ABSTRACT
In the last chapter, it was argued that the issue of martyrdom compelled early Christians to read the scriptures in terms of their own existential identity. Second-century Christians sought answers to fundamental questions such as the following: who am I? What does it mean to be a Christian? How do I bear the Christian name, when this name makes one liable to legal punishment? Answering such questions encouraged Christian catechists to articulate the distinctiveness of Christianity in relation to Judaism and Roman civic religions. However, even more importantly, these teachers sought to offer a Christian identity that could withstand the challenge of martyrdom and remain stable in the face of death.
