designed to be as painful, perverse, and entertaining as possible. And Christians went to their deaths without a fight, singing hymns, preaching, and otherwise refusing to be cowed or intimidated by the abuse they were suffering. This was in many ways the undoing of the persecutions. People in the arenas saw the confidence with which Christians approached death, and this vision of boldness forced spectators to ask themselves whether they had anything they were willing to go through that kind of horror for, whether they had anything that gave their lives the confidence and purpose they saw in
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