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By drawing on a wide range of literary and non-literary materials authored by women, this thesis explores what it meant to be a sixteenth- and seventeenth-century woman suffering persecution. It considers the ways in which persecution operated in relation to prescribed female stereotypes and gendered restrictions in early modern England and wider Europe, worlds in which the Christian St. Paul forbade women to speak. Therefore, this thesis breaks new ground by focusing on persecution as a gendered experience rather than something exclusively religious or political in nature. Rather than examining the effect of persecution on any one religious or political grouping, it prioritises gender to highlight women's experiences, and the treatment they were accorded, in a series of different persecutory contexts and situations. In this way the thesis tracks the multi-faceted nature of persecution itself.

This thesis investigates one of Iran's grand narratives, the myth of victimisation, as a tool of the Iranian political elite to achieve foreign policy goals. It studies the leadership of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1941-1979), Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq (1951-1953), Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1979-1989), and President Mahmood Ahmadinejad (2005-2013) to argue that the sense of grievance of justice denied has had a cultural provenance, rooted in historical, literary and religious references spanning centuries. Accordingly Iranian leaders have been able to pursue and perpetuate narratives that have served to cast Iranians as victims of foreign intrigue, thus relieving themselves from accountability and inaction. The narrative of grievance has had a resurgence with the rise of populism around the world, but as an ideational catalyst in Iranian politics, where it has been at play for decades, it has received scant attention. The leaders studied in this thesis have each employed this narrative to varying degrees and effects, to cast the world as a battleground between victim and victimizer. This process was most evident in the lead up to and in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution, when Ayatollah Khomeini and President Ahmadinejad repurposed the myth of victimisation to launch and export the revolution. While the Shah and Prime Minister Mosaddeq disseminated such myths to extract favourable concessions from foreign powers, mainly the United States and Great Britain. As a result, the grounding of Iran's most exigent foreign policy issues in myths and populist narratives has led to an incongruity between its potential and its current standing in the community of nations.

My doctoral research traces the intellectual development of Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza (1566-1614) by exploring her life and works within the framework of the concept of intellectuality. Rejecting the conventional paths for early modern women of either marriage or convent life, she decided to devote herself to the cause of the faith in an unconventional way and travelled from Catholic Spain to Protestant England where she undertook missionary work and founded her own independent female community. Compared to existing scholarship which has shown a marked tendency towards biographism, my study represents a particular biographist reading by examining Carvajal from an unprecedented perspective based on the concept of intellectuality. This analysis will, on the one hand, explore the concept of intellectuality with the example of Carvajal and, on the other, shed new light on her life and oeuvre with the theory of intellectuality. Based on the idea that knowledge, autonomisation, isolation, and political involvement represent four consecutive steps in the development process of intellectuality, my thesis argues that each of the genres through which Carvajal expressed herself—autobiographical, poetic, and epistolary—not only marks various chapters of her life, but also and more importantly the different stages of her intellectual evolution. In her autobiographical writings, Carvajal demonstrates her erudition and literary skills by representing an identity that is marked by plurality and diversity. She therefore set foot on the path to her autonomisation. Carvajal’s poetry, written in isolation in the attic of her uncle’s house, reflects an epistemological process from individual religiosity towards religious individuality which culminates in her intellectual revelation. This cognitive awakening was subsequently applied to society and manifested itself in her English mission. Far from pursuing a missionary life and the death of a martyr, Carvajal in fact strived to realise her goal of founding and leading a beaterio by provoking Spain’s protection through strategic acts of religious radicalisation, while rebelling against her submission to any authority. Her lifelong goal to found a female community could be understood as the embodiment of her desire for freedom and intellectuality.

This thesis examines the manner in which the textual female body functioned within the Christian communities of Late Antiquity, with a view toward establishing the centrality of the female body within the ideological constructions of social borders and boundaries. The role of women in early Christian societies has been examined extensively within previous scholarship; this thesis aims to demonstrate that the literary construction of the female body holds great worth with regards to gaining an understanding of the philosophies of Late Antique Christianity, and the significance of women to the establishment of Christian identity. Through a close analysis of a range of texts which span the first to the seventh centuries, this thesis will illustrate the evolution of ideologies regarding identity, community and the body, and the manner in which texts from differing cultural and literary backgrounds intersect with one another, and inherit the ideologies of their predecessors. Beginning with pre-fourth century texts concerning martyrdom, this thesis will move on to consider texts regarding consecrated virginity and the relationship of the virgin with the church. Following on from this, post-fourth century martyrdom literature and texts which integrate sexuality with asceticism will be explored, before turning to a discussion of illegitimate sexual relations, and representations of heretical women and heresy. Concluding this thesis will be an analysis of writings which address the position of women in the desert, firstly the tempting women who appear to ascetic monks, and secondly the repentant harlots of the sixth and seventh centuries. Through a close analysis of the Vitae of these women, this thesis will demonstrate the manner in which the multiplicity of ideologies rooted in identity, the body and the community, analysed throughout this thesis, culminate within the body of one individual woman, who has been raised from the depths of sin to sainthood.

This thesis explores the history of Christianity and conversion to it in 16th and 17th Century Japan. It argues that conversion is a complex phenomenon which happened for a variety of reasons. Furthermore, it argues that due to the political context and limitations acting upon the mission, the majority of conversions in 16th and 17th Century Japan lacked an element of epistemological change (classically understood). The first chapter explores theories of conversion suggesting that conversion in 16th and 17th Century Japan included sorts of religious change not usually encapsulated in the term conversion including adhesion, communal and forced conversion. Moreover, it argues that contextual factors are the most important factors in religious change. The second chapter explores political context contending that it was the political environment of Japan that ultimately decided whether conversion was possible. This chapter charts the evolution of the Japanese context as it became more hostile toward Christianity. In the third chapter, the context of the mission is explored. It is argued that limitations acting upon the mission shaped post-conversion faith, so that changes to practice and ritual rather than belief became the mark of a successful conversion. The fourth chapter explores methods of conversion, the factors influencing it, and post-conversion faith more directly. It argues that Christianity spread primarily through social networks, but that conversion was also influenced by economic incentive, other realworld benefits, and Christianity's perceived efficacy. Building on Chapter Three, the final chapter also seeks to illustrate that the missionaries were not successful in their attempts to spur epistemological change or instil a detailed knowledge of theology or doctrine amongst their converts.

