Teachinghearts	Church History "Explore the Word. Change the World"	Statistics: Time: 200 minutes Print: 52 pages

Rome			Papal Persecutions			Papal Inquisition				Roman Inquisition			Ecumenism
Roman Persecutions			Europe		France	Albigenses	Waldensians	Hussites	Huguenot	Reformation			Revival
			Byzantine		Crusades		Spanish Inquisition					French Revolution
Paganism			Sabbath		Idols	Rosary	Indulgences						Infallability

Popes	Martyrs	Torture Methods	Persecution Methods	These Times
Astronomical Signs	Lisbon Earthquake	The Dark Day	The Falling Stars (1833 Leonid Meteor Shower)
Time lines	Maps and Territories	Mary	Disasters List	Inventions
Babylon	Medo-Persia	Greece	Rome - Caesars	Rome - Papal
French Revolution	Europe	European Union	United States	Adventist History

Prayer "Ask and you shall receive"

Oh, that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory and that your hand would be with me, and that you would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain. The prayer of Jabez (I Chronicles 4:10)

This section deals with the secular history of those people, nations, organizations and empires that appear in the prophecies from Daniel's time to the end of time. As such, it does not deal with the prophecies, but merely the facts and relations around those key people and kingdoms that will give a background on the prophecies examined in another section.

History from Creation to the Exodus
Several chronologies have been proposed in order to estimate how many years have gone by since creation. To a large extent, most chronologies agree to the exact year up to the time of the Exodus, thereafter discrepancies amounting to a maximum of 300+ years creep into the chronology because the history of families was not as well catalogued. This is in part due to the break up of the continuity of the lineages because of Israel's captivity by a series of nations. Indeed, it is at this point that we see God giving visions of the domination of his people by these nations that is the focus of this study.

World Empires in Prophecy
It is important to note that when the prophecies speak about empires, it is only concerned with empires that challenge God's people by their power. Although Egypt and Assyria captured the people of God, the symbolic prophecies begin with the invasion of Babylon.

		Empires in Prophecy		Other Civilizations
		Babylon	The first Empire was the head of gold.	Zhou dynasty in China. They and the rest of the world were tribal
		Medo-Persia	The second Empire (Medes and then Persians under Cyrus the Great) was the chest of silver.
		Greece	The third Empire under Alexander the Great was the belly and thighs of brass.	Qin Dynasty. Vikings invade Russia
		Rome (Pagan)	Under the caesars - The fourth empire was the legs of Iron. They killed the Messiah	Han Dynasty. Maya, Nazca and Hopewell civilizations begin
		Rome (papal)	One phase of the Roman Empire with domination of the state by the church for 1260 years.	Sui, Tang, Xia and Jin dynasties. Sassanians, Umayaads, Abbasida. Gupta in India. Maya and Pueblo
		Europe	The fifth power was the divided European nations which will exist until the end of time. They will not be united as one nation.
		France	The sixth power was short lived during the French Revolution, but its secular ideas would last till the end and challenge faith in God.	British, French, Spanish, Portuguese empires See a Map
		United States	The final power will be a worldwide movement at the end, dominated by the United States of America, the churches and Europe.	Modern nations
		Kingdom of God	The last empire will be the kingdom of God - The stone that shatters the image.

History of the Church
The history of the church included many significant events:

1. State Persecution. Ten organized Roman persecutions ended with the conversion of Constantine and the rise of the Christian church to political power.
2. Popularity. Conversion of Emperor Constantine results in the end of persecution.
3. Rise to Political power. The church conquers the pagan world.
4. Apostasy. Eventually, the church would disobey God and cause a great apostasy.
5. Church Persecution. Christians, pagans, heathens, Jews and Muslims.
6. Schisms and Breakups. The church separates over issues of control, doctrine and politics. The most notable was the Reformation.
7. Ecumenism. The church attempts to unite its separated brethren
8. Global Political Power. The church again seeks to influence governments and politics and to be taken as a legitimate, political leader in the affairs of governments and nations.

The Conversion of Emperor Constantine
The organized Roman persecution of the Christian church ended with the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine.
Constantine became the western emperor after the death of his father, and after Diocletian and Maximian retired. During a battle outside rome in 312 A.D. , he had a dream in which he saw the sign of the cross in the sky, with the words In hoc signo vinces which means by this sign conquer. The next day he added this sign to the standards of his army, and won the battle. He entered Rome and became unchallenged as western Emperor.

Although he did not convert immediately, from this time forward he began to favor Christianity by his legislation. He and his mother, Helena, who had also converted to Christianity, spent large sums of money building new churches and visiting the Holy Land. He was baptized close to the end of his life and died on May 22, 337 A.D.

Legislation of Christianity by the State of Rome
Following are some of the legislation that favored Christianity:

1. Establishment of Christianity as the State Religion
   • Edict of Milan (313). It granted liberty of worship to all Romans, and restored Christian church property confiscated during Diocletian's and Galerius' persecutions.
   • Protection of Clergy (313). Christian clergy exempted from government duty.
   • Economic Laws (321). Bequests to churches legalized.
   • Council of Nicaea (325). Emperor Constantine summons council of Nicaea and helps to write some of the creed.
   • Religious Liberty (361-363). Julian the Apostate tries to reinstate paganism, but mostly allows religious liberty to the Christians.
2. Persecution of the Heathen and Other Religion
   • Protection Removed (375-383). Emperor Gratian confiscates temples, abolishes privileges for heathen priests.
   • Prohibition of Worship (379-395). Emperor Theodosius 1 prohibits heathen religious observances.
   • Enforced Religion (435). Theodosius II commands that temples be destroyed or turned into churches.
   • Death (527-567). Emperor Justinian prohibits heathenism upon pain of death.
   • Education (529). Justinian abolishes the 900 years old Pagan school at Athens.

History of Pagan Influences on Christianity

History of Changes
Year	History
585	Strict Sunday worship (second Synod of Macon)
593	Purgatory
600	Prayers to saints and Mary
750	Pope speaks for God
788	Worship of images, relics, cross
995	Canonization of dead saints
1050	Mass
1090	Rosary
1190	Indulgences
1215	Transubstantiation
1215	Priest confession
1229	Bible forbidden
1545	Tradition above the Bible
1546	Apocrypha added to the Bible
1870	Papal infallibility
1997?	An emerging doctrine. Mary as coredeemer, mediator and advocate

Many practices, including Sunday worship, were derived from pagan religions in an attempt to make the followers convert to Christianity by making the religion seem more like their own. Certain of these practices survive today. John Henry Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine states that all these are of pagan origin:

"The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison, are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church."

When the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take care to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them ... do not enquire after their gods, saying, 'How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.' You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way ... Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it. (Deuteronomy 12: 29-32)

Do not learn the way of the Gentiles ... For the customs of the people are futile [vain]; for one cuts a tree from the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with an axe. They decorate it with silver and gold, they fasten it with nails and hammers so that it will not topple (Jeremiah 10: 2-4)

Change	Modern Practice	Pagan Origin
Sabbath	Sunday Worship	Pagan day of sun worship
Passover	Easter (First Sunday after first full moon of spring)	Originated with the Passover but it became merged with Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring: "Eostre", in her honor sacrifices were offered at the vernal equinox or spring. The Babylonians knew her as Ishtar or Astarte. By the 8th century church leaders applied "Eostre" to Christ's resurrection. Later Passover began to be translated as Easter in some Bibles.
State of the Dead	Halloween (October 31)	Literally means Holy Evening. The dead were believed to visit their homes on October 31. Old pagan customs were combined with Catholic tradition to create Halloween Autumn festival called, "Sanhain" marked the end of summer It marked the new year for ancient Celtics and Anglo Saxons
	All Saints Day (November 1)	Prayers offered for all souls in Purgatory. It is preceded by "Holy Evening" or Halloween (October 31) when the pagans believed that the dead visited their homes
Pure Paganism	Christmas (December 25)	Adopted in 354 AD by Liberius, Bishop of Rome. December 25 was birthday of Mithra, Iranian "God of Light". It is also the birthday of the sun
	Mistletoe	The Druids considered it sacred
	Christmas tree	Scandinavians worshipped trees. When they became Christians, they introduced the practice to Christmas.
	Yule log	The Norse burned a huge log once year to Thor, god of thunder. When they became Christians they burned it to Christ
	Santa Claus	The legend of Saint Nicolas, Bishop of Myra in Lycia, 300 A.D. The belief that he enters a house through the chimney originated with Norse legend who believed the goddess, Hertha appeared in the fireplace and brought good luck to the house.

History of the Sabbath
The history of the change of the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday began in the church of Rome and Alexandria in the second century. By the fourth century both days were observed and Saturday fell out of favor because it was negatively connected with Jews and because it was made a day of fasting while Sunday was a festive day. Finally the state and the church regulated rest on Sunday.

The Sabbath Before Christ. The Sabbath existed from creation and was reconfirmed at Sinai.

• Creation. At creation God instituted the Sabbath when he made the weekly cycle and told the creation to rest on the seventh day.
• Moses. After the exodus, the Sabbath was written on the Ten commandments by God and given to Moses. The fourth commandment said "Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy" because God is the creator. So we find this commandment pointing back to the time of creation, not to the experience of the Jewish nation. The Sabbath existed over 2000 years before there was ever a Jewish nation.
• Jewish Tradition. In order to ensure that the Sabbath was kept - Jews added 39 minor regulations to the Sabbath in their Oral Tradition. These rules were eventually written down in the Mishnah about 188 A.D. In the section of the Mishnah entitled "Shabbath" the 39 regulations are listed as:

  The main classes of work are forty save one: sowing, ploughing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing, winnowing, cleansing crops, grinding, sifting, kneading, baking, shearing wool, washing or beating or dyeing it, spinning, weaving, making two loops, weaving two threads, separating two threads, tying [a knot], loosening [a knot], sewing two stitches, tearing in order to sew two stitches, hunting a gazelle, slaughtering or flaying or salting it or curing its skin, scraping it or cutting it up, writing two letters, erasing in order to write two letters, building, pulling down, putting out a fire, lighting a fire, striking with a hammer, and taking out aught from one domain into another. These are the main classes of work: forty save one.

