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The Other Christs

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The Other Christs
Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian
Ideologies of Martyrdom

C ANDIDA R . M OSS

2010

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Copyright © 2010 Oxford University Press, Inc.
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moss, Candida R.
The other christs : imitating Jesus in ancient Christian ideologies of
martyrdom / Candida R. Moss.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-973987-5
1. Martyrdom—Christianity. 2. Jesus Christ—Example.
3. Suffering of God. I. Title.
BR1601.3.M68 2010
272.092—dc22 2009037072
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper

For my mother, Katrina
May saints come to greet you, may angels guide you
to eternal rest, and pray for me, a sinner

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Preface
This book is a study of the presentation of the martyrs as Christ
ﬁ gures in the early church, both the way that the martyr acts interpret
the person and death of Jesus and the manner in which this interpre-
tation can inform our understanding of martyrdom in early Christi-
anity. As such it has a dual focus: the reception history of traditions
about Jesus and views of martyrs in the ancient churches. Yet despite
the breadth of these subjects, this book focuses upon the presenta-
tion of the martyrs in a single generic source: the acts of the martyrs,
or passiones. The focus on this particular type of narrative might be
interpreted by some as either myopic or anachronistic—myopic in
that it appears to disregard the wealth of other ancient sources for the
cult of the saints in antiquity, and anachronistic in that it appears
overly committed to the genre of the martyrdom account itself. While
this present study takes the martyrdom accounts as its focus, other
literary, artistic, and architectural sources are not ignored. Indeed,
they play a vital role in contextualizing these narratives. In placing
the martyrdom accounts at the forefront of my work, I am attempting
to treat them seriously as interpretative, rhetorically powerfully, and
theologically constructive literature. Rather than read the stories
about the martyrs as supporting evidence for the ideas of patristic
authors, I treat them as individual documents produced by anony-
mous but no less valuable authors and communities. As texts, the
martyrdom accounts are shaped by their readings, but we should not
assume that this interpretative process was always constrained by the

viii PREFACE
views of Tertullian, Cyprian, or Origen. Instead, we should treat these narra-
tives individually and try to imagine the various ways that they were understood
by the communities that produced and used them.
This project is in many respects an exercise in the history of interpretation
and ideas. I am interested in the way that the death of Jesus is constructed in
the context of martyrological traditions. An exhaustive study of the interpreta-
tion of the death of Jesus would have been impossible. Given my interest in
imitatio, I have focused on martyr traditions whose narrative form mirrored
that of extant traditions about the death of Jesus. This interest led me to focus
upon martyr narratives that generically are considered part of the acts of the
martyrs.
In terms of form, these narratives are drawn together by their common
interest in presenting biographical accounts of the deaths of martyrs. As a
result, scholars have treated these stories not only as generically united but
as ideologically homogeneous. Yet whatever formal similarities we can iden-
tify on a micro, narrative level is undercut by the variety of ways in which
they functioned in the early church. Some accounts appear in apologetic or
heresiological treatises, others as part of collections of martyrdom accounts,
and others still as part of histories of the church. While we can imagine that
many of these narratives were used in similar social settings, we cannot
assume that they had identical functions. In an inversion of the maxim
“divide and conquer,” my collection and use of these texts is intended to
problematize the genre of the martyrdom still further. I strive to show the
different views of the martyr at play in the ancient churches and the interpre-
tative richness and diversity in ancient martyrdom accounts. I have retained
a commitment to the “genre” of the martyr act only insofar as it enables me
to demonstrate the diverse ideas about martyrs held by ancient Christians.
We should not speak of an ideology or theology of martyrdom in the ancient
Church. Just as we speak of ancient Christianities, we should speak of ancient
ideologies of martyrdom.
Writing about martyrdom in the early church is made difﬁ cult by the elu-
sive task of identifying and delineating martyrdom accounts composed in this
period. While I have attempted to collect those passiones and acta that can most
reliably be dated before the reign of Constantine, slipperiness and uncertainty
are an inherent part of this practice. Rather than brush over difﬁ cult questions
of dating and provenance, I have tried to be as transparent as possible in han-
dling these sources and the evidence for their dating. I remain convinced that
the dating of the passiones and, more particularly, the difﬁ culty in dating these
texts remain an important precursor to their use by historians and theologians
of the early church. My own views on the dating of the passiones are laid out in

PREFACE ix
the appendix to this work; I invite the reader to decide for him- or herself
whether or not my arguments are sound. I only hope that, even if readers dis-
agree with my dating of individual martyr acts, they will accept my argument
that sensitivity to detail and the diverse arguments of these accounts are an
integral part of their study.

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Acknowledgments
One of the joys of ﬁ nishing this work is that it offers me the opportu-
nity to thank those to whom I am greatly indebted. This book is a
revision of my dissertation, completed at Yale University. During the
ﬁ nal stages of my work on the dissertation, I was fortunate to receive
ﬁ nancial assistance not only from the Graduate School but also from
the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation and the Catholic Biblical
Association. The Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts in the
College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame provided
ﬁ nancial assistance as I completed the project. I am indebted to the
librarians and staff of the Yale Divinity School Library, the British
Library, and the Bodleian for their wisdom and patience. I am
grateful to Cynthia Read, Jennifer Kowing, Susan Ecklund, and the
editorial team at Oxford University Press for their help and guidance
and to the Clarendon Press for granting me permissions to use texts
and translations from Herbert Musurillo, Acts of the Christian Martyrs
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972).
My thanks go to Harold Attridge, for his support and exemplary
model of rigorous biblical scholarship; Stephen Davis, for giving
freely of his research, time, and friendship; Bentley Layton, for his
high standards and judicious criticism; Dale Martin and Ludger
Viefhues, for deconstructing my world; my colleagues in the Program
of Liberal Studies for their support during my ﬁ rst year here at Notre
Dame; and Kenneth Wolfe, who set me on the path of biblical
scholarship.

xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am particularly indebted to Adela Yarbro Collins, my doctoral adviser,
without whom this book would never have been written. Her careful criticisms,
advice, exemplary scholarship, and marvelous instruction—for all of which she
is well known—are but the very least of the things for which I am grateful. She
has been the ﬁ nest mentor and most unfailing friend, and without her support
I would surely be less of a scholar and person than I am today.
Thanks are due to Stephanie Cobb, Adela Colins, Jim Kelhoffer and Wolf-
gang Wischmeyer for making their work available to me in prepublication form
and to Max Johnson for enthusiastically reading my work. There are numerous
friends, teachers, and colleagues whose support, expertise, and collegiality have
greatly improved this work; most notable among them are Joel Baden, David
Eastman, Timothy Luckritz Marquis, Brent Nongbri, Michael Peppard, Tudor
Sala, and Diana Swancutt. Christine Luckritz Marquis and Meghan Henning
deserve special thanks for sharing their papers, ideas, and passions with me.
Eric Prister and Jessica Shaffer have served as exemplary and tireless research
assistants, embracing every task happily and with good humor.
To my family—my four parents and my sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunts,
and cousins—I must extend my gratitude for their support and love, especially
during my ﬁ nal year of graduate school. My husband, Kevin McCarthy, has been
a source of unfailing and unquestioning support and love. A debt of an entirely
different kind is owed to my uncle James Fairbairn, whose humble, loving
imitatio Christi I am grateful for every day.

Contents
Abbreviations , xv
Introduction , 3
1. Suffering Like Christ , 19
2. The Martyr as Alter Christus , 45
3. The Savior Martyr , 75
4. The Martyr’s Heaven , 113
5. The Martyr as Divine Heir , 149
Conclusion , 173
Appendix , 177
Notes , 203
Bibliography , 279
Subject Index , 299
Ancient Authors Index , 307

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Abbreviations

1 Clem. First Clement
2 Clem. Second Clement
Ac. Abit. Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs
Ac. Apol. Acts of Apollonius
Ac. Carpus Acts of Carpus, Papylus, and
Agathonice
Ac. Cyprian Acts of Cyprian
Ac. Euplus Acts of Euplus
Ac. Felix Acts of Felix the Bishop
Ac. Julius Acts of Julius the Veteran
Ac. Just. Acts of Justin and His Companions
Ac. Marcellus Acts of Marcellus
Ac. Phileas Acts of Phileas
Ac. Ptole. Acts of Ptolemaeus and Lucius
Ac. Scil. Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs
Aeschylus, Per. Persians
Anal. Boll. Analecta Bollandiana
ANF Ante-Nicene Fathers
ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der
römischen Welt
Apoc. Jas Apocalypse of James
Apoc. Zeph. Apocalypse of Zephaniah
Aristophanes, Ran. Frogs
Aristotle, Metaph. Metaphysics

xvi ABBREVIATIONS
Aristotle, Poet. Poetics
Ascen. Isa. The Ascension of Isaiah
Augustine, Conf. Confessions
Augustine, Enarrat. Ps. Enarrations on the Psalms
Augustine, Faust. Against Faustus the Manichaean
Augustine, Serm. Sermones
Augustine, Serm. Dom. Sermon on the Mount
Augustine, Tract. ep. Jo. Tractates on the First Epistle of John
Augustine, Tract. Ev. Jo. Tractates on the Gospel of John
Augustine, Unit. eccl. The Unity of the Church
BHO Biblioteca hagiographica orientalis
Clement of Alexandria, Paed. Christ the Educator
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. Miscellanies
Cyprian, Fort. To Fortunatus: Exhortation to
Martyrdom
Cyprian, Test. To Quirinius: Testimonies against
the Jews
Cyprian, Unit. eccl. The Unity of the Catholic Church
Cyprian, Zel. liv. Jealousy and Envy
Did. Didache
Ep. Apos. Epistle to the Apostles
Epictetus, Diatr. Dissertationes
Euripides, Iph. taur. Iphigeneia at Aulis
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. Ecclesiastical History
Gos. Thom. Gospel of Thomas
Gos. Truth Gospel of Truth
Herm., Vis. Shepherd Hermas, Vision
Herm., Sim. Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude
Hippolytus, Haer. Refutation of All Heresies
Hippolytus, Trad. ap. The Apostolic Tradition
Homer, Od. Odyssey
Ign., Eph. Ignatius, To the Ephesians
Ign., Phld. Ignatius, To the Philadelphians
Ign., Pol. Ignatius, To Polycarp
Ign., Rom. Ignatius, To the Romans
Ign., Smyrn. Ignatius, To the Smyrnaeans
Ign., T
Ignatius, To the Trallians
Irenaeus, Haer. Against Heresies
Jerome, Vigil. Adversus Vigilantium
John Chrysostom, Ign. In sanctum Ignatium martyrem

ABBREVIATIONS xvii
Josephus, J.W. Jewish War
Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. First Apology
Justin Martyr, 2 Apol. Second Apology
Justin Martyr, Dial. Dialogue with Trypho
Lucian, Demon. Demonax
Lyons Letter of the Churches of Lyons and
Vienne
Mart. Agape Martyrdom of Agape, Irene, Chione,
and Companions
Mart. Apaioule Martyrdom of Apaioule
Mart. Arcadius Martyrdom of Arcadius
Mart. Barsamya Martyrdom of Barsamya
Mart. Caecilia Martyrdom of Caecilia
Mart. Conon Martyrdom of Conon
Mart. Crisp. Martyrdom of Crispina
Mart. Dasius Martyrdom of Dasius
Mart. Fruct. Martyrdom of Fructuosus and
Companions
Mart. Iren. Martyrdom of Irenaeus Bishop of
Sirmium
Mart. Isa Martyrdom of Isaiah
Mart. Mar. Martyrdom of Marian and James
Mart. Marculus Martyrdom of Marculus
Mart. Marinus Martyrdom of Marinus
Mart. Maximilian Martyrdom of Maximilian
Mart. Maximian Martyrdom of Maximian
Mart. Mont. Martyrdom of Montanus and
Lucius
Mart. Palestine Martyrs of Palestine
Mart. Pasius The Martyrdom of Pasius
Mart. Pion. Martyrdom of Pionius
Mart. Pol. Martyrdom of Polycarp
Mart. Pot. Martyrdom of Potamiaena and
Basilides
Mart. Pusai Martyrdom of Pusai
Mart. Simeon Martyrdom of Simeon
Minucius Felix, Oct. Octavius
NPNF Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
Origen, Cels. Against Celsus
Origen, Comm. Matt. Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew

xviii ABBREVIATIONS
Origen, Hom. Lev. Homily on Leviticus
Origen, Mart. Exhortation to Martyrdom
Origen, Princ. First Principles
Pass. Dorothea Passion of Dorothea
Pass. Maxima Passion of Maxima, Donatilla, and
Secunda
Pass. Perp. Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas
Pass. Serge Passion of Serge and Bacchus
Philo, Mos. 1 On the Life of Moses 1
Philo, Opif. On the Creation of the World
Pirqe R. El. Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer
PL Patrologia Latina
Plato, Leg. Laws
Plato, Phaed. Phaedrus
Plato, Symp. Symposium
Plato, Theaet. Theaetetus
Plato, Tim. Timaeus
Pliny the Younger, Ep. Epistulae
Plutarch, Aem. Aemilius Paullus
Plutarch, Quaest. conv. Quaestionum convivialum libri IX
Pol., Phil. Polycarp, To the Philippians
Quintillian, Inst. Institutio oratoria
SC Sources chrétiennes
T. Benj. The Testament of Benjamin
T. Levi The Testament of Levi
Tertullian, Apol. Apology
Tertullian, Bapt. Baptism
Tertullian, Fug. Flight in Persecution
Tertullian, Idol. Idolatry
Tertullian, Marc. Against Marcion
Tertullian, Mart. To the Martyrs
Tertullian, Nat. To the Heathen
Tertullian, Or. Prayer
Tertullian, Scorp. Scorpiace

The Other Christs

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In a letter to the Christian community in Rome, written around the
turn of the second century, the bishop martyr Ignatius implores his
addressees not to intervene with the Roman authorities to save him.
1

He longs, he says, “to be an imitator of my suffering God.”
2
His
ardent desire for a Christly death exempliﬁ es the early Christian
preoccupation with mimetic suffering. Out of the host of gory
accounts of torture and triumphant manly battles with Satan, a
seemingly innocuous theme emerges; the martyrs are imitators of
their Lord. Indeed, the characterization, conceptualization, and
depiction of the martyrs are grounded in the premise that in their
death they imitate Jesus. From the proclamations of the churches to
the footnotes of the academy, all agree: the martyr follows Christ both
literally and literarily.
3
In the words of Judith Perkins, “The one thing
everyone knows about Christianity is that it centers on suffering in
the exemplar of the cruciﬁ ed Christ.”
4
Despite, or perhaps because
of, its ubiquity in the ancient and medieval churches, the mimetic
relationship between the martyr and Christ remains unexplored in its
cadences, nuances, and signiﬁ cance. The relationship is everywhere
assumed but nowhere dissected.
5
The scholarly trend is to refer to the
fact that the martyr imitates Christ, but never to examine the details
and function of this imitation. What is this imitation? What does it
mean to lay martyrs on the literary scaffold of the cruciﬁ xion?
The answers, of course, are anything but simple. Language of
imitation is interwoven with ideals of discipleship and Pauline notions
Introduction

