Acts of the Martyrs: Difference between revisions

'''Acts of the Martyrs''' (Latin '''''Acta Martyrum''''') are accounts of the suffering and death of a [[Christian martyr]] or group of martyrs,these[[martyr]]s. These accounts were collected and used in church liturgies from early times as attested by [[Augustine of Hippo|Saint Augustine]].<ref name="ODCC self">"Acts of the Martyrs." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005</ref>

These accounts vary in authenticity,. theThe most reliable are from accounts of trials, but very few of thesethem have survived. Perhaps the best example is the account of [[Cyprian and Justina|Saint Cyprian]]. The account of the [[Scillitan Martyrs]] is also based on trial records, thoughalthough some claim it has been embellished with miraculous and apocryphal material.<ref name="ODCC self"/>

A second category, the Passiones, is based on eyewitness accounts. These include the martyrdoms of [[Saint Ignatius of Antioch]], [[Martyrdom of Polycarp|Saint Polycarp]], the Martyrs of Lyons, the famous ''[[Saints Perpetua and Felicitas|Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas]]'', and the Passion of Saint Irenaeus. In these accounts, miraculous elements are restricted, arestricted—a feature that proved unpopular, and werewas often later embellished with legendary material.<ref name="ODCC self"/>

A related form of writing werewas [[chivalric romance]]s, either written around a few real facts whichthat have been preserved in popular or literary tradition, or alternatively pure works of the imagination containing no real facts whateverwhatsoever. Nonetheless, romances were written with the intention of edifying andrather notthan deceiving the reader. Romances can be contrasted with hagiographical forgeries - (Acts, Passions, Lives, Legends, and Translations) which have been written with the express purpose of perverting history, such as the legends and translations falsely attaching a saint's name to a given church or city. These were meant to edify and not instruct, and were meant to be read as romances and not as history.<ref name=Bridge>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09742b.htm Bridge, James. "Acts of the Martyrs." The Catholic Encyclopedia] Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910 {{PD-notice}}</ref>

The expression '''Acta martyrumMartyrum''' in generalgenerally applies to all narrative texts about the deathdeaths of the martyrs, but it possesses a more precise and restricted meaning, when referring, in technical terms, to the official records of the processes and convictionconvictions. These official records were [[shorthand]]s and were transcribed by the officials of the court chancery (''notarius exceptor'') to be preserved in its archives;. becauseDue ofto this relationship with the court of the [[proconsul]], they were also called "proconsulares" (''Acta proconsularia''). Once the distinction is made, the name of the act is reserved for the verbal processes (such as Acta martyrumMartyrum Scyllitanorum), while thefor references relating to the martyrs, the name of passio is applied, in all of its diverse formforms (gestaGesta, martyrium, legendaLegenda). Such a distinction is also justified by the different purpose and nature of both typetypes of documents: the records are destitute of all [[Hagiography|hagiographic]] character, while the Passionspassions are characterized by their purpose and edifying religious sense. Nonetheless, it is necessary to add that in the group of records is included some texts containing narrative parts alien to the verbal process, but of equal historical and documentary value (''Acta-Passio SS. Perpetuae et Felicitatis'', for example).

InThe any case, the preservepreserved records are small,limited ofto about a dozen fragments, so that most of the narrative texts about the martyrs are the Passions. The shortagescarcity of official records and direct documentingdocumentation has been controversial. The old Christian communities had a great interest in maintaining the memory of their martyrs, as it is proven by the news referenced in the story of the martyrdom of [[Polycarp]] (m. 156),<ref name=Quaten2004>«...probably the 22 of 156..». (Quasten 2004:86).{{Ref|Quasten2004|Quasten2004|1}}</ref> whose memory werewas venerated annually in [[Izmirİzmir]].{{Ref|Note3|note3}} [[St. Cyprian of Carthage|Cyprian]] useused to recommend his clerics to take detailed notenotes of the deathdeaths of the martyrs;.{{Ref|Note4|note4}} These valuable testimonies were also the oldest news about the cult of the martyrs. According to what is known to date, there is no precise idea of upthe extent to what degreewhich Christians use to transcribetranscribed the records of the processes; it is, undoubtedly, very likely that some of those who witnessed the development of stenography in their text, in the same manner as the ''notarius'' of the court, and they gave it to the community for preservation in the archives of the [[Christian Church|church]]. This hypothesis seems to be confirmed by the details and notes of the judge or the martyr and seemseems to interrupt the rigid [[Protocol (diplomacy)|protocol]] form. InOn the other hand, it did not prove easy for Christian to obtain copies of the verbal processes that were saved in the proconsular archive,; for which inon occasion, large sums had to be paid.{{Ref|Note5|Note5}}. No precedents have been preserved that allow us to know if the Church of [[Rome]], which had organized a section of notaries, took the initiative of collecting the records of its martyrs, nor is the news that [[Julius Africanus]] did a similar task as far as Rome is concerned, trustworthy.{{Ref|Note6|note6}} The informationInformation about the other communities is still less certain.

