Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making

MARTYRDOM AND MEMORY: EARLY CHRISTIAN CULTURE MAKING. By Elizabeth A. Castelli. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2004. Pp. x-vii + 335. Cloth, $40.00.

In a global context of growing interest in the intersection of religion and violence, Elizabeth Castelli's new book examines the origins of Christianity's own understanding of martyrdom and reveals the ideological work that martyrdom does in Christian memory and its role in the creation of Christian identity. Castelli succeeds brilliantly in her aim to reveal the way martyrdom constructed a new ideology of Christian suffering that inverted and subverted Roman notions of civic duty, honor, and justice. Furthermore, she demonstrates dearly that this ideology continues to be enlisted (often ironically) in contemporary America to buttress evangelical claims to be the persecuted minority and to justify waging war on others.

Castelli opens (Introduction and Chapter One) by introducing us to recent work on collective memory--its formation, its social and cultural functions, and its role in "meaning-making," especially with respect to how people identify with the memories of past martyrs. Drawing extensively on the work of Maurice Halbwachs, she writes that "memory is a social construction, the product of the individual's interaction with his or her group" (p. 11). Through the process of being retold, preserved, and ritualized, collective memories provide "the conceptual and cognitive constraints that render past experience meaningful in and for present contexts" (p. 12). In the end, the "reality" of the events described in martyrologies is less important than the constructed memory of what happened. In fact, she demonstrates that the memory of the events themselves is fluid and open to different interpretations and perceptions. Repeated retelling, however, and ritual re-inscription fix the narratives, endowing them with a "truth" that is removed from the event's historical occurrence.

In Chapter Two, Castelli examines the ideological framing of martyr narratives, demonstrating the multiple strategies deployed to present the events in a cosmic framework and to give them meaning. Here Castelli begins to explore the conflicting worldviews of Roman civil authorities and Christian martyrs, showing how the martyrs' willing embrace of an ignominious death was perceived by the Christian audience as a heroic victory and demonstration of manly endurance. Conceptions of gender and constructions of social power and prestige were thus manipulated and subverted in Christian narratives of martyrdom.

In Chapter Three, Castelli demonstrates how the concern fur memory and fur the formation of a usable past concerned at least some of the martyrs themselves, who chose to write their own stories and to some extent shape the narrative that would be told. This conscious "self-writing" of the early martyrs serves as a useful correction of Foucault's work on this theme among fourth-century monastics.

Chapter Four examines the performative function of martyrdom as one stage on which Romans and Christians battled over fundamental social values. Castelli begins by identifying the ideological function of spectacles in imperial Rome, especially the arena where Roman social hierarchies and power structures were displayed and confirmed. She astutely demonstrates how Christian martyrs, by choosing to die an ignominious death, subverted the Roman justice system and revalorized humiliating death as a vanquishing of Rome's power and a heroic triumphing over evil. In this way, Christians harnessed the power of the visual for their own propagandistic purposes.

Chapter Five considers the transmission and transformation of the story of an almost-martyr, Thecla. In the earliest account of her story, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, Theda is not actually martyred but miraculously saved, and becomes an apostle and itinerant ascetic. Over time, this element of her story is lost, and she is increasingly configured as a highly feminized martyr. This transformation demonstrates both the fluid nature of "memory" and the ability of martyrologies to conform to the social needs of the moment.

In a final interesting and provocative chapter, Castelli discusses the "martyrdom" of Cassie Bernal, a victim of the 1999 Columbine shootings, showing that recent "history" too can be contested, configured, and constructed in the process of "meaning-making" for the collective memory of a group. The Epilogue closes the book on a powerful and compelling note, addressing the events of September 11, 2001 and reflecting on the discourses of violence, power, and martyrdom.

One minor point of constructive critique: Castelli could have been more sensitive to the plurality of early Christianity in the years that she covers. Too often she discusses "Christianity" or "the Christian worldview" without adequately acknowledging that there were at that time competing forms of Christianity, some of which did not accept the sacrificial understanding of Christ's death preached by Paul and consequently may not have viewed martyrdom as a pious imitation of Christ. For these Christians a different transcript was being followed. Of course, the view that she documents became the dominant one.