Body: | What did early Christians believe about...?
(Before 300 AD)
Uninspired records of how early Christians worshipped and what doctrine
they believed!
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Discipleship, Self Denial, Carrying Cross
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140-230 AD Tertullian, encouraged a group of local Christians who
were languishing in a Roman dungeon with these words, "Blessed ones, count
whatever is hard in this lot of yours as a discipline of your powers of
mind and body. You are about to pass through a noble struggle, in which the
living God is your manager and the Holy Spirit is your trainer. The prize
is an eternal crown of angelic essence-citizenship in the heavens, glory
everlasting." He also told them, "The prison does the same service for the
Christian that the desert did for the prophet. Our Lord himself spent much
time in seclusion so he would have greater freedom to pray and so he would
be away from the world.... The leg does not feel the chains when the mind
is in heaven." (Tertullian To the Martyrs chaps. 2, 3)
140-230 AD Tertullian "The more you cut us down, the more in number
we grow. The blood of Christians is seed.... For after thinking about it,
who among you is not eager to find out what is really at the bottom of it
all? And after inquiring, who does not end up embracing our teachings? And
when he has embraced them, who does not also willingly suffer so that he
may partake fully of God's grace?" (Tertullian, First Apology chap. 50)
260-330 AD Lactantius "He who chooses to live well for eternity,
will live in discomfort for the present. He will be subjected to all types
of troubles and burdens as long as he is on earth, so that in the end he
will have divine and heavenly consolation. On the other hand, he who
chooses to live well for the present will fare badly in eternity."
(Lactantius Institutes bk. 7, chap. 5)
260-330 AD Lactantius "When people see that men are lacerated by
various kinds of tortures yet remain unsubdued even when their very
torturers are worn out, they come to believe that the agreement of so many
and the unyielding faith of the dying is not without meaning. [They
realize] that human perseverance alone could not endure such tortures
without the aid of God. Even robbers and men of robust frame are unable to
endure tortures of this kind.... But among us, boys and delicate women-not
to speak of men-silently overcome their torturers. Even the fire is unable
to extort a groan from them.... These persons-the young and the weaker
sex-do not endure mutilation and burning of their whole bodies because they
have no other choice. They could easily avoid this punishment if they
wished to [by denying Christ]. But they endure it willingly because they
put their trust in God." (Lactantius Institutes bk. 5. chara. 13)
250 AD Ignatius "It is necessary, therefore, to not only be called
by the name 'Christian' but to actually be a Christian.... If we are not
ready to die in the same manner of His suffering, His life is not in us"
(John 12:25). (Ignatius, , Letter to the Magnesians chap. 5)
250 AD Ignatius "Bring on the fire and the cross. Bring on the packs
of wild beasts. Let there be the breaking and dislocating of my bones and
the severing of my limbs. Bring on the mutilation of my whole body. In
fact, bring on all the diabolical tortures of Satan. Only let me attain to
Jesus Christ! ... I would rather die for Jesus Christ than to reign over
the ends of the entire earth." (Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, Letter to the
Romans chap. 5 [Shortly after penning those words, Ignatius was brought
before a screaming mob in the Colosseum of Rome, where he was torn to
pieces by wild animals.])
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