Scriptures like this one by Paul are about the persecution they endured and his imprisonment. .
"2 Corinthians 4: 7 We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 8 always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. 11 For we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 9 So death is at work in us, but life in you."
Why do you think Jesus was flogged and hung on a cross?
This verse is, yes. As I mentioned before, most of the self mortification came in the form of fasting and privation. The hermits and so on came out of this. Yet there was a subset of personal mortification that came out in the form of self punishment, that evolved from the fasting and privations and sackcloth and ashes mindset. Another was the development of martyr complex, another form of self mortification. At certain periods, there were more Christians ready to be martyred than there were lions to feed them to.