Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Clivedurdle · 09-10-2005, 02:35 AM

This comments:

Quote:

DID EARLY CHRISTIANS "LUST AFTER DEATH"?
A New Wrinkle in the Doctor-Assisted Suicide Debate
by Darrel W. Amundsen and Joni Eareckson Tada

Summary

Studies of suicide typically classify martyrdom as suicide. This, coupled with theological and historical ignorance, results in depictions of early Christians as morbidly obsessed with death and prone to take their own lives if unable to provoke pagans to kill them. This position is reflected in a Michigan judge’s recent ruling in the case of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Liberal theologians have now so amplified the misinformation that one advocate of doctor-assisted suicide exclaims, on the dust jacket of a recent publication, "This book will upset traditional Christian views about the right to choose to die." As states consider legalizing doctor-assisted suicide, the historical distortions that have now become part of the legal record in the Kevorkian case may well become a factor in public discussion and debate.

I found this with a google search for Durkheim Suicide Martyrdom which also highlighted this about Dante's Cato.

Quote:

The Cato of Purgatorio 1, I argue here, figures as the embodiment of that paradoxical medieval creation, the “crusade martyr.�? My evidence inheres in the relationships that the Commedia forges between Cato, Ulysses, and Moses, and in the circumstances of the Utican's death, by which this pagan suicide achieves salvation.

This latter point might seem startling, and will occupy us first: for is suicide really congruent with “martyrdom�?? The City of God 1.16-27 and Inferno 13 might suggest not. But thinkers ranging from Augustine himself through Thomas More to Durkheim (even those who do not assent to the eighteenth-century philosopher William Godwin's claim, immediately after considering the instance of Cato, that “martyrs are suicides by the very signification of the term�?) have recognized that the two categories are inextricably related. 1 Eusebius attributed martyrdom to suicides;2 and Augustine, who condemned Cato's act ( City of God 1.23), connects pagan suicide and Christian martyrdom: “The Decii devoted themselves to death … so that the anger of the gods might be appeased by the bloodshed as they fell, and the Roman army might be saved. In view of that act, the holy martyrs have no cause for boasting.�?3 Dante extended this connection when he referred to “sacratissime victime Deciorum�? in the sentence that also praises “illud inenarrabile sacrifitium severissimi vere libertatis auctoris Marci Catonis�? ( Monarchia 2.5.15).

If Dante is exploiting this fluidity of the borders between “suicide�? and “martyrdom,�? Purgatorio 1 is intelligible; if not, it remains needlessly obscure. The judgments by Giuseppe Mazzotta and John Scott that the guardian of Dante's Purgatory suffered “a veritable martyrdom�? at Utica , then, are reasonable, historically well grounded, and perhaps even necessary for any coherent response to this episode.4

Perhaps more troubling than this martyr's suicide is his homicide . For the one fundamental characteristic of martyrdom as traditionally conceived is its passivity (as in the instance of St. Stephen: Purg . 15.106-14). But, observes Ernst Kantorowicz, “in the thirteenth century the crown of martyrdom began to descend on the war victims of the secular state,�? a context within which he places Dante's discussion of Cato in the Monarchia . 5 “Pugna pro patria,�? urges a distich attributed in the Middle Ages to Cato, one widely employed in defense of medieval wars, both secular and holy. 6 Furthermore, Cato's roles in the Commedia point particularly to the crusade as the context of Cato's active martyrdom......

Martyrdom looks like suicide to me, and cult of death sounds a reasonable description of xianity. Is it?

Nero's Boot · 09-10-2005, 07:24 AM

Well, Christians worship a man who basically committed "suicide by cop."

--so, if Jesus committed suicide, I really dunno why Christians abhor suicide so fricking much NB

andrewcriddle · 09-10-2005, 08:50 AM

For a useful discussion I think one has to distinguish two claims.

a/ Anyone who dies rather than renounce his beliefs is a suicide by definition.

b/ Many (but not all) putative martyrs are given the detailed circumstances really suicides because of the way thay deliberately provoked the authorities to kill them.

a/ Is a claim about how words should be used.

b/ Is a (somewhat dubious) claim about empirical events.

Andrew Criddle

Chili · 09-10-2005, 09:20 AM

The difference between martydom and suicide is that martys died their second death while suicides die both first and second death.

The first death leads to eternal life which takes place in purgatorio from where the suffering servant enters the thousand year reign to make it eternal. A martyr may well choose the end this as a testamony to the faith . . . for, after all, it is their City of God whence it came (the Church is the Yew tree that bore this fruit which here now is returning to that tree).

Many pugatorains died in vain and so do all suicides. And no, Jesus was not of those but "Martyrs Mirror" is full of them.

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09-10-2005, 07:24 AM	#2
Nero's Boot Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: West Virginia Posts: 1,234	Well, Christians worship a man who basically committed "suicide by cop." --so, if Jesus committed suicide, I really dunno why Christians abhor suicide so fricking much NB

09-10-2005, 08:50 AM	#3
andrewcriddle Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Birmingham UK Posts: 4,876	For a useful discussion I think one has to distinguish two claims. a/ Anyone who dies rather than renounce his beliefs is a suicide by definition. b/ Many (but not all) putative martyrs are given the detailed circumstances really suicides because of the way thay deliberately provoked the authorities to kill them. a/ Is a claim about how words should be used. b/ Is a (somewhat dubious) claim about empirical events. Andrew Criddle

09-10-2005, 09:20 AM	#4
Chili Banned Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Alberta Posts: 11,885	The difference between martydom and suicide is that martys died their second death while suicides die both first and second death. The first death leads to eternal life which takes place in purgatorio from where the suffering servant enters the thousand year reign to make it eternal. A martyr may well choose the end this as a testamony to the faith . . . for, after all, it is their City of God whence it came (the Church is the Yew tree that bore this fruit which here now is returning to that tree). Many pugatorains died in vain and so do all suicides. And no, Jesus was not of those but "Martyrs Mirror" is full of them.

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