Abstract
In an increasingly violent world, where killing in the name of religion continues to elicit repulsion and fascination, not least in India, a return to examine certain incidents of dying in the name of religion and an attempt to understand attendant motivations, inspirations, and anticipated outcomes ought not to be seen as an esoteric exercise. In this chapter, I would like to return to the death of Cyprian of Carthage as the first episcopal martyr in Roman North Africa, on September 14, 258, a death that has been extensively documented and analyzed. This death in the shadow of the empire, in a city that had experienced the brutality of frenzied violence in the aftermath of being on the losing side in power struggles in the ancient Mediterranean world, of a prominent leader of an emerging religion that was increasingly capturing not only the attention but also the adherence of those who found the violent bloody death of the inspirer of this faith to have consequences both in this world and the next, is notable for the calm willingness of its principal actor to accept the gift of death with equanimity, while affirming that this would not be the end but would have consequences for the empires of this world.
I think that the lightning spills out like the tortured guts of a roaring cloud-buffalo, pierced in its belly by the curved end of a rainbow1.
Smoke rose in the garden. God watched from above, and fear walked in the cool of the day2
What was visible to the public was martyrs, and martyrdom was effective.3
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Notes
Jack T. Sanders, Charisma, Converts, Competitors: Societaland Sociological Factors in the Success of Early Christianity (London: SCM Press, 2000), 74.
Charles Kannengiesser, “A Key for the Future of Patristics: The ‘Senses’ of Scripture,” in In Dominico Eloquio—In Lordly Eloquence: Essays on Patristic Exegesis in Honor of Rohert Louis Wilken, ed. Paul M. Blowers, Angela Russell Christman, David G. Hunter, and Robin Darling Young (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 90–106, here on 104.
See, among many possibilities, Arvind Rajagopal, “The Gujarat Experiment and Hindu National Realism: Lessons for Secularism,” in The Crisis of Secularism in India, ed. Anuradha Dingwaney Needham and Rajeswari Sunder Rajan (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2007), 208–224. In this same volume the distinguished doyenne of Indian historiography, Romila Thapar, writes: “The Hindutva version of history was written and expounded generally by nonhistorians— by engineers and computer specialists and by religious organizations. So there has been little understanding of historical method and the complications in handling source material or the theories of historical explanation.” (In her essay, “Secularism, History, and Contemporary Politics in India,” 191–207, here on 197). She also reiterates the chilling reality that religious fundamentalism and globalization go together as seen by fundamentalist religious organizations being funded, financed, and “fueled by a wealthy section of the Indian diaspora that has no intention of returning to India but acts as an incendiary by financing and supporting the politics of religious fundamentalism and violence.” (206–207).An important book dealing with this and related issues is Eric Lott, Religious Faith, Human Identity: Dangerous Dynamics in Global and Indian Life (Bangalore: Asian Trading Corporation, 2005).
Catherine Keller, “The Love of Postcolonialism: Theology in the Interstices of Empire,” in Postcolonial Theologies: Divinity and Empire, ed. Catherine Ketter, Michael Nausner, and Mayra River (St. Louis, MI: Chalice Press, 2004), 221–242, here on 224.
Jean Comaroff, “The End of History, Again? Pursing the Past in the Postcolony,” in Postcolonial Studies and Beyond, ed. Ania Loomba, Suvir Kaul, Matti Bunzl, Antoinette Burton, and Jed Esty (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2006), 125–144, here on 142.
In his article “Imperial Religious Policy and Valerian’s Persecution of the Church, A.D. 257–260,” Christopher J. Haas notes that “it appears that Valerian made a concerted effort not only to revive the worship of the traditional gods throughout the empire but also to reestablish firmly these cults among the influential upper classes in the capital” in Church History 52, no. 2 (1983): 133–144, especially 143. On aspects of the Roman religion and religious practices, see David S. Potter, “Roman Religion: Ideas and Actions,” in Life, Death, and Entertainment in the Roman Empire, ed. D. S. Potter and D. J. Mattingly (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 113–167.
Subtitle of Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (San Franciso, CA: Harper Collins, 1997).
Subtitle of Rodney Stark, Cities of God (New York: Harper One, 2006).
Subtitle of Keith Hopkins, A World Full of Gods (New York: Plume, 2001).
Elizabeth A. Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 41.
On the “Christian relationships to categories of social status” see, for example, David I. Rankin, “Class Distinction as a Way of Doing Church: The Early Fathers and the Christian Plebs,” Vigiliae Christiana 58, no. 3 (2004): 298–315. This article has several references to, and analysis of, Cyprian as a “patron”.
Carole Straw, “Settling Scores: Eschatology in the Church of the Martyrs,” in Last Things: Death and the Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, ed. Caroline Walker Bynum and Paul Freedman (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 21–40, here on 38.
Joyce E. Salisbury, The Blood of Martyrs: Unintended Consequences of Ancient Violence (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), 28. See my review of this book in Religion and Society 51, no. 4 (December 2006): 54–58.
Linda Colley, “The Difficulties of Empire: Present, Past and Future,” Historical Research 79, no. 205 (August 2006): 367–382, here 368.
Réal Fillion, “Moving Beyond Biopower: Hardt and Negri’s Post-Foucauldian Speculative Philosophy of History,” History and Theory 44, no. 4 (December 2005): 47–72, here on 67.
Among many possible examples, see T. N. Madan, “Religions of India: Plurality and Pluralism,” in Religious Plurrxlism in South Asia and Europe, ed. Jamal Malik and Helmut Reifeld (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), 42–76. In the same volume Ashish Nandy writes about the necessity of recognizing that “the larger picture must capture the animosities as well as the amity and locate them within the same cultural world.” In his essay “Telling the Story of Communal Conflicts in South Asia: Interim Report on a Personal Search for Defining Myths,” 298–317, here on 314.
Heikki Räisänen, The Rise of Christian Beliefs: The Thought World of Early Christians (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010), 317–318.
S. N. Balagangadhara, “Now to Speak for the Indian Traditions: An Agenda for the Future,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 73, no. 4 (December 2005): 987–1013, here on 1013.
R. S. Sugirtharajah, Troublesome Texts: The Bible in Colonial and Contemporary Culture (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2008), 145–146.
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© 2012 David Joy and Joseph F. Duggan
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Sebastian, J.J. (2012). “Pierced by the Curved End of a Rainbow”: Decolonizing the Body of the Martyr. In: Joy, D., Duggan, J.F. (eds) Decolonizing the Body of Christ. Postcolonialism and Religions. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137021038_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137021038_3
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