The topics of the present article are the phenomenon of martyrdom, suicide in early Christianity and the specificity of its perception in antique society. The author notes, that the Christians aspiring to die could «be identified» by the educated pagans as people who deliberately long for death. At that time there was no unanimous opinion about the ratio of martyrdom and suicide among Christians. Inside Christianity various currents coexisted with their own dogmatic, also two traditions straggled inside the church, one of which was based on stoicism, and the second - on philosophy by Plato. It is also marked, that in I^st - 2^nd cc. A.D. the great value was given to «practical virtue»: philosophers were often judged not from their doctrines, but from their deeds. So, Christians looked far from being the worse image against this background, their martyrdom was similar to the best pagan samples; there is always some charm in the death accepted voluntarily and pagans fell under this power.