Early Christian Martyrs

There is also the Roman Catholic martyrology that remembers lists of martyrs every day of the calender....it is devastating to read the torments made on these folk by fellow human beings.....................the question being could you follow them if you were asked to deny Christ or blaspheme Him at the cost of your life............

I hope I would be granted the grace of fortitude ......but the thought is terrifying

 

early Xtn martyrs

I have the same trepidations ---BUT if you believe the PRE-trib rapture , you wont have a thing to wory about
in Christ
angelfire

 

We have the promise

from the Lord that He will be with us until the end. That is something that we all can cling to because God keeps His promise!

 

// ... could you follow them if you were asked
to deny Christ or blaspheme Him at the cost
of your life ... ? //

I've read a lot of these books/sites/etc.
so know a lot about martyrdom.

If you deny Christ or Blaspheme Him
-- you may die for Him anyway. It has
happened. So here is the most likely
secenario that may happen to you:
you are picked up in the middle of the
night. After three days torture you
deny Christ. You are killed and go to
heaven. IMHO: if you believe that scenario
is NOT possible - you missed something
in reading the Bible.

Matthew 24:13 (Tyndale Bible, c1523):
13 But he that endureth to the ende
the same shalbe safe.

Logic of the form:
ONE: If you endure to the end;
then you shall be saved.

It is TRUE - that is what the scripture
says.
Logically, the following statement
made from statement ONE must
be proved seperately:
(feel free to use the Bible if you think
it true. I think it false

TWO: If you endure NOT to the end
then you shall NOT be saved.

 

Amen, Sister Jilphn -- You are so RIGHT ON! :thumbs:

 

Ed?! Am I misunderstanding something here? Are you saying you think the Bible is false or are you saying you believe the primise of assertion is fales?

 

The Bible is always true.
I've rewritten my post, see if this makes more sense.
I have yet to search the Bible throughout to see
if the following is true (and provable by the Bible):

TWO: If you endure NOT to the end
then you shall NOT be saved.

The proof that statement (if it is true)
has to come from somewhere
else than Matthew 24:13.

--------------------------------

Matthew 24:13 (KJV1873):

But he that shall endure unto
the end, the same shall be saved.

This statement is true:
IF he endures to the end;
THEN he shall be saved.

Logic Dictates that this statement is
also correct because the first one was:

If he is not saved;
Then He did not endure to the end.

There are two statements that come from
this that are independant of the first
statement (I didn't say they were true or
false); I leave it up to the reader to
prove one of them true from the Bible.
If one is true, both are true [by the rules
of Logic] ):

TWO:
IF he endures NOT to the end;
THEN he shall NOT be saved.

IF he is saved;
THEN he endures to the end.

Matthew 24:13 does NOT support the
truth of these last two propositions.
Some people think it does, but they
are wrong.

-------------------------------
An example where the second set of propositions
are not true, even though the original set
of propositions is true.

First set of propositions (True)

If you smoke;
then you will die prematurly.

If you die NOT prematurely;
then you did NOT smoke.

Second set of propositions (False)

If you do not smoke; then you will not die prematurely
[it is false, you could die from a fall while
cleaning your gutters]

If you die prematurely; then you smoked.
[it is false, perchane you die prematurely cause
you got lung cancer from polution]
(remember it takes only one case to prove
something false, it takes all cases to prove someting
true)

 

Could it possibly be that this verse you quoted:

Matthew 24:13 (KJV1873):

But he that shall endure unto
the end, the same shall be saved.

is not on church ground?

Is it possible it is on tribulation ground?

Just wondering,

Later,

John

 

IMHO Matthew 24:4-14 describes the church age (AKA: 'last days' in Acts 2:17).

I also believe that one of the Gifts of the Spirit is the gift of martyrdom.

 

Matthew 24 doesn't appear to have a single focus. Thus, instead of citing a single period of time, it appears to be looking from the time of Christ through to the consummation of glory. I am insufficiently studied to specifically cite where transitions occur, but at least some of Christ's statements from 4 onward relate to the judgement brought on my forefathers in 70 AD. The prophecy mongering movies and books do not seem to rightly handle that time when my forefathers saw the "Abomination of Desolation" etc. Regardless, my eschatology is probably not very robust anyway.

Since martyrdom is not mentioned in the passages on the gifts of the Spirit, perhaps it would making too fine a point by putting it in that list -- had the Holy Spirit intended it there, it would have been in those passages. (Which are they, 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12, I think, are where the lists occur.) Certainly, by God's providence, some will be martyred and others will die other ways. Fox's book of Martyrs makes the good and Biblical point, that God's grace is sufficient even unto martyrdom. Nevertheless, the martyrs of the church are, indeed, gifts of Christ to the Father.

 

I listened to a video on the Internet about the martyr William Tyndale last night. The said in the 4th &15th century the Catholic church would burn at the stake anyone who read the bible in English. They said a man was burned that recited the Lords Prayer in English to his children. We must never forget the GREAT men who laid their lives down for us today to have God's word. The RCC killed many who tried to wrestle the word away from the clergy.

 

"I have been a man of great sins, but He has been a God of great mercies; and now, through His mercies, I have a conscience as sound and quiet as if I had never sinned... The Lord knows I go on this ladder [the scaffold upon which he was to be hung] with less fear and perturbation of mind, than ever I entered the pulpit to preach." --Donald Cargill (27 July 1681)

 

Not everything posted on the internet is accurate. People were never 'burned at the stake' for reading the bible in the vernacular.