Anyhow,During the shortagepersecutions of thisDiocletian typethere ofmust documentationhave canbeen bea explained in part by thewholesale destruction ordered by [[Diocletian]] in the year 303 of thedocuments.<ref sacred books that existed in the churches and that would have affected the records equally.name=Bridge/> There are no traces suggesting that the churches got involved in restoring the heritage of the destroyed hagiographic texts after the persecution ended. The events of later centuries, such as the western [[Germanic Wars|Germanic invasions]] in the fifth (V) and sixth (VI) centurycenturies, may have consummated the irreparable loss of the writings still preserved.

Given the enormous number of hagiographic texts and the heterogeneous nature of their origin, authority, and value, critics have proposed a classification to guide their study. It has been observed in the first place that a classification of the texts based on the criterion of the authenticity of the martyr or the legitimacy of his [[Cult (religious practice)|cult]] is not valid or useful. ASimilarly, a classification based on extrinsic characteristics, such as the one that divides the hagiographic documents in ''Acta, Passiones, Vitae, Miracula, Translationes,'' etc., also lacks value, according to the object of the story. Neither does the classification meet the demands of criticism<ref name=Grossi-Gondi1919>Cf.(Grossi-Gondi1919:1).{{ref|Grossi-Gondi1919|Grossi-Gondi1919}}</ref> of two large groups, contemporary documents, and subsequent documents, since it does not express anything about the value of the document. The safest criterion, is the oneas indicated by [[Hippolyte Delehaye]],<ref name=Delehaye1955>Cf. ''Les legendes hagiographiques, 3 ed., III.'' {{ref|Delehaye1955|Delehaye1955}}</ref> which is based on the degree of sincerity and historicity offered by the literary genre of the document.

# TheyOne Understandgrouping shows the verbal processes contained in official relations preceding the proconsular archives or direct transcriptions, such as the S. Cypriani Act, for example.

# TheyAnother groupgrouping togethercontains accounts of eyewitnesses or trustworthy contemporaries, whether they are direct testimonies, testimonies of other people or of a mixed type, such as De martyribus Palaestinae by [[Eusebius|Eusebius of Cesarea]].

# TheyA containthird contains narrations from which an information or a document can be extracted from one of the two preceding groups, such as the ''Menologion'' of [[Symeon the Metaphrast|Symeon Metaphrast]].

# TheyThis covergroup allcovers thoseall stories that lack a historical basis, except for the name of the sepulcher, and the cult of the martyr -like the Passio S. Felicitatis.

# TheyOne are made upconsists of purely fantastic stories, authentic products of the imagination, such as the ''Passio S. Nicephori''.{{Ref|Note7|note7}}

# TheyThe final group comprises narrations of legendary charactercharacters that falsify the historical truth and can be defined as false.

IfConsidering the elements that distinguish the six groups are considered, it is possible to verify that the first and the second refer to a uniform type of textstext because of the contemporary and direct nature of the information; the next two contain stories, based in varying degrees, on at least partially secure data; the last two, on the other hand, are true fantasies without a historical basis.

MaintainingFollowing the same criteria as Delehaye, the texts can be classified into three simpler groups:

* The official records and the accounts of direct testimonies.

Except for the records, all of the narrative documents mentioned above offer, from a literary point of view, common characters, since they are all the result of an elaboration and compositional process typical of hagiographic literature; the tendency to the schematic form has a remote origin, whose trace already manifested in ancient texts, close to the type and narrative sincerity, of the same record. This has happened, for example, in the ''Martyrium Polycarpi'', in which it is possible to recognize the attempt of the hagiographer to assimilate the death of the martyr to that of Christ.{{Ref|Note8|note8}} This theme, of the martyr who imitates Christ, appears already in the first Christian writers.{{Ref|Note9|note9}} When subsequently, from the fourth century on, certain patterns or essential criteria are fixed, the hagiographers adopt certain narrative characteristics that become the literary genre of the ''passions''.

