martyrs

143:1.6“Be­cause my Fa­ther is a God of love and de­lights in the prac­tice of mercy, do not im­bibe the idea that the ser­vice of the king­dom is to be one of monotonous ease. The Par­a­dise as­cent is the su­preme ad­ven­ture of all time, the rugged achieve­ment of eter­nity. The ser­vice of the king­dom on earth will call for all the coura­geous man­hood that you and your cowork­ers can muster. Many of you will be put to death for your loy­alty to the gospel of this king­dom. It is easy to die in the line of phys­i­cal bat­tle when your cour­age is strength­ened by the pres­ence of your fight­ing com­rades, but it re­quires a higher and more pro­found form of hu­man cour­age and de­vo­tion calmly and all alone to lay down your life for the love of a truth en­shrined in your mor­tal heart.

143:1.7“To­day, the un­be­liev­ers may taunt you with preach­ing a gospel of non­re­sis­tance and with liv­ing lives of non­vi­o­lence, but you are the first vol­un­teers of a long line of sin­cere be­liev­ers in the gospel of this king­dom who will as­ton­ish all man­kind by their heroic de­vo­tion to these teach­ings. No armies of the world have ever dis­played more cour­age and brav­ery than will be por­trayed by you and your loyal suc­ces­sors who shall go forth to all the world pro­claim­ing the good news—the fa­ther­hood of God and the broth­er­hood of men. The cour­age of the flesh is the low­est form of brav­ery. Mind brav­ery is a higher type of hu­man cour­age, but the high­est and su­preme is un­com­pro­mis­ing loy­alty to the en­light­ened con­vic­tions of pro­found spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties. And such cour­age con­sti­tutes the hero­ism of the God-know­ing man. And you are all God-know­ing men; you are in very truth the per­sonal as­so­ciates of the Son of Man.”

• Okhban

95:3.5Egypt was in­tel­lec­tual and moral but not overly spir­i­tual. In six thou­sand years only four great proph­ets arose among the Egyp­tians. Amen­emope they fol­lowed for a sea­son; Okhban they mur­dered; Ikh­na­ton they ac­cepted but half­heart­edly for one short gen­er­a­tion; Moses they re­jected. Again was it po­lit­i­cal rather than re­li­gious cir­cum­stances that made it easy for Abra­ham and, later on, for Joseph to ex­ert great in­flu­ence through­out Egypt in be­half of the Salem teach­ings of one God. But when the Salem mis­sion­ar­ies first en­tered Egypt, they en­coun­tered this highly eth­i­cal cul­ture of evo­lu­tion blended with the mod­i­fied moral stan­dards of Mes­o­po­ta­mian im­mi­grants. These early Nile val­ley teach­ers were the first to pro­claim con­science as the man­date of God, the voice of De­ity.

• Prophet Amos stoned

97:4.4Amos pro­claimed Yah­weh the “God of all na­tions” and warned the Is­raelites that rit­ual must not take the place of righ­teous­ness. And be­fore this coura­geous teacher was stoned to death, he had spread enough leaven of truth to save the doc­trine of the su­preme Yah­weh; he had in­sured the fur­ther evo­lu­tion of the Mel­chiz­e­dek rev­e­la­tion.

• John the Baptist beheaded by Herod

135:12.7Herod was filled with fear and sor­row, but be­cause of his oath and be­cause of all those who sat at meat with him, he would not deny the re­quest. And Herod An­tipas sent a sol­dier, com­mand­ing him to bring the head of John. So was John that night be­headed in the prison, the sol­dier bring­ing the head of the prophet on a plat­ter and pre­sent­ing it to the young woman at the rear of the ban­quet hall. And the damsel gave the plat­ter to her mother. When John’s dis­ci­ples heard of this, they came to the prison for the body of John, and af­ter lay­ing it in a tomb, they went and told Je­sus.

• Andrew crucified at Patrae

139:1.12When the later per­se­cu­tions fi­nally scat­tered the apos­tles from Je­ru­sa­lem, An­drew jour­neyed through Ar­me­nia, Asia Mi­nor, and Mace­do­nia and, af­ter bring­ing many thou­sands into the king­dom, was fi­nally ap­pre­hended and cru­ci­fied in Pa­trae in Achaia. It was two full days be­fore this ro­bust man ex­pired on the cross, and through­out these tragic hours he con­tin­ued ef­fec­tively to pro­claim the glad tid­ings of the sal­va­tion of the king­dom of heaven.

• Perpetua thrown to beasts at Rome

139:2.14Pe­ter’s wife was a very able woman. For years she la­bored ac­cept­ably as a mem­ber of the women’s corps, and when Pe­ter was driven out of Je­ru­sa­lem, she ac­com­pa­nied him upon all his jour­neys to the churches as well as on all his mis­sion­ary ex­cur­sions. And the day her il­lus­tri­ous hus­band yielded up his life, she was thrown to the wild beasts in the arena at Rome.

• Peter crucified at Rome

139:2.15And so this man Pe­ter, an in­ti­mate of Je­sus, one of the in­ner cir­cle, went forth from Je­ru­sa­lem pro­claim­ing the glad tid­ings of the king­dom with power and glory un­til the full­ness of his min­istry had been ac­com­plished; and he re­garded him­self as the re­cip­i­ent of high hon­ors when his cap­tors in­formed him that he must die as his Mas­ter had died—on the cross. And thus was Si­mon Pe­ter cru­ci­fied in Rome.

• James Zebedee killed by sword

139:3.8He was mod­est and un­dra­matic, a daily server, an un­pre­ten­tious worker, seek­ing no spe­cial re­ward when he once grasped some­thing of the real mean­ing of the king­dom. And even in the story about the mother of James and John, who asked that her sons be granted places on the right hand and the left hand of Je­sus, it should be re­mem­bered that it was the mother who made this re­quest. And when they sig­ni­fied that they were ready to as­sume such re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, it should be rec­og­nized that they were cog­nizant of the dan­gers ac­com­pa­ny­ing the Mas­ter’s sup­posed re­volt against the Ro­man power, and that they were also will­ing to pay the price. When Je­sus asked if they were ready to drink the cup, they replied that they were. And as con­cerns James, it was lit­er­ally true—he did drink the cup with the Mas­ter, see­ing that he was the first of the apos­tles to ex­pe­ri­ence mar­tyr­dom, be­ing early put to death with the sword by Herod Agrippa. James was thus the first of the twelve to sac­ri­fice his life upon the new bat­tle line of the king­dom. Herod Agrippa feared James above all the other apos­tles. He was in­deed of­ten quiet and silent, but he was brave and de­ter­mined when his con­vic­tions were aroused and chal­lenged.

139:3.9James lived his life to the full, and when the end came, he bore him­self with such grace and for­ti­tude that even his ac­cuser and in­former, who at­tended his trial and ex­e­cu­tion, was so touched that he rushed away from the scene of James’s death to join him­self to the dis­ci­ples of Je­sus.

• Philip’s wife stoned at Hierapolis

139:5.11Philip’s wife, who was an ef­fi­cient mem­ber of the women’s corps, be­came ac­tively as­so­ci­ated with her hus­band in his evan­ge­lis­tic work af­ter their flight from the Je­ru­sa­lem per­se­cu­tions. His wife was a fear­less woman. She stood at the foot of Philip’s cross en­cour­ag­ing him to pro­claim the glad tid­ings even to his mur­der­ers, and when his strength failed, she be­gan the recital of the story of sal­va­tion by faith in Je­sus and was si­lenced only when the irate Jews rushed upon her and stoned her to death. Their el­dest daugh­ter, Leah, con­tin­ued their work, later on be­com­ing the renowned prophet­ess of Hi­er­apo­lis.

• Philip crucified at Hierapolis

139:5.12Philip, the one­time stew­ard of the twelve, was a mighty man in the king­dom, win­ning souls wher­ever he went; and he was fi­nally cru­ci­fied for his faith and buried at Hi­er­apo­lis.

• Matthew at Lysimachia

139:7.10When these per­se­cu­tions caused the be­liev­ers to for­sake Je­ru­sa­lem, Mat­thew jour­neyed north, preach­ing the gospel of the king­dom and bap­tiz­ing be­liev­ers. He was lost to the knowl­edge of his for­mer apos­tolic as­so­ciates, but on he went, preach­ing and bap­tiz­ing, through Syria, Cap­pado­cia, Gala­tia, Bithy­nia, and Thrace. And it was in Thrace, at Lysi­machia, that cer­tain un­be­liev­ing Jews con­spired with the Ro­man sol­diers to en­com­pass his death. And this re­gen­er­ated pub­li­can died tri­umphant in the faith of a sal­va­tion he had so surely learned from the teach­ings of the Mas­ter dur­ing his re­cent so­journ on earth.

• Thomas put to death in Malta

139:8.13Thomas had a try­ing time dur­ing the days of the trial and cru­ci­fix­ion. He was for a sea­son in the depths of de­spair, but he ral­lied his cour­age, stuck to the apos­tles, and was pres­ent with them to wel­come Je­sus on the Sea of Gal­i­lee. For a while he suc­cumbed to his doubt­ing de­pres­sion but even­tu­ally ral­lied his faith and cour­age. He gave wise coun­sel to the apos­tles af­ter Pen­te­cost and, when per­se­cu­tion scat­tered the be­liev­ers, went to Cyprus, Crete, the North African coast, and Sicily, preach­ing the glad tid­ings of the king­dom and bap­tiz­ing be­liev­ers. And Thomas con­tin­ued preach­ing and bap­tiz­ing un­til he was ap­pre­hended by the agents of the Ro­man gov­ern­ment and was put to death in Malta. Just a few weeks be­fore his death he had be­gun the writ­ing of the life and teach­ings of Je­sus.

• son of Titus of Capernaum killed in Rome

146:5.2When this no­ble­man had lo­cated Je­sus in Cana, he be­sought him to hurry over to Ca­per­naum and heal his af­flicted son. While the apos­tles stood by in breath­less ex­pectancy, Je­sus, look­ing at the fa­ther of the sick boy, said: “How long shall I bear with you? The power of God is in your midst, but ex­cept you see signs and be­hold won­ders, you refuse to be­lieve.” But the no­ble­man pleaded with Je­sus, say­ing: “My Lord, I do be­lieve, but come ere my child per­ishes, for when I left him he was even then at the point of death.” And when Je­sus had bowed his head a mo­ment in silent med­i­ta­tion, he sud­denly spoke, “Re­turn to your home; your son will live.” Ti­tus be­lieved the word of Je­sus and has­tened back to Ca­per­naum. And as he was re­turn­ing, his ser­vants came out to meet him, say­ing, “Re­joice, for your son is im­proved—he lives.” Then Ti­tus in­quired of them at what hour the boy be­gan to mend, and when the ser­vants an­swered “yes­ter­day about the sev­enth hour the fever left him,” the fa­ther re­called that it was about that hour when Je­sus had said, “Your son will live.” And Ti­tus hence­forth be­lieved with a whole heart, and all his fam­ily also be­lieved. This son be­came a mighty min­is­ter of the king­dom and later yielded up his life with those who suf­fered in Rome. Though the en­tire house­hold of Ti­tus, their friends, and even the apos­tles re­garded this episode as a mir­a­cle, it was not. At least this was not a mir­a­cle of cur­ing phys­i­cal dis­ease. It was merely a case of pre­knowl­edge con­cern­ing the course of nat­u­ral law, just such knowl­edge as Je­sus fre­quently re­sorted to sub­se­quent to his bap­tism.

• Rodan killed in Greece

161:2.12Ro­dan made his way back to Alexan­dria, where he long taught his phi­los­o­phy in the school of Meganta. He be­came a mighty man in the later af­fairs of the king­dom of heaven; he was a faith­ful be­liever to the end of his earth days, yield­ing up his life in Greece with oth­ers when the per­se­cu­tions were at their height.

• Zechariah slain in sanctuary

175:1.22“But even now I of­fer you in my Fa­ther’s name mercy and for­give­ness; even now I prof­fer the lov­ing hand of eter­nal fel­low­ship. My Fa­ther has sent you the wise men and the proph­ets; some you have per­se­cuted and oth­ers you have killed. Then ap­peared John pro­claim­ing the com­ing of the Son of Man, and him you de­stroyed af­ter many had be­lieved his teach­ing. And now you make ready to shed more in­no­cent blood. Do you not com­pre­hend that a ter­ri­ble day of reck­on­ing will come when the Judge of all the earth shall re­quire of this peo­ple an ac­count­ing for the way they have re­jected, per­se­cuted, and de­stroyed these mes­sen­gers of heaven? Do you not un­der­stand that you must ac­count for all of this righ­teous blood, from the first prophet killed down to the times of Zechariah, who was slain be­tween the sanc­tu­ary and the al­tar? And if you go on in your evil ways, this ac­count­ing may be re­quired of this very gen­er­a­tion.