4 T HE O THER C HRISTS
of “putting on” Christ. Christ suffers in the martyrs and shares a particular
intimacy with them. The elaborate way in which imitation is constructed com-
plicates the picture but does not, as some have argued, negate the fact that
imitation is at work in ideologies of martyrdom.
6
That Christ lives in the mar-
tyrs does not exclude the possibility that they also imitate him. Our understand-
ing of imitation is further augmented by the diversity of its representation. In
some narratives, such as the famous Martyrdom of Polycarp , the martyr is explic-
itly identiﬁ ed both as an imitator of Jesus and as a model for other Christians.
In other accounts the presentation of the martyr as Christly imitation is subtler.
The martyrs imitate Christ in their words and gestures, mouthing scripture
and retreading the path blazed by Christ. But the imitation is never explicitly
identiﬁ ed in the account; Christ is, in a sense, “invisible.” In the same way as
the apostles in the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles , the martyrs ﬁ ll the vacancy left
by Jesus at the executioner’s block.
7

The presentation of the martyr as imitator of Christ was a delicate theo-
logical balancing act. Even in the case of Polycarp the author of the account is
careful to distinguish between Polycarp’s martyrdom “according to the gospel”
and the unevangelical enthusiasm of Quintus, who eagerly offers himself for
martyrdom. Only certain kinds of martyrdom are to be emulated.
8
At the same
time, the author is keen to differentiate between Polycarp and Christ. In order
to guard against the misconception that Christians worship their martyrs, the
author notes, “For him [Christ] we reverence as the Son of God, whereas we
love the martyrs as the disciples and imitators of the Lord” ( Mart. Pol. 17). Reg-
ulating the imitation of Christ is, in this text, a question of deﬁ ning what should
be imitated and what imitation is. Does following in Christ’s footsteps mean
standing in his place?
To simply state that the martyrs imitate Christ does not exhaust what the
imitation of Christ can tell us about either martyrdom or the history of ideas.
Imitating something or someone involves an understanding of what that thing
or person is, an interpretation of his or her signiﬁ cance. In the case of ancient
communities presenting their martyrs as Christly imitators, this involves a par-
ticular reading of traditions about Jesus, his death, his signiﬁ cance, and his
work. By presenting martyrs as Christly imitators, the authors of the early mar-
tyrdom accounts provide scholars with a window into early Christian under-
standings of scripture, Christology, and soteriology.
The ways that ancient literature can serve as sources for the history of inter-
pretation is not limited to the martyrdom accounts. In recent years there has
been in a surge of scholarly interest in the reception history of the New Testa-
ment. The interpretative moves of the early church, in particular, are the subject
of numerous studies seeking to understand the ways in which the canonical

I NTRODUCTION 5
texts were understood by the ﬁ rst generations of Christian readers. In the past,
reception histories of the canonical New Testament have adhered to one of two
approaches. The ﬁ rst is found in the numerous studies dedicated to biblical
interpretation in the work of a particular author.
9
This approach seeks to iden-
tify the exegetical strategies and interpretative eccentricities of a particular
author and is useful for identifying the way in which an individual church father
utilizes and interprets scripture. The conﬁ nes of the evidence are such, how-
ever, that these patristic authors are often later fourth- or ﬁ fth-century writers.
The second approach is found in works that attempt to trace out the recep-
tion of a particular canonical work in the writings of the early church.
10
These
studies offer valuable insights into the reception history of canonical texts, yet
their contribution is hampered by the narrow manner in which they identify
scriptural intertexts. Both focus on authors and works that employ explicitly
and self-consciously interpretative genres such as commentary, allegory, or
citation. If a biblical text is not explicitly “cited,” then it is not included. This
criterion has meant that there is little, if any, discussion of more ambiguous
forms of biblical intertextuality such as “allusion.”
11
Consequently, these
approaches are inherently limited, both temporally, in that the majority of stud-
ies focus on later patristic authors, and generically, in that the material exam-
ined is conﬁ ned to citation and commentary.
12

In the study of martyrdom accounts the use of scriptural texts is acknowl-
edged but rarely analyzed. Scholarly discussions of the use of the New Testa-
ment in the martyr acts are limited almost entirely to the italicization and
identiﬁ cation of canonical quotations.
13
With the exception of Victor Saxer’s
magniﬁ cent work on the use of the Bible in early hagiography and a handful of
exceptional articles on the Martyrdom of Polycarp , early writings about the saints
are rarely regarded as appropriate sources for reception history.
14
Yet as evi-
dence for the history of ideas, the acts of the martyrs present a number of
opportunities. To begin with, they are early, with a number of texts being dated
to the mid-second century, a period largely inaccessible for those interested in
reception history. Furthermore, as a literary tradition, the martyr acts stem
from a variety of social settings.
15
Unlike other forms of early Christian narra-
tive, such as the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles , the martyr acts can often be
reliably tied to speciﬁ c geographic locations. As a result, they not only provide
us with a view of speciﬁ c churches but also allow us to construct a geographical
picture of the diverse forms of Christianity in the early church.
Last, the form of interpretation contained in the acta offers a number of
advantages over more “traditional” interpretative formats like commentary. In
order for the presentation of the martyr to be effective, the rereading of Jesus
must necessarily remain in close contact with those Jesus traditions with which

6 T HE O THER C HRISTS
it assumes its audience to be familiar. This does not mean that the implied
understanding of Jesus traditions is guileless. Martyr acts do not simply repro-
duce biblical narrative, they “interpret” and offer a “reading” of it.
16
There are
very speciﬁ c agendas at work here; rather, the manner in which the rereadings
relate to the scriptural texts they reimagine differs from the manner of relation-
ship in more self-consciously interpretative genres.
This book endeavors to show how the martyr acts can illuminate our
understanding of the interpretation of writings and ideas about Jesus until the
conversion of Constantine.
17
It asks both what does the imitation of Christ in
the acts of the martyrs tell us about martyrs and also what does the martyrs’
imitation of Christ tell us about early views of Christ? It is impossible to give a
full account of the martyr’s imitation of Christ and the myriad ways that this
functioned in different places, times, and settings. Yet, I hope to offer a window
into the ways in which the martyr’s imitation can be instructive for our under-
standing of the early church. Imitation, for this study, means both the way that
the genre of the martyr act—problematic as it is—imitates and interprets the
gospel account, and also the way that the martyr is portrayed as or presumed to
imitate Christ. These two aspects are clearly related; each fosters and nurtures
the other, and we cannot really speak of one without the other. It is worth pars-
ing them here because they highlight different ways in which the study of mar-
tyrdom in valuable. In the ﬁ rst place, the imitation of the narrative form of the
death of Jesus extends the Gospels into the lives of early Christians. It forges a
concrete connection between individual Christians in the early church and the
scriptural narrative and enables them to construct their lives within the scrip-
tural world. In the case of the presentation of the martyr as an alter Christus , we
can see both the rereading of the person of Jesus and the construction of the
martyr as Christ ﬁ gure.
This book will follow the path of the martyr from trial and imprisonment,
to death, the heavens, and the throne of God. This journey and its focus on
imitation will allow us to see a variety of ways in which the martyr’s imitation
of Jesus can enlighten our understanding of martyrdom, the reception of tradi-
tions about the death of Jesus, the construction of heaven in the early church,
and historical theology. We will see the passion of Jesus renarrated in the bodies
of the martyrs. These traditions are examples both of scriptural interpretation
and of embodied biblical hermeneutics. Rhetorically, the narrative reenactment
of Jesus traditions clothed Christ in ecclesiastical attire. The martyrs served
to demonstrate the Christly response to persecution, communal conﬂ icts,
perceived heresies, and oppression. By reincarnatating Christ in the tortured
ﬂ esh of martyrs, Christian communities empowered the authors of the martyr
acts to speak the message of the divine son through martyr mimes.

I NTRODUCTION 7
The imitation of the martyrs is not only a question of biblical hermeneutics
or rhetorical elegance. The acts of the martyrs cast light on the development of
historical doctrines about the status and nature of Christ, on anthropology in
the early church, and on the mechanics of salvation. Chapter 3 will explore how
death was made meaningful through association with the death of Jesus and,
moreover, the meaning ascribed to the saving death of Jesus. It will challenge
the conventional view of the martyr’s death as sacriﬁ ce and the death of Christ
as unique.
The presentation of martyrs as “other Christs” was transformative for the
status of the martyrs in their own communities. Whereas previously they had
been slaves, women, artisans, bishops, deacons, aristocrats, and foreigners,
they had ascended—through Christly death—to the upper ranks of the Chris-
tian hierarchy. The beneﬁ ts of this kind of Christian social climbing are most
discernible in portrayals of martyrs in heaven. The activities, roles, and func-
tions of the martyrs in heaven suggest that they occupied a privileged position
there.
The martyrs’ emulation of Christ, the salviﬁ c function of their deaths, and
their promotion in the heavenly hierarchy raise questions about their relative
status vis-à-vis Christ. Imitation itself is rather more complicated than mere
“copying,” particularly when associated with language of “putting on” and
“possessing” Christ. For all its ubiquity, the question of what it means to imi-
tate Christ is largely overlooked. Imitation involves the recognition of the supe-
rior status and power of someone or something else. In choosing to imitate
another individual, a person ﬁ rst admires the abilities, person, inﬂ uence, and
status of the other individual. There is an implicit acknowledgment that the
other outranks or outstrips oneself. This recognition creates a chain or hierar-
chy in which lower imitates higher. There are a variety of ways in which imita-
tion is used and what the copy hopes to achieve. To use one brief example, an
athlete may imitate the style and accomplishments of another athlete. These
efforts reinforce a hierarchy in which the model is superior to the copy, but the
ambitions of the mimetic athlete are to acquire for him- or herself the status
and acclaim of the model. Depending on its use, therefore, imitation can appro-
priate, subvert, or reinforce the power and status of the model.
18

There is a certain ambiguity to the imitation of the martyr. Ignatius both
longs to imitate Christ and claims to bear Christ inside himself. What does tak-
ing hold of Christ mean? Does the imitation of the martyrs alter their status?
Idealized in death, did the martyr rise in the mimetic hierarchy to share the
status of Jesus? Leaving aside post-Nicean and post-Chalcedonian assumptions
about the uniqueness and transcendence of the ontologically divine Christ,
chapters 4 and 5 will examine the ways in which the charisma of the exalted

8 T HE O THER C HRISTS
martyr disrupted the mimetic hierarchy that separated martyr from Messiah.
This disruption will be revealed through an examination of both the martyrs’
functions in heaven and their status in the divine hierarchy.
The division of these chapters into function and status is in some respects
a mimetic reproduction of the traditional division between function and ontol-
ogy in discussions of Christology.
19
These are the scholarly categories used to
ascertain who Christ is in relation to God. Similarly, in martyrological scholar-
ship it is the assumption that martyrs share the same roles and functions as
angels that has contributed to view that they are , in fact, angels.
20
The former
category, therefore, is preserved in order to demonstrate the absence of func-
tional similarity with angelic beings. The selection of “status” rather than
“essence” is an important and deliberate attempt to avoid anachronistic and
inappropriate discussions of ontology—inappropriate not only to martyrdom
literature, which does not utilize this language, but also to the period as it would
anachronistically assume an interest in essence. If, as Castelli has shown, imi-
tation is about hierarchy and status, then hierarchy and status are the appropri-
ate lenses through which to view the martyr’s ascent.
In chapter 5 , the examination of distinctively Christological language of
enthronement, reign, divine sonship, and inheritance will be used to tease out
the martyrs’ status—to examine the extent to which the mimetic hierarchy
that placed Christ above the martyrs was disrupted by the mimesis itself. The
elevation of the martyr’s status does not make claims about divine essence or
deiﬁ cation, but it did prove troublesome for some church fathers. The charisma
of the memorialized martyrs proved hard to control, and it was necessary to
produce and police a doctrinal, ontological divide between Christ and the
martyrs.
Before turning to the speciﬁ cs of the interpretation of Jesus traditions, we
must ﬁ rst review the history of scholarship on martyrdom that has shaped the
way that martyrdom literature is treated and viewed by the scholarly commu-
nity. Martyrdom is not just mimesis, and an understanding of the broader ways
in which martyrdom functioned is an important precursor to this work.
Intellectual Inﬂ uences and Historical Origins
In the history of scholarship, the twin aims of identifying the historically “reli-
able” martyrdom account and locating the origins of martyrdom have been the
primary focus of scholarly interest. From the beginnings of scientiﬁ c inquiry in
the period of the Enlightenment, scholars of martyrdom have attempted to cat-
egorize the acts of the martyrs according to historical value. Value in this

I NTRODUCTION 9
instance is deﬁ ned as the extent to which the martyrdom account accurately
records the words and events surrounding the death of a particular early Chris-
tian. The Société des Bollandistes was founded with the express aim of sorting
the fraudulent chaff from the historically dependable wheat.
21
Its historical
analyses, recorded in more than seventy volumes of the Acta Sanctorum , have
laid the foundation for subsequent generations of scholars to debate the his-
torical veracity of the martyrdom accounts.
22
The work of the Bollandistes,
combined with the efforts of scholars like Ruinart,
23
von Harnack,
24
and von
Gebhardt,
25
established a small canon of martyrdoms that are deemed histori-
cally reliable. Despite the seismic methodological shifts in the study of the early
church, the historical reliability and authenticity of this canon of martyrdom
accounts have remained relatively secure. Even though modern scholars are
less concerned with the historical martyr and more interested in the communi-
ties that produce texts, the canon has remained largely unaltered.
26

Toward the beginning of the twentieth century, scholars began to probe the
origins of martyrdom itself. The great ecclesiastical scholar Hans Freiherr von
Campenhausen proposed that the notion of martyrdom originated within
Christianity itself as a distinctive feature of this new religious group.
27
For
Campenhausen and his followers, the Greek term martys describes a particular
kind of death in which an individual dies as a result of his or her religious con-
fession or witness. This view was supported by the linguistic studies of a cohort
of German scholars, most notably Norbert Brox, whose Zeuge und Märtyrer
(1961) demonstrated that the term martys does not become a terminus techni-
chus until the Martyrdom of Polycarp in the mid-second century.
28
More recently,
Campenhausen’s argument has been reasserted by the classicist Glenn Bower-
sock, who locates the origins of martyrdom in second-century Asia Minor.
29

In contrast to Campenhausen’s sui genesis theory of martyrdom, a number
of scholars have attempted to trace the conceptual basis of martyrdom—if not
the terminology—to a variety of Jewish and Greco-Roman accounts. This work
was begun by W. H. C. Frend, whose Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early
Church argued for a strongly Jewish background and located the origins of mar-
tyrdom within the history of the suffering of the Jewish people.
30

For Frend, narratives that described the unjust suffering and sometimes
death of righteous individuals are interpreted as early examples of martyrdom.
While the oldest Jewish stories involving the actual death of the hero are found
in 2 Maccabees, the theme of the righteous sufferer is traced back further to the
psalms of lament, the accounts of the three young men in the furnace (Daniel
3), and the story of Daniel in the lion’s den (Daniel 6). This theme is greatly
ampliﬁ ed in the accounts of the noble deaths of Elieazar and the seven sons in
the writings of the Maccabees. In recent scholarship, the inﬂ uential role of 2

10 T HE O THER C HRISTS
and 4 Maccabees on the development of ideologies of martyrdom has been
more fully parsed out in a number of works by Jan Willem van Henten, who
argues that thes Maccabees are the antecedents of Christian martyrs.
31

The genesis of martyrdom is further complicated when scholars look out-
side Jewish sources, to examples from the Greco-Roman world. There are a
number of startling literary and thematic similarities between Jewish and
Christian martyrdoms and Greco-Roman narratives that are more usually
termed “noble deaths.” The ﬁ gure of Achilles, Athenian funeral orations, the
tragedies of Euripides, and the deaths of the philosophers, most notably the
iconic ﬁ gure of Socrates, played an instrumental role in shaping ideas of self-
sacriﬁ ce and noble death. These noble deaths served as paradigms for imita-
tion; the death of Socrates, for instance, served as the model for Tacitus’s
description of the deaths of Seneca and Thrasea Paetus. Such examples serve to
foreshadow the way in which the suffering and death of an exemplary ﬁ gure
can serve as a model for his followers and admirers. Not only “martyrdom” but
the idea of the suffering exemplar predate the deaths of early Christians.
32

