Christian martyr

“ In book v. c. 6. of the Constitutions, the martyr is represented as "trusting in the one only true God and Father, through Jesus Christ, the great High Priest, the Redeemer of souls, the Dispenser of rewards; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." [Cotel. vol. i. p. 304.]
In the same book and in the following chapter we find an exceedingly interesting dissertation on the general resurrection, but not one word of saint or martyr being beforehand admitted to glory; on the contrary, the declaration is distinct, that not the martyrs only, but all men will rise. ”

“ For the Christian, indeed, in earnest, “martyrdom is the new birth, the true life, the pure light, the complete discipleship; the martyr’s crown is better than all the kingdoms of the earth; only then, when the martyr sets to the world, will he rise to God. Crowned by martyrdom, his life becomes an utterance of God.”
This fervid, passionate—if somewhat exaggerated—picture of martyrdom would convey little meaning to the Roman congregations had not such scenes as that depicted by Ignatius been of common occurrence in Rome. ”

“ Yet, from the first period of his martyrdom, the martyr began to shine forth with miracles, restoring sight to the blind, walking to the lame, hearing to the deaf, language to the dumb. Afterwards, cleansing the lepers, making the paralytic sound, healing the dropsy, and all kinds of incurable diseases; restoring the dead to life; in a wonderful manner commanding the devils and all the elements: he also put forth his hand to unwonted and unheard-of signs of his own power; for persons deprived of their eyes merited by his merits to obtain new members. ”

“ The prominence which is given to this episode of the first Christian martyrdom is intelligible in itself, and it acquires fresh significance when it is considered as the introduction of the Apostle Paul, whose perfect silence regarding the proto-martyr, however, confirms the belief which we otherwise acquire, that the whole narrative and speech, whatever unknown tradition may have suggested them, are, as we have them, to be ascribed to the Author of the Acts. ”

“ But if the assembly of the Christian martyrs is shown and proved to be so great, let no one think it a hard or a difficult thing to become a martyr, when he sees that the crowd of martyrs cannot be numbered. ”

“ There were often martyrs' pangs to assuage, the aching wounds inflicted by the rack or by the nameless tortures of the heathen to bind up, and their bruised and broken hearts to cheer with heavenly consolation. There were outcast babes to pluck from death. ”

“ Historic Christianity was accused, not entirely without reason, of carrying martyrdom and asceticism to a point, desolate and pessimistic. The early Christian martyrs talked of death with a horrible happiness. They blasphemed the beautiful duties of the body: they smelt the grave afar off like a field of flowers. ”

“ Acts of martyrdom containing gross anachronisms were used to throw doubt upon the very existence of the martyr, or on the plain historical fact of his having suffered death for the Faith. They could also be used to weaken all devotion to such heroism and to make men forget or despise the courage which had secured us in our Christian heritage. ”

“ Well, he is not a martyr in the rigorous theological meaning of the word, inasmuch as he dies in arms, whereas the martyr delivers himself, undefended and unarmed, into the hands of the executioner; but if I am asked what I think of the eternal salvation of a brave man who has consciously given his life in defense of his country's honor and in vindication of violated justice, I shall not hesitate to reply that, without any doubt whatever, Christ crowns his military valor, and that death, accepted in this Christian spirit, assures the safety of that man's soul. ”

“ The admiration of the martyr’s faith and patience and heroic spirit gradually intensified into superstitious veneration for his body, blood, bones, ashes, clothes, staff, or any personal relic. Judaism regarded the touching of aught connected with the dead as involving a ceremonial pollution; but Christian ideas invested even the crumbling dust of the martyrs with especial sanctity. ”

“ Martyrdom kindled an heroic spirit, not for the conquest of nations, but for the conquest of the soul, and the resignation of all that earth can give in attestation of grand and saving truths. We have a few examples of martyrs in pagan antiquity, like Socrates and Seneca, who met death with fortitude,—but not with faith, not with indestructible joy that this mortal was about to put on immortality. The Christian martyrdoms were a new development of humanity. ”

“ But so did the divine vengeance rage against the persecutors of the martyr, that in a short time, being carried away from the midst, they nowhere appeared. And some, without confession, or the viaticum, were suddenly snatched away; others tearing piecemeal their own fingers or tongues; others pining with hunger, and corrupting in their whole body, and racked with unheard-of tortures before their death, and broken up by paralysis; others bereft of their intellects ”

“ If we will persist in regarding the missionary as a martyr, let us consider that the martyr does not differ essentially from other Christians. Martyrdom is potentially contained in the initial decision of each Christian. The consecration of a life to Christ implies the willingness to lay it down for Him. In an uncivilized land there is a likelihood [21] of unwonted hardships, and among savages some possibility of a violent death ”

“ Now a man is said to be a Christian because he holds the faith of Christ. Therefore only faith in Christ gives the glory of martyrdom to those who suffer.
Objection 2: Further, a martyr is a kind of witness. But witness is borne to the truth alone. Now one is not called a martyr for bearing witness to any truth, but only for witnessing to the Divine truth, otherwise a man would be a martyr if he were to die for confessing a truth of geometry or some other speculative science, which seems ridiculous. Therefore faith alone is the cause of martyrdom. ”

“ We ask that they, by his example, for obedience to the holy laws, may learn to despise persons, and by suffering manfully to triumph over tyrannical madness. Amen." The latter runs thus: "May God, by whose pity the bodies of saints rest in the sabbath of peace, turn your hearts to the desire of the resurrection to come. Amen. And may he who orders us to bury with honour due the members of the saints whose death is precious, by the merits of the glorious martyr, Thomas, vouchsafe to raise you from the dust of vanity. ”

