What Does It Mean to Be a Martyr

martyr, one who voluntarily suffers death rather than deny their religion by words or deeds; such action is afforded special, institutionalized recognition in most major religions of the world. The term may also refer to anyone who sacrifices their life or something of great value for the sake of principle.

Judaism

The universality of persecution throughout its history has engendered in Judaism an explicit ideal of martyrdom. It begins with Abraham, who according to legend was cast into a lime kiln and saved from the fire by divine grace. The tradition was continued by Isaac, who consented to be sacrificed by his father, and by Daniel, whose example compelled the popular imagination. Readiness for martyrdom became a collective Jewish ideal during the Antiochene persecution and the Maccabean rebellion of the 2nd century bc. The best known episode was that of the mother and her seven sons (II Maccabees 7). Martyrdom was preferred to the desecration of the Sabbath by the early Ḥasidim. In Hadrian's time, pious Jews risked death to circumcise their children, and Rabbi Akiva ben Yosef embraced martyrdom to assert the right to teach the Law publicly. The Talmud cites the majority opinion that one should prefer martyrdom to three transgressions—idolatry, sexual immorality, and murder.

The Midrash on Lamentations 2:2 contains what is probably the oldest Jewish martyrology, the list of the Ten Martyrs. It was repeated in later midrashim and formed the theme of several liturgical elegies, including the Eleh Ezkerah, found in the Yom Kippur service. During the European persecutions of the later Middle Ages, chronological registers of martyrs were drawn up for use in synagogue commemorative services. In 1296 Isaac ben Samuel of Meiningen began to collect these in the Memorbuch published in 1898, covering the years 1096–1349.

In a sense, Jewish life was a nearly continuous training in martyrdom. Martyrs are honoured as kedoshim ("the holy ones"). Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyady, founder of Ḥabad Ḥasidism, considered the spirit of martyrdom (mesirut nefesh) to be the distinguishing quality of the Jewish people.

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The deliberate execution of an estimated six million Jews by the Nazis during World War II dwarfed all previous ordeals of martyrdom. In current Jewish literature, the victims are regarded as martyrs since they died for the sole reason of being Jews. In contrast to previous occasions, they were not given the alternative of saving their lives by abjuring their faith. In Israel the library of Yad Veshem contains most of the extant records of the holocaust.

Christianity

The original meaning of the Greek word martys was "witness"; in this sense it is often used in the New Testament. Since the most striking witness that Christians could bear to their faith was to die rather than deny it, the word soon began to be used in reference to one who was not only a witness but specifically a witness unto death. This usage is present, at least implicitly, in Acts 22:20 and Revelation 2:13.

The first Christian martyrs were St. Stephen and St. James. Of the apostles the most important martyrs were SS. Peter and Paul, both put to death at Rome. Clement of Rome describes them as God's athletes, contending for the heavenly prize, and mentions a "great multitude" executed at the same time. Early in the 2nd century, Ignatius of Antioch described his own prospective martyrdom as a way of "attaining to God" and urged the Roman Christians not to make any effort to have him spared. In the sporadic persecutions of the first two centuries, martyrdoms were not especially frequent, but the martyrs were highly regarded by Christians. The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, by contrast, viewed their constancy as theatrical. The government's position was not entirely clear. Were Christians to be condemned as Christians because of specific criminal charges or because of crimes inherent in the profession of Christianity? In any event, they were ordered to prove their abandonment of Christianity by offering sacrifices to the Roman gods; when they refused to do so, they were executed.

With the passage of time and with a fresh emphasis on martyrdom (often regarded as a substitute for baptism) in the persecutions under Decius (ad 250) and Diocletian (ad 303–311), the authentic acts of the early martyrs were often replaced by legendary accounts (for instance, none of the versions of the death of Ignatius is genuine). The earliest surviving Christian martyrologies are the Syrian Brevia rium Syriacum (ad 411) and the Hieronymian (mid-5th century), which purports to be by St. Jerome, a claim rejected by critics.

Islam

The Islāmic designation shahīd (Arabic: "witness") is equivalent to and in a sense derivative of the Judaeo-Christian concept of martyr. The full sense of "witness unto death" does not appear in the Qurʾān but receives explicit treatment in the subsequent Ḥadīth literature, in which it is stated that martyrs, among the host of heaven, stand nearest the throne of God.

While details of the status accorded by martyrdom (e.g., whether or not a martyr is exempt from certain rituals of burial) have been debated among dogmatists, it is generally agreed that the rank of shahīd comprises two groups of the faithful: those killed in jihad, or holy war, and those killed unjustly. The term is used informally to venerate anyone who dies in a pitiable manner (e.g., in childbirth; in a strange land). Among the Shīʿite branch, the martyr par excellence is Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī (c. 629–680), whose death at the hands of the rival Sunnite faction under Yazīd is commemorated every year during the first 10 days of the month of Muḥarram.

Buddhism

While distinctly lacking a history of persecution or of violent conflict with other faiths, Buddhism does recognize among its adherents a venerable class of martyrs. The Jātaka (q.v.) commentary on the former lives of the Buddha is in a sense a martyrology of the bodhisattva ("buddha-to-be") and his disciples, recounting their continual self-sacrifice and repeated deaths. In Mahāyāna (Greater Vehicle) Buddhism, the decision by one destined to become a buddha in this or another life to postpone his own enlightenment to alleviate the suffering of others is regarded as martyrdom.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn.

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What Does It Mean to Be a Martyr