This thesis presents a socio-theological analysis of the process by which a martyr is made and presents an analytical framework for a theological analysis of martyrdom, as well as demonstrating the fruits that such analysis can bring. Building on the social constructivist view that the martyr is a narrative construct and martyrdom a particular way of imagining an individual's death rather than an historical event, this thesis demonstrates the operation of theological conceptualisations of the meaning and significance of martyrdom, which it terms martyrologies. These martyrologies profoundly affect how the martyr is imagined and consequently the model of discipleship they represent to others. Martyrs have a unique power to validate a cause and to embody the possibility of extreme conviction and resistance in a way which can mobilise and radicalise their communities. This thesis argues that critical analysis of these martyrologies is therefore imperative if we are to understand their role in defining the martyr and therefore shaping the way that the martyr's community interpret and engage with their reality. Four martyrologies, rooted in the emergence of martyrdom in the early church, are presented and, through their critical examination, a methodological framework for their future analysis is exhibited and recommended. The theological ideas sustaining these martyrologies are shown to be radicalising, morally challenging, and logically and theologically incoherent. Most importantly, this thesis attends to the phenomenon of popular martyrdom, particularly prevalent in Latin America. It explains the martyrology responsible and, controversially, shows why this martyrology is in fact entirely orthodox, challenging the Church's opposition to it. It also shows, however, that its claim that the basis for martyrdom can be a political cause makes this martyrology not only a threat to political theology, but even a potentially radicalising tool.

Early modern English Catholic eschatology, the belief that the present was the last age and an associated concern with mankind’s destiny, has been overlooked in the historiography. Historians have established that early modern Protestants had an eschatological understanding of the present. This thesis seeks to balance the picture and the sources indicate that there was an early modern English Catholic counter narrative. This thesis suggests that the Catholic eschatological understanding of contemporary events affected political action. It investigates early modern English Catholic eschatology in the context of proscription and persecution of Catholicism between 1558 and 1603. Devotional eschatology was the corner stone of individual Catholic eschatology and placed earthly life in an apocalyptic time-frame. Catholic devotional works challenged the regime and questioned Protestantism. Devotional eschatology is suggestive of a worldview which expected an impending apocalypse but there was a reluctance to date the End. With an eschatological outlook normalised by daily devotional eschatology the Reformation and contemporary events were interpreted apocalyptically. An apocalyptic understanding of the break with Rome was not exclusively Protestant. Indeed, the identification of Antichrist was not just a Protestant concern but rather the linchpin of Reformation debates between Catholics and Protestants. Some identified Elizabeth as Jezebel, the Whore of Babylon. The Bull of Excommunication of 1570 and its language provided papal authority for identifications of Elizabeth as the Whore. The execution of Mary Queen of Scots was a flashpoint which enabled previously hidden ideas to burst into public discourse. This was dangerous as eschatology and apocalypticism was a language of political action. An eschatological understanding of contemporary events encouraged conspiracy. The divine plan required human agents. Catholic prophecy and conspiracy show that eschatology did not just affect how the future was thought about but also had implications for the present. This thesis raises questions about Catholic loyalism which other scholars have also begun to challenge. Yet attempts to depose or murder the monarch was not the only response which could be adopted. Belief that one was living in the End also supported what this thesis terms ‘militant passivity’. Martyrs understood their suffering as a form of eschatological agency which revealed and confirmed the identities of the Antichrist and the Whore. The Book of the Apocalypse promised that they would be rewarded at God’s approaching Judgement and the debates of the Reformation would be settled by the ultimate Judge. As martyrs came to symbolise the English Catholic community, it came to understand itself eschatologically. This thesis argues that acknowledging the eschatological dimensions of Catholic perception and action helps us to re-think the nature of early modern English Catholicism.

The concept of suffering and martyrdom have been a part of the fabric of Christianity since its inception. The goal of this thesis seeks to demonstrate that there is a weakness in the contemporary American Christian Church of having a robust theology of suffering. This is a surprising reality given the contemporary American Church’s honor and respect of America’s warriors when they suffer and give their lives on behalf of their nation. A possible explanation will be examined in terms of individualism, the integration of the American and Christian identity, and lack of martyrdom and suffering for the calls of the Gospel in the contemporary American Church.

This thesis examines attitudes and approaches towards death, as well as aesthetic representations of death, in Anglo-Saxon hagiography. The thesis contributes to the discussion of the historical and intellectual contexts of hagiography and considers how saintly death-scenes are represented to form commentaries on exemplary behaviour. A comprehensive survey of death-scenes in Anglo-Saxon hagiography has been undertaken, charting typical and atypical motifs used in literary manifestations of both martyrdom and non-violent death. The clusters of literary motifs found in these texts and what their use suggests about attitudes to exemplary death is analysed in an exploration of whether Anglo-Saxon hagiography presents a consistent aesthetic of death. The thesis also considers how modern scholarly fields such as thanatology can provide fresh discourses on the attitudes to and depictions of ‘good' and ‘bad' deaths. Moreover, the thesis addresses the intersection of the hagiographic inheritance with discernibly Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards death and dying, and investigates whether or not the deaths of native Anglo-Saxon saints are presented differently compared with the deaths of universal saints. The thesis explores continuities and discontinuities in the presentations of physical and spiritual death, and assesses whether or not differences exist in the depiction of death-scenes based on an author's personal agenda, choice of terminology, approaches towards the body–soul dichotomy, or the gender of his or her subject, for example. Furthermore, the thesis investigates how hagiographic representations of death compare with portrayals in other literature of the Anglo-Saxon period, and whether any non-hagiographic paradigms provide alternative exemplars of the ‘good death'. The thesis also assesses gendered portrayals of death, the portrayal of last words in saints' lives, and the various motifs relating to the soul at the moment of death. The thesis contains a Motif Index of saintly death-scenes as Appendix I.

