Chapter 2 considers the so-called cradle of Christian martyrdom: Second-century Asia Minor. Beginning with an analysis of the economic, political, and social relationships between Christian, Jewish, and Greek social structures in the face of the Roman Empire’s centralization of power, I outline the circumstances of Christian martyrs during the first centuries following Jesus’ death. Using legal statutes alongside letters between Pliny the Younger and the emperor Trajan, I analyze the contours and relative scope and depth of Roman persecution. Through an analysis of the language used by Christian theologians and the period’s popular Acta Martyrum, I consider the way martyrdom was performed in recognition of a separate pax Deorum—agreement with God—that challenged that of the Roman state. I proceed to show how martyrs were interpreted as imitators of Christ’s sacrifice, and the meaning that designation brought to martyrs and their audience. Finally, I highlight the parrhēsia—bold, free speech—demonstrated in martyrdom to articulate the centrality of truth-telling to Christian martyrs, a theme to which I return throughout the book.

In the second century, Ignatius and Polycarp made an impact across Asia Minor. Ignatius, travelling under guard to Rome, wrote seven letters, six to churches and one to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna. This may be behind Lucian’s idea of Peregrinus, the Cynic philosopher, before his death, sending ‘letters to all the glorious cities that were Last Wills and Testaments’. Polycarp, Ignatius’ addressee, died in Smyrna in 155, after visiting Rome the year before. As a teacher of Christianity, Polycarp challenged the established sacred canopy – a system taught (at the elite level, in Smyrna) by Scopelian of Clazomenae. Polycarp’s contacts included people whose children would have been Scopelian’s students. He performed for the masters and mistresses of the world. Polycarp, by contrast, spoke from outside the dominant culture, so that listening to him constituted a ‘journey into darkness’ (Peter Berger). Paul and Thecla, the story of a woman from Iconium converted to Christianity because of Paul the Apostle, was written in Asia Minor after Polycarp’s time. A tract in novelistic form commending sexual continence, Paul and Thecla offers an insight into the Asian Christian experience.

Philip the evangelist, one of seven deacons appointed in Jerusalem by the Twelve, and at least two of his daughters, died at Hierapolis in the Lycus valley. In a letter written between 189 and 198, Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, names Philip and six other bishops as members of his family. This shows the importance of family networks in the growth of Christianity. Parallels include Jesus’ own family, members of which became bishops of Seleucia (Ctesiphon), and later, the family of Basil of Caesare – whose relatives were bishops of several churches in Cappadocia and Pontus. Also at Hierapolis, Papias wrote the Account of Logia about the Lord, a redacted account of Jesus. For this work, completed any time between about 90 and the 130s, Papias had interviewed anyone who came his way and ‘had been in attendance on the elders’. Like Laodicea, Hierapolis had a synagogue and an important Jewish community; there may even have been a Jewish quarter in the city. Glykon, buried at Hierapolis, left money to fund distributions to members of the carpet-weavers’ guild during the festival of Pentecost, and also at the Roman new year on 1 January. Glykon may have been a Godfearer.