“Some were tortured … Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment … They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated — of whom the world was not worthy — wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”
One of the most compelling arguments for the sincerity of the many witnesses to the resurrection of Christ, on which the Christian faith depends, is that first century believers continued to claim Jesus was alive in the face of decades of the most intense Jewish hostility, and later widespread Gentile opposition. Not all gave their lives for their faith, but most or all risked martyrdom along the way.
Rational men, it is argued, will not die for something they know to be a lie. It’s a point not easily disproved.
Evidence for the Deaths of the Apostles
In 2014, Sean McDowell (son and occasional co-writer of Josh) submitted a 466-page dissertation to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a philosophy degree, attempting to evaluate the evidence for the deaths of the apostles as martyrs for their faith. He has chapters on all twelve. McDowell’s efforts to establish the martyrdom of the various apostles from independent non-canonical first- and second-century sources is more or less effective depending on the number of independent sources he is able to cite, their time-and-place proximity to the events they describe, and the general plausibility of their authors. Some stories of apostolic martyrdom are more convincing than others.
That conceded, McDowell’s dissertation is the best attempt I have come across to date at compiling the authors and source material establishing the martyrdom of all or most of the apostles. Compared to the writings of secular historians, who often express greater certainty about events from the same period with far fewer data points than McDowell has unearthed, his dissertation is objective, dispassionate, self-critical and ultimately plausible, given that, like any good historian, he knows he is assessing probabilities, not establishing certainties.
McDowell’s objectivity is not just a pose. After all, his faith does not depend on these bits of extra-scriptural data, but on the scripture account and the work of the Holy Spirit in his heart. The evidence he compiled is just a 466-page bonus, and his readers are wise to treat it the same way. Further research and archeological discovery may prove or disprove much of it without affecting the faith a whit.
Martyrdom vs. Suffering
Here’s what I’m coming to: I’m less interested in what McDowell’s dissertation establishes about the martyrdom of the apostles than I am in what he inadvertently establishes in the process about the suffering and persecution they endured. The latter not only is far easier to prove and less-vigorously contested than the martyrdoms, it’s also much more important in demonstrating that the apostles were sincere.
Think about it. What’s easier: death, or unabated suffering and persecution? You can only die once, but you can suffer for decades. I’m not afraid to die. Not one bit. I am very afraid of suffering on the way to the exit. The willingness to subject yourself to ongoing persecution, not martyrdom, is the true mark of conviction. In fact, suffering can be so acute and such a feature of one’s existence that the end, however nasty, may actually come as a relief. The Lord hinted at this, and stories of the death of some martyrs have them singing hymns as they suffered and cracking jokes as they burned.
Further, martyrdom can be involuntary. Some were never given the choice to recant. Suffering for the faith is never involuntary. Every day that passes, the object of affliction must confront and vanquish the temptation to publicly rescind his beliefs in order to avoid it.
Why it Matters
It is pointed out that suffering, like martyrdom, was not unique to the Christian apostles. Other people have suffered and died for causes demonstrably or arguably false. Let’s concede that. But what a willingness to suffer proves is not that the sufferer’s cause was a worthy one — obviously, some causes were not — but that the sufferer believed in it with all his heart.
Now, the unique character of the apostolic suffering of the Christian tradition lies in this: that the apostles actually claimed to have seen the risen Lord with their own eyes and heard him with their own ears. Some laid hands on him. Their belief did not rest on second-, third- or tenth-hand knowledge, on rumors and reports, but on immediate personal experience. Given the reported number of eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the likelihood that all were deceived about the veracity of the resurrection is vanishingly small. Those who suffered for the purported truths of other religions or belief systems cannot claim the same proximity or certainty to the events whose truthfulness they took for granted. We do not doubt they believed, but indirect knowledge, however firmly held, cannot be as plausible as a firsthand report.
Independent Evidence
Torture an eyewitness repeatedly and let him stick to his story … well, that means something. For evidentiary purposes it’s not just the suffering that makes the case, it’s also who was doing the suffering. So then, let’s look at a few well-attested examples of non-canonical testimony concerning the suffering of Christ’s apostles.
1/ Clement of Rome
Experts argue about whether Clement of Rome testified to the martyrdom of Peter or Paul in this passage:
“Let us take the noble examples of our own generation. Through jealousy and envy the greatest and most just pillars of the Church were persecuted, and came even unto death.
5:3 Let us place before our eyes the good Apostles.
5:4 Peter, through unjust envy, endured not one or two but many labours, and at last, having delivered his testimony, departed unto the place of glory due to him.
5:5 Through envy Paul, too, showed by example the prize that is given to patience:
5:6 seven times was he cast into chains; he was banished; he was stoned; having become a herald, both in the East and in the West, he obtained the noble renown due to his faith;
5:7 and having preached righteousness to the whole world, and having come to the extremity of the West, and having borne witness before rulers, he departed at length out of the world, and went to the holy place, having become the greatest example of patience.”
Martyrdom may be between the lines here, but the repeated suffering is explicit. Standard dating for Clement’s letter is AD95-96. He knew whereof he spoke. The apostle John was probably still around at the time.
2/ Ignatius of Antioch
Early in the second century, Ignatius, who himself suffered and died for his faith, ultimately being executed in Rome, wrote the following to the church at Ephesus:
“I know who I am and to whom I am writing. I am condemned, you have been shown mercy; I am in danger, you are secure. You are a passageway for those slain for God; you are fellow initiates with Paul, the holy one who received a testimony and proved worthy of all fortune. When I attain to God, may I be found in his footsteps, this one who mentions you in every epistle in Christ Jesus.”
The “footsteps” to which he refers are Paul’s, and context shows he had suffering and martyrdom in view. He was eager to follow Paul’s example and imitate his faith under fire.
3/ Polycarp
While Ignatius was in prison, again, early in the second century, Polycarp wrote to the Philippian church to encourage them, confirming both Paul and Ignatius suffered:
“Therefore I urge all of you to obey the word of righteousness and to practice all endurance, which you also observed with your own eyes not only in the most fortunate Ignatius, Zosimus, and Rufus, but also in others who lived among you, and in Paul himself and the other apostles. You should be convinced that none of them acted in vain, but in faith and righteousness, and that they are in the place they deserved, with the Lord, with whom they also suffered.”
This we can be sure of: they did not suffer in vain. They also apparently did not recant.
4/ Josephus
In his Antiquities of the Jews, Titus Flavius Josephus writes about the death of James, the brother of the Lord:
“Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.”
Josephus is a bit of a controversial historian, believed by the sceptics when cited to prove their claims and disbelieved when his statements confirm scripture. Still, he is very much an independent witness with no apparent ax to grind. He was not a Christian, and he was on the scene, having been born in AD37 and publishing his Antiquities around AD93.
In Summary
I’m running out of space, and I don’t need to duplicate Sean McDowell’s work. You can read it for yourself if you are inclined. Martyrdom may be his subject, but he uses the word “suffering” no fewer than 87 times and “persecution” 222 times. The perpetual threat of death was a fact of life for every member of the early church, especially its leaders, regardless whether we can stringently prove they died for their faith.
In a debate with William Lane Craig, Bart Ehrman once questioned whether there was really much independent testimony about the martyrdom of the apostles. There’s quite a bit, but I’m not sure it matters all that much. The more important fact is this: nobody questions that the followers of Christ suffered for his name, and suffered repeatedly. To me, that’s stronger evidence for apostolic sincerity than dying for the faith. As Paul himself put it, “I die every day.”
And the difference between the apostles and other sincere sufferers is this: they saw the risen Christ with their own eyes. I believe them. Do you?
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