Estne Semen Sanguis Christianorum?: Martyrdom, Noble Death and the Christianization of the Roman Empire

In older scholarship, it was often claimed that Christian martyrdom contributed significantly to the conversion of the Roman Empire. This assertion, however, has been significantly criticized in recent decades, so that conversion in response to witnessing acts of Christian martyrdom now appears to have been relatively minor. In order to both elaborate on and critically evaluate these criticisms, the present thesis compares a number of Christian and ‘pagan’ texts from the second and third centuries CE that deal with martyrdom and/or ‘noble death’. While the thesis pays attention to issues surrounding the scale on which martyrdom occurred and the extent to which witnessing the torture and execution of Christians may have inspired conversion, its main focus is on the importance of martyr texts to the Christianization of the Roman Empire. ‘Christianization’ here is used in a more general sense, and includes not only conversion, but also the formation of Christian (group)identity and the...Show moreIn older scholarship, it was often claimed that Christian martyrdom contributed significantly to the conversion of the Roman Empire. This assertion, however, has been significantly criticized in recent decades, so that conversion in response to witnessing acts of Christian martyrdom now appears to have been relatively minor. In order to both elaborate on and critically evaluate these criticisms, the present thesis compares a number of Christian and ‘pagan’ texts from the second and third centuries CE that deal with martyrdom and/or ‘noble death’. While the thesis pays attention to issues surrounding the scale on which martyrdom occurred and the extent to which witnessing the torture and execution of Christians may have inspired conversion, its main focus is on the importance of martyr texts to the Christianization of the Roman Empire. ‘Christianization’ here is used in a more general sense, and includes not only conversion, but also the formation of Christian (group)identity and the catechesis of new members. With regards to the possibility of Christian texts being used to convert outsiders or instruct the newly-initiated, the thesis works from the assumption that these ‘pagan’ audiences would have been more likely to adopt a favourable view of Christian martyrdom – and perhaps concomitantly, Christianity – insofar as its (literary) representations presented it as similar to noble death. Simultaneously, the thesis argues that Christian martyr texts contain several unique elements, principally religious in character, that allowed them to out-live ‘pagan’ noble death traditions like that of the Acta Alexandrinorum. These shared and unique aspects are recovered through an in-depth analysis and comparison of a number of Christian and ‘pagan’ texts. All in all, the findings of the thesis generally agree with earlier revisionist publications, and suggest that conversion induced by martyrdom was rare, and that the importance of martyr texts to Early Christianity mostly lay in their ability to provide Christian groups with powerful communities identities and moral exemplars.Show less

Leiden University Student Repository

Documents

In Collections

Estne Semen Sanguis Christianorum? Martyrdom, Noble Death and the Christianization of the Roman Empire