This thesis investigates the phenomenon of making martyrs in the Protestant Church in Korea (PCK) especially the relationship between the institution and the designation. Tracing the historical development of ideology of martyrdom linguistically and semantically from the pre-Constantinian base-line, the writer points out that martyrdom is not a fixed or universal concept but is variously employed in different times, settings, and places to justify, legitimate and memorialise a death in a specific group and frequently for a specific reason or purpose. It may also be directly linked with the identity of one persecuted community setting a firm boundary between it and the hostile persecuting group. Furthermore, the designation of martyr is an intentional act which speak to the living not the dead. In other words, martyrdom is a part of the interpretive semantics of a particular death seen by particular lives for particular purposes. Martyrdom pertains to the politics of death, yet at the same time to the politics of the living. Martyrs for the PCK represent three major periods of Korean Protestants’ death-events: the late Chosun Dynasty (1866-1905), the rule of Japanese imperialism (1905-1945), and before and during the Korean War (1945-1953). Most Protestant Christians’ deaths occurred as a result of a clash between religion and the political power represented in each era. The PCK only started to ‘make martyrs’ by collecting and interpreting the first such deaths after 1926 and increasingly from 1983 onwards. However, their work of martyr-making has exposed PCK leaders to misusing the term, by including death after natural disasters and accidents. It is arguable that the situation in post-World War II Korea was such that the strands of anticommunism and ethnic nationalism profoundly influenced the historicity of the death-event. Martyr-making processes in the PCK context, therefore, functioned politically to define the persistently common enemy of communism and anti-nationalism, mobilizing Christians against them, and justifying creative martyr-making by its effect. Thus it will be argued that martyr-making is part of the power structure of the PCK: and power, any power, always has the potential to be wrongly used. To analyse the operation of PCK’s martyr-making more specifically, this thesis includes two case studies. The first is of Rev R. J. Thomas who is said to be ‘the first Protestant martyr in Korea,’ whose martyr status was tentatively designated in 1926 and elevated at the time of the 1884-1984 celebration of Protestantism in Korea. And the second is Rev Son Yang-Won, widely known as ‘the atomic bomb of love’ from 1948 when he adopted the killer of his two sons amid the ideological conflict between the leftist and rightist, whose reputation as the ‘martyr of love’ increased from 1950 immediately after being killed by communists in the early stage of the Korean War. The Thomas case uncovers the ethnic nationalistic tendency of the PCK’s martyr-making, and their anticommunist attitude in the treatment of Rev Son. In short, it will be argued that PCK leaders controlled the collective memory about deaths in the specific historical contexts to sustain their socio-political views, placing and displacing some death-events to commemorate some or intentionally exclude others, based as much on the ruling ideologies of South Korean society, mainly anticommunism and ethnic nationalism, as on the image of Jesus’ death. What this may mean for the PCK now and in future is briefly explored in the final comment.

The principal contention of this thesis is that the earliest Christians viewed the crucifixion of Jesus as paradigmatic for discipleship, confirmation of which can be found in the history and function of a particular saying ascribed to Jesus, namely the ‘cross saying’ (Mk 8:34 and par.). To verify this claim, I explore both the literary tradition and material culture of early Christianity as they relate to the cross saying, explicating the various ways that “taking up the cross” functioned to ensure unwavering loyalty to Jesus. Taking a traditional exegetical approach, I also engage recent work on sapiential literature (mainly Q) and Historical Jesus studies, observing the diverse ways in which the first several generations of Jesus’ followers adapted this saying—both as an aphorism for inclusion in gospels, and in the development of cognate versions useful in more theological settings (e.g., Gal 2:20). Proceeding diachronically via a textual analysis of the cross saying in Q, the Synoptics, and then the Gospel of Thomas, I trace the ways in which the composers of these texts addressed the different social situations of their audiences in an effort to secure commitment to Jesus (or, in the case of Gos. Thom., conformity to his enlightened teachings). Then, turning from the literature to the social and political environment of the New Testament, I note the radical reversal, occurring early in Christian thought, which transformed the crucifixion of Jesus from a shameful social experience into one of honour, and worthy of emulation. Even more significant in terms of current research, I break from the opinions of several New Testament scholars in finding little evidence that the cross saying (presuming it was dominical) functioned as a call to political insurrection. Rather, as evidenced in Christian material culture from the second and third centuries (symbols, the orant prayer posture, making the ‘sign of the cross,’ and so on), the association of crucifixion with discipleship was understood primarily in terms of religious devotion to Jesus.

For every famous author of the twelfth-century renaissance, there are numerous lesser-known writers. Despite being overshadowed by more brilliant scholars or those closer to the centre of important events, their voices add depth to the study of the intellectual history of this period. A founding member of one of the earliest Premonstratensian houses; a highly-educated and prolific author, much in demand as a hagiographer; and a vigorous defender of the clerical order, Philip of Harvengt is one such writer, and a worthy subject for study. This thesis examines two bodies of Philip’s works – his letters and his hagiographical writings – analysing the predominant and recurrent concerns and ideals expressed in them, and the means by which they are expressed. The letters are carefully crafted works, examples of the literary labour which Philip writes is incumbent upon the cleric. The first part of this thesis approaches these letters in chapters on four themes: the role of the ecclesiastical prelate; the importance of learning; the relationship between religious orders; and Philip’s use of the motif of friendship. His hagiographical works, too, are examples of literary artistry, to move as well as to educate the audience. In the second part of the thesis, these will be discussed individually, with the first chapter analysing his vita of Oda, a nun attached to his own house, whom he portrays as a martyr. The succeeding chapters consider Philip’s rewritings of earlier vitae, and show how he managed his sources in order to produce vitae depicting their subjects according to his ideal model of sanctity. Philip’s letters express concerns shared by contemporaries, reflecting anxieties surrounding roles and ideal forms of living in a period immediately following the first fervour of religious renewal. His hagiographies articulate ideals of sanctity, clarifying these when they are not made sufficiently explicit in earlier works, for the better edification of an audience pursuing this vita perfecta. Both letters and hagiographies are designed to exhort and instruct the reader or listener: above all, Philip is a teacher.

This study considers the processes by which film and play-texts engage with the mythic figure of Joan of Arc. Chapter One provides an overview of the vast body of work that has been inspired by Joan's history. Chapter Two addresses the tragic configuration of Joan's story, especially with regard to ethical conflict and culpability. In Chapter Three, I discuss the displacement of notions of innocence onto Joan's virginity, youth, illiteracy, and rusticity and examine the ideologically-loaded textual constructions and uses of these elements of her myth. Chapter Four is a consideration of her textually-constructed exclusion from the ordinary run of humanity and of the implications of her strangeness and estrangement. Chapter Five is focused upon representations of Joan's condemnation trial. I consider the processes of narrativisation by which means documentary records become historical accounts. I consider fictional reenactments of Joan's trial as 'texts within texts, ' engaged in a double process of interrogation which allows Joan to be both persecuted for her transgressiveness and elevated to the status of a saint. Chapter Six examines the central importance of Joan's transgressiveness, exploring the disciplinary strategies employed by a variety of film and play texts as they attempt to counter her troublesome ambiguousness, to identify and define her, and to effect her epistemological assimilation. Chapter Seven is a consideration of the similarities and differences between the myths of Joan of Arc and of Christ and their representation in film. It explores the semantic association between transgression and transcendence, between the 'unnatural' and the 'supernatural, ' with regard to their crucial relation to the limits of discourse and epistemology. In Chapter Eight, I explore myth as a discursive practice and examine the operations of myth and of ideology in relation to the obsessive cultural reiteration of the myth of Joan of Arc.

