Martyr (Gr. martus, martur, 'a witness'), the name given in ecclesiastical history to those who, by their fearless profession of Christian truth, and especially by their fortitude in submitting to death itself rather than abandon their faith, bore the 'witness' of their blood to its superhuman origin. Of the same use of the word there are some examples also in the New Testament, as in Acts, xxii. 20; Rev. ii. 13; xvii. 6. But this meaning, as its technical and established signification, is derived mainly from ecclesiastical writers. During the persecutions of the Christians in the first three centuries (see CHURCH HISTORY), contemporary writers, as well pagan as Christian, record that many Christians, preferring death to apostasy, became martyrs or witnesses in blood to the faith, often in circumstances of the utmost heroism. The courage and constancy of the sufferers won the highest admiration from the brethren. It was held a special privilege to receive the martyr's benediction, to kiss his chains, to visit him in prison, or to converse with him; and a practice arose by which the martyrs gave to sinners who were undergoing a course of public penance letters of commendation to their bishop (see INDULGENCE). The day of martyrdom, moreover, as being held to be the day of the martyr's entering into eternal life, was called the natal or birth day, and as such was celebrated with peculiar honour, and with special religious services. Their bodies, clothes, books, and the other objects which they had possessed were honoured as Relics (q.v.), and their tombs were visited for the purpose of asking their intercession (see CANONISATION). Cyprian says of catechumens who died before baptism, that they had been baptised 'with the most glorious baptism of blood;' and the blood-baptism was held to remit sin and the temporal penalty of sin also. The number of martyrs who suffered death during the first ages of Christianity has been a subject of great controversy. The ecclesiastical writers, with the natural pride of partisanship, have, it can hardly be doubted, leaned to the side of exaggeration. Some of their statements are palpably excessive; and Gibbon, in his well-known 16th chapter, throws great doubt even on the most moderate of the computations of the church historians. But it is clearly though briefly shown by Guizot, in his notes on this celebrated chapter, that Gibbon's criticisms are founded on unfair and partial data, and that even the very authorities on which he relies demonstrate the fallaciousness of his conclusions. The first recorded martyr of Christianity, called the 'protomartyr,' was Stephen, whose death is recorded in Acts, vi. and vii. The protomartyr of Britain was Alban of Verulam, who suffered under Diocletian in 286 or 303.
MARTYROLOGY, a list of the commemoration days of Christian martyrs, generally with some account of their life and death, arranged in the order of months and days, and intended partly to be read in the public services of the church, partly for the guidance of the faithful in their devotions. The use of the martyrology is common to both the Latin and the Greek Church; in the latter it is called menology, or 'month-calendar.' Nearly all the later Western martyrologies are based upon one or other of three works, the Hieronymian, the Lesser Roman, and Bede's Martyrology. The first, which was stated to be compiled by St
Jerome from records of martyrdoms collected by Eusebius, is itself a compilation from numerous earlier calendars, and contains notices of many facts long subsequent to Jerome's time. A copy of the Lesser Roman Martyrology was discovered at Ravenna by Ado, Archbishop of Vienne, in 850; and seems to have been rather a private historical calendar than one intended for public use. The independent compilation by Bede has come down to us only in later editions, chiefly of the 9th century, as that of Florus of Lyons, Hrabanus Maurus, Ado of Vienne, and Usuard of Paris, as well as that of Notker of St Gall (912). The best-known menology, that compiled by order of the Emperor Basil, the Macedonian, in the 9th century, was edited in 1727 by Cardinal Urbini. In 1866 Professor W. Wright published a Syriac martyrology recently discovered by him, and written in or before 412. The official 'Roman Martyrology,' designed for the entire church, was published by authority of Gregory XIII., with a critical commentary, by Baronius in 1586; an enlarged edition of the same was issued by Rosweyd in 1613.