Without the glorification of suicide in the Roman tradition, the development of martyrdom in the second and third centuries would have been unthinkable. The hordes of voluntary martyrs would never have existed. Both Greek and Jewish traditions stood against them.389 the execution and its message the way to Rome, he wrote letters describing his yearning for martyrdom and asking the recipients not to try to save him. His way to God went through the beasts.385 From the reflection in early Christianity we can learn that no other road leads as safe and immediately to Christ and salvation than martyrdom. It is a substitute for the Baptism in water for those not baptised – a Baptism of blood – even better than the ordinary Baptism as no risk for later apostasy could exists.386 In a study in which the closeness of early Christianity and Judaism is an important theme, Daniel Boyarin defines martyrdom ”as a practice of dying for God and of talking about it; a discourse that changes and develops over time”.387 The difference between the death of a martyr or of others is not the event but the stories told about the death, its interpretation. The appearance of this new and different discourse he dates to late Antiquity. Both for Christian and Jewish martyrs he sees as the central part of the discourse ”[a] ritualized and performative speech act associated with a statement of pure essence”, such as a declaration of faith or of being a Christian by the soon to be martyr.388 Glenn Bowersock instead seeks answers about the strong position of martyrdom in the early church in Roman culture: He also points to the executions in themselves, tending to heighten the comparison of martyrs and condemned. The Roman executions of the martyrs in order to preserve the cult of the emperors from blasphemers were usually held in big cities, preferably at great feasts, thereby to ensure greatest possible impact of warning and deterrence. This great assembly, 385 See e g Ign Rom 4 sq, in Andrén 1979 p 82 sq. Geoffrey Ste Croix with his critical understanding of the church finds the thoughts of Ignatius as a ”pathological yearning for martyrdom” and common for his time, Ste Croix 2006 p 189 sq (quotation p 189). 386 Baus 1985 p 335, see also Ferguson 2009 p 360, 563. 387 Boyarin 1999 p 94. 388 Boyarin 1999 p 95. 389 Bowersock 1995 p 72 sq, see also p 62 sqq. 113
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