Seven beliefs comprise Maccabean martyr theology. First, though it could not explain suffering in toto, the retributive explanation was a theological foundation stone: Israel's sin resulted in God's judgement. Second, to avoid theodicean problems, this doctrine was galvanized to cosmic dualism; thus, the Antiochan persecution was interpreted as a manifestation of a heavenly war. Third, these persecutions were a sign that the divinely predetermined Endzeit was nigh and the eschatological kingdom imminent. Fourth, the suffering of the righteous was believed to precipitate divine eschatological vengeance. Fifth, the expression of this vengeance results in the exaltation of the righteous and humiliation of the wicked. Sixth, the righteous believed they could defeat evil with the highly effective weapons of obedience, suffering and witness. Finally, the sacrifice of the martyrs expiates the wrath of God. The antecedents of Maccabean martyr theology include: the Old Testament cultus, the death of Old Testament individuals, the prophet-martyr, the righteous sufferer, the Aqedah, the Suffering Servant, Hellenistic religion and prophetic eschatology. The Old Testament background alone was insufficient to explain martyr theology, but the breakdown in the Jewish Weltanschauung allowed the borrowing of sacrificial and eschatological concepts from non-Jewish religions. Hellenistic notions of vicarious sacrifice, the positive value of suffering and the apotheosis of the dying hero were motifs the soteriology of Maccabean martry theology borrowed. The earliest soteriological interpretation of the death of Jesus, viz. Mark 10:45, Jesus' eucharistic words and Romans 3:24-26, has been influenced by martyr theology. Romans 3:24-26 probably displays the greatest influence; no closer parallel than Eleazar's martyrdom can be adduced from the extant literature. Mark 10:35-45 also betrays a marked influence-especially in the cup and baptism metaphors and the ransom logion. Jesus' eucharistic words have a multifarious background, martyr theology being one. In sum, Maccabean martyr theology is a decisive background for the earliest soteriological interpretation of the death of Jesus.

The Roman world of the fourth and fifth centuries CE was one of imaginative potential. Following the emperor Constantine’s embrace of Christianity, Christians across the Mediterranean grappled with the pitfalls and possibilities presented by accession to positions of power in the Roman Empire. Chief amongst the pressing concerns facing late ancient Christians was the thorny question of what a Roman Christian world might look like – how Christianitas or “Christianness” might be understood, envisioned, and experienced in landscapes and communities dotting the Empire. Related were issues of what shape(s) this Christianitas might take, and how post-Constantinian Christians would make sense of the inheritances of their past. Theirs was a history in which legacies of violence and ideals of martyrdom loomed large. Yet, with Christians increasingly at the helm of Empire, the question remained as to what role(s) this violent martyrial past might play, or, indeed, if it would play any role at all. In order to meet these challenges and opportunities head-on, Christians had to exercise the resources of imagination. Processes of so-called Christianization were thus inherently entangled with a kaleidoscopic array of imaginative approaches to understanding the past while making sense of it for the present. This dissertation dives headlong into these imaginative Christianizing processes. In it, I examine how the late ancient Christian poets Damasus, Prudentius, and Paulinus of Nola used verse to help Christianize their audiences’ social imaginaries. I argue that this trio of poets encouraged their audiences to understand and experience their histories, communities, and landscapes through a lens of memorialized martyrial violence. By crafting narratives of torture and embedding them poetically in commemorative sites and practices, these poets offered their audiences a vision of a Roman Christian world that was distinctly martyrial, violent, and spatial. Inflected by the wider context of post-Constantinian potential as well as local tensions, these poets’ works provide essential texture to our understandings of imaginative Christianization in communities across the western Mediterranean. Through intensive study of poeticized martyr narratives of the late fourth and early fifth centuries, my project reveals the bloody beating heart of late ancient Roman Christian imaginaries.

