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The book "Jesuit Art and Czech Lands, 1556¿1729: Missionizing through the Arts" edited by Kate¿ina Horní¿ková and Michal ¿ron¿k offers a comprehensive examination of how the Society of Jesus used art to strengthen the Catholic Church and convert Protestants in Bohemia and Moravia. The essays explore the historical contexts of these lands' religious and cultural landscapes, including the Hussite War, the re-Catholicization efforts, and the use of devotional print and painting series. The book also discusses the Jesuits' adoption of medieval Marian images and the cultic staging of images of Jesuit saints. Overall, this book provides valuable insights into Jesuit art and culture in the Czech lands. [Extracted from the article]

Crossley and Myles's Jesus: A Life in Class Struggle offers an innovative and accessible reading of the movement around Jesus in terms of class struggle. The authors combine a breadth of knowledge about first-century realities, acumen in exegesis of the Gospel texts, and contemporary crowd theory to reach new conclusions regarding Jesus and his disciples, especially in his last days, and regarding the 'failure' of their movement. This review examines their understanding of the 'Jesus movement' and its relationship to the Galilean peasantry and their methodology in extrapolating from the Gospels; and proposes a more thorough Marxist theorization of the Gospels' role in producing the 'failure' they describe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The iconography of the martyrs of Japan is often linked to that of the Twenty-Six Martyrs of Nagasaki. This group of mostly Franciscans was crucified in 1597 and beatified in 1627, and also included three Jesuits. The Society of Jesus, however, did not emphasize these martyrs in their engravings and representations of the victims of their Japanese mission especially before their beatification. The close study of two major works, Nicolas Trigault's History of the Martyrs of Japan (Latin, 1623; French, 1624) and the famous Imago primi saeculi (1640), reveals how text and image combine to generate a different discourse of martyrdom that centered on sacrificial fire rather than death on the cross. Although the first three beatified martyrs were never forgotten, the Imago in particular foregrounds another Jesuit martyr, Carlo Spinola, whose prominent family had played an important role in that work's creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a common belief that conflict, underlying the events described in the Martyrdom of Sukiaseans was based on apostasy. Yet, it is very likely that the fatal controversy between the Alan king and the Alan hermits, who converted to Christianity, his subjects, was caused by more complex set of factors without which it is impossible to adequately understand neither the essence of the conflict, nor the motives of its participants, nor the consequences to which it led. It seems that an integrated approach should pay a decisive role to developing an adequate methodology, according to which Martyrdom cannot be separated from Satenik's wedding ceremony. It is only within the mytho-ritual framework of this wedding that five key motives, underlying the general plot of Martyrdom, can be singled out and explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2019, Cambridge University Press published an edited volume entitled Under Caesar's Sword , the product of a three-year study on contemporary Christian responses to persecution in various parts of the world. As part of the overall findings, the project directors noted three primary methods of response: (1) Survival strategies (trying to avoid the attention of the persecutors); (2) Association strategies (building relationships beyond their own communities in order to create a broader network of potential support); and (3) Confrontation strategies (directly challenging the persecutors through various means including martyrdom, which Christians accept as an act of resistance). These categories provide a useful heuristic tool for reevaluating the discourse in some early Christian texts, including the apocryphal acts of the apostles and other texts related to martyrdom. This article employs the insights from Under Caesar's Sword to explore examples of all three strategies from the earliest Christian centuries. However, not all strategies were equally appreciated in that time. Because suffering came to be so closely linked to Christian identity, survival strategies were sometimes critiqued as evidence of a lack of faith. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The making of Christian discourse is further elucidated in Robert Heaton's essay, "Toward the New Testament Canon as Fourth-Century Invention: The Scriptural List of Athanasius and Its Reverberations." The essays collected here in this issue of I Religion & Theology i circle around the theme of the making of a religious imaginary. Thus oriented, the collection of essays, though focussed on Christianity and Christian discourse, on the one hand, and Tibetan Buddhism on the other, speaks to a far broader framework for theorising religion as a discourse. [Extracted from the article]

