Ignatius of Antioch

They were different. Peculiar, some thought. An alien cult, perhaps. They did not join in worshiping Roman gods, nor did they participate in the gladiatorial games. Some accused them of being cannibalistic, given their secret rite of ingesting Jesus’ body and blood. Calling each other “brother” and “sister” and greeting their fellow believers with a “holy kiss” gave rise to a suspicion of incest. Maybe they were to blame for runaway inflation and threats from foreign armies. The persecution against this minority sect was intermittent in the Roman Empire until the mid-third century when a series of emperors intensified their hostility against Christians. Athenogenes is not a well-known martyr in the annals of church history. He was arrested when he came to Sebasteia (modern Turkey) in AD 290 to intercede for ten fellow priests arrested for declining to join a festival to the Roman gods. Athenogenes was charged with treason for his refusal to join in sacrificing to the gods and was found guilty at a hasty trial. He, along with his fellow priests, were brutally tortured and beheaded. The Roman government wanted to send a message to the faithful about the fate that awaits those who defy the state. Their plan backfired. People who witnessed the courage of these Christian martyrs were increasingly won over to their cause. The early church leader Tertullian wrote of these persecutors, “Nor does your cruelty, however exquisite, get you anything…The oftener we are mowed down by you, the more in numbers we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.”  Ignatius of Antioch, himself a martyr for the faith, said famously in the 2nd century, “It is not that I want merely to be called a Christian, but actually to be one.” I have reworked his words written as final words to the church in Rome into prayer: