Bishop of Rome (366-384), he marked the transition to the new day for Old Rome. He was able to fuse the old roman civic and imperial pride with Christianity. Claimed that due to the merit of the Apostles Peter and Paul's martyrdom in Rome, they could be claimed as Roman citizens.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Damasus, history, martyr[/tags]

Collected the vivid reports of the martyrdoms under Queen Mary in his Book of Martyrs (1571) and incited the English people to a longstanding horror of Catholicism. He succeeded in giving Mary the name by which history still remembers her, "Bloody Mary."

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, John-Foxe, martyr[/tags]

A Jew, one of the first martyrs. Of the first company of believers. Judas, his son. He is the son of Zebedee. Was murdered by Herod Agrippa in A.D. 41. One of Jesus' closest followers.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, James, Jesus, martyr[/tags]

Mani was its founder who had taught in Persia, and had met there a martyr's death by crucifixion in 276 or 277. The fundamental belief of the religion pictured the universe as the scene of an eternal conflict of two powers, the one good, the other evil. Man, as we know him, is a mixed product, the spiritual part of his nature consists of the good element, the physical of the evil. His task, therefore, is to free the good in him from the evil; and this can be accomplished by prayer, but especially by abstinence from all the enjoyments of evil: riches, lust, wine, meats, luxurious houses and the like. Like Gnosticism, taught that the true spiritual Jesus had no material body and did not actually die. Augustine was a Manichean for nine years, from 372-383, before dissatisfaction with its teachings arose in his mind.

[tags]Augustine, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Gnosticism,

Other than Jesus, perhaps the most influential man to shape the course of Christianity that has ever lived. Had been educated in the strictest Jewish tradition and had studied under the famous rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem, Paul spoke Greek fluently and was familiar with Greek thought and literature. He could express the doctrines and teachings of Jesus, foreign to the Gentiles, in ways that the pagan mind could grasp. He was a Roman citizen, which gave him special freedom of movement, protection in his travels, and access to the higher levels of society. Catholic Christianity may be seen as a development of Jesus' plans and Paul's efforts. It was probably during the persecution of Nero that Paul was finally martyred.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Gamaliel, history, Jesus, Nero, Paul-the-Apostle, martyr[/tags]

A Jew, one of Jesus' twelve disciples, preached to multitudes on the Day of Pentecost, when the Baptism of the Spirit was given, and thousands were saved. Peter was arrested shortly afterwards. It is possible that he was martyred at the hands of Nero, in Rome.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Jesus, Nero, Pentecost, Peter, martyr[/tags]

A noble martyr, the bishop of Smyna in western Asia Minor was burned at the stake.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Polycarp, martyr[/tags]