Even if parallels to martyrdom are found in contemporary literature, a
number of scholars are reluctant to term the deaths of the Maccabees or Greek
philosophers “martyrdoms.” The absence of language of witness is a critical
part of this reticence. The task of locating the origin of martyrdom often hinges
on scholarly deﬁ nitions of “martyr” and “martyrdom” and the extent to which
these deﬁ nitions rest upon semantic or conceptual foundations. While schol-
arly consensus maintains that the term martys only begins to resemble our
own term “martyr” in the second century, the majority of scholars have moved
away from linguistic deﬁ nitions toward broader conceptualist notions of mar-
tyrdom. To be sure, the linguistic focus of Brox and Campenhausen is limited
in scope, yet it draws our attention to the distinctive ways that the term “mar-
tyr” was discursively shaped by various Christian communities. There is
chronological development, but there are also geographic distinctions and cul-
tural nuances. The term was employed differently in different social, geo-
graphic, and chronological moments, and describing these nuances should be
the task of the scholar.
The construction of the linguistic category “martyr” took place alongside
and in dialogue with the construction of the category “Christian.” Nowhere is
this more evident than in the martyrdoms themselves, where the declaration “I
am Christian” is inextricably tied to the process of becoming a martyr.
33
This is
not to say that, as linguistic and conceptual categories, martys and Christianis-
mos are not constantly being produced; rather, in their initial production they
were constantly being coproduced.
34
This point is critical because it illustrates
that—for those individuals we categorize as ancient Christians—the ideology

I NTRODUCTION 11
of martyrdom and the status of the martyr did not stand outside and beyond the
realms of ordinary self-deﬁ nition.
Whether or not the origins of martyrdom can be located in Jewish or Chris-
tian traditions, there are a number of early church writings that lend them-
selves well to martyrological interpretation. Once again, in the case of these
examples scholarly attention has focused on the intersection of particular lin-
guistic and conceptual deﬁ nitions of martys and the presence of these concepts
in the writings of New Testament authors. For us, it is not particularly relevant
whether the authors of these texts themselves worked with an understanding
or deﬁ nition of the term martys that can be directly mapped onto our own.
What is relevant, however, is the way that these cultural and intellectual inﬂ u-
ences served to construct ideologies of martyrdom in which martyrdom
becomes inextricably linked to the notion of imitating Christ.
Social Contexts
While twentieth-century New Testament and patristic scholarship was preoc-
cupied with the intellectual origins of martyrdom, late antique scholars have
gravitated toward the social contexts in which martyrdom texts were produced
and performed. An audience or members of an audience understand texts
using the generic categories and intellectual and cultural information available
to them, but this understanding is equally shaped by the context in which the
text is heard or read. A biblical text read aloud in a congregation as part of a
liturgical service is understood differently from a text studied in the classroom
of a university.
It is not only bold contextual differences that affect the way that a text is
received; seemingly narrow contexts such as “the liturgy” leave room for multi-
ple modes of presentation. Within modern liturgy, for instance, biblical texts
are presented in distinct ways, and the particular form and mode of presenta-
tion greatly affect the text’s reception. The reading of scriptural passages as part
of modern Catholic Eucharistic performance uses scripture in a number of
discrete ways.
35
On the one hand, some texts are presented as “scriptural read-
ings” and as texts that will be explicitly used as the basis of the homily. Within
this group, Gospel readings are marked as particularly special; only the priest
may read from the Gospel, and the reading of Gospel passages is marked by
physical signs—such as the sealing of one’s forehead, lips, and chest with a
cross—that further mark out the Gospel reading as “special.” The receptions of
the Gospel readings and the Old Testament readings are not the same; they are
received differently, and we must be attentive to this. In addition to scriptural

12 T HE O THER C HRISTS
readings, the words of Jesus in the Gospels form the structure and framework
for the preparation and consecration of the gifts, the bread and wine used in the
ceremony. In consecrating the gifts, the priest refers to the words that Jesus
spoke “on the night before he died” to provide the context, justiﬁ cation, and
grounds upon which the consecration takes place. The explicit mentions of
scripture are further augmented by the subtle unmarked quotation of the words
of Jesus during the mass.
During the consecration of the gifts, the congregation kneels and says,
“Lord I am not worthy to receive you but only say the words and I shall be
healed.” The words are a near-perfect quotation from the story of the healing of
the centurion’s servant in Matthew 8:8, yet they are not marked as such in the
performance of the liturgy. Whether or not this response is understood as
scripture by the congregation is completely unclear. These brief examples illus-
trate the ways that scripture can be received and understood within the context
of the liturgy of the Eucharist in the Catholic Church. Scripture is used, pre-
sented, and received in a variety of ways. There is no singular “liturgical set-
ting” for the reception of biblical texts; there are instead many liturgical contexts,
and an understanding of the use and reception of a scriptural text can vary even
within a single liturgical performance . This is to say nothing of different liturgical
performances such as baptismal or funerary liturgies that color the presenta-
tion of scripture differently.
The same attention to detail and thirst for speciﬁ city should be applied in
scholarship seeking to locate the social contexts in which the martyr acts were
performed. In identifying the loci in which martyrdom literature was produced,
we must bear in mind the speciﬁ c manner in which the account is presented.
The martyrdom of Saint Stephen, as it comes to be read, is part of the canon of
scripture. The canonical status of this account is undoubtedly part of the driv-
ing force behind the particularly popular cult of Saint Stephen.
36
In the later
period, canonicity assures that the martyrdom of Saint Stephen is read differ-
ently from other accounts.
37
Developing a more sophisticated understanding of
the contexts in which martyrdom accounts are read, therefore, is an essential
part of understanding how they functioned.
A number of patristic writers and ancient sources refer to the public read-
ing of the martyrdom accounts on the anniversary of the martyr’s death, also
referred to as the martyr’s birthday, or dies natales . This practice appears to have
been widespread, particularly at sites associated with the martyrs such as their
tombs, churches dedicated to them, or their places of execution. The decision
of the Third Council of Carthage, in 397
C.E. , to permit the reading of the “Pas-
siones Martyrum cum anniversarii dies eorum celebrentur” indicates that in
Carthage at least the practice was supported by church authorities.
38

I NTRODUCTION 13
The public reading of martyr acts in churches or other communal gather-
ings endowed the accounts with authority and power. The degree of authority
apportioned to the account was related to both the premortem and the post-
mortem status of the martyr—who they were in life and who they were in
death. Apostles, the protomartyr Stephen, and the famed bishop Cyprian are
examples of martyrs whose premortem identity and status guaranteed them
authority and fame in death. In the case of other powerful martyrs, their status
and importance were derived from the prominence of their cults and enormity
of their shrines. The cults of the martyr Demetrios in Thessaloniki
39
and of
Serge and Bacchus in Syria
40
are examples of martyrs made famous through
the dissemination of their cult. In the minds of both ancient and modern read-
ers (although perhaps more in the minds of the latter), the prominence of
a particular saint was further bolstered by the homilies of important
church thinkers like Augustine, John Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nyssa.
41
The
admiration of esteemed church thinkers elevated the status of the individual
martyr.
The location of the reading of the martyrdom account is critical to under-
standing its importance. The acta were read aloud in small shrines, in cata-
combs, and in cathedrals, and the reception and function of the accounts are
augmented by each of these settings. The reading of the martyr acts in tombs
orients the attention of the audience on the themes of death and resurrection.
The presence of other tombs reminds them of the contrast between the fate of
the martyr and the fates of the ordinary dead and the unsaved. In his Confes-
sions , Augustine refers to the celebration of the martyr’s birthday with meals
and libations.
42
If the reading of the martyrdom account took place in conjunc-
tion with a meal for the dead or other kind of refreshment, then the reception
of the account would be different than it would be in a cathedral.
43
All of this is
to say that we should be wary of generalizing about the “social settings” in
which martyrdom accounts were received.
A number of scholars have argued that the acts of the martyrs were com-
posed for liturgical performance.
44
The evidence for liturgical readings of the
acta is manifold. Ancient records suggest that the martyrdom accounts were
read aloud on the feast day of the martyr, and we possess a slew of patristic
homilies delivered on these occasions. The homilies, which frequently refer
to the stories about the martyrs, suggest that the martyr acts were read aloud
as part of the liturgy. Scholars who argue that the martyrdom accounts were
a part of Eucharistic liturgy invariably read the deaths of the martyrs through
sacriﬁ cial understandings of the liturgy.
45
Such readings are productive and
offer valuable insights into the performance of acta in the context of sacriﬁ -
cial interpretations of the Eucharist. We should not assume, however, that the

14 T HE O THER C HRISTS
liturgical setting and function of the acta were stagnant and ﬁ xed, that the
martyrdom accounts were used in a single fashion, and that “liturgical func-
tion” itself refers to something homogeneous and uniform. Recent studies of
the Eucharist, for example, have demonstrated the diverse practices in opera-
tion in the ancient world, to say nothing of the unregulated baptismal prac-
tices in the early church.
46
Given that liturgical practices varied from location
to location, we must assume that heterogeneity, not uniformity, was the rule
and as a result resist the temptation to draw broad generalizations about litur-
gical function.
At the same time as we recognize the inﬂ uence that social setting has upon
the reading of the martyrdom account, we must also embrace the manner in
which the readings of martyrdom accounts can alter the understanding of the
social performance itself. The liturgical performance of a particular account is
altered by the content of the speciﬁ c account. The legends surrounding Saint
Lawrence, for example, have a particular resonance with Eucharistic liturgical
performance. As his bishop is led away to execution, the deacon Lawrence pro-
tests, exclaiming that they “always celebrate the sacrament” together. Read
within a Eucharistic liturgy, the performance of this account identiﬁ es the
priestly ofﬁ ciants and Eucharistic liturgy with the performance of martyrdom.
The more mundane liturgical sacriﬁ ce and the extraordinary offering of the
deacon Lawrence are aligned and compared.
The Eucharistic focus of writings about Lawrence can be compared to the
baptismal imagery of the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas , which understands
martyrdom as a kind of “second baptism.”
47
The reading of these texts in iden-
tical liturgical settings would color their performances differently, the former
lending a sacriﬁ cial ﬂ avor to the proceedings, the latter providing a baptismal
wash. Situating a text or genre of texts within the context of “liturgical perform-
ance” is more complicated than it may at ﬁ rst seem.
Scholarly imagination has leaned toward the Eucharist as the touchstone
of liturgical practice, but can we imagine other liturgical settings in which the
acta could have functioned? Martyrdom accounts and practices of martyrdom
are frequently described as tools in the conversion and promulgation of Chris-
tianity. In the words of Tertullian, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the
church.”
48
The conversion of the bystander is a topos of the genre itself, the
accounts frequently noting the effect that martyrdom had on the audience of
the execution. Given the prevalence of this phenomenon, it seems possible that
martyrdom accounts were read in the context of baptismal liturgies.
49
The Pas-
sion of Perpetua and Felicitas , for example, with its catechumen protagonists and
frequent references to baptism, would appear to be a prime candidate for this
kind of reading.
50
A number of patristic authors describe martyrdom as a form

I NTRODUCTION 15
of baptism, endowing martyrdom with a kind of sacramental quality and bap-
tism with a martyrological signiﬁ cance.
51
Even if the acta were not read as part
of baptismal liturgies, there is considerable evidence to suggest that they were
used in catechetical contexts to encourage initiation into Christianity and to
exhort the faithful to great endurance and virtue.
52

In addition to their liturgical or catechetical life span, a number of the
martyr acts functioned as epistolary communiqués and thus as part of a program
of intra-ecclesial dialogue.
53
The Martyrdom of Polycarp and the Letter of the
Churches of Lyon and Vienne are but two early examples of this phenomenon. The
exchange of stories about martyrs certainly served as a means of communicating
events, as well as a form of consolation and communal bonding among the
churches.
54
The reading of narratives of persecution and endurance in far-ﬂ ung
lands served to inspire Christians to greater endurance, to produce camarade-
rie and a sense of “being in it together.” A church enduring persecution in
Antioch, for example, did not suffer alone; its brethren in Gaul suffered with it
in solidarity and reality. Yet the exchange of martyrdoms accomplished other
things, serving to propagate a particular image of an individual church as espe-
cially virtuous, persecuted, and enduring. The persecuted church in Gaul, for
example, appears successful, brave, and exemplary, and this presentation sets
up an implicit hierarchy among the churches. When the Letter of the Churches
of Lyons and Vienne is read aloud in Asia Minor, the congregants and the church
in Asia Minor are implicitly encouraged to behave like the churches of Gaul.
Seeking to imitate the behaviors of others sets up a mimetic hierarchy in which
the object of imitation is elevated above the imitator. For the churches of Lyons
and Vienne, communities that otherwise lacked distinction, the presence of a
strong martyrological tradition, a tradition grounded in the imitation of Christ,
served to bolster their status among readers of their letter in Asia Minor. The
dissemination of martyrdom accounts, therefore, enabled individual churches
to claim authority and power and to rise up the hierarchy of churches even as
the martyrs themselves were elevated above the general Christian populace.
Even if the majority of martyr acts were composed with liturgical or cate-
chetical functions in mind, the earliest accounts conform to the genre and
function of apologetics. Discounting Polycarp, to the dating of which we will
return in the appendix, the earliest accounts of the deaths of Christians were
composed as part of the literary program of the “apologist” Justin Martyr. The
Acts of Ptolemaeus and Lucius forms part of Justin’s second apology and was
directed to the emperor Marcus Aurelius. The account of Justin’s own martyr-
dom, the Acts of Justin and his Companions , follows the same philosophical and
apologetic conventions. There is considerable debate as to whether “apologetic
literature” in the early church was truly composed with an imperial audience in

16 T HE O THER C HRISTS
mind.
55
Tessa Rajak, for example, has argued that apologetic literature was
composed with a Christian audience in view as part of a strategy of boundary
making.
56
The composition of the acts of the martyrs within the context of rhe-
torically styled philosophical apologetics provides us with another social loca-
tion in which the acta were read.
The writings of the apologists are particularly concerned with issues of
identity and boundary making. They focus on the continuity between the Jew-
ish scriptures and the beliefs and practices of Christianity, and on the superior
morality of the Christians over and against their pagan neighbors. Such argu-
ments are as useful for self-deﬁ nition within a Christian community as they are
for defending Christianity from external attack. Writers of texts intended for
insiders invariably had to contend with questions and anxieties from members
who were schooled in the cultural milieu of the outsiders, and the apologetic
“genre” ﬁ lled this void. Apologetic literature replied to the unspoken and invis-
ible critique that lingered in the minds of the philosophically educated.
57
The
textual overlap between apologetic and martyrological discourse, particularly in
the writings of Justin, conﬁ rms the proposition that martyrdom and apologetic
occasionally served as overlapping genres in the early church. Like apologetic
literature, martyrdom accounts are concerned with the construction of Chris-
tian identity and establishing boundaries between the Christian family and
those outside it. Deﬁ ning what it means to be Christian in intra-ecclesial dia-
logue was as important as establishing boundaries with outsiders.
58

