Grisly torments. Hideous dismembering. Extreme self-mortification. Voluntary live entombment. The collection and even the theft of human body parts. The celebration of violent death. Such are some of the themes treated in Cult of the Dead. Yet reading this book conveys the feeling of bouncing over bumps at high speed on a sunny day in an all-terrain sports utility vehicle. How can such lugubrious topics provide so much fun? The tale is animated by the telling. With sly wit, subtle humour, agile prose and empathetic imagination, Kyle Smith narrates the growth of one of Christianity\u2019s defining traditions: its adoration of the martyr.<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s interest in the subject was ignited by chance, when he was introduced to a luridly illustrated catalogue of tortures. Treatise on the Instruments of Martyrdom featured spikes and swords, axes and arrows, weights and wheels. Composed in the sixteenth century and translated into English in 1903, this bibliographic find led Smith to contemplate the ways in which martyr cults affected Christian piety and politics, the economic development of the post-Roman West and the very measurement of time.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing killed is an event\u201d, Smith notes, quoting Daniel Boyarin. \u201cMartyrdom is a literary genre.\u201d That genre was already enshrined in Christian scripture, with its narrations of Jesus\u2019s crucifixion in the gospels and of the stoning of Stephen in Acts. By the time that the New Testament was firmly canonized (in the early fourth century, impelled by the newly converted emperor, Constantine), the age of the martyrs was, technically, past: pagans could no longer make martyrs of the faithful. How many actually suffered is unknown and unknowable: as late as the 240s, the great theologian Origen commented that their number could easily be counted (Against Celsus 3.8). Nor do we know much about the legal mechanisms that may have brought people to trial. Nor can we date martyrdoms with much security. What we do know is that stories about martyrs were tremendously popular. With Constantine\u2019s conversion their production bloomed.<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a> (subscription).<\/p>\n Review of \u2018Cult of the dead: a brief history of Christianity\u2019 by Kyle Smith.https:\/\/t.co\/dAC1qpqFnG<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/DSuldreHE8<\/a><\/p>\n — Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) October 19, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n