Eugene C. Weiner Ph.D.
David A. Weiner Ph.D.
The End as Beginning: The Contribution of the Death of the
Martyr to Group Formation Process1
Prelude
The phenomenon of martyrdom is examined as a social event connected with the process
of group formation. Various ambiguous uses of the term ‘martyr’ are examined and three
features of martyrdom are found to be particularly important for the purposes of understanding
the social significance of the martyr: 1. The Martyrological Confrontation; 2. The Martyr’s
Motives; 3. The Martyrological Version. A brief discussion of these three aspects lays the
groundwork for an explication of the martyr’s influence on group-formation. Aspects of that
influence include: the martyr as a focus of collective attention; the martyr’s message as a
crystallization of group purposes; the martyr as a dramatic symbol of the feasibility of defiance;
the demoralizing influence of martyrs for their persecutors; the martyr’s devotion as a measure
of group loyalty, and the martyrological contest as a model for a significant aspect of the human
condition.
The End as Beginning
Of all the kinds of death that human beings either suffer or solicit, none appear to be as
effective in achieving social purposes as the death of the martyr. We hope to demonstrate that
this effectiveness is related to the martyr’s capacity to generate processes leading to the
formation and solidarity of groups. However, prior to identifying these processes, some
preliminary comments are required on martyrdom research and its pitfalls.
Pitfalls of Research on Martyrs
We know a good deal about the death of martyrs due to the voluminous body literature
on this subject (i.e. Lieberman 1939, Musurillo 1972, Turner 1974). Indeed, no other form of
dying has been the subject of as many written accounts and recensions (i.e. Delehaye 1927,
Baron 1957). When attempting to find certain regularities in the phenomenon of martyrdom as a
social historical-literary reality, it is possible to deal with only the smallest fraction of all those
individuals who, in the course of history, have been considered martyrs.
The magnitude of the task can be seen from the daunting fact that a succession of
dedicated priests, the Catholic Bollandist fathers in Belgium, have been collecting, editing and
publishing martyrological versions since 1613. Thus, M.D. Knowles (1958) concluded that the
student of martyrdom must be a person “of brazen sinews, capable of prodigies of industry and
endurance.. capable of dealing with forgeries, tangled chronology, labyrinthine ways of
martyrologies, necrologies, calendars… into varieties of social and psychological sentiment, into
magical mists and wonderlands.. dealing with the fact that you are investigating a personality
(and a set of social circumstances) which is in many ways abnormal or supra normal”. Indeed, as
he points out, the researcher who takes on martyrs, “need not… fear that he will lack for mental
occupation in his old age”.
Martyrdom: An Ambiguous Term
One of the most perplexing of problems connected with martyrs is the meaning of the
term. On the surface, it would seem that there is no problem of definition here, because everyone
surely knows what a martyr is, and there are so many of them. However, some reflection on the
1
The article was written in 1983, and it was never published.
following lists of names: Socrates, the Maccabean heroes, Jesus, Joan of Arc, Dietrich
Bonnhoeffer, Patrice Lamumba, Che Guervara, and Martin Luther King Jr., shows that, although
all are martyrs in some sense of the term, nonetheless, there are significant differences. One
senses that some of these people do not belong although it is difficult to determine which
characteristics are missing in a given case. This is due to the fact that the term martyr, in spite of
its clear etymological meaning of ‘witness’, contains certain ambiguities in everyday usage.
Although an etymological excurses on the term martyr is available for the interested reader (e.g.
Frend 1966, Malone 1950), for our purposes it is necessary to deal with some of the difficulties
of common usage.
According to common usage, there are three basic ways to become a martyr:
1. by choosing to suffer or die rather than give up one’s faith or principles. .
2. by being tortured or killed because of one’s beliefs.
3. by suffering great pain or misery over a long period of time.