“ They knew that all prophets were doomed to martyrdom and took to endurance and quiet organization, and propaganda of their ideas among the masses. The sacrifices of the old Christian martyrs were reproduced, at least in Europe, and tens of thousands paid with their lives for the confession of their sacred and well demonstrable convictions. ”

“ These first Christian martyrs no longer walk on the earth, but they travel on the living waters of life, bringing comfort to their late fellows and to all future disciples who have yet their burdens to bear and their victory to win. ”

“ Their sufferings had never been equalled since the days of the early Christian martyrs. While courage still animated the hearts of the people, and their leaders never took counsel of their fears, yet a general gloom had settled down upon the land. ”

“ The heroic deaths of the believers exhibited a spiritual power mightier than the primal instincts of nature, the love of wife or child, or even of life itself. Like a solemn voice falling on the dull ear of mankind, these holy examples urged the inquiry, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" And that voice awakened an echo in full many a heart. The martyrs made more converts by their deaths than in their lives. "Kill us, rack us condemn us, grind us to powder," exclaims the intrepid Christian Apologist ”

“ The account given us by an eminent primitive writer, Clemens Alexandrinus, ought not to be overlooked; that, as James was led to the place of martyrdom, his accuser was brought to repent of his conduct by the apostle's extraordinary courage and undauntedness, and fell down at his feet to request his pardon, professing himself a christian, and resolving that James should not receive the crown of martyrdom alone. Hence they were both beheaded at the same time. Thus did the first apostolic martyr cheerfully and resolutely receive that cup, which he had told our Saviour he was ready to drink. ”

“ Spirit of the Christian Martyrs.—The spirit of the Christian martyrs, at least of the first three centuries, may be learned from the epistle of Ignatius of Antioch, who, early in the second century was taken from Syria to Rome, where he suffered martyrdom by being thrown to the wild beasts. On his journey to Rome, under sentence of death, he wrote an epistle to the Roman saints from which the following passage is taken: "I write to the churches and I declare to all, that willingly I die for God, if it be that you hinder me not. ”

“ If it be a picture of our Lord, we say, ‘O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, help us and save us’. If it be of His holy [pg 308] Mother, we say, ‘Holy bearer of God, Mother of the Lord, intercede with thy Son, our true God, to save our souls’. If it be of a martyr, ‘Saint Stephen, who didst shed thy blood for Christ, by thy confidence as proto-martyr, intercede for us’. So we say, in the case of every martyr who suffered martyrdom. Suchlike are the prayers which we address through them. It is not, as you assert, O emperor, that we call the martyrs gods. ”

“ Consequently the martyrs were made into a hierarchy of saintly protectors of the strayed flock of Christ, and round their graves in the catacombs sprang up a harvest of tales, of visions, of miracles, and of superstitions. As the Church sank lower and lower, as the need of a heavenly advocate with God was more and more impressed upon the minds of the Christians of those days, the idea seems to have arisen that neighborhood of burial to the grave of some martyr might be an effectual way to secure the felicity of the soul. ”

“ To them, a martyr, dying for the faith of Christ, was—and truthfully—a hero of the highest grade. Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John xv. 13.
They could never sufficiently honor him. For, honor him as they might, all they could do would fall infinitely short of the honor which God had already bestowed on his soul in heaven, and that which he would bestow on his body in the resurrection. A martyr’s blood, in their view, stood next in rank to the blood of the Saviour. ”

“ Among those who have tried the martyr way of doing things Jesus is almost the only one who has not in his heart abused the world. Most martyrs have made a kind of religion out of not expecting anything of it and of trying to get out of it. "And ye, all ye people, are ye suitable or possible people for me to be religious with?" the typical martyr exclaims to all the cities, to all the inventors, to the scientists and to the earth-redeemers, to his neighbours and his fellow men. ”

“ The whole notion of a bloody martyrdom as an essential termination to the life of a saint, grew out of a papistical superstition; nor need the enlightened minds of those who can better appreciate the manner in which God’s highest glory is secured by the lives and deaths of his servants, seek any such superfluous aids to crown the mighty course of the great apostolic chief, whose solid claims to the name and honors of Martyr rest on higher grounds than so insignificant an accident as the manner of his death. ”

“ Here is seen the meek martyr who possessed his soul in patience,—who, having suffered the two of goods, the loss of kindred, the lose of fame, bowed down his head beneath the axe, and sealed, by the plentiful effusion of his blood, the testimony which he bore to virtue and to truth. Here the youthful virgin, robed in innocence and sanctity, clothed with the visible protection of God, is seen at one time to yield up her frame, unfit, as yet, for torments, to the power of the executioner ”

“ His love is fervid, glowing is his faith;
His fire also burneth, and who is adequate to recount his love?
Nay, by reason of that love which led the martyr into the fire,
No man is able to recount his beauties divine. ”

“ In consequence of these fanatical ideas, so flattering to vanity, martyrdom became an object of ambition to Christians. Independent of the heavenly rewards, which they believed assured to those who suffered with constancy, and perished for religion, they saw them esteemed, revered, and carefully attended to during their lives, while honors almost divine were decreed them after death. On the contrary, those of the Christian community who had the weakness to shrink from tortures, and renounce their religion, were scoffed at, despised, and regarded as infamous. ”

“ The man who lives in an ungodly society, and by his life and example bears witness to the truth of Jesus, and suffers for so doing, he is a martyr. As I write these words I can recall a vast number of martyrs' names; for the martyrs, like the saints, are of every age and of every Church. Just as every cornfield has its poppies; just as every poor man's garden has its little plot set apart for flowers, so every Church has its martyrs. I can recall the name of Xavier, the great Indian missionary, dying alone upon the seashore, with the cruel blasts of a Chinese winter freezing his very bones. ”