Whether or not apologetic literature was as internally directed as Rajak
suggests, is critically important for our understanding of how martyrdom lit-
erature functioned in this setting. We can still, however, draw some conclu-
sions about the role of martyrdom literature in the arena of apologetics. As
apologetic literature, the martyrdom accounts functioned to answer external
critique (be it real or imagined). Even if apologetic missives were actually sent
to emperors, we can assume that they were read in public Christian settings in
which they served pedagogical and exhortatory functions. These readings were
not catechetical, but they were instructive. Justin himself ran a Christian school
in which he taught his students the tenets of Christianity. We can imagine,
therefore, that some early martyrdoms were read aloud to Christian students as
part of their schooling in the new Christian philosophy.
A related function of the martyr acts is the role that martyrs played in the
promulgation of particular doctrines and the suppression of perceived heresies.
The charisma and authority of the martyr were such that they rivaled even the
most powerful bishops and Christian thinkers. As articulate and brilliant as he
was, Augustine struggled with the competing power of the martyrs and—more
speciﬁ cally—those who controlled their veneration. Religious leaders were

I NTRODUCTION 17
wise to the authority of the saints, seeking to cast themselves as “friends of the
martyrs” in attempts to harness their power for political and theological gain.
59

At the same time, the communities responsible for the production and editing
of martyrdom accounts realized their potential for disseminating their own
theological views and ideas about Christian life. By placing doctrinal statements
on the lips of the martyr, an author or community could authorize its position
using the martyr’s seal of authority—an authority connected to the martyr’s
association with Christ.
Just as the writers of the apocryphal acts sought to harness the authority of
an apostle to endow their writing with power, so the editors of the martyrdom
accounts attempted the same feat using the persona of the martyr. The increas-
ing theologization of the martyrdom accounts can be traced through the redac-
tion and translations of accounts. An addendum to the Martyrdom of Polycarp
found only in the Moscow codex follows Irenaeus in portraying Polycarp’s con-
demnation of the followers of Marcion.
60
Over time, references to the Trinity,
references to the status of Mary as “mother of God,” and anti-Donatist lan-
guage of unity crept into the martyrdom accounts. Even though the social loca-
tion of the accounts’ performances may have remained the same, there was
now an added layer of functionality. The martyrdom accounts acted as heresiol-
ogy, as literature that sought to eliminate the heterodox and subtly promote the
doctrinal statements of the dominant group.
The social context of martyrdom is by no means more secure than the
intellectual contexts. We can imagine and have evidence for a variety of loca-
tions in which martyrdom texts functioned: liturgical, catechetical, intra-
ecclesial, pedagogical, apologetic, and heresiological. Even these functions are
broadly conceived—liturgical settings vary according to the grandeur of the
church, the personality of the homilist, and the purpose of the gathering. We
should be wary of exclusively assigning martyrdom literature to the realm of
the liturgical. Even if in the majority of cases martyrdom accounts were com-
posed with this setting in mind, they were used in a variety of settings and in a
number of different ways.
61

As much as these diverse social settings limit our ability to speak with cer-
tainty about the reception of a text, they open multiple avenues of inquiry about
the ways in which martyrdom literature is relevant to the early church. These
texts can shed light upon every aspect of Christian life, from the preparation
and instruction of the initiate, to liturgical rituals, the Christian family, doc-
trine, and death. It would be impossible to consider the interpretation of each
individual instance of imitatio Christi in every possible social location. Nonethe-
less, the concatenization of the various ways in which martyr acts functioned
here serves to illustrate a number of contexts in which the presentation of

18 T HE O THER C HRISTS
martyr as Christ type was rhetorically powerful for those producing these texts.
I leave it to the reader to imagine for him- or herself the many ways in which
the following individual examples of Christological mimesis resonated within
these different contexts.
With these diverse intellectual and social contexts lingering in our minds,
we return now to the object of the martyr’s ambitions: the person of Jesus. It is
in the earliest formulations of what it meant to follow Jesus—the writings of
the Jesus movement—that the premise of imitating Christ through suffering
was ﬁ rst established. The idea of imitating a suffering exemplar may not have
been unique, but the precise articulation of this concept is critical to our under-
standing of the martyr’s imitation. We will begin, therefore, with an examina-
tion of the formation of the Jesus follower in the literature of the nascent
church. We will see the ways in which suffering like Jesus was a foundational
element of membership in the communities of Jesus followers and an essential
component of Christian identity. Rather than taking for granted the fact that
suffering was important for the ﬁ rst followers of Jesus, we will explore the ways
in which this idea was expressed in terms of imitation and the manner in which
it became foundational for early Christian martyrdom.

To the modern reader, martyrdom literature has an alien quality.
Even in communities where martyrdom is viewed as admirable, it
frequently assumes the role of something foreign and historically
distant. Martyrdom is extreme and removed, necessitated by dire
historical circumstances that arise in far-ﬂ ung places and times. We
assume that it is an exceptional form of Christian behavior, a practice
that can only exist in these extraordinary historical moments, outside
of normal Christian practices and realms of being. It is a grounding
premise of the early church, however, that suffering and death could
serve a redemptive and transformative function for early Christians.
The ideology of martyrdom did not emerge—creation-style—out
of an intellectual vacuum. Long before the persecutions of Decius
and Diocletian, Christians had begun to identify their own sufferings,
be they “real” or “perceived,” with those of their suffering Messiah.
The close association and indeed identiﬁ cation of communal and
personal afﬂ ictions with those of Christ played an instrumental role
in shaping and deﬁ ning emerging Christian identities.
The identiﬁ cation of personal suffering with the sufferings of
Christ, however, is part of a larger complex of practices in which
members of the Jesus movement and early Christians sought to
imitate Christ in aspects of their daily life. The association of personal
with Christological suffering, therefore, was not solely the by-
product of theodicy; it was part of a web of mimetic practices that
writers and church leaders sought to inculcate in their audiences
1
Suffering Like Christ

20 T HE O THER C HRISTS
and congregations. Patient endurance and righteous suffering became part of
a set of Christly moral virtues that early Christians were exhorted to emulate.
Suffering as Christological imitation was not just a passive interpretative move;
it was an active practice to which Christians were constantly encouraged.
Both the association of individual suffering with the sufferings of Jesus
and the promotion of mimetic practices predate the emergence of martyrdom
literature. These ideas were present in the literature of the Jesus movement and
early church. The prevalence of these ideas was so great that by the time of the
composition of the acta martyrum , the interpretation of individual suffering as
a means of emulating Christ was assumed. This chapter discusses the New
Testament and early church texts that contributed to the emergence of this
view.
1
The inclusion of a particular text does not indicate either that this kind of
reading was the original intent of the author or that this is the only or dominant
interpretation of that text. Although in many cases it may have been true that
the author him- or herself viewed suffering in this manner, it is less the original
intent of the author than the possible readings that their work may have elicited
that are of interest.
Imitatio Christi in New Testament Scholarship
The exhortation to imitate Christ is one of the earliest themes in the literature
of the Jesus movement. From the Pauline to Ignatian epistles, imitating the
actions of Christ is a pervasive theme for early Christian writers. For early
Christians, the activities and teaching of Jesus became the template for the
Christian life. Jesus was the model for calling disciples (Mark 3:13–19; Matt
28:18–20), prayer (Mark 1:35–39; Matt 6:9–13), performing healings (Matt
8:1–17), answering the charges of opponents (Mark 2:1–3:27), and relating to
one’s family (Mark 3:31–35). In the absence of a codiﬁ ed ethical system, the
person and teachings of Jesus became the guiding principle for Christian
behavior.
The importance of imitation in moral discourse was not the product of
Christian invention; on the contrary, it was well established in ancient discourse
and particularly in the writings of Greco-Roman moralists.
2
In his classic study
of mimesis in antiquity, Hermann Koller argues that the word group arrived in
Greece as an accompaniment to the Dionysiac cult.
3
Mimetic language func-
tioned in a number of ways as means of describing artistic production,
4
the
relationship between the sensible and intelligible worlds,
5
the correct attitude
toward God,
6
as well as its use in an ethical sense as a means of exhorting indi-
viduals to behave in a certain manner.

S UFFERING L IKE C HRIST 21
In exhorting their students to live virtuous lives, Greco-Roman moralists
utilized the language of mimesis and ethical exempla as a powerful rhetorical
tool. While living models were to be preferred, the study of the bioi of distin-
guished individuals had great pedagogical beneﬁ t.
7
Through the imitation of
the words and deeds of great ﬁ gures, it was possible to become like them. The
same idea was present in Jewish writers in the Hellenistic period, who used the
language of mimesis to inspire their readers to live more virtuous lives. These
writers found inspiration in biblical ﬁ gures such as Moses or Joseph, whose
outstanding achievements as deliverers of the Israelite people made them emi-
nently qualiﬁ ed for the role of ethical model.
8

In the writings of the Jesus movement, exhortations to imitate the behavior
and actions of Jesus abound. The canonical New Testament overﬂ ows with the
idea that its readers should seek to imitate the actions of the savior. Yet New
Testament scholars have exhibited an astonishing and often unjustiﬁ ed reluc-
tance to speak of the imitation of Christ as a theme in the earliest Christian
literature. Imitatio anxiety among scholars is grounded in one of three underly-
ing motivations: the almost proprietorial hold that Roman Catholicism has
over the term, the Christological convictions threatened by the concept, and the
inescapable but repugnant conclusion that dying for Christ may be a central,
rather than peripheral, part of the Christian experience.
An underlying current in the rejection of imitation is the importance of
imitatio Christi in later Roman Catholicism and a latent anti-Catholicism in
scholarly treatments of the issue.
9
In addressing the question of imitatio Christi
in the literature of the earliest Christians, it is important not to import the later,
more reﬁ ned, technical use of the term in medieval Roman Catholicism. More
often than not, the term imitatio Christi calls to mind the manual of spiritual
devotion composed by the fourteenth-century German monk Thomas à
Kempis.
10
Unfortunately, the close association of the term imitatio Christi with
the writings of Kempis and practices of medieval Catholics has led many schol-
ars to reject its applicability to early Christian literature and to force an unnatu-
ral dichotomy between imitatio Christi in its later manifestation and New
Testament notions of imitation and discipleship.
11

The polarization of discipleship or following after Christ over against the
imitation of Christ is inappropriate in a number of respects. First, despite their
linguistic distinctiveness, the terms are used in similar and occasionally inter-
changeable ways. Discipleship is frequently assumed to entail imitation of
things that Jesus did, imitation often implies ethical imitation, and both terms
are used to describe suffering in imitation of Christ.
12
It is not the case, there-
fore, that discipleship is an ethical exhortation and imitation a performative
practice. Conceptually, the terms function in interlocking and mutually

22 T HE O THER C HRISTS
enlightening ways.
13
Second, the division between the two is often performed
on canonical terms. Discipleship is constructed as a New Testament concept
used by Jesus himself while imitation is relegated to the province of the early
church.
14
From the perspective of the historian, separating these ideas on the
basis of canonicity involves importing the later theological category of “canon.”
The anachronistic introduction of canon by scholars into the ﬁ rst century
reveals that what is really at stake here is a latent vulgar Catholic and Protestant
divide. Canonicity in the ﬁ rst century is not the concern of the historian; it is
the anxiety of the believer.
To the theologian, imitatio Christi is inherently troubling; the Christian
audaciously eyes the divine throne and attempts to claw him- or herself onto it.
In doing so the Christian threatens the stability of modern Christian ideas of
soteriology and Christology. It would be more convenient, then, if soteriologi-
cally orientated imitation could be assigned to the early church period and
thereby dismissed as just another mistaken tradition in the sticky theological
mess of patristic theological controversy. Post-Chalcedonian Christological
assumptions, therefore, are the second motivation behind the rejection of imitatio
Christi . The extent to which individual scholars see a particular Christly action as
imitable is directly connected to their own Christological views. As caveats to
their own discussions of imitatio Christi , many scholars will express their belief
in the inability of the Christian to imitate Jesus in terms of his uniqueness, that
is to say, in his “preexistent life” or his postmortem exaltation.
15

These arguments are essentially religious and stem from a commitment to
Jesus’ identity as the second person of an unattainable trinity. Such theological
commitments stem from a period much later than the New Testament texts,
and it is anachronistic to impose them here. This theological unpalatability is
handled in one of two ways. Either imitatio Christi is sanitized so as to refer to
a somewhat wishy-washy ethical concept. This trend is exempliﬁ ed by the work
of Gerald Hawthorne, who envisions imitatio Christi as an exhortation to allow
the thinking and actions of Jesus to permeate and inﬂ uence the lives of every-
day Christians.
16
Or, if at all possible, a critique of the theology of imitatio Christi
is offered. This approach is particularly evident in discussions of Ignatius of
Antioch, who is frequently condemned for his “abortive Christology” and “mis-
understanding” of the theme of imitation in Paul.
17
In these instances, imitatio
Christi is rejected either because it simply will not ﬁ t within the theological
framework of the scholar or because if it did, it would bankrupt the theological
economy of modern Christianity.
The ﬁ nal objection to imitatio is the unnerving idea that martyrdom is not
an optional extra in the Christian experience. If Christians are exhorted to imi-
tate the actions of Christ, if discipleship entails suffering like Christ, and if

S UFFERING L IKE C HRIST 23
Christ the true martyr blazes the way for his followers, then dying for Christ
was not just a possibility; it was an obligation. For moderns, martyrdom lies on
the periphery, outside the scope of normal Christian experience. Bringing mar-
tyrdom inside the vibrant and living New Testament makes for uncomfortable
reading.
18

In dealing with the literature of the Jesus movement and early Christian
churches it is, to my mind, both anachronistic and inappropriate to use the
term imitatio Christi in its expanded medieval sense. At the same time, it is
inappropriate to discard the notion of imitating Christ completely, merely
because it conjures up bad memories in the Protestant collective unconscious.
In its basic meaning, imitatio Christi refers to actions or words that imitate
those of Christ, not complicated ethical and spiritual systems of thought. For
the purposes of this work, I will employ the term to describe the idea that Jesus’
followers should seek to imitate him. This idea can be expressed both linguisti-
cally using the mimesis word group and conceptually in passages that propose
mimicry of Jesus’ behavior but do not explicitly use this terminology.
Having explored the dearth of scholarship on imitatio in the literature of
the Jesus movement, we can now turn to those texts that reveal an interest in
imitation and mimesis. The function of exhortations to imitate the behavior of
another is as much rhetorical as it is ideological. With respects to these early
texts, we are interested in the manner in which they began to construct follow-
ers of Jesus as suffering imitators.
Pauline Epistles
From the beginning of the Jesus movement, the imitation of Christ was a focal
point in the literature of the churches. Throughout his epistles, Paul frequently
exhorts his audiences to imitation of himself and Christ. In her work on this
theme, Elizabeth Castelli has drawn attention to the rhetorical function of
mimetic language.
19
She shows that it functions as part of a larger rhetorical
strategy that enables Paul to establish a particular set of societal relations. Paul
constructs a hierarchy of imitation in which he invites his audience to partici-
pate. He places Christ at the top of the hierarchy and himself as the mediator
between Christ and the congregation. The effect of mimetic language is to reg-
ulate behavior and draw together Paul’s rebellious and disorderly communities
in obedient mimesis not just of Jesus, but of Paul himself.
Regardless of the rhetorical aim of Paul’s use of mimetic language, he
inaugurates a tradition within Christian communities in which the suffering of
Christians is understood in terms of mimesis. Even if, as Castelli has proposed,

24 T HE O THER C HRISTS
Paul’s commands are a means of eliciting unity and conformity in his commu-
nities, his exhortations to imitate were reread in Christian communities as
ethical injunctions and practical admonitions. For our purposes we will focus
on those passages that are particularly concerned with suffering, persecution,
and death.
Paul’s interest in mimesis is apparent as early as 1 Thessalonians, which is
considered by most scholars to be the earliest of his extant epistles.
20
Unlike
some of his other letters, there is little sense that Paul is responding to any
reports of unrest or discord in the Thessalonian congregation. He writes instead
that his anxiety and desire to strengthen their faith (2:17–3:5) have occasioned
the letter.
21

Paul’s use of Christological mimesis begins in the ﬁ rst thanksgiving sec-
tion (1 Thess 1:6–7, 2:14), where he describes the Thessalonians as “imitators”
(
μ ι μ η τ α ί ) of himself and Christ in their receipt of the word despite much afﬂ ic-
tion. The notion of imitation through suffering resurfaces in the second thanks-
giving section in 1 Thess. 2:14, where the community at Thessaloniki are
exhorted to “become imitators” (
μ ι μ η τ α ὶ ἐ γ ε ν ή θ η τ ε ) of the churches in Judea.
The basis for the exhortation is that the Thessalonians suffered the same thing
from their countrymen as the church in Judea did from the Judeans. The Thes-
salonians are inserted into what Castelli calls the “mimetic economy” in which
they imitate Paul, the Lord, and the Judean churches:
22
“For you, brothers and
sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in
Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did
from the Jews.”
23
Paul grounds his exhortation in the shared experience of per-
secution felt by the churches. The common experience of suffering ties the
churches together. The same rationale reappears in later Pauline epistles where
the readers are exhorted to imitate the endurance of Paul and Christ in the face
of suffering. If we, somewhat unhistorically, imagine Paul as anticipating his
language of the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians, we might say that the body of
Christ dispersed throughout the world is a body held together by the common
experience of persecution.
In his letter to the Philippians, Paul uses mimetic language as a call to
unity within the community. He exhorts the brethren (
ἀ δ ε λ φ ο ι ) to come together
in like-mindedness in their imitation of him:
Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live
according to the example you have in us. For many live as enemies of
the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you
even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and
their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.

