Andrew Wagner

In the centuries after its origins in Roman Palestine, Christianity rapidly spread through the ancient world. In addition to spreading through the Roman empire, it also spread to Ethiopia, Armenia, and, most importantly for this study, the Persian empire. This spread was met with varied state reactions, but the most famous of these was persecution, ranging from small scale to empire wide. These persecutions are notable for creating martyrs, people killed for not recanting their faith. These persecuted communities then wrote martyrdom accounts, detailing the lives and deaths of these saints, and emphasizing their holiness. In this research project, I analyze these martyrdom accounts, especially utilizing the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs’ theory of community memory, looking at how these accounts serve as a way for these, often marginalized, communities to create and defend their own identity among a larger, other, culture. These martyrdom accounts especially show a clear effort to attack the Persian state, including its state religion of Zoroastrianism, as a way to create a separation between the identities of Christians and Zoroastrians. Despite this cultural separation, I also found an emphasis on civic loyalty to Persia in the accounts as well, and my conclusion is that these accounts seek to enforce the idea of a Syriac Christian identity, following in the persecuted footsteps of the early church and the apostles themselves, but persevering, living in and being good citizens of the Persian Empire.