User:G.W./Martyrs

Martyr estimates. To be created and worked on here.

Ancient writers did not think statistically. When the size of a Christian population is described, whether by a pagan, Jewish, or Christian source, it is opinion or metaphor, not accurate reportage.

Estimates for total martyred dead for the Great Persecution depend on the report of Eusebius of Caesarea in the Martyrs of Palestine. There are no other viable sources for the total number of martyrdoms in a province. During the Great Persecution, Eusebius was the bishop of Caesarea Maritima, the capital of Roman Palestine. Since, under Roman law, capital punishment could only be enforced by provincial governors, and because, most of the time, these governors would be in residence at the capital, most martyrdoms would take place within Eusebius' jurisdiction. When they did not, as when the provincial governor traveled to other cities to perform assizes, their activities would be publicized throughout the province. Thus, if Eusebius were an assiduous reporter of the persecutions in his province, he could easily have acquired a full tally of all martyred dead.

Edward Gibbon, after lamenting the vagueness of Eusebius' phrasing, made the first estimate of martyr number as follows: by counting the total number of persons listed in the Martyrs, dividing it by the years covered by Eusebius' text, multiplying it by the fraction of the Roman world the province of Palestine represents, and multiplying that figure by the total period of the persecution. Subsequent estimates have followed the same basic methodology.

Eusebius' aims in the Martyrs of Palestine have been disputed. Geoffrey de Ste Croix, historian and author of a pair of seminal articles on the persecution of Christians in the Roman world, argued, after Gibbon, that Eusebius aimed at producing a full account of the martyrs in his province. Eusebius' aims, Ste Croix argued, were clear from the text of the Martyrs: after describing Caesarea's martyrdoms for 310, the last to have taken place in the city, Eusebius writes, "Such were the martyrdoms which took place at Cæsarea during the entire period of the persecution"; after describing the later mass executions at Phaeno, Eusebius writes, "These martyrdoms were accomplished in Palestine during eight complete years; and of this description was the persecution in our time." Timothy Barnes, however, argues that Eusebius' intent was not as broad as the text cited by Ste Croix implies: "Eusebius himself entitled the work "About those who suffered martyrdom in Palestine," and his intention was to preserve the memories of the martyrs whom he knew, rather than to give a comprehensive account of how persecution affected the Roman province in which he lived." The preface to the long recension of the Martyrs is cited:"It is meet, then, that the conflicts which were illustrious in various districts should be committed to writing by those who dwelt with the combatants in their districts. But for me, I pray that I may be able to speak of those with whom I was personally conversant, and that they may associate me with them – those in whom the whole people of Palestine glories, because even in the midst of our land, the Saviour of all men arose like a thirst-quenching spring. The contests, then, of those illustrious champions I shall relate for the general instruction and profit.""Martyrs of Palestine (L) pr. 8, tr. Graeme Clark"The text discloses unnamed companions of the martyrs and confessors who are the focus of Eusebius' text; these men are not included in the tallies based on the Martyrs.