S UFFERING L IKE C HRIST 25
But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are
expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body
of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory,
by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to
himself.
24

In this passage in particular, Paul’s language encourages unity among those he
calls brethren. His use of the unusual form
σ υ μ μ ι μ η τ ή ς underscores this call
to unity and coming together. It is not mimesis alone but mimesis that estab-
lishes union and agreement.
25
At the same time as he invites uniﬁ cation, he
sets up a clear distinction between those brethren who are invited to join in
mimesis, and the enemies of the cross of Christ (
τ ο ὺ ς ἐ χ θ ρ ο ὺ ς τ ο ῦ σ τ α υ ρ ο ῦ
τ ο ῦ
Χ ρ ι σ τ ο υ ). The implication is that those who fail to imitate Paul are ene-
mies of the cross of Christ. The dichotomy is unforgiving; come together in
imitation of the ﬁ gure of Paul or ﬁ nd yourself an enemy of the cross of Christ.
For our purposes, the most interesting instance in which Paul exhorts his
readers to imitate Christ is found in the so-called Christological hymn of Philip-
pians 2:5–11. Since the groundbreaking work of Lohmeyer, the majority of
scholars have maintained that this pericope was a pre-Pauline liturgical hymn
that was inserted into the epistle by Paul for exhortatory ends.
26
The passage
begins with Paul expressing the desire that the Philippians have the same mind
as did Christ. He then proceeds to qualify what having “this mind” would mean
by inserting a hymn that illustrates the humility and obedience of Christ:
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he
was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as some-
thing to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he
humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even
death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave
him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the
glory of God the Father.
27

While many elements of this hymn fascinate its readers, one clause is particu-
larly striking for our interest in the relationship between suffering and imita-
tion of Christ: “
ἐ τ α π ε ί ν ω σ ε ν ἑ α υ τ ὸ ν γ ε ν ό μ ε ν ο ς ὑ π ή κ ο ο ς μ έ χ ρ ι θ α ν ά τ ο υ ,
θ α ν ά τ ο υ δ ὲ σ τ α υ ρ ο ῦ
.” (2:8). For Lohmeyer, Christ’s obedience unto death was
the focal point of the hymn and the rationale behind Paul’s inclusion of it.
Christ’s obedience became the supreme example for the believer and was even

26 T HE O THER C HRISTS
the model for martyrdom.
28
Following Lohmeyer, we can see Paul as exhorting
his readers to imitate Christ (v. 5) in obedience and humility (v. 8). The supreme
illustration of this self-effacing obedience is found in Christ’s readiness to accept
a shameful death. Even if Paul’s intention is to exhort the Philippians to follow
his advice, he ends up encouraging his readers to mimic the death of Christ. If
Christ could obediently accept such a death, says Paul, so too should you.
Not all are convinced that Paul’s inclusion of the Philippians hymn is an
attempt to establish Christ as an example.
29
Ralph P. Martin argues that emula-
tion of the life and person of Christ is an impossible task: “The Apostolic sum-
mons is not: Follow Jesus by doing as He did—an impossible feat in any case,
for who can be a ‘second Christ’ who quits his heavenly glory and dies in shame
and is taken up into the throne of the universe?”
30
Martin’s argument here
rests, as we have already noted, on a number of basic post-Chalcedonian Chris-
tological assumptions. He assumes that no one can be a “second Christ”
because he is certain both that Philippians 2:5–11 describes a unique preexist-
ent heavenly being and that exaltation to the throne of God was a glory accorded
only to Christ. In the Christological controversies Martin’s theological assump-
tions become standardized, yet in the ﬁ rst four centuries of the Christian
church these assumptions were by no means set. It is wholly possible, there-
fore, that for members of the earliest churches the imitation of Christ could
include exaltation on the heavenly throne. Evidence of this is found in the
Apocalypse of John where those who “overcome” current persecution are prom-
ised a seat on the throne of God (Rev 3:21).
In 1 Corinthians Paul twice exhorts his readers to a life of imitation (1 Cor
4:16–17 and 11:1).
31
The by now familiar call to imitate Paul’s conduct as he
imitates Christ’s is grounded in his appeal to the parental role he assumes in
the Corinthian community: “For though you might have ten thousand guardi-
ans in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became
your father through the gospel. I appeal to you, then, be imitators of me. For
this reason I sent you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the
Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ Jesus, as I teach them everywhere in
every church.”
32
The inclusion of the phrase “to remind you of my ways” sug-
gests that Paul proposes something more particular than just “live a good
life.”
33
The speciﬁ c referent of this imitatio has been variously identiﬁ ed as
Paul’s attempt to inculcate a particular value in the lives of Corinthians, be it
personal qualities of humility and self-sacriﬁ ce,
34
communal or relational val-
ues of unity,
35
or a life of suffering.
36

All these suggestions base themselves on internal evidence within the Cor-
inthian correspondence. In 1 Corinthians 4:11, Paul references his own self-
sacriﬁ ce and humility as an apostle who forgoes food, clothing, and shelter.
37

S UFFERING L IKE C HRIST 27
Paul’s understanding of imitation is further qualiﬁ ed later in the letter in 11:1
where he again exhorts the Corinthians to “imitate me as I imitate Christ”
( μ ι μ η τ α ί μ ο υ γ ί ν ε σ θ ε κ α θ ὼ ς κ ἀ γ ὼ Χ ρ ι σ τ ο ῦ ). Castelli is correct to direct us to
the implicit power structure here. Paul is elevated above the Corinthians, and
the disjointed community is directed to look to him as their model.
38
At the
same time, however, it is clear that there is something about Christ’s behavior
or actions that is being identiﬁ ed as worthy of imitation. Paul intends imitatio
Christi to include a variety of ethical stances and practical actions, not least of
which is Christ’s self-sacriﬁ cial obedience unto death.
39

In 2 Corinthians, Paul reorients his ethical instructions to focus on the
example offered in Jesus. Here, perhaps more than anywhere else in his cor-
respondence, Paul focuses on traditional material about Jesus and uses this as
a means to exhort the Corinthians to mimic the exemplary behavior of Jesus.
40

Of special importance to our study is Paul’s focus on the sufferings of Christ
and the relationship between Christly suffering, apostolic suffering, and com-
munal and individual suffering. The theme of suffering lingers under the sur-
face of the entire work and forms the basis for Paul’s apostleship. It legitimizes
him as an apostle, serves as the cornerstone of his missionary activity, and is a
marker of his special relationship to Christ. Indeed, it is these sufferings that
validate and conﬁ rm his vocation, and “it is in these circumstances that Paul’s
union with Christ is expressed.”
41
Paul’s accounts of his sufferings for Christ
permeate this epistle (2 Cor 6: 4–10; 11:23–33) and are expressed as evidence of
his apostleship (2 Cor 11:23).
The theme of imitation reappears in Galatians. The most confrontational
of Paul’s letters, Galatians is widely considered to be Paul’s response to an
increasing preoccupation with circumcision on the part of the community
there.
42
Paul’s heated rebuke of the Galatians requires that he justify his posi-
tion as an apostle and a ﬁ gure of authority for the church he himself founded.
In doing so he invokes the marks of his suffering as a source of authority. In
Galatians 6:17, Paul authenticates his mission on the basis of “the marks” (
τ ὰ
σ τ ί γ μ α τ α
) of Jesus that he has borne: “From now on, let no one make trouble
for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body.”
43
The term σ τ ί γ μ α τ α
is a hapax legomenon in the New Testament.
44
It is probable that τ ὰ σ τ ί γ μ α τ α
are those scars Paul received as a result of the persecutions inﬂ icted upon him
during his missionary campaigns.
45
This language is connected to his interest
in imitating Christ, a theme alluded to throughout Galatians without explicit
use of mimetic language (cf. Gal 2:19; 4:13; 5:24; 6:14).
46
It is, however, through
the replication of Christ’s suffering, through being “cruciﬁ ed with Christ” (Gal
2:20), that Christ lives in Paul. Suffering as Christ suffered is precisely what
enables Paul to “have” Christ within himself. It is suffering that binds them

28 T HE O THER C HRISTS
together. This idea resurfaces in martyrdom accounts in which, in moments of
extreme torture, Christ dwells within the martyr’s body ( Lyons 1.23).
Claims to have suffered and exhortations to others to expect suffering were
a means of gaining authority and respect in early Christian communities,
allowing Paul to connect himself to Jesus using the rhetoric of imitation and,
in doing so, to authenticate his mission. For Paul exhortations to imitate the
sufferings of others serve a valuable rhetorical purpose. Within the “mimetic
economy” of the early church, suffering like Christ was “cultural capital.”
47

Read in conjunction with Paul’s language of putting on Christ and being reborn
in Christ, exhortations to imitate the sufferings of Christ resonated in a particu-
lar way. Life in Christ was read as assuming a life lived individually and com-
munally within the suffering body of Christ. The rhetorical power of suffering
like Christ transﬁ gured participation in Christ into suffering.
Gospels
In the Gospels we encounter, for the ﬁ rst time, attempts to catalog and record
narratively the life and teachings of Jesus.
48
The generic difference between the
epistles of Paul and the bioi of the Gospels means that the presentation of Jesus
as a model for imitation takes on a different shape.
49
On the one hand, the
model is clearer and more deﬁ ned as the words and actions are explicitly
described. The accounts of the teachings and activities of Jesus provide a tem-
plate for the disciples in the narrative and the would-be disciples in the audi-
ence. On the other hand, the language of mimesis is absent. In its stead, we
ﬁ nd discussion of the nature of discipleship and how to “follow” Jesus. As a
theme, the nature and demands of discipleship permeate the gospel accounts,
and for some scholars there is an essential difference between following Christ
and imitating him.
50
As we shall see, however, there are plenty of instances in
which “following Christ” entails suffering in the same manner as he did.
51
In
these instances, whether or not the term “mimesis” is used, the practice of fol-
lowing Christ effectively is embodied imitation.
Mark
The earliest Gospel, and thus the ﬁ rst to discuss suffering for Christ, is the
Gospel of Mark.
52
A variety of locations have been suggested for its composi-
tion, but the majority of scholars agree that it was composed between 65 and 73

C.E. in the midst of the Jewish War.
53
Regardless of the precise place of

S UFFERING L IKE C HRIST 29
composition, a number of characteristics of the text suggest it was an encyclical
composed for the purpose of widespread circulation.
54

Throughout the Gospel, the theme of following Christ is prevalent. From
the beginning, Mark describes the activity and journeying of Christ as “the
way.” He begins his gospel by appealing to the “way of the Lord” (1:1–3) and
repeatedly describes the journey from Caesarea Philippi to Jerusalem in the
same fashion (8:27; 9:33f.; 10:32).
Structurally, the overall shape of Mark’s account offers a paradigm for
discipleship. As noted by Philip Davis, in Mark the teachings of Jesus take a
backseat to the exhortations to follow the example of Jesus.
55
For Davis, Mark’s
Gospel “can be read as a blueprint for the Christian life: it begins with bap-
tism, proceeds with the vigorous pursuit of ministry in the face of temptation
and opposition, and culminates in suffering and death orientated toward an
as-yet unseen vindication.”
56
Similarly, Larry Hurtado argues that Mark lacks
a resurrection appearance, not because he has no knowledge of such accounts
but because Mark intends to focus his readers’ attention on Jesus’ life as exem-
plar. The abrupt ending to the Gospel, therefore, encourages the reader to
follow Jesus’ example despite fear and uncertainty.
57
For Hurtado and Davis,
the structure of Mark represents the path of discipleship from baptism to
death, Jesus himself is the “true model of Christian discipleship” and the nar-
rative is shaped to make the story of Jesus the road map for the lives of his
followers.
58

This leitmotif is further distilled in 8:22–10:52, where the role of the disci-
ple and the true nature of discipleship become preoccupying themes for the
evangelist. Toward the beginning of this section, Jesus instructs the disciples in
what it means to follow him:
And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to
them, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and
take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will
lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will
save it. For what does it proﬁ t a man, to gain the whole world and
forfeit his life? For what can a man give in return for his life? For
whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and
sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when
he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
59

Scholarly attention to this passage has focused upon the opening verse and the
meaning of the dramatic phrase “
ἀ ρ ά τ ω τ ὸ ν σ τ α υ ρ ὸ ν α ὐ τ ο ῦ .” Should we
understand this phrase literally, as a kind of exhortation to martyrdom? Or
should it be read ﬁ guratively as a cipher for mistreatment or abuse? On a literal

30 T HE O THER C HRISTS
reading, given the additional exhortation to “follow” Jesus, it seems that Jesus
exhorts his disciples to follow him to cruciﬁ xion and death.
60

Yet despite its apparent straightforwardness, this literal interpretation has
been rejected by a number of scholars in favor of spiritualized or ﬁ gurative
readings of the phrase. Gundry argues that the instruction could not have been
intended literally because Jesus had not predicted his own death in terms of
cruciﬁ xion, and the disciples would have been unable to orchestrate events so
that they would be condemned to death in this manner.
61
Instead, Gundry pro-
poses that the phrase “take up one’s cross” is meant ﬁ guratively to imply will-
fully subjecting oneself to the shame and ridicule of following Christ. Gundry’s
argument seems overly labored in his attempt to resist the notion that the dis-
ciples are being invited to follow Jesus to their deaths.
If we assume that this passage has been reworked by Mark, it is neither
here nor there that Jesus did not predict his own passion in terms of cruciﬁ x-
ion.
62
The information that Jesus was cruciﬁ ed and resurrected was the most
publicized element of the Jesus story in the early days of the Jesus movement.
Thus, if Mark could assume any knowledge about Jesus on the part of his audi-
ence, it was that he was cruciﬁ ed.
63
Furthermore, if we give credence to the
early Christian tradition that links the Gospel of Mark with Petrine traditions,
we can safely assume that Mark was familiar with traditions about the cruciﬁ x-
ion of Peter.
64
If we read this statement in light of the Petrine tradition, it can
be seen as an allusion to the cruciﬁ xion of the most prominent apostle in
Mark.
Even apart from traditions relating to Peter, the phrase “take up your cross
and follow me” can be read as a literal instruction that employs the image of the
cross as a ﬁ gure for death. For ﬁ rst-century readers familiar with the narrative
of the death of Jesus, it seems difﬁ cult to imagine that the barbaric image of the
cross could not have conjured up the image of the brutal death of Jesus. As for
Gundry’s objection that the disciples would not have been able, logistically
speaking, to ensure that they were cruciﬁ ed, this seems to assume on the part
of the historical Jesus an interest in and knowledge of the machinations of
Roman law courts for which we lack evidence entirely.
65