However, choice, suffering and conviction, the three major factors that emerge from
common usage, may or may not be present in a given case. Moreover, these elements generate
several further ambiguities requiring specification. First, the ambiguity of action: a martyr can be
either a person who is active and chooses to suffer, or one whose suffering is imposed without
choice. Second, the ambiguity of belief: a martyr, according to common usage, can be either a
person known for his/her beliefs and convictions, or a person not distinguished for convictions,
who happens to undergo painful or prolonged suffering. Finally, the third is the ambiguity of
origin and construction. It is not clear whether it is personal intention, dramatic and oppressive
circumstances, or simply clever propaganda, which actually ‘make’ the martyr. Does the martyr
primarily make him/herself or are martyr’s created by the persecutor and by the measures of
oppression instituted?
It appears, in common usage, that martyrs are created through the serendipity of external
circumstances, or through the unique force of their internal convictions. Such ambiguities are
alluded to in George Bernard Shaw’s clever depiction of Joan of Arc’s treatment in history.
(Shaw 1954). “Joan of Arc, a village girl… was born in 1412, burnt for heresy, witchcraft and
sorcery in 1431, rehabilitated after a fashion in 1456; designated Venerable in 1904; declared
Blessed in 1908, and finally canonized in 1920. She is the most notable warrior-saint in the
Christian calendar, and the queerest fish among the eccentric worthies of the middle ages.” In
light of the ambiguities of common usage, it is not clear just when we can say with some
assurance that Joan of Arc first became a martyr. Was it in 1431, in 1456, 1904 or in 1920?
The Martyrological Confrontation
A martyrological event in the ideal sense requires at least two types of individuals or
groups: a dissenting, deviant, non-conforming person or group; and a dominant powerful person
or group willing to exercise its power. Martyrdom, as an event is created out of the confrontation
between the two. From an examination of classical martyrdom, the typical components that
emerge are the following:
a. a dissident individual or group is threatened with punishment if they persist in holding certain
beliefs and behaving in ways that are prohibited by the ruling powers.
b. the confrontation takes place in a public setting.
c. those who are to undergo the test and its agony make a statement justifying their persistence in
the proscribed belief or practice.
d. the persecutor states his willingness to withdraw punishment if the martyr will only recant and
renounce his convictions.
e. the martyr issues a statement of defiance, affirming the preference of death to betrayal of
cause.
f. the established powers question the sanity or wisdom of the martyr-designate.
g. the martyr rejects the services of mediators who attempt to blur sharp differences between
victim and persecutor.
h. the martyr rejects all devices designed to achieve a ruse of symbolic betrayal to the cause or
subordination to the persecutors.
i. the martyr restates the purposes and principles justifying the sacrifice of his/her life.
j. the martyr issues a profession of faith coupled with an expression of hope for ultimate
vindication.
The Martyr’s Motive
Martyrs are typically persons who prefer to endure torture or death rather than forsake
their values and convictions. Yet the ideal disposition for a martyr, according to both Jewish and
early Christian traditions, (their similarity is pointed out by Lieberman 1939, and Baron 1957), is
not what one might expect. One does not generally find in these sources an untroubled,
enthusiastic, self-determined espousal of conviction, or an uncompromising affirmation of the
cause in the face of a life-threat. Such perfect commitment would appear to be inhuman. What
emerges from historical evidence is hesitation and doubt expressed by even the most impressive
of the martyrs. Circumstances have been thrust upon them, and their convictions grow and
solidify through the trials and tribulations. One discovers that the martyr is typically engaged in
second thoughts about going through with the whole affair. The most effective motive, in
practice, is neither steadfast and uncompromising, nor the free choice of a principled belief. An
effective, believable and emulatable martyr’s motive must include hesitation and doubt.
The Martyrological Version
Only a few of the actual sacrifices for a cause ever get transformed into a ‘martyrdom’.
What is required for this to happen is the existence of a martyrologist who is able to transform
the raw occurrences into events deemed to have social significance. In short, what is required for
a martyrdom to take place is for the story, the narrative of events, to be embodied. Martyrdom
becomes influential through the disseminated versions that celebrate it.
