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Last edited by Mysterizzy (talk | contribs) 13 days ago. (Update) |
Exhortation to Martyrdom (Ancient Greek: Λόγος προτρεπτικὸς εἰς μαρτύριον; Latin: Exhortatio ad martyrium) is a treatise written around 235 CE by Origen, urging its two recipients, Ambrose and Protoctetus, to joyfully accept Christian martyrdom.
Background
editExhortation to Martyrdom was written during a period of Roman persecution of Christianity. In 235, Maximinus Thrax was proclaimed as Roman Emperor, marking the beginning of the Crisis of the Third Century, a 50-year period of instability and war.[citation needed] In order to consolidate his power, Maximinus killed a number of Christian leaders (including Julia Avita Mamaea, the previous emperor's mother, whom Origen had allegedly taught himself).[1] The Exhortation's intended recipients - Ambrose (a deacon and Origen's longtime patron) and Protoctetus (the leading priest of Caesarea) - may have been in danger from these imperial prosecutions, or alternatively from local persecutions in Cappadocia, where Christians had been blamed for a series of earthquakes.[1] At this time, Origen was in hiding in Caesarea.[2]
The prospect of martyrdom would have been familiar to Origen: Eusebius reports that his father Leonides was martyred when Origen was only 16, leaving him as the head of the family. He is said to have then tried to join his father, and was stopped only by his mother's intervention.[1][2] As a prominent Christian teacher, he would have been a target for anti-Christian violence, and at least six of his early students are said to have been martyred.[1] Although Origen himself was never technically martyred, he was tortured almost to death by the Roman authorities during the Decian persecutions several decades later, and died due to his injuries.[1][2]
Content
edit- Ambrose and Protoctetus - who were they?
- "Indeed, several scholars have noted how rough and unordered the Exhortationappears, almost as an ad hoc collection of arguments presented as they appeared in the author’s mind."
Influence
editSome sources...
editReferences
edit- ^ a b c d e f Berglund, Carl Johan (19 March 2024). "Three Reasons to Die in Origen's Exhortation to Martyrdom". Patristica Nordica Annuaria. 38: 59–78. Retrieved 17 August 2025.
- ^ a b c McGuckin, John Anthony (2004), The Westminster Handbook to Origen, Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, ISBN 978-0-664-22472-1, archived from the original on 2021-05-15, retrieved 2025-08-18
- ^ Hartog, Paul A (30 January 2020). "Themes and Intertextualities in Pre-Nicene Exhortations to Martyrdom". In Middleton, Paul (ed.). The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Christian Martyrdom. John Wiley & Sons Ltd. pp. 102–119. doi:10.1002/9781119100072.ch7. ISBN 9781119100072.
- ^ Nicholson, Oliver (18 March 2009). "Preparation for martyrdom in the early Church". In Humphries, Mark Osborne; Twomey, Vincent (eds.). The great persecution: the proceedings of the Fifth Patristic Conference (PDF). Four Courts Press. pp. 61–90. ISBN 9781846821615.