The Emergence of the Term “Martyr” as a Technical Term
Our word “martyr” is derived from the Greek word martys, originally a legal term that was used of a witness in a court of law. Such a person was one who had direct knowledge or experience of certain persons, events, or circumstances and was therefore in a position to give evidence. In the New Testament, the term and its cognates are frequently applied to Christians, who bear witness to Christ, often in real courts of law, when his claims are disputed, and their fidelity is tested by persecution. The transition of this word within the early Christian communities from “witness” to what the English term “martyr” entails is an excellent gauge of what was happening to Christians as they bore witness to Christ in the years after his death and resurrection.
In Acts 1:8, the risen Jesus tells the apostles that they will be his “witnesses” (martyres) in Jerusalem, Judaea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. At this point, the word does not have the association of death, although in Acts 22:20 we do read of the “blood of Stephen,” the Lord’s “witness,” being shed. But it is really not until the end of the writing of the New Testament canon that the term martys acquired the association with death.
At the end of the apostolic era, the risen Christ in Revelation 2 commends his servant Antipas, his “faithful witness,” who was slain for his faith at Pergamum, “where Satan dwells” (Rev 2:12–13). Pergamum was a key center of emperor worship in Asia Minor, the first town in the province to build a temple to a Roman emperor, namely Augustus Caesar. It may well have been Antipas’s refusal to confess Caesar as Lord and worship him that led to his martyrdom. In fact, it has been estimated that by the mid-first century, eighty or so cities in Asia Minor had erected temples devoted to the cult of the emperor.
Thus, the word martys seems to have acquired its future meaning first in the Christian communities in Asia Minor, where the violent encounter between church and empire was particularly intense. In this regard, it is certainly not fortuitous that Asia Minor was unusually fond of the violent entertainment of the gladiatorial shows. There was, in fact, a training school for gladiators at Pergamum. Along with this passion for such violence, there would have been a demand for victims over and above the requisite gladiators. Thus, recourse was had to Christians, among others.
And so, the word martys became restricted in its usage to a single signification: bearing witness to the person and work of Christ to the very point of death. Stephen and Antipas were the first of many such martyrs in the Roman Empire. It is vital to note here that the term “martyr” is thus a Christian term. To use it, as our western media sometimes does, of terrorists who die in the act of killing other human beings is utterly foreign to the meaning of the word.
Vibia Perpetua
During the second century and the first half of the third century, state persecution of the church was sporadic and usually a local affair that was initiated by individual governors. In other words, while there were not thousands of martyrs during this period, martyrdom was a reality with which anyone who professed Christ during this era had to reckon. Let us consider two examples from the church in North Africa, which was a leading center of Christianity in late antiquity.
In the year 201, the Roman emperor, Septimius Severus (145–211), who had become the head of the empire in 197, issued an edict forbidding anyone to become a Jew or a Christian. The Roman governor of Carthage in North Africa, Publius Aelius Hilarianus, a man steeped in Roman idolatry and paganism, was eager to enforce the edict. And so, immediately prior to some gladiatorial games celebrating the birthday of Septimius Severus’s son, Geta (189–211), in March of 203, he had a number of Christians arrested. Eventually six were put on trial: four men—Saturninus and Secundulus, who were slaves, Revocatus, and their teacher, Saturus, and two women, Felicitas (or Felicity) and Vibia Perpetua (181–203), a noble-born Roman matron who was twenty-two years old with a newborn son.
In typical Roman fashion, they were asked to offer a sacrifice to the gods for the safety of the emperor or face death. They all refused and on March 7, 203, five of them—Secundulus had died in prison—were martyred in the Roman amphitheater in Carthage, the ruins of which can be seen to this day as a UNESCO World Heritage site in Tunis, Tunisia.
Now, we know the details about this incident because there is a prison diary that Perpetua kept while she was awaiting trial. After Perpetua’s death, a Christian author took her diary, provided it with an introduction, added Saturus’s own account of his time in prison, and finally concluded the book with details of the martyrs’ deaths.
When Perpetua was first imprisoned, she wrote in her diary, “I was terrified, as I had never experienced such darkness.” The prison cell was also jammed with prisoners so that the heat was stifling. And on top of all this, Perpetua was worried sick about her baby, who was with her. Relief came from the help of two deacons, Tertius and Pomponius, who came to the prison—in so doing, they risked being imprisoned themselves—and they asked the Roman guards to move Perpetua and the others to a better part of the prison. Perpetua was able to cuddle her baby son and nurse him. Her mother also arrived with her brother, and Perpetua gave her baby to them to look after for a number of days.
Perpetua’s father also came to the prison and desperately tried to convince Perpetua to give up her faith. Perpetua wrote in her diary: “My father not only wished to turn me from my purpose with arguments, but also persisted in trying to break down my faith through his affection for me. ‘Father,’ said I, ‘do you see, for example, this vessel lying here—a jug, or whatever it is?’ ‘I see it,’ said he. ‘Can one call anything by any other name than what it is?’ ‘No,’ said he. ‘So neither can I call myself anything else than what I am, a Christian.'”
