This series was originally intended by Murer to serve as illustration to his play 'Edessa', but he died before completing it. The play concerned the politics surrounding the Arian controversy in the fourth century Christian church. In her book (cited below), T. Vignau-Wilberg demonstrates that Murer used the story of the persecutions in Edessa of non-Arians by Arians as a cipher for the persecution of Protestants by Catholics in his contemporary Europe. However, the play was never published and the etchings were published as emblems eight years after his death, with a different text written by Johann Heinrich Rordorf, sometimes at variance with the intention of the original
