Martyr

References scripturaires

The word was used for the first time in a religious direction by the author of the Acts of the Apostles :

But you will receive a power, the Saint Spirit occurring on you, and you will be my pilot in Jerusalem, in all Judaea, Samarie, and until the ends of the ground. ” (1: 8)
“It is necessary thus that, among those which accompanied us all the time that the Jesus Lord lived with us, since the baptism of Jean until the day when it was removed medium of us, there is of them one which is associated to us like pilot its résurrection.

(1: 21-22)

In the direction of “witness and victim”, the word is used in the Apocalypse in the address with the Church of Pergame, then at the time of the opening of the fifth seal: You retain my name, and you did not disavow my faith, even with the days of Antipas, my pilot faithful, which was put at died on your premise, where Satan has his residence. ” (2: 13)
“When it opened the fifth seal, I live under the furnace bridge the hearts of those which had been immolés because of the word of God and of the testimony that they had rendu.

(6: 9)

Little by little, the word “martyr” kept only this direction.

Doctrines

The Gospel indicates the attitude to be adopted vis-a-vis persecution: If one persecutes you in a city, flee in another . It is not a question to seek the quasi suicidal martyrdom of manner, by provocation. At the same time, there is not more beautiful love than that to die for his friends: martyrdom is an ideal and a grace. That which is driven back with martyrdom (having p.ex. the choice between a gesture of disavowal or profanation or the confession of its faith) must accept it like a grace; those which “stumble” are called lapsi and can be reinstated in the Church only at the end one period of penitence. Christ promised to the martyrs the inspiration words which they will have to pronounce and the force to undergo their torment, with the image of that of the Cross.

Martyrdom is a “ bloody baptism ”. That which dies thus, even not baptized, has its forgiven sins and it obtains ipso facto the celestial bliss. Consequently, the martyr can become an intercessor. (In Antiquity, certain futures imprisoned martyrs played this part of their alive, which was not without posing problems).

Only martyrs in communion with the Church or expressing in extremis the desire to be it (as Saint Hippolyte) deserves this title and obtains this grace. The victims heretics or schismatics of persecutions (donatists p.ex.) are not venerated like saints and the Church does not come to a conclusion about their safety.

Saint Ignace d' Antioche designs the martyr like a drinking to achieve the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Church commemorates the native (day of the birth to the Sky) of the martyrs and, in general, the saints; the calendar which points out these occurrences is called Martyrologe.

Famous martyrs

For the Christians, the first martyr (or protomartyr) is holy Etienne, lapidated by his listeners with Jerusalem, in the presence of Saul, known as holy Paul.

Jesus, even if it were crucifié, is not called martyr by the Christians. The Christians consider that the martyr returns testimony of dead of Jesus-Christ, which died for hello of all the men.

Among the Apostle S of Jesus-Christ, much are famous to have undergone martyrdom, such holy Pierre, to have crucifié the upside down, under the emperor Néron (64), holy Paul, to have killed the same year, or holy Barthélemy, to have skinned sharp.

Saint Jean would be only the Apôtre not having undergone martyrdom. He was very young during the life of Jesus on Earth, and is death very old. The Gospel according to Jean saint, among the four Gospel S is retained in the gun, the last writing (about year 100). Saint Jean is the only one to employ the expression Paraclet about the the Holy Spirit. The expression appears in the Speech of the Cène (for example Jn, 14,16), which does not have an equivalent in the synoptic Gospels. Saint Jean can thus be regarded as a Témoin.

It should be noted that the first Saint S of the Église were martyrs. Thereafter, the expression saint was widened.

The Roman Empire knew several times of persecution against the Christians. One particularly reproached those their refusal to sacrifice to the worship of the Emperor and to be useful in the army. The reign of Dioclétien knew the last, but also most important of these persecutions of the Antiquité.

The century which knew the greatest number of Christian martyrs is the 20th century (Communisme; Nazism; war of Spain, etc).

There were martyrs at all the times of the Histoire. All martyrdoms could not be raised officially and all the saints are not noted in the Calendrier; the festival of All the Saints (All Saints' day, November 1st) celebrates this crowd of known names or unknown.