Abstract: This dissertation examines music in North American Bahá’í communities and artistic contexts by focusing on the Faith’s legacy of Persian culture, aesthetics, and history of religious persecution. As such, it provides a reinvigorated look into the development of Bahá’í devotional life from its emergence in mid-nineteenth century Persia to early twentieth-century expansions in the West, as well as more recent developments following the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Through incorporating a mix of ethnographic, historical, and analytical approaches to key Holy Texts, Bahá’í scholarly literature, and select musical case studies (including pop, rock, hip-hop, and classical compositions, as well as the development of a music program at the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education), I explore how Bahá’ís navigate the Faith’s world-unifying message and administrative processes amid greater diversification of membership, patterns of devotional localization, and ongoing struggles in the Islamic Republic of Iran. It traces a history of religious oppression and considers how narratives of persecution and martyrdom throughout the Faith’s succession prophetic revelation (the Báb, Bahá’u’lláh) and leadership (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi, and the Universal House of Justice) has shaped global Bahá’í identity formation, as well as inspired forms of aesthetic worship. At the same time, it will contribute new perspectives on research in the Iranian diaspora, transnational music-making, and musical cosmopolitanism through a ‘Bahá’í inspired’ theological approach, which emphasizes Bahá’í literatures, utterances, worldviews, and scholarly conventions.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, France sustained prolonged periods of religious conflict between Catholics and Reformers that profoundly shaped its culture. My dissertation addresses the relationship between French culture and conflict by examining texts that engage with the subjects of martyrdom and religious violence, from the early years of Reformed persecution to the aftermath of France’s Wars of Religion. Pushing the conventional boundaries of Catholic-Reformed conflict beyond a single event or historical episode, my work shows the continuity of textual representations of the sufferings endured by the religious minority in France. I likewise broaden my focus to include authors and genres that are typically not studied together, thereby offering new perspectives on the complex issue of how French writers and readers navigated sectarian divide. Martyrdom and religious violence form the basis of this continuity and my argument that prominent French writers Jean Crespin, Jean de Léry, Agrippa d’Aubigné, and Pierre Corneille sought to lead their French-speaking audiences toward positive and sympathetic perceptions of the religious other. I begin tracing the narrative thread of martyrdom and religious violence in Chapter One, which considers French martyrologist Jean Crespin’s Histoire des martyrs (1554), the first book of Reformed martyrs published in the French vernacular. I argue that the Histoire des martyrs was the product of Crespin’s desire to gain authority within the Reform movement by producing a work that would be of cultural and symbolic value for sixteenth-century Reformed readers. I first examine Crespin’s career path in printing and his accounts of Reformed martyrdom through the Bourdieusian theoretical lens of cultural production. I explain his successful debut in the competitive printing industry in terms of his initiation into the ‘religious field’, meaning the network of leading Reformers that controlled their church and movement. I then look to the martyrology’s distinct components to show how they would have constituted ‘religious capital’, meaning valuable assets for individuals functioning within the religious field, for Crespin and his Reformed readers. Crespin’s martyrology was an important part of everyday life for Reformers, and the martyrs whose stories filled the pages of the Histoire des martyrs inspired and instructed readers in matters of faith. In Chapter Two, I turn to Reformed explorer and writer Jean de Léry’s firsthand accounts of the hardships that Reformers experienced during the Siege of Sancerre and an expedition in the New World, both momentous events and crushing defeats for the French Reform movement. Léry recounts these experiences in his well-known travelogue and memoire, the Histoire d’un voyage faict en la terre du Brésil (1580) and Histoire mémorable de la ville de Sancerre (1574). In so doing, Léry pays particular attention to the food-related aspects of Reformers’ struggles, from eating uncustomary meals and suffering famine to witnessing the cannibalistic practices of the Tupinambá natives of Brazil. I thus adopt a food studies approach to argue that Léry’s works may be better understood as articulations of Reformed identity, with alimentary choices and eating behaviors serving to underscore the adaptability and resilience of Reformers in times of heightened religious violence and strife. As my readings suggest, Léry intended to shift his sixteenth-century reader’s perception of these events from resounding defeats to courageous and martyr-like displays of self-sacrifice and steadfast belief. I offer a reassessment of the traditional book of Reformed martyrs established by Crespin in Chapter Three, which examines vehement poet and soldier Agrippa d’Aubigné’s accounts of Reformed martyrdom in his epic poem Les Tragiques (1616). Aubigné’s book of martyrs, “Les Feux,” exemplifies what I call an ‘epic martyrology’, meaning a subgenre and style that blends the characteristic elements of the epic and the martyrology. My reading argues that Aubigné creates an ‘epic martyrology’ to revive the emotional impact that accounts of Reformed martyrdom once had on sixteenthcentury readers. To this end, I engage in close readings of Aubigné’s martyrological accounts, highlighting the ways in which their distinctly poetic features rendered them more energetic and would have persuaded seventeenth-century readers to see Reformed martyrs as valiant heroes of the French Reform. Lastly, Chapter Four examines a Catholic appropriation of the theme of martyrdom in leading French playwright Pierre Corneille’s renowned martyr drama Polyeucte martyr (1643). I first consider scenes and character dialogue that emphasize the dangers of martyrdom and religious difference, making the case that Polyeucte was meant to evoke the Catholic-Reformed violence of France’s recent past. My reading suggests that Corneille sought to draw his seventeenth-century audience’s attention to the threat that ongoing sectarian tensions posed to the social and political stability of the state. I then consider theories of religious toleration to demonstrate how Polyeucte embodies the ‘respect conception’ of tolerance, which seeks to foster attitudes of mutual respect between the religious majority and minority. Corneille’s apparent interest in renewing the toleration policies that had been in place since the turn of the century ultimately served to bolster the Catholic crown’s authority and promote civil order.

This report will summarize my work as a graduate student at the RTF M.F.A program at the University of Texas, Austin. It will chronicle the process of producing my documentary film Man on Fire, from conceptualization through completion.

This paper focuses on the earliest attestations of Shia pilgrimage (ziyara) in the early Islamic era, its origins, and development. The practice of Shia ziyara, whether in the modern or pre-modern era has not been the subject of many studies. Most studies on Shiai ritual tend to focus on Ashura rituals that developed in the modern period, including the Shia passion play (taziyya), and self-flagellation or other self-mortification practices (tatbir, zangir zani), and therefore do not shed light on early Shiism. Ziyara to Husayns tomb is one of the earliest rituals of the early Shia community. For that reason, understanding its origins and development is important for understanding the demarcation of confessional boundaries in the early Islamic era. The goal of this paper is to identify the time in which Shia ziyara began, the social and political circumstances surrounding the practice, and identifying institutions interested in promoting the practice for their own purposes. Through analysis of early Arab chronicles, the earliest extant Shia pilgrimage manual Kamil al-Ziyarat by Ibn Qulawayh, and both Sunni and Shia bibliographical dictionaries, I argue for the late 8th/early 9th century as the beginning of the circulation of ziyara traditions and the practice of ziyara. I assert that the development of ziyara coincided with the institution of the Imami network of agents and envoys, who were tasked with collection the khums tithe and served as mediators between the Imam and the Shia community. Finally, I argue that ziyara traditions must be understood in the context of the fadail genre, which represented an early Islamic contestation of sacred space, and that the Shia scholars in the late 8th-9th century adopted this genre and its motifs to promote ziyara to Karbala and to construct an authoritative discourse that affirmed the spiritual authority of the Imams and those who claimed to represent them.