Perhaps the most convincing evidence that we should read verses 34–36
literally is their connection to verses 37–38. The latter portion of this section
deals explicitly with the comparable rewards of losing or saving one’s physical
life. Unquestionably, in the verses that immediately follow the exhortation to
“take up one’s cross,” we have a discussion of the signiﬁ cance of dying for
Christ.
Although it is the language of discipleship and following (
ὀ π ί σ ω μ ο υ
ἀ κ ο λ ο υ θ ε ῖ ν
and ἀ κ ο λ ο υ θ ε ί τ ω μ ο ι ) that is prominent here, it is clear that

S UFFERING L IKE C HRIST 31
following after Jesus involves imitating him. A literal reading of the instruction
to “take up the cross” (
ἀ ρ ά τ ω τ ὸ ν σ τ α υ ρ ὸ ν α ὐ τ ο υ ) implies that following
Christ involves following a death like his. Death for Christ is aligned with the
death of Christ. Even if the phrase “take up his cross” is read in a purely ﬁ gura-
tive manner, the function of the saying remains the same; it equates the experi-
ence of the disciple with the death of Jesus.
Regardless of Mark’s own intent, early readers of Mark were aware of and
in some cases supported literal interpretations. A rejection of the literal inter-
pretation is found in Luke’s redaction of this pericope: “Then he said to them
all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up
their cross daily and follow me.’”
66
The addition of the phrase “every day” ( κ α θ ’
ἡ μ έ ρ α ν
) here transforms the saying so that it cannot be read martyrologically.
The redaction betrays a Lukan anxiety about the demands of discipleship.
Clearly Luke intends that the idea of taking up the cross must be read ﬁ gura-
tively, not literally. By inserting this phrase, Luke resists the literal interpreta-
tion of taking up one’s cross as a call for martyrdom and directs his readers
toward a more pedestrian ethical interpretation. That Luke needs to alter his
source indicates that there were those at the time who read Mark as a call for
suffering and death. Apparently Luke was aware of the potential for a literal
reading of Mark and was consciously trying to suppress it in his version of the
story.
A more positive approach to the literal interpretation is found in the writ-
ings of the early church. In his Exhortation to Martyrdom , the third-century
Alexandrian Origen uses this passage to support his argument that the work of
Jesus is continued through the deaths of the early Christian martyrs. In address-
ing Ambrosius, his bishop, he writes: “You go in procession bearing the cross
of Jesus and following him when he brings you before governors and kings.”
67

Here, Origen interprets Mark 8:34–38 in a literal sense as an instruction to
members of his Christian community to prepare for arrest and martyrdom.
68

The cross that they were to bear is meant to refer to at least persecution and
arrest and—given the context of this passage within an exhortation to martyr-
dom—most probably death. In one sense, Origen understands the phrase
“bearing the cross” ﬁ guratively, in that he does not take it to mean actual wood-
en crosses, but he also reads the instruction literally as he clearly expects his
addressees to meet with death.
For our purposes, perhaps the clearest indication that this passage was
read literally is found in the Acts of Euplus .
69
In this turn-of-the-fourth-century
account the martyr Euplus enters the courtroom with scriptures and is instructed
to read aloud from the text. The passages he elects to read are Matt 5:10 and
Mark 8:34–38//Matt 16:24: “The martyr opened [the book] and read: ‘Blessed

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admit, however, that it will be difficult ever to banish the entire
tramp tribe, for some of them are exceedingly clever, and when
decently clad can play the rôle of almost any member of society. For
instance, I tramped through Connecticut and Rhode Island once with
a "fawny man."
[4]
Both of us were respectably dressed, and,
according to my companion's suggestion, we posed as strolling
students, and always offered to pay for our meals and lodging; but
the offer was never accepted. Why? Because the farmers
"considered themselves repaid by the interesting accounts of our
travels, and talks about politics," etc. My friend was very sharp and
keen, and carried on a successful trade in spurious jewelry with
some of the foolish country boys, when he was not discussing the
probabilities of the presidential election. I am sure that I could travel
through New England to-day, if respectably clad, and be gratuitously
entertained wherever I should go; and simply because the credulity
of the charitable is so favorable to "traveling gentlemen."
One of the main reasons why Massachusetts is such poor territory
for the usual class of vagrants is its jail system. In many of these
jails the order and discipline are superb, and work is required of the
prisoners—and work is the last thing a real tramp ever means to
undertake. I cannot help looking forward to very gratifying results to
trampdom from the influence of the present Massachusetts jail
system. For anything which brings the roving beggar into contact
with sobriety and labor is bound to have a beneficial effect. New
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan are all fairly
good tramp States, and all swarm with allowed beggars. The most
remarkable feature of vagrancy in New York State is that wonderful
town known among vagrants as the "City" and also as "York." This is
the most notorious tramp-nest in the United States. I have walked
along the Bowery of an afternoon, and counted scores of men who
never soil their hands with labor, and beg on an average a dollar a
day. Even the policemen of this city are often friends of beggars, and
I have seldom met a hobo who was very angry with a New York
"bull." As a rule, the police officer, when finding tramps drunk on
door-steps or begging, says in a coarse and brutal voice, "Get out!"

and possibly gives them a rap with his club, but it is altogether too
seldom that the beggar is arrested. One rather odd phase of tramp
life in New York city is the shifting boundary-line that marks the
charity of the town. Several years ago Eighty-ninth Street was about
as far uptown as one could secure fair rewards for diligent begging.
Now one can see tramps, on a winter night especially, scattered all
along One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, not because this street
is the only "good one," but because it is so "good" that better profits
are realized than in those farther down. And for clothes, I have
always found Harlem more profitable than other parts of the city.
New York city is also one of the best places in the country for
"snaring a kid"—persuading some youngster to accompany an older
beggar on the road. There are so many ragamuffins lying around
loose and unprotected in the more disreputable quarters of the town
that it is only necessary to tell them a few "ghost-stories" (fancy
tales of tramp life) to make them follow the story-teller as
unresistingly as the boys of Hamelin marched after the Pied Piper.
Almost every third boy that one meets in American vagabondage
hails from "York." This accounts for the fact that several tramps of
New York birth have the same name, for even the beggar's ingenuity
is not capable of always hitting upon a unique cognomen. I have
met fully a dozen roadsters having the name of "Yorkey," "New York
Bob," "New York Whitey," "New York Slim," etc., which makes it not
only the fashion but a necessity, when hearing a city tramp's name,
to ask which Whitey, which Yorkey, or which Bob it is, and a personal
description is usually necessary before the fellow can be
distinguished.
Over in New Jersey, I think, there are more tramps to the square
mile than in any other State, excepting Pennsylvania. The
neighborhood around Newark is simply infested with beggars, who
meet there on their way into and out of New York city. They often
have a hang-out on the outskirts of the town, where they camp
quite unmolested, unless they get drunk and draw their razors,
which is more than common with Eastern tramps. It is surprising,
too, how well they are fed, when one remembers that they have

"battered" in this community for years. It is in Pennsylvania,
however, that the tramp is best fed, while I still maintain that he
gets more money in New York city. I do not know of a town or
village in the Keystone State where a decently clad roadster cannot
get all that he cares to eat without doing a stroke of work in
payment. The jails are also a great boon to the fraternity. In the
majority of them there is no work to do, while some furnish tobacco
and the daily papers. Consequently, in winter, one can see tramps
sitting comfortably on benches drawn close to the fire, and reading
their morning paper, and smoking their after-breakfast pipe, as
complacently and calmly as the merchant in his counting-room. Here
they find refuge from the storms of winter, and make themselves
entirely at home.
A "TIMBER LESSON."
Ohio and Indiana, although fairly friendly to tramps, are noted for
certain "horstile" features. The main one of these is the well-known
"timber-lesson"—clubbing at the hands of the inhabitants of certain
towns. I experienced this muscular instruction at one unfortunate
time in my life, and I must say that it is one of the best remedies for
vagabondage that exist. But it is very crude and often cruel. In
company with two other tramps, I was made to run a gantlet

extending from one end of the town of Oxford, Indiana, to the other.
The boys and men who were "timbering" us threw rocks and
clubbed us most diligently. I came out of the scrape with a rather
sore back, and should probably have suffered more had I not been
able to run with rather more than the usual speed. One of my
fellow-sufferers, I heard, was in a hospital for some time. My other
companion had his eye gouged terribly, and I fancy that he will
never visit that town again. Apart from the "timber" custom, which, I
understand, is now practised in other communities also these two
States are good begging districts. There are plenty of tramps within
their boundaries, and when "the eagles are gathered together," the
carcass to be preyed upon is not far away.
The other States of the East have so much in common with those
already described that little need be said of them. Chicago, however,
deserves a paragraph. This city, although troubled with hundreds of
tramps, and noted for its generosity, is nevertheless a terror to evil-
doers in this, that its policemen handle beggars according to law
whenever they can catch them. Instead of the tiresomely reiterated
"Get out!" and the brutal club-swinging in New York, one gets
accustomed in Chicago to "thirty days in the Bridewell." I know this
to be true, for I have been in Chicago as a tramp for days at a time,
and have investigated every phase of tramp life in the city. Of course
there are thousands of cases where the beggar is not caught, but I
maintain that when he is found he is given a lesson almost as
valuable as the one over in Indiana. The cities in the East which the
vagabond considers his own are New York ("York"), Philadelphia
("Phillie "), Buffalo, Boston, Baltimore, Chicago (here he is very often
deceived), Detroit (another place where he is deceived), and
Cincinnati.
Just a word about the Eastern tramp himself. His language is a slang
as nearly English as possible. Some words, however, would not be
understood anywhere outside of the clan. His personal traits are
great conceit, cleverness, and a viciousness which, although
corresponding in the main to the same in other parts of the country,
is nevertheless a little more refined, if I may use that word, than

elsewhere. The number of his class it is difficult to determine
definitely, but I believe that he and his companions are many
thousands strong. His earnings, so far as my experience justifies me
in judging, range from fifty cents to over two dollars a day, besides
food, provided he begs steadily. I know from personal observation
that an intelligent beggar can average the above amount in cities,
and sometimes in smaller towns.
THE WEST
Vagabondage in this part of the country is composed principally of
"blanket-stiffs," "ex-prushuns," "gay-cats," and a small number of
recognized tramps who, however, belong to none of the foregoing
classes, and are known simply as "Westerners." The blanket-stiffs
are men (or sometimes women) who walk, or "drill," as they say,
from Salt Lake City to San Francisco about twice a year, begging
their way from ranch to ranch, and always carrying their blankets
with them. The ex-prushuns are young fellows who have served
their apprenticeship as kids in the East, and are in the West "looking
for revenge," i. e., seeking some kid whom they can press into their
service and compel to beg for them. The gay-cats are men who will
work for "very good money," and are usually in the West in the
autumn to take advantage of the high wages offered to laborers
during the harvest season. The Westerners have no unique position,
and resemble the Easterner, except that they as well as the majority
of other Western rovers drink alcohol, diluted in a little water, in
preference to other liquors. On this account, and also because
Western tramps very often look down upon Eastern roadsters as
"tenderfeet," there is not that brotherly feeling between the East and
the West in vagrancy that one might expect. The Easterners think
the Western brethren too rough and wild, while the latter think the
former too tame. However, there is a continual intercourse kept up
by the passing of Westerners to the East, and vice versa, and when
neither party is intoxicated the quarrel seldom assumes very
dangerous proportions.

Of the States in the Western district, I think that Illinois, Iowa,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Washington, and a part of California
are the best for tramps.
Iowa is usually liked very much by roadsters, but its temperance
principles used to be thoroughly hated, as were also those of
Kansas. It is needless to say, however, that in the river towns a
tramp could usually have all the liquor he could stand. I was in
Burlington once when there was a Grand Army celebration, which
the tramps were attending (!) in full force; and the amount of
"booze" that flowed was something astounding for a "dry" State.
Nearly every vagrant that I met had a bottle, and when I asked
where it came from, I was directed to an open saloon! A great fad in
Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas is to beg from the hotels. I have
received hospitality in these places when I could get absolutely
nothing at the private houses. This is especially true when the cook
is a negro. He will almost always give a beggar a "set-down" (square
meal), and sometimes he will include a bundle of food "for the
journey." Still another fad when I knew the country was to call at the
penitentiaries for clothes. I saw a man go into the Fort Madison
"pen" (Iowa) one day with clothes not only tattered and torn, but
infested with vermin. When he returned, I hardly knew him, he was
so well dressed. Stillwater Penitentiary in Minnesota also had a
notoriety for benevolence of this sort, but I cannot affirm this by
personal observation.
Wisconsin, although not exactly unfriendly to tramps, is nevertheless
a "poor" State, because it has no very large city and is peopled
largely by New-Englanders. Milwaukee is perhaps the best place for
a beggar. The Germans will give him all the beer he wants, and feed
him well besides, for they are the most unwisely generous people in
this country. Where they have a settlement, a tramp can thrive
almost beyond description. For instance, in Milwaukee, as in other
Wisconsin towns, he can batter for breakfast successfully from six
o'clock until eleven o'clock in the morning, and is everywhere sure of
a cup of coffee. I once attempted in Milwaukee to see just how
many dinners I could get inside the ordinary dinner-time, and after

an hour and a half I returned to the hang-out with three bundles of
food, besides three dinners which had already been disposed of. I
could have continued my dining indefinitely, had my capacity
continued.
San Francisco and Denver are the main dependence of tramps in the
West. If one meets a westward-bound beggar beyond the
Mississippi, he may usually infer that the man is on his way to
Denver; and if he is found on the other side of that city, and still
westward bound, his destination is almost sure to be "'Frisco," or at
least Salt Lake City, which is also a popular hang-out. Denver has a
rather difficult task to perform, for the city is really a junction from
which tramps start on their travels in various directions, and
consequently the people have more than their share of beggars to
feed. I have met in the city, at one time, as many as one hundred
and fifty bona-fide tramps, and every one had been in the town for
over a week. The people, however, do not seem to feel the burden
of this riffraff addition to the population; at any rate, they befriend it
most kindly. They seem especially willing to give money. I once knew
a kid who averaged in Denver nearly three dollars a day for almost a
week, by standing in front of shops and "battering" the ladies as
they passed in and out. He was a handsome child, and this, of
course, must be taken into consideration, for his success was
phenomenal.
"'Frisco" is even better than Denver, furnishing districts in which
tramps can thrive and remain for a longer time unmolested. There
are more low lodging-houses, saloons, and dives; and there is also
here a large native class whose character is not much higher than
that of the tramp himself, so that he is lost among them—often to
his own advantage. This difficulty of identification is a help to
roadsters, for there is nothing that pleases and helps them so much
as to be considered "town bums," the latter being allowed privileges
which are denied to strangers.
In the estimation of the tramp the West does not rank with the East.
The railroads are not so "good"; there are fewer cities; even the

towns are too far apart; in some districts the people are too poor;
and taking the country as a whole, the inhabitants are by no means
so generous. I doubt whether the average gains of Western beggars
amount to more than twenty-five cents a day. In "'Frisco" and
Denver, as well as in a few other large towns, begging is of course
much more remunerative, but in the rural parts the average wage of
a beggar is even below twenty cents a day, besides food; at least,
this is the result of my observation. In general the Western tramp is
rough, often kind-hearted, wild and reckless; he always has his razor
with him, and will "cut" whenever there is provocation. The blanket-
stiff is perhaps the least violent of all; his long walking-tours seem to
quiet his passion somewhat, and overcome his naturally wild
tendencies. The ex-prushun is exactly the opposite, and I know of
no roadster so cruel and mean to the weak as this young fellow, who
is, after all, only a graduated kid. This is not so surprising, however,
when one recollects that for years he has been subject to the whims
and passions of various "jockers," or protectors, and naturally
enough, when released from his bondage, he is only too likely to
wreak his pent-up feelings on the nearest victim. After a year or two
of Western life he either subsides and returns to the East, or
becomes more intimately connected with the true criminal class, and
attempts to do "crooked work." Several of the most notorious and
successful thieves have been ex-prushuns.
Just how many tramps there are in the West it is even more difficult
to decide than in the East, because they are scattered over such
wide territory. Experience makes me believe, however, that there are
fully half as many voluntary idlers in this part of the country as in
the East. And the great majority of them, I fear, are even more
irreclaimable than their comrades in other communities. They laugh
at law, sneer at morality, and give free rein to appetite. Because of
this many of them never reach middle age.
THE SOUTH

