The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom (review)

Debate over who would share Christ's rule in the kingdom of God belongs to Christianity's earliest stages. In a saying that may reflect the historical Jesus, the Lord promises the Twelve that they will sit on thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt 19.28). Likely after Jesus' death, martyrs are described as reigning with Christ (Rev 2.10-11, 3.21; 2 Tim 2.12; Luke 22.28-30). Mark 10.35-45 knows this position but seems to reject it: Jesus refuses the sons of Zebedee's request to sit at his side in glory, although they are willing to die with him, and then recommends a servant leadership model to the apostles (H. Roose, JSNT 27 [2004]: 123-48). Paul holds that all Christians as God's children and Christ's co-heirs will share in God's glory (Rom 8.14-16).

In this context, Moss boldly reshapes traditional studies of early Christian martyrdom to emphasize not only the martyrs' imitation of Jesus' suffering and death but also how closely the depictions of postmortem martyrs—exalted, enthroned in heaven, sharing in Christ's judgment and rule as children of God and co-heirs with Christ—imitate descriptions of the exalted Christ. Moss's title, The Other Christs, expresses her thesis: the close mimesis of the martyrs and the reigning Christ "tilts ambiguously toward the conclusion that martyrs were viewed as equals to Christ" (164).

The Introduction and Chapter One indicate how the imitation of Christ, especially his suffering and death, is a central theme in early Christian texts. Chapter Two argues that martyr acts can be read as early scriptural commentaries, instances of "reception history" (5), since the martyrs' characterization, words, and actions parallel so closely the scriptural Jesus. Chapter Three reviews various models Christians used for understanding martyrdom—sacrifice, cosmic victor, and moral exemplar—and challenges scholars' prioritization of sacrifice. The chapter concludes by emphasizing that the martyr's death, regardless of model, "meant that the martyr enjoyed an unusual and highly privileged experience of the afterlife . . . above and apart from the ordinary dead" (111). The last two chapters describe the martyrs' postmortem privileges and argue that the martyrs' function and status in heaven so closely imitate descriptions of the heavenly Christ as to collapse the supposed hierarchy separating them. Martyrs were assimilated to Christ in status, if not ontology. Although Moss refrains from saying martyrs are "Gods," she calls it "appropriate to treat the martyrs as potential Christian deities" (276 n. 55) and discusses later Christian authors holding this view. An appendix supplies information on texts and editions and a selected bibliography for the martyrdoms; Moss argues for a third-century date for Polycarp's text.

Moss offers a fresh perspective, but her overstatement of it distracts from her argument. She states, for example, "Martyrs alone go directly to heaven, and martyrs alone avoid judgment" (175). Both claims need qualification. Moss writes, "martyrs did not have to wait for . . . eternal life" (126); their early entry signifies their privilege: "If everyone ascends to heaven at death, the exaltation of martyrs is decidedly less remarkable" (118). In fact, many early Christians did believe what Moss calls a "willfully overlooked thread in Christian tradition," that the dead enter heaven only after the last judgment (118), and some Christians holding this view exempted martyrs. Tertullian did (An. 55.5), but Irenaeus made everyone wait (Haer. 5.32.1). More significantly, other Christians, including Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Athenagoras, and probably Ignatius, held that all pious Christians immediately go to heaven. Regrettably, Moss excludes the testimony of the church fathers, but the acta also point to non-martyrs in heaven. Polycarp foresees joining "the whole race of the righteous" (Mart. 14), and Perpetua sees "many thousands of people clad in white" (4.7), perhaps ordinary Christians. Moss notes that Revelation may show non-martyrs in heaven (243 n. 24). In this context, statements that "martyrs alone...