How Did Rome Respond To Virtue During The Great Persecution?

During the Great Persecution, many creative and gruesome torture and execution methods were used on the Christians by the Romans. People did not have the same morals and ethical values as we do now, so naturally, their means of extracting information from prisoners might seem foreign. Nevertheless, their methods were still morally wrong. There were numerous forms of execution, such as being beaten with sticks or whipped to death. However, those were tame compared to other methods. Many were hung upside down with their hands and feet tied down. The blood would rush to their head and their shoulders would endure much pressure causing immense pain. The executioner would often drop them from a rope and stop them at the last second from hitting the ground, dislodging their shoulders. Others had their limbs pulled off from all directions and died from blood loss. However, people were surprisingly optimistic about their oncoming deaths. For example, this quote from a Christian in that time period states, “They sang hymns and offered thanksgiving to the God of all …show more content…
Being the bishop of the Egyptian Capital, he was seized by Roman officials and unfortunately beheaded without a trial. Many other Catholic officials were imprisoned such as Phileas and Philoromus, who were the heads of a financial institution in Egypt. Shortly after converting to Christianity, they were asked to sacrifice to the Roman gods. They, however, refused and were beheaded also. There were also many courageous women who denounced the Roman gods and kept true to Christianity. A woman named Valentina refused to sacrifice ashes on a Roman alter and instead pushed it over with everything on it. She was then beheaded. On the same day, a woman from Ennathas had no plan on worshiping the Roman gods either. She was then stripped down to the waist and publicly whipped. Later in the day she was charged and burned