The Cry Of The Martyrs

There are three things in this section which we must note.

(i) We have the eternal cry of the suffering righteous--"How long?" This was the cry of the Psalmist. How long were the heathen to be allowed to afflict God's righteous people? How long were they to be allowed to taunt his people by asking where God was and what he was doing? ( Psalms 79:5-10 ). The thing to remember is that when the saints of God uttered this cry, they were bewildered by God's seeming inactivity but they never doubted his ultimate action, and the ultimate vindication of the righteous.

(ii) We have a picture which is easy to criticize. The saints actually wished to see the punishment of their persecutors. it is hard for us to understand the idea that part of the joy of heaven was to see the punishment of the sinners in Hell. In the Assumption of Moses the Jewish writer (10: 10) hears God promise:

And thou shalt look from on high and shalt see thy enemies in

Gehenna.

And thou shalt recognize them and rejoice,

And thou shalt give thanks and confess thy Creator.

In later times Tertullian (Concerning Spectacles 30) was to taunt the heathen with their love of spectacles and to say that the spectacle to which the Christian most looked forward was to see his one-time persecutors writhing in Hell.

You are fond of spectacles; expect the greatest of all spectacles,

the last and eternal judgment of the universe. How shall I admire,

how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud

monarchs, and fancied gods, groaning in the lowest abyss of

darkness; so many magistrates who persecuted the name of the Lord,

liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the

Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in red hot flames

with their deluded scholars; so many celebrated poets trembling

before the tribunal, not of Minos, but of Christ; so many

tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings;

so many dancers writhing in the flames.

It is easy to stand aghast at the spirit of vengeance which could write like that. But we must remember what these men went through, the agony of the flames, of the arena and the wild beasts, of the sadistic torture which they suffered. We have the right to criticize only when we have gone through the same agony.

(iii) The martyrs must rest in peace for a little longer until their number is made up. The Jews had the conviction that the drama of history had to be played out in full before the end could come. God would not stir until the measure appointed had been fulfilled ( 2 Esdras 4:36 ). The number of the righteous first has to be offered (Enoch 47:4). The Messiah would not come until all the souls which were to be born had been born. The same idea finds its echo in the burial prayer in the Anglican Prayer Book that "it may please thee shortly to accomplish the number of thine elect and to hasten thy kingdom." It is a curious notion but at the back of it is the idea that all history is in the hand of God, and that in it and through it all he is working his purpose out to its certain end.