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Martyrdom as Witness in Late Ancient Christian Literature

By (author) Virginia Burrus

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'Witness' is not merely an etymological trace but central to late ancient Christian understandings of martyrdom. Drawing on dual traditions of elite parrhesia, or free speech, and the torture of enslaved witnesses, martyrs testified through their suffering and deaths to their own worthiness, the tyrannical violence inflicted upon them, and the possibility of a more just world. Literature became the medium of this threefold witness. This study offers close readings of well-known martyrdom accounts from the period before the Great Persecution, including Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs, Acts of Justin, Letter of the Martyrs of Vienne and Lyons, Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas, Martyrdom of Polycarp, and Acts of Thecla. It highlights recurring themes of interrogation, torture, contest, sacrifice, and sexual violence, showing how these texts reflect on questions of power and agency, and concludes with an exploration of their contemporary relevance through the art of Kehinde Wiley.