Ancient Christian Martyrdom : Diverse Practices, Theologies, and Traditions

by Candida R. Moss

• ISBN13: 9780300154658
• ISBN10: 0300154658
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2012-06-26
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

The importance of martyrdom for the spread of Christianity in the first centuries of the Common Era is a question of enduring interest. In this innovative new study, Candida Moss offers a radically new history of martyrdom in the first and second centuries that challenges traditional understandings of the spread of Christianity and rethinks the nature of Christian martyrdom itself. Martyrdom, Moss shows, was not a single idea, theology, or practice: there were diverse perspectives and understandings of what it meant to die for Christ. Beginning with an overview of ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish ideas about death, Moss demonstrates that there were many cultural contexts within which early Christian views of martyrdom were very much at home. She then shows how distinctive and diverging theologies of martyrdom emerged in different ancient congregations. In the process she reexamines the authenticity of early Christian stories about martyrs and calls into question the dominant scholarly narrative about the spread of martyrdom in the ancient world.

Author Biography

Candida Moss is assistant professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
List of Abbreviations	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Cultural Contexts: The Good Death and the Self-Conscious Sufferer	p. 23
Asia Minor: Imitating Christ	p. 49
Rome: Contesting Philosophy	p. 77
Gaul: The Victors of Vienne and Lyons	p. 100
Roman North Africa: Apocalyptic Ascent	p. 122
Alexandria: Clement and the True Martyr	p. 145
Conclusion	p. 163
Notes	p. 169
Bibliography	p. 205
General Index	p. 231
Index of Modern Authors	p. 241
Index of Ancient Sources	p. 248
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