MARTYN, WILLIAM CARLOS: Presbyterian; b. in New York City Dec. 15, 1841. He was educated at Union Theological Seminary, from which he was graduated in 1869. He was ordained to the ministry of his denomination in the same year, and held successive pastorates at the Pilgrim Church, St. Louis, Mo. (1869-71), Portsmouth, N. H. (1871-1876), Thirty-fourth Street Reformed Dutch Church, New York City (1876,83); Bloomingdale Reformed Dutch Church, New York City (1883-90); First Reformed Dutch Church, Newark, N. J. (1890-92); and Sixth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Ill. (1892-1894). Since 1894 he has been engaged in literature and lecturing, and from 1897 to 1903 was director of the Abbey Press, New York City. In addition to editing The American Reformers Series (New York, 1890-96), he has written John Milton (New York, 1866); Life of Martin Luther (1866); History of the English Puritans (1867); History of the Huguenots (1868); The Dutch Reformation. (1869); The Pilgrim Fathers of New England (1870); Wendell Phillips (1890); William E. Dodge (1891); John. B. Gough, the Apostle of Cold Water (1893); Christian Citizenship (1897); and Sour Saints and Sweet Sinners (1898).

MARTYRARIUS: The cleric who had charge of a martyrium, that is a church containing the grave of a martyr. Deacons, presbyters, and even abbots have been martyrarii. During the Middle Ages there were such clerics in various countries; at Rome they were tatted custodes martyrum; the name martymrius occurs, as far as is known, only in France.

(H. Achelis.)

MARTYRIANS. See Messalians.

MARTYRS AND CONFESSORS: Names applied in the early Church to those who gave up their lives for their Christian faith, or underwent great sufferings short of death for the same cause. The name "martyr" (Gk. martyr, " witness") is applied in the New Testament both to those who were eye-witnesses of the life and resurrection of Jesus and to those who sealed their testimony with their blood (Acts xxii. 20; Rev. ii. 13, xvii. 6, cf. vi. 9, xx. 4). Such witnesses under persecution were never lacking from the time of the atoning of Stephen and the slaying of James; and down to the middle of the third century there was not a decade, scarcely a year, without its martyrs. Throughout the early literature rune the scarlet thread; numerous passages might be cited to show how joyfully the disciples met their death, although it was expressly forbidden to seek it. The full account of the martyrs of Lyons given in Eusebius (Hist. eccl., V., i.-iii.) shows the attitude of the Church. God gives the martyrs strength, suffers in them, and by them overcomes the adversary; in them, the athletes of Christ and of his beauteous bride, is a sweet savor as of ointment. As a proof of their humility it is mentioned that they did not claim the name of martyrs, but called themselves only confessors, still needing the grace of perfection. The right of intercession for sinners is thus early recognized, here and elsewhere (cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl., V., xviii. 7; Tertullian, Ad martyres, i.). Tertullian speaks of it as their prerogative to attain glorification immediately after death. The number of the martyrs has been disputed; Dodwell was the first to work out a smaller total than that previously deduced from the legends and the early acts (see Acta Martyrum). By degrees the treatment of those who had fallen away under the fear of torture became an urgent question (see Lapsed), with which was connected that of the intercessory privilege of the confessors; Cyprian's letters (Epist., xv. 22, ii. 23, 27) show how strongly this claim was urged, and he was obliged to oppose the extension of the practise. The origin of the Donatist schism was the uncompromising procedure of Castilian against the party which exaggerated tile duty of aufferyng martyrdom and the honor paid to the Carthaginian martyrs. Evidences begin to appear of superstitious veneration paid to the martyrs (Optatus, i. 16; Eusebius, Hiss eccl., VIII., vi.); the possession of their relics was a cause of eager rivalry, and these assumed the position almost of tutelary deities in the eyes even of such men as Basil and Gregory Nazianzen. Martyrdom was from the beginning designated as a "baptism of blood," supplying the place of that by water, and even, according to Cyprian (Ad Fortunatum, iv.), " greater in grace, more exalted in power, more precious in honor." On the anniversaries of the martyrs' deaths, considered as their birthdays into a higher life, special oblations were brought as early as Tertullian's day (De coronas

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iii.), and Cyprian prescribes the special observances to be practised (Epist., xii. 2, xxxix. 3).

When, with the proclamation of Christianity as the State religion, martyrdom became a thing of the past, and at the same time the influence of pagan superstition was felt in the Church, the honor paid to the martyrs increased greatly. Prudentius and Fortunatus celebrated their deeds in verse; altars were erected over their places of sepulture, and great confidence was placed in their intercession with God-though even now a Jovinian was found to protest against exaggerated devotion to them and a Vigilantius to oppose the veneration of their relics (Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum, II., xx.; Adversus Vigilantium, i.).

Martyrs were not lacking, however, in the later ages of the Church. In Persia, Armenia, Arabia, and elsewhere the Christians were the objects of pagan persecution shortly after Constantine's con version, and later in other parts of the world they suffered at the hands of the Arian Germans and of the followers of Mohammed, while the dominant Church learned to apply the same treatment to heretics. The Donatists had already used this as a proof that the Catholic was not the true Church. The persecuting spirit pervades the Middle Ages and marks with blood the story of the Waldenses, the strict Franciscans, the Apostolic Brethren, the Lollards, and the disciples of the martyred Huss. After the Reformation Luther soon had occasion to write hymns in celebration of its martyrs, and the Anabaptists have left us a number of theirs to attest the joy with which they endured persecution. The Reformed Church of France was a martyr-church. In the mission fields, especially in Japan and China, many Christians of the Roman obedience sealed their testimony with their blood; and on the Evangelical side the blood of the martyrs has proved, in Tertullian's phrase, " the seed of the Church " in Madagascar and more recently in Uganda, China, and elsewhere. The Evangelical church canonizes no martyrs, and believes it to be as great a thing to live for Christ as to die for him; but it, too, cherishes the examples of those who have been, in the literal sense, "faithful unto death."

(N. Bonwetsch.)

Bibliography: Quite adequate literature is given under Acta Martyrum, Acta Sanctorum; Saints, and the Veneration of Saints. The customs and early literature are well indicated in Bingham, Origines, XIII., iii. 2-3, ix. 5, XIV., iii. 14, XVI., iii. 4, XVIII., iv. 10, XX., vii. Consult further: Analecta BoUandiana, Paris, Brussels, and Geneva, 1882 sqq.; Gass, in ZHT, 1859; H. Delehaye, L'AmphitUStre Plaoien et ass environs dans lee textes hagiographiquea, Brussels, 1897; E. Am_linesu, Lee Actea des martyrea de l'4!gliae copte, Paris, 1900; H. Aehelie, in Abhandlungen der Göttinger Gesellschaft, 1900; F.Kattenbusch, in ZNTW, iv (1903), 111 sqq.; F. Augar, in TU, xxvui (1905); A. Linsenmayer, Die Bekampfung des Christentums durch den römischen Stoat, Munich, 1905.