Source: The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Persecution \Per`se*cu"tion\, n. [F. pers['e]cution, L.
persecutio.]
1. The act or practice of persecuting; especially, the
infliction of loss, pain, or death for adherence to a
particular creed or mode of worship.
[1913 Webster]
Persecution produces no sincere conviction. --Paley.
[1913 Webster]
2. The state or condition of being persecuted. --Locke.
[1913 Webster]
3. A carrying on; prosecution. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
Persecution
The first great persecution for religious opinion of which we
have any record was that which broke out against the worshippers
of God among the Jews in the days of Ahab, when that king, at
the instigation of his wife Jezebel, "a woman in whom, with the
reckless and licentious habits of an Oriental queen, were united
the fiercest and sternest qualities inherent in the old Semitic
race", sought in the most relentless manner to extirpate the
worship of Jehovah and substitute in its place the worship of
Ashtoreth and Baal. Ahab's example in this respect was followed
by Manasseh, who "shed innocent blood very much, till he had
filled Jerusalem from one end to another" (2 Kings 21:16; comp.
24:4). In all ages, in one form or another, the people of God
have had to suffer persecution. In its earliest history the
Christian church passed through many bloody persecutions. Of
subsequent centuries in our own and in other lands the same sad
record may be made.
Christians are forbidden to seek the propagation of the gospel
by force (Matt. 7:1; Luke 9:54-56; Rom. 14:4; James 4:11, 12).
The words of Ps. 7:13, "He ordaineth his arrows against the
persecutors," ought rather to be, as in the Revised Version, "He
maketh his arrows fiery [shafts]."
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