This work develops a new understanding of the socials significance of martyrdom through a comparative analysis of the concept’s deployment in three distinct settings. Beginning by critically assessing the linguistic provenance of the term “martyr,” from the Greek word for a court witness, combined with a discussion of how such deaths are discursively shaped in opposition to the victim, soldier or suicide, I argue for a heuristic that centers on the opposition of interpretive frames at work in conflicts that create martyrs. To support such a model, I proceed by analyzing collected sets of texts said to be written by martyrs where they frame their intention and link their death to larger political and symbolic complexes. To establish a common lens through which to investigate deaths that occur in radically different contexts, I introduce the concept of the sovereign imaginary: a coherent ideal of cosmic order that configures moral judgments of right and wrong, delineates social boundaries, and provides processes of establishing legitimate authority. The contemporary political and religious authorities who rely on and propagate such imaginaries are responsible for shaping life for the communities under analysis, and their words are considered in tandem with those of the martyrs themselves.The concept of the martyr as we understand it today originates in early Christianity, which has largely determined the contours of the term’s usage today. Second century Christianity in Asia Minor – the so-called cradle of martyrdom – provided much of the context for Christian martyrdom, and is the first case analyzed here. This area boasts members like Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna, two significant voices that shaped the understanding of martyrdom in early Christianity. By examining the socio-political context between the early Christian communities, their Jewish counterparts, and the Roman state, I trace the developing conflict around the true sovereign authority in the world, and show how harm against the body was used as a means of shoring up such authority. Armed with their own ideas about legitimate suffering, and refusing to capitulate to the coercive measures of the Roman State, Christian martyrs gave their lives in a show of affiliation to the true power in the world and thereby became exemplars of the true way to live.A similar dynamic exists within the second case under study, the Shi’a Islamists of 1980s Iran and Lebanon, from whence the modern phenomenon of “martyrdom operations” or “suicide bombings” springs. Looking explicitly at the Iran-Iraq war – where huge numbers of young men walked willingly into bullets to overwhelm their enemy – alongside Hizbollah’s resistance to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon where human bombs were first employed as a tactic toward Islamist ends, I show how the repeated invocation of mytho-historical persons led to the experience of re-living history. Attending to the Shi’a roots of what will largely become a Sunni phenomenon, I show that the self-sacrificial violence was seen to be a necessary act in order to bring about the only truly just rule of God, one incumbent upon all true Muslims. The ability of one group to determine the requirements of a social group, I argue, resulted in the willingness of young men and women to place the ends of community over their own lives.My last case leaves the Abrahamic context to examine the way martyrdom discourse is employed in regards to the self-immolations that have been occurring in twenty-first century Tibet. Though an explicitly Buddhist culture, here too I discover conflicts around legitimate sovereignty and political self-determination – issues at the heart of all cases under analysis – compel a discourse that encourages self-sacrifice through reference to sacred narratives. By tracing the language employed by the self-immolators in tandem with the ways the struggle with the People’s Republic of China is framed by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, I demonstrate how the same dynamic is evident in labeling the auto-cremations martyrdoms: a historic, political, and religious truth is expressed and cemented in the bodies of those willing to die rather than act against it.In conclusion I articulate a new theoretical model by which to understand martyrdom as performance suffering, acts of voluntary affliction – contextualized in a symbolic world – that are seen to have the potential to change the situation on the ground by remaining true to the larger cosmic goals that would bring about a just existence. Maintaining that the operations of martyrdom occur on both personal and social levels simultaneously, I show that these deaths are used as pieces of evidence in support of a particular interpretive vision of truth, and that these deaths are particularly powerful and provocative due to the spectacular nature of a sovereign imaginary appearing in the flesh of those who suffer for it.

Abstract: TERTULLIAN’S IDEAL CHRISTIAN: The Ideals of Persecution and Martyrdom in the True Christian Life ABSTRACT What mattered most to Tertullian was the fate of the Christian soul. During this early period in Christian history, the threat of persecution came to the forefront of Christian thought with a change in government leadership or opposition from other communities. To combat the fear of persecution and remain on the path towards salvation Tertullian saw a need for Christians to be distinct from other communities in Carthage. The development of this identity and why it may have been acceptable to the Carthaginian Christian community is the focus of this essay. To address Tertullian’s argument for the ideal Christian requires evidence to justify the ideal. Do events and attitudes from the past intertwine within the communities in Carthage and Africa during Tertullian’s life? Is Tertullian’s writing, much of which occurred between 196- 207 A.D.,1 consistent with the reports of past writers? This information would allow for a sympathetic look at his writing and intentions. The approach taken in this essay is to examine the development of Tertullian’s argument in six parts. The first will briefly examine the arrival of Christians in Africa and some of the influences on the adoption of a retributive Christianity. The next part will review the challenges of developing a true Christian identity up to Tertullian’s time. This section will conclude with an examination of the influence of Montanism on Tertullian. 1 T.D. Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985). 30. ii  The purpose of Part III and IV is to examine the causes of Christian persecution and who and what Christians would face during periods of persecution. Definition of Roman legal and social attitudes towards Christians will come from biblical and ancient writing. The goal is to see if these attitudes were still prevalent during Tertullian’s period. Part V will describe the contemporary environment of Christian Carthage. Definition of the relations between the Jewish, Pagan and Christian communities in Carthage will come from Tertullian’s writing. What are his views of the three communities and how does he address these realities? What influences do the themes from the previous four parts have on this environment? The final part of the essay presents Tertullian’s argument for the ideal Christian. He argues for his ideal of the purpose martyrdom against the two other choices a Christian could make during times of persecution: apostasy or flight. This part of the presentation includes Tertullian’s opponents, sources, and the inspiration for his ideal. The general conclusion is that Tertullian’s concern was for a Christian identity and the individual’s soul. Tertullian’s argument is for a Christian duty toward martyrdom (Tertullian, Fug. 14.3). However, the Christian world in which Tertullian lived fell short of the world Tertullian identified with in scripture.

This dissertation tells the story of Islamist Conscientious Objectors (COs) in Turkey who resist the obligatory duty of conscription and cultural valorizations of martyrdom through a nonviolent civil resistance based on anti-authoritarian interpretations of Islam. Blending political theory with political ethnography and comparative politics of the Middle East, I approach this civil dissent as a potent demonstration of the uses and abuses of religious principles in democratic politics and war - both by the sovereign state and its contestants. Weaving together their anti-authoritarian interpretations of Islamic doctrines with theories and tactics of nonviolent resistance developed internationally, the COs challenge both the institution of conscription and the Turkish state's invocations of jihad and martyrdom in its military - an institution historically associated with staunch secularism in Turkey. Theoretically, I relate the issues raised by my fieldwork to debates about democratic citizenship, sovereignty, and secularism. Contrary to conventional interpretations, I find that in foundational theories of liberal democracy, military obligations of citizens are legitimized through appeals to the dominant religious values and principles in a community. Providing a broad picture of the productive engagements with non-Western political thought opened up by the political-theological perspective, the dissertation demonstrates the ambivalent but crucial roles faith and theological values play in modern politic   iii

