What do you think?
Rate this book
Gender, Theory, and Religion
Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making
Martyrs are produced, Elizabeth Castelli suggests, not by the lived experience of particular historical individuals but by the stories that are later told about them. And the formulaic character of stories about past suffering paradoxically serves specific theological, cultural, or political ends in the present. Martyrdom and Memory explores the central role of persecution in the early development of Christian ideas, institutions, and cultural forms and shows how the legacy of Christian martyrdom plays out in today's world.
In the pre-Constantinian imperial period, the conflict between Roman imperial powers and the subject Christian population hinged on competing interpretations of power, submission, resistance, and victory. This book highlights how both Roman and Christian notions of law and piety deployed the same forms of censure and critique, each accusing the other of deviations from governing conventions of gender, reason, and religion. Using Maurice Halbwachs's theoretical framework of collective memory and a wide range of Christian sources―autobiographical writings, martyrologies and saints'lives, sermons, art objects, pilgrimage souvenirs, and polemics about spectacle―Castelli shows that the writings of early Christians aimed to create public and ideologically potent accounts of martyrdom. The martyr's story becomes a "usable past" and a "living tradition" for Christian communities and an especially effective vehicle for transmitting ideas about gender, power, and sanctity.
An unlikely legacy of early Christian martyrdom is the emergence of modern "martyr cults" in the wake of the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School. Focusing specifically on the martyr cult associated with one of the victims, Martyrdom and Memory argues that the Columbine story dramatically expresses the ongoing power of collective memory constructed around a process of rendering tragic suffering redemptive and meaningful. In the wake of Columbine and other contemporary legacies of martyrdom's ethical ambivalence, the global impact of Christian culture making in the early twenty-first century cannot be ignored. For as the last century's secularist hypothesis sits in the wings, "religion" returns to center stage with one of this drama's most contentious yet riveting the martyr.
In the pre-Constantinian imperial period, the conflict between Roman imperial powers and the subject Christian population hinged on competing interpretations of power, submission, resistance, and victory. This book highlights how both Roman and Christian notions of law and piety deployed the same forms of censure and critique, each accusing the other of deviations from governing conventions of gender, reason, and religion. Using Maurice Halbwachs's theoretical framework of collective memory and a wide range of Christian sources―autobiographical writings, martyrologies and saints'lives, sermons, art objects, pilgrimage souvenirs, and polemics about spectacle―Castelli shows that the writings of early Christians aimed to create public and ideologically potent accounts of martyrdom. The martyr's story becomes a "usable past" and a "living tradition" for Christian communities and an especially effective vehicle for transmitting ideas about gender, power, and sanctity.
An unlikely legacy of early Christian martyrdom is the emergence of modern "martyr cults" in the wake of the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School. Focusing specifically on the martyr cult associated with one of the victims, Martyrdom and Memory argues that the Columbine story dramatically expresses the ongoing power of collective memory constructed around a process of rendering tragic suffering redemptive and meaningful. In the wake of Columbine and other contemporary legacies of martyrdom's ethical ambivalence, the global impact of Christian culture making in the early twenty-first century cannot be ignored. For as the last century's secularist hypothesis sits in the wings, "religion" returns to center stage with one of this drama's most contentious yet riveting the martyr.
360 pages, Hardcover
First published September 24, 2004
5 people are currently reading
122 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 12, 2015
I had to read this for a theology class at school. While normally I wouldn't have picked it up just for fun, it was interesting and certainly well researched.
January 16, 2018
The link between classical Christian culture making and the modern incident of Cassie Bernall is particularly illuminating.
January 4, 2014
Castelli's analysis of the cultural and theological making of the memory of martyrdom is an example of careful scholarship that expands into a surprisingly relevant consideration of the contemporary American Protestant Evangelical discourse on martyrdom. The construction of a system of meaning around martyrdom in early Christianity will insert itself into the daily lives of Christians who lauded the stories and carried around the ampullae that likely had Daniel and Thecla portrayed as being thrown ad bestias. The making of memory is an active project, one that construes meaning in events and assigns reputations that dramatically affect others as they embrace these meanings exegetically, theologically, and culturally.