In view of persistently unresolved questions over whether the assorted segments of the Protevangelium of James can be read as a unified narrative, this study proposes a new account of the work's complete thematic unity. Taking the Nativity as the Protevangelium 's overarching concern, I suggest that its narrative arises principally from the dramatic relationship between purity and divine indwelling characteristic of the Tabernacle narrative (Ex 25–40, Lev 1–16). As the Protevangelium begins to reach its final form during the second century CE, it becomes ordered around narrating the Christ Child as the locus of divine indwelling, a view which binds together the otherwise discordant opening chapters on Mary's upbringing and closing chapters on Zechariah's martyrdom. The Protevangelium invites its readers to consider how the God of Israel could indwell human conception and birth, while neither abolishing the Priestly law nor permitting his unapproachable Presence to suffer diminishment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Catholic church is a community of faith, and an agency of social transformation for a distressed African continent. Many Africans look up to the church for renewal and direction in their quest for integral development and cosmic flourishing. This expectation is gradually weaning in the face of the multidimensional challenges that weigh on Africa. Particularly, the impoverished social order and dysfunctional political systems deprive Africans of dignified lives and sustainable development. This article builds on prophetic dialogue as an ecclesiological paradigm for local churches in engaging the African social context in a manner that inspires social transformation. Grounded on prophetic dialogue, the article proposes pathways of local churches in addressing the concrete social issues and concerns of the people in their locality. These include social discernment, social palaver, and self-emptying. Drawing insights from the teachings of Pope Francis, the essay argues that these pathways offer credible and effective channels for a transformative encounter between the Catholic Church and African society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Legendary 'The Lives of the Saints' became a medieval bestseller soon after it was composed in the early 15th century. This success was due to its simple, standardised language and its theological programme aimed at promoting a collectively lived spiritality. However, different concepts of holiness or narrative elements such as exorbitantly cruel martyrdoms, the ascetic isolations or mystical excess challenged this homogeneity. The article shows that the redactor was very conscious of these elements and made an effort to even them out. In this way, the Legendary partially counteracts its sources by narrating against a self-sanctification of the human being. Thus, it corresponds to the ideas of the Dominican Observance by developing a kind of literary asceticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article explores the representation of martyrdom in the early modern period, focusing on Peter Paul Rubens' painting "The Martyrdom of Saint Stephen." It examines how Rubens portrayed the concept of triumph in death through a violent and holy death, aligning with religious and moral ideals. It delves into the theological, historical, and emotional dimensions of martyrdom's depiction, emphasizing the interplay of suffering, glory, and holiness.

Before the Jesuits officially received their first saints, they capitalized on the power of the portrait series to promote their martyrs. The growing ranks of Jesuit martyrs, thought to number over a hundred in the early seventeenth century, allowed the order to participate in contemporary trends of serial portraiture as a means of legitimization. This article focuses on one crucial object in this history, a 1608 print depicting one hundred and two Jesuit martyrs in a repetitive and chronological format, published by Matthäus Greuter and Paul Maupin in Rome. An analysis of Greuter's print demonstrates how the Jesuits coopted conventions of the portrait series to associate their martyrs with notions of Christian exemplarity and apostolic succession ingrained in the genre. The making of Jesuit identity cannot be disentangled from the discourse of portraiture, a category that includes the reiterative series as well as the naturalistic likeness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the violent deaths of the Jesuit missionaries Rodolfo Acquaviva, Marcello Mastrilli, and Diego Luis de San Vítores, who were killed in the course of their evangelical endeavors in India, Japan, and the Mariana Islands, respectively. It elucidates the ways in which the figure of St. Francis Xavier intersected with the Jesuit ideal of martyrdom, while situating the three martyred Jesuits within the history of Iberian imperialism and colonialism. Xavier became the dominant Jesuit image of apostolic sanctity, and he greatly energized the evangelical zeal of many Jesuits, eager to missionize in distant East Asia. At the same time, the Jesuit evangelical impulse in the early modern period became closely intertwined with the desire for martyrdom. In their efforts to create saintly figures of the three slain missionaries, Jesuit authors would establish a special connection between St. Francis Xavier and the martyred Jesuits, Mastrilli and San Vítores being described as almost perfect replicas of the saint, even though Xavier never experienced martyrdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents the halakhic rulings that preceded the riots of 1391 in Spain and provided the moral infrastructure that allowed the conversion to Catholicism of Rabbi Isaac ben Sheshet Perfet (known by the