Martyr
Historically, a
martyr is a person who dies for their
convictions or
religious faith, such as during the
persecution of
early Christians in the
Roman Empire. Sometimes the term is applied to those who use violence, such as dying for a nation's glory during wartime (usually known under other names such as "fallen warriors"). The death of a martyr is called
martyrdom.
Martyr is from μαρτυρ, the Greek word for "witness". During the early Roman Empire, the independent cities of
Asia Minor made efforts to reward benefactors for their services, and to promote further civic generosity by means of public acclamations, eulogistic honorific decrees were addressed to the Roman authorities and read in public places before an audience. Such commendations are usually referred to in epigraphic sources as
martyriai. Christians adopted the phrase "martyrs" in the "testimonies" for the act, suffering and self-
sacrifice of the persecuted.
Martyrdom in Judaism is referred to by the Hebrew phrase
Kiddush Hashem, meaning sanctification of God's name.
1 Maccabees and
2 Maccabees recount numerous martyrdoms suffered by Jews resisting the Hellenizing of their Seleucid overlords, being executed for such crimes as refusing to eat pork or to eat meat sacrificed to idols, circumcising their children, or observing the Sabbath.
But not long after the king sent a certain old man of Antioch, to compel the Jews to depart from the laws of their fathers and of God::And to defile the temple that was in Jerusalem, and to call it the temple of Jupiter Olympius: and that in Gazarim of Jupiter Hospitalis, according as they were that inhabited the place.And very bad was this invasion of evils and grievous to all.
For the temple was full of the riot and revellings of the Gentiles: and of men lying with lewd women. And women thrust themselves of their accord into the holy places, and brought in things that were not lawful.:The altar also was filled with unlawful things, which were forbidden by the laws.
And neither were the sabbaths kept, nor the solemn days of the fathers observed, neither did any man plainly profess himself to be a Jew.:But they were led by bitter constraint on the king's birthday to the sacrifices: and when the feast of Bacchus was kept, they were compelled to go about crowned with ivy in honour of Bacchus.:And there went out a decree into the neighbouring cities of the Gentiles, by the suggestion of the Ptolemeans, that they also should act in like manner against the Jews, to oblige them to sacrifice::And whosoever would not conform themselves to the ways of the Gentiles, should be put to death: then was misery to be seen.:For two women were accused to have circumcised their children: whom, when they had openly led about through the city with the infants hanging at their breasts, they threw down headlong from the walls.:And others that had met together in caves that were near, and were keeping the sabbath day privately, being discovered by Philip, were burnt with fire, because they made a conscience to help themselves with their hands, by reason of the religious observance of the day.
A historical account by Rabbi Ephraim ben Yaakov (1132 - c. 1200) describes
Crusaders' massacres of Jews, including the massacre at
Blois, where approximately forty Jews were murdered following an accusation of
ritual murder:
"As they were led forth, they were told, 'You can save your lives if you will leave your religion and accept ours.' The Jews refused. They were beaten and tortured to make them accept the Christian religion, but still they refused. Rather, they encouraged each other to remain steadfast and die for the sanctification of God's Name."
Martyrs before the Constantinian shift
Other than
Jesus, Eastern and western liturgical Christians revere
Saint Stephen as the first martyr, or
protomartyr. This term is also applied, with an appropriate description, to the first martyr of a given region:
Saint Alban as the protomartyr of England or St.
Francis Ferdinand de Capillas as the protomartyr of China.
Christians in the first three centuries were
crucified in the same manner as
Roman political prisoners or fed to lions as a games spectacle, as recorded by
Eusebius of Caesarea in his
Ecclesiastical History and in various
Acts of the Martyrs. Some accounts describe these deaths as reactments of mythological scenes;
Pope Clement I, in his
First Letter to the Corinthians recounts how Christian women were martyred::Through envy, those women, the Danaids and Dircae, being persecuted, after they had suffered terrible and unspeakable torments, finished the course of their faith with steadfastness, and though weak in body, received a noble reward.