Perpetua’s father appears again in the diary at the time of the sentencing of Perpetua and her companions. A huge crowd had gathered to witness the sentencing in the public forum, and among them was Perpetua’s father, who arrived with her baby son. Again, in Perpetua’s words: “My father appeared on the scene with my boy … begging me, ‘Pity your child.’ Then Hilarianus the procurator … said, ‘Spare your father’s grey hairs; spare your infant boy. Sacrifice for the safety of the Emperor.’ And I replied, ‘I am not going to.’ ‘Are you a Christian?’ asked Hilarianus, and I said, ‘I am.’ … Then he pronounced sentence against us all and condemned us to the beasts.”
As it turned out, Perpetua died at the hands of a gladiator. He hesitated to slit her throat, and the editor of her diary tells us that she guided his trembling hand to her throat. Her fellow Carthaginian, the theologian Tertullian (fl.190–215), called her a “most courageous martyr.”
Cyprian of Carthage
Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus (c.200–258) had been radically converted from a lifestyle of public prominence, luxury, and wealth in his early forties and subsequently served as the bishop of Carthage for about a decade. His leadership was especially important during the first empire-wide persecution of the church, initiated by the Emperor Decius (c.201–251).
In the late summer of 257, he was exiled from Carthage and placed under house arrest. He was arraigned before the Roman proconsul Aspasius Paternus, who informed Cyprian that he had been instructed by the emperor Valerian (c.199–264) and his son and co-emperor, Gallienus (218–268), to require all within the empire to engage in the traditional worship of the Roman state. Cyprian was asked where he stood on this matter.
The bishop of Carthage replied: “I am a Christian and a bishop. I recognize no other gods but the one true God who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them. This is the God to whom we Christians pay homage; night and day we pray to him for you and for all of humanity, as well as for the health of the emperors themselves.”
When pressed by Paternus to recant, Cyprian refused. Surprisingly, Paternus did not have him executed at this point. Rather, he exiled him to the nearby city of Curubis (modern Korba in Tunisia) and effectively placed him under house arrest.
Paternus’s successor, Galerius Maximus, was not so lenient. When it came to Christianity, he was quite prepared to mete out brutal punishment to believers. In August of 258, he condemned a large number of Christians—at least 150 or so—to a brutal death in a pit of lime in Utica, which was not far from Carthage. These martyrs were later remembered as the mass candida, “the white mass,” a term that Augustine (354–430), many years later, explained in his Sermon 306 to be a reference to the large number who were killed together. The adjective “white” was used, he reckoned, due to the splendor of their cause.
The very next month, on September 14, 258, Cyprian was returned to Carthage to stand trial for his faith. Galerius held the trial on the estate of a friend on the outskirts of Carthage. When Galerius ordered Cyprian to worship the Roman gods, Cyprian’s reply was terse and to the point: “I will not.” Galerius threatened him, but Cyprian’s faith did not waver. “Do as you have been ordered,” he told the Roman official.
Galerius took time to consult with his staff. Cyprian had been a man of influence and substance in Carthage, and ordering his death would be no light matter. This was possibly a reason why Aspasius Paternus had had him exiled and placed under house arrest. Galerius, though, felt he had no choice but to pass the death penalty.
In his decision, he described Christianity as a “conspiracy (conspiratio),” literally, “a breathing together.” In legal contexts, this word was employed to describe an organized plot against the state. Galerius went on to state that Cyprian, as the leader of this band of conspirators, was thus guilty of “a most heinous crime.” In other words, being a Christian was nothing less than an act of political treason. He then read out his decision—and there were a good number of Christians present, presumably praying for their bishop—”Thascius Cyprian is sentenced to die by the sword.”
At this point, a number of the believers began yelling that they wished to die with their beloved leader. Cyprian was taken behind the estate where one of his elders, a man named Julian, helped him tie a strip of cloth around his eyes. Before he did so, though, Cyprian told the deacons who were present to pay the executioner “twenty-five pieces of gold.”
To the Romans, such an act would initially have seemed totally odd: you pay a man for killing you! Here, though, Cyprian powerfully turned his death by decapitation into a final act of witness: this man was doing him the remarkable service of sending him to his God. A judicial killing was thus turned into a moment of pastoral witness to the lordship of Jesus Christ and the joy that awaited all of his followers in the world beyond this one.
Martyrdom and Christian Identity
The church in the first three centuries after the birth of Christ was a Church of martyrs. In fact, the martyr was essential to the identity of the Ancient Church. His or her body was the boundary between church and state and between church and culture. Moreover, the martyr bore witness to the nature of the church’s conviction, in the words of the American poetess, Emily Dickinson (1830–1886), that: This world is not conclusion; / A sequel stands beyond. / Invisible, as music, / But positive, as sound … / To gain it, men have shown / Contempt of generations, / And crucifixion known.