The Christian martyr is often depicted carrying a palm branch. These two women saints were martyrs for Christ. On left is Catherine of Alexandria who was tortured by being mangled on a machine with spiked wheels. On the right is Saint Barbara, a Roman girl who was killed by having her breasts cut off in front of the crowds and then beheaded. They both bear an open book of scripture and a palm branch. Both these carvings are in Beauvais Cathedral near Paris. One of the more interesting things to learn about the Christian martyrs is that many of them were very young, some as young as ten or eleven. Many were girls who refused to marry because they had pledged their virginity to Christ. Eusebius In his History of the Church 5,2 Eusebius describes the terrible tortures endured by the Christian martyrs in Gaul. The account is graphic and bloody. Yet the account of their deaths is followed by a clear statement of their forgiveness of their fellow Christians who could not face the torture and who denied Christ by offering incense to Caesar. Instead of condemning them to perdition, the martyrs prayed for them and forgave them. “They defended all and they accused none; they loosed all and they bound none.” Such was the charity they showed and the victory they won that Satan had to throw back up even those whom he had previously swallowed. In a reference that has a resonance in a sermon of Augustine, he says that the martyrs did not crow over the sinners, but rather they asked God to forgive them. “Shedding tears on their behalf in supplication to the Father, they asked for life and he gave it to them.” In fact it appears that the martyrs may have prayed together for the fallen ones, the lapsi, in the arena before they were executed. “This they shared with their neighbors, when triumphantly victorious, they departed for God.” Eusebius is very pointed in his reference to the Montanist controversy of his own day. He ends with this statement; “So much may be said for the affection of the blessed ones for their brothers who had fallen from grace, in view of the inhuman and merciless attitude of those who later behaved so harshly towards the members of Christ’s Body. They prayed for those who treated them so cruelly, as did Stephen, the fulfilled martyr: Lord, do not hold this sin against them. If he pleaded for those who were stoning him, how much more for brother Christians?” Martyrdom in the Old Testament The most cited case of OT martyrdom occurs in the book of Maccebees. The three young men are put into a fiery furnace and told to renounce God. This depiction of their ordeal is from a wall painting in the catacomb of Priscilla in Rome. But the earlier books of the Old Testament speak virtually nothing about martyrdom because there was not a very developed sense of an afterlife. Martyrdom only makes sense when the person dies in full confidence of being received in to Heaven. Outside the Church there can be no martyrs Christians in the Early Church were jealous of their martyrs good name. The martyr was a witness to the Risen Christ. Therefore, those who were outside the Church could never be called martyrs. They may have died bravely, and they may have believed that their cause was just, but their deaths could not be called martyrdom. In the fifth century, heretics called Donatists began to commit suicide in North Africa, rather than accept the roman version of Catholicism. Some of these threw themselves off cliffs, while others set themselves on fire in public places. They claimed that they were martyrs. But Saint Augustine ridicules such actions as folly. He writes that it not the punishment that makes the martyr, but the cause for which he dies. The Martyrdom of Saint Stephen This is a 14th century painting of the death of Stephen by Giotto di Bondone Stephen falls asleep after he has begged God to forgive his killers. (Acts 7: 60) “Do not hold this killing against them” he asks God with his last breath. This scene is repeated again and again in the accounts of the death of Christian martyrs. All the accounts of Christian martyrdom are somewhat similar because the accounts strive to compare the martyr’s death to the death of Christ. The martyr forgives because Christ forgave. The martyr is a witness not just to the faith, but to the example given by Jesus. Sometimes the artist will portray Stephen dressed in a dalmatic – the vesture of a deacon. This is far fetched because Stephen wore no dalmatic. But it is a theological statement that he was dying for the same Christ for whom the Church still works and preaches. Graves of the Martyrs The early Christians were very careful to Mark and note where the martyrs were buried. When persecutions died down, they generally placed the body in a tomb and created a shrine over that tomb. They gathered there to pray and perhaps to share Eucharist. The place where the martyr’s bones lay became very important as the centuries passed. Churches were erected over the tombs, with the shrine of the saint directly under the altar. That is how things are arranged in Saint Peter’s in Rome for instance. Soon, other Christians wanted to be buried near the remains of their martyr heroes. Those who had some influence might get a tomb inside the Church close to the altar. Others were buried outside the building but near its walls. Soon the grounds of these churches became cemeteries. That explains why so many churches are filled with tomb stones and memorials of the dead. It also explains why, in many countries, the field all round the parish Church is a cemetery. In the period from 1000 ad to 1500 ad a custom arose that even when a Church had no martyr of its own, it sought out some bone fragments from the tomb of a martyr and placed these under their altar. This custom became so strong that people though that the bones of a martyr were essential for celebrating the Eucharist. This fascination with relics became unhealthy and abusive. Sometimes these relics became more venerated than the Eucharist itself. A trade in fake relics undermined the faith of the people, and made the Church look complicit in fraud. The Reformers threw out the relics and often had them burned, in a search for a purer religion. The great tragedy is that they destroyed many authentic historical artifacts from the lives of the saints in their zeal to cleanse the Church of frauds and excesses. The Catholic Church holds the relics of the martyrs in great reverence. The graves of these holy men and women are still places of prayer and pilgrimage. There is an adage that says; “The blood of the martyrs is the seedbed of the Church.” There is a story told in Rome of how the emperor ordered the Bishop to bring him the Church’s greatest treasure. The bishop arrived and poured out on the table a small bag of sand stained with blood. This is the sand from the arena of the Coliseum, mingled with the blood of the martyrs. This is the treasure of the Church.”
