Saint Sebastian Research Paper

St. Ignatius of Antioch understood the Christian faith to be objective and sensible, stating that Christianity is fundamentally a religion based in historic, tangible realties . He was adamant to the fact that Jesus Christ was a real human with real flesh; he encountered real suffering and died a truly human death. Ignatius saw Christian faith and the person of Jesus Christ in such a way that it put him at odds with the Gnostics, who held to a Docetic Christology that was circulating widely among the Church. For Ignatius, this was a serious issue that needed to be addressed due to the purity of the faith and the truth it held. At stake was the validity of the incarnation, suffering, death, and resurrection of the person of Jesus Christ. If this is not real or true, Ignatius believed that man

By comparing the following primary sources, “The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas” and “The Rape of Lucretia,” historians can learn about the archetypes of Roman society. The former text, written in 202 or 203 CE, is a prison diary of a young martyr in Carthage. The protagonist, Perpetua, is arrested and sentenced to death because she refused to renounce her Christian faith. Despite having a newborn and hearing consistent outcry from her father to renounce her faith, Perpetua refused to absolve from Christianity. Prior to her execution, she and her comrades experience visions of entering Heaven and specifics of how their deaths would be bestowed upon them. These visions provided comfort to the prisoners because they legitimized the belief in God, as well as sanctioned the power of God to perform miracles. As God willed it, Perpetua, the “most valiant and blessed martyrs”, was ultimately executed in the arena. The latter text, written in 17 AD by Roman historian, Livy, is a story of propaganda about the rape of a honorable woman named Lucretia. Lucretia, Tarquinius Conlatinus’s wife, was the quintessential example of a Roman martyr. She was applauded for her modest, hospitable, and dutiful nature. Tragically, she was forcibly raped by the emperor’s son, Sextus Tarquinius. Consequently, Brutus, Tarquinius, and Lucretia’s father, did not object while witnessing Lucretia commit suicide in order to preserve her and her family’s

The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity 203 is an account of Perpetua’s story, a story in which she rejected her Roman identity in order to further pledge her Christian faith. At the time, Romans feared the spread of Christianity due to the conflicting interest in the worship of Gods and the circulating rumors that Christians were cannibals. Not only did Romans think Christianity was odd for those factors but also that Christians feared their potential experiences in the afterlife more than their experiences in their current life. The history of the Roman Empire provides that emperors would put Christians through a test in order to confirm their devotion to Christianity. If they confessed to being Christian, then they would be persecuted. However, Christians had the opportunity of denying their faith and making a sacrifice to the empire so that they could avoid persecution. Yet, there were many Christians that remained faithful rather than opting for the denial of their faith and avoiding persecution. This paper will discuss Perpetua’s rejection of her Roman identity in passages six and twenty in order to show the differences between the devout Christians of the roman empire and the pagans of the roman empire.

However, Saint Sebastian eminented himself and as for his preeminence service, he was then promoted to Praetorian Guard for his services to protect Emperor Diocletian. While under the job of Praetorian Guard for Emperor Diocletian, Saint Sebastian converted multiple individuals into Christianity. Which ultimately lead to his discovery of being a Christian and reported to Emperor Diocletian, who was infamous for ordering deaths of Christian. Therefore, Saint Sebastian’s ordered death from Emperor Diocletian was to be used a target practice for archery by his guards. After he was used for archery target practice Emperor Diocletian’s guards left him there for retrieval and

Saint Peter was born in Bethsaida Gaulanitis, Syria Roman Empire at around 1 AD. Peter’s feast day is on the twenty ninth of June. Bethsaida Gaulanitis was near where the Jordan River enters the Sea of Gennesaret. This place was abandoned at around 65 AD. Peter’s original name appointed to him by his parents was Simon, it became Peter when Jesus changed his name. His father’s name was Jonah. Jonah was a physically strong individual, hence he became a fisherman. Peter deeply followed in his father’s footsteps. His mother’s name was Perpetua. Not much is known about her. Peter also had a brother named, Andrew. Andrew was another one of Jesus’s twelve disciples. Peter did not go to school, he was just taught by his father in the trade of fishing

The image of St. Nicholas has been distorted throughout time and it is important to determine who St. Nicholas really was to best understand his current personification. Many of the realities of St. Nicholas’ story have been twisted by stories that make learning about St. Nicholas difficult. Though his real life is often overlooked and forgotten because of his personification as Santa Claus today he still led an important and honorable life. The historically accurate story of St. Nicholas is very important because it greatly affected the culture. St. Nicholas’ real story can be best seen by examining his young life, and memorable works during his time as a Bishop.

The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity The document, “The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity,” shows just how mighty and fearless the faith of the martyrs were in Rome around 203 A.D. in which our story takes place. During the rule of Diocletian, Christianity was not the religion of popular belief. Many of Romans practiced polytheism. As a result, numerous Christian believers were persecuted for their divine faith in God.