Castelli explores the function of memory in the formation of collective identity in which Christians interpreted sacrifice, spectacle, and gender differently. One fascinating example was how the early Christians rebuked the Greco-Roman lust for spectacle, but would embrace the violence in their own texts in a reinterpreted manner - suffering as salvation that demands an audience: "Christian theory of martyrdom qua sacrifice detached the experience of persecution from the historical context and resituated in a cosmic realm, rendering it meaningful only in a divine register" (56). The malleability of these concepts served to solidify Christian identity.
Ignatius, Perpetua, and Pionius are the three examples Castelli focuses on to consider the function of the martyr's agency and the "self-writing" they engaged in, effectively making their own memorials. Another chapter focuses on Thecla the protomarytr, whose story would morph from its broad roots of a young woman evangelist, baptizer, teacher, recruiter for the army of Christ, miracle worker, virgin, martyr, and apostle into a narrowed binding (resulting from movement from text to artistic representation) of an obviously feminine virgin martyr lacking these other dimensions. One cannot help but note the violence done to Thecla's story as it is swept up in the river of collective identity that would characterize late ancient Christianity.
I must confess, I was not too keen at the outset when I read in the introduction that Castelli would spend some time considering the "martyrdom" story of Cassie Bernall from Columbine. I was, however, surprised at its relevance and how the construction of memory still functions as a catalyst for solidifying the collective Christian memory, in this case, American Protestant Evangelicalism. The best kind of historical analysis reverberated into our present understandings of ourselves.
Castelli explores the function of memory in the formation of collective identity in which Christians interpreted sacrifice, spectacle, and gender differently. One fascinating example was how the early Christians rebuked the Greco-Roman lust for spectacle, but would embrace the violence in their own texts in a reinterpreted manner - suffering as salvation that demands an audience: "Christian theory of martyrdom qua sacrifice detached the experience of persecution from the historical context and resituated in a cosmic realm, rendering it meaningful only in a divine register" (56). The malleability of these concepts served to solidify Christian identity.
Ignatius, Perpetua, and Pionius are the three examples Castelli focuses on to consider the function of the martyr's agency and the "self-writing" they engaged in, effectively making their own memorials. Another chapter focuses on Thecla the protomarytr, whose story would morph from its broad roots of a young woman evangelist, baptizer, teacher, recruiter for the army of Christ, miracle worker, virgin, martyr, and apostle into a narrowed binding (resulting from movement from text to artistic representation) of an obviously feminine virgin martyr lacking these other dimensions. One cannot help but note the violence done to Thecla's story as it is swept up in the river of collective identity that would characterize late ancient Christianity.
I must confess, I was not too keen at the outset when I read in the introduction that Castelli would spend some time considering the "martyrdom" story of Cassie Bernall from Columbine. I was, however, surprised at its relevance and how the construction of memory still functions as a catalyst for solidifying the collective Christian memory, in this case, American Protestant Evangelicalism. The best kind of historical analysis reverberated into our present understandings of ourselves.
July 1, 2013
I mostly focus on the Hebrew Bible, so this book was a bit out of my comfort zone, but it was totally worth the time and effort. Castelli explores the role that collective memory plays in the discourse surrounding Christian martyrs, focusing heavily on Thecla and Perpetua. She also includes a very interesting chapter on the cult of martyrs that sprung up after the shootings at Columbine High School. This book has so many great insights into the role discourse plays in how we shape and retell events in order to provide them with meaning. You should read it.
May 1, 2011
Enjoyed reading this book for Christianity class at York College of PA. Link below is a personal review of the book and what I learned from reading it.
http://girlboxer1970.com/2011/05/01/m...
http://girlboxer1970.com/2011/05/01/m...
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews