Of Martyrdom and Martyrs

 Of Martyrdom and Martyrs

 
Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. - Matthew 16:24-25

Introduction

 
Each Christian life is a vocation, literally a calling to be a (martyr, μ?ρτυρ [Greek]) witness, as one who gives testimony to salvation in Jesus Christ. In this way we are obeying the command of Holy Scripture to let “our light shine” and not hide the light of truth under a “bushel basket”. 

We are not alone in giving testimony, like the disciples of the Lord before his Ascension, he assures them as he does us that,“you will receive power when the holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)   

The Church of Martyrs and Confessors

I said to him, “My lord, you are the one who knows.” He said to me, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. - Revelation 7:14

The Christian Church in its first three-hundred years could be called the Church of Martyrs and Confessors.  Not until the Edict of Milan issued by Constantine and his further imperial acts favoring the Christians, were the followers of Jesus ever far from witnessing to Christ through the shedding of their blood.   

The early church's theology of martyrdom was born not in synods or councils, but in sunlit, blood-drenched coliseums and catacombs, dark and still as death. The word martyr means "witness" and is used as such throughout the New Testament. However, as the Roman Empire became increasingly hostile toward Christianity, the distinctions between witnessing and suffering became blurred and finally nonexistent.  In the second century, then, martyr became a technical term for a person who had died for Christ, while confessor was defined as one who proclaimed Christ's lordship at trial but did not suffer the death penalty. - How the Early Church Viewed Martyrs, by William Bixler in Christianity Today, issue 27.

The relics of martyrs were greatly honored in the early Church and all who were venerated as saints had been martyred for the faith, or suffered as confessors.  Indeed, confessors were often sought out for spiritual guidance and blessings.  

The roots of Christian martyrdom can be found in the experience of the Jewish people during the Greco-Syrian Seleucid reign of king Antiochus IV Epiphanus and the subsequent Maccabean Revolt (173-164 BC).  While many joined in the armed revolt lead by Judas Maccabees and his brothers, many other pious Jews choose the path of martyrdom in confronting the Seleucid king’s attempt to force his pagan religion upon them.  The Second Book of Maccabees tells us of one such martyrdom, that of the scribe Eleazar:

 Eleazar, one of the foremost scribes, a man advanced in age and of noble appearance, was being forced to open his mouth to eat pork.  But preferring a glorious death to a life of defilement, he went forward of his own accord to the instrument of torture, spitting out the meat as they should do who have the courage to reject food unlawful to taste even for love of life.  When he was about to die under the blows, he groaned, saying: “The Lord in his holy knowledge knows full well that, although I could have escaped death, I am not only enduring terrible pain in my body from this scourging, but also suffering it with joy in my soul because of my devotion to him.” This is how he died, leaving in his death a model of nobility and an unforgettable example of virtue not only for the young but for the whole nation. - 2 Maccabees 6:18-20, 30-31.

 
The early Church choose the example of Eleazar and those like him, rather than the path of the Maccabees in response to the persecutions of the Roman Empire. The Church’s example of faith shined brightly in the lives of the martyrs and confessors and eventually found favor in the conversions of the Kingdom of Great Armenia, the Kingdom of Axum (Ethiopia) and in the fourth-century the Roman Empire.  

The Martyrdom of Monasticism

Saint Anthony of the Desert (also known as Anthony the Great, c. 251–356 AD) represents the transformation of ultimate Christian witness from the martyrs of blood to the martyrs of asceticism.  Beginning in Egypt and spreading throughout the whole Church, men and women chose various forms of ascetically inspired lives of prayer to do battle with evil and to give all for the sake of the crown once exclusively worn by martyrs and confessors.  It has been said that desert of Egypt became an ocean of ascetics, men and women living primarily as hermits or solitaries living in close proximity for some communal moments of prayer.  These Desert Fathers as they are called have left numerous short but profound sayings on the spiritual life and spiritual combat:

They asked the abbot Macarius, saying, “How ought we to pray?” and the old man said, “There is no need of much speaking in prayer, but often stretch out your hands and say, ‘Lord, as Thou Will and as Thou knowest, have mercy upon me.’ But if there is war in your soul, add, ‘Help me.’ And because He knows what we need, He shows us His mercy.”  

Abba Anthony said, ‘Our life and our death is with our neighbor. If we gain our brother, we have gained God, but if we scandalize our brother, we have sinned against Christ.’

 
He also said, “The one who makes a show of his good works and publicizes them is like the one who threw seeds on the ground, ‘and the fowls of the air came and devoured them up’ [Matt 13:4]. But the one who conceals his way of life is as one who sows in a furrow in the ground and who will reap an abundant harvest.

