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The Martyrs of Lyons, A.D. 177

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

Edmund Hill O.P.
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Extract

We have a first-hand account of the sufferings oj these martyrs in a letter which the Christians of Lyons, in the south of France, wrote to the churches of Asia Minor, with whom they had historical connections. The letter was quoted at length by the Church historian Eusebius in the fourth century, and a translation of it as he gives it is here presented. The reader will notice that the word ‘confession occurs very often. It is always used in the sense of a confession of faith, and never in the sense of a confession of sins. Besides describing the gruesome torments which the martyrs endured, the writer constantly refers to them in terms from the athletic world. One such phrase which he uses has become a commonplace of Christian language, the phrase ‘a martyr's crown. Nowadays we think of a crown as a king's head’ dress, made of gold and precious stones.

Type
Research Article
Information
Life of the Spirit , Volume 11 , Issue 126 , December 1956 , pp. 270 - 280
Copyright
Copyright © 1956 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

page 271 note 1 Who was not one of those so far arrested.

1 He was probably a barrister, who would be standing near the tribunal among his colleagues.

2 It was in accordance with Roman law to arrest the slaves of accused persons, and examine them under torture to extract evidence against their masters.

1 she was a slave.

1 The stocks, it seems, would be a board with a row of holes in it, and a prisoner's feet Would normally be secured in two adjoining holes; but to cause the maximum Discomfort one leg would be put in the fifth hole from the other.

2 The writer is contrasting ‘breath’ and ‘spirit', Pothinus’ physical and spiritual breathing.

1 God's mercy does not consist merely in the discomfiture of the lapsed, as the writer seems at first to be saying; but in their restoration to grace which he describes much further on.

1 The Church.

2 The Christian religion, cf. Acts 9, 2.

3 This may mean either that he was an officially ordained ‘apostle’ (cf. Eph. 3. 11), i.e. a priest ordained for missionary preaching; or that he enjoyed the special chan the ‘word of wisdom’ (I Cor. 12, 8).

1 We cannot assume that they were natural brother and sister. It is more likely the Writer simple means ‘his sister in the faith'. In the next sentence he clearly has the Mother of Macchabees in mind (II Mace).

1 The Devil.

2 This sentence is just a summary of quite a long section.