Christian martyr
In Christianity, a martyr is a person who was killed for their testimony for Jesus or faith in Jesus. In the years of the early church, stories depict this often occurring through death by sawing, stoning, crucifixion, burning at the stake, or other forms of torture and capital punishment. The word martyr comes from the Koine word μάρτυς, mártys, which means "witness" or "testimony".
At first, the term applied to the Apostles. Once Christians started to undergo persecution, the term came to be applied to those who suffered hardships for their faith. Finally, it was restricted to those who had been killed for their faith. The early Christian period before Constantine I was the "Age of Martyrs". "Early Christians venerated martyrs as powerful intercessors, and their utterances were treasured as inspired by the Holy Spirit."
In western Christian art, martyrs are often shown holding a palm frond as an attribute, representing the victory of spirit over flesh, and it was widely believed that a picture of a palm on a tomb meant that a martyr was buried there.
Etymology
The use of the word μάρτυς in non-biblical Greek was primarily in a legal context. It was used for a person who speaks from personal observation. The martyr, when used in a non-legal context, may also signify a proclamation that the speaker believes to be truthful. The term was used by Aristotle for observations, but also for ethical judgments and expressions of moral conviction that can not be empirically observed. There are several examples where Plato uses the term to signify "witness to truth", including in Laws.Background
The Greek word martyr signifies a "witness" who testifies to a fact he has knowledge about from personal observation. It is in this sense that the term first appears in the Book of Acts, in reference to the Apostles as "witnesses" of all that they had observed in the public life of Christ. In, Peter, in his address to the Apostles and disciples regarding the election of a successor to Judas, employs the term with this meaning: "Wherefore, of these men who have accompanied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus came in and went out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day he was taken up from us, one of these must be made a witness with us of his resurrection".The Apostles, according to tradition, faced grave dangers until eventually almost all suffered death for their convictions. The Bible reports the martyrdom of two of the apostles. Thus, within the lifetime of the Apostles, the term martyrs came to be used in the sense of a witness who at any time might be called upon to deny what he testified to, under penalty of death. From this stage the transition was easy to the ordinary meaning of the term, as used ever since in Christian literature: a martyr, or witness of Christ, is a person who suffers death rather than deny his faith. Saint John, at the end of the first century, employs the word with this meaning.
A distinction between martyrs and confessors is traceable to the latter part of the second century: those only were martyrs who had suffered the extreme penalty, whereas the title of confessor was given to Christians who had shown their willingness to die for their belief, by bravely enduring imprisonment or torture, but were not put to death. Yet the term martyr was still sometimes applied during the third century to persons still living, as, for instance, by Cyprian who gave the title of martyrs to a number of bishops, priests, and laymen condemned to penal servitude in the mines.
Origins
Religious martyrdom is considered one of the more significant contributions of Second Temple Judaism to western civilization. It is believed that the concept of voluntary death for God developed out of the conflict between King Antiochus Epiphanes IV and the Jewish people. 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees recount numerous martyrdoms suffered by Jews resisting the Hellenizing of their Seleucid overlords, being executed for such crimes as observing the Sabbath, circumcising their children, or refusing to eat pork or meat sacrificed to foreign gods. With few exceptions, this assumption has lasted from the early Christian period to this day, accepted both by Jews and Christians.According to Daniel Boyarin, there are "two major theses with regard to the origins of Christian martyrology, which as the Frend thesis and the Bowersock thesis". Boyarin characterizes W. H. C. Frend's view of martyrdom as having originated in Judaism and Christian martyrdom as a continuation of that practice. Frend argues that the Christian concept of martyrdom can only be understood as springing from Jewish roots. Frend characterizes Judaism as "a religion of martyrdom" and that it was this "Jewish psychology of martyrdom" that inspired Christian martyrdom. Frend writes, "In the first two centuries AD. there was a living pagan tradition of self-sacrifice for a cause, a preparedness if necessary to defy an unjust ruler, that existed alongside the developing Christian concept of martyrdom inherited from Judaism."
