"...why did so many Christians suffer persecutions..."
Why do so many muslim boys blow themselves up in expectation of 72 virgins?
You clearly are missing or ignoring the point.
The Muslims believe in what they are dying for. On the other hand, this story, if true, would indicate such an occurence would have been known to all the disciples and those asociated with Christ. Yet, they chose to suffer and die, for what they apparently knew to be a total falsehood.
Now you see the point, don't you? A man will die for his beliefs. No man will die for a known falsehood.