The Sabbath and the Early Church. The Sabbath was kept by the early church for over 200 years until the church of Rome started a new trend in 150 AD.

• The Disciples and Apostles. Jesus and the disciples always worshipped on the Sabbath. The evidence in the book of Acts shows Sabbath observance for both Jews and Greeks. The term the Lord's Day is used only once in the Bible in Revelation 1: 10. And it does not refer to that day as being Sunday. It is more likely that it is the Sabbath day.
  On their travels to Antioch, Philippi, Thessalonica and Corinth where Paul lived for a year they always met to worship on a weekly basis on the Saturday Sabbath. (Acts 13: 14, 44), (Acts 16: 13), (Acts 17: 2), (Acts 18: 1,4) There is evidence that they met during the week also to collect money.
• The Early Church: Anti-Semitic Jewish Sentiments. Sentiments against the Jews may have risen in Rome because of persecution. Due to several Jewish revolts culminating in the revolt of Bar Kokaba in A.D. 132-135, Jews were expelled from Palestine by emperor Hadrian who had outlawed Jewish practices as circumcision and Sabbath keeping. There was also a large population of Jews in Alexandria. The Romans considered Christianity as a Jewish sect, so to distance themselves from Jews the church at Rome and Alexandria began to observe Sunday only.
• The Early Church: Second Century. The church at Alexandria and Rome began Sunday worship by the middle of the second century. They mention Sunday observance and also show a negative attitude towards the Sabbath. It is these same two cities, Alexandria and Rome, that are mentioned by two fifth-century historians, as being exceptions to the general rule that worship services were still held on Saturday throughout the Christian world as late as the fifth century.
  About A.D. 130 Barnabas of Alexandria, refers to the seventh-day Sabbath as representing the seventh millennium of earth's history. He then says that the present Sabbaths were unacceptable to God, who would make

  a beginning of the eighth day [Sunday], that is, a beginning of another world. Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead.

  About A.D. 150, Justin Martyr in Rome wrote:

  And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things." Next follow prayer, communion, and an offering for the poor.

The Sabbath Changed by Law. By the fifth century there was a social change as both days were observed. This continued until the state legalized Sunday as the day of rest.

• The Early Church: Fifth Century. By the fifth century both days were being observed by Christians, except in Rome and Alexandria. Socrates Scholasticus, a church historian of the fifth century A.D. , wrote,

  "For although almost all churches throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries [the Lord's Supper] on the Sabbath of every week, yet the Christians of Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, have ceased to do this".

  Sozomen, a contemporary of Socrates, wrote:

  "The people of Constantinople, and almost everywhere, assemble together on the Sabbath, as well as on the first day of the week, which custom is never observed at Rome or at Alexandria."

  Other writings of the period state the following: For example, the Apostolic Constitutions, compiled in the fourth century, furnished instruction to

  keep the Sabbath [Saturday], and the Lord's day [Sunday] festival; because the former is the memorial of the creation, and the latter of the resurrection. The Apostolic Constitutions

  Let the slaves work five days; but on the Sabbath-day [Saturday] and the Lord's day [Sunday] let them have leisure to go to church for instruction in piety.

  Other references refer to both days as sisters and a team of two days.
• Sunday Legislation. Emperor Constantine the Great in the early fourth century elevated the status of the Christian church from one of persecution to honor. Possibly for political and social reasons, he also made laws to honor Sunday - binding a Pagan tradition to Christianity by focusing on a common practice. In his civil legislation, he made Sunday a rest day. His famous Sunday law of March 7, 321, reads:

  On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain-sowing or for vine-planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost.

  Other Christian emperors, popes and kings added legislation:

  • In A.D. 386, Theodosius 1 and Gratian Valentinian extended Sunday restrictions so that litigation should entirely cease on that day and there would be no public or private payment of debt.
  • Laws forbidding circus, theater, and horse racing also followed.
  • In 364, the Council of Laodicea stipulated in Canon 29:

    Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday, but shall work on that day; but the Lord's day they shall especially honor, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ.

    In effect, they reversed the fourth commandment by saying that Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday but shall work on that day. It is important to note that they were not content with merely changing the day of worship and forcing people to honor this new day. They made steps to dishonor the true Sabbath and to ensure that people broke the Sabbath.
  • In 538, the Third Synod of Orleans deplored Jewish Sabbatarianism, but forbid "field labours" so that "people may be able to come to church and worship.
  • In 585 , the Second Synod of Macon and the Council of Narbonne in 589 stipulated strict Sunday observance. This was published by King Guntram in a decree of November 10, 585, in which he enforced careful observance of the Sunday.
  • (590-604), Gregory 1 forbid men "to yoke oxen or to perform any other work, except for approved reasons'
  • (715-731), Pope Gregory II said: We decree that all Sundays be observed from vespers to vespers and that all unlawful work be abstained from. . ."
  • In 788, Charlemagne decreed that all ordinary labor on the Lord's Day be forbidden, since it was against the Fourth Commandment, especially labor in the field or vineyard which Constantine had exempted
  The change from Saturday to Sunday was not based on any scriptural doctrine. The early church kept the Jewish Sabbath.
  
  In a master stroke of marketing, the church started referring to Sunday as the "Lord's day", urging believers to honor the resurrection. At the same time, they distanced themselves from the Sabbath by actively encouraging prejudice towards Jews and all Jewish customs.
  
  But other groups such as Christians in Ethiopia and the Waldenses never forgot the true Sabbath observance.

The Sabbath Changed by the Church. Ultimately it was the church in league with the state that prompted these changes.

• Changed by the Church. The church has admitted to this change in doctrine, because it claims that it has the right to make such changes.
  The Cathecism of the Council of Trent 1829 edition says the following

  But the church of God has in her wisdom ordained that the celebration of the Sabbath day should be transferred to the Lord's day

  The fourth century Christian historian Eusebius writes:

  All things whatsoever it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord's day, as more appropriately belonging to it, because it has a precedence and is first in rank, and more honorable than the Jewish Sabbath.

• Sabbath Keepers have no Salvation. According to a papal bull from Pope Eugene IV, February 4, 1442 this is the fate of those who insist on keeping the Sabbath:

  It [the Roman Church] firmly believes, professes and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were established to signify something in the future, although they were suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord's coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began; and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally.
  Yet it does not deny that after the passion of Christ up to the promulgation of the Gospel they could have been observed without the loss of salvation.
  
  All, therefore, who after that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and other requirements of the law, it declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover from these errors.

• Sunday as a Mark of its Power to Change God's Law. The church points to this historical act as a proof that it has the power to change divine law. In The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine (1951) page 60 by Peter Geierman the following is written:

  Question: What is the Third Commandment?
  Answer: The Third Commandment is: Remember that you keep holy the Sabbath Day.
  
  Question: Which is the Sabbath day?
  Answer: Saturday is the Sabbath day.
  
  Question: Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?
  Answer: We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.

  Other church publications like An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrines, 1833, page 58 by Henry Tuberville states the following after commenting on the inconsistency of Protestants who refuse to accept all the other feasts and traditions commanded by the church, yet keep Sunday holy.

  Question: How prove you that the Church has power to command feasts and holy days?
  
  Answer: By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feast commanded by the same church.

• A Mark of its Authority. In other public statements (Catholic Record, September 1, 1923), the church states:

  Sunday is our mark of authority ... the church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact.

• The World Bows to its Authority. Father Enright, a former president of Redemptorist college boldly stated:

  The Bible says, remember you keep holy the Sabbath day.
  The Catholic church says, No! By divine power I abolish the Sabbath day, and command you to keep holy the first day of the week. And, lo! The entire civilized world bows down in reverent obedience to the command of the holy Catholic church.

• A Final Insult. Now Saturdays have been consecrated to Mary by the Church.
  Prophecy states that the little horn will "sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God, change laws and removes the daily ministry from God".
  So, the church has taken all four commandments related to the proper respect for God and have given all these honors to Mary.

  #	Commandment	Daniel's Prophecy	Blasphemy
  1	Only One God	Magnified itself to be equal to God (Verse 8: 11)	Pray to Mary and saints. Pope is as god on earth.
  2	Idolatry	Show no regard for any God (11: 37)	Idols, scapulars, icons, paintings, beads, relics
  3	Respect for God's name	Removed the daily sacrifice from God (7: 25; 8: 11; 11: 36)	Call on Mary, she is the Mediator. Do not talk to God, He does not want to hear us.
  4	Remember the Sabbath	Changes times and laws (7: 25)	Saturday devoted to Mary. Sunday is the new Sabbath.

Sabbath Lesson Study. For a study on the authenticity of the Sabbath please go to this study. We examine issues such as what was nailed at the cross and the significance of the Sabbath established at creation.

Martyrs and Persecutions
The history of the church is filled with events of tragedy. From the crucifixion of our Lord, through the persecution by the Roman government to the persecution of fellow Christians for differences in faith - many men, women and children have given their lives for the love of God and the willingness to do what they believe is right no matter what the physical cost in loss of property, job, income, children and even their very lives.

The Death of the Disciples and Apostles of Christ

Name	Death	Place
Jesus Christ	Crucified	Jerusalem (31 A.D.)
Andrew	Crucified	Greece
Bartholomew	Tortured and beheaded	Armenia
James, son of Alphaeus	Stoned to death or crucified	Persia
James, son of Zebedee	Beheaded	Rome
John	* Exiled for his faith. Died of natural causes	Isle of Patmos
Judas (not Iscariot)	Crucified in Turkey or Stoned to death in Persia	Turkey or Persia
Judas Iscariot	Suicide by hanging	Jerusalem
Matthew	Speared	Ethiopia
Peter	Crucified upside down	Rome
Philip	Tortured	Turkey
Stephen	Stoned	Jerusalem (34 A.D.)
Simon	Crucified	Britain
Thomas	Speared	India
Matthias	Stoned	Jerusalem
Paul	Beheaded	Rome under Nero
John	Natural causes	Isle of Patmos

Legend states that all the disciples except John were martyred. John was boiled in oil but could not be killed so he was exiled on the Isle of Patmos where he wrote the book of Revelation. Most of this information is from tradition and may be not be correct.

Roman Persecutions - Persecution by the State

1. The First Persecution, Under Nero, A.D. 67. The first persecution of the Church took place in the year 67, under Nero, the sixth emperor of Rome. He ordered that the city of Rome should be set on fire and while the imperial city was in flames, he went up to the tower of Macaenas, played his harp, sung the song of the burning of Troy. This continued nine days until Nero, discovered that he was criticized and held responsible. Determined to lay the blame upon the Christians, he designed the most cruel punishments. He had some sewed up in skins of wild beasts, and then attacked by dogs until they died; and others dressed in shirts made of wax, and set on fire in his gardens, to provide light for his gardens. Peter and Paul were martyred under this persecution.
2. The Second Persecution, Under Domitian, A.D. 81. The emperor Domitian, first killed his brother, and then started the second persecution against the Christians. He also killed some of the Roman senators, through malice or to confiscate their property. He then ordered that the Jews be put to death. Among the martyrs was John, who was boiled in oil, and then banished to Patmos. All famine, pestilence, or earthquakes was blamed on the Christians and caused more persecution. Through bribery and rewards, many Christians were put to death with lies. Christians had to renounce their religion to be exempted from punishment.
3. The Third Persecution, Under Trajan, A.D. 108. This persecution was started by Trajan and then continued by his successor Adrian. Christians were thrown to wild beasts, crucified, crowned with thorns and had spears run through their sides.
4. The Fourth Persecution, Under Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, A.D. 162. Christians were beheaded, clubbed to death, thrown from precipices, brains crushed, red hot metal plates were placed on the most sensitive parts of their bodies, burnt at the stake, pressed to death with weights, attacked by wild animals, severely beaten until their bines showed. Some were made to walk, with their already wounded feet, over thorns, nails, sharp shells, and other sharp objects upon their points,
5. The Fifth Persecution, Commencing with Severus, A.D. 192. The progress of Christianity alarmed the pagans and this brought about this round of persecutions. Once again Christians were beheaded, had tar poured on their bodies, burnt alive, gored by wild bulls, forced to run the gauntlet, exposed to wild beasts in the amphitheaters and placed in baths of scalding water.
6. The Sixth Persecution, Under Maximus, A.D. 235. During this persecution, many Christians were killed without trial, and buried in heaps others were dragged behind wild horses until they were killed.
7. The Seventh Persecution, Under Decius, A.D. 249. This was caused partly by the hatred he had for his predecessor Philip, who was a Christian, and was partly by his jealousy concerning the amazing increase of Christianity. The heathen temples were being forsaken, and the Christian churches thrived. Unfortunately for the Gospel, many errors had creeped in around this time. Christians were at variance with each other, self-interest and pride divided them into many factions.
   
   Christians were decapitated, stretched upon a wheel, until the bones were broken, one was even put into a leather bag, together with a number of serpents and scorpions, and then thrown into the sea. Others were stoned to death, stretched on a rack, torn with hooks, burnt alive, starved to death, forced to work in brothels, imprisoned, tortured, hanged all for their faith.
8. The Eighth Persecution, Under Valerian, A.D. 257. Began under Valerian, in April 257, and continued for three years and six months. The martyrs that fell in this persecution were many, and they suffered various painful tortures. Neither rank, sex, nor age were regarded. One martyr was tied to the tail of a bull who was driven down the steps of a temple. His brains were smashed in the process. Three hundred Christians were burned at once in a pit for not sacrificing to the god Jupiter.
9. The Ninth Persecution Under Aurelian, A.D. 274. Tortured, beheaded, 666 Christian soldiers were cut to pieced by the sword, some were broiled upon a gridiron. A Christian named Quintin was stretched with pulleys until his joints were dislocated; his body was then torn with wire scourges, and boiling oil and pitch poured on his naked flesh; lighted torches were applied to his sides and armpits; and after he had been thus tortured, he was remanded back to prison, and died of the barbarities he had suffered, October 31, A.D. 287. His body was sunk in the Somme.
10. The Tenth Persecution, Under Diocletian, A.D. 303 - 313 A.D.. This persecution, which lasted for 10 years, started with the destruction of all Christian churches and books and an order to declare Christians as outlaws. All the Christians were apprehended and imprisoned; and Galerius (the step son of Diocletian) privately ordered the imperial palace to be set on fire, so that the Christians might be blamed. This would give a reason for carrying on the persecution. Many houses were set on fire, and whole Christian families perished in the flames; and others had stones fastened about their necks, tied together were thrown into the sea. Racks, scourges, swords, daggers, crosses, poison, and famine, were used to kill the Christians. A city of Phrygia, consisting entirely of Christians, was burnt, and all the inhabitants perished in the flames. Tired with slaughter, the Romans devised ways to make their lives miserable. Their ears cut off, noses slit, right eyes put out, limbs made useless by dreadful dislocations, and their flesh seared in tender places with red-hot irons. Crushed to death in a mill, dragged through the streets, tortured, strangled, broiled slowly on a gridiron, eyes goughed out with red hot irons, starved to death, The persecutions ended when Constantine became ruler and there were no general persecutions for the next 1000 years until the time of John Wycliffe.

Papal Persecutions - Persecution by the Church
It is estimated that between 50 - 100 million people died cruel deaths during the reign of the church.

Why does the church persecute? And why such cruelty? I could quote many popes from the past, but you might say that the church has changed. So let me quote from the present, to show why this method of control will always be an option for the church.

• Pope Innocent III's (1198-1216 AD) Deliberatio claimed the right to dispose kings. He ordered the extermination of heretics, the massacre of Albigensians, condemned the Magna Charta, and forbade Bible reading in the common language.
• The Inquisition of heretics established (1229) under Gregory IX. (1227-1241)
• Pope Innocent IV, in his instruction for the guidance of the Inquisition in Tuscany and Lombardy, ordered the civil magistrates to force a confession of guilt from all heretics by torture, and a betrayal of all their accomplices, in the Papal Bull Ad Extirpanda de Medio Populi Christiani Pravitatis Zizania, dated May 15, 1252.
• Pope Clement V (1305-1314) rebukes England's King Edward II for not torturing heretics and orders him to do so.

Papal Persecutions - The Crusades

	Meet the Pope
	Saint Urban II
He created the "sex tax" (Cullagium) which allowed priests to keep a mistress as long as they paid an annual fee. The crusades might have killed up to 26,000,000 people as they killed Christians, Jews and Muslims. He was canonized by Leo XIII.

The crusades was a series of expeditions, sanctioned by the pope, against heathens and heretics. They were generally called by the church, headed by Holy Roman Emperors and were used to get back the Holy Land from the Muslims and later to persecute heretics in Europe. Most crusades were against the Turks, Muslims who occupied the Holy Land. Other crusades were against Christians who opposed the papacy, threatened Catholic unity and had their own doctrine.
Except for the first crusade, the campaign against the Muslims was largely a failure.

1. The First Crusade (November 27, 1095). In 1095 Pope Urban II declared a holy war, a Crusade, against the Muslims to make the Holy Land Christian again. He also ordered all heretics to be tortured and killed. With Urban's call and the Church's support, thousands of towns people found a direction for their frustration and hate, and they raped and murdered their way to Jerusalem.
   
   The First Holocaust - Jews of the Rhineland. Godfrey of Bouillon, a respected knight, determined not to leave his country for the Holy Land until he had avenged the crucifixion by spilling a Jew's blood with his own hands. Mobs formed intending to march to the Holy Land and kill the enemies of Christ, but before they went to the Holy land they turned against the Jews of the Rhineland, tried to force them to convert to Christianity and eventually killing a total of 12,000 in 1096. In one month alone, between May and June, 10,000 lives were taken.
   
   The Conquest of the Holy Land. In 1099 they had arrived by boat in Lebanon they captured Jerusalem by July 15, 1099 and killed 20,000 men, women and children in the process.
   
   In June 1099, the crusaders laid siege to Jerusalem, by July 15 they broke through the Northern Wall slaughtering men, women and children all day and night. 6,000 Jews had fled to the synagogue for refuge - it was torched and they were burned alive. Surviving Muslims fled to the mosque of al Aqsa, 30,000 were killed when the crusaders broke down the door.
   They did not stop until there was no one else around to be killed. They took some of the men and the prettier women captive, and then they headed off to systematically conquer each city in the country. They conquered many towns and built more than 250 full Crusader fortresses over 50 years in Caesarea, Jaffa, Akko, Montfort, Yehi Am, Tiberius, Nimrod, Belvoir. They also conquered Haifa, Beirut, Sidon, Jericho, Bethlehem, Ashkelon, Eilat and Ramleh.
   They also built large shrines at:
   • Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the official site where Jesus was killed, anointed, and buried)
   • Church of the Cross (the official site of the tree which provided Jesus' cross)
   • King David's tomb
   • Jesus' official birth site in Bethlehem. They built huge Templar Halls in Akko, Ramleh, and Jerusalem.
   By 1146, the Muslims, led by a brilliant young general named Saladin, began a successful reconquering of the land in 1146. This led to the Second Crusade.
2. The Second Crusade (1147-49). A Second Crusade was proclaimed by Pope Eugene III when the news reached Europe in 1146 that a Muslim Saracen named Saladin had begun to reconquer the Holy Land from the Crusaders and that Edessa had fallen to the Turks.
   
   The mobs, once again turned toward the Jewish quarters to start another blood bath. But fewer than 200 were killed after the Jews paid large bribes to the bishops and noblemen and a Christian, Bernard of Clairvaux, wrote letters to the Christian communities appealing to them not to harm Jews. These efforts avoided another bloodbath.
   
   The crusade was led by Holy Roman Emperor Conrad III, King Louis VII of France. They took Ashkelon, Tiberius and various other coastal towns. However, they lost the war due to the unique military tactics of Saladin and by 1187 they were soundly defeated in a decisive battle just west of the Sea of Kinneret at a place called Hattin.
   The Second Crusade thus ended in total defeat; the Muslims controlled the entire country.
   
   When the European Christians heard of the defeat of the Crusaders, they once again tried to slaughter the Jews in their frustration, but the intervention of Frederick 1 of Prussia saved them.
3. The Third Crusade (1189-1192). The Third Crusade was called by Pope Gregory VIII following the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187 and the defeat of Guy of Lusignan, Reginald of Châtillon, and Raymond of Tripoli at Hattin. The leaders were Richard 1 of England, Philip II of France, and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I.
   Frederick died (1190) in Cilicia, and only part of his forces went on to the Holy Land. Richard and Philip, arrived at Acre in 1191. Philip left by July of that year. In 1192 Richard made a three year truce with Saladin and left. The Christians retained Jaffa with a narrow strip of coast with the right of free access to the Holy Sepulcher, but their main objective to capture Jerusalem failed, but Antioch and Tripoli were still in the hands of Christians.
4. The Fourth Crusade (1202-1204). Pope Innocent III launched the Fourth Crusade but the crusaders never made it to Palestine. Instead it was totally diverted from its original course.
   The Crusaders, led mostly by French and Flemish nobles, attacked Constantinople and drove out the Byzantine Emperor Alexius III and set up the Latin empire of Constantinople. Alexius (later Alexius IV), son of the deposed Byzantine emperor Isaac II and brother-in-law of Philip of Swabia, a sponsor of the crusade, joined the army at Zara and persuaded the leaders to help him depose his uncle, Alexius III. In exchange, he promised large sums of money, aid to the Crusaders in conquering Egypt, and the union of the Roman and the Eastern churches.
   » The Children's Crusade (1212). The Children's Crusade, 1212 was led by a visionary French peasant boy, Stephen of Cloyes. Children embarked at Marseilles, hoping they would succeed in the cause that their elders had betrayed. Most of them perished of hunger and disease or were sold into slavery.
5. The Fifth Crusade (1217-1221). Soon afterward, Innocent III and his successor Honorius III, began to preach the Fifth Crusade. King Andrew II of Hungary, Duke Leopold VI of Austria, John of Brienne, and the papal legate Pelasius were among the leaders of the expedition, which was aimed at Egypt, the center of Muslim strength. Damietta (Dumyat) was taken in 1219 but had to be evacuated again after the defeat (1221) of an expedition against Cairo.
6. The Sixth Crusade (1228-29). The Sixth Crusade, was undertaken by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II he made a truce with the Muslims, securing the partial surrender of Jerusalem and other holy places and crowned himself king of Jerusalem. The Muslims later reoccupied the city.
   Thibaut IV of Navarre and Champagne, started the war again in 1239 and the struggle was continued by Richard, Earl of Cornwall. They were unable to compose the quarrels between the Knights Hospitalers and Knights Templars. In 1244 the Templars, made a treaty and an alliance with the sultan of Damascus rather than with Egypt. A treaty (1244) with Damascus restored Palestine to the Christians.
7. The Seventh Crusade (1248-1254). The Seventh Crusade was due to Louis IX of France. It was called after the Egyptian Muslims and their Turkish allies took Jerusalem and utterly defeated the Christians at Gaza. Again, Egypt was the object of attack. Damietta fell again in 1249 but in 1250 Louis was captured on an expedition to Cairo. After his release from captivity, he spent four years improving the fortifications left to the Christians in the Holy Land.
8. The Eighth Crusade (1270). The fall of Jaffa and Antioch to the Muslims in 1268 caused Louis IX to undertake the Eighth Crusade in 1270, which was cut short by his death in Tunisia.
9. The Ninth Crusade (1271 - 1272). The Ninth Crusade, was led by Prince Edward (later Edward 1 of England). He landed at Acre but retired after concluding a truce. In 1289, Tripoli fell to the Muslims, and in 1291 the last Christian stronghold in Acre also fell.

Papal Persecutions - Hussites

Map of Protestant Distribution

The Hussites in Bohemia and Moravia were followers of Jan Huss who was burned at the stake in 1415 for heresy. This was a complex religious, political and social struggle that aligned these forces:

• Roman Catholic Church against the Protestants.
• Germans against the Czechs.
• Civil war between Upper class and the peasants.

After the death of Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia in 1419, the Hussites took up arms to prevent Emperor Sigismund from succeeding to the throne. They were without a king between 1429 and 1436. While this War of Succession was going on, the crusades against the Hussites began. The crusades against the Czech Hussites were mostly a failure until the Council of Basil in 1433. At this time, moderate Hussites recanted their heresy and went back to the Catholic Church. This caused disagreement and the civil war broke out between the Utraquists and the Taborites (lower class).
In Bohemia, a country with a population of four million by the year 1600, 3.2 million of which were Protestants, only the population of 800,000 Catholics were left alive by the time the Hapsburgs and Jesuits were through. 2,400,000 Protestants were cruelly murdered.

Papal Persecutions - Waldensians (1147-1658)

	Meet the Popes of this Era
	All sinners
Boniface VIII	Adultery and homosexual activity
Clement V	Loved prostitutes
Paul II	Homosexual, who liked bondage and lust. Died of a heart attack while being sodomized
Alexander VI	Incest, adultery, illegitimate children, Orgies in the papal palace

The Waldenses or Vaudois were French Protestants in the Piedmont Valley region of southern France and northern Italy. By the middle ages, the church was filled with darkness and superstition. Around the year 1000, some people, notably Berengarius, boldly preached the primitive gospel truths and separated themselves from the Roman church. He was succeeded by Peer Bruis who wrote a book called Antichrist.

By the year 1140, there was a large number in the reformed movement, and their popularity alarmed the pope, prompting him to gather scholars to write against their doctrines and to ask several princes to banish them from their dominions.

By 1147 Peter Waldo of Lyons became a popular preacher among the reformed and they came to be known as Waldensians. Pope Alexander III excommunicated Waldo and his followers and asked the Bishop of Lyons to exterminate them from the face of the earth. So the persecution of the Waldensians began. This was the first time that the system of the Inquisition was used. Any open or anonymous accusation was sufficient evidence of guilt. The Dominician Order was formed from a monk named Dominic who was tasked with debating the Waldensians out of their beliefs. The Dominicans had been principally responsible for being the inquisitors in all future inquisitions.

No one of any race, gender, wealth or rank was spared from the inquisition. To be rich was automatically a proof of being a heretic. People's property was confiscated. Their heirs were robbed of their inheritance. Some were sent to the Holy land and the Dominicans took possession of their property and pretended not to know them when they returned. Others could not visit their loved ones in jail, give them fresh straw to sleep on or give them a cup of water, nor could any lawyer plead for their cause because they would be prosecuted for favoring a heretic.
Their malice went so deep that even after death, anyone accused of heresy had their bones dug up and publicly burned.

So the church not only used this inquisition to accuse people of heresy, they also used it as an opportunity to rob the rich of their property.

Papal Persecutions - Albigensians
The Albigenses or Carthari were French Protestants in southern France, northern Italy and northern Spain, a people of the reformed religion, who inhabited the country of Albi. The Albigensian heretics were also known as Cathari or Cathars. Pope Alexander III condemned the religion in the Council of Lateran, but their numbers still increased. The Albigenses were members of the reformed church who believed in dualism, they believe God created Christ and the Holy Spirit. They did not believe in purgatory, resurrection, the priesthood, veneration of images, sacraments or the Nicene Trinity.

In 1208, Pope Innocent II asked King Philip II to eradicate the heresy and called the crusade to combat the heresies. In the crusading Bull, the pope promised paradise and the land of the defeated was promised to the victors. So a land rush began. An inquisition was also called against the people - those who did not recant were burned, those who did were forced to wear yellow crosses.

This struggle against the Christians of Southern France lasted 20 years. In one battle alone, an estimated 60,000 were slaughtered by Pope Innocent II in the siege of the city of Beziers, France in 1209.

King Luis VIII again lead the crusade to exterminate the Albigenses in 1226.
Many were beaten, racked, scourged, and burnt to death. At the height of the crusade a hundred were burned at the stake at a time.

Papal Persecutions - Huguenots (1562 -1598)
"Une foi, un loi, un roi," (one faith, one law, one king) was the motto of the French. The French wars of religion was caused by growth of Calvinism, noble factionalism, and weak royal government. From 1550's Calvinist or Huguenot numbers increased, fostered by missionary activities in Geneva. Noble factions of Bourbons, Guise, and Montmorency were split by religion as well as by family interests. Civil wars were encouraged by Philip II's support of Catholic Guise faction and by Elizabeth I's aid to Huguenots (French Protestants). The wars of religion started with the Massacre at Vassy in 1592 when servants of the Duc de Guise fired on the unarmed Huguenot and set the church on fire.
The most notable incidents of these wars were the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre and the slaughter of the Protestants under Louis XIV. Pope Pius V decreed the extermination of Huguenots and asked all loyal Catholics to help hunt them down.

Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre of Huguenots in France (August 24, 1572)
Catherine de Medici, the mother of the King of France arranged a fake wedding between her daughter, Margot de Valois, and Henri de Navarre who was a Protestant leader. The marriage was publicly conducted on August 17 and was attended by the Cardinal of Bourbon.
Four days later with a prearranged signal at midnight the homes of Protestants were entered. Admiral de Coligny, the chief military leader of the Huguenots, was stabbed by an assassin, in the chest with a sword in his own bedroom. Then they threw him out of a window into the street, cut off his head and sent it to the pope. Then they cut off his arms and private members, dragged him through the streets for three days, and hung him by the heels outside the city.

For many days they killed as many Protestants as they could, starting with the upper class. In the first 3 days 10,000 were killed and their bodies thrown into the river. The bloodbath spread from Paris to other parts of the country and in a week over 100,000 Protestants were killed across the kingdom. Some priests, holding up a crucifix in one hand, and a dagger in the other, ran to the chiefs of the murderers, and strongly exhorted them to spare neither relatives nor friends

Many who gave great sums of money for their ransom were immediately slain; and several towns, which were under the king's promise of protection and safety, were cut off as soon as they delivered themselves up, on those promises, to his generals or captains.

Rome Celebrates the Massacre

Front	GREGORIVS • XIII • PONT • MAX • AN • 1. Gregory XIII Great Pontiff Year 1
Back	UGONOTTORUM STRAGES 1572 Huguenots Slaughtered 1572

• Pope Gregory XIII had a medal created to celebrate the bloody event. A Catholic web site states that the medal was not created to celebrate the massacre. It was created to celebrate the fact that the king was not killed. I would believe that except for these outstanding facts which show that the medal which was supposed to honor the king, did not even mention his name or France.
  1. The king was never in danger. There was no war that endangered the life of the king. In fact the plot was designed to make the Protestants feel secure. The Protestants were ambushed without the possibility of defending themselves.
     Therefore, the medal could only be designed to celebrate the success of this plot - the massacre of the people represented on the back of the medal.
  2. The design on the back of the medal clearly shows the angel of the Christian church with a sword and a cross, slaughtering people.
     And it says: UGONOTTORUM STRAGES 1572. Huguenots Slaughtered 1572
  3. If I remember my Latin correctly, the front of the medal honors Pope Gregory XIII. Both sides of the medal do not mention the king. It mentions the slaughter and has a picture of the slaughter.
• The massacres on St. Bartholomew's Day are painted in the royal saloon of the Vatican at Rome, with the following Latin inscription:
  Pontifex, Coligny necem probat which means - The pope approves of Coligny's death.
• At Rome the horrid joy was so great, that they appointed a day of high festival, and a jubilee, with great indulgence to all who kept it and showed any expression of gladness they could devise! and the man who first carried the news received 1000 crowns from the cardinal of Lorraine for his ungodly message.

In France, the king also commanded the day to be kept with every demonstration of joy, believing that the whole race of Huguenots was now extinct.

The Edict of Nantes (1598)
The Edict of Nantes was made by Henry the Great of France in 1598. It gave the same civil and religious liberty rights to the Protestants that it gave other citizens. Pope Clement VIII called it a "cursed thing". It was in opposition to the Council of Trent which issued over 100 anathemas against the Protestants. Henry IV was a Protestant who converted to Catholicism because the Catholics would not tolerate a Protestant king. He was assassinated by being stabbed in the chest.

Dragonnades (1681)
In 1681, after Louis XIV failed to eliminate the Huguenots, he forced them to allow soldiers to stay in their homes. The soldiers orders were to force them to give up their faith. Day and night these soldiers tortured, beat and terrorized the Protestants. Tens of thousands "converted" in weeks.

Slaughter of French Huguenots under King Louis XIV (1685)

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes October 18, 1685 The demolition of all Protestant Temples in France The ban of the Protestant religion The ban on private worship under penalty of confiscation of body and property The banishment of all Protestant pastors from France within fifteen days The closing of all Protestant schools The prohibition of parents to instruct their children in the Protestant faith Children baptized by the parish priest Children brought up in the Roman Catholic religion The confiscation of the property and goods of all Protestant refugees who failed to return to France within four months The penalty of the galleys for life to all men, and of imprisonment for life to all women, detected in the act of attempting to escape from France. The law even punished those who escaped.

Louis XIV would not revoke the edict. However, he had confessed to his Jesuit priest, Pere La Chaise, about an affair with his daughter-in-law. The priest used this fact as a weapon to blackmail him into exterminating the Protestants. Cusack writes in "The Black Pope" on page 403:

It cost me many threats and promises, before I could bring it thus far, our King being a long time very unwilling. But at last I got him on the hip, for he had lain with his daughter-in-law, for which I would by no means give him absolution, till he had given me an instrument under his own hand and seal, to sacrifice all the heretics in one day. Now, as soon as I had my desired commission, I appointed the day when this should be done; and in the meantime made ready some thousands of letters to be sent into all parts of France in one post night.

On page 149 of "The Two Babylons" by Hislop it also quotes the priest:

Many a time since, when I have had him at confession, I have shook hell about his ears, and made him sigh, fear and tremble, before I would give him absolution. Nay, more than that, I have made him beg for it on his knees before I would consent to absolve him. By this I saw that he had still an inclination to me, and was willing to be under my government; so I set the baseness of the action before him by telling the whole story, and how wicked it was, and that it could not be forgiven till he had done some good action to balance that, and expiate the crime. Whereupon he at last asked me what he must do. I told him that he must root out all heretics from his kingdom. This was the "good action" to be cast into the scale of St. Michael the Archangel, to "balance" his crime. The king, wicked as he was - sore against his will - consented; the "good action" was cast in, the "heretics" were extirpated; and the king was absolved.

This slaughter began with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes October 18, 1685 by Louis XIV although it was the Protestants who helped him to ascend the throne following years of bloody civil wars. He even confirmed the Edict of Nantes with his own edict of Nismes.

The Edict Against the Vaudois January 31, 1686 The Vaudois shall henceforth and for ever cease and discontinue all the exercises of their religion. They are forbidden to have religious meetings, under pain of death, and penalty of confiscation of all their goods. All their ancient privileges are abolished. All the churches, prayer-houses, and other edifices consecrated to their worship shall be razed to the ground. All the pastors and schoolmasters of the Valleys are required either to embrace Romanism or to quit the country within fifteen days, under pain of death and confiscation of goods. All the children born, or to be born, of Protestant parents, shall be compulsorily trained up as Roman Catholics. Every such child yet unborn shall, within a week after its birth, be brought to the cure of its parish, and admitted of the Roman Catholic Church, under pain, on the part of the mother, of being publicly whipped with rods, and on the part of the father of laboring five years in the galleys. The Vaudois pastors shall abjure the doctrine they have hitherto publicly preached; shall receive a salary, greater by one-third than that which they previously enjoyed; and one-half thereof shall go in reversion to their widows. All Protestant foreigners settled in Piedmont are ordered either to become Roman Catholics, or to quit the country within fifteen days. By a special act of his great and paternal clemency, the sovereign will permit persons to sell, in this interval, the property they may have acquired in Piedmont, provided the sale be made to Roman Catholic purchasers. History of Protestantism. by James A. Wylie

Before that date, the Protestants slowly lost their rights. Protestants were prevented from suing Catholics in any court. Soon an order was made to inquire into all activities of the Protestants over the past 20 years. As a result, many innocent victims were placed in prison, some were banished and others were sent to the galleys as slaves. Eventually, Protestants were expelled from all offices, trades, privileges, and employment; depriving them of the means of financial support. Children were taken to be raised by Catholics, private worship was outlawed, they could not help their own poor or sick and a priest had to be present at all divine services. All ports of entry were guarded so that these people could not escape, only 150,000 did.
When the edict was pronounced the king stated that he would not longer tolerate Huguenots in the kingdom and the Protestants were immediately surrounded. This action took place quickly because the Catholics were appointed as rulers over the Protestants and they knew of the edict before it was publicly announced so they were able to trap their victims.

They demolished their churches and homes and ordered their ministers to leave the kingdom within 24 hours. They then proceeded to delay them until the 24 hours had expired so that they could be condemned for life in the galleys.
With a cry of "Die or be Catholic", the Protestants were ordered to convert to Catholicism by choice or by force.

The Protestants replied, that they were ready to sacrifice their lives and estates to the king, but their consciences being God's they could not so dispose of them.

They suffered constant torture. They were hung by the hair or feet and smoked with hay, or burned until they died or converted. They were stuck with pins from head to foot, cut with knives all over their bodies, dragged by the nose, women were raped in front of their husbands or fathers. The galley slaves suffered the worst long term deliberate suffering and torture and punishment of all. Many ministers were given this punishment. They were given thin cotton clothes to wear in the cold seas. Beaten, overworked, underfed, sleepless. Many eventually died of exposure.
One source reports that 500,000 died.

The Persecution of the Vaudois (1686).
Next, Louis XIV forced the Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus, to murder the Waldenses (Vaudois) in the Piedmont Valleys. He sent an ambassador to tell the duke that he should deal with the Vaudois in the same way that he was dealing with the Huguenot. The Duke was unwilling to do this because they were such loyal subjects who had recently helped him in battle. He had just sent them a letter of gratitude.
Louis made this request three times before he threatened to send an army of 14,000 men to do the job. So, on January 31, 1686 the edict was pronounced. It had the same terms as the Edict of Nantes and it removed all their rights. And it lead to their slaughter.

The Inquisitions
The word inquisition means "to inquire into". By the middle ages when the church heretics came to be regarded as enemies of the state and persecution of the heretics was still mostly unorganized. The inquisition was an attempt to organize and bring order and legality to the process. By this time the state and the church were unified and people felt that heresy threatened the order of society. So heresy was both a crime against church and civil law.

The church sought out those accused of the crime and first tried to instruct them in the Catholic doctrine. If the person insisted in their belief, then they were handed over to the state for punishment - usually burning at the stake. By the end of all three official inquisitions over 68,000,000 Protestants, Pagans and heretics were murdered.

• The Papal Inquisition (1231)
  This Inquisition was called to combat the heresies of the Albigensians and Waldenses. It was later extended to include witches, blasphemers, diviners and other unorthodox practices. Over 900,000 Protestants were killed as a result of the inquisition against the Waldenses alone. Many more were tortured and imprisoned.
• The Spanish Inquisition (1480-1834)
  

  	Meet the Pope
  	Sixtus IV
  Incest, bisexual activity, a benefactor to prostitutes. Gave his family wealth and position in the church.

  Organized by Pope Sextus IV, King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella against Jews and Muslims. 95% of its victims were Jews. The LaGuardia trial unleashed the Inquisition in its complete fury, culminating in the expulsion of all Jews from Spain in 1492, the same year that Granada was taken from the Moors completing the Christian Reconquest. After the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile , the larger part of Christian Spain was united under a strong Spanish monarchy. Eventually, Spanish nationalism and Catholicism became intimately interwoven and Catholic orthodoxy and patriotism were viewed by Spaniards as being essentially the same and there came a call for pure white Christian blood. It started in earnest with a famous show trial - the LaGuardia trial - in 1490. Eight Jews and Conversos were accused of crucifying a Christian child. They confessed after being tortured and were burned at the stake - despite the fact that no victim was identified and no body was found. It subsided with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 and the capture of Granads from the Muslim Moors in the south. It did not officially end until 1834. At that time, Spain had the largest population of Jews in Europe, many were Conversos, they had converted to Christianity to avoid earlier persecution.

  The Inquisition started with the goal of eliminating heresy and enforcing church law. Inquisitorial methods included: Use of tortured informants, torture driven confessions, confiscation of property, lengthy secret imprisonment, secret trials, and death by burning.
  
  The Spanish Inquisition Persecution Tests. Tests were devised to detect secret Jews. An acceptable evidence of guilt included the following:

  Religious Test
  • The slightest deviation from strict Catholic practice
  • Refusal to eat pork
  • Not affirming that the Virgin herself can cause cures
  • Not affirming that the image of the Virgin can also cause cures
    
    Sabbath Test. One set of guidelines for detecting Jews listed the following:
  • If you see that your neighbors are wearing clean and fancy clothes on Saturdays.
  • If they clean their houses on Fridays and light candles earlier than usual on that night.
  • If they eat unleavened bread and begin their meal with celery and lettuce during Holy Week.
  • If they say prayers facing a wall, bowing back and forth.
    
    Legal and Social Tactics
  • The Inquisition acted on the presumption that the accused was guilty until he could establish his innocence.
  • People were encouraged to inform on one another.
  • Secrecy was a primary feature of inquisitorial procedure.
  • After imprisonment the accused was deprived of all visitation.
  • Papers bearing upon his case were kept from him.
  • He was not even informed of the names of his accusers or those who gave testimony against him.
  • Torture of the accused was permissible in order to extract confessions and information on accomplices and to provide a deterrent to others who might be inclined to heresy.
    
    The modes of torture mostly in use were:
  • The water ordeal
  • The garruche
  Various penalties were given to those convicted by the Inquisition. These included confiscation of goods and property, imprisonment, public scourging, the galleys, exile, and death. The accused received their sentence at a public ceremony known as "auto de fe" ("act of faith"). These spectacles were treated as public holidays. On that day the prisoners were led in a procession by priests and Inquisitorial officials to a public square. There a sermon was preached, an oath was taken of the people and rulers to support the Inquisition, and sentences were pronounced. Because Inquisitorial officials were forbidden to pass the death sentence, prisoners were turned over to the civil officers for punishment. Church officials even asked the civil officers to exercise mercy and spill no blood. However, this was an empty formality, for everyone knew the serious offenders were to be burned at the stake. They were still killed whether or not they accepted Christianity in full. If the accused recanted, they were burned with a quick-burning seasoned wood. If not, they were burned with slow-burning green wood.
  
  It is estimated that in the years 1480-1524, 14,344 were burnt alive, 1,368 were burnt in effigy, and 195,937 condemned to other penalties or released as penitents.
• The Roman Inquisition (1559)
  Pope Paul II organized this inquisition to combat the spread of Protestantism and largely focused on the writings of theologians. So in 1559, an Index of Forbidden Books was created - these were said to offend faith and morals. Oh yes, and many reformers and leaders and converts were burned with their offensive books. By the way, one of these offensive books was the Bible in the language of the people.
  The Modern Office of Inquisition
  The office of Inquisition was a system to remove heresy, it has had three name changes:
  1. 1542-1908. Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition.
  2. 1908-1988. Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office.
  3. 1988-Present. Sacred Congregation for the doctrine of the faith.
  Damasus I (366-83) issued the first heresy bull. Anyone convicted of disagreeing with the teachings of the Council of Nicea (325) could be executed as an enemy of the faith. Most of the torturing ordered by Innocent IV was performed by members of the Dominican order, whose monks were called the "black friars".
  Heresy laws had the following provisions that allowed you to be accused without knowing the charges or who made these accusations.
  • The accused never learned the names of those who brought the charges
  • The accused was not informed of the nature of the charges brought against him or her.
  • The testimonies of two witnesses was needed to bring a charge against an accused.
  The office of Inquisition still exists in the Vatican. Due to protests, it has been renamed as the office of sacred congregation for the doctrine of the faith since 1988.

The Reformation: Martin Luther
In 1517, Johann Tetzel appeared in Germany selling a special indulgence issued by the Pope. This was the straw that broke the camel's back.
The Protestant religious revolution was initiated in Germany by Luther in 1517, when he published his 95 theses challenging the theory and practice of selling indulgences. He advocated that religion rests on individual faith based on the guidance contained in the Bible. The reformation ended the supremacy of the Pope and gave birth to the Protestant churches.

The reformation eventually led to the Renaissance (or the rebirth of learning) and culminated in the French Revolution. The French revolution ended the political power of the pope and started the era of secular, modern history.

Pressure was brought on Luther by both the church and state.
Ordered to recant and to submit to church authority, he defied the church by publicly burning a copy of the canon law and the papal bull which ordered his excommunication.
In 1521, Charles V, Holy Roman emperor, and the German princes assembled at the Diet of Worms and ordered Luther to recant. He refused and was declared an outlaw. For almost a year he remained in hiding, writing pamphlets expounding his principles and translating the New Testament into German. Although his writings were prohibited by imperial edict, they were openly sold and were powerful instruments in turning the great German cities into centers of Lutheranism.

The spirit of reformation started in many countries and were headed by many who were later martyred.

National Movements and Leaders
Year	Reformer	Country	Church	Comments
1324-1384	John Wycliffe	England	Lollards	Preached against the doctrine of transubstantiation and the auricular confession, and translated the Bible into English. Forty one years after his natural death, his body was dug up and burned as a heretic and the ashes were thrown into the Swift river.
1415-1416	Huss	Europe	Waldenses	They criticized the Roman view of the sacraments, rejected prayers to the saints, indulgences, purgatory, worldly pomp for the church, prayers for the dead. He was burned at the stake in 1415 and their ashes thrown into the Rhine river.
1517	Luther	Germany	Lutheran	95 Theses
1518	Zwingli	Switzerland	Reformed	Denounced the sale of indulgences. Religious relics were burned, removed icons, ceremonial processions and adoration of saints were abolished, priests and monks were released from their vows of celibacy, and the Mass was replaced by a simpler communion service. Executed in 1529 and his body burned and scattered.
1525	Zwingli	Switzerland	Anabaptists Mennonites	Characterized generally by believers' baptism, refusal of infant baptism, an emphasis on piety and good works, an aversion to the state-run churches
1536	Calvin	Geneva	Reformed	:.
1559	Calvin	France	Huguenots	A belief in justification by individual faith alone; he also denied the doctrine of transubstantiation.
1560	John Knox	Scotland	Reformed, Presbyterian	Calvinism
1534	King Henry VIII	England	Anglican	The king wanted the church to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragón because no male heirs were produced. But the church would not.

Anabaptist sects include Mennonites, Amish, Brethren and Hutterites.
Puritanism and congregationalism: Baptists

The Counter-Reformation
The church reacted to the reformation and Protestantism by forming many organizations and organized persecutions. The Inquisition officially started in 1231. The vast majority of the murders of 50-100 million Christians occurred during the Inquisitions and especially during the period after the Reformation movement of 1517.

Several religious orders were formed to crush the Reformation by force, lies and by scholarly rebuttal. With their scholarly knowledge and with their legal powers as inquisitors, they went on to exterminate hundreds of millions of Christians.

• The Dominicans. The Dominicans were an order of friars much like the Franciscans that was originally set up in 1216 to preach against the beliefs of the Albigenses and bring them back to the church. They served as officers in the Spanish Inquisition.
  The order started when Our Lady of the Rosary appeared in Prouille, France in 1208 to Domingo de Guzman. He was a Spanish preacher who went to southern France to oppose the Albigensian heresy which was spreading rapidly. In 1208, while he was praying at a chapel in Prouille, Mary appeared to him and gave him the Rosary and urged him to preach the Rosary to all people as a remedy against heresy and sin.
• The Franciscans. The order arose in the fourteenth century to fight against heretics in the Inquisition. The office of inquisitor was entrusted almost exclusively to the Franciscans and, especially, the Dominicans, because of their superior training in theology.
• The Jesuits (Society of Jesus). In 1540, in response to the reformation, Loyola formed this order. Their purpose was to resist all innovation in doctrine and to fight against the reformation by preaching as the Protestant did and by forming theories that contradicted the Protestants.
  Eventually, their schools came to be known as well-respected places of higher learning, possibly because they had the wealth and the influence to create these schools while the Protestants did not. Also, during those times it was customary to discriminate on the basis of religion and education.
  
  They were influential in forming and spreading the doctrine of futurism and preterism which pointed suspicion away from the papacy as the condemned whore of Revelation to a fulfillment in the past or the future. Through the Jesuits Ribera of Salamanca Spain, and Bellarmine of Rome, the Papacy put forth her futurist interpretation. Almost simultaneously Alcazar, Spanish Jesuit of Seville, advanced the conflicting preterist interpretation.

The Jesuit Extreme Oath of Induction
This is supposed to be the Jesuit Extreme Oath of Induction as recorded in the Congressional Record of the U.S.A. (House Bill 1523, February 15, 1913, pages 3215-3216):

I ______, now in the presence of Almighty God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Blessed Michael the Archangel, the Blessed St. John the Baptist, the Holy Apostles, Peter and Paul, and all the Saints, sacred hosts of Heaven, and to you, my ghostly Father, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius Loyola, in the Pontification of Paul the Third, and continued to the present, do by the womb of the virgin, the matrix of God, and the rod of Jesus Christ, declare and swear that his holiness, the Pope, is Christ's Vice-regent, and is the true and only head of the Catholic or Universal Church throughout the earth; and that by the virtue of the keys of binding and loosing, given to his Holiness by my Savior, Jesus Christ, he has power to depose heretical kings, princes, states, commonwealths and governments, all being illegal without his sacred confirmation, and that they may be safely destroyed.

I do further promise and declare, that I will have no opinion or will of my own, or any mental reservation whatever, even as a corpse or cadaver but unhesitatingly obey each and every command that I may receive from my superiors in the Militia of the Pope and Jesus Christ.

...I do further promise and declare, that I will, when opportunity presents, make and wage relentless war, secretly or openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Liberals, as I am directed to do to extirpate and exterminate them from the face of the whole earth, and that I will spare neither sex, age nor condition, and that I will hang, waste, boil, flay, strangle and bury alive these infamous heretics; rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women and crush their infants heads against the wall, in order to annihilate forever their execrable race.

That when the same cannot be done openly, I will secretly use the poison cup, the strangulation cord, the steel of the poniard, or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honor, rank, dignity or authority of the person or persons whatsoever may be their condition in life, either public or private, as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agent of the Pope or superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Faith of the Society of Jesus.

Summary of the Methods and Tactics of Persecution
Since the church technically has no army, it uses the faithful and the armies of the nations it controls. Soldiers are recruited by many tactics.

Recruiting an Army

• A call to the faithful to destroy heresy.
• Penance - or a way to atone for past sins.
• Leaders promise to fight for church in future wars as penance, using their national armies. Therefore, the penance of one ruler can recruit an entire army and slaughter a million innocents.
• Leaders are threatened with an internal civil uprising if the church is not obeyed.
• Leaders are asked to use civil means to accomplish the aims of the church.
• An indulgence is issued promising direct passage to heaven on death, instead of purgatory. (Normally, most people go to purgatory. Only the perfect go straight to heaven.)
• Promise of financial and other economic gain by robbing or confiscating the property of the persecuted.

Methods of Persecution
The persecuted are tormented by various methods:

• Property is destroyed or confiscated and placed in the treasury of the popes.
• Loss of jobs and other means of financial support.
• Inability to enter certain professions by law.
• Civil Laws against the group.
• Social pressure. Loss of support systems.
• Fear of false accusations.
• Fear of guilt by association. Friends and loved ones cannot assist the persecuted without fear of being accused themselves.
• Planned single attack in one night - Usually the attack is well planned with the cooperation of the state. Secret laws are passed, local leaders or spies are set in place and civil resources are used to block escape.
• Torture
• Death, cruel and slow.

Methods of Torture
Even the Muslims have come to refer to this as Christian barbarism. One cruel fact about these evil acts were the fact they found ways to prolong the torture so that the victim would be conscious for as long as possible. Here are some of the methods:

• Using green wood instead of dry when burning at the stakes.
• Hang victims upside down so that the blood could reach the brain when you are being cut into two. This prolonged their consciousness so that they could suffer more pain.

Top to Bottom Judas Cradle, Iron Maiden Cat's Paw, Heretic's Fork, Pear The Judas Cradle The victim is hoisted up and lowered onto the point of the pyramid in such a way that his weight rests on the point positioned in the anus, in the vagina, under the scrotum or under the coccyx (the last two or three vertebrae). The executioner, according to the pleasure of the interrogators, could vary the pressure from zero to that of total body weight. The victim can be rocked, or made to fall repeatedly onto the point. This method is still used by few governments in Latin America and elsewhere, some with improvements like electrified waist rings. According to the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation, this persecuting power will last for 1260 years and it shall "wear out the saints of the Most High" while he "speaks boastful words" and "sits in the temple of God, showing himself as god".

• Deprivation. Starvation and sleeping on hard wood or stone in an 18 inch space with no toilet facilities.
• Exposure. Galley slaves suffered this the most. They are forced to work hours with little food and thin cotton clothes in cold weather.
• Running the gauntlet. The victim runs between two rows of soldiers, often barefoot on top of sharp objects and broken glass while they are beaten and stabbed by the people on the line.
• Burning alive at the stake. People are tied alive to a wooden stake, surrounded with hay or other fuel and burned alive. For quicker death. older, fast burning wood is used. For a slower death and torture - young green wood is used.
  The church officially sanctioned this method of punishing heretics at one of their ecumenical councils.
• Raping. Even this too, from the representatives of God in the name of God.
• Pinning. Pins were attached all over the body.
• Pulling. Pulled and dragged by the ears and nose.
• Piercing. Piercing the body in sensitive areas, using devices such as the Iron maiden, Virgin Mary, Chair of spikes, and the Judas Cradle. The iron maiden brought slow death. It is a coffin that was manufactured in Germany and used in the Spanish Inquisition. It had long spikes on the bottom and the lid. When the coffin is closed the victim is pierced to death. But the spikes are arranged so that they avoid the vital organs. This prolongs the suffering before death.
  The "Virgin Mary" was a standing statue with moveable arms. The heretic walked into the arms of the statue and was impaled with three inch spikes as the arms were tightened around the body.
  "The Interrogation Chair". It was made of metal, had spikes and could be heated.
  "Chambre chaufee". Until 1816 this was the approved method for the torture of homosexuals was to be lowered on to a red hot spike.
• Ripping. Ripping the flesh with spiked instruments such as the pear, Cat's paw, Heretic's fork and the Breast ripper. They were either cold or red hot when used.
• The Pear. Used to shatter the jaw bones or the pubic bones. A pear shaped object was inserted into a body cavity and opened until it shattered the bones. It was inserted into the mouth, anus or vagina then opened until it tore the organ and cracked the bone.
• Stabbing. Victims were stabbed or cut all over the body with knives.
• Scourging. Beaten often with a whip that had sharp spikes or nails at the end.
• Amputation. Cutting off tongues, hands, ears and noses.
• Smoking. Victims stood in a pile of smoking hay and periodically removed to see if they had recanted or told the church whatever they wanted to hear - true or false.
• Hanging. Hanging by the feet or the hair or neck.
• Explosion. Gunpowder was placed in their mouths and then ignited.
• Beheading. With an axe or blade.

  Modern Torture To our disgrace, modern nation are also engaged in torture. In addition to ancient methods they have devices modern horrors. » Electric Immobilization Device. Stun guns and stun belts that deliver 80000 to 720000 volts of electricity. The device is applied to nails, fingers, genitals, head and the body. It can rupture blood vessels, tear muscles and ligaments. » Beating the Soles of the Feet. This is extremely painful and the pain can persist for years. » Suffocation, Bagging. Suffocating with a plastic bag. » Mock Drowning. Suffocating by mock drowning. » Severe Beatings. Fists, feet, bats and other objects. » Sexual Torture. Inserting objects into the anus or vagina. Rape by humans or animals Raping of children to force parents to talk.

• Buried Alive. This was apparently a suitable punishment for Anabaptist women who recanted. The men who recanted were killed by the sword. Those who did not were burned alive. Lutherans suffered the same fate in 1535.
• Rack. Stretching the body. Ropes tied to the arms and legs then pulled by turning a pulley.
• Drawn and quartered. The arms and legs were tied to horses facing four directions, the animals were then made to run in each direction until the poor victim was torn apart.
• Eaten by Animals. In the new world babies and young children were baptized and then thrown to hungry wild dogs. In the Roman persecutions, Christians were thrown to hungry lions while the citizens watched and cheered. They attended these events as if they were a game of sport!
• Water ordeal. The victim, tightly bound, was stretched upon a rack or bed, with the body in an inclined position, the head slanted down. The jaws were distended, a linen cloth was forced down the victim's throat and water from a quart jar allowed to trickle through it into his inward parts. On occasion, seven or eight such jars were slowly emptied. This possibly simulates slow drowning.
• The garrucha or the strappade. Weights (180 then 250 pounds) were attached to the feet and the body suspended so that only the toes alone touched the ground. The body was then raised and lowered leisurely to increase the pain. A sudden drop would dislocate the shoulders.
• Degredation. Forced to eat feces and urine.
• Thumb and Finger Screws. These were screwed tightly until it shattered the thumb or the fingers.
• Greeks: The Brazen Bull. Invented by the Greeks. It was an oven shaped like a bull. The victim was enclosed inside and slowly roasted to death. The muffled groans and screams sounded like a bull.
• Romans: Flagellum. A whip with metal balls or tiny hooks or sharp bones on the end.
• Romans: Crucifixion. Nailed to a four point cross.