In the first place, the legal tone of the Roman criminal process ofin the first records has been preserved; sometimes even some of the passions make reference to it, showing how, on more than one occasion, the lost records served as sources. The introductory formula of the consular date of the records preservepreserves the indication of the [[Roman emperor|emperor]], [[Roman governor|governor]] or proconsul, even in historically erroneous cases. The phases of the procedure, arrestprocedure—arrest, appearance, interrogation, [[torture]], [[Judgment (law)|judgment]] and torment are preservetorment—preserve and constitute the structure of the narrative; likewise, the protagonists, usually few in number, of the ancient records are preserved: the martyr, the judge or magistrate, and the [[executioner]]; in the second place, the Christian spectators who animate their companion; and, finally, the hostile mass of the [[Paganism|pagans]]. On a similar scheme, the evolutionary process of the passions develops (throughout the centuries IV to XX), with successive enrichments and formal improvements, including fantasies, common places, and errors, due to both ignorance and blind piety of the hagiographers. These unsubstantiated relationships can be broken down like this:

* The figure of the persecutor was typified inas the cruelest of those known and traditionally considered as such: [[Decius]], [[Valerian (emperor)|Valerian]] and Diocletian; and the same happened with the figure of the governor (praeses, proconsularis), who was often called Anulinus, a historical figure of the fourth century.

* The martyr was made to pronounce controversial discourses, plagiarizing the content of other works, generally of the [[Patristic|apologetic]] writings, addressed to the pagans or against [[Heresy|heresies]].

Dispensing from the first records collected, which are incomplete and that are already considered lost, it can be said that the first [[compiler]] was [[Eusebius|Eusebius of Cesarea]], of whom the title of the writing of martyribus is known,{{Ref|Note10|note10}} which unfortunately has been lost;. On the other hand, ''Martyribus Palestinae'' is preserved.{{Ref|Note11|note11}} This was the only collection known in Rome during the sixth century, in the time of [[Pope Gregory I|St. Gregory the Great]], as the [[Pope]] himself informed the [[bishop]] and [[patriarch]] of [[Alexandria]], Eulogio, who had requested documentation about the collections of gesta''Gesta martyrumMartyrum''.{{Ref|Note12|note12}} AlmostAt atalmost the same time, a great [[martyrology]] was forming, called jeronimianoJeronimiano, with the commemorations of all the martyrs, which grouped the oldest martyrologies of the churches. This fact is important, because the compilation of many of the passions is intimately related to this martyrology, which served as a starting point. Later, parallel to the disclosure of the narratives of the gesta''Gesta martyrumMartyrum'', there was thea need to synthesize them ininto succinct stories, including themthose in the most known martyrologies at that time;: those composed by [[Bede|Saint Bede the Venerable]] in the eighth century and [[Florus of Lyon]], [[Atto of Pistoia|Atto]] and [[Usuard]] in the ninth century. These had at their disposal the data of the passions and adapted them to the liturgical commemoration of the calendar; some of them, especially Adón, had no critical concern and used the texts without evaluating them, confusing and distorting data and news. Because of such information, these medieval martyrologies were called ''historical martyrologies''.

Something similar happened in the [[Eastern Christianity|Eastern Church]], where the numerous passions were collected in abbreviated form in the liturgical books, for example, in the saints (''menaea''), in which an appointment was introduced for each day of the 12 months of the year an appointment about the life and martyrdom of the saint. The same happened with the [[Menologium|menologies]] (''menology''), also divided into 12 volumes, corresponding to the 12 months of the year; in them the passions are synthesized in a more extensive way than in the preceding ones. In the tenth century, Symeon the Metaphrast composed a menology, reading, transcribing, and adapting fragments of ancient passions, some of which only survive through him. During the [[Middle Ages|Late Middle Ages]], numerous collections of Lives of Saints, Passionists, Legendaries, etc. were made, which are still found in various [[codex|codices]] of European libraries; others, on the other hand, were recast arbitrarily in other compilations later printed and translated in vulgar language; thus constituting a copious literature that reaches until the [[Renaissance]].

