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Martyrdom and Communion

(Monastero di Bose, 7th of September 2016)

John Panteleimon Manoussakis
(College of the Holy Cross and Australian Catholic University)

The technical term martyr () with the meaning that is attached to it in our languages
today, designating someone who is willing to suffer and die on account of their faith, originates
during the Christian persecution of the 2nd century. In this sense it is used in The Martyrdom of
Polycarp, a text written by eye-witnesses to the Bishop of Smyrnas death sometime between
160 to 180 AD. However, beyond this technical meaning of the term, the word martyr and its
cognates (, , ) are well attested both in classical Greek literature as
well as in the Hellenistic translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (Septuagint). It signifies a cluster of
meanings which the Christian usage of the term martyr retains and recapitulates even as it adds
to them a new one. We can thus speak of two registers of meaning that predate the Christian
understanding of martyrdom: a legal and judicial sense (to bear witness, to testify, to offer a
testimonial) that is used by the Hebrew Scriptures and transformed into a distinctively religious
language, where the testimony becomes a testament attested par excellence in the tent or
tabernacle (Ex. 38:27; Num. 9:15) and the arc (Ex. 25: 16, 22; 30:6) of the testimony (
/edut), and by extension to the precepts of the Mosaic Law as a whole; thus in the
Psalms the term are synonymous and interchangeable with Yahwehs commands,
percepts, and decrees (, , ; see, for example, Ps. 118/9:1-8).

1. Martyrdom as an Act of Remembrance Attesting the Truth for an Other.

This development in the signification of the term martyr, by which one layer of meaning is
superimposed over the other, forming together a conceptual cluster of distinct yet interrelated
meanings, could help shed some new light on the question of martyrdom. If we remain for a
moment within the Judaic tradition as briefly sketched by the texts referred to above, we realize
that the term (in the translation of the LXX) is never entirely dissociated from that of
(that is, witness), even when its usage has been assumed by the language of Jewish
cultus. Conversely, as we shall see later on, the Christian term retains its connection
with Israels tabernacle precisely as the event (martyrdom) and the place (martyrium) where the
witness of God is still attested.

I would like to suggest that, contrary to what seems to be our common understanding,
the primary and originary martyr is God. Martyrdom is an act of divine condescension, that is,
Gods willingness to present and thus reveal Himself in front of humanitys tribunal in order to
testify on account of Himselfand thus make Himself accountable. God offers witness to Israel
and, in the fullness of time when this testimony is also given to the nations, God testifies to the
whole of humanity that He isthat He is God (Is. 43:10, 44:8). Gods martyrdom is a selfwitness: God provides to a doubting, unfaithful, and, at times, hardened humanity the evidence
() that He is a God involved in our history. In fact, Gods self-witness takes the form of

such involvement. Gods self-revelation is Gods . For example, the arc of the
testimony, as it was quite aptly called, was a place where the evidence of Gods involvement in
the concrete and particular history of His chosen people was preserved: for it contained not only
the stone tablets of the ten commandmentsthe physical document of Yahwehs covenant
with Israelbut also the staff of Aaron (Num. 17:25/17:10) and a pot of manna (Ex. 16:34-5; Heb.
9:4). The staff of Aaron was a reminder of Gods providence for Israel when Moses and Aaron
stood before the Pharaoh (Ex. 7); as the pot of manna was a reminder of Yahwehs care for Israels
daily breadso that you shall know that I am the Lord your God (Ex. 16: 12). Thus, the arc of
the testimony is also the arc of memory, a place of remembrance, an anamnesis, for through its
relics Israel was reminded that it was Yahweh who liberated them from their captivity. It might
be useful at this point to be reminded that the etymology of the term martyr is related to the
Greek verb to be mindful () and the noun or that give us also the
Latin memor. Martyrdom commemorates memory.

