EXC 212 D2-4 - MARTYRDOM AND THE DISCOURSE OF MARTYRDOM IN THE 4TH CENTURY A.D.

Basic data for this project

Description

After the last persecution of Christians in 303–305 and 311 A.D. and since imperial support of the church began with Constantine, Christian martyrdoms have basically been a thing of the past. In reality, the phenomenon retained its importance, as did the admiration of martyrs and the theology of martyrdom in the 4th century; it even widened its horizons and functions in new conflicts. A multifaceted martyrdom debate emerged which unfolded a high potential to create identity in the communities, in church-internal disputes and in conflicts with pagans and Jews and which, in addition, assimilated new, contemporary experiences of violence. The valency of martyrdom and of martyr admiration was not only questioned by pagans but in part also by church leaders. The popularity of the martyr cult as a (quasi pagan) feast-filled death cult (but also with incubation and divination) provoked the protest of bishops such as Augustine who developed the concept of every Christians ‘daily martyrdom’. Others (Vigilantius vs. Jerome and others) opened up a theological discourse regarding the basic principles and justification of martyr worship. The dynamics of late ancient worship of martyrs has its roots mainly in popular religiousness. New communities sought to create places of worship by (re)constructing and inventing martyrs and by embellishing martyr legends (a new literary genre) and created own liturgies for which the martyr feasts and martyr sermons (another new genre) were constitutive. The mobility of relics and worship of martyrs ‘discovered’ in the 4th century (by translation, trade) allowed the formation of a sacral topography across the empire. Bishops used the unearthing or translation of a martyr’s mortal remains as a chance to demonstrate spirituality and to gain additional power. New martyrdoms in the 4th century reflected the religious disputes’ continuously high potential for conflict and violence. ‘Martyrs’ were above all produced by the pagan reaction of Julian, his victims being turned into objects of an excessive martyrology of a new calibre that created anti-pagan identity. Martyrdoms suffered, staged and propagated became the outer signum of the returning oppression and open persecution of dissenting Christian groups in the late antique empire. The North-African Donatists, who understood themselves as a church of martyrs, confronted the Catholics with an unparalleled martyr cult and initiated a controversial martyrdom debate that lasted for generations. From the innovative developments of the martyr debate and the worship of 4th-century martyrs, the project will analyse those that owe their emergence and development directly to the contemporary religious disputes and experiences of violence and that were functionalised here: as (aggressive) founding myths of communities, to delegitimise rival faiths, or, for example, in fighting for the conquest of sacral spaces.