How could men and women dying for what they believed, enduring immense tortures, NOT affect the Romans’ perspective of Christianity?! The amount of bravery it takes alone, whew! You can bet they were jealous to some extent, but also, time and time again, I am sure they saw the Christians being saved from their fate in some way, too! There are *so* many synaxarions that say the tortures ended up converting after witnessing miracles during the martyr’s sentence. St Thekla is a great example of this. So many people marveled, and SO many times in so many ways, she was preserved unharmed in really impossible and crazy situations! The martyrs’ disposition alone was enough to convert people – when they had perfect peace and even JOY. We all want perfect peace and joy! To see that from an individual with such a cruel and harsh fate would be earth-shattering for people to witness, I can imagine!
