Martyrdom and inversions of power

Martyrs are almost by definition in positions of weakness. But the early accounts of Christian martyrs show that martyrdom tended to overturn the balance of power. Two examples from Eusebius illustrate the point.

One story begins with a domestic conflict. A Christian wife married to a philandering husband decided “not to be involved in this abominable misconduct by maintaining the marriage bond as sharer of his board and bed,” so she served him the repudium to free herself from the marriage and received legal protections through an appeal to the Emperor. [1] Enraged, the husband took his vengeance by turning the name of his ex-wife’s teacher, Ptolemy, to the Roman governor, Urbicius. After Urbicius condemned Ptolemy to death for being a Christian, one of the observers, Lucius, stepped forward to protest: “Why have you punished this man, who is neither an adulterer, a fornicator, a homicide, a thief, nor a robber, and has not been found guilty of any offense, but merely confesses the name of Christian. Your verdict is discreditable to the Emperor . . . and to the sacred Senate.” Urbicius responded by asking whether Lucius was a Christian, and he confessed he was, so Urbicius ordered him to be executed, along with another Christian who protested in the same way. [2]

The other incident occurred in Lyons during Marcus Aurelius’s persecution of 177.

A group of Christians was seized, beaten, and marched to the forum to stand before the authorities. During the trial, a prominent citizen of Lyons, Vettius Epagathus, stepped forward to defend them. Eusebius writes, “He found the judgment so unreasonably given against us more than he could bear: boiling with indignation, he applied for permission to speak in defence of the Christians, and to prove that there was nothing godless or irreligious in our society. The crowd round the tribunal howled him down, as he was a man of influence, and the governor dismissed his perfectly reasonable application with the curt question, Are you a Christian? In the clearest possible tones Vettius replied, I am. And so he too was admitted to the ranks of the martyrs. He was called the Christians’ advocate, but he had in himself the Advocate [the Spirit] . . . as he showed by the fullness of his love when he gladly laid down his own life in defence of his brother Christians. For he was a true disciple of Christ, following the Lamb wherever He goes.” [3]

It seems likely that the injustice of Urbicius’ judgments would have been evident to some of the non-Christian observers as well. The Roman judicial system had difficulty retaining its traditional aura, its traditional claim to be protecting the interests of the state, when it continued to condemn peaceable Christians to horrible deaths. Martyrs believed that they were victorious in death, and their victory was more concrete and political than they might have imaged.