HOW ATROCIOUSLY THE SINCERE CHRISTIANS WERE TREATED DURING THIS PERSECUTION.
Everywhere, in all the cities, writes P. J. Twisck, the imperial edicts and decrees against the Christians were posted up; by reason of which the magistrates and officers proceeded very cruelly against them, persecuting them even unto death, with great atrocity and fury. For, no mode of torture, punishment, or death, however great, severe, and unmerciful, could be devised, produced, or planned, by these wicked men, these tyrants, and instruments of the devil, but what it was thought, that the Christians, as accursed, as enemies of the Kingdom, and as the cause of all misfortune, deserved a thousand times more. To be publicly mocked, eternally imprisoned, exiled, scourged, stoned, strangled, hanged, beheaded, and burned, was deemed far too little.
They began, at this time, to ply the poor people with red hot plates until they were dead; to tear the flesh from their bones with red hot tongues; to place them upon iron stools over a slow fire; to fry them in iron frying pans; to roast them on gridirons at a slow fire; to cast them, enveloped in close netting, before wild bulls, to serve as sport for them, and be tossed into the air by their horns.
All this was accompanied with still another cruelty. The bodies of the slain were thrown before the dogs, and guards placed beside them, to prevent the Christians from taking away and burying these bodies. In short, the misery was so great, that at Lyons alone bishop Irenus with nineteen thousand of his sheep were cruelly butchered. Thus far _P. J. Twisck, in his Chronicle, 2d book, for the year 162, page 43, col. 2_, from _Chron. Mich. Sac. fol. 103. Chron. Sebast. Fra._ Also, _Tyd. Thresor P. Mernlæ_.
JUSTINUS, FIRST SCOURGED, AND THEN BEHEADED, FOR THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST, A. D. 168.
Justinus was called a son of Priscus Bacchus, and was born of Greek parents, at Neapolis in Palestine.
In its proper place we have spoken of the views of Justinius concerning baptism on faith, and have shown that he was sound and correct in them. Now, however, it is proper for us to speak of his spiritual birth, of his heavenly fatherland, and how conclusively he showed that he was a child of God, and a citizen of the heavenly city, filled with all good things; which appeared not only in the beginning and progress of his faith, but especially in the end, when he testified to its power with his death, and sealed it with his blood.
In the days of his youth he was instructed in the Platonic philosophy, in which he acquitted himself so meritoriously, that he received the name _Philosopher_, yea, he had been led to believe, that his learning would soon enable him to see God, which was the ultimate object of the Platonic philosophy. But it happened one day, as he was going toward the sea, in order to meditate in solitude upon what he had learned, that (as he himself has confessed) there followed him a very grave and gentle old man, who, having entered in a discourse with him, respecting the Platonic philosophy, taught him, in what true philosophy and happiness consisted, namely in the saving knowledge of the only, eternal, and alone immortal God.
Now, when Justinus inquired for the teachers from whom he might learn this divine philosophy, the old man referred him to the writings of the prophets, who did not write according to the argumentation of human reason, but, as certain and infallible witnesses, left behind what they had seen and heard of the words of truth, and the wonderful signs and works of God among his people; and that all their prophecies concerning the promised Messiah and Son of God, were fulfilled in the advent of Jesus Christ, who was born in the reign of Emperor Augustus. He therefore admonished him, to pray to God, that he would enlighten his heart to this saving doctrine, through Jesus Christ, without whom it would not be possible for him to attain to this saving knowledge.