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Commemoration, Representation and Interpretation: Augustine of Hippo’s Depictions of the Martyrs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Elena Martin
Elena Martin*
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Extract

Recent studies of martyrdom in early Christianity look beyond the traditional perception of martyr acta and passiones as historical documents that can help us to reconstruct the past. While previously these texts had been deemed worthy of attention on account of their proven authenticity or historical veracity, now they are all valued as important sources that have much to tell us about the communities and environments in which they were produced. This approach does not deny the historical value of the sources, but rather it appreciates that they are a special kind of historical document. Texts and sermons about holy men and women never were created as objective accounts. Every textual portrait of a martyr reveals a prior judgement that inscribes meaning and purpose into seemingly meaningless events to present condemned criminals as religious heroes, horrific tortures as divine gifts, and public deaths as cosmic dramas. Consequently, the various methods of representation that were used to construct depictions of the martyrs are significant elements in their own right, whether they are rhetorical devices, scriptural allusions, artistic embellishments or miraculous occurrences. These are the very details that make martyrs; they turn death into martyrdom, and the dead into martyrs.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 47: Saints and Sanctity , 2011 , pp. 29 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2011

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References

1 Key studies include Castelli, Elizabeth, Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making, Gender, Theory and Religion (New York, 2004)Google Scholar; Cooper, Kate, ‘The Voice of the Victim: Gender, Representation and Early Christian Martyrdom’, BJRL 80. 3 (Autumn 1998), 147–57 Google Scholar; Grig, Lucy, Making Martyrs in Late Antiquity (London, 2004), 146–51 Google Scholar; Leemans, Johanet al., Let us Die that we may Live: Greek Homilies on Christian Martyrs from Asia Minor, Palestine and Syria (c. AD 350 — AD 450) (London, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Salisbury, Joyce E., Blood of Martyrs: Unintended Consequences of Ancient Violence (London, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a less recent but seminal study, see Brown, Peter, The Cult of the Saints (Chicago, IL, 1981, repr. 1982).Google Scholar

2 For a succinct overview, see Grig, Making Martyrs, 146—51.

3 For example, Brock, Sebastian P. and Harvey, Susan Ashbrook, Holy Women of the Syrian Orient, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 13 (Berkeley, CA, 1987), 3Google Scholar: ‘[acta are] an important kind of historical evidence about how a given group understands its own history’. This shift in focus is linked with the influence of ‘the linguistic turn’ in early Christian studies; see further Clark, Elizabeth A., History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn (Cambridge, MA, 2004), esp. 159Google Scholar: ‘Christian writings from late antiquity should be read first and foremost as literary productions before they are read as sources of social data.’

4 Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory, 25: ‘From the earliest of sources onward, it becomes clear that the early Christians positioned the historical experience of persecution almost immediately within a framework of meaning that drew upon broader metanarratives about temporality, suffering and sacrifice, and identity.’

5 See Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory; Grig, Making Martyrs; Salisbury, Blood of Martyrs.

6 Castelli, Elizabeth, ‘The Ambivalent Legacy of Violence and Victimhood: Using Early Christian Martyrs to Think With’, Spiritus 6 (2006), 1–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 1.

7 For background on Augustine’s attitudes towards the martyrs, see van Bavel, Tarcisius J., ‘The Cult of the Martyrs in St. Augustine: Theology Versus Popular Religion?’, in Martyrium in Multidisciplinary Perspective: Memorial Louis Reekmans, ed. Lamberigts, M. and van Deun, P., Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 117 (Leuven, 1995), 351–61 Google Scholar; Boeft, Jan den, ‘“Martyres sunt sed homines fuerunt”: Augustine on Martyrdom’, in Fructus centesimus: Mélanges offerts à Gerard J. M. Bartelink à l’occasion de son soixante-cinquième anniversaire, ed. Bastiaensen, A. A. R., Hilhorst, A. and Kneepkens, C. H. (Dordrecht, 1989), 115–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; La Bonnardière, A.-M., ‘Les Enarrationes in Psalmos prêchées par Saint Augustin à l’occasion de fêtes de martyrs’, Recherches Augustiniennes 7 (1971), 73–104 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brown, Peter, ‘Enjoying the Saints in Late Antiquity’, EME 9 (2000), 1–24 Google Scholar; Frend, W. H. C., ‘The North African Cult of Martyrs’, in Jenseitsvorstellungen in Antike und Christentum: Gedenkschrift für Alfred Stuiber, ed. Dassmann, E. (Münster, 1982), 154–67 Google Scholar; Lambot, C., ‘Les sermons de Saint Augustin pour les fêtes des martyrs’, Revue Bénédictine 79 (1969), 82–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 See the brief comment in van der Meer, F., Augustine the Bishop: The Life and Work of a Father of the Church, trans. Battershaw, B. and Lamb, G. R., 2nd edn (London, 1978), 492.Google Scholar