This dissertation argues that in the two centuries following the incunabula, one group of authors writing for the press understood the feeling of being “in print” through the language and form of a much older technology, the Eucharist. The Eucharist’s role in distributing Christ to believers over time and space made it an irresistible analogue for the author’s publication through the printing press. The defining characteristics of print—namely, theoretically exact replicability and massively increased distributivity—are the same characteristics celebrated by Christ at the Last Supper when he shared his body. Far from robbing texts of aura, the press transmitted it. Like priests who personate and impart Christ, these writers were able to disseminate typographic versions of their own “real presences” to far-flung yet virtually gathered readers in an equally amplifying and exposing experience. Revealing the influence of the Eucharist on writers who identified the experience of authorship with the technology of the printing press, I show how mechanization—so often associated with the loss of aura—in fact made a powerful new mode of auratic presence available to writers whose engagement with print production and priestly identities led them to a new conception of what it meant to be a modern Protestant author. For John Foxe, technical and deictic innovations available only in print make the Actes and Monuments into a vessel in which the textual presences of the martyrs and even himself are stored, ready to be witnessed and consumed in the endlessly iterable moment of reading. For Robert Burton in the Anatomy of Melancholy, the commercial market reveals the tendency of the eucharistic miracle to turn to waste as one’s work is buried under ever-increasing piles of freshly-printed books, pamphlets, and “new news.” For John Milton, the vulnerability of publication leads to his consecration as a living textual martyr in the controversial prose—an act of self-fashioning that shapes our understanding of his protagonists in Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. I conclude by examining the eighteenth-century subsumption of the author’s eucharistic voice into the collective journalistic voice of an entire nation—the beginning of a process that culminates in mass communication in the fully modern sense.

After being arrested and jailed with other Christians in 203, Vibia Perpetua, a young matron, requests a dream-vision (visio—a technical term for a prophetic dream) to determine their fate. Perpetua sees a bronze ladder reaching up to the sky where a gray-haired man offers her cheese in a paradisal garden. Scholars often use this so-called stairway to heaven in order to characterize early Christian martyrdom in North Africa as apocalyptic ascent (Balling 1994, Frankfurter 1998, Moss 2012) or to attribute such phenomena, however tangentially, to the renewal movement of the ‘New Prophecy’ (Butler 2006). While not disputing the presence of apocalyptic features in the martyrologies of North Africa, this reports contends that such descriptions tend to be homogenizing and imprecise. Instead, the present study further nuances the debate by analyzing the function of dream-visions in the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis and the oneirology—i.e., the study of dream interpretation—in Tertullian’s De anima. Both documents, composed in the first fifteen years of the third century, reveal discursive practices marking boundaries around Christian identity in Roman North Africa (Rebillard 2012). Dream-visions in the Passio lend authority to the text—placing it alongside the “examples of ancient faith” (vetera fidei exempla; 1.1)—and train martyrs to die for God in the arena. The present study argues that dream-visions in the Passio, rather than fitting a form-critical definition of apocalypse or adherence to a single group identity, illuminate some third century debates of Christians with their many identities regarding prophecy, death, and dreams.

The fortuitous discovery of early Christian images adorning the catacombs on Via Salaria in 1578 enabled scholars to address urgent, contemporary problems concerning the Catholic tradition of image veneration, which had been attacked by Protestant iconoclasts. Although the catacombs had been important devotional sites for the cult of martyrs and relics throughout the Middle Ages, the 1578 catacomb discovery was the first time that Romans connected the catacombs with the early Christian cult of images. Only after 1578 did scholars and antiquarians begin to collect and study early Christian frescoes and antiquities found in Rome’s numerous catacomb sites. Their research culminated in the publication of Antonio Bosio’s Roma sotterranea (1635), the first treatise on the Roman catacombs. After the Council of Trent (1545–1563), Catholic scholarship on the catacombs defended the early Christian origins of the cult of martyrs, relics, and images. I argue that the Tridentine Church’s claim of continuity motivated the study of early Christian art in the catacombs in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. By critically evaluating images and archeological sources to support an interpretation of the Church as semper eadem (ever the same), Bosio and his sixteenth-century predecessors contributed to the development of modern historical and archeological methods. This dissertation explores the juxtaposition of imaginative and analytical interpretations of the Roman catacombs in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Early modern descriptions of the catacombs characterize these burial sites as emotive worship spaces for the early Church that evoked Christian suffering, martyrdom, and devotion to the cult of saints. I argue that the gruesome martyrdom imagery commissioned to decorate S. Stefano Rotondo and SS. Nereo e Achilleo in the last two decades of the sixteenth century imaginatively recreated what contemporaries thought early Christian worship would have been like in the catacombs. As the first in-depth study to consider the relationship between the exploration of the catacombs and the first large-scale martyrdom cycles in the late sixteenth century, this dissertation demonstrates how vivid pictorial imagination of the Christian past inspired the early Christian revival movement in post-Tridentine Rome.

Historical research concerning the Christian persecution of Lyon in AD 177 has attempted to solve the question of relationship between the events in Lyon and the political and religious context of the Roman Empire. One such theory, the trinqui theory, posits that the Gallic aristocracy exploited Christians as sacrificial victims in an ancient Celtic ritual involving the use of criminals in gladiatorial entertainment. If true, the trinqui theory effectively shifts the responsibility for the killings from the imperial government under Marcus Aurelius to the provincial and aristocratic authorities in Gaul. This thesis will critique the trinqui theory by showing that it insufficiently correlates the revitalization of Celtic religion in second-century Gaul to the martyrdom of 177 while overlooking correlations to Roman methods of torture and execution.

My dissertation presents a new reading of a rarely-studied early Christian text, the First Apocalypse of James, and seeks to intervene in major scholarly debates concerning martyrdom, scriptural interpretation and sexual difference. I begin by showing how the text exhorts its readers and hearers toward martyrdom by narrating the progress of James, the brother of Jesus, in overcoming his fear and preparing for martyrdom. Here Jesus' revelation to James sets out a ritual of ascent that constitutes the martyr's confession of faith—a previously unattested form to articulate the meaning of dying for God. I use intertextual methods to identify an interpretation of the Gospel of John in which Jesus' statements of identity in John are read as descriptions of the true nature of the perfected martyr. This analysis locates scripturally-based debates about the nature of Christ within a context in which practices of preparation for martyrdom are being devised. 1ApocJas also reads Isaiah to identify female heroes whose example it exhorts James to follow. I use this reading of 1ApocJas to challenge the notion that a strict gendered hierarchy was reinscribed equally by Christian martyrdom texts. Through comparison to select examples of Valentinian theology, I establish that 1ApocJas envisions a productive tension in the divine realms between lower and higher female divine figures. By associating female martyrs with the higher female divinities and contrasting them to the lower female divinities, 1ApocJas valorizes martyrs as female and thus complicates any straightforward masculinization of the martyrs. My reading of 1ApocJas broadens our understanding of how Christians prepared themselves for martyrdom by interpreting scripture in innovative ways, devising new ritual practices, and developing distinctive articulations of human and divine sexual difference.

