Defining Martyrdom
The word martyr comes from the Greek μάρτυς, meaning 'witness'. In the classical sense, prior to Christianity, reference to the word μάρτυς is found mostly in court proceedings.[1] As an example, Demosthenes (384 - 322 BCE) used the term over 400 times in his defense speeches (for more information on word frequency click here).
In forming my working definition of a martyr I have turned to G. W. Bowersock's book, Martyrdom and Rome. Before the advent of Christianity there were few examples of people who offered themselves up to die for an ideology in opposition to some form of tyrannical oppression. Among these few proto-martyrs were Socrates and the Maccabeans.[1] These courageous 'rebels' seem to have had no certainty about the effect of their death on the world they were leaving behind or on themselves (posthumously). Furthermore, they would not have called themselves martyrs in the sense we understand martyrs today, for martyrdom per se was a concept alien to both Greeks and Jews.[2] Designations of the term martyr to anyone outside the world of the early Christians may be considered, as Bowersock points out, "retrospective constructions of a posterior age''.[3] In other words, the designation of martyr was applied to people like Socrates, Rabi Akiva or other similar figures of antiquity only after the modern notion of martyrdom had been developed.
By the end of the 1st century CE, very early in the Christian tradition, we see examples of martyrdom in the sense we understand it today, as Bowersock clearly argues. Another important aspect which distinguishes early Christian martyrs from protomartyrs according to Bowersock goes beyond their willingness to die: they volunteered to be martyred.[4] The development of this aspect of martyrdom will be discussed in the Martyrdom as Spectacle.
Starting in the second century CE, there seems to have been a shift in the use of the term martyr from referring to a ‘witness’ to meaning someone who voluntarily submits to 'death for a cause'. Christians who were willing to die in order to bear witness of the authenticity of their faith began to be called martyrs in the Christian literature produced from the mid-second century CE on. [5]
For the purposes of this website, I will define martyr as a person who voluntarily submits to a violent death in the hopes of confirming the authenticity of his/her beliefs and of obtaining both posthumous honour and a glorious reward in the afterlife.