acronym Rivash) and many other Jews. Rivash was willing broadly to define duress, which exempts one from halakhic obligations. The rulings Rivash attributed to Rabbi Shlomo ben Avraham ibn Aderet (known by the acronym Rashba) – that the commandment "He shall live by them" applies even when a Jew is forced under the threat of death to abandon his faith and that the choice of martyrdom is a secondary religious commandment – were both revolutionary statements. They provided legitimacy to the religious elite – and, as a matter of course, to the simple folk – to choose life, even if it required converting to Christianity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fiery furnace episode of Daniel 3 can be described as a martyr legend without a martyrdom. It shares many formal features with other martyr accounts but ends with the deliverance of the three young men. Early on, the episode was used as a model to narrate similar deliverances from fiery furnaces. But with time, the episode became the template for accounts which ultimately end in the death of the martyr. This article traces this development by surveying the use of Daniel 3 as a literary model from the Second Temple period to the present day. By re-working a narrative of deliverance into a narrative of death, Jewish and Christian traditions updated the legend to reflect the reality of a new situation, whilst also responding to a latent story of death already present in Daniel 3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, Caravaggio's painting of The Beheading of St John the Baptist located in the Oratory of the Co-Cathedral of St John the Baptist, in Valletta, Malta, will serve as a backdrop to qualify and analyze the religious and aesthetic experiential value that such an artwork could generate within the beholder, by considering its eschatological and soteriological implications and context, as well as the notion of 'image as mirror' and its effect on the viewer's consciousness. This will primarily be discussed across two binaries: early seventeenth-century Hospitaller spirituality and the precarious condition of the artist, himself a novice of the Hospitaller Order of St John the Baptist. Guided by the changing artistic, didactic, and functional uses of the Oratory, and the theological implications of the painting, the Beheading will thus be analyzed in its affordance for both transcendental and self-reflective revelation, and as a turning point for the aspiring novice, the artist and, ultimately, the contemporary beholder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A textual criticism of two editions of the late antique fictional passiones martyrum, "Passio Anastasiae," is presented, one by Paola Francesca Moretti and the other by Hippolyte Delehaye. Topics discussed include Moretti's rejection of Delehaye's abolenda, the expression extremitatibus protrahit that is found in most manuscripts, and the proof of a divine gift.

Pope Francis's recent recognition of the death of several priests active in Guatemala in the 1980s as martyrdom has reminded the public of a long-term hesitation within Catholicism as to the boundaries of martyrdom. Key aspects of the history of this hesitation played out in the seventeenth century. Several religious orders—most prominently the Jesuits—argued for a redefinition of martyrdom that would include the so-called "martyrdom of charity" (i.e. the death of those who had imperiled their lives to care for the sick). Among the theologians that entered the fray to advocate for such a redefinition, the most prominent is certainly Theophile Raynaud (the "new Bellarmine" of the mid seventeenth century) whose De martyrio per pestem was censured with other texts that promoted the same position, when the Inquisition decided to take a stand against the campaign for the redefinition of martyrdom. By studying Raynaud's and other treatises, as well as their censure, this paper will try to assess the significance of this debate for Jesuit history and that of early modern Catholicism. It will try and show how it connected with the theological controversies of the time but also how it pertained to an issue within the order, namely that of the hierarchy of ministries that sometimes weighed on how the order operated, particularly in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction to this special issue provides some considerations on early modern sanctity as a historical object. It firstly presents the major shifts in the developing idea of sanctity between the late medieval period and the nineteenth century, passing through the early modern construction of sanctity and its cultural, social, and political implications. Secondly, it provides an overview of the main sources that allow historians to retrace early modern sanctity, especially canonization records and hagiographies. Thirdly, it offers an overview of the ingenious role of the Society of Jesus in the construction of early modern sanctity, by highlighting its ability to employ, create, and play with hagiographical models. The main Jesuit models of sanctity are then presented (i.e., the theologian, the missionary, the martyr, the living saint), and an important reflection is reserved for the specific martyrial character of Jesuit sanctity. The introduction assesses the continuity of the Jesuit hagiographical discourse throughout the long history of the order, from the origins to the suppression and restoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conclusion of