Martyrs, Monks and Spiritual Athletes

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The death and resurrection of Christ sits at the heart of the Christian faith. From its earliest centuries, Christianity has honored the memory of those who died for the faith in imitation of Christ's death, especially in the Church's earliest centuries. As Christianity developed into the favored religion of the Roman Empire and martyrdom became less common, the deeply sacrificial spirit that sat at martyrdom's heart found expression in other forms. Women and men developed lives of extreme and sometimes extravagant renunciation, styling themselves "athletes" even as their sport was the practice of the faith. This second required theology course explores the role martyrs, monks, and spiritual athletes have played in the Christian theological tradition. How and why did these figures emerge? How did their deaths interact with and interpret Scripture? How did they interact with and challenge the cultural contexts in which they found themselves? What literary and artistic forms emerged in light of these lives? How did these figures and forms change across the centuries? What can these figures and their lives tell us about fundamental Christian teachings around death, life, suffering, and sacrifice?