We talk to by deaths of people because they are christian. So so christians do die, and they write up these stories as them having died because they were christian. The perspective of the persecutors, th the emperors, the provincial atro might be slightly different. We'd be better speaking of early christianities than early christianity,. In fact, we just have lots of scattered, small communities all across the empire that meet with very different circumstances depending on where they're living.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the accounts by Eusebius of Caesarea (c260-339 AD) and others of the killings of Christians in the first three centuries after the crucifixion of Jesus. Eusebius was writing in a time of peace, after The Great Persecution that had started with Emperor Diocletian in 303 AD and lasted around eight years. Many died under Diocletian, and their names are not preserved, but those whose deaths are told by Eusebius became especially celebrated and their stories became influential. Through his writings, Eusebius shaped perceptions of what it meant to be a martyr in those years, and what it meant to be a Christian.
The image above is of The Martyrdom of Saint Blandina (1886) at the Church of Saint-Blandine de Lyon, France
With:
Candida Moss
Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham
Kate Cooper
Professor of History at Royal Holloway, University of London
And
James Corke-Webster
Senior Lecturer in Classics, History and Liberal Arts at King’s College London
Producer: Simon Tillotson