When you think about
it, the old idiom “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt
me” is just dumb. Today we understand how harmful words can be. Recently CBS did
a special called “Bullying: Words Can Kill.”[i] Even
as a child, I knew that words can and do hurt. Children find this out very quickly
when they experience and often join in on name calling. Simple and complete nonsense
words such as Dumbo, Dopey, and brainiac can cause embarrassment and a feeling of being an outcast.
Children learn the stylistic and memorable quality of consonance early, and I’ve
noticed with my children and now my grandchildren that names such as Fat Freddy,
Smelly Sally, and Nerdy Nelly never seem to go out of style.
I
was in third or fourth grade at St. Joseph’s Catholic School when a small group
of us decided to form our own informal club. Some of the older boys in some of the
upper grades had started a Secret Agent Club. Sean Connery starred as James Bond
in the 1965 theatrical release of Goldfinger.
Our mothers wouldn’t allow us to see it. The Catholic Church had a posted list of
movies that were OK and those we were to avoid. Their ratings, from A to L and O
(for offensive), preceded by decades today’s ratings of G, PG, PG-13, and R and
carried a lot of weight with Hollywood in general and my mom in particular. Since
we couldn’t see the movie and the older boys didn’t want us in their club, we decided
to start our own.
My
friends and I all enjoyed comic books, so we started a club that was all about them.
We would buy DC and Marvel comics for only twelve cents. However, the price soon
changed to fifteen cents, and a double issue was easily a quarter. My friend Mike
Baron came up with the idea, and about half of the boys in Sister Annunciata’s class
were part of our club, which we ended up calling the Legion, short for the Legion
of Super Heroes. Each of us had our favorite hero or villain. In reality it was
a comic book exchange club, but to us it felt like something heroic.
My favorite was always
Superman, and I wasn’t that particular about whether he was the younger Superboy
or Superman, or whether he was the Clark Kent of Smallville or Metropolis. He could
fly and bend steel with his bare hands; bullets bounced off of him, and he was my
hero.
I
think all of us love heroes, as they have a way of encouraging us to do things we
normally wouldn’t do. When it comes to real-life heroes, someone very wise once
said, “Heroes are not extraordinary people but ordinary people doing extraordinary
things.”
In
the early church, God called a group of ordinary people to do extraordinary things;
we call them martyrs. The word martyr
comes from the Greek word mártys and originally
just meant “witness.” However, when these early converts to Christianity found themselves
with the choice between recanting their faith and denying Jesus Christ or remaining
faithful, they remained faithful. This was a life-and-death decision. Even the historical
accounts are hard to read, as the martyrs often faced death in the Roman Colosseum
as morbid entertainment for the masses. The more fortunate were killed by ax or
sword, but many, perhaps thousands, were lit on fire as human torches by Emperor
Nero, whose use of many Christians in this manner to give light in the evenings
in Rome is very well documented.
The
Bible records that the believers were first called Christians in Antioch, in modern-day
Turkey (Acts 11:26). One of the first bishops and early fathers of the church was
St. Ignatius of Antioch. He was a disciple of John the apostle, and the emperor
Trajan martyred him in Rome.
The persecution of
the early church and the resulting martyrdoms of hundreds of thousands of Christian
witnesses started under Roman Emperor Nero (AD 64–68) and, according to tradition,
included both the apostles Peter and Paul during Nero’s reign. Initially Rome considered
Christianity a sect of Judaism and for years had given the Jews a special exemption
to believe and worship as they pleased. This Jewish exemption was not unique, as
the Roman Empire actually had been fairly tolerant of various religions as Rome
spread its rule across Europe, into Asia and Northern Africa.
These Christian witnesses
of the first and second centuries, however, were different. They seemed deliberately
hostile toward the gods of the Roman Empire and the sacrifices that were the obligation
of all Roman citizens. Ultimately they refused to participate in the offerings to
the Roman gods. As a result Romans accused Christians of being atheists. These early
Christians called their weekly gatherings “pure sacrifices” as opposed to “offerings
to demons,” as they characterized the religion of the pagans. Persecution broke
out for a number of reasons against the Christians and lasted for three hundred
years, until Emperor Constantine claimed Christianity as his religion, which ended
Christian persecution.
It’s important to note that these early witnesses, these martyrs
or early Christian saints, were members of the Body of Christ but were likely unfamiliar
with the terms we use today to describe the church. Along with the word, Christian,
which was first used of the believers in Antioch,[ii] some of the other and
more common words to describe early believers in Jesus included the Way and the
Nazarenes.
This early group
of believers was a mixed group. History tells us many were Jews and Jewish converts
who embraced Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah. Their theology was still developing.
Often it included a combination of Jewish traditions and rabbinical teachings combined
with early Christian letters. These were the words of Jesus and the writings of
the apostles Peter, James, John, and Matthew, as well as the other collections that
would become the New Testament. Their gatherings and worship services were varied
and diverse, without a formal liturgy or established leadership structure. They
believed they would see the return of Jesus Christ in their lifetime. They were
willing to make extreme sacrifices for their faith, believing that Jesus would soon
be coming.
