IN the New Testament righteous (innocent) suffering is of two types, (i) General suffering is to be expected by all Christians, since it is the lot of the righteous to be persecuted by the wicked. This form of suffering is not necessarily brought upon Christians by their faith. Christian slaves, for example, may suffer illtreatment from their masters, not because their masters hate Christians but simply because their masters are harsh and badtempered (i Peter 2: 18–21). This kind of suffering is shared equally by Jewish and Gentile Christians and is inflicted by both Jewish and Gentile enemies. (2) The suffering of Jewish messengers to Israel belongs to a separate class, because it derives from a special form of wickedness which is peculiar to Israel. Thus, the Maccabean martyrs provide prototypes for the suffering of the first category but not for that of the second. Confusion at this point vitiates the otherwise excellent study of H. A. Fischel. While we may agree with Fischel, p. 382, that ‘in the Tannaitic period, a far-reaching identification of the prophet with the martyr had taken place, i.e., every prophet had to suffer or die, and every martyr was in possession of prophetic powers, both being almost angelic figures’, we must insist that identification of the two types in terms of the way the martyrdoms are narrated must not be confused with identification of the meaning of the suffering of the prophet with that of the non-prophetic martyr. The ordinary Jewish martyr suffers at the hands of foreigners, the prophet at the hands of his own people.