I know that persecutions will occur again. So while we all believe that this could never happen again, I urge you to think. Would Christ have done any of the atrocities listed above?

Meet Some Martyrs for Christ

Guiness "Romanism and the Reformation" pages 258-260 You shrink from it, do you? I accept it. Conscience constrains me. History compels me. The past, the awful past rises before me. I see the Great Apostasy, I see the desolation of Christendom, I see the smoking ruins, I see the reign of monsters; I see those vicegods, that Gregory VII., that Innocent III., that Boniface VIII, that Alexander VI, that Gregory XIII, that Pius IX; I see their long succession, I hear their insufferable blasphemies, I see their abominable lives, I see them worshipped by blind generations, bestowing hollow benedictions, bartering lying indulgences, creating paganized Christianity; I see their liveried slaves, their slaven priests, their celibate confessors; I see the infamous confessional, the ruined women, the murdered innocents; I hear the lying absolutions, the dying groans; I hear the cries of the victims; I hear the anathemas, the curses, the thunders of the interdicts; I see the racks, the dungeons, the stakes; I see that inhuman Inquisition, those fires of Smithfield, those butcheries of St. Bartholomew, that Spanish Armada, those unspeakable dragonades, that endless train of wars, that dreadful multitude of massacres. I see it all, in the name of the ruin that it has wrought in the church and in the world, in the name of the truth it has denied, the temple it has defiled, the God it has blasphemed, the souls it has destroyed; in the name of the millions it has deluded, the millions it has slaughtered, the millions it has damned; with holy confessors, with noble reformers, with innumerable martyrs, with the saints of ages, I denounce it as the masterpiece of Satan, as the body and soul and essence of Antichrist.

I am often amazed at these stories. How the persecuted met death and slow torture singing and praising God until the very end. It is estimated that there were over 200 million of these brave men, women and children punished for being heretics. For having a belief in God that was different. For selling the Bible. Let us pay tribute to some of them.

• Almericus, Martyr for Christ: In the third century a learned man, named Almericus, and six of his disciples, were ordered to be burnt at the stake in Paris for asserting that God was no more present in the sacramental bread than in any other bread; that it was idolatry to build altars or shrines to saints and that it was ridiculous to offer incense to them.
• Jean Vallière, Martyr for Christ
  The first Protestant martyr in France, was burned at the stake in August of 1523 in Paris.
• John Clark, Martyr for Christ
  In 1524, in Melden France, John Clark set up a bill on the church door, in which he called the pope the AntiChrist. For this he was repeatedly whipped, and then branded on the forehead. Later he went to Mentz, where he demolished some images, for which he had his right hand and nose cut off, and his arms and breast torn with pincers. He sustained these cruelties with amazing fortitude, and was even sufficiently bold to sing the One hundredth and fifteenth Psalm, which expressly forbids idolatry. After this he was thrown into the fire, and burnt to ashes.
• A Baby (One minute old), Martyr for Christ: A baby was stabbed to death right after it was born. The mother was a Protestant killed in childbirth during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. This baby was born alive and immediately stabbed to death.
  
  As they entered the new world, the church would baptize the babies before throwing them to wild dogs.
• Romanus, Martyr for Christ: Romanus, a native of Palestine, was a deacon of the church of Caesarea at the time of the commencement of Diocletian's persecution. He was condemned for his faith at Antioch. As punishment, he was scourged, put to the rack, his body torn with hooks, flesh cut with knives, face scarred, teeth beaten from their sockets, and his hair plucked up by the roots. Soon after, he was ordered to be strangled, November 17, A.D. 303.
• 300 Christians at Utica, Martyrs for Christ: At Utica, three hundred Christians were placed around a burning kiln. They were commanded either to sacrifice to Jupiter, or to be thrown into the kiln. Unanimously refusing, they bravely jumped into the pit, and were immediately suffocated.
• 4 Palestinian Christians, Martyrs for Christ: Alexander, Malchus, and Priscus, three Christians of Palestine, and a woman of the same place, voluntarily admitted to being Christians. They were sentenced to be devoured by tigers.
• 7 Roman Soldiers, Martyrs for Christ: In 251, the emperor Decius erected a pagan temple at Ephesus and commanded all who were in that city to sacrifice to the idols. This order was nobly refused by seven of his own soldiers, Maximanus, Martianus, Joannes, Malchus, Dionysius, Seraion, and Constantinus. The emperor gave them time to change their decision and during his absence they escaped, and hid themselves in a cavern. On his return he ordered the mouth of the cave to be closed up, and they all died of hunger.
• Other Martyrs for Christ:
  • A native of Malda was burnt by a slow fire, for saying that the Mass was a plain denial of the death and passion of Christ.
  • In 1545, Francis Bribard, for speaking in favor of the reformed, had his tongue cut out, and was then burnt.
  • In 1545, James Cobard, a schoolmaster in the city of St. Michael, was burnt for saying that the Mass was useless and absurd. I say that it is still useless and absurd.
  • In 1546, Peter Chapot - executed for selling the Holy Bible in France.
  • In 1554, two men of the reformed religion, and the son and daughter of one of them, were apprehended and committed to the castle of Niverne. On examination, they confessed their faith, and were ordered to be executed. They were smeared with grease, brimstone, and gunpowder, their tongues were then cut out, and they were burned alive.
  • Burned at the stake : John Huss (1415) Jerome of Prague (1416), Sir John Oldcastle (1418), Thomas Granter (1478), Jerome Savanarola (1498), Thomas Norris (1507), William Tyndale (1536 two years after he translated the New Testament in English),
  • The Fires of Smithfield : Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London and Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester (1555), Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (1556 he said that the pope is the antichrist)
  • In 1635, Pedro Ginesta of Barcelona, for eating bacon on a Friday, was sentenced to death. His excuse that he was 80 with fading memory was rejected.
  • In about 1530, Alonca de Vargas, was burned at the stake for smiling at a mention of the Blessed Virgin.

Estimates of the Number of Martyrs
The estimates seem to range from fifty million to over one hundred million killed and this does not seem to include the Catholics killed, or the Protestant persecutions of other minorities. Therefore, the total killed during the organized campaign to enforce religion on the population could be over 200,000,000.

In addition, the total number who were banished, tortured or imprisoned could be a magnitude of ten times the number killed. So the total cost in misery cannot be estimated.
In the case of the slaughter of the Huguenots under King Louis XIV, the ministers were trapped so that they were forced into a life of torture as galley slaves. Therefore, death might have been better. So the number tortured is just as important as the number killed.

Persecuted	Campaign	Year	Total Deaths		High Estimate Source
Total Estimates			Low	High
Crusades (Holy land)		1095-1272	7,000,000	20,000,000	Wollschläger
Crusades (Spain) and the conquest of Spain		1095-1272	5,000,000	5,000,000	Middleton
Crusades (Albigenses)		1208	900,000	1,000,000	Wollschläger
Saracen slaughter		-	7,000,000	7,000,000	Middleton
Inquisition		1518-	a50,000,000	a68,000,000	Brownlee
Witches		1400-1800	9,000,000	20,000,000	Voltaire
Saxons and Scandinavians		-	2,000,000	2,000,000	M. D. Aletheia
Thirty years war		1618-1648	7,500,000	11,500,000	Rummel c
Conquistadores and colonial period		-	b15,000,000	49,500,000	Rummel c
New world after the colonial period		-	8,763,000	8,763,000	Rummel c
Other religious wars		-	-	-	-
Other forced conversions		-	-	-	-
Total			112,163,000	192,763,000	-
Individual Estimates
Heretics	All Crusades	1095-	d26,000,000		d Calculated
Muslims	Crusades	1095-1272	7,000,000		Middleton
Jews	Crusades	1095	12,000		-
Albigensians	Crusades (Total)	1208-1249	1,000,000		Ellerbe
Albigensians	Crusades (Beziers)	1208-	60,000		-
Saracens	Saracen slaughters in Spain	-	7,000,000		Aletheia
Heretics	All Inquisitions	1231-1834	68,000,000		-
Protestants	Inquisition	1231-1834	50,000,000		Brownlee
Jews	Spanish Inquisition	1478-1834	32,000		A History of the Jews
Waldenses	Inquisition	1540-1570	900,000		Halley's Bible Handbook
Huguenots	Huguenot wars	1562-1598	200,000		-
Huguenots	St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre	1572	100,000		Fox's Book of Martyrs
Jews	Blamed for the Black Death	1348	14,000		Davies
Netherlands	Dutch revolt	1566-1609	100,000		Gibbon
Hussites	Wars: Bohemia and Moravia	1600-	2,400,000		-
Thirty years war	Make Germany Catholic	1618-1648	7,500,000		Dunn, Wedgwood
Huguenots	Edict of Nantes revoked	1685	500,000		-
Irish	Irish massacres	1651	200,000		Sorokin
Irish	Irish uprising	1790	50,000		Dan Smith
Colonna family	Massacre at Palestrina	130?	6,000		-
Lollards	Burning followers of Wycliffe	1401-	-		-
French Vaudois	Ordered by Innocent VIII	1487-	-		-
Fires of Smithfield	Bloody Mary of England	1553-1558