TheIt mostis arduous problem concerning the ''Acta martyrum'' isdifficult to determine itsthe authenticity, the historical value that at least in part contains and often hidesof the numerous''Acta texts, whose analysis is far from being concludedMartyrum''. The first attempt to determine the authentic records iswas owed to the [[Orderthat of Saint Benedict|Benedictine]] [[Thierry Ruinart]], who collected and published 117 texts that he considered genuine. {{Ref|Note13|note13}} ItsThese originwere andnot valueof wereequal not homogeneousprovenance, since only 74 numbers contained the text of the passions, while the rest were paragraphs and fragments taken from old Christian writers, like Eusebio, [[John Chrysostom]], [[Basil of Caesarea|Basil]] and even [[Prudentius]], of whose hymns had extracted paragraphs relative toabout the martyrs [[Hippolytus of Rome]] and [[Saint Lawrence]]. It is true that inIn most cases they are historical figures, but the selection of the texts was not carried out under a uniform or safe criterionsystematic, nor was it accompanied by a critical analysis. The Benedictine, who had a rather vague idea of the purpose of its collection, only intended to make known the oldest and most trustworthy document for each of the martyrs, with the intention of excluding falsified documents.<ref name=Delehaye1955/>

In 1882, Edmond-Frederic Le Blant had the idea to continue and complete the compilation of Ruinart and added another group of records, which he considered authentic by the adequacy of the narrative with the Roman legal phrases.<ref>Cf. <<Les actes des martyrs. Supplement aux Acta sincera de dom Ruinart>> en ''Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres'' 30 (1882), part 2.</ref> The criterion of Le Blant is not firm and shows once again thehow complexitydifficult ofit theis criticalto work aimed at establishing the authenticauthenticate records; the various authentic acta''Acta martyrumMartyrum'' lists, which other authors have sketched or compiled later,<ref name=Grossi-Gondi1919/> do not represent the result of a rigorous and scientific analysis, but rather are insignificant retouchingsamendments of Ruinart's work.

With much greater seriousness, although very slowly, they are occupied with these works according to an organic plan by the Bollandists. In recent years, a series of principles and norms of hagiographic criticism have been exposed in relation to the records by several specialists, such as, H. Achelis, J. Geffken, and [[Adolf von Harnack|A. Harnack]], in Germany; P. Allard, and J. Leclercq, in [[France]]; the [[Society of Jesus|Jesuit]] F. Grossi-Gondi, Fr.Luigi Lanzoni, and Pio Franchi de 'Cavalieri, in [[Italy]]. The most valuable contribution, however, is due to the bolandist H. Delehaye, from whose writings it would be possible to extract a critical summulasummation. IheHe has contributed, in effect, the safest classification of the records; Hehe has pointed out the various components of a martyr's dossier,; he has reconstructed the iteriteration of the legend, underliningunderscoring the special function of the massa and local traditions; Hehe has studied hagiographic documents parallel to the narrative texts, such as martyrologies and synaxes,; and he has established the different value of literary, liturgical, and monumental sources, specifically establishing that of chronological and topographical data (doctrine of hagiographic coordinates). In summary, he has outlined and perfected the discipline of the method.

It has been said, with a certain air of reproach, that the hagiographic criticism has been interested until the present, almost exclusively in the problems related to the authenticity and chronology of the document, neglecting the social aspect and the environment in which it was written;, aspectaspects that in turn helpshelp determine the same chronology. It has been insisted, therefore, on the need to "identify the cultural and religious concepts expressed in the document and establish a reference to the social environment where the text comes from and to which it is addressed".<ref name=Pezzella1953>S. Pezzalla, o. c. in bibl., 32.{{ref|Pezzella1953|Pezzella1953}}</ref>

:1.{{Note|Note1}} forFor example Esteban (Hch 7, 54) or Antipas (Ap 2, 13).

:5.{{Note|note5}} Cf. ''Passio Probi, Tarachi et Andrinici'', BHG 1574.

:13.{{Note|note13}} Cf. ''Acta Primorum martyrum sincera'', Paris 1689.

* BHG, 3 ed., Brussels 1957

* Schwerd, A. (1960). ''Lateinische Märtyrerakten'', Munich. BHL, 2, Brussels 1898–1901.

* Owen, E.C.E. (ed) (1927). [http://early.xpian.info/eng/someauthenticactsoftheearlymartyrs.html ''Some Authentic Acts of the Early Martyrs'']. Oxford: Clarendon Press.