Beasts savage Christians in the arena.
During the Roman persecutions in North Africa, many Christians so feared the danger and torments with which they were threatened, that they paid for false certificates, saying they had sacrificed to the emperor, when in fact they had not. Others refused this dodge as unworthy of their faith, and accepted whatever indignities their cruel captors inflicted.
In this they were like Christ. Although he shrank from the cross, as any man might have, yet he set his face to it and endured the nails, the jeers, the thirst and hours of gasping agony for our sakes. He showed a strength of purpose which Solomon could not have imagined when he wrote this. Christ’s fortitude in adversity has inspired every generation since.