Martyrdom

[nolongerIFBx]

I wrote a paper on martyrdom a few years ago. I'll have to look it up and see if any of it relates to the OP. It was on how one could overcome their fear of death to the point that they would be willing to be martyred.

[nolongerIFBx]

Don't worry about reading this unless you're interested in a synopsis of my paper, LOL. The topic is martyrdom in early Christianity so may not apply to what martyrdom would be like today.

Marcus Arelius seemed to think that the Christians’ absence of fear of death was due to obstinacy based on foolish and irrational ideals (Meditations 11.3). Thomas Lupset in A compendious treatise, teachynge the waie of dieyng well concluded that the human mind was capable of looking beyond the immediate fear of death and reasoning that dying well was an extension of living well. Epicetus wrote in Discourses that people could lack fear of death because of childish ignorance, madness, or overcome fear of death through persistence if they accustomed themselves to it. “In this way an athlete also acted who was in danger of dying unless his private parts were amputated. His brother came to the athlete, who was a philosopher, and said, ‘Come, brother, what are you going to do? Shall we amputate this member and return to the gymnasium?’ But the athlete persisted in his resolution and died. When someone asked Epictetus how he did this, as an athlete or a philosopher, ‘As a man,’ Epictetus replied, ‘and a man who had been proclaimed among the athletes at the Olympic games and had contended in them, a man who had been familiar with such a place, and not merely anointed in Baton's school. Another would have allowed even his head to be cut off, if he could have lived without it.’ Such is that regard to character which is so strong in those who have been accustomed to introduce it of themselves and conjoined with other things into their deliberations." Epicetus specifically mentions the Galileans, which is thought to be a reference to Christians, as lacking fear of death through habit. “Through madness it is possible for a man to be so disposed toward these things and through habit, as the Galileans.â€

There are some writings that suggest that the ability of martyrdom to dispense forgiveness of sins offered a great motivation. Hermes wrote “All who once suffered for the name of the Lord are honorable before God, and all of these the sins were remitted, because they suffer for the Name of the Son of God†(Parable viii 20). Origen wrote that martyrdom continued the work of redemption. In his Exhortation to Martyrdom he wrote that Christians were obliged to suffer death in order to repay God for His blessings (Ch. 28-29), that serious sins committed after the reception of water baptism can only be forgiven by the baptism of blood (Ch. 30), and that those who give their life for God not only enter eternal bliss, but can earn merit toward the salvation of others (Ch. 30-31). To Origen martyrdom was a way to attain perfect purity which personal holiness could not accomplish .

Henry Donald Maurice Spencer-Jones suggests that there were literal schools for martyrdom where students were trained in what to answer and how to remain firm in their faith until the end. Tertullian advocated long fasting, exercise, and prayer in the effort to accustom the body to fatigue and physical suffering.

Apart from the motivations of Nietzche’s “will to powerâ€, eternal forgiveness, childish ignorance, habit, training, and indoctrination, one more significant reason why Christians appeared to meet death without agitation and anxiety is that the Christians believed that Christ would suffer for them, that their pain would be removed. Felicity was a slave who was arrested when she was eight months pregnant. It was against Roman law to execute a pregnant woman and Felicity greatly desired to be surrounded by her fellow Christians in death. Those imprisoned with her began to pray that she would deliver early and three days before the games she went into labor. This account is given:

One of the doorkeeper’s servants said to her:

You are in pain now. What will you do when you are

faced with the wild beasts?

You did not think of this when you refused to sacrifice.

She replied:

Today it is I who suffer what I suffer.

But at the Games there will be someone else in me

who will suffer for me,

because I am going to suffer for Him.

In the Vision of S. Flavian, he asked Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage, “Cyprian, is the death stroke very agonizing?†Cyprian answered, “When the soul is in a state of heavenly rapture the suffering flesh is no longer ours; the body is quite insensible to pain when the spirit is with God.†“The early Christians believed that Christ was present in a very special way in the martyrs and He would lead them straight to heaven to receive their crown of victory†. Of course, we cannot know that they were delivered from pain. We do know that despite Tertullian’s exhortation that Christians should not attend the games because it was participating in a pagan religious event, Christians did indeed watch the contests in the arena. They observed their fellow Christians die and eyewitnesses finished the diaries that the martyrs had begun with reports that they seemed oblivious to the pain. Justin Martyr wrote, “You may indeed be able to kill us, but you cannot harm us.â€

:doh: Anyway, that's what I came up with.