Courts & The Crime: Creating A Christian Martyrdom By Brent Shaw

https://www.academia.edu/145451945/Courts_and_The_Crime_Creating_A_Christian_Martyrdom?email_work_card=abstract-read-more The hypothesis is that the emergence of martyrdom as a core concept of early Christianity was only partially created by the responses of leading Christian ideologues, mostly bishops, clerics, and 'freelancers,' who were themselves often wary of the practice and its consequences. In its original stages, martyrdom also owed a strong debt to values shared by large numbers of ordinary people. No doubt, these Christians interpreted attacks that the suffered by reflecting on sacred stories and meanings in them. But only in part. To shape an idea of Christian martyrdom, they also correlated these notions with ideals of heroic achievement in athletic contests, courage displayed in the circus and amphitheater, and the endurance shown by criminals under torture and punishment. These various ever-changing strands of action and thinking went into the progressive creation of a Christian martyrdom. In addition to inherited and developed sacred values, the social world of Roman courts and the punishments enacted in powerful venues of public execution and entertainment were also a critical component in the forming of the idea. ...