Persecution tests the body, doubt tests the mind, and theology guards the truth—and in this session we see all three. In John Foxe’s Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (Chapter 2.4), the fifth persecution under Septimius Severus reveals how quickly imperial favor can turn into fury. Victor I, Leonides, Irenaeus, and many others seal their witness in blood, while even an officer like Basilides is converted at the execution of a Christian woman and then loses his own life for refusing to swear by idols. The Church bleeds, yet, as Tertullian observes, it only grows stronger. Meanwhile, in Augustine’s Confessions (Book 5, Chapter 14), Augustine is not facing lions but ideas. Listening to Ambrose for style rather than truth, he slowly realizes that the Catholic faith he had dismissed can answer its critics. Yet  ...