this collection of studies endeavors to recapture five major questions that this special issue of the Journal of Jesuit Studies poses on the subject of martyrdom: Is this gesture a form of imitation of Christ (or imitatio Christi) or is it itself a sacrifice? How does it get rid of the shadow of suicide or voluntary death? How do the singularity of its experience and the community within which and in the name of which it is exercised articulate? Can martyrdom be defined as a renunciation of human love, and in this sense as the ultimate step in a process of conversion? How does martyrdom take its place in the writing of the religious history of the modern era, in particular, as far as the Society of Jesus is concerned, in the historiography of the nineteenth century? These five questions open this collection of essays to a field of research that remains to be pursued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues that ecclesial existence involves learning to view the world and to move in it in ways informed by the Christian community's sacramental practices. Of particular concern here is the practice of Holy Communion. This looking and moving is not about one thing; it is rather about many things. Frequently, such discussions are exhausted by fruitless debates about the metaphysics of the elements, or strangled by concerns to defend certain prescriptive practices or shibboleths. This essay is unconcerned with these matters. Instead, it brings together some observations about the practices of the Lord's Supper with a range of themes representative of commitments shared by Christian communities broadly – people, God, stories, hospitality, power, catholicity, martyrdom, and hope – with the intention of provoking a thicker assessment of eucharistic modes of being in the world, and promoting practices marked by the kinds of imaginative freedom that the gospel instigates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Peristephanon 14, Prudentius creates an inventive verse rendering of the martyrdom of Agnes. Interestingly, in this poem, the portrayal of Agnes shares many features with the elegiac puellae of Roman love elegy. Prudentius' classicising poetry is characterised by the mixture of genres and literary traditions, one of them being Roman love elegy. The affinities, however, between Prudentius and the latter tradition deserve closer attention. In this paper, by identifying vocabulary, themes and motifs of Roman elegy in Peristephanon 14, I will illustrate ways in which Prudentius' Agnes can be read as a Christianised elegiac puella. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the impact of martyrdom literature on the formation of Christian identity in the earliest centuries. Taking a cue from insights from the "linguistic turn" in scholarship, the article examines the function of martyr traditions in identifying suffering as the evidence of true Christian identity, in transforming the martyrs into a perceived elite class of Christians to be emulated, and in promoting a strong, anti-imperial rhetoric. Questions of historical veracity in these texts therefore give way to an analysis of the rhetorical and ideological impact of these stories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Iranian religious ceremony of rug-washing (qāli-shuyān), commemorating the martyrdom of Emāmzāda Soltān-ʿAli b. Mohammad Bāqer (d. 734/116), is held every year in the second week of autumn in Mashhad-e Ardehāl, a village of Kāshān, Esfahān Province. This ceremony is unique amongst Twelver Shiʿis for its observance in accordance with the solar calendar rather than the lunar. The objective of the present article is to analyze this ceremony and explain its features. The necessary data for this research have been collected from fieldwork on the historical geography of the region and related historical documents. In the analysis of this ceremony, attention is paid to its time, place, and mode of performance. This study suggests that the rug-washing ceremony is at least partly descended from an ancient Mithraic ritual, to which some Zoroastrian features were added in the pre-Islamic period, such as the limiting of its performance to priests; during the Islamic era, ritual Shiʿi elements were further added thereto. As currently performed, this ceremony, exclusive to Ardehāl and dating to the Qajar and possibly Safavid periods, thus bears certain similarities to rituals performed at Karbalāʾ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a little-known treatise on the commemoration of ʿĀshūrāʾ (the martyrdom of al-Ḥusayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muḥammad) written by a scholar from the Ḥaḍramawt, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar Bin Yaḥyā (d. 1265/1849). Entitled Risāla fī ibṭāl bidaʿ munkarāt (Treatise on Nullifying Reprehensible Innovations), the text was composed in response to the ʿĀshūrāʾ commemorative processions introduced by South Asian Muslims in early nineteenth century Malay-Indonesian Archipelago and witnessed by the author during his travel there (1832-1835). In this treatise, Ibn Yaḥyā de fines a lawful, regulated, and emotionally restrained way of commemorating al-Ḥusayn's martyrdom while stressing the imperative of ʿAlid leadership of the umma. I then discuss the recent resurfacing of a redacted summary of the Risāla in Indonesia. I show that in the context of an increasingly intense Sunni-Shiʿi sectarian contestation that characterized contemporary Indonesia, the