It is the narrative version that determines the symbolic fate of the martyr. His posthumous
life as a martyr and his symbolic immortality depend on the story that is told. The viability of
that story as a transmitted and perpetually extant version becomes the measure of its
significance. Like all stories, martyrology is shaped and stylized according to cannons regnant in
the oral and literary traditions of the culture in which it circulates. Cultures that venerate the
tragic form will be touched and influenced (Henn 1966, Kaufmann 1969, Steiner 1961).
Martyrologies embodied in a liturgical tradition will bear the marks of liturgical conventions
(Delehaye 1927).
When considering the strategic role played by martyrology, it is important to bear in
mind that the accepted martyrological version may not have been formulated at the time of
death, or even by those who were alive at the time of the death. Some of the most successful
martyrologists, who have created memorable versions, were not witnesses to the martyrological
event (e.g. Eusebius and Foxe). In fact, some of the most noteworthy martyrs have been created
out of the pure imagination of the martyrologist.
The three components outlined above; the martyrolocial confrontation, the martyr’s
motive and the martyrological version, are most vividly illustrated in the ideal images of such
classical martyrs as the Maccabeans (Hannah and Eliezer), Jesus, or the canonized version of
Joan of Arc. In these instances, the martyr’s motive is clear and noble, the dramatic
confrontation is fully played out in the public arena, and there are authorized versions of the
martyr’s death. There are, however, cases in which one or two of the central components are
missing. For instance, there is the dramatic case of Hoerst Wessel, a ‘fabricated martyr’. Wessel,
a Nazi party activist, was killed in a sordid lover’s brawl. He had neither a principled motive nor
a confrontation with a persecutor. He did, however, have the benefit of a brilliant martyrological
version that was sold by Joseph Goebels to a gullible public.
Another interesting case is that of Sacco and Vanzetti, with its dramatic confrontation
and its abundance of rich martyrological versions. However, it is far from clear that the ‘martyrs’
themselves had any idea what principles they were dying for. On the other hand, Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, the minister executed by the Nazis, clearly possessed a martyrological motive. His
death, however, which evoked a spate of martyrological versions, took place far from the public
view, thus lacking a broad public confrontation. Finally, one has an individual like Spintho, a
character created by Bernard Shaw, who was an early Christian that lost heart and forsook his
comrades’ penchant for martyrdom. In his attempt to escape, he ran out the wrong door and
found himself in the arena confronted with a hungry lion. Spintho meets a ‘Martry’s end’, and
was celebrated in spite of himself. He remains an everlasting witness to the significance of
hungry lions in public arenas and good story tellers when it comes to the creation of martyrs.
Martyrdom and the Formation of Groups
Martyrdom in all its varieties is a social event that is intimately connected with the
formation of different kinds of groups: religious sects (Noss 1957), political parties; newly
created revolutionary cadres (Laqueur 1977); schismatic movements (Lifton 1979); and even
terrorist groups (Laqueur 1971). In fact, one of the surest ways to actually create a group is to
create a martyr. Why should this be? What is there about the beginning stages of group
formation that creates this elective affinity with martyrdom, and makes it so nearly universal?
Psychoanalytic literature has perhaps been helpful in finding some answers to these
questions. The dramatic coincidence of martyrdom as a phenomenon in the creation of groups
appears to echo a primitive association in the human mentality and sensibility. It is the link
between birth and sacrifice (Girard 1972). New existence seems to demand, as its price, some
diminution of vitality in the creative generative force that brings it into being. It is as if the
creative force must make amends for itself, must make some demonstrable sacrifice lest some
potentially more destructive, jealous power be aroused upon the vulnerable group being born.
Thus, just at the moment of creative fulfillment, in the beginning, there appears to be a mythic,
unconscious requirement of sacrifice. According to this view, these associations lie buried in
man’s pre-historical religious development, which make them exceedingly difficult to
substantiate with verifiable evidence. We can, however, see how such associations are expressed
throughout the history of human development. Within a vast variety of periods and cultures,
social groups, at their formative stages, have generated individuals who sacrificed themselves to
uphold the convictions of the group.