Dirce having been killed by being tied to a wild bull, the reenactment is clear, but the Danaids' fate in Tartarus, of endlessly pouring water into a jug with holes, would not result in martyrdom; it has been suggested that the women, like the Danaids, were handed out to the victors in a footrace and therefore suffered rape prior to death.
Christians who were also Roman citizens were often beheaded; this was the fate of
Saint Agnes and
Saint Paul.
Although at all points Christians were in violation of the law for failure to worship the gods of the state, persecution was not consistent. In the
Acts of Perpetua and Felicity, the raid to capture the Christians was not made to wipe out the Christians but explicitly to capture prisoners for a spectacle in the games; the capture of the patrician Perpetua was, in fact, an embarrassment, but her testimony made it impossible for the authorities to release her. Various Roman Emperors —
Decius,
Valerian, and
Diocletian — ordered Christians to perform pagan sacrifices, but between the persecutions, Christians lived and worshipped unmolested. Orthodox Christian practice forbade the deliberate seeking out of martyrdom, but many Christians attempted to achieve martyrdom by turning themselve into the authorities, who did not always enforce the law.
Christians embraced their martyrdom::"Allow me to be eaten by the beasts"that is how I can reach God; I am God's wheat and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread of Christ.... Pray to Christ for me, that by these means I may become a sacrifice." —
Ignatius to the Romans,
Ignatius of Antioch.
It became a matter of debate among theologians, the degree to whjich martyrdom might be invited while skirting the sin of
suicide.
With the
Constantinian shift and the identification of the term Christianity with the
Roman Empire, persecution ceased in the Roman Empire.
Theological significance of martyrs
Martyrs were recognized as such because they preferred to die than to renounce their faith (i.e.
apostatize). The Christian writer
Tertullian (c. 200) asserted that "the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church." The term
martyr only slowly became identified with those who
died for the faith; in the earlier centuries, it was often used for anyone persecuted, even those who survived, but in time,
martyr came to indicate someone who died from persecution, whereas the term
confessor was used for those whose sufferings had not been fatal.
The acts of the early Christian martyrs are important historical sources; for example, the
Passio Sanctorum Scilitanorum is regarded as the oldest Christian text in Latin
(text).
The names of martyrs were enrolled in
martyrologies, and the
Feast of All Saints originally commemorated specifically all martyrs. Christians also preserved the physical remains of martyrs as relics, and commemorated the specific days of their deaths; both these practices were noted in the death of St.
Polycarp.
Martyrdom after 312 AD
As Christianity spread beyond the area of the Roman Empire, and after the fall of the Roman Empire, the spread of Christianty meant the spread of martyrdom, as in the martyrdom of
Saint Boniface in Frisia, and onward through history:
Isaac Jogues and companions in North America, the
Martyrs of Korea, the
Martyrs of Japan, and the
Martyrs of Uganda. Martyrdom was suffered both by missionaries and by converts.
Persecution by the Catholic Church
Within, the tables were turned and
pagans sometimes became martyrs if they refused the Roman Emperor when ordered to change their beliefs to the Roman Empire's version of Christianity. It didn't take long before
Augustine of Hippo authorized the use of force against
heretics who refused to fall in line with
orthodoxy.
Persecution of heretics and the martyrdom that sometimes went with it became institutionalised in the office of the
inquisition of the
Roman Catholic Church, and in the political systems of the State, such as that of the English
Queen Mary I (who became known as Bloody Mary), when she had nearly three hundred
Protestants tortured and killed (recorded in
Foxe's Book of Martyrs) for refusing to denounce their
reformist beliefs and for refusing to revert to Roman Catholicism.
|
Anabaptist Dirk Willems rescues his pursuer and is subsequently burned at the stake in 1569. |
Some Christian
sects such as
Anabaptists as well as non-Christian sects, trace their origins to widespread persecution and martyrdom at the hands of the Catholic Church trying to suppress their break away sects. The Anabaptists have embraced this part of their heritage to such an extent that the book
Martyrs Mirror, which describes the deaths of Anabaptist Martyrs in the
16th and
17th century, is still widely owned and read in
Mennonite and
Amish households (see
Anabaptist persecution for more).