Among the famous or representative martyrs, by chronological order:

Holy Blandine, martyrdom with Lyon in 177 (delivered to the bulls in a circus) in company of Holy Pothin,
Saint Laurent, martyrized in 258, torture victim on the grill,
Catherine of Alexandria, martyrized with the 4th century (torture of the wheel),
Holy Maurice, decimated (in the etymological sense of the term), by the Romans, in company of other Christian soldiers, of which Sanctus. The remainders of Maurice saint were the first Relique S.
Sainte Jeanne d' Arc, wanting to restore the authority of the king Charles VII, source of the release of France, burned.
Happy martyrs: one appoints under this expression the priests killed because of their Foi between the 2 and on September 5th 1792, at the time of the Massacres from September in Paris, with the convent of the Carmelite friars and in the church Saint-Paul Saint-Louis. A festival appears on the liturgical Calendrier, but not on the ordinary Agenda S.
Holy Maximilien Kolbe, which offered its life to replace that of a father in the Concentration camp of Auschwitz.
Martyrs of the war of Spain

The martyrs are usually represented holding a palm in a hand, Symbole of martyrdom, and in the other hand the object of their torment. The works of art plastic are multiple; the martyrs were also celebrated by the Musique and, more still, by the literature: accounts of passions, anthems (those of Holy Ambroise and Prudence, Peristephanon , p.ex.), etc

By extension

By extension, the word indicates that which is tortured and/or killed for a cause or an ideal. It is sometimes subjected to drifts:

One sometimes spoke “martyrs about the III {{E}} Reich”, terminology disputed by an article of the Monde mentioning that one cannot speak about “martyr” when the only real characteristic of the victim is to have had misfortune to cross the way of its torturer.
In the Coran, is named “martyr” or Chahid that which is killed in an operation related to the propagation of the Islam. It is specified in certain passages that name is justified provided that it has itself as a preliminary, or, killed at the same time. It is this terminology which is adopted by a group as Al-Qaida although the suicide is prohibited, not by the Coran, but by the Hadiths, which represent the words and acts of the Moslem prophet Mahomet. In addition, in the Sufism, the martyr is that which was torture victim and killed because of his strong religious convictions (like Abu Mansur Al-Hallaj).
the word martyr (מרטיר in héb. to martir ) entered the Hebraic language recently but the Judaïsme uses the word kadosh or mekadesh hashem to designate a man who dies for the sanctification of the Name (קידושהשם in héb. Kiddoush hashem ).

It is thus important when one uses this word to specify which exact meaning one gives him.

The martyr is distinct from the martyrdom , which is the name given to the torment undergone by the martyr. With the the Middle Ages, the form “marten” was also used. One finds it in “Montmartre”, the “mount of the martyrs”.

“Martyrs” not recognized by the Church

Let us recall that the expression “martyr”, who belongs at the origin with the technical vocabulary Christian, supposes adhesion with the Foi orthodoxe Catholique or . The Église does not come to a conclusion about the safety of those which are not in Communion with it. It should be noted that the majority of the reformed Churches do not recognize the Saint S, but that a common Martyrologe is being studied.

The following list gives “martyrs” (within the meaning of “victim”) not recognized by the Church, because:

not catholics;
posted protestors;
or not still béatifiés or canonized…

Here is a list:

Hypatie, mathematician of Alexandria, massacred by the Christians about year 400;
Cathares : those were in fact Hérétique S, and are not regarded as martyrs by the Catholic church, but they were pursued because of a rather divergent faith of the catholic Foi;
William Wallace, factor of the release of Scotland, hung and quartered;
Jan Hus, reforming Czech at the 14th century, which had an influence very broad good beyond Bohemia;
Savonarole, Dominican monk who criticized the lust with Florence at the 15th century;
Mary Stuart, queen of Scotland, enthusiastic Catholic, famous for its tragic destiny, which regarded itself as a martyrdom and which wore a red dress (color of the martyrs among catholics) the day of its Décapitation;
Giordano Bruno, burned by the enquiry at the 17th century to have defended the plurality of the world S as well as erroneous religious theses;
Michel Lepeletier and Marat is regarded as " martyrs" revolution
Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette and their children, considered as " martyrs" not many French, like in art and the literature;
Rene Carmille: this polytechnician hid the files of Jews during the Second world war, and clandestinely constituted the files of soldiers who were employed for the Débarquement of Provence. He was sent in deportation and was killed in 1942;
Jean Moulin, hero of the resistance during the Second world war, tortured with death.

See too

Martyrologe
Religions and violence
Attack-suicide | Kamikaze
Djihad
Kiddoush hashem

External bonds

Quotations on the topic of the martyr

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