In contrast to Frend's hypothesis, Boyarin describes G. W. Bowersock's view of Christian martyrology as being completely unrelated to the Jewish practice, being instead "a practice that grew up in an entirely Roman cultural environment and then was borrowed by Jews". Bowersock argues that the Christian tradition of martyrdom came from the urban culture of the Roman Empire, especially in Asia Minor:
Martyrdom was... solidly anchored in the civic life of the Graeco-Roman world of the Roman empire. It ran its course in the great urban spaces of the agora and the amphitheater, the principal settings for public discourse and for public spectacle. It depended upon the urban rituals of the imperial cult and the interrogation protocols of local and provincial magistrates. The prisons and brothels of the cities gave further opportunities for the display of the martyr's faith.
Boyarin points out that, despite their apparent opposition to each other, both of these arguments are based on the assumption that Judaism and Christianity were already two separate and distinct religions. He challenges that assumption and argues that "making of martyrdom was at least in part, part and parcel of the process of the making of Judaism and Christianity as distinct entities".
Jesus, King of Martyrs
The Apostle Paul taught that Jesus was "obedient unto death," a 1st century Jewish phrasing for self-sacrifice in Jewish law. Because of this, some scholars believe Jesus' death was Jewish martyrdom. Jesus himself said he had come to fulfill the Torah. The Catholic Church calls Jesus the "King of Martyrs" because, as a man, he refused to commit sin unto the point of shedding blood.Theology
, one of the 2nd-century ecclesiastical writers wrote that "the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church", implying that a martyr's willing sacrifice of their lives leads to the conversion of others.The Age of Martyrs also forced the church to confront theological issues such as the proper response to those Christians who "lapsed" and renounced the Christian faith to save their lives: were they to be allowed back into the Church? Some felt they should not, while others said they could. In the end, it was agreed to allow them in after a period of penance. The re-admittance of the "lapsed" became a defining moment in the Church because it allowed the sacrament of repentance and readmission to the Church despite issues of sin. This issue caused the Donatist and Novatianist schisms.
"Martyrdom for the faith... became a central feature in the Christian experience." "Notions of persecution by the 'world',... run deep in the Christian tradition. For evangelicals who read the New Testament as an inerrant history of the primitive church, the understanding that to be a Christian is to be persecuted is obvious, if not inescapable."
The "eschatological ideology" of martyrdom was based on an irony found in the Pauline epistles: "to live outside of Christ is to die, and to die in Christ is to live."
In Ad Martyras, Tertullian writes that some Christians "eagerly desired it" .
The martyr homilies were written in ancient Greek by authors such as Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Asterius of Amasea, John Chrysostom, and Hesychius of Jerusalem. These homilies were part of the hagiographical tradition of saints and martyrs.
This experience, and the associated martyrs and apologists, would have significant historical and theological consequences for the developing faith.
Among other things, persecution sparked the devotion of the saints, facilitated the rapid growth and spread of Christianity, prompted defenses and explanations of Christianity and, in its aftermath, raised fundamental questions about the nature of the Church.
The Early Church
is the first martyr reported in the New Testament, accused of blasphemy and stoned by the Sanhedrin under the Levitical law. Toward the end of the 1st century, the martyrdom of both Peter and Paul is reported by Clement of Rome in 1 Clement. The martyrdom of Peter is also alluded to in various writings written between 70 and 130 AD, including in John 21:19; 1 Peter 5:1; and 2 Peter 1:12–15. The martyrdom of Paul is also alluded to in 2 Timothy 4:6–7. While not specifying his Christianity as involved in the cause of death, the Jewish historian Josephus reports that James, whom he referred to as a brother of Jesus, was stoned by Jewish authorities under the charge of law breaking, which is similar to the Christian perception of Stephen's martyrdom as being a result of stoning for the penalty of law breaking. Furthermore, there is a report regarding the martyrdom of James son of Zebedee in Acts 12:1–2, and knowledge that both John and James, son of Zebedee, ended up martyred, appears to be reflected in Mark 10:39.Judith Perkins has written that many ancient Christians believed that "to be a Christian was to suffer,"
partly inspired by the example of Jesus. The lives of the martyrs became a source of inspiration for some Christians, and their relics were honored. Numerous crypts and chapels in the Roman catacombs bear witness to the early veneration for those champions of freedom of conscience. Special commemoration services, at which the holy Sacrifice were offered over their tombs gave rise to the time honoured custom of consecrating altars by enclosing in them the relics of martyrs.