Voluntary Martyrdom Revisited

Abstract

Geoffrey de Ste. Croix, in his article entitled ‘Aspects of the “Great” Persecution’, published in 1954, argued that the number of voluntary martyrs in Eusebius’ Martyrs of Palestine was astonishingly large. In a later article entitled ‘Why were the Early Christians Persecuted?’, published in 1963, he further suggested that the large number of voluntary martyrs in early Christendom was at least partly responsible for instigating persecutions or for exacerbating those already in progress. This article questions each of these suppositions, as well as recent scholarship on the subject that builds upon his conclusions.

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