As Gillian Clark stated, “Jesus Christ was born in the reign of Augustus, the first Roman emperor, in an obscure district of the Roman-ruled territory then called Judaea. (Clark 4) Augustus led Rome 's transformation from republic to empire. At about the age of thirty, Jesus Christ was tied to a wooden cross and secured by nails. They went through his ankles and wrists, and he was left to die. Clark also stated that, “Roman law authorized this cruel form of execution, but it was usually reserved for slaves and rebels.” (Clark 4) The romans punished Jesus because he was accused of rebellion, blasphemy, subversion. After killing Jesus, Judaism became well respected in the roman empire.

Diocletian did not entirely trust Constantius, and held Constantine as a hostage in his court to ensure first-rate performance from Constantius. Despite this Constantine remained a distinguished court member, fighting for Diocletian, as well as for Galerius in Asia. He battled the barbarians of Danube in 296, fought the Persians in Syria and Mesopotamia in 297, 298, and 299. Constantine returned to Nicomedia in the spring of 303, to find the beginnings of Diocletian’s “Great Persecution”, beginning to take place. The Great Persecution brought about the demolition of the new church in Nicomedia, the imprisonment of priests, the deprivation of authoritative ranks from Christians, and the destruction of many churches and scriptures. On May 1, 305 Diocletian announced his resignation because of a crippling illness he developed during the previous winter. Galerius was chosen as his imperial successor. It did not take Constantine long to recognize the immediate danger in remaining in the east. Constantius made the request of Galerius to allow his son to leave the east to help him campaign in Britain. Galerius granted the request, and during the summer of 305 Constantine joined his father in Gaul. Constantine campaigned at his father’s side for a year in Northern Britain, before his father became very ill. Over the course of his campaign, Constantius’s health quickly declined, and he

In the source “The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas,” the narrative of a few early Christians who died for their beliefs is told. The two martyred women, named Perpetua and Felicitas, along with a few other followers of the religion were imprisoned because they identified themselves as Christians and refused to offer sacrifice to the Roman Emperor. The Christians were sentenced to death by beast for this. The source illustrate the problems Christians had in navigating the cultural realities of life in the Roman empire. This can be observed along with the struggles involved in class, family, and gender.

Later Emperor Dometian had taken John to Rome where he was beaten, drugged, and put into boiling oil. When he stepped out he was banished to Patmos. When John was on his way to Asia to give the word, the ship was caught in the storm, and everyone but John drifted to the shore. Everyone thought John was dead. Two weeks later John appeared at the shore at the feet of the disciple Prochoros. A lot of amazing things have happened to John. "When John denounced idol worship as demonic, followers of Artemis stoned him; the rocks turned and hit the throwers" (John 1). While John was praying in a temple, heaven shot down flames and killed 200 men who worshiped a different god. The dead were raised and they all changed their ways and were baptized. He also drove out a two hundred and forty-nine year old demon out of the pagan temple. Another thing he did was purifying seawater.

It is evident that the construction of the Christian church was done through oppression and rejection, but for some it sparked a passion to serve God. The document The Passion of the Holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas, illustrates the courage and fearlessness of the Martyrs in Rome around 203. A.D. Much of Rome consisted of those who practiced polytheism. Which resulted in the persecution of numerous Christians for their faith in God, and their practices were not supported or approved by the Roman Empire. Surprisingly enough this was an opportunity for the Christian Martyrs to strengthen their faith, even if death would be the result. The group was establish and through Perpetua and Felicity who were part of a group of five catechumens.

After the death of Pope Liberius in 366, supporters of archdeacon Damasus massacred 137 followers of deacon Ursinus, Damasus’ rival in the succession dispute. Emerging from the conflict as the new bishop of Rome, Damasus embarked on a public relations campaign in an attempt to heal the wounds created by the violent succession crisis. This ensuing campaign put martyrs and their graves in the catacombs at the forefront of Christian worship: this became known as the cult of saints. Damusus focused primarily on Saints Peter and Paul, which served the added purpose of asserting the dominance of the Bishop of Rome over all the other Christian bishops, due to Peter and Paul’s connection to the city of Rome. The psychological goal of Damasus’ cult of saints, however, was to foster a belief in the afterlife that a living person could connect to the figure of a dead saint. The significance of martyrdom had not been lost on early Christians. Indeed, in the words of fifth-century bishop of Cyrrhus, Theodoret, “The masses do not even know the names of the emperors and their generals; but everyone knows the names of the martyrs, better than those of their most intimate friends.” Damasus recognized how the worship of martyrs could cement his position of power, and he thus needed a physical space to enact this experiment. To do this, Damasus turned to the catacombs, which had largely been in a state of disrepair since the

While Diocletian’s inauguration as emperor in 284 A.D. managed to temporarily end the anarchy and reestablish peace and order in the Roman Empire, his unprecedented retirement as emperor 21 years later would establish a period of civil war amongst the Roman generals fighting for the throne. Eventually, only two Roman generals, Constantine and Maxentius respectively, were left fighting for the throne at Milvian Bridge. But the day before Constantine was due to fight Maxentius, Constantine claimed that after looking up at the sky and praying for anyone in the heavens to help him, he saw a huge flaming cross in the heavens, with a message inside the cross

The crowd started shouting out “Let him be crucified!” (Matthew 27:23). The crowd wanted to make Jesus suffer. The soldiers of the roman government acted and they put a crown with thorns on top of Jesus’s head. They also mocked and crucified him on the cross.