don't kill yourself {& don't let others do so!}


Every
argument against
martyrdom that was
mobilized by Rabbi Yose
in the Talmud was
cited here,
as well.

"G d"
does not
intend or desire
those who could teach
his Torah should die before their time,
and it is far, far better to withdraw,
appearing pusillanimous,
as Cyprian clearly did,
to judge from the defense,
than to be killed prematurely
and cease doing
"the Lord's
work."

This
was the argument
used by the apostle's friends
in the Apocryphal Acts, as we saw before, as well,
however the embarrassed and defensive tone of these explanations
is entirely different from that
of the Talmud.

But finally,
the patristic text,
like the apocryphon,
makes its burden clear.
The only thing that justifies Cyprian's temporary evasion of martyrdom
is the fact that in the end he was,
like Peter,
martyred.

Cyprian's story is,
of course, that he completely escaped
during the Decian persecutions
and only returned to Carthage
when it was safe to do so.

During the later persecution of Valerian,
he was deported, brought back, tried, and executed in 258.
This, in part, marks a shift in Christian ideology between two persecutions,
which for a lesser figure than Cyprian might have been textualized
as a failure and a second chance
to redeem himself.

This shift
is earlier paralleled
in a hardening of Tertullian's own attitudes toward escape
between his early text, Scorpiace,
and his later
de fuga.

In short,
in the Cyprianic Life,
we have a virtual instant replay of the "Quo vadis?" story.
This is no mere conceit.
The letter of the Roman clergy
attacking Cyprian for his "retirement"
explicitly provided a negative comparison between him,
"the hireling shepherd,"
and Peter,
"the good shepherd,
who fed his sheep
'by the very manner
of his death,'"

"The value
of making a steadfast stand is highly stressed.
Indeed the confessors
(fratres qui sunt in vinculis)
take pride of place before the presbyters
in the concluding salutation.
By corollary,
their attitude toward
fuga
(and that includes Cyprian's),
with their sermonizing on the good
and the hireling shepherd
and their frequent references to desertion
(deserentes, dereliquimus, reliciti)
is plainly critical and scarcely veiled
by the decency
of innuendo."

Since Peter was the good shepherd,
it would not be entirely surprising to find Cyprian's panegyrical thanatographer
implicitly refferring to this intertext.

Both theoretical options,
escape from martyrdom
as a means to maintain the teaching of the Christ
and the exhortion to martyrdom,
are raised in both texts,
but the decision is finally clearly
in favor of
the latter.

Again,
I don't wish
to introduce here
the somewhat misleading taxon of voluntary
versus involuntary martyrdom.
Cyprian was a noted opponent of voluntary martyrdom,
if by this term we refer to a seeking of death
where none had been imposed from outside,
as in some famous early
Christian cases.

But Rabbi Hanina,
by convening groups to study Torah in public,
while not seeking death as a martyr,
certainly expected the possibility,
as did Rabbi Akiva,
whose martyrdom we might
touch upon later
[...]!
Moreover,
both received their deaths
with the kind of equanimity
and even joy that is characteristic of the
Christian martyres, including
Cyprian himself.

Christian discourse
needed to render a decree on the matter,
just as developing Christian orthodoxy needed finally to settle theological questions,
and disagreement leads repeatedly
to schism.

The exception
that proves this rule
is Clement of Alexandria
in the late second century and early third.
For a Tertullian, the comtemporary founding voice
of Latin Christianity in Carthage,
Clement would be
a heretic,
no more,
no less.

"It
is perhaps
fortunate for the Church
that Clement and Tertullian never met.
If they had, or if the view of Clement and Origen had been propagated in Africa and Italy,
the schism between East and West might have occurred in the third
and not in the eleventh century?"

All this
because to Clement
the Christian Gnostic was the type of perfect Christian.
To Tertullian it was
the martyr!
engel
So
please don't
kill tourself yet,
nor 'let it be', but:
sleep well, dream sweet,
everything is alright now &
you can tell us all about it tomorrow
if you really want to
[& still can
do so]
...
blozen
geschokt
cool!
30 jul 2008 - meld ongepast verhaal
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Asih, man, 80 jaar
   
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