In all this the judicial sense of the martyr as the witness in a court of law is not forgotten.
Indeed, God is summoned to be the witness to a hearing, to an ongoing theodicy, in which God
has to provide evidence that He isthat He is God. In a telling passage from the book of Isaiah,
Yahweh invites Israel to sit as a co-defendant in a trial in front of all the nations (Review the past
for me, let us argue the matter together; state the case for your innocence Is. 43:26):

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All the nations gather together
and the peoples assemble.
Which of their gods foretold this
and proclaimed to us the former things?
Let them bring in their witnesses [] to prove they were right [],
so that others may hear and say, It is true.
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You are my witnesses [] and I am a witness [], says Lord the God,
and my servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and believe me
and understand that I am.
Before me no god was formed,
nor will there be one after me.
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I am the Lord,
and apart from me there is no savior.
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I have revealed and saved and proclaimed
I, and not some foreign god among you.
You are my witnesses [] and I am a witness [], declares the Lord,
that I am God.
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Yes, and from ancient days I am he.1

Yahwehs testimonial in this passage invokes both the memory of Israels past (For I am the Lord
your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I have made Egypt your ransom, and I gave Ethiopia

1
Is. 43: 9-13 (the NIV translation, modified to reflect the text of the LXX).

and Seba in your stead 43:3), as well as the promise of a messianic future (For I will pour water
on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring,
and my blessing on your descendants 44:3). Gods self-attestation () that seeks to
communicate Himself becomes the foundational event of a communitythe community of those
to whom Gods testament is addressed and who, in turn, are called to become the witnesses of
Gods witness. This community is primarily the people of Israel whom God calls to testify in front
of all nations that He is God. If, then, Israel is invited to be Yahwehs witnesses, His martyrs, this
is only to the extent that they bear witness to His witness to them, that is, to His self-witness as it
was manifested through a series of events in Israels history. On the basis of this record, the
nations can judge whether God is truly who He claims to be: Israels savior, the only true God.

Gods self-witness in history finds its unsurpassable culmination in the incarnation of
Jesus Christ. Christ is the living tabernacle (cf. Hebrews 9:11); the tent of the testimony (
) is His fleshthe Gospel of John intends this connection when it writes
that the Word became flesh and dwelled [] among us (Jn. 1:14). Christs body is the
true temple (Jn. 2:21) in which dwelled all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:9).
Furthermore, Christ speaks of Himself as a witness: The reason I was born and came into the
world is to testify to the truth (Jn. 18:37). The expression remains
cryptic as long as we forget that, as we said above, constitutes a commemoration of
memory and - names that which emerges out of , that is, the un-forgettable. Thus,
we are able to say that the question of truth involves always an act of martyrdom. By definition
the martyr bears witness to the truth and Christs response to Pontius Pilate reminds us quite
emphatically of the intimate connection between truth and martyrdom. Yet, to echo Pilates
question, what is the truth to which Christs whole existence testifies? Since He is the truth (Jn.
14:6) His witness is a self-witness and it is this that reveals His true identity as the self-revealing
God.

However, Christs self-witness does not collapse into an empty self-referential tautology.
If I testify [] about myself, my testimony [] is not true (John 5:31). Christs
witness follows a perichoretic structure: He reveals Himself only to the extent that He reveals His
Father: FatherI have revealed your name to those who you gave me (Jn. 17:6) and I have
made your name known to them and I will continue to make you known (Jn. 17:26). In turn,
the Father bears witness to His Son: the Father who sent me has himself testified []
concerning me (Jn. 5:37). Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony
[]. Whoever does not believe God they have made him to be a liar, because they have
not believed the testimony [] God has given [] about his Son (1 John
5:10). Finally, the Holy Spirit offers witness to the witness of Christ: When the Comforter comes,
whom I will send to you from the Fatherthe Spirit of truth who goes out from the Fatherhe
will testify [] about me (Jn. 15:26). Christs witness to the truth is the witness about
the true God, namely a God who exists as communion of Persons. Deuteronomys legal
prescription that a matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses
[] (Dt. 19:15) is raised in 1 John 5: 7-8 (with or without the comma Johanneum) to new
level, assuming a distinctly theological significance. With this last step martyrdom is inscribed
within the life of Trinitarian community.

