The early church meditated upon these thoughts further. The first Clemens epistle contains a martyrs’ summary in the style of the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Shepherd of Hermas looks at martyrdom as the most powerful testimony to the hostility between God and the “world,” and for that reason it is the fulfillment of the Christian life. Next, the idea of the “imitation of Christ” [Mimesis] becomes dominant in the martyr book of Polycarp (d. 155): the passion of Christ becomes the prototype for the path of suffering of all loyal disciples, even to the smallest detail. And thus teach all those early books of the developing Christianity. The church of the first centuries interpreted the work of Christ by means of the concept of the “Theology of Martyrdom,” and vice versa understood the fate of the martyrs through the fate of the Master. -  Ethelbert Stauffer