This is the exploration I promised in the sermon Judas the Betrayer. It looks at Paul’s role in the culture of martyrdom in the first three centuries of Christianity, it considers the development of Christianity and Rabbinical Judaism in relationship to each other, and it gives us a look at the martyr’s justification for martyrdom. I will end the sermon with the question: From 325 until the Reformation in the sixteenth century where were the believers in the forgotten, heretical stories?
It is been said, “You have to be willing to die for a cause if it is worth anything.”
Historians tell us, dying for a cause validates and enhances the value of the cause.
The Christians of Rome really began to grow once Emperor Nero began persecution of the small sect. Nero had to have a scapegoat for the burning of Rome. He blamed it on the Christians. It was Nero who ushered in the wholesale persecution and murder of the early Christians which created the phenomenon of Christian martyrs.
Yes, Christians had been persecuted in Palestine by the orthodox Jews. Stephen, an early Christian was stoned around the year 31 for blasphemy. However, these persecutions had to do with contaminating the Hebrew faith. And they were nothing compared to the persecution that Nero set in motion in the year 64.
Surviving records do tell us that many of the Jewish Christian sects were generally accepted around the Mediterranean and in fact shared worship in local synagogues.
As part of today’s story we look at Paul’s words in First Timothy, Chapter 4. Paul is one of Nero’s victims. However, because he was a Roman citizen, he was not tortured or fed to animals in the arena like the other Christians. His beautiful and lyrical words are his own eulogy.
As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
Did Paul, with his declaration and death, sow the seeds for the phenomenon of martyrology that fueled the growth of Christianity?
It is a very difficult question to answer. And by the end of our exploration today, we may, or may not, be able to answer that question.
Daniel Boyarin in his book Dying for God tells us that the development of Christianity was not in a linear progression, as the early church fathers would have you believe, but developed in response to Judaism and Hellenistic culture. He said that Christianity and Rabbinical Judaism are “sister” religions—neither one being “first” nor the mother religion. They both came out of the milieu of the many Jewish sects and the Roman culture of late antiquity. Their development was a dynamic flux of cultural and religious interaction between Jews and Christians. He wrote, Christianity defined itself as “opposed to what it is to be a Jew…” and continues,
The social and cultural processes by which Christian orthodoxy constituted itself … are structurally very similar to the processes through which … rabbinic Judaism … constituted itself and its authority … in part by defining itself over and against early Christianity. This suggests that the Rabbis were reading Christianity as a form of Jewish heresy, and thus as part of Judaism, until well into late antiquity. (page 25)
Boyarin contends that the phenomenon of “dying for God,” was the one of the primary catalysts for the development of both religions. Remember in our exploration of Judas the Betrayer, written by Elaine Pagels and Karen King. In that sermon I said one of Judas’ major critiques of the development of Christianity was its propensity for martyrdom.
By the time the Gospel of Judas was written Christianity was already headed down the road of suffering and dying for one’s Christian beliefs. In that sermon I said, it was the Apostle Paul’s letters and the early Church Fathers’ writings that poured the cement for Christianity’s road of suffering and martyrdom.
Boyarin contends it was the early Church Fathers’ writings that provided the catalyst for the Christian culture of martyrdom; he doesn’t place a significant portion of the blame on Paul. His extensive research of Talmudic Midrash and the early Christian writings provide the basis for his claims.
There are several things we need to keep in mind as we traverse this story.
Christians were Jews and non-Jews, depending on their geography, and Jews could be adherents of any of the various sects of Judaism. All were subject to Roman rule.
After the year 70, when the Romans defeated the Jewish rebellion in Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple, the Jewish people were exiled throughout the Empire. They had to develop a religion to meet the needs of the people that did not include a great Temple in Jerusalem. Rabbinical Judaism was the answer.
Another cultural factor that influenced the growth of Christianity was its ability to spread throughout the known world, thanks to the ability of missionaries and disciples to travel by way of Roman roads. By the beginning of the second century Christians were established all around the Mediterranean into northern Africa.
