Divine Deliverance: Pain and Painlessness in Early Christian Martyr Texts

Synopsis

The Author's Readings Of Early Christian Martyr Texts Suggest That Christians Found The Suffering Self A Useful Discourse By Which To Construct Their Identities, Distinguish Their Teachings, Refute Antagonistic Claims, And Retain Believers. The Author Shows That In These Texts, Suffering Is Not Embraced As An Identity But Presented As A Problem To Be Solved. Pain Is The Experience Of Those Who Live Apart From God. The Author Demonstrates That In The Moments At Issue In Martyr Texts--trial, Torture, And Death--the Christian Self Is Decidedly Not A Sufferer. God's Intervention Miraculously Transforms The Physical Experience. The Torture That Should Hurt Heals Instead; The Body That Should Be Fragmented Is, Instead, Made Whole. The Author Concludes That In A World Of Sufferers, Christian Martyrs Serve As Promises Of Another World Where There Is--existentially And Not Merely Metaphorically--no Pain Bodies In Pain: Ancient And Modern Horizons Of Expectation -- Text And Audience: Activating And Obstructing Expectations -- Divine Analgesia: Painlessness In A Pain-filled World -- Whose Pain? Pain As A Locus Of Meaning In Christian Martyr Texts -- Narratives And Counternarratives: Discourse And Early Christian Martyr Texts. L. Stephanie Cobb. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 211-232) And Index.