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Date of Award

Spring 2010

Document Type

Restricted Thesis: Campus only access

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Religion

First Advisor

Dr. Jennifer Glancy

Abstract

Christian martyrologies of late antiquity are more than death accounts: they are graphic narratives detailing violence and sexuality. A scribe wrote an account and sent it on to another Christian congregation, where another scribe copied the document. Each community thus had the opportunity to capture and preserve an account of the sufferings of their bold brothers and sisters in Christ. Congregants read the accounts aloud to one another, so that even the illiterate could know how Sanctus suffered “red-hot plates of brass against the most tender parts of his body,” or how Metras refused to blaspheme and “they beat him with clubs, stabbed his face and eyes with pointed reeds, took him to the suburbs, and stoned him to death.”

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