Throughout the history of the Roman Empire, Jews, except for the rebellious Palestinian Jews, were “tolerated” by the Romans. However, after the rebellion in Palestine in the year 70, Nero and succeeding Emperors found it convenient to execute Jews who, in any way, appeared to be practicing their religion in public, or who, in any way, appeared threatening to the Empire.
After Nero began his insane, horrible persecution of the Christians in 64 and after the Palestinian Jews rebelled in 70, no Christian and no Jew could be allowed to publicly express her or his religion. Public officials of the Empire where diligent in their search for and notice of any transgressions. It did not take a lot to become subject to questioning and persecution.
Boyarin writes:
Rather than taking [martyrdom] … as a thing, … I propose that we think of [it] as a ‘discourse,’ as a practice of dying for God and of talking about it, a discourse that changes and develops over time and undergoes particularly interesting transformations among rabbinic Jews and other Jews, including Christians, between the second and the fourth centuries. For the ‘Romans,’ it didn’t matter much whether the lions were eating a robber or a bishop, and it probably didn’t make much of a difference to the lions, either, but the robber’s friends and the bishop’s friends told different stories about those leonine meals. It is in these stories that [the meaning of] martyrdom… can be found …’
Persecution and martyrdom was part of the Christian, Jewish, Roman story for over two hundred years, it only stopped when Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the year 312.
Scholars agree that the type of martyrdom of which we are speaking—the Christians and Jews of late antiquity—is a death whereby the persecuted believes there will be recognition after death and there will be a reward in eternity. The model for Christian martyrdom is the death of the early Christian writer Polycarp who lived from 70 to 155. The website “All About Religion” writes, “Polycarp's greatest contribution to Christianity may be his martyred death. His martyrdom stands as one of the most well documented events of antiquity.”
Polycarp’s contemporary and the Rabbi who influenced Jewish martyrdom around the same time frame is Rabbi Akiva.
A martyr’s death has these characteristics, according to Boyarin:
1. A ritualized and performative speech—Jews would declare the oneness of God by saying, ‘Hear O Israel,” and the Christians would declare, ‘I am a Christian.’ In both instances, this would be the martyr’s final act.
2. The second characteristic of a martyr’s death is the prevailing belief that the death of the martyr fulfills a religious mandate. “For Christians, beginning with Ignatius, it was a central aspect of the experience of Imitation of Christ. For Jews, it was a fulfillment of the commandment to ‘love the Lord with all one’s soul.’” (P 95)
3. The deaths were passionate. “Rabbi Akiva was anything but a Stoic. He and some of his Christian brothers and sisters… are said to suffer torture and death because they are passionately in love with God…”
The National Jewish Outreach writes this about Rabbi Akiva’s martyr death:
Ignoring the Roman prohibitions against the Jewish people and their practices, he was declared a criminal for teaching Torah wherever he could, and was eventually captured by the Romans. Tortured, he called out joyfully: "All my life I've been waiting to fulfill the concept 'You shall love Hashem, your G-d, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your resources... and now I finally have the chance."
One can see how this passion of the martyrs influenced other “true believers.”
There was, however, a difference in the way the Christians and the Jews viewed martyrdom. Scholars tell us that significant numbers of Christians embraced martyrdom and in the time of persecution came to believe that martyrdom was the only way to die. It proved one’s love of God and Christ and the belief in bodily resurrection.
The Jews on the other hand debated the issue, Boyarin wrote, and many believed it was better to live for God than die for God. They had no problem using figurative speech and double-meaning words to escape persecution and martyrdom.
The significance of martyrdom in the development of Christianity and Rabbinical Judaism allowed both religions to define themselves. In the midst of persecution, the character of the two religions was forged. The major difference in the development is the way differences are handled.
The Jewish scholars and writers embraced diverse opinions and included them in their book the Talmud. The Christian scholars and writers labeled all diverse opinions heresy and excluded them from their book the New Testament.