In
Latter Day Saints belief,
Joseph Smith, Jr and
Hyrum Smith are martyrs.
Thomas More was tried and executed in 1535 in
London,
Forty Martyrs of England and Wales died between 1535 and 1679,
Melichar Grodecki,
Štefan Pongrác,
Marek Križin were tried and executed in 1619 in
Košice,
John Sarkander in 1620 in
Olomouc.
Michael Servetus was convicted of heresy by the French inquisition and burned just outside
Geneva.
January 24 1874 a Russian army unit killed 13 Eastern Catholics (Uniates).
During the
Revolt in the Vendée thousands of Roman Catholics were killed.
Martyrdom in the 20th century
The 20th century again saw large numbers of Christians martyred by non-Christians, in persecutions by political authorities that have antipathy directed towards particular faiths, or religion in general. Allegedly this has included
Turkey persecuting the
Armenians during
World War I, the
Soviet Union and early
People's Republic of China. The
Russian Orthodox Church in post-Soviet times termed many of those who died for this faith "New Martyrs", meaning that it was the second greatest persecution of Christians since the early centuries of the Christian era. Many Christians died in southern Sudan, as a result of the Islam-dominated north. The
Taliban regime had been known as well to mount another wave of persecutions, although this has received less international attention, given its scale.
Many church historians believe that there were more Christian martyrs in the 20th century than in the first nineteen centuries combined. This claim is clearly difficult to confirm.
In Arabic, a martyr is termed "
shaheed" (literally, "witness"). The concept of the
shaheed is discussed in the
Hadith, the sayings of
Muhammad; the term does not appear in the
Qur'an in the technical sense, but the later exegetical tradition has read it to mean martyr in the few passages that it does appear in. The first martyr in
Islam was the old woman
Sumayyah bint Khabbab[
1], the first Muslim to die at the hands of the
polytheists of
Mecca (specifically,
Abu Jahl). A famous person widely regarded as a martyr - indeed, an archetypal martyr for the
Shia - is
Husayn bin Ali, who died at the hands of the forces of the second
Umayyad caliph Yazid I at
Karbala. The Shia commemorate this event each year at
Aashurah.
Muslims who die in a legitimate
jihad bis saif (
struggle with the sword, or Islamic
holy war) are typically considered
shahid. This usage became controversial in the late
20th century, when (due to the Islamic strictures against
suicide) it began to be applied to
suicide bombers by terrorist groups, which, in fact, are contrary to islamic teachings that punish murderers of innocent people.The concept of heroic martyrdom is termed "Istish-haad".
Martyrs are continuing to sacrifice their lives in the 21st century. India has been a recent area of killings, with the murder of several pastors and congregants, as well as the torching of several churches in June-July 2006.
The term has since been used
metaphorically for people killed in a
historical struggle for some cause, or those whose deaths served to galvanize a particular movement. In this sense, people such as
Mahatma Gandhi and
Martin Luther King Jr. can be regarded as martyrs, as they were assassinated trying to change the
status quo through
nonviolent means.
Other examples include (some disputed):
*
Sir William Wallace*
Joan of Arc*
Mary, Queen of Scots*
Nathan Hale*
John Brown*
Joseph Smith Jr.*
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.*
John F.Kennedy*
Che Guevara*
Patrice Lumumba*
Jim Elliot*
Harvey Milk*
Gwen Araujo*
Robert Jay Mathews*
Michael Collins*
Matthew Shepard*
Zachary Foster*
Brandon Teena*
Shamil Basayev*
Gordon Kahl*
Bobby Sands*
Víctor Jara*
Joseph Smith, Jr.*
George Jackson*
James Connolly*
Thomas Scott* Rev. Dr.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer*
Rachel CorrieIn recent times, the term martyrdom has been applied to Islamic extremists, specifically suicide bombers. While it is usually only the extremists who term themselves and each other martyrs, it is worth noting thatthey do not qualify as martyrs.
*
Catholic Encyclopedia "Martyrs"*
Christian anarchism*
Martyrology*
108 Martyrs of World War Two
