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Lessons from the Ancients

Lessons from the Ancients. Sacrifice. AD 160 Smyrna. Concerning our dear brother Polycarp. Romans 12:2.

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Lessons from the Ancients

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  1. Lessons from the Ancients Sacrifice

  2. AD 160 Smyrna Concerning our dear brother Polycarp . . .

  3. Romans 12:2 • Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

  4. Persecution & Suffering

  5. Clement of Alexandria, c. AD 195 • They persecute us, not from the supposition that we are wrong-doers, but imagining that by the very fact of our being Christians we sin against life. This is because of the way we conduct ourselves, and because we exhort others to adopt a similar life.

  6. Tertullian - c. AD 195 • We are daily beset by foes; we are daily betrayed! We are oftentimes surprised in our meetings and congregations. • You put Christians on crosses and stakes…We are cast to the wild beasts…We are burned in the flames…We are condemned to the mines…We are banished to islands.

  7. Tertullian, - c. AD 195 • Some, indeed think it is a mark of insanity that, when it is in our power to offer sacrifice at once and to go away unharmed (holding as ever our convictions), we prefer an obstinate persistence in our confession over our safety. • …rend us with your iron claws, hang us up on crosses, wrap us in flames, take our heads from us with the sword, let loose the wild beasts on us—the very attitude of a Christian praying is one of preparation for all punishment

  8. Tertullian – c. AD 197 • If a Christian is pointed at, he glories in it. If dragged to trail, he does not resist. If accused he makes no defense. When questioned, he confesses [Jesus is Lord]. When condemned [to punishment or death] he rejoices.

  9. Hyppolytus– c. AD 205 • For the church is afflicted and pressed, not only by the Jews, but also by the Gentiles. It is also afflicted by those who are called Christians, but are not such in reality.

  10. Cyprian – c. AD 250 • The Lord has desired his family to be tested. Because a long peace had corrupted the discipline that had been divinely delivered to us, the heavenly rebuke has aroused our faith. For our faith was slipping and (I might say) slumbering. Although we deserved more for our sins, yet the most merciful Lord has so moderated all things that all that has happened has seemed more like a trial than a persecution.

  11. Aronbius – c. AD 305 • The bitterness of persecution of which you speak is our deliverance and not our oppression. Your ill treatment will not bring evil upon us. Rather, it will lead us to the light of liberty. • Your flames, banishments, tortures, and monsters with which you tear in pieces and rend asunder our bodies do not rob us of life. They only free us from our flesh.

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