The first three hundred years of Christianity were years of persecution.  A Christian underwent very cruel treatment due to being a disciple of Jesus.  Some of the extreme penalties were as follows:

  1.  Beaten with rods

  2.  Forced to walk barefoot on thorns, sharp shells, & broken pottery

  3.  Mutilated with red hot pinchers

  4.  Male & female sex organs brutally removed

  5.  Scourging with cords (Often weighted with pieces of metal or bone, thus a
      flesh-cutting instrument)

  6.  Dipped in boiling oil

  7.  Finger & toe nails ripped off, & sometimes the entire finger or toe

  8.  Red-hot irons literally burning out the eyes

  9.  Sewed up in skins of wild beasts & tormented by dogs until dead

10.  Dressed in shirts made stiff with wax & burned

11.  Hanging

12.  Crucified

13.  Crucified head-down

14.  Racking (Body literally stretched)

15.  Beheaded

16.  Thrown to hungry wild beasts

17.  Breaking of all bones

18.  Stocks (Head and arms locked into wood & iron in a sitting position)

19.  Stoned to death

20.  Speared

21.  Burned at the stake

22.  Sewn up in nets & thrown on horns of beasts

23.  Put into leather bags filled with snakes & scorpions, & then thrown into a
      river, lake or the sea

24.  Dragged to death

25.  Quartered (Each arm and leg tied to a different horse headed in a

       different direction & then all at the same time pulled out of body)

KYOWVA EVANGELISTIC ASSOCIATION

1541 S. 7TH ST * IRONTON OH 45638
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