The Church prohibited translation without authorization, that's all. Another accusation is that the Church thought it important that the Bible was widely available in Latin, but most people couldn't read Latin. That's true, but it's also misleading: most people couldn't read Latin, because most people couldn't read! In Europe at the time, those who could read, could read Latin; so the idea that Latin somehow made the Bible inaccessible is Protestant mythology foisted on the ignorant.

This is especially true given that books were hideously expensive until the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century, so the only way anyone could afford to own a Bible would be if they were rich -- in which case they were educated, which meant (even as late as the twentieth century) they could read Latin.

 

BTW, the Protestant myth that the Church did everything they could to keep the bible out of the hands of the laity doesn't hold water.
This seems to be another made-up story gleaned from fringe anti-catholic web sites.

PS Here are some pre-reformation bible translations

Papal Missionaries Cyril and Methodius translated the bible into Slavonic in the 10th Century.

Charlemagne (Karl der Große) would foster Frankish (Germanic) biblical translations in the 9th century. Over the years, prior to the appearance of the first printed German Bible in 1466, various German and German dialect translations of the Scriptures were published. The Augsburger Bibel of 1350 was a complete New Testament, while the Wenzel Bible (1389) contained the Old Testament in German.
First Printed Bible in German (1466)
Before Martin Luther was even born, a German-language Bible was published in 1466, using Gutenberg's invention. Known as the Mentel Bible, this Bibel was a literal translation of the Latin Vulgate. Printed in Strassburg, the Mentel Bible appeared in some 18 editions until it was replaced by Luther's new translation in 1522.five complete folio editions printed before 1477, nine from 1477 to 1522, and four in Low German (Dutch)
The first complete printed Bible for Catholics in Holland was printed at Delft in 1475. Bible minus the Psalms , complete (1477)

French
Versions of the Psalms and the Apocalypse, and a metrical rendering of the Book of Kings, appeared as early as the seventh century. Up to the fourteenth century, many Bible histories were produced. A complete version of the Bible was made in the thirteenth century. The fourteenth century manuscript Anglo-Norman Bible follows it closely. Independent of either in the manuscript Bible of King John the Good, which was described as a "work of science and good taste". Done in the second half of the fourteenth century, it is largely the work of the Dominicans Jean de Sy, Jehan Nicolas, William Vivien, and Jehan de Chambly. Another version based on the thirteenth-century Bible was the work of Raoul de Presles and is known as the Bible of Charles V.

Italian
A complete version in the vernacular, a manuscript preserved in the National Library at Paris, was made by Nicholas de Nardo, O.P., in 1472. The first printed Bible (Venice, 1471) was due to Nicholas Malermi, O. Camald. A revision of this, with notes, rubrics, and résumés largely after the Biblical commentaries of Nicholas of Lyra, was made by Marine de Veneto, O.P. (Venice, 1477).
Spanish
Several manuscripts of early Spanish versions, e.g. the Biblia Alfonsina, and some made from the Hebrew, are preserved at the Escurial, Madrid.
The first printed Bible (Valencia, 1478), following an Old-Testament version from the French and Latin by Romeu de Sabruguera, O.P., was in the Catalonian dialect and was the work of the General of the Carthusians, Boniface Ferrer (d. 1417), a brother of St. Vincent Ferrer, O.P

 

I appreciate discussions on various martyrs, Saints, apologetics, and other subjects associated with those aforementioned. Now I have to admit, I come with an air of bias because I was born, raised, and confirmed in the Catholic Church. I appreciate Church teachings to a very devout amount; and its histories. So with that said, I checked out the first couple paragraphs from Chapter One in the link (I might read more when I get the chance to) and I think I've found more questions than answers in this regard. Like when did Herod Antipaas loose his seat? I am a stickler for dates and I am not sure it makes historical sense to date James the Great's beheading to 44 A.D. Any thoughts?

 

If we are to learn anything, let it be that we are learning how to live, not to die, so in this sense I don't believe Martyrdom is a gift. It could be a sacrifice for our Lord in which is one of the greatest things we can do. There have been those whose appointment with death was by Martyrdom. The apostle Peter was one. Never the less a divine appointment is for the maintenance of a position which is not the same as gifts.

 

From the Constitutions of Arundel, 1409.
[Thomas Arundel being Archbishop of Canterbury at the Time]
Article 7. It is a dangerous thing to translate the text of holy scripture out of the tongue into another........We therefore decree and ordain that no man hereafter, by his own authority translate any text of the scripture into English.....and that no man read any such.....lately set forth in the time of John Wickliffe.......He that shall do contrary....shall be punished.

Article 8. We expressly forbid that any person propose any proposition.....repugnant to the catholic faith.....any man convicted shall incur the sentence of greater excommunication.

Article 9. .....No person .....shall dispute upon.....the decrees of councils....or teach contrary to....the adoration of the holy cross, the worshipping of images, going on pilgrimage....or relics of the saints......Contrary to this, whosoever doth preach shall be pronounced heretic....in all effect of the law.

If anyone is wondering what punishment might be inflicted on those translating, propagating or reading the Scriptures in English, in January 1401 the law De Haeritico Comburendo, 'Concerning the Burning of Heretics,' was passed at Arundel's behest, nor was it allowed to lie dormant for long. On February 12th, 1401, William Sawtrey, a converted Roman priest, became the first English Protestant martyr. He was by no means the last.

 

I love that book. It's the most important book in my personal library other than the Holy Bible.