Blandina and the Martyrs of Lyons
June 2
The stories of the early Christian martyrs, tortured and abused horribly to get them to renounce their faith in Christ, only to have them killed more horribly, whether torn apart by wild beasts or sawn in two, are so familiar to us that, I think, we are somewhat inured to them, deadened to their horror. In fact, we moderns often hear such tales of see in them only a morbid masochistic relishing of suffering for the sake of one’s faith. But if you read the sources of the stories, you often see actually an embarrassment at the gory details and humiliation and shame that was part of the martyrs’ suffering. Their focus is rather the witness of faith of people who firmly follow even to death a crucified, tortured Lord because of their hope in his resurrection and the redemption he offers.
We read one such source in a letter preserved in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, from the churches in southern Gaul, the Roman province that is now France, to the churches in Asia Minor, what is now Turkey. It tells of a terrible persecution of Christians in Lyons (then Lugdunum) in 177 CE. Lugdunum was called the “Rome of Gaul” just as later Lyons was called the Paris of the South, It was an important Roman city that served as the capital of the region around it. It was the birthplace of two emperors, Claudius and Nero. The persecution was set off by an edict from the Roman philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius. Aurelius, a firm advocate of stoic acceptance of the conditions of our life and the obligations they impose, was troubled by the sect of Christians, who he saw as a superstitious and immoral coterie of atheists who rejected the traditional obligations of an upright Roman citizen—sacrificing to the deities that had made Rome great and showing proper respect to the “genius” or guiding spirit of the Roman Emperor. The fact that the group had arisen among slaves, poor people, vagabonds, and strange foreigners and celebrated a man who had died by crucifixion—punishment for insurrection against Rome—and now was making inroads not just among Roman citizens but among the rich and elite as well, alarmed him. So when he heard rumors that these subversives practiced "Thyestean banquets and Oedipean intercourse," i.e., cannibalism (eating the body and drinking the blood of someone) and gross sexual immorality (calling each other brother and sister and then at times marrying each other!), he ordered that they be rooted out and forced to renounce their wickedness. Aurelius, ever the child of privilege and elitism, couldn’t be bothered to actually investigate and determine the truth or falsehood of the stories about these “destroyers of the gods.”
The letter tells the sad tale of the initial exclusion of Christians in Lyons from the communal baths that were the urban Roman’s only place to maintain personal hygiene, the fora or market places, and public events, and how this morphed into increasingly intrusive investigations by a military commander in the absence of the Roman governor where the slaves owned by wealthier Christians were forced under torture to corroborate the rumors of wickedness. Then the arrests of dozens included the 90 year-old bishop of Lyons, a deacon, and about 50 others, including a teen-aged woman slave named Blandina and her owner. About half were Greek-speaking immigrants from Asia Minor, about half native born Romans from Gaul.
According to Eusebius, the detainees sent a young presbyter of the city with a letter to appeal for help from Eleutherus, the bishop of Rome. This young man was Irenaeus, later bishop of Lyon and saint and doctor of the church, one of the first Christian theologians to write in Latin. The pope was unable to help.
When the governor arrived at Lugdunum, he interrogated the detainees in front of the populace again,seeking confirmation from them that they were indeed guilty of the crimes the rumors had spoken about. He ordered such mistreatment and torture that Vettius Epagathus, a man of high social standing, requested permission to testify on behalf of the accused. This request was refused and when further inquiries revealed that Vettius was himself a Christian, governor arrested him to be tortured and killed along with the rest of the Christians.
These Christians endured torture while the authorities continued to apprehend others. Two of their pagan servants were seized and, fearing torture, falsely confirmed that their masters had indeed been guilty of incest and cannibalism.
What followed was the torture of the captive Christians by various horrific means. In the end, all were killed, some of whom had recanted but later returned to the faith. Altogether 48 were killed after suffering horrible torture: having body parts burnt off, whipped and mashed into pulp, or suffocating through compressing too many into small holding cells. Blandina was initially exposed, nailed to a stake, burned on a red hot griddle or chair, and then set out as food for beasts let loose upon her, which declined the prey. Finally she was tied up in a net and thrown before a bull that gored her beyond recognition before she was dispatched with a dagger. She was noteworthy among the martyrs because, despite her youth and frail frame, she suffered it all stoically and quietly, repeating loudly at every opportunity the words, "I am a Christian. We commit none of these wrongdoings."
The witness of these martyrs was in imitation of their Lord and savior. It was not about the suffering they endured, but about the faith they had, faith in a crucified Lord that rose from the dead victorious. Blandina and her companions are celebrated by the church because their witness affirmed the truth of the Lord’s victory. As Tertullian, one of Irenaeus’ contemporaries later wrote, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”
No comments:
Post a Comment