Tramp life here has its own peculiarities. There are white loafers
known as "hoboes," which is the general technical term among white
tramps everywhere, and there are the "shinies," who are negroes.
The odd part of it all is that these two classes hardly know each
other; not that they hate each other or have any color-line, but
simply that they apparently cannot associate together with profit.
The hobo seems to do better when traveling only with hoboes, and
the shiny lives much more comfortably in his own clan. My
explanation of this fact is this: both parties have learned by
experience that alms are much more generously given to a white
man when alone than when in company with a negro. This, of
course, does not apply anywhere but in the South, for a colored
tramp is just as well treated in the East and West as a white one.
My knowledge of the shinies is very meager, for I was compelled to
travel as a hobo when studying vagrancy in the South, and I have
never met a member of that class who knew very much about his
negro confrères. From all that I can gather, however, I think that
they resemble very closely the gay-cats, for they do work now and
then, although their being on the road is usually quite voluntary,
unless their natural laziness can be considered as a force impelling
them into trampdom. Their dialect is as different from the usual
tramp lingo as black from white, and I have never been able to
master its orthography.
As the South in the main is only skimmed over by most white
tramps, and as a few cities represent the true strongholds of
vagrancy, it is unnecessary to give any detailed account of this
region. Besides, it is only in winter that many tramps, excepting, of
course, the shinies, are found here, and consequently there is not
very much to describe, for they go into this part of the country
principally to "rest up" and shun the cold weather prevalent in other
districts. The chief destinations of wandering beggars in the South
are New Orleans, St. Augustine, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, and
Atlanta. Several towns in Texas are also popular "resting-places," but
usually the tramps in Texas have begged their money in other
States, and are there principally for "a great slopping-up," for which

dissipation Texas furnishes much more suitable accommodations
than any other State in the Union. The usual time for Eastern and
Western tramps to start South is in October. During this month large
squads of vagabonds will be found traveling toward "Orleans." I
once was on an Illinois Central freight-train when seventy-three
tramps were fellow-passengers, and nearly every one was bound for
either Florida or Louisiana. These two States may almost be called
the South so far as hoboes are concerned. New Orleans is especially
a tramp-nest, and ranks second to New York in hospitality, according
to my experience. In the older part of the town one can find beggars
of almost every nationality, and its low dives are often supported by
the visiting knights of the road. Begging, as they do, very fair sums
of money, and being only too willing to spend it quickly, they afford
these innkeepers of the baser sort very fair rewards for keeping up
their miserable "hotels." A well-trained beggar can very often
average a dollar a day in New Orleans if he begs diligently. But he
must be careful not to be arrested, for the jails in the South are
man-killing holes in many and many an instance. Even in the East
and West several of the county prisons are bad enough, but they
cannot compare in filth to some of the miserable cells of the South.
Jacksonville and St. Augustine are good hang-outs for tramps, and in
the winter such visitors are very numerous. They make a very
decent living off the transient tourists at these winter resorts. But
success is so short and precarious there that many hoboes prefer
New Orleans, on account of its steadier character, and seldom visit
the other towns. Besides, to batter around the hotels in St.
Augustine one should be respectably clad, and polite in manner and
bearing, which, in most cases, involves far too much trouble.
The most generous people in the South are the poor, but not the
negro poor, who, according to my experience, are by no means
large-hearted. Take them in the East or West, and they are friendly
enough, but on their native heath they are, as a rule, stingy. I have
received much more hospitality from the "poor whites" than from
any other people. The negroes, when I asked them for something to
eat, would say: "Oh, go and ask the Missis. I can't give you

anything"; and when I would call upon the "missis," she was not to
be seen. But the poor white would invite me into his shanty, and
treat me as well as was in his power. It was not much, I must admit;
but the spirit was willing though the pantry was nearly empty. In
West Virginia, for instance, I have been entertained by some of the
"hill people" in their log cabins in the most hospitable manner. The
obvious reason of this is a scarcity of tramps; when they are few,
generosity is great, and the few get the benefit.
If the students of this particular phase of sociology will only look
minutely and personally into the conditions under which trampdom
thrives and increases in our country, Barcas's map may yet become
famous. Charles Godfrey Leland once wrote an article entitled
"Wanted: Sign-Posts for Ginx's Baby." It would seem that his prayer
has been answered, and that this unwanted, unprovided-for member
of society has found his way through forest and mountains, over
rivers and prairies, till now he knows the country far better than the
philanthropist who would gladly get on his track. If this
topographical survey shall serve to bring him nearer what should be,
and what I am convinced aims to be, a source of betterment for
him, Barcas will not have lived in vain.

V
THE CITY TRAMP
Vagabonds specialize nowadays quite as much as other people. The
fight for existence makes them do it. Although a few tramps are
such all-round men that they can succeed almost anywhere, there
are a great many others who find that they must devote their time
to one distinct line of begging in order to succeed. So to-day we
have all sorts of hoboes. There are house-beggars, office-beggars,
street-beggars, old-clothes beggars, and of late years still another
specialization has become popular in vagabondage. It is called "land-
squatting," which means that the beggar in question has chosen a
particular district for his operations. Of course, a large number of
tramps still go over all the country, but it is becoming quite
customary for vagabonds to pick out certain States and counties for
their homes. The country, as a whole, is so large that no beggar can
ever really know it on business principles, and some clever beggars
not long ago decided that it is better to know thoroughly a small
district than to have only a general knowledge of the entire
continent. Consequently our large cities have become overrun with
tramps who make them their homes the year round, till America can
almost compete with England in the number of her "city vags."
There is no large town in the United States that does not support its
share, and it is seldom that these tramps are natives of the towns in
which they beg. In New York, for example, there are scores of
beggars who were born in Chicago, and vice versa. They have
simply picked out the city which pleases them most and gone there.
In time they become so numerous that it is found necessary to
specialize still further, and even to divide the town itself into districts,
and to assign them to distinct kinds of begging. It is of these
specialists in vagrancy that I intend to write in this chapter.

TOMATO-CAN TRAMPS.
The lowest type is what
is called in tramp
parlance the "tomato-
can vag." In New York
city, which has its full
quota of these miserable
creatures, they live in
boxes, barrels, cellars,
and nooks and corners
of all sorts, where they
can curl up and have a
"doss" (sleep). They get
their food, if it can be
called that, by picking
over the refuse in the
slop-barrels and tomato-
cans of dirty alleys. They
beg very little, asking
usually for the stale beer
they find now and then
in the kegs near saloons. Money is something that they seldom
touch, and yet a good many of them have been first-class criminals
and hoboes in their day.
I used to know a tomato-can tramp who lived for several months in
a hogshead near the East-Side docks of New York. I visited him one
night when on a stroll in that part of the city, and had a talk with
him about his life. After he had reeled off a fine lot of yarns, he said:
"Why, I remember jes lots o' things. I's been a crook, I's been a
moocher, an' now I's shatin' on me uppers [I am broke]. Why, what
I's seen would keep them blokes up there in Cooper Union readin' all
winter, I guess."
This was probably true. He had been everywhere, had seen and
done nearly everything which the usual outcast can see and do, and
he wound up his life simply "shatin' on his uppers." No one will have

any dealings with such a tramp except the men and women in his
own class. He is hated by all the beggars above him, and they "do"
him every chance they get.
A fair example of this class hatred came under my notice in London,
England. I was walking along Holborn one evening when I was
suddenly accosted by an old man who wanted me to give him a
drink.
"I wouldn't ask ye," he said, "'cept that I'm nearly dyin' o' cold. Can'
cher help a feller out!"
There was something so pitiful about him that I decided to take him
into a public house. I picked out the lowest one in the neighborhood.
The place was filled with beggars and criminals, but they were all of
a higher class than my friend. However, I called for his gin, and told
him to sit down. It was soon evident that the old man was an
unwelcome guest, for even the bartender looked at him crossly. He
noticed this, and began to grumble, and in a few minutes was in a
quarrel with some of the men. The bartender told him to be quiet,
but he claimed that he had as good a right to talk as any one else.
He was finally put out, although I made all the remonstrance I
dared. I started to leave too, but was prevented. This made me
angry, and I turned on the men, and said:
"What right have you fellows to treat me this way? I came in with
the old man respectably enough."
"Oh, come up 'n' 'ave a drink," said one of the men. "Don't get 'uffy.
Come up 'n' 'ave a bitter."
Then another said: "Say, was that old feller any relation o' yourn?
'Cause ef 'e was, we'll fetch 'im back; but ef 'e wa'n't, 'e kin stay
where 'e is. 'E don't belong in 'ere."
"Why is that?" I asked.
"Why, don' cher know that 'e ain't o' our class? 'E's a' ole can-
moocher. 'E ain't got no right 'ere."

"Well, do you mean to say that you own this place, and no one can
come in who is not of your choosing?"
"The case is jes this, 'n' you know it: it's our biz to do anybody out o'
our class."
"Would you 'do' me if you had a chance?"
"Bet cher life!"
I got out safely soon after this, and had gained knowledge for the
future.
But, hated as he is by the more successful vagabonds, the tomato-
can tramp is just as kind-hearted and jovial as any of them. And for
fair treatment I will risk him every time. As a rule, he is an old man,
sometimes over seventy years of age. He dresses most outlandishly,
seldom having any two garments of the same color, and what he has
are tattered and torn. His beard and hair are allowed to grow as long
as they can, and usually give him the appearance of a hermit.
Indeed, that is just what he is. He has exiled himself from all that is
good and refined, and is like a leper even to his brethren. It is just
such a life as his, however, to which all tramps that drink, as most
outcasts do, are tending. It matters not how clever a criminal or
beggar a man may be, if he is a victim of liquor, and lives long
enough, he is sure to end as a tomato-can tramp. There is a suction
in low life which draws men continually lower. It is an inferno of
various little worlds, and each has its own pitch of degradation.
The next higher type of the town tramp is the "two-cent dosser"—
the man who lives in stale-beer shops. In New York he is usually to
be found about Mulberry Bend, the last resort of metropolitan
outcasts before dropping down into the "barrel-and-box gentry." This
district supports the queer kind of lodging-house called by the men
who use it the "two-cent doss." It is really a makeshift for a
restaurant, and is occasionally kept by an Italian. The lodgers come
in late in the evening, pay two cents for some stale beer or coffee,
and then scramble for "spots" on the benches or floor. All
nationalities are represented. I have found in one of these places

Chinamen, Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Poles, negroes, Irishmen,
Englishmen, and "'Mer'cans," and they were all as happy as could
be. They beg just enough to keep them in "booze," their food being
found mainly at "free lunches." Like the tomato-can tramp, they
have little intercourse with beggars above them. By this I mean, of
course, that they know they will not be treated sociably outside of
their class, and decide very wisely to remain where they belong.
They rarely leave a town which they have picked out as a home; and
some of them never even get out of their narrow district.
In Chicago, for instance, there is a "joint" near Madison Street in
which some men simply live day and night, excepting the few hours
they spend in looking for the pennies they need. In the daytime they
sit on the benches and talk shop, and at night they lie on the floor.
There is a watchman who cares for them at night; he sleeps near
the door in order to let in any belated beggar. But he first lights his
candle, and commands the beggar to show how much money he
has. If it is five cents, the price of a mug of beer, he is allowed to
enter.
In New Orleans I once saw a place somewhat similar, the only
difference being that at night ropes were stretched across the bar-
room for the men to lean on while sleeping. Some persons fail to
note much difference in the lives of the two-cent dossers and the
tomato-can tramps, but the two-cent dossers make a sharp class
distinction out of their greater privilege. Personally, I should rather
live in a barrel or box than in a joint, if only for the sake of
cleanliness. The joint is simply a nest of vermin, and cannot be kept
clean; whereas, if a man is careful and works hard, he can keep a
barrel fairly habitable for himself, and with no other occupants. Still,
I am sorry to say that few men who do live in barrels achieve or
desire this success. The most unique feature of the two-cent dosser
class is its apparent happiness. The men are always funny, and crack
a joke as easily as they tell a lie. I remember most vividly a night in
one of their joints in St. Louis. All night long some one was laughing
and joking, and my questions always met a witty reply. I noticed, for

instance, that several of the men were blind in one eye, and I asked
the meaning of this.
"Ha! ha! Don' cher know! Why, it's 'cause we're lookin' fer work so
hard."
Another man wanted to know whether I could tell him where he
could get a "kid." I asked him what use he had for one.
"Oh, prushuns [kids] is val'able; when you've got 'em, you're
treasurer of a company."
Nevertheless, these men very seldom have boys, because their life is
too unexciting, and the lads will not stay with them. A prushun, as a
rule, wants something livelier than loafing around saloons and
corners, and consequently is rarely found in these two classes.
The other types of city vagabondage can be classified as the
"lodgin'-house-gang," with the exception of the room-beggar. I must
therefore consider them in relation to their different styles of
begging rather than living; for when once a beggar can live in any
sort of lodging-house, he has a right to belong to the general crowd,
no matter what he pays for his bed. The seven-center house, for
instance, is considerably lower than the ten-center, but its being a
lodging-house is sufficient to separate its inmates entirely from the
two classes who live in boxes and beer-shops. And to make the
classifying feature more intelligible, I shall give first a short account
of the lodging-house in all its grades, omitting only those that are
carried on by charity.
Beginning with the lowest, there is the seven-center, in which
hammocks of a bad order are used as beds. The covering is very
often the lodger's coat, unless he happens to have a blanket of his
own. In winter there is a large stove in the middle of the sleeping-
room, and this keeps things fairly warm. The usual lodger in this
house is the town tramp, although the wandering hobo goes there
too. I have also seen a few genuine seekers of work there, but never
two nights running. One night is usually enough, and they sleep out
in preference to mixing in such a crowd as the place shelters.