In the Talmud are the Mishnah and the Gemara. The Mishnah is oral tradition written down at the end of the second century of the Common Era. The Germara is the result of the discussions and debates over the Mishnah. The Mishnah was not “closed” until the seventh century. The disagreements and varied opinions of the rabbinical scholars over the years are included in the Germara.
In the New Testament, we have the winning theology. All other theologies were labeled heresies. Arianism, the Christian belief, or shall I say the Jewish-Christian belief, in one God is missing. And even though there is one scripture in the New Testament that refers to the Trinity, researchers have proved that it is retro-injected into the New Testament years after the canon was closed. Origen’s universal salvation was declared heresy and is supposedly missing from the New Testament. Although we Universalists find many verses that teach God’s unconditional universal love and salvation. Gnostic belief in humankind’s ability to know God without written scriptures is missing.
Docetism, the belief that Jesus was a spirit and not a corporal person, was lost. And, another Docetist belief that the crucifixion and the resurrection are a story and not a reality was lost. Yet Docetism was powerful enough to warrant the label of heresy.
Pagels and King, authors of Judas the Betrayer, as well as many other scholars, have spent their lives studying the many “lost Christian writings” that have been found in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Difference and diversity were “lost” and women’s voices and contributions were “lost.” And the individual’s priestly and prophetic voice was lost from the “winning” Christianity.
Questions remain for me. One, how much influence did Paul have on the martyrdom story? In his own eulogy from our reading we hear, “… there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord …will give to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing…” These are the words of the martyr who looks to future reward. And of course, we know Paul preached of a bodily resurrection which is a crucial point in the very early Christian beliefs. So, on one hand he appears planting the seed.
Yet in Philippians 1:21-25 he says,
If I live, it will be for Christ, and if I die, I will gain even more. I don't know what to choose. I could keep on living and doing something useful. It is a hard choice to make. I want to die and be with Christ, because that would be much better. But I know that all of you still need me. That's why I am sure I will stay on to help you grow and be happy in your faith.
He begins with “If I live, it will be for Christ, and if I die, I will gain even more.” Next though, “I don’t know what to choose …, it is a hard choice … I want to die … for it will be much better … but I know all of you still need me… I am sure I will stay on to help…
He is expressing more the argument or the conundrum with which the rabbinical Jews debated and argued while the Christians were being martyred in greater numbers. Is it better to live for God than to die for God? Is it better even if you have to use trickery, double-meaning words, even a little white lie?
Did Paul, with his declaration and death, sow the seeds for the phenomenon of martyrology that fueled the growth of Christianity? He fathered Christianity, why wouldn’t his influence, no matter how small, be significant?
But we can only answer, maybe, maybe not.
And another question—which is probably another sermon—how did the hope of universal salvation and a Christian belief in one God continue throughout the long story of the “winning Christianity?” From 325 until the Reformation in the sixteenth century where were the believers in the forgotten, heretical stories?
The Readings
2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
At my first defense, no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them! But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
An excerpt from Dying for God Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism by Daniel Boyarin
Some of the most striking examples of Jewish-Christian interaction come from actually shared worship, admittedly rare… but not the less significant… in fifth-century Minorca, ‘Theodore and his relatives stood a the head of a community where Jews and Christians had learned to coexist, sharing for instance, … the same … chanted psalms. At Mamre [where Abraham built his altar to Yahweh]… Jews, Christians, and pagans were carrying on a common religious festival, apparently also as late as the fifth century, according to the Palestinian church historian Sozomen…[who wrote] the inhabitants of the country and of the regions round Palestine, the Phoenicians and the Arabs, assemble annually during the summer to keep a brilliant feast… this feast is diligently frequented by all nations: by the Jews, because they boast of their descent from the patriarch Abraham; by the pagans, because angles there appeared to men; and by Christians because He who has lately revealed himself through the virgin for the salvation of mankind once appeared there to the pious man …
Posted by UNMC Office at October 28, 2007 11:00 AM