Bishop Martyrs: Authority and Suffering in the Second Century CE

Although studies of early Christian martyrs have blossomed in recent decades, surprisingly there exists no comprehensive study of bishop martyrs, despite the large number of martyrs who occupied positions of leadership within the church. This dissertation fills that gap in scholarship by providing a study of the earliest bishop martyrs, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, and Pothinus of Lyons, who all died in the second century CE. Since bishops and martyrs were both viewed as possessors of considerable authority, this dissertation probes the intersection of suffering and authority in memorializations of second-century bishop martyrs.

Part I of the dissertation (chapters 2–4) provides an overview of memorializations of leaders’ deaths within ancient Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian literature, in which the leaders’ deaths were remembered as providing special benefits to others. These “effective deaths” include, among others, the Roman devotio ritual, the Greek φαρμακός ritual and myth, the Jewish martyrs of 2 and 4 Maccabees, Jesus’s death, and Paul’s suffering and anticipated death. These chapters provide concepts and themes that influence subsequent Christian memorializations of the bishop martyrs.

Part II (chapters 5–7) analyzes Ignatius, Polycarp, and Pothinus in light of the material studied in Part I. The analysis centers on several themes: (1) What kind of authority is given to the bishop martyr in the writings connected with his death? (2) What benefits does the bishop’s martyrdom bring to others? (3) How is the bishop’s martyrdom portrayed as imitation of Christ? (4) What benefits does the bishop’s martyrdom bring to himself? (5) What happens to the bishop martyr’s authority after death?

This dissertation finds commonalities among the memorializations of Ignatius, Polycarp, and Pothinus. All three are remembered for effective deaths in the mold of those studied in Part I: dying to unite, protect, and strengthen the Catholic Church, opposing false teaching and apostasy, and solidifying the teaching role of the episcopal office. Finally, as a foundation from which Irenaeus argues for apostolic succession of the episcopacy, their memory is used to form a lasting contribution to the growth of episcopal power.