Page:The early Christians in Rome (1911).djvu/206

 had been exposed—was then exposed to a bitter, relentless persecution; that the sufferers were witnesses to the Name; and that their sufferings were not owing to any deeds of wrong or treason to the State, but purely because of the Name which they confessed. They had been condemned simply because they were Christians.

It is true that comparatively little is said directly about these persecutions. Other subjects clearly are far more important to the writer; but a number of incidental allusions to the sufferings endured in the course of persecution occur—allusions which cannot be mistaken.

We will quote a few of these. Many of them imply that the Church was exposed to a long continued harrying to the death:

"I saw under the altar the souls of those that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled" (vi. 9-11).

"These are they that came out of great tribulation therefore are they before the throne of God" (vii. 14-17).

"And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death" (xii. 11).

"They have shed the blood of saints and prophets" (xvi. 6).

"And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." (xx. 4).

The victims of these persecutions, we are markedly told, are witnesses to the "Name" or the "Faith": so in the letter to the Church in Pergamos we read:

"Thou holdest fast My name, and hast not denied My Faith" (ii. 13).