Persecution in the Early Church: A Chapter in the History of Renunciation

The subject of persecution in the early Church, treated as a whole, has been somewhat neglected by English writers. The legal aspects of the matter, the relations of the Church to the Empire, and the nature of the courts and procedure by which the Christians were condemned have been fully dealt with in the researches of Ramsay, Hardy, and others . . . Persecution also, treated merely from the standpoint of the Church, the experiences of the martyrs, has, of course, never lacked presentation in this country from the days of Foxe onward . . . [A] treatment of the subject as a whole, in its legal, historical, ecclesiastical, and experiential aspects, is what I have attempted in the following pages . . . While I trust that no aspect of the subject has been neglected, special attention has been drawn to those aspects of the inner life of the Church which led to persecution. Contents 1. The Master and His Disciples 2. Casesar or Christ 3. The Causes of Hatred 4. The Great Persecution 5. The Experiences of the Persecuted

Herbert Brook Workman (1862-1951) was born in London and educated at Owens College, Manchester. He entered the Wesleyan ministry in 1885 and served as a circuit minister in England and Scotland until 1903 when he was appointed Principal of Westminster College. He was elected President of the Wesleyan Conference in 1930. A distinguished historian, Workman was Cole Lecturer at Vanderbilt University in 1916 and Visiting Professor of Methodist Church History at the University of Chicago in 1927. He published extensively in the field of medieval church history as well as Methodism. His other publications include 'The Dawn of the Reformation, ' 'The Evolution of the Monastic Ideal, ' 'Martyrs of the Early Church, ' 'Methodism, ' and 'The Age of Hus.'