 
- Sayings and Stories of the Desert Fathers, published by the Monastery of Christ in the Desert

It is in this period of monastic foundations that we find Saint Maron (died 410 AD) who went to the Taurus Mountains, in the region of Cyrrhus, near Antioch.  He became so outstanding in his holy desire to give all in following the Lord, that he attracted many followers, and those who desired to imitate his extreme ascetical (self-denial) life. Even his former classmate from Antioch, the great father of the church, St. John Chrysostom wrote to him, asking for his prayers.      

"To Maron, the Monk Priest:

We are bound to you by love and interior disposition, and see you here before us as if you were actually present. For such are the eyes of love; their vision is neither interrupted by distance nor dimmed by time. We wished to write more frequently to your reverence, but since this is not easy on account of the difficulty of the road and the problems to which travelers are subject, whenever opportunity allows we address ourselves to your honor and assure you that we hold you constantly in our mind and carry you about in our soul wherever we may be. And take care yourself that you write to us as often as you can, telling us how you are, so that although separated physically we might be cheered by learning constantly about your health and receive much consolation as we sit in solitude. For it brings us no small joy to hear about your health. And above all please pray for us”. - Letter to Saint Maron, St. John Chrysostom

 
By the sixth-century the monastic movement took hold in western Christianity, with Saint Benedict of Nursia (c.480-543 AD), who first lived as a hermit in Subiaco, outside Rome, and having attracted so many followers moved south to Monte Cassino, near Naples, and created the first formal monastery in western Christianity with his “Rule of Life” for monks.  

Martyrdom and the Life of the Sacred Mysteries (The Sacramental Life)

 
When the hour came, he took his place at table with the apostles. He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for, I tell you, I shall not eat it [again] until there is fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”… Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you….

 He said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them and those in authority over them are addressed as ‘Benefactors’; but among you it shall not be so. Rather, let the greatest among you be as the youngest, and the leader as the servant. - the Gospel of Luke 22: 14-16, 19, 20, 25, 26.

 
The ancient faith is discovered in the life of the Church, which is itself the Mystery (Sacrament) of Salvation, for the Church is formed by the Mysteries (Sacraments) it celebrates, especially the Eucharistic Mystery.  These most sacred celebrations of the Church constantly call the faithful to embrace their share of the Holy Cross, so that we might grow too full stature as Christians.  Unlike the Protestant Reformers who taught an extreme form of Predestination, that saw saving grace given to some and not to others, rendering the Sacred Mysteries unnecessary; in the ancient faith, the Catholic faith, our life of grace, which is the living presence of the Holy Spirit within us, flows from the Mysteries/Sacraments of Salvation.   

Our Lord instructed his Apostles in the way of humility, service, self-sacrifice, and love of neighbor.  He told them that this way of life is not the way of the majority of the world, but that to “do this in remembrance of me,” that is in celebrating the Eucharist they would learn and grow in this way of life, the way of the Cross, the life of witnessing to Christ.  The late Russian Orthodox theologian Paul Evdokimov, in his monumental work on Christian Marriage, The Sacrament of Love, said this about the “Mystery of Crowning”:

The wedding rite symbolically summarizes the entire married life. The betrothed have already exchanged rings; they have already been crowned and they partake of the one cup of life. It is only in the evening of life that this cup, symbolic of fullness, will be taken, when the shadow of the crowns will fall upon it... [and] the spaces of the heart that do not exist as of yet... are created by suffering. In order to be loved by the other, one must renounce oneself completely. It is a deep and unceasing ascetic practice. The crowns of the betrothed refer to martyrdom. - The Sacrament of Love, by Paul Evdokimov

 
Evdokimov wrote these words not from the perspective of an academic thinker, but from the personal experience of living with the early death of his first wife and growing older with his second wife.  As he points out the Ritual of Crowning contains within it the call to martyrdom that is always the demand of Christian love; of witnessing to Christ to the point where I must renounce myself for the sake of the beloved and the will of God.  We hear Our Lord saying to us here, as in all the Sacred Mysteries that, “unless the grain of wheat falls to the ground it remains just a grain of wheat.” (John 12:24)

Conclusion

Each Christian is called in his or her own way to witness to their faith in Christ, in this witness is our share of the Cross, our path of martyrdom.  Our Lord taught his Apostles and disciples (and us) through examples like the “rich young man,” who was ready to give all but his riches, or when Jesus told his disciples you cannot “put your hand to the plow and look back”.  The Christian life which flows from and is formed by the Sacred Mysteries is ultimately an ascetical life, for nothing and no one but Christ can save us; as Paul reminds us, all else must be seen as rubbish.  

More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ. - Philippians 3:8 

 
Holy Martyrs, Pray For Us!

- Rev. David A. Fisher

Priest of the Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles

Adjunct Professor of Eastern Christian Theology, Saint Charles Seminary, Philadelphia, PA