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Reviewed by:
  • Greek and Latin Narratives about the Ancient Martyrs by Éric Rebillard, and: The Roman Martyrs: Introduction, Translations, and Commentaries by Michael Lapidge
  • Scott G. Bruce
Greek and Latin Narratives about the Ancient Martyrs
Éric Rebillard
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. viii + 403. ISBN 978-0-19-873957-9
The Roman Martyrs: Introduction, Translations, and Commentaries
Michael Lapidge
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. xiii + 733. ISBN 978-0-19-881136-7

Presses are encouraged to submit books dealing with Late Antiquity for consideration for review to any of JLA’s three Book Review Editors: Sabine Huebner (sabine.huebner@unibas.ch); Jason Moralee (moralee.jason@gmail.com); and Kristina Sessa (sessa.3@osu.edu).

Late ancient and early medieval accounts of the trials and deaths of the Christian martyrs (passiones) enjoyed immense popularity thoughout the Middle Ages, but these texts have not received as much critical attention in the past century as the biographies of Christian saints (vitae) for a number of reasons. First, historians have debated for ages about the authenticity of martyr narratives as sources for the history of the early church, which has led them to privilege some accounts deemed to be authentic over others deemed to be forgeries. As a result, the importance of the passiones as historical sources not only for the age of persecutions, but also for the early medieval church, was not fully realized. Second, the appeal of these stories to premodern readers led to their widespread dissemination and their subsequent survival in hundreds of medieval manuscripts. Ironically, this bounty of evidence has prevented scholars from producing critical editions of these sources necessary for serious historical inquiry and translations based on them for a general readership. Instead, many of the passiones have languished unedited and largely unread in the obscurity of early modern compendia of saints’ lives. Fortunately, the tide is now turning. In the past few decades, early Christian scholars have recognized the value of martyr narratives from Rome and elsewhere, which provide unparalleled evidence for early medieval pilgrimage, the cult of the saints, and the titular churches of the Eternal City. Moreover, scholars have edited and studied an increasing number of these Greek and Latin stories with attention to their overlooked literary and historical significance. The two books under review by Éric Rebillard and Michael Lapidge both take important strides in making the martyr narratives of Late Antiquity available to new audiences, though they do so in very different ways.

Rebillard’s Greek and Latin Narratives about the Ancient Martyrs presents a selection of over a dozen stories about Christian witnesses to their faith who were executed before 260 ce. New facing-page English translations accompany the original Greek and Latin texts, which Rebillard has reprinted from the [End Page 256] best available editions. This book departs significantly from previous modern collections of martyr stories—from T. Ruinart, Acta primorum martyrum sincera et selecta (1689) to H. Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (1972)—in that Rebillard does not exclude those stories whose historical authenticity cannot be proven definitively. Instead, he adopts as his primary criterion for inclusion whether there was “external attestation to the existence of a narrative about a martyr or group of martyrs” (p. 21), in particular, whether narratives of this kind were known to Eusebius of Caesarea (d. 339) or Augustine of Hippo (d. 430). The result is a learned florilegium of texts written before the early fifth century related to the cults of the following saints: Apollonius, Carpus and his companions, Pionius, Polycarp, and the martyrs of Lyon and Vienne (in Greek); and Marian and James, Cyprian, Fructuosus, Perpetua and her companions, and the Scilitan martyrs (in Latin).

Lapidge’s The Roman Martyrs complements Rebillard’s book in useful ways. This massive volume provides translations and commentaries on forty Latin narratives of ancient Roman martyrs composed between c. 425 and c. 675 ce. Like Rebillard, Lapidge is not overly concerned about the authenticity of these texts, most of which are anonymous and replete with historical inconsistencies that betray the fact that they were written centuries after the persecutions. Instead, he strives to make available for readers of English a compendium...

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