So far we have established a threefold connection that could be summarized as follows:

martyrdom as an act of remembrance attesting the truth on behalf of and for the sake of the
Other.

2. Martyrdom and the Holy Spirit

We have already seen that the principal martyr is God. Both the creation and the course of human
history are His witnesses to humanitys tribunal that He is God, a God who, by means of that very
witness, communicates and enters into communion with His people. Any witness offered by
humanity comes as a response and testifies to Gods originary witness. In this sense, Israel is
invited to be Yahwehs witness (in Is. 43-44), and in this sense Jesus announces to His disciples
that they will be his witnesses: and you also must testify [ ] (Jn. 15:27).
The content of the disciples witness cannot be anything other than Christs witness. By
confessing that Jesus is the Lord (Rom. 10:9), the disciples become Christs martyrs. Here the
term becomes linked to that of confession (). It is important to notice that
becoming Christs martyrs presupposes neither the eye-witness of a follower of Jesus nor the
death of martyrdom. When St. Paul gives his testimony at the tribunal of King Agrippa, he
narrates how Jesus appeared to him on his way to Damascus, appointing him as his servant and
witness [] (Acts 26:16). Paul is called a martyr (by Christ nonetheless) even though he
was not a follower and thus an eye-witness of Christ and without having suffered yet for Christs
name. A better example is that of St. Stephen, whom the Church recognizes as the first-martyr
(). Although it is clear that Stephen was not an eye-witness to Jesuss earthly
ministry, nevertheless he becomes the first-witness (martyr) of the Gospel. Yet, is this honor
allotted to him on account of his death? Or is it rather that Stephen had no regard for his own
life and he was willing to endure death by stoning because he was a martyr? In one scholars view
Stephen is not called a witness because he dies; he dies because he is a witness of Christ2


If this is so (and I am willing to entertain this hypothesis), then we are presented with an
inescapable question: What are the criteria of martyrdom? Who is the martyr? An answer to this
question presents itself already in the condition given to us by St. Paul: every martyrdom is a
witness that takes the form of the confession Jesus is the Lord (Rom. 10:9). Indeed, all accounts
of martyrdom, both ancient and new, share the structural element of confession in common. The
martyr (in the narrower, technical sense) confesses that he or she is a Christian, that Jesus is their
Lord. Yet, how is this confession possible, especially when offered with the certainty of sacrificing
ones own life? St. Paul again gives us the condition for the possibility of confession: no one can
say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit [
] (1 Cor. 12:3). Let us pause here for a moment in order to grasp fully the meaning
of this statement. Gods name becomes once again ineffable; confession escapes us; the witness
of the martyr remains impossible; unlessand all the force of this statement lies upon this
unlessunless /in the Holy Spirit. No one can speak, no one can confess, no one can offer

2

Gerhard Kittel (ed.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, translated by Geoffrey Bromiley (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1967), vol. 4, p. 494.

witness except in the Holy Spirit, in Godthat is, in what is most other than myself, not simply
another but wholly Other.3

We must take the preposition as introducing a locative dativethus reading this
Pauline condition as suggesting that confession, attestation, and martyrdom are not possible as
long as one remains in oneself, but they become possible only from that place which here goes
by the name of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the possibility of either confession or martyrdom does
not open before us until or unless we find ourselves dis-located and dis-placed, beyond
ourselvesin one word, ec-static.4

It should not be assumed, however, that this movement of ecstasis is initiated by
ourselves. A passage from the Gospel of Matthew makes it clear that this dis-placement that
makes martyrdom possible is the result of yet another reversal. When Christ sends His disciples
to the world as His apostles, He presents to them the possibility of martyrdom as follows:
Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in
the synagogues. 18 On my account you will be brought before governors and kings
as witnesses [ ] to them and to the Gentiles. 19 But when they arrest
you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given
what to say, 20 for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking
through you [ ] (Mt. 10: 17-20).

It will not be you speakingindeed, we have seen that no one can speak, no one could confess,
no one could offer witness except in the Holy Spirit, in Godthat is, in the Other, through the
Otherand now, (for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through
you), I am not only in the Other but the Other is in me. In fact, it is the latter that leads to
the former: when Gods Spirit, His voice enters me in order to speak through me, in order to turn
me into his prophetic mouthpiece (and here we see the link that connects prophesy to
martyrdom), I am forced outside myself, beyond myself, into that place from where one can utter
the ineffable words Jesus is the Lord and confess Christs Lordship, into that place where death
has no more power over mein the Holy Spirit. The interiority of an inner self to which the self
could withdraw and recollect itself has been turned inside-out, thrown into the world, there
where it is most itself by becoming other than itself: No longer I, but Christin me [ ]
(Gal. 2:20). At the extimacy of martyrdom, the self finds itself by losing itself (For whoever wants
to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it Mt. 16:25).


There is really nothing strange or surprising in all this. Our martyrologies are full of
accounts about martyrs who marched cheerfully to their deaths and suffered the most gruesome
tortures as if they were absent from the fleshfor they were no longer men.5 The death of

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For part of this reading I am thankful to Andrei (Taake) Botez.

Dionysius in the Divine Names narrates how Hierotheus became beyond himself and ecstatic [ ,
] (III. 2) during prayer. We know from St. Paul that prayer is also made possible by the Holy Spirit (Rom.
8:26). It is, therefore, not surprising that the same ecstatic experience should be characteristic of martyrdom.
5
Michael W. Homes (ed.), The Martyrdom of Polycarp in The Apostolic Fathers, translated by J.B. Lightfoot and J.R.
Harmer (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1989), p. 135-6.
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martyrdom follows freely once the martyrdom of the displacement of the self by the Holy Spirit
has taken place. Being chosen as Gods martyr entails a certain suffering but not on account of
the imminent danger that the martyr faces as he or she is placed in confrontation with a world
that rejects and opposes Gods witness. It is rather the violence of the Holy Spirit, the violence of
grace and election that takes the form of the selfs displacement as we have described it. For the
self who has experienced this violence, who has suffered the divine things ( ), to
use Dionysiuss expression,6 the suffering of the biological death is only secondary.



Dionysiuss telling expression is a clear
reference to the expression from Aeschyluss Agamemnon. Already in this Greek
tragedy we are introduced to the notion that the grace of gods is violent (
, 182). Thus, the prophet Jeremiah uses a particularly strong language in order to articulate
the experience of being chosen by God:
Yahweh, you seduced me unlawfully, and I consented to being seduced; you raped
me, and you were too strong for my resistance to prevail. All day long I have
become an object of derision, everyone mocks me. (Jer. 20:7)7

Like the prophets, the martyrs are called to carry the burden of Gods witness. If their
is to be true and authentic it cannot be given in their proper person, in their own name. Again
we are reminded of Christs saying: If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true (Jn. 5:31).
The martyrs do not testify about themselvesand in this sense whoever dies on account of their
political or philosophical convictions (Socrates comes to mind as an example) are not martyrs for
they die offering witness to themselves. Rather, the martyrs have suffered already in Gods
handsalbeit a different kind of sufferingbefore they suffer at the hands of their persecutors.
For Gods witness, as we have seen, communicates God; and to be martyrs of Christ, more
specifically, entails a communion with and a participation in Christs suffering. So, we read St.
Peter addressing himself to the presbyters of the early Church as a witness of Christs sufferings
[ ] (1 Peter 5:1). Peter does not identify himself as a witness
of Christs suffering because he was there to see the passion of his Lord, rather, as he is going on
to make clear, because he participates in Christs passion, as he is also a partaker [] of
the glory to be revealed. Here, again, martyrdom meets communion.

Dionysius (the Areopagite), De Divinis Nominibus, II. 9. In Corpus Dionysiacum I, edited by Beate Regina Suchla
(Berlin: De Gruyter, 1990), p. 134.
7
In the translation of Harold Bloom.