Page 277 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1578 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Christian Martyrdom

The extract below, from a letter written by a Christian the boy nor respect for the feminine sex, and they
who survived a cruel persecution of Christians during exposed them to all the horrors and led them in turn
the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161 –180 CE), describes through every torture, repeatedly trying to force
the torture of Blandina of Lyons. them to swear but being unable to do this. For Pon-
ticus was encouraged by his sister, so that even the
Finally. . . on the last day of the gladiatorial com-
heathen saw that she was urging him on and
bats, Blandina was again brought in, together with
encouraging him, and after he had nobly endured
Ponticus, a boy of about fifteen, and they had been
every torture he gave up the ghost. But the blessed
brought in daily to witness the torture of the others,
Blandina, last of all, like a noble mother who has
and attempts were made to force them to swear by
encouraged her children and sent them forth tri-
the very idols, and because they remained steadfast
umphant to the king, herself also enduring all the
and regarded them as nothing, the mob was roused
conflicts of the children, hastened to them, rejoicing
to fury so that they had neither pity for the youth of
and glad at her departure, as if called to a marriage

This drawing depicts
the massacre of Mor-
mons at their camp at
Haughn's Mill, Illinois,
in 1838. The Mormons
were subjected to
nearly 70 years of
government-backed
oppression in the
1800s.

standards of good citizenship.
His policies led Puritans and
others to refer to Rhode Island
as “that sewer,” but his ideas
eventually found their way into
the U.S. Constitution in the late eighteenth century. millennia. Due to the success of this formula in America,
The new Constitution and its Bill of Rights guaranteed other nations have since adopted the idea of church-state
religious freedom and ensured it with an establishment separation as a guarantor of religious freedom, and
clause that prevents government from establishing any today, approximately one-half of the nations of the world
religion or even from preferring some religions over oth- make formal guarantees of church-state separation in
ers.The United States was the first nation in human his- their constitutions.
tory to formally adopt the principle of the separation of
church and state as a fundamental element of its public Internationalization of
philosophy. It was a noble experiment in the founding Religious Freedom
era and remains so today. The experiment was under- The twentieth century witnessed unprecedented progress
taken by the framers in the hope that it would enable toward the internationalization of religious freedom. Of
America to escape the persecutions and religious wars the three major international documents that universal-
that had characterized the Christian West for almost two ized the principle of religious freedom in the twentieth