9 See further, Prudentius, , Peristephanon, ed. and trans. Thomson, H. J., LCL 398 (London, 1953)Google Scholar. For a range of examples in the martyr homilies of John Chrysostom and the Cappadocian Fathers, see Leemans, et al., Let us DieGoogle Scholar; Mayer, Wendy, St. John Chrysostom: The Cult of the Saints (New York, 2006).Google Scholar

10 Augustine’s sermons are translated in Rotelle, John E., ed., The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the Twenty-First Century, part 3, vols 1-11, trans. Hill, Edmund (New York, 1990-7)Google Scholar. Some of Augustine’s sermons on the martyrs are included in the collection of his Enarrationes in Psalmos, in Rotelle, John E. and Ramsey, Boniface, eds, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the Twenty-First Century, part 3, vols 15-20, trans. Maria Boulding (New York, 2000-04)Google Scholar. All references to the Sermons [hereafter S.] and the Enarrationes in Psalmos [hereafter En. Ps.] are taken from this series [hereafter WSA].

11 S. 274.1 (WSA, 3/8: 23), 280.1 (WSA, 3/8: 72), 299F.1 (WSA, 3/8: 271), 335A.1 (WSA, 3/9: 211). Martyrdom narratives were not available for all the martyrs: S. 315.1 (WSA, 3/9: 129).

12 Brown, ‘Enjoying the Saints’, 6—7; Baraz, Daniel, Medieval Cruelty: Changing Perceptions, Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period (Ithaca, NY, 2003), esp. 39.Google Scholar

13 For example, John Chrysostom, A Homily on the Holy Martyrs 8 (trans. Mayer, Cult, 226); idem, A Homily on Saint Barlaam 10 (trans. Mayer, Cult, 186); idem, On the Holy Maccabees and their Mother 11 (trans. Mayer, Cult, 145); Basil, Homily on the Martyr Gordius 2 (trans. Pauline Allen, in Leemans et al., Let us Die, 59); idem, Homily on the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste 2 (trans. Allen, in Leemans et al., Let us Die, 68–9).

14 For example, Gregory of Nyssa, Homily lb on the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste 145 (trans. Leemans, in Leemans et al., Let us Die, 98): ‘let us then narrate everything about the martyrs step by step, in a way that brings their contest under your eyes on this very stage’.

15 For the mnemonic function of violent images, see Carruthers, Mary, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400–1200, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 34 (Cambridge, 1998), 101.Google Scholar

16 Ibid. 131.

17 Chrysostom, On the Holy Martyrs 4, 5 (trans. Mayer, Cult, 222); idem, A Homily on the Martyr Julian 2 (trans. Mayer, in Leemans et al., Let us Die, 132).

18 For example, Basil, Homily on the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste 5 (trans. Allen, in Leemans et al., Let us Die, 71–2); Gregory of Nyssa, Homily lb on the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste 153 (trans. Leemans, in Leemans et al., Let us Die, 105); Chrysostom, A Homily on the Martyr Julian 3 (trans. Mayer, in Leemans et al., Let us Die, 133); idem, On the Holy Martyrs, esp. 4, 8 (trans. Mayer, Cult, 221–2,226); idem, A Homily on Saint Romanus 7 (trans. Mayer, Cult, 232).

