TESTIMONIES OF THE MARTYRS
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Roman Colosseum |
The ACTS OF the MARTYRS are the official records of the trials of early Christian martyrs made by the notaries of the court.
The Roman authorities and conservatives gathered short-handedly all the acts of the trials, especially during the interrogation, by means of notae or signs of abridgement. Soon translated to common writing, the transcripts were passed on to the judicial archives.
But all the work of writing these Acts and their conservation in official archives were done by Roman magistrates. Many of these acts were destroyed by Diocletian during the third century upon noticing that these heroic stories inflamed the souls of the Christians, giving them the example to follow in times of persecution; for this reason, the emperor placed them in the list of books of prohibited doctrine that were decreed to be gathered and burned in public.
These acts have done much good to the Christians of all times.
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