There are also a number of good sociological reasons why the martyr plays an important
role in the process of group formation and cohesion. From a sociological perspective, without a
martyr as a central figure in its formative stages, the group is impoverished in terms of the
cohesive forces that bind its members together. The martyr contributes in at least five ways to the
group’s formation and cohesion. First, martyrs serves as a focus of attention. Throughout the
ages, mankind has generally been occupied with the tasks of daily existence while remaining
relatively oblivious life’s grand, historical purposes. That is, except in extraordinary crisis like
war, revolution, or acute economic and social stress. Otherwise, it is difficult to convince people
that a new group, purpose, or goal is worth the devotion of interest or energy. An inherent inertia
within human societies causes a resistance to change (Fraser 1978). Getting past this resistance
and inertia requires attention to the new, and the martyr, like a screaming headline in a popular
newspaper, evokes attention because a martyrological sacrifice is not a routine matter. Most
people do not demonstrate courage in the face of torture or death, nor do they sacrifice their
bodies for a principle. Martyrdom, therefore, generally evokes a curiosity that leads beyond the
here and now. What could justify a person’s willingness to sacrifice their life? What could be the
meaning or motive for such a sacrifice? Without becoming a focus of attention and interest, a
new group cannot attract members, and it is here that the martyr is particularly efficacious. The
martyrological event and its narrative attract the attention essential to a group’s initial formation.
Secondly, martyrs help to crystallize group purposes that may previously have been
inchoate and poorly focused. Most martyrdoms are accompanied by memorable statements of
conviction, famous last words, that are preserved and valued because of the dramatic
circumstances in which they were uttered. These statements are typically short and clear, and
they epitomize the principles for which the martyr is sacrificing him/herself. This statement also
provides greater credibility to group purposes. The martyr is proof that the group has such a
purpose and that it is worthy enough to elicit extreme acts of loyalty.
Thirdly, martyrs dramatize the feasibility of defiance in the face of coercion.
The martyr demonstrates that challenging superordinate power through defiance is thinkable and
doable. He/she breaks through the tacit acceptance of established authority and its right to
determine public policy by fiat. Martyrs can thus become contagious exemplars of courage
against oppression in the name of a principle. They also bestow on this defiance a dignity and an
appeal because they arouse guilt in their contemporaries. All who do not follow in their footsteps
are both diminished and elevated. They are elevated by the thought that they, too, can become
martyrs and heroes, and diminished by their choice not to do so. The fact of moral heroism
makes moral cowardice more palpable and its acknowledgement inescapable. Their example
makes defiance of authority a moral imperative, and a testament to self respect. There is an
absolute quality to this appeal, and no temporary improvements instituted by the superordinate
power can alter the inner example of showing defiance to the coercive power for the sake of
gaining self respect.
In the long run, martyrs tend to demoralize their persecutors, particularly if they persist in
their martyrological sacrifice over an extensive period of time. Most all-powerful persecutors
prefer that their subordinates internalize their demands without coercive enforcement, since
coercion requires an expenditure of energy and resources. In order for power to be maintained,
there is a need for constant enforcement, which is a draining process. The martyr’s steadfastness,
loyalty and unwillingness to compromise, the discipline and steadfast opposition which he/she
dramatically demonstrates, are all qualities that the powerful covet and try cultivate in their
subjects. This brings forth an unwilling admiration on the part of the persecutors which does not
escape the attention of the martyrologists. The demoralization of the persecutors, in the long run,
is a direct result of their ambivalence. The process begun by the martyr is an insidious one that
undermines power, and questions a placid acceptance of his rule. This constant counterexample
that questions authority in the name of a cause raises doubts about loyalty to the powers-that-be
both among the subjects and among the rulers themselves. Ruling requires power, and when it is
so deeply questioned, it requires more and more energy to enforce. There ensues a cycle of
exhaustion, followed by greater doubts about the legitimacy of power among the coerced
subjects and among the power enforcers themselves.