The ten-center is the next grade above, and is probably the most
popular of all in the United States. It is built after various models,
the commonest being the "double-decker," where the bunks are
made of gas-pipe, one right above the other. In this case the
bedding is a straw tick and a blanket; that is all, as a rule. Yet I have
known sheets to be used. Another model is something like the
forecastle of a ship. Around the walls several tiers of bunks are built,
sometimes twelve feet high, and in the middle is the "sitting-room,"
with stove and chairs. Occasionally the only bedding is straw, there
being no blanket of any kind. The class of men found in places of
this type is hard to describe; the town tramp is there, and so is
almost every other kind of vagabond. It is a sort of cesspool into
which are drained all sorts of outcasts, and the only way to
distinguish them is to know them personally. Young and old, the
intelligent and the ignorant, the criminal and the newsboy, all are
found in the ten-center.
The fifteen-center comes next, and is very much like the ten-center,
except that its customers are a little more orderly, and that it
furnishes lockers into which the lodgers can put their clothes. This
latter point is really the raison d'être of the fifteen-cent lodging-
house, according to my experience. At any rate, I have failed to see
any other good reason for charging five cents more for the beds,
which are usually no better than those in the ten-center.
In the other grades, at twenty and twenty-five cents a night a man
can have a little room to himself; by "room" I mean a sort of cell
without a roof, in which is a cot, a chair (sometimes), and a locker. I
slept in one of these houses in the Bowery one night. The office and
sitting-room were comparatively cozy, and the lodgers were
respectable so far as dress and general manner were concerned. Up-
stairs in the sleeping-apartments things were not so pleasant. There
was a bad odor about everything, and the beds were decidedly
unclean, as are most beds in most lodging-houses. I left word at the
office that I wished to be called at seven o'clock in the morning, and
my order was distinctly obeyed, for about half-past six I was
wakened by a man poking me in the ribs with a long stick leveled at

A CITY TRAMP AT WORK.
me from over the partition-wall. After the man had poked me with
the stick, he said, "Eh, bloke, time to get up."
Some tramps consider this style, and it probably is in their cases, for
they are accustomed to all sorts of places, and the twenty-five-
center is their nearest approach to hotel life. Although I have
probably overlooked some exceptional institutions in this general
description of lodging-houses, I have nevertheless given a fair
account of the usual homes of the "lodgin'-house gang." And, as I
said before, the town tramp is mixed up in this gang so
promiscuously that to pick him out of the general crowd necessitates
a personal encounter. All that I can do now is to portray him in his
various guises as a beggar. I shall take four types to do this—the
street-beggar, the house-beggar, the office-beggar, and the old-
clothes beggar. These are all well-known characters in city
vagabondage.
The street-beggar is, I believe, the
cleverest all-round vagabond in the
world. He knows more about
human nature than any other
tramp of my acquaintance, and can
read its weak points with surprising
ease. I used to know a New York
tramp of this kind who begged
almost entirely of women as they
walked along the streets, and he
claimed that he could tell, the
minute he had seen their eyes,
whether it would pay to "tackle
'em." How he did this I do not
pretend to know, and he himself
could not tell, but it was true that
he seldom judged a woman
wrongly. Fifth Avenue was his beat,
and he knew fully fifty women in
that district who were sure to give

him something. His main tricks, if I can call them that, were those of
the voice rather than of the hand. He knew when to whine and
when to "talk straight," and, best of all, he knew when to make
people laugh. This is the highest accomplishment of the street-
beggar, for when a person will laugh with him he is pretty sure to
get something; and if he can succeed in picking out a certain
number of "clients," as he calls them, who will laugh with him every
week the year round, his living is assured. This is the business of the
clever street-beggar; he must scrape acquaintance with enough
people in his chosen district to support him. It matters not to him
whether he excites their pity or mirth so long as he gets their nickels
and dimes. I knew a woman beggar of this sort whose main trick, or
"capital," as she called it, was extreme faith in the chivalry of men.
She would clutch a man by the coat-sleeve, and tragically exclaim:
"How dare you cast me off? Don't you know that I am a woman?
Have you no mother or sisters? Would you treat them as you are
treating me?"
Some men are so squeamishly and nervously chivalrous that they
will be taken in by such a beggar every time.
Women very often make the keenest street-beggars. They are more
original in posing and dressing, and if with their other talents they
can also use their voices cleverly, they do very well. Speaking of
posing reminds me of a woman who is usually to be found near the
Alhambra music-hall in London. She dresses very quietly and neatly,
and her entire manner is that of a lady. I believe that she really was
one in her day, but liquor has made her a match-vender; and her
clever pose and dress are so attractive that people give her three
times the value of the matches which she sells them. This match-
selling is the main trick of the London street-beggar. It is a trick of
defense against the police, and at the same time a blind to the
public. People think that men and women selling matches are trying
to earn an honest living, and this is true sometimes; but, according
to my observation, the majority of match-venders offer one hand to
the public for alms, and carry their "lights" (matches) in the other.

The business of the house-beggar is obviously to know a certain
number of good houses in his district, just as the street-beggar
knows a certain number of people in his street or streets. And if he
is a mendicant who can deal with women more successfully than
with men, he must know just when to visit houses in order that only
the women may be at home. If he is a beggar of this style, he
usually carries a "jigger"—an artificially made sore, placed usually on
an arm or leg. He calls at the front door and asks for "the lady."
When she appears he "sizes her up" as best he can, and decides
whether it will pay to use his jigger. If it is necessary, he prefaces
this disgusting scene by an account of his hardships, and claims that
he has been very badly burned. Then he shows his miserable sore,
and few women are callous enough to see it without flinching. If
they "squeal," as the tramp says, he is sure to be rewarded.
Another trick is to send around pretty little girls and boys to do the
begging. A child will succeed at house-begging when an able-bodied
man or woman will fail utterly, and the same is true of a very old
man—the more of a centenarian he looks, the better. But better than
any of these tricks is what is called the "faintin' gag." I myself had
the benefit of an undertaking of this character in Indianapolis some
years ago, and I know it works well. I got into the town one night,
and was at a loss to know what to do, until I accidentally met an old
hobo who was trying to make his living there as a city tramp. He had
been in the place only a few days, and had not yet found his
particular district. He was simply browsing about in search of it, and
he suggested that we try a certain quarter of the town that he had
not visited at all. We did try it, and, after visiting twenty houses, got
only two pieces of bread and butter. This, naturally enough, made
my partner angry, and he told me to go back to the hang-out while
he went on another beat. I waited for him nearly an hour, when he
returned with a "poke-out" (food given at the door) and a "sinker" (a
dollar). I, of course, was surprised, and asked for details.
"Oh, I got 'em right 'nough," he said. "You see, after leavin' you, I
was so dead horstile that I was ready for anything 'n' the first house
I struck was a parson's. At first he didn't want to feed me at all, but

I got into his settin'-room 'n' gave 'im a great story. I tole 'im that I
was nearly a-dyin' with hunger, 'n' ef he didn't feed me, the s'ciety
agen' cruelty to animals 'u'd prosecute 'im. Then I begun to reel a
bit 'n' look faintin'-like, 'n' purty soon I flops right on the floor as ef I
was dead. Then the racket begun. The parson called 'Wifey!' an' the
both of 'em peppered 'n' salted me for about ten minutes, when I
comes to an' looks better. Then they couldn't feed me fast 'nough. I
had pie, cake, 'n' a lot o' other things 'fore I wuz done, 'n' when I
left the parson give me the sinker, 'n' 'wifey' the poke-out; hope to
die ef they didn't. See? That's the way ye got ter catch them parsons
—right in the eye."
As the old-clothes beggar is only a subspecies of the house-begging
class, he deserves mention under the same head. His business, as
his name implies, lies principally in looking for old wearing-apparel,
which he sells to dealers in such wares. Sometimes he even pays for
his food in order to devote his entire time and talents to his
specialty. In London, for instance, I know a trio of this sort who live
in a cellar where they keep their "goods." I visited their place one
afternoon, and one of the men was kind enough to let himself be
interviewed about his business. My first question was how he
begged.
"Well, o' course our first business is to wear bad togs. F'r instance,
ef I's beggin' fer shoes I wants to put on a pair thet's all gone, else I
can't get any more, 'n' the same when I's beggin' fer coats 'n' 'ats.
It's no use tellin' people that you're beggin' fer somebody else. They
won't believe it."
Then I questioned him as to the sort of garments which were most
profitable.
"Breeches. We kin sell 'em every time. 'Ats does pretty well too, 'n' ef
we get good shoes we kin do a rattlin' business. One o' my pals
made seven bob fer a week jes out o' shoes. Wimmenses' togs hain't
up ter the men's; an' yet we does fairly well wid 'em too. In 'ats, f'r
instance, we does fairly good, 'cause the gals knows where we lives,
'n' they comes right 'ere instid o' goin' ter the dealers. Petticoats is

next best when we gets good ones, but we don't very often, 'cause
these Whitechapel donners [girls] wants picter-like ones, 'n' we don't
always get 'em. I wish we could jes stick ter beggin' fer men's togs,
'cause they 's the best. Jes gimme 'nough breeches, 'n' I won't
complain."
In American cities also, men's clothing is the most profitable for
beggars of this sort; very few tramps ask for "wimmenses' togs." In
Germany, however, all sorts of old clothes are looked for, and the city
tramps are great competitors of the Jews in this business. An old
German Jew once said to me:
"I wish these Kunden [tramps] were all dead. They spoil our
business right along, because they get their stuff for nothing, and
then undersell us. That isn't right, and I know it isn't."
In Frankfort-on-the-Main I once knew a Swiss beggar who collected
eighteen pairs of shoes in one week, not counting other things that
he asked for also. And he claimed that, after trying various kinds of
begging, he had found the most money in the shoe business. Of
course, all this depends on a beggar's ability to make people believe
that he is really deserving, for clothes-beggars, like a number of
other specialists, must have some natural adaptation for their
chosen calling.
This is also true of the office-beggar, or "sticker," as he calls himself.
His specialty brings him almost entirely in contact with men, and he
must be exceedingly clever to deal successfully with them. A man
will argue with a beggar, if he has time, just twice as long as a
woman will, and he will also give just twice as much money if he
gives anything. So the office-beggar has good material to work on if
he understands it. One of his theories is that, when begging of men,
the "story" must be "true to nature"; that is, so simple and direct
that there is no possibility of doubling on his track. For instance, he
will visit a lawyer, tell his story, and then simply hang around as long
as he dares. It is this waiting so patiently that gives him his name of
"sticker." There are fully a hundred tramps of this sort in New York
city alone. They have their separate beats, and seldom leave them

unless they are worked out. I know one beggar who never leaves
Newspaper Row and Wall Street except for amusement, and he
makes, on an average, seventy-five cents a day. And I know another
tramp whose business keeps him confined to Broadway between
Barclay Street and the Battery, while his home is in the Bowery near
Houston Street. Men of this stamp have evidently been lucky in the
selection of offices where a certain sum of money will be given every
week. Such good fortune is the ambition of every energetic city
tramp. He wants something definite every day, week, and month,
and as he gets it or fails to get it, rates himself successful or
unsuccessful.
The aristocrat of city vagabondage is represented by what I call the
room-beggar. He cannot be classified with the lodging-house men,
because he has little to do with them, except socially, as at the
saloon or music-hall, for instance. His home is entirely separated
from theirs, it being a room, and sometimes even an apartment,
which he rents for himself and family. If he is successful at his trade,
and is careful to dress with some nicety, he can scarcely be
distinguished from the usual citizen, except by the trained observer;
the only mark about him being that peculiar glance of the eye
common to all criminals and beggars.
The room-beggar has no unique line of trade that I have been able
to discover; he goes into anything that pays, and the main difference
between him and the majority of the men in the "lodging-house
gang" is his greater ingenuity in making things pay. He is the brainy
man of the city tramps, and the other beggars know it, and all look
up to him, with the exception of the clever street-beggar, who
considers himself his equal, as I think he really is.
No tramp, for instance, is so clever at the begging-letter "racket,"
and this means a good deal. To be able to write a letter to a perfect
stranger and make money out of it requires a skilled hand, and a
man educated in many lines. The public has become somewhat used
to this trick, and will not be deceived every time; only men of an
original turn of mind can do much with it. It is this originality that is

the main talent of the room-beggar. He concocts stories which would
do credit to a literary man, and sometimes makes nearly as much
money as the daring thief.
Women are also found in this class, and do very well at times. In the
city of Berlin, Germany, there lived a "lady" of this sort. She had two
homes. One was a cellar in a poor quarter of the town, and the
other was an aristocratic étage in the West End. She sent letters to
well-to-do people of all sorts, in which she claimed to be eine
hochwohlgeborene Dame in distress. She invited likely
philanthropists to visit her in her cellar in order that they might see
how unfortunate her position really was. People went, were shocked,
and, as a result, she had her apartment in the West End. For about
ten months this woman and her two daughters lived in real luxury,
and one of the "young ladies" was to marry in "high society" about
the time that the ruse was made public.
This is by no means a new trick, and yet people are being
continually swindled. Why? Simply because the beggars who
undertake it are cleverer than the people fooled by it. That is the
only reason. If charitable people would only commit charity to skilled
hands it would be much easier to handle beggars. The tramp is a
specialist; so why not leave specialists to deal with him? The whole
trouble comes of our willingness to be more unpractical in our
philanthropy than in our business.
There is one more city tramp that I must catalogue. It is the
"sponger." His duty in life consists, he thinks, in simply living off the
visiting knights of the road. He is a parasite fed by parasites, and
hated by all self-respecting beggars. He is found wherever the
traveling hoboes congregate, and there is no town in any country
that I have visited where he does not flourish. In the Bowery his
name is legion, and a hobo can scarcely visit a saloon there without
meeting him. The wandering vagabond considers him the "bunco-
man" of the beggars' world, and that is a good name. He will do
anything to get money from a hobo, but I doubt very much whether
he ever begs on his own hook. Exactly how he comes to exist no

one knows, but I fancy that he is a discouraged tramp; he has found
that he is not a born beggar, and has concluded that the next best
thing is to live off men who are. If there were no beggars in the
world, he would probably have to work for his living, for he could
not steal successfully.
As for stealing, few town beggars ever go into that as a business. Of
course, they will take things that do not belong to them if they are
sure of not being caught, but this safety is so vain a hope that it is
seldom "banked on." It is strange that the city tramp is not more of
a thief, for probably no one knows more about the town's chances
than he. Criminals are always anxious to have some acquaintance in
his ranks, knowing only too well that the "town vag" can post them
as no one else can.
Another thing rather more unpopular among town tramps than is
usually supposed is joining a clique. In New York city, for example,
there are various gangs of toughs who prowl about the town
committing all sorts of depredations and making themselves
generally feared. Even the policemen are now and then held at bay
by them, and woe to the drunken sailor with his wages in his
pockets who falls into their hands. I have seldom found the city
tramp in such company. He knows too well the dangers of such
crowds, prefers what he calls the "cut-throat principle," or each man
for himself. There is too much slavery for him among toughs of the
gang order, and he cannot move around as freely as he likes. Then,
too, gangs are every now and then fighting one another, and that is
usually harder work than the beggar cares for.
One of the most interesting things in the study of tramps is to get at
their own opinions of themselves. To a certain degree they may be
called rational beings. There is opinion and method and reason in
trampdom,—no doubt of it,—and there are shades of opinion that
correspond to varieties of method. The tramp of the prairies, the

"fawny man" in New England, the city tramp in the Bowery, each has
his point of view. If one catechizes or interviews the last named of
these, he says:
"I'm a beggar, and I know it. I know, too, that most people look
upon me as a bad sort of fellow. They want to catