The Persecution and Martyrdom of Early Christians

“What was their crime? It was admitting to being Christian. They did not have proper trials.
They were tortured before being put to death.”

During the rise of Christianity, these early Christians suffered greatly. They faced persecutions by the Roman Empire and some of those the persecuted are now considered martyrs. These men and women, even children, would not renounce their faith in God; therefore, they were tortured and sentenced to death by the state. If these people had renounced their faith while on trial on worshipped the idols, they would not have died so horrifically. However, their faith, the new Christian faith, was so strong that they determined it was better to die than live a lie.

In class we read an excerpt from Life of Constantine, written by the emperor’s historian Eusebius. Eusebius had also written an Ecclesiastical History, in this book he wrote about many of the early Christian martyrs. He described their sickening sentences. A website details twenty-two of the martyrs’ deaths that Eusebius described, stating that elderly, adults, and youth all faced these horrific persecutions. They state that they were “cast to wild animals,” “thrown into the sea,” “scourged and scraped by iron hooks,” dragged behind horses or camels through the streets, raped, beheaded, burned, put in the stocks, stoned, crucified, and so many more. The most horrific I read was the account of Sanctus, which is the following:

“He suffered many torments devised by men. When these men could do no more, they fastened hot plates of brass to the most tender parts of his body. He withstood all the suffering, but his body was one continued wound, mangled and shrivelled [sic], that had entirely lost the form of man to the external eye. Again, he passed through the tortures. These included the strokes of the scourge, the draggings [sic] and lacerations from the beasts other tortures demanded by the audience, and the iron chair upon which his body was roasted. Other tortures followed until he died.”

These martyrs of the Christian faith endured the unimaginable to people today. Throughout the tortured these men and women did not renounce their faith or worship the other gods so that they may live another day. In fact some “kept a cheerful and joyful countenance throughout.” At the end of this essay, the author states that men and women today “take granted the religion freedom which they have.” No matter a person’s faith, he or she must remember that the world did not always have the religious freedoms as she does today. He or she must not ignore the fact that men and women die on a daily basis because of their religious beliefs. It may not happen as regularity as the persecutions of the Roman Christians, but there are those still discriminated against because of their religious (or non-religious) beliefs.

Information from http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/earlmart.htm
Picture (Martyrdom of the 10,000) from Creative Commons : http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Martyrdom.jpg&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Martyrdom.jpg&usg=__9Or610FcYA84uecodbDfNeh8lt0=&h=1061&w=850&sz=115&hl=en&start=1&tbnid=_mz7cDW09NLFaM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmartyrdom%26as_rights%3D(cc_publicdomain%257Ccc_attribute%257Ccc_sharealike%257Ccc_nonderived).-(cc_noncommercial)%26hl%3Den

The Byzantine Economy

In class we talked a lot about the characteristics of the Byzantine Empire but not about the significance of its material wealth. I am interested in how the trade of the Byzantine Empire affected the relations between East and West Europe. An article I found on the JSTOR database discusses this along with the general economy of the Byzantine Empire.

The economy of Eastern Byzantium differed from that of the Western Byzantine Empire. The Eastern Byzantine Empire's economy, trade, and the sacking of Constantinople by the Western Crusaders in the 4th Crusade (for more information click here and here), affected how it interacted with the Western Byzantine Empire. It soon developed an international economic system.

The Eastern Byzantine Empire had a strong monetary system and trade as part of its economy. I found a picture online of a bezant, one of its coins. It lasted around 800 years as a central form of currency in the Roman Empire, one of the longest-lasting currencies. This coin was from around 690 CE and was one of the first to show a picture of Christ. Our Strayer textbook states that other goods traveled throughout and beyond the Byzantine Empire, including textiles, dyes, jewelry, gold, silver, and silk. Cities became major centers for these goods to be traded for the currency.

After the siege of Constantinople (as shown in the picture on the right) and its recapture by the Eastern Roman Empire, the article's author (Laiou-Thomakis from above) states that the relationship between the two halves of the Empire changed. It surprised me to learn that the Eastern Byzantium became increasingly reliant on the Western economy after 1204. After the siege, more individuals from the West settled in the East. Eastern nobles began marrying Western noblewomen, who brought their cultural ideas and taste for Western goods with them. In addition, Italian goods in the East Mediterranean became important to the East.

Finally, the article points out that the Byzantine economy formed in a world of international markets. This means that supply and demand controlled the market, kept prices fairly stable, led to a common currency, started a bank system, and labor supported it. The system was so strong that merchants could easily find out the price of a good and that would tell them the market's current condition (reminds one of today's stock system indexes). Even in politically difficult times, the market for most goods remained fairly stable, which was an indication of a strong economy that did not fluctuate with every little problem.

This article supplies very interesting information. It showed how the East Byzantine Empire's trade, economy, and siege of Constantinople affected its relation with the West. It also came to have an international economic system. This reminds one, in this time when many individuals are so concerned about the economy, that historical events influence the economy. One may even argue that the Byzantine Empire led the way to a stronger economical system used around the world today.

Strayer, Robert W. Ways of the World: A Brief Global History. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. Print.