St. James’ Sunday Study Group Lectures

Forms of Witness—martyrdom and apologetic

Lecture # 8
Nov. 10, 2019 11:45 am. To 1:00 pm.

In the last lecture, we discussed the persecutions experienced by Christians at the hands of both Jews and Gentiles in the first 280 years of the religion’s existence. The oppression of believers included social ostracism, the expropriation of property, economic marginalization, exile, and death. This lecture takes up the forms of witness that evolved in response to persecution: the tradition of martyrdom and the writing of apologetic literature. Each in its way was of extraordinary importance in shaping the Christian vision of the world in the 2nd and 3rd centuries and even beyond.