arresteren bedreigen executeren martelen opsluiten

Whose Martyrdom
is this, anyway?

It
would be
fair today to
say that at present
there are two major theses
with regard to the origins of Christian
martyrology, which, for the sake of convenience,
we can refer to as the J thesis & the C thesis. According
to J, martyrdom is a practice that has its origins securely in
"Judaism," and the Church
"prolongs and supersedes"
the Jewish practice.

For C,
on the other
hand, Christian martyrdom
has virtually nothing to do with Jewish origins at all,
it is a practice that grew up in an entirely Roman cultural environment
and then was "borrowed" by Jews. It will be seen, however, that both of these
seemingly opposite arguments are founded on the same assumption, namely, that
Judaism and Christianity are two separate entities, so that it is intelligible
to speak of one {and not the other - either - one} as the poimt of origin
of a given practice. The proposition that we have been putting forth is
that it is precisely this fundamental assumption that needs
questioning. If Christians are Jews, and if even Rabbis
sometimes can be - at least almost - Christians, as
we have seen, then the whole question of who
invented martyrdom takes on an entirely
different character. We shall be trying,
as usual, to show i
ndeed that this
'making'
of martyrdom
was at least in part,
part and parcel of the
process of the making of
Judaism and Christianity
as distinct
entities.

In
C's view,
"Martyrdom was not something
that the ancient world had seen from the beginning.
What we can observe in the second, third, and fourth centuries of our era
is something entirely new. Of course, in earlier ages principled and courageous persons,
such as Socrates at Athens or the three Jews in the fiery furnace of Nebuchadnezzar,
had provided glorious examples of resistance to tyrannical authority and painful
suffering before unjust judges. But never before had such courage been
absorbed into a conceptual system of posthumous recognition and
anticipated reward ... Martyrdom, as we understand it,
was conceived and devised in response to complex
social, religious, and political pressures, and the
date an the circumstances
of its making
are still
the subject of
a lively
debate!"

On
some current
definitions, C's point,
which underlies the relatively
late and uniquely Christian conception
of martyrdom, would be simply nonsense.
Thus J.W. van Henten, in his work on 2 and 4 Maccabees,
has defined the "martyr text" in the following fashion:
"A martyr text tells us about a specific kind of violent death,
death by torture. In a martyr text it is described how a certain person,
in an extreme hostile situation, has preferred a violent death to compliance
with a decree or demand of the {usually} pagan authorities. The death
of this person is a structural element in such a text,
and the execution should at least
be mentioned!"

If
this is
the definition of
martyrdom, then it is
obvious that the pre-Christian
2 Maccabees already contains a martyr text,
and we must certainly date nartyrdom prior to
the second century
after Christ.

Although,
to be sure,
2 Maccabees is dated
anywhere from the middle of the second century B.C.
to the middle of the first century A.C., the current consensus is
to date it before Christ. There is an enormous literature on the Maccabean texts
and their relations to martyrology, voluminouslu cited in notes. In C's view the martyrologies
within 2 Maccabees are considered of later provenance than the main text.
This argument seems less than convincing in the light of the analysis
of van Henten. I prefer to suggest that a nascent notion
of martyrdom is already present in the very likely "pre-
Christian" 2 Maccabees and that it undergoes very
similar development among Jews and Christians
in 4 Maccabees, Polycarp,
the Martyrs of Lyons,
eventually Pionius,
Akiva, Hanina,
and so on.

Following
van Henten's
minimalist definitions, C's
claim that "what we can observe
in the second, third, and fourth centuries
of our era is something entirely new" hardly
can be entertained, let alone sustained.
C has correctly, in my view, challenged
such generic characterizations as
"emphasizing banal coincidences in
various narratives of resistance to
authority and heroic selfsacrifice
as if every such episode
constituted martyrdom."

However,
he substitutes for this generic cliche
a notion of martyrdom as a single thing,
an essence, and that makes it effectively impossible
to perceive the complexities and nuances of its history.
Rather than taking it as a thing, "something entirely new,"
I {DB} propose that we think of martyrdom as a "discourse,"
as a practice of dying for G d and of talking about it, a discourse
that changes and develops over time and undergoes particularly inter
esting transformations among rabbinic Jews and other Jews, including Christians,
between the second and the fourth centuries. For the "Rpmans," 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 robbers's friends and the
bishop's friends told different stories about those leonine meals.
It is in these stories that martyrdom,
as opposed to execution
or dinner, can be found,
not in "what
happened!"

Sorry
dat 't
telkens weer zo
'vreselijk' uitloopt?
Maar waar het mij om
gaat zijn de verschillen
en overeenkomsten tussen
'toen' & 'nu'! Blijkbaar leefden
soortgelijke gevoelens, gedachten,
daden & beschrijvingen in de eeuwen rondom
{'vanaf'} het jaar "0" nogal in 'die streken' rondom
't oosteinde v/d Middellandse Zee: men was in staat
om zijn/haar leven op te geven omwille van 'n bepaald
'geloof in "G d"'. Het werd niet 'gezocht',
maar als het echt niet anders kon
tegenover rot beleid, dan koos
men 'liever' voor de martel~
dood dan de gehoorzaam~
heid aan 'onrechtvaardige
heidense maatregels'
van grootmachten &
dictators? De vraag
is nu voor ons of
'zoiets de
moeite
waard
is'?

Wat
zouden wij
doen in 'soortgelijke
omstandigheden'? Al eerder
en vaker hadden we het ook al
over de 'tricksters': onder 'dwaze dictatuur'
uitkomen op 'andere pretenties'
in plaats van regelrecht ter
executie gevoerd
worden!

Het
enige waar
het voor mij
'nabij' kwam was 'achter-
af gezien' mijn vaders gedwongen
verblijf in 't Duits/Nederlands strafkamp
Erika in het najaar van '42, zijn 'onderduik'
in A'dam & die kogel op woensdag 13 december
'44 'in sperrgebiet' in het begin van de jaren zestig
m'n eigen 'dienstweigering' ten tijde van de Vietnam~
oorlog e.d. Probeer je dan onder zoiets uit te komen op
'valse' gronden, kom je 'duidelijk' voor uit, wat zijn 'de gevolgen'
van het een en ander, heb je het 'ervoor over' om gevangen gezet
te worden en wat doe je 'onschuldig' in de gevangenis in Nederland [al
of niet onder 'bezetting' van Fransen, Duitsers, Engelsen/Amerikanen], wat
in Israel {zie: Eilat/Be'er Sjeva}, Jordania {"Zesdaagse Oorlog"/Petra/Elja/Ma'an/Amman}
& hoe verzet je je tegen atoomkoppen, bacteriologische/biologische/chemische
oorlogsvoering, wapenhandel, 'politonele
acties', 'collateral damages' onder de
burgerbevolking, "Srebrenica" & al
die andere 'ingrepen'
van hoger-
hand?

Meestal
weet je
vooraf nog niet
wat je staat te gebeuren 'als gevolg
van', maar naderhand blijf je het
je wel afvragen 'wat te doen
& wat niet', wat heb ik
ervoor over, kun je
het je familie
& vrienden
aandoen
...?