Rethinking Christian Martyrdom
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| Author | : Matthew Recla |
| Publisher | : Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Total Pages | : 233 |
| Release | : 2022-10-20 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1350184268 |
This book argues that we have been mistaken about the fundamental assumption that Christianity is the key to understanding the “Christian” martyr. Examining martyrdom in early Christian history, Matt Recla argues that the violent deaths of martyrs, real and imagined, were appropriated for Christian institutional life. Through deconstructing martyrdom and appreciating the complexity of the martyr, we recognize martyrdom not as a socio-historical phenomenon inherent to particular ideologies, and not as a religious “identity” but as the institutional co-optation of violence. The Christian apologist Tertullian argued that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church, but while the seed may be the key to martyrdom, the blood is the key to the martyr. The book shows how martyrs exceed the bounds of institutional narrative. Centering analysis of martyrdom first around the martyr's existential difference and the complex biological, psychological, and socio-cultural factors that lead to willing death, this book sheds new light on the motivations of martyrs, our fascination with them, and the parasitic relationship of religion to violent death. In challenging long-held beliefs about the praiseworthiness of martyrdom, this book is of interest to scholars of religion as well as those concerned about the relationship between religion and violence.
| Author | : Matthew Recla |
| Publisher | : Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Total Pages | : 233 |
| Release | : 2022-10-20 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1350184276 |
This book argues that we have been mistaken about the fundamental assumption that Christianity is the key to understanding the “Christian” martyr. Examining martyrdom in early Christian history, Matt Recla argues that the violent deaths of martyrs, real and imagined, were appropriated for Christian institutional life. Through deconstructing martyrdom and appreciating the complexity of the martyr, we recognize martyrdom not as a socio-historical phenomenon inherent to particular ideologies, and not as a religious “identity” but as the institutional co-optation of violence. The Christian apologist Tertullian argued that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church, but while the seed may be the key to martyrdom, the blood is the key to the martyr. The book shows how martyrs exceed the bounds of institutional narrative. Centering analysis of martyrdom first around the martyr's existential difference and the complex biological, psychological, and socio-cultural factors that lead to willing death, this book sheds new light on the motivations of martyrs, our fascination with them, and the parasitic relationship of religion to violent death. In challenging long-held beliefs about the praiseworthiness of martyrdom, this book is of interest to scholars of religion as well as those concerned about the relationship between religion and violence.
| Author | : Matt Recla |
| Publisher | : |
| Total Pages | : 0 |
| Release | : 2022 |
| Genre | : Christian martyrs |
| ISBN | : 9781350184282 |
This book argues that we have been mistaken about the fundamental assumption that Christianity is the key to understanding the "Christian" martyr. Examining martyrdom in early Christian history, Matt Recla argues that the violent deaths of martyrs, real and imagined, were appropriated for Christian institutional life. Through deconstructing martyrdom and appreciating the complexity of the martyr, we recognize martyrdom not as a socio-historical phenomenon inherent to particular ideologies, and not as a religious "identity" but as the institutional co-optation of violence. The Christian apologist Tertullian argued that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church, but while the seed may be the key to martyrdom, the blood is the key to the martyr. The book shows how martyrs exceed the bounds of institutional narrative. Centering analysis of martyrdom first around the martyr's existential difference and the complex biological, psychological, and socio-cultural factors that lead to willing death, this book sheds new light on the motivations of martyrs, our fascination with them, and the parasitic relationship of religion to violent death. In challenging long-held beliefs about the praiseworthiness of martyrdom, this book is of interest to scholars of religion as well as those concerned about the relationship between religion and violence.
| Author | : Jonathan Elukin |
| Publisher | : Princeton University Press |
| Total Pages | : 205 |
| Release | : 2013-12-08 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 0691162069 |
This book challenges the standard conception of the Middle Ages as a time of persecution for Jews. Jonathan Elukin traces the experience of Jews in Europe from late antiquity through the Renaissance and Reformation, revealing how the pluralism of medieval society allowed Jews to feel part of their local communities despite recurrent expressions of hatred against them. Elukin shows that Jews and Christians coexisted more or less peacefully for much of the Middle Ages, and that the violence directed at Jews was largely isolated and did not undermine their participation in the daily rhythms of European society. The extraordinary picture that emerges is one of Jews living comfortably among their Christian neighbors, working with Christians, and occasionally cultivating lasting friendships even as Christian culture often demonized Jews. As Elukin makes clear, the expulsions of Jews from England, France, Spain, and elsewhere were not the inevitable culmination of persecution, but arose from the religious and political expediencies of particular rulers. He demonstrates that the history of successful Jewish-Christian interaction in the Middle Ages in fact laid the social foundations that gave rise to the Jewish communities of modern Europe. Elukin compels us to rethink our assumptions about this fascinating period in history, offering us a new lens through which to appreciate the rich complexities of the Jewish experience in medieval Christendom.
| Author | : Dirk Rohmann |
| Publisher | : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |
| Total Pages | : 370 |
| Release | : 2016-07-25 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 3110486075 |
It is estimated that only a small fraction, less than 1 per cent, of ancient literature has survived to the present day. The role of Christian authorities in the active suppression and destruction of books in Late Antiquity has received surprisingly little sustained consideration by academics. In an approach that presents evidence for the role played by Christian institutions, writers and saints, this book analyses a broad range of literary and legal sources, some of which have hitherto been little studied. Paying special attention to the problem of which genres and book types were likely to be targeted, the author argues that in addition to heretical, magical, astrological and anti-Christian books, other less obviously subversive categories of literature were also vulnerable to destruction, censorship or suppression through prohibition of the copying of manuscripts. These include texts from materialistic philosophical traditions, texts which were to become the basis for modern philosophy and science. This book examines how Christian authorities, theologians and ideologues suppressed ancient texts and associated ideas at a time of fundamental transformation in the late classical world.