Fifth, after their sacrifice, martyrs then serve forever as the criteria by which devotion
and commitment to group purposes are measured among group members. In other words,
martyrs exact a price among future group adherents. Their sacrifice demonstrates the extent of
devotion required by followers in order to be deemed loyal to their convictions. Emulating the
martyr’s sacrifice at the early stages of formation becomes the standard for measuring group
membership and loyalty. The message is communicated that membership in this group is a
serious, fateful enterprise which may demand the ultimate sacrifice. Therefore, the act of joining
such a group involves a momentous decision, and conformity to group norms becomes almost a
foregone conclusion. Therefore, with a martyr at the initial stages of group formation,
probabilities are raised that the group will be dedicated, disciplined and focused on relentlessly
pursued purposes.
Finally, the martyr serves as a model, within the human condition, for making culture
plausible. Is not the reality of death the central issue in the project of making cultural
achievements plausible? What are human achievements worth if they perish? There is an
ongoing, existentially fateful contest between, on the one hand, the aspirations and hopes of
human beings, and, on the other, their mortality. By his death, however, the martyr demonstrates
the fact that abstract principles can be believable. In order to justify their existence, all groups
require some basic principle or cause, be it kinship, religious belief, national or ethnic solidarity
or some circumscribed or universal ideological formulation. The martyr’s sacrifice bestows
validation on all kinds of principles lying at the root of human consciousness, and plausibility to
abstract convictions. No matter how seemingly far fetched, ill advised or even dangerous these
convictions appear, we cannot fail to take note that, for the martyr, at least, they were true and
convincing.
When oppressors and their supporters are suffocating in the staleness of their own
traditional cultural forms, the martyr may represent a breath of fresh air, defending principles
that are frequently fresh, raw and controversial. His daring assertion of character is impressive to
all, including his persecutors. As Fry (1950) writes in “This lady is not for Burning”; “Come let
us burn her before she converts us.”
The Validation of Convictions
Martyrs have been used by group founders to support, buttress and legitimate those
purposes for which the group was called into being. Although there are those who claim that
their group ‘should’ exist because it is ‘natural’, in the final analysis, how many ways are there
to validate the convictions that lie at the root of new group formations? Groups rarely spring into
existence through a process of spontaneous generation. They develop from something. Claiming
‘naturalness’ is generally the tactic of more well established groups, and an appeal to self-interest
is generally not yet valid because new groups tend to take more than they give to either their own
members or to others. No criteria is more effective than an exemplary conviction dramatically
enacted in a public setting. In the context of group life, conviction itself is validating and
contagious, and the martyr is a virtuoso of conviction who can best serve as a catalyst for the
creation of a convictional community.
Since most human beings fear death, and since the impulse to create culture can be seen
as an attempt to overcome the fear of mortality through the building of symbolic realms of
meaning, (which is what culture is largely about), the martyr has a special fascination for all of
us. The martyr conquers mortality with cultural commitment. Although, like the rest of us, he is
a contestant, he is, nonetheless, out there in the arena braving the direct confrontation, while the
rest of us are quietly struggling in less exposed ways. The martyr’s symbolic power rests in the
fighting of the universal fight about a culture that is either being born or attempting to survive
through revitalization.
Consequently, the martyr is relevant to a series of issues that may not be readily apparent.
Martyrdom is relevant to the beginning of the struggle with culture, with group formation, with
social change, and with man’s attempt to be fully human and living by self-proclaimed values
and principles. His/her fame is based on the willingness to be visibly exposed in public arenas,
to be seen suffering the agony of contest between the drive for biological survival at all costs and
the need for a life of conviction. This forms the basis of the martyr’s posthumous victory. Man
shares with animals the capacity for altruistic self-sacrifice, but in man this capacity is actualized
not only within groups that are genetically linked. Man has the capacity for altruistic selfsacrifice for a group that is coming into being and with which he/she chooses to affiliate. Man
can choose to die for a program to be, one that he judges to be an expression of his ideal for
humanity. Such a program may be simply another instance of human folly, or it can be its finest
expression.
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