euseb., Hist. eccl., VIII, XI, 1) : "A small town in Phrygia, inhabited solely by Christians, was completely surrounded by soldiers while the men were in it. Throwing fire into it, they consumed them with the women and the children while they were calling upon Christ. This they did because all the inhabitants of the city, and the curator himself, and the governor, with all who held office, and the entire population confessed themselves Christians, and would not in the least obey those who commanded them to worship idols.".

Huon

On May 27, 1942, Reinhard Heydrich, head of the RSHA, the Reichsprotektor of Czechoslovakia, the man who had convened the Wannsee Conference only four months previously, was severely wounded in a grenade attack on his car near Prague by two Czech parachutists sent from London by the Czech government-in-exile. The two Czechs managed to leave the scene and took refuge in the Karl Borromaeus Church in Prague.

On June 4, Heydrich died of his wounds. The Nazis swore revenge: they ordered the execution of ten thousand Czechs and threatened the expulsion of millions. The Karl Borromaeus Church, where the assassins and more than one hundred members of the Czech resistance were hiding, was besieged. Everyone in the church was killed by the SS.

In Lezaky, a village east of Prague, where the assassins' radio transmitter was discovered, every adult was killed. The children were forcibly removed to Germany for "reeducation," a process that only two of them survived.
At dawn on June 10, all the residents of Lidice, a village ten miles outside Prague, were taken from their homes. They were shot in batches of ten at a time behind a barn. By late afternoon, 192 men and boys and 71 women had been murdered. The other women were sent to concentration camps. The children were dispersed, some to concentration camps, although a few who were considered sufficiently Aryan were sent to Germany. The SS then razed the town and tried to eradicate its memory. The name of Lidice was expunged from all official records.

http://www.zchor.org/lidice1.htm

Huon

On the 10th of June 1944, a group of soldiers from the Der Führer regiment of the 2nd SS-Panzer Division Das Reich, commanded by General Lammerding, enters and then surrounds the small town of Oradour-sur-Glane, 1200 inhabitants, near to the city of Limoges, SW France. General Lammerding orders the soldiers to destroy Oradour, as a retaliation. Some local resistants had killed a small number of nazi soldiers, a few days ago, in the region.

The SS company is composed of 120 men. (Some of them are Alsatians, and after the war, they will be sentenced at Bordeaux, although they claim they were forced to do it). These soldiers have been in Russia, and they have already killed civilians there.

They lock the men in granges full of hay and straw, and throw grenades inside. The women and the children are locked in the church, and the SS put straw and a box of explosives. The church burns. The SS loot the village and burn the houses.

There are 642 victims. Among them, 246 women and 207 children, of whom 6 were less than 6 months old, burnt in the church.

http://www.oradour.info/

Huon

Oradour and Lidice are here only to show that Eusebius could have said the truth about the Phrygian town... my post #36.

yalla

Huon
I have been to Lidice.
It's a very emotional place.
We visited in winter and the place has a bleak despairing look appropriate to the event.
After the war the Czechs[sp] left the area as desolate as the SS made it and only added some event markers and a mausoleum with 100s of photos of the villagers.
The modern village was built a km or so away and it is connected by an avenue of rose bushes sponsored by cities around the world, including many US cities and my own home city.