| Author | : Rubén Rosario Rodríguez |
| Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
| Total Pages | : 321 |
| Release | : 2017-07-13 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 1316949753 |
In recent years, martyrdom and political violence have been conflated in the public imagination. Rubén Rosario Rodríguez argues that martyr narratives deserve consideration as resources for resisting political violence in contemporary theological reflection. Underlying the three Abrahamic monotheistic traditions is a shared belief that God requires liberation for the oppressed, justice for the victims and, most demanding of all, love for the political enemy. Christian, Jewish and Muslim martyr narratives that condone political violence - whether terrorist or state-sponsored - are examined alongside each religion's canon, in order to evaluate how central or marginalized these discourses are within their respective traditions. Primarily a work of Christian theology in conversation with Judaism and Islam, this book aims to model religious pluralism and cooperation by retrieving distinctly Christian sources that nurture tolerance and facilitate coexistence, while respecting religious difference.
| Author | : Susan L. Einbinder |
| Publisher | : Princeton University Press |
| Total Pages | : 232 |
| Release | : 2002-07-01 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 1400825253 |
When Crusader armies on their way to the Holy Land attacked Jewish communities in the Rhine Valley, many Jews chose suicide over death at the hands of Christian mobs. With their defiant deaths, the medieval Jewish martyr was born. With the literary commemoration of the victims, Jewish martyrology followed. Beautiful Death examines the evolution of a long-neglected corpus of Hebrew poetry, the laments reflecting the specific conditions of Jewish life in northern France. The poems offer insight into everyday life and into the ways medieval French Jews responded to persecution. They also suggest that poetry was used to encourage resistance to intensifying pressures to convert. The educated Jewish elite in northern France was highly acculturated. Their poetry--particularly that emerging from the innovative Tosafist schools--reflects their engagement with the vernacular renaissance unfolding around them, as well as conscious and unconscious absorption of Christian popular beliefs and hagiographical conventions. At the same time, their extraordinary poems signal an increasingly harsh repudiation of Christianity's sacred symbols and beliefs. They reveal a complex relationship to Christian culture as Jews internalized elements of medieval culture even while expressing a powerful revulsion against the forms and beliefs of Christian life. This gracefully written study crosses traditional boundaries of history and literature and of Jewish and general medieval scholarship. Focusing on specific incidents of persecution and the literary commemorations they produced, it offers unique insights into the historical conditions in which these poems were written and performed.
| Author | : Matthew D. Lundberg |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 281 |
| Release | : 2021-05-25 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 0197566618 |
What is the place-if any-for violence in the Christian life? At the core of Christian faith is an experience of suffering violence as the price for faithfulness, of being victimized by the world's violence, from Jesus himself to martyrs who have died while following him. At the same time, Christian history had also held the opinion that there are situations when the follower of Jesus may be justified in inflicting violence on others, especially in the context of war. Do these two facets of Christian ethics and experience present a contradiction? Christian Martyrdom and Christian Violence: On Suffering and Wielding the Sword explores the tension between Christianity's historic reverence for martyrdom (suffering violence for faith) and Christianity's historical support of a just war ethic (involving the inflicting of violence). While the book considers the possibility that the two are unreconcilable, it also argues that they are ultimately compatible; but their compatibility requires a more humanized portrait of the Christian martyr as well as a stricter approach to the justified use of violence.
| Author | : Candida R. Moss |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 335 |
| Release | : 2010-05-24 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 0199772932 |
Moss begins by tracing the theme of imitating Jesus through suffering in the literature of the Jesus movement and early church and its application in martyrdom literature. She demonstrates the importance of imitating the sufferings of Christ as a practice and ethos in the Jesus movement. She then proceeds to the interpretations of the martyr's death and afterlife, arguing against the dominant theory that the martyr's death was viewed as a sacrifice, and finding that in their post-mortem existence martyrs continue to be assimilated to Christ, closely resembling the exalted Christ as intercessors, judges, enthroned monarchs and banqueters.
| Author | : Diane Shane Fruchtman |
| Publisher | : Taylor & Francis |
| Total Pages | : 307 |
| Release | : 2023-02-01 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 1000630919 |
This book demonstrates that living martyrdom was an important spiritual aspiration in the late antique Latin west and argues that, consequently, attempts to define, study, or locate martyrdom must move away from conceptualizations that require or center on death. After an introduction that traces the persistence of "living martyrs" as real objects of spiritual devotion and emulation across the span of Christian history and discusses why such martyrs have been overlooked, the book focuses on three significant authors from the late ancient Latin west for whom martyrdom did not require death: the Spanish poet Prudentius (c. 348–413), the senator-turned-ascetic Paulinus of Nola (353–431), and the influential North African bishop Augustine of Hippo (354–430). Through historically and literarily contextualized close readings of their work, this book shows that each of these three authors attempted to create a new paradigm of martyrdom focused on living, rather than dying, for God. By focusing on these living martyrs, we are able to see more clearly the aspirations and agendas of those who promoted them as martyrs and how their martyrological discourse illuminates the variety of ways that martyrdom is and can be mobilized (in any era) to construct new, community-creating worldviews. Living Martyrs in Late Antiquity and Beyond is an important resource for historians of Christianity, scholars of religious studies, and anyone interested in exploring or understanding martyrological discourse. The Introduction of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
