Robin Fox and the Martyr Acts
For the most part a critical scholar, when dealing with the Martyr Acts Fox can exhibit romantic naivity - even gullibility. He tells us, for example, that "a select few ot the Christian (martyr) texts were the work of eyewitnesses and even... of martyrs themselves. They have a range of detail and frank expression which makes them priceless evidence for perceptions of the trials and prisons of their time..," and then immediately adds:
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"Martyrs endured appalling tortures and succumbed to the beasts in the arena, horrors which Christian narrators did not evade. But they did not suffer, enjoying 'anaesthesia' and an 'analresic state.' They were 'not harmed' by the flames at the stake: their faces 'glowed.' their bodies 'regained' the bloom of youth. Their visions of Paradise and their scenes of death evoked a contrasting joy and trenquillity." (438) |
And one suspects that Fox lives in an imaginary world.
Fox gives the example of the letters written by confessors from prison to Cyprian (440):
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"They derived from simple Christians in prison while they awated their deaths... They were eager, they wrote, to 'quit man in order to stand among angels,' to 'become the colleague of Christ in suffering' . . . Simple men, they quoted text upon text from the Gospel's promises..." |
As if such "simple men" could read and write.
And Fox also raises up the example of the confessor Lucian in Carthage's prison (440):
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"The confessors in Carthage, it is said, were crammed into two inner dungeons and left to die from thirst and hunger and overcrowding. For nearly two weeks, Lucian had been suffering. For five days before writings his letter, he had only had scraps of bread and water. For a further eight days, he had endured total starvation in close confinement. Yet he still wrote and upheld the common ideals." |
How could Lucian still write when he was as good as dead? How could he obtain writing materials. And being in "close confinement," how did he post his letter?
Later, however, Fox can say,
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"Like tales of escape from a prison camp, martyrdoms were compulsive listening because so many in their audience has evaded their fate and artfully stayed put. Tales of voluntary martyrdom thus belonged in the early literature of overachievement. They were ascribed to heroes and heroines in the fictitious 'Acts' of Apostles: like their teaching on sex and marriage, they were the ideals of extremists, exceeding sensible leader's opinion." (445) |
But it is unclear why he regards the martyr stories in the Apostle Acts as "fictitious," thus distinguishimng them from other martyr acts (e.g., Polycarp) - although almost all Christian historians make such a distinction.
Fox's entire discussion is determined by two presuppositions which conflict with one another and thus cause him to struggle mightily to produce a meaningful historical picture of persecutions and martyrdom in early Christianity. One is the assumption that the Pliny-Trajan correspondance is authentic. And the other is that the Christian martyr "Acts" are basically reliable historical accounts of actual events. The problem he struggles with is the question of why Christians were persecuted at all. And neither of these sources illuminate this question; on the contrary, they make the entire matter very complicated.
Fox trusts the reliability of the martyr legends, even though the only such stories we have were related by Christians. "Our stories of interrogations are all Christian stories, the soundest of which were slimmed down to a dialogue in a 'protocol' style." The argument that such stories represent "slimmed down" versions of what really took place, however, is simply a way of explaining why so much significant information is missing, not the least of which would be the accusations made against Christians and the identity of their accusers.
For Fox, such stories are of historical value because "Even if they were shaped for a Christian audience, they had to seem plausible." (421) With regard to the death of Conon, Fox observes (p. 483) that this story is perhaps fictional... But then tells us that "even if his text is essentially a fiction, it had to seem plausible..." But plausibility by itself is no mark of historicity. Why would someone write a fictional story that didn't seem plausible? A "plausible" story may be nothing more than a completely fictional account that nevertheless reflects what people believe really took long ago.
Fox observes that "the majority of martyrs' trials, as described by Christian contemporaries, do not confirm to the spirit of Trajan's ruling. Only twice do they show accusers as well as Christians before a governer's tribunal." (p. 424) Instead of thinking this strange, however, Fox attempts an explanation. We are told that "their stories may omit the prosecutors and focus deliberately on the martyrs," or with regard to Christian reports of being 'hunted down', that "there is a tension here between the Emperor's rescripts and the practice of governors who had the general duty of seeing to their provinces' peace and quiet... Their overriding concern was order, and the discrepancy need not surprise us. The ban on 'hunting' could never be absolute.." And from this perspective, Fox can even couclude that these possibly fictional stories, which he is attempting to authenticate, "are our best sources for governors' police troops in action." (424)
The real problem, however, concerns the reasons why Christians were persecuted. Fox observes that "there is a gap in the Christians' own narratives: no early source of martyrdom explains the origin of a city's persecuting fervour." Undeterred, however, he assures us that "we can imagine good reasons." (p. 424). "As early as 64, it was plausible to accuse Christians of morally outrageous conduct." In addition, they were accused of "atheism"-refusal to respect pagan religions, which might bring various forms of misfortune on the community.
As to why Christians were persecuted, Fox explains:
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Christians disturbed the peace of a province, and detracted from the gods' honours and most governors would agree that 'atheists' might provoke anger in heaven. If many governors in the second century had been asked to be more precise, one suspects they would simply have said that Christians were Christians; they had been persecuted elsewhere, and precedent required governors to take up accusations and persecute them again, without too much thought for the niceties." (428) |
But Fox himself then observes that "these conclusions risk becoming circular, as if Christians were persecuted because they were Christians" (428) -- which, of course, seems to be the precise reason why Christians were executed under Trajan, for whom we are told that the nature of their crime was "their 'name' as Christians..." (427)