Off-Topic (?): Looking for some comprehensive list (hopefully with the texts as well) of early Christian martyrdoms

[11Q13]

Musurillo is the standard edition, but he only includes ante-Nicene texts which he deems have a historical character. I'm as intersted in the legendary, non-historical variety from the early period, and I'm also not so hung up on them being pre-325 since I'm very interested in the Syrian martyrs which are a bit later mostly. Anyone know of any convenient place to find this? Of course on-line would be best for me.

[AbrasaxEos]

The classic Bollandist work here would be the Acta Sanctorum.  It is in 68 volumes and now has a nice searchable online version, though your institution needs a subscription to access it, and you'll need to have pretty good Latin to read it.  You can get most of the volumes for free in various places online, but trying to pore through the PDFs in Latin will start to get old pretty quick.  It will have just about everything though.  If you want some texts that are related to the Syrian martyrs under Sapur II, you can look at Delehaye's Les versions grecques des Actes des martyrs persans sous Sapor II.  I think that there was also a dissertation on these martyrs by someone at Duke completed in 2011, but I don't think it is currently published (though perhaps someone on here who goes to Duke might be kind enough to access and download it for you through their library).

[sacklunch]

You may be referring to Kyle Smith's The Persian persecution: Martyrdom, politics, and religious identity in late ancient Syriac Christianity. He worked under Liz Clark and Van Rompay (I have worked with the latter). I can't get it right now, since I'm on the road back to Durham. But if you want it, let me know (our library says I can get a pdf). FWIW he's teaching at Toronto now. 

 

If you run into any walls you might just email Van Rompay (he is a very generous guy) or even Sebastian Brock. I'm sure either would have some great resources, if need be. 

 

cheers

Edited January 2, 2014 by furtivemode

[11Q13]

The classic Bollandist work here would be the Acta Sanctorum.  It is in 68 volumes and now has a nice searchable online version, though your institution needs a subscription to access it, and you'll need to have pretty good Latin to read it.  You can get most of the volumes for free in various places online, but trying to pore through the PDFs in Latin will start to get old pretty quick.  It will have just about everything though. 

 

Yeah, my Latin isn't up to par. I was hoping someone else would have done the work of organizing something like this. Fox's book of martyrs is the closest thing I've found, but it's challenging to sift through it academically. 

 

You may be referring to Kyle Smith's The Persian persecution: Martyrdom, politics, and religious identity in late ancient Syriac Christianity. He worked under Liz Clark and Van Rompay (I have worked with the latter). I can't get it right now, since I'm on the road back to Durham. But if you want it, let me know (our library says I can get a pdf). FWIW he's teaching at Toronto now. 

 

If you run into any walls you might just email Van Rompay (he is a very generous guy) or even Sebastian Brock. I'm sure either would have some great resources, if need be. 

 

cheers

 

 

Yes, I did happen upon that dissertation, but I can't access the PDF. Here's the URL: http://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/handle/10161/3844  If you could email it to me somehow that would be amazing!

 

 

EDIT: This http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2nd-century_Christian_martyrs just turned up, it's a start

Edited January 3, 2014 by 11Q13