Concept

Martyr

Overview

A martyr (Greek: μάρτυς, mártys, 'witness' stem μαρτυρ-, martyr-) is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party. In colloquial usage, the term can also refer to any person who suffers a significant consequence in protest or support of a cause.

In the martyrdom narrative of the remembering community, this refusal to comply with the presented demands results in the punishment or execution of an individual by an oppressor. Accordingly, the status of the 'martyr' can be considered a posthumous title as a reward for those who are considered worthy of the concept of martyrdom by the living, regardless of any attempts by the deceased to control how they will be remembered in advance. Insofar, the martyr is a relational figure of a society's boundary work that is produced by collective memory. Originally applied only to those who suffered for their religious beliefs, the term has come to be used in connection with people killed for a political cause.

Most martyrs are considered holy or are respected by their followers, becoming symbols of exceptional leadership and heroism in the face of difficult circumstances. Martyrs play significant roles in religions. Similarly, martyrs have had notable effects in secular life, including such figures as Socrates, among other political and cultural examples.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Martyr is discussed.

And that none but such, can properly be called Martyrs of Christ, is manifest out of the words of St. Peter, Act. 1.21, 22. "Wherefore of these men which have companyed with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out amongst us, beginning from the Baptisme of John unto that same day hee was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a Martyr (that is a Witnesse) with us of his Resurrection:" Where we may…
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
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For as a living and florid body, they who behold it embrace it, applying to it the eyes, mouth, ears, and all the organs of sense; and then with affection pouring tears upon the Martyr, as if he was whole and appeared to them: they offer prayers with supplication, that he would intercede for them as an advocate, praying to him as an Officer attending upon God, and invoking him as receiving gifts whenever he will._…
Isaac Newton, Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John
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“Facile coeptum repressit, restitutis quos ipse relegaverat,” says Tertullian [“He quickly repressed the work, restoring those whom he had banished”]. Lactantius, whose style is so vehement, agrees that the Church was peaceful and flourishing from Domitian to Decius [96-250 A.D.].[21] This long peace, he says, was broken when “that execrable animal Decius began to vex the Church.” We need not discuss here the…
Voltaire, Toleration and other essays
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Martyrs have _harmed_ the cause of truth. ... Even to this day it only requires the crude fact of persecution, in order to create an honourable name for any obscure sect who does not matter in the least What? is a cause actually changed in any way by the fact that some one has laid down his life for it? An error which becomes honourable, is simply an error that possesses one seductive charm the more: do you suppose…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Twilight of the Idols
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Therefore, whatever honours the religious may pay in the places of the martyrs, they are but honours rendered to their memory,[327] not sacred rites or sacrifices offered to dead men as to gods.
of Hippo Augustine, The City of God, Volume I
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Martyr

Overview

In the original texts

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