The paper shows the existence and the characteristics of a Jewish theology of martyrdom found in the Qumram scrolls. Studying texts such as 4Q541 Aramaic Levi, 4QpPs171, 1QHa y 4Q491c the author states that that theology features an eschatological inversion that gives a meaning to the condition of marginality and martyrdom that the community experiences. Persecuted, poor and martyrized subjects within that community are considered as the eschatological subjects that are justified by the Spirit of God, that will judge Israel and that are promised that they will inherit the Earth and be transformed into light.

English martyrology in the seventeenth century developed into a highly dynamic and flexible mode of writing which built on the foundation of Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, but innovated in response to new social and spiritual threats. Seventeenth-century martyrologists almost unilaterally addressed issues internal to England, rather than sharing Foxe’s pan-European scope. Specifically, the genre became a way for repressed faith communities in England to express their dissent from the Church of England, and for royalists to bolster the restored English monarchy. Over the century, the definition of a martyr loosened and, as the ideological underpinnings of martyrdom became watered down, the application of martyrological rhetoric broadened. Martyrology no longer offered only a spiritual discussion, but added a literary element applicable to a variety of social and political arguments.

This dissertation explores politico-symbolic deployments of death in figurations of national identity and sovereignty in the Kurdish conflict in Turkey. Many Kurds have died in their successive rebellions over the last century. However, biological death has not necessarily excluded them from Kurdish culture and politics. Rather, through a symbolic economy of “gift” the Kurds resurrect their dead as martyrs – affective forces that powerfully shape public, political and daily life and promote Kurdish national identity as a sacred communion of the dead and the living. For its own part, the Turkish state has been endeavoring to eradicate this persistent power of the Kurdish dead by obstructing their appropriation and assimilation into the regenerative realms of Kurdish national-symbolic. While these struggles are still in effect, with the shift in Kurdish politics away from the original goal of national independence in 1999, the Kurdish dead emerged as a site of contention also among the Kurds. At least until 2005 the place of the dead in Kurdish politics also shifted with a new politics of memory that the leadership of Kurdish movement initiated to buttress the “peace process”. Based on two-year fieldwork in Diyarbakır, the informal capital of Kurds in Turkey, this study explores the Kurdish political imaginaries and subjectivities that are generated in and through these multiple struggles and contentions over the Kurdish dead, situating death as a central symbolic and semantic field constitutive to national identity and sovereignty. This study contributes to the ethnography of the Kurds, Turkey and the Middle East as well as theories of death, the body, nationalism, sovereignty and political subjectivity.

Early Quakers formed group awareness and identification through patient suffering. The developing Quaker bureaucracy encouraged them to witness to their faith according to sanctioned practices and to have reports recorded into the “Great Book of Sufferings.” Using Lancashire as an example, this thesis examines the structure, contents, and overall purpose of the suffering accounts. The Society of Friends initially used its members’ sufferings as a public advocacy tool to end religious persecution. By the late 1680s, the focus shifted as persecution lessened. Friends subsequently sent in their reports as part of a ritual that built internal solidarity through joyful suffering and created a quasi-martyrological tradition. Beginning around 1660, Ellis Hookes, clerk to the Quakers, copied countless accounts into two volumes of the “Great Book of Sufferings.” He began a practice, which lasted over a century and filled another forty-two volumes, of linking Quakers together through their suffering accounts.

Early modern people did not imagine their emotional worlds to be clearly distinguishable from the physiological checks and balances of their bodily interiors. Pre-modern and early modern views of human inwardness were as sophisticated as any analytical scheme devised in the post-Cartesian era. In the interest of further exploring the historical phenomenology of emotion, this dissertation frames questions about the nature of early modern feeling in terms of the proprieties and improprieties of passion in Protestant devotional discourse. It is my sense that insufficient attention has been paid to the complications Protestant interest in religious emotion introduces to an already vexing passions discourse. In the Reformation, the tensions between different moral taxonomies regarding the passions were not merely dreamt of in philosophy and theology. They were deeply felt. In Tudor and Stuart England, humoral and spiritual being-in-the-body was being-in-between---not just between shifting confessions but between comfort and chaos. This study examines the perplexing pressures many felt to get comfortable amid a discourse that makes comfort itself extremely difficult. In its first half, this dissertation examines the place of passion in Thomas Cranmer's temporary abjuration and in Francis Spira's permanent apostasy. In the second half, the study moves from hagiographic polemic to more traditionally literary texts, arguing for related ambiguities in devotional subjectivity as treated by Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and Herbert's The Temple. My approach has been to scrutinize the way each of these texts wrestles with emotional volatility, especially volatility that seems to stray beyond the threshold of propriety. For the many early modern English Protestants concerned about moral physiology, the passions of the soul could also be the Passion of witness to Christ's loving sacrifice for humanity. This openness to religious feeling often brought the temptation to submit to the improper passions. The Christian call produced extreme, often damaging, perturbations. Insofar as this literature shows living sacrifice to be acceptable to God, it must come dangerously close to---and perhaps even go through---an experience of abjuration.

The artists of the Baroque, rejecting the traditional conception of Sebastian, portray the formerly invincible saint as wounded, suffering, no longer victoriously partaking of the fruits of his glorious martyrdom, but being found and cared for by Irene, the widow of the Christian martyr Castulus. Such a change in iconography involves both a shift of the outward and visible as well as the intrinsic content of the pictorial matter. the significance of this thematic revolution has often been overlooked because it parallels the stylistic developments of the age, which, until recently, have captured more fully the imagination of art historians. Therefore, it is the purpose of this paper to deal specifically with this iconographic change which involves the portrayal of the moment when the saint is found and cared for by Irene.