19 S. 280.1 (WSA, 3/8:72).

20 S. 301.1 (WSA, 3/8: 282).

21 Brown, ‘Enjoying the Saints’, 7.

22 For example, Letter, 89.2 (WSA, 2/1: 359); S. 275.1 (WSA, 3/8: 26), 285.2 (WSA, 3/8: 95), 325.2 (WSA, 3/9: 168–9), 328.4, 7 (WSA, 3/9: 177–8, 179), 335.2 (WSA, 3/9: 209). 335C.5 (WSA, 3/9: 222–3), 335G.2 (WSA, 3/9: 244). See further den Boeft, ‘Augustine on Martyrdom’, 118.

23 The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas 20; trans. Musurillo, Herbert, in idem, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford, 2000), 106–31 Google Scholar, at 129.

24 The Martyrdom of Saints Carpus, Papylas, and Agathonicê 6 (trans. Musurillo, Acts, 35).

25 The Martyrdom of Saint Crispina 3 (trans. Musurillo, Acts, 307).

26 Prudentius, Peristephanon 3 (LCL 398, 151–2).

27 Victricius, Praising the Saints 12; trans. Clark, Gillian, ‘Victricius of Rouen: Praising the Saints’, JECS 7 (1999), 365–99 Google Scholar, at 399.

28 See further Burrus, Virginia, ‘Word and Flesh: The Bodies and Sexuality of Ascetic Women in Christian Antiquity’. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 10 (1994), 27–51 Google Scholar; eadem, ‘Reading Agnes: The Rhetoric of Gender in Ambrose and Prudentius’, JECS 3 (1995), 25–46.

29 For the power of mental images to arouse lust, see Augustine, Confessions 10.30, 41 (WSA, 1/1: 264); S. 151.8 (WSA, 3/5: 46).

30 Leemans et al., Let us Die, 33–4.

31 e.g. Prudentius, Peristephanon 3, on Eulalia (LCL 398,142-56); ibid. 5, on Vincent (LCL 398, 168–203); ibid, 10, on Romanus (LCL 398, 290–3). See also Chrysostom, A Homily on Saint Romanus 8 (trans. Mayer, Cult, 233–4).

32 Leemans et al., Let us Die, 33–5.

33 S. 299D.4 (WSA, 3/8: 258–9); cf. S. 326.2 (WSA, 3/9: 171), 334.1 (WSA, 3/9: 204–5).

34 For the martyrs proclaiming the Gospel, see City of God 18.50; trans. Dyson, R. W., The City of God Against the Pagans, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge, 1998), 897–8 Google Scholar; S. 318.1 (WSA, 3/9: 147).

35 S. 274.1 (WSA, 3/8: 23).

36 S. 277A.2 (WSA, 3/8:48).

37 S. 281.3 (WSA, 3/8: 79), 282.1 (WSA, 3/8: 81).

38 S. 274.1 (WSA, 3/8: 23). Other examples include Cyprian: S. 313C.2 (WSA, 3/9: 102); Primus, Perpetua and Victoria: S. 335A.1 (WSA, 3/9: 212); Lawrence: S. 304.1 (WSA, 3/8: 316); 305A.4 (WSA, 3/8: 326–7); Quadratus: S. 306B.3 (WSA, 3/9: 30), 306C.1-2 (WSA, 3/9: 36–7).

39 S. 282.1 (WSA, 3/8: 81), 306B.3 (WSA, 3/9: 30).

40 En. Ps. 118(9).2 (WSA, 3/19: 379). See further Lucy Grig, ‘Torture and Truth in Late Antique Martyrology’, EME 11 (2002), 321–36, esp. 324–8.

41 While it is beyond the scope of this study to explore this issue in further detail, see, e.g., Beth Crachiolo, ‘Seeing the Gendering of Violence: Female and Male Martyrs in the South English Legendary’, in Meyerson, Mark D., Thiery, Daniel and Falk, Oren, eds, A Great Effusion of Blood? Interpreting Medieval Violence (Toronto, ON, 2004), 147–63 Google Scholar; Easton, Martha, ‘Pain, Torture, and Death in the Huntingdon Library Legenda aurea’, in Riches, Samantha J. E. and Salih, Sarah, eds, Gender and Holiness: Men, Women, and Saints in Late Medieval Europe (London, 2002), 49–64.Google Scholar