I was in St Albans today. After a lunch at the Fighting Cocks pub (twelfth century) I went into the cathedral, which began in the eleventh century in the Norman style. It houses the shrine of the first British martyr Alban, probably a third or early fourth century victim of the Church. He sheltered a proselytising priest fleeing persecution and whilst housing him for a few days got infected with Christianity-- and pretty soon had his head severed from the rest of him for pretending to be the priest to save him from execution. A week before he was not a Christian and could have kept his head on his shoulders. Moral: never house fugitive priests.
The early Christian cult was as Marcus Aurelius said, full of morbid and misguided exhibitionists. Christianity was all about Jesus dying painfully and the religion promoted the notion that followers would do well to imitate him literally.
At least half of the "patrists" or Church Fathers were executed, some like Ignatius happily looked forward to being torn to death by animals in the public arena. The effect of all this courageous--or was it foolhardy? martyrdom was profound and in no small measure propelled the credibility of orthodox Christianity eventually towards Imperial approval.
Ultimately insofar as JW doctrine is built on Roman Church doctrine, dying a martyr's death in imitation of Christ, was part of the success (if you can call it that) of Christianity. Let's hope martyrdom never goes mainstream again.