• Stephen stoned at Jerusalem

194:4.11And so all went well in Je­ru­sa­lem un­til the time of the com­ing of the Greeks in large num­bers from Alexan­dria. Two of the pupils of Ro­dan ar­rived in Je­ru­sa­lem and made many con­verts from among the Hel­lenists. Among their early con­verts were Stephen and Bar­na­bas. These able Greeks did not so much have the Jew­ish view­point, and they did not so well con­form to the Jew­ish mode of wor­ship and other cer­e­mo­nial prac­tices. And it was the do­ings of these Greek be­liev­ers that ter­mi­nated the peace­ful re­la­tions be­tween the Je­sus broth­er­hood and the Phar­isees and Sad­ducees. Stephen and his Greek as­so­ciate be­gan to preach more as Je­sus taught, and this brought them into im­me­di­ate con­flict with the Jew­ish rulers. In one of Stephen’s pub­lic ser­mons, when he reached the ob­jec­tion­able part of the dis­course, they dis­pensed with all for­mal­i­ties of trial and pro­ceeded to stone him to death on the spot.

194:4.12Stephen, the leader of the Greek colony of Je­sus’ be­liev­ers in Je­ru­sa­lem, thus be­came the first mar­tyr to the new faith and the spe­cific cause for the for­mal or­ga­ni­za­tion of the early Chris­tian church. This new cri­sis was met by the rec­og­ni­tion that be­liev­ers could not longer go on as a sect within the Jew­ish faith. They all agreed that they must sep­a­rate them­selves from un­be­liev­ers; and within one month from the death of Stephen the church at Je­ru­sa­lem had been or­ga­nized un­der the lead­er­ship of Pe­ter, and James the brother of Je­sus had been in­stalled as its tit­u­lar head.

156:2.5Je­sus made it clear to the twenty-four that he had not fled from Gal­i­lee be­cause he lacked cour­age to con­front his en­e­mies. They com­pre­hended that he was not yet ready for an open clash with es­tab­lished re­li­gion, and that he did not seek to be­come a mar­tyr. It was dur­ing one of these con­fer­ences at the home of Justa that the Mas­ter first told his dis­ci­ples that “even though heaven and earth shall pass away, my words of truth shall not.”

175:1.4“My Fa­ther has long dealt in mercy with this peo­ple. Gen­er­a­tion af­ter gen­er­a­tion have we sent our proph­ets to teach and warn them, and gen­er­a­tion af­ter gen­er­a­tion have they killed these heaven-sent teach­ers. And now do your will­ful high priests and stub­born rulers go right on do­ing this same thing. As Herod brought about the death of John, you like­wise now make ready to de­stroy the Son of Man.

175:1.23“O Je­ru­sa­lem and the chil­dren of Abra­ham, you who have stoned the proph­ets and killed the teach­ers that were sent to you, even now would I gather your chil­dren to­gether as a hen gath­ers her chick­ens un­der her wings, but you will not!

181:2.15Je­sus then stepped over to James Zeb­e­dee, who stood in si­lence as the Mas­ter ad­dressed him, say­ing: “James, when you and your younger brother once came to me seek­ing prefer­ment in the hon­ors of the king­dom, and I told you such hon­ors were for the Fa­ther to be­stow, I asked if you were able to drink my cup, and both of you an­swered that you were. Even if you were not then able, and if you are not now able, you will soon be pre­pared for such a ser­vice by the ex­pe­ri­ence you are about to pass through. By such be­hav­ior you an­gered your breth­ren at that time. If they have not al­ready fully for­given you, they will when they see you drink my cup. Whether your min­istry be long or short, pos­sess your soul in pa­tience. When the new teacher comes, let him teach you the poise of com­pas­sion and that sym­pa­thetic tol­er­ance which is born of sub­lime con­fi­dence in me and of per­fect sub­mis­sion to the Fa­ther’s will. Ded­i­cate your life to the dem­on­stra­tion of that com­bined hu­man af­fec­tion and di­vine dig­nity of the God-know­ing and Son-be­liev­ing dis­ci­ple. And all who thus live will re­veal the gospel even in the man­ner of their death. You and your brother John will go dif­fer­ent ways, and one of you may sit down with me in the eter­nal king­dom long be­fore the other. It would help you much if you would learn that true wis­dom em­braces dis­cre­tion as well as cour­age. You should learn sagac­ity to go along with your ag­gres­sive­ness. There will come those su­preme mo­ments wherein my dis­ci­ples will not hes­i­tate to lay down their lives for this gospel, but in all or­di­nary cir­cum­stances it would be far bet­ter to pla­cate the wrath of un­be­liev­ers that you might live and con­tinue to preach the glad tid­ings. As far as lies in your power, live long on the earth that your life of many years may be fruit­ful in souls won for the heav­enly king­dom.”