redacted version of this ʿAlid treatise circulates as an anti-Shiʿi text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the Gospel of John portray Jesus' death as an atoning sacrifice? This paper offers a new approach to the revelation vs. sacrifice impasse in scholarship, arguing that Jesus' atoning death in John should be understood with reference to the non-cultic atoning deaths of the Jewish martyrdom traditions. After critically engaging scholarship, I contextualize John within post-biblical debates regarding sacrificial martyrdom, focusing on the competing reconfigurations of non-cultic atonement in the Maccabean literature. I subsequently show how Jesus' atoning martyrdom reveals his anti-violent way of the cross as the true martyrdom and atoning sacrifice accepted by God, thereby resolving key tensions within Johannine scholarship. I then demonstrate how this vision of atonement addresses John's understanding of sin as ignorance and addresses an audience itself facing threats of martyrdom (John 16:2). I conclude with some reflections on how John's vision of atonement critically differs from later theological theories, particularly penal substitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between pain, speech and power in Prudentius' Peristephanon. Two poems are selected for a focused analysis: Perist. 5 in which the martyr speaks at length, engaging in a rhetorical contest with his persecutor, and Perist. 9 where the martyr speaks briefly once to encourage his tormentors. By analysing these poems and comparing them with other poems in the Peristephanon , the article shows how martyrs can use speech to transcend pain and transfer suffering to their persecutors but also how silence can be as effective a weapon in their power struggle. Attention is also given to the role which the poet-narrator plays in both poems and the ways in which Prudentius employs his own narrative voice when his martyrs either cannot or do not wish to speak for themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflecting on thoughts by Talal Asad, this paper suggests an approach to theorizing Sunniyat – the approach to Islam taken by those commonly called "Barelvis" – in South Africa by focusing on sensibilities and dispositions. It specifically examines the kinds of sensibilities that are cultivated by adherents in their relationship to the Prophet as well as in their practice of everyday ethics. The aim is to shed light on the embodied nature of these sensibilities and not just their discursive context. In Asad's work, both dimensions are important, but discourse is a prelude to embodiment, with the latter constituting one's mode of being in the world. In thinking about Sunniyat in this way, the works of Abdulkader Tayob and Seraj Hendricks provide important precedents for navigating both discursiveness and embodiment in a South African Muslim context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Ogilvie's martyrdom in February 1615 should be seen in the context of a struggle for the hearts and minds of the people of Scotland between the Jesuit mission and James VI and I's government. Nowhere was this struggle more intense than within the town of Glasgow, where Ogilvie was imprisoned, tried and executed and which a large and influential Catholic community had long called home. Propaganda was disseminated by both sides during and after his trial and the archbishop of Glasgow, John Spottiswood, orchestrated its proceedings as a demonstration of royal and archiepiscopal power that involved local elites as well as central government officials. This article examines the events that took place in Glasgow during the winter of 1614–15 and provides a prosopographical analysis of the people involved. It makes the argument that, as had been the case during the Protestant Reformation of the 1540s and 1550s, Scotland's church and state mishandled Ogilvie's public ritual execution such that the local religious minority (now Catholics) became emboldened and more committed to Counter-Reformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Society of Jesus's mission in Scotland lasted from 1581 until the papal suppression of 1773, yet the Jesuits' impact on religious life there during this period remains an underexplored aspect of Scotland's early modern history. The articles in this special issue offer fresh perspectives on the mission, with particular attention paid to one of its most dramatic and controversial events—the trial and execution of John Ogilvie for treason in Glasgow during the autumn and winter of 1614–15. Fresh insights are provided here on Ogilvie's martyrdom from the perspective of local and international politics and Jesuit theology. The familiar theme of the Jesuits' attempted conversion of James VI and I is also revisited, and new research is presented on Catholicism in seventeenth-century Scotland in articles about the Jesuits' work in the Highlands and their appeal to the memory of the medieval Queen Saint Margaret. Overall, this issue attests to historians' enduring fascination with John Ogilvie's martyrdom and what it can teach us about religion, politics and society in early modern Scotland, and the potential of the Jesuits' activities there as a rich field for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Syriac literature exhibits interest in narratives associated with the Maccabees by the fourth century. Seventh-century manuscripts preserve two different Syriac translations of 1 Maccabees. The translation of this book into Syriac is not part of the Peshitta Old Testament translated from the Hebrew Bible in the second century CE. Its dating and the possible context for its production have not yet been the topic of scholarly investigation. This article examines quotations of and allusions to 1 Maccabees in Aphrahat, Ephrem, and the Martyrdom of Simeon bar Ṣabbāʿē. The last of these texts, likely produced in the early fifth century, offers the earliest evidence for a Syriac translation of 1 Maccabees. The production of a Syriac translation of 1 Maccabees in the fourth or perhaps early fifth century reflects efforts of Christian communities around this time to appropriate the Maccabean narrative for their own interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I compare the Qurʾānic promise of reward for those who die in battle with similar concepts found in contemporaneous Byzantine military circles, and specifically, the idea promoted by emperor Heraclius (r. 610-641 CE) that soldiers might obtain the "crown of martyrdom" for dying on the battlefield. This idea has almost no antecedent in late antique society. Previously the martyr had been a passive figure slain by an unfaithful enemy, rather than a soldier engaged in a fight to impose (or to avenge) the true faith. Heraclius' understanding of military martyrdom was arguably a revolutionary innovation. Since no attempt was made to either canonize or popularize on a large scale this point of Heraclius' propaganda, the concept of military martyrdom must have been limited to the narrow circle of persons who were actively involved in military activities. For this reason, it is surprising that very similar concepts occur in the Qurʾān – that was composed in the very same historical period. The question that I will ask is whether the ideas expressed in the Qurʾān have any relationship to those promoted by imperial propagandists and, if so, the channel or channels through which this transmission took place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I distinguish between the deep culture and the manifest culture, the relationship between the two constituting a circle, which constitutes the circulation of a radical theology of culture. The deep culture surfaces in the manifest, and the manifest draws upon the depths; neither one without the other. My hypothesis is that religion is an expression of the deep culture and for that reason, religion is not accidentally violent; religion is violent in virtue of something essential to religion. Religion is playing with the fire of the concealed depths, of the unconditional, of the impossible, of the undeconstructible. Religion is the best way to save the world, but it also the best way to burn it down. It is both of these things and in virtue of the same property. This is not to say that religion is structurally violent, always and necessarily violent. It is structurally ambiguous, dangerous, on the verge of violence, whipsawing between radical violence and radical non-violence, between martyrdom and murder. Religious beliefs are not the cause of the violence but often a façade for deeper, visceral nationalism or ethnic hatred, The reaction of Christian right to the contemporary world is naive and simplistic but not superficial; it reflects a visceral fear of the postmodern world. Religion is a matter of being claimed by something unconditional, which means it should have the good sense not to lay claim to it. We should never trust anything that has not passes through that apophasis. Before any claims we make, we are laid claim to in advance by the unconditional, the undeconstructible, which Schelling calls the prius , the "un-pre-thinkable" (das Unvordenkliche). The unconditional in the optimal sense is love, which is an expenditure made without the expectation of a return, like loving one's enemies, which is impossible, the impossible. But love does not get a pass. What would we not do for love? In that question is concentrated all the ambiguity of love, all the courage of the martyr, but no less the violence of the suicide bomber. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay follows the assumption that the first principle of classical metaphysics has its counterpart in political sovereignty as suprema potestas. Therefore, both can be equally described as arché. Their epitome is the God of so-called ontotheology, who thus proves to be what I call the Ur-Arché. In contrast to current post-metaphysical approaches, however, I suggest overcoming ontotheology through a different metaphysics, which emphasizes the self-transcending surplus character of being. I regard early Christian martyrdom as an eminent way in which the surplus of being is manifested. This has two interwoven aspects, one ontological and one political, both arising from the excessive idea of the Christ event, or the notion that there is life beyond life unto death. I will analyse the mechanism allowing early Christian martyrs to counteract Roman imperial sovereignty. Finally, I will relate this to contemporary life systems in which sovereignty has become anonymous biopower. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late twentieth century, Latina artists have used Catholic images, such as depictions of altars and the Virgin of Guadalupe, to speak both for themselves and for women's issues at large. Maria Tomasula seems far from that norm, since she focuses on tightly constructed, dramatic still life, painted in the traditional European illusionistic manner. She reveals, however, Catholic influences and feminist messages in her flower paintings. This article aims to unveil the woman's voice in the works of still life by Tomasula, as communicated through embedded Catholic symbolism and references. It will examine how her works evoke the home altar tradition as well as images of saints in martyrdom to speak for the Mexican American woman. This article also applies the concept of the abject, as espoused by Kristeva to denote a woman's realm, to Tomasula's art. Tomasula's still lifes thus ultimately delineate a woman's space and her discrete experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent literature on modern martyrdom and memory has focused on cases in which individual groups remember martyrs’ sacrifices by making similar memorials to them. However, this article argues that even if members of a group agree on a martyr narrative, different memorials with diverse meanings can still be erected in memory of the martyrs concerned. This article supports its argument by exploring the case of twenty members of the Holy Ghost Fathers (Spiritans) who were killed on 1 January 1962 in Kongolo in southeastern Congo-Kinshasa. The memorials dedicated to these Spiritans differ substantively with each other by emphasizing different aspects of sacrifice and memory. This article concludes by arguing that the diversity of memorials involved in this case alerts us to the fact that the traditions associated with martyrdom do not always dominate the public memory of those who sacrifice their lives for a cause. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay proceeds from a modern sensitivity with regard to suffering and violence in canonical texts and draws on a modern phenomenon, sadomasochism (in particular masochism and appertaining theory, enhanced with theory concerning torture and pain), in order to understand the dynamics of suffering and its interpretation in the Apocalypse of John. The result of the paper is a contribution to the question what role pain and ­suffering play in the Apocalypse of John, as well as to the question to what extent comparing contemporary cultural phenomena and their analysis can contribute to the understanding of ancient texts. The paper also seeks to move beyond the rather pejorative and unnuanced use of the term ‘sadomasochistic’ in relation to the Apocalypse of John that has been used here and there in order to condemn the violence contained in the work (and, in the process, shedding rather shady light on BDSM practicioners).
 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an explanation for the treatment of women within the Catholic Church based on two different concepts of dignity. One linked to equality and autonomy that applies to men, and another linked to sacrifice and martyrdom that applies to women. By exploring the history and current developments on abortion laws in Chile, the paper shows how this gendered idea of dignity translated into the secular regulation of abortion. It also shows a shift in the last few years in which a secular concept of dignity linked to equality and autonomy is gaining track and abortion is finally discussed with women's lives at the center. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay surveys the state of research regarding the ample relations between conversion and persecution as reflected in two recent missiological collections of essays, namely Freedom of Belief and Christian Mission (2015), and Sorrow and Blood: Christian Mission in Contexts of Suffering, Persecution and Martyrdom (2012). The systematic categories emanate from examining conversion as a human right in the framework of freedom of religion or belief, with the guidance of the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. The essay covers missiological reflection on the right to convert; not to be forced to convert; and to try to convert others by means of non-coercive persuasion. It also discovers a lack of reflection on the rights of the child and of his or her parents in this regard. This is done against the background of the challenges to the enjoyment of these rights in various contexts and from multiple parties, often taking the form of harassment, discrimination or persecution. It becomes evident that a Christian theological and missiological perspective adds important further considerations to the human rights perspective on conversion and religious freedom or persecution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The resistance to the Holocaust from Catholic and Protestant clergymen came in myriad forms. A few clergy willingly gave up their lives, thus becoming martyrs for refusing to be judged by Nazi law, surrendering instead to divine justice. Such noble and heroic decisions in which a humble person surrenders life in defiance of a totalitarian regime opposed to Christian humanism is a subject most worthy of study. This essay focuses exclusively on stage representations of the extreme sacrifices the clergy made during the Holocaust as reflected by martyrdom in Arthur Giron's Edith Stein and David Gooderson's Kolbe's Gift. The protagonists of these two plays, Edith Stein and Maximilian Kolbe, died and suffered greatly to uphold the moral position of the Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This response to the essays collected here considers questions of torture, slavery, and resistance. Building on the fruitful extension of earlier work on ancient Greek practices of the basanos, or "touchstone," and on slavery in the ancient world and in antebellum America, the response takes account of the valuable and thought-provoking use of duBois' work in the new contexts of early Christianity. The response also points to her recent work on the relationship of torture, crucifixion, slavery, forms of resistance, and the persistence, in new forms, of what Hellenists tend to call "polytheism". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking its departure from Page duBois' monograph Torture and Truth, this essay points toward a gap in the history conveyed by duBois, yet hinted at by the painting reproduced on the book's cover - Nicolas Poussin's "Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus" (1629). DuBois relates classical Greek juridical practices, in which the tortured slave body is the site of the production of truth, to the subsequent history of Western philosophy, of which Heidegger is a privileged exemplum. This essay in turn inserts a history of Christian martyrdom (both early modern and ancient) into that narrative. The tight linking of truth with torture persists in martyrdom texts (including the Gospels), and the juridical context highlighted by duBois remains decisive for their interpretation. So too does the context of Roman imperial rule, together with the public spectacles of violence through which imperial power was performed. However, whereas classical Greek practice frames the slave as the passive container of a truth that another can claim, the ideology of Christian martyrdom assigns truth to the tortured subject herself. The legacy of martyrdom may explain the ease with which some today all too easily disavow complicity with torture to the point of denying that it continues, while also all too easily laying claim to the authority of suffering truth. It may illumine, as well, the limits of torture's power and the potential sources of its subversion and critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The First Book of Maccabees ends its historical narrative with the murder of Simon at the hands of his son-in-law, Ptolemy. Flavius Josephus offers a more elaborate narrative of the same event. According to his account, Ptolemy took Simon's wife and two of his sons as hostages and tormented them when John Hyrcanus besieged him in the fortress of Doq. Josephus praises Simon's wife for taking a heroic stance and stresses her willingness to die for the dynasty. A close analysis of the story suggests that Josephus drew on a popular tradition that emerged shortly after the historical events and adopted stylistic and narratological elements commonly associated with martyrdom stories. The story thus offers insights into dynastic representation in the early Hasmonean period and indicates that the wife of Simon played a prominent role in the propaganda and self-fashioning of the new ruling house. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fragmented nature of the Nag Hammadi treatise known as The Testimony of Truth (NHC IX,3) has seriously impeded our interpretation of this remarkable text, the only Nag Hammadi text in which opposing Gnostic Christian groups are identified by name. Nevertheless, in the past decade, this treatise has become an important reference to the early Christian debate about martyrdom. The question should be asked, however, whether the passages cited by scholars have been interpreted correctly, if we have not first understood the rhetorical strategy of the author and the Sitz im Leben of the text. As the speaker advises an audience seeking after the truth, this text is best read as deliberative speech, despite its many lacunae. Viewing the text rhetorically allows us to reconstruct the message of the text, and interpret its arguments accordingly. When this is done, it becomes clear that the author does not try to persuade his audience with respect to martyrdom, but rather with respect to the passions of the soul that could prevent the soul's salvation. The Sitz im Leben of the text is the shared discussion among Christians in general and Gnostic Christians about the efficacy of testimony and baptism for salvation, and the acceptability of sex and procreation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study of the Muslim diaspora through comparative analysis of Islamic tombstones from the Southeast Coast of China under Mongol rule. The locations of the nisbas in the Islamic tombstones are widely dispersed, covering Xinjiang, Transoxiana, Iran, Khorasan, Khwarazm, Armenia, Syria, Palestine, and Arabia. Unexpectedly, we did not find a single named location from India or Southeast Asia. It is well known that notable descendants of distinguished families traditionally produced officials, intellectuals, and wealthy merchants, and surrendered to the Mongols during the war against the Qara Khitai Khanate and the Khwarazm Empire. There were a great number of appointed officials with Muslim names in the Jianghuai (around Lower Yangtze) and Fujian regions. This is consistent with the concentration of epitaphs written in Arabic on the southeast coast of China. The frequent use of the specific tradition of the prophet Muhammad associating the death of the exile with martyrdom in Islamic tombstones in Quanzhou, Hangzhou, and Yangzhou indicates that the Muslims in these port cities eventually established an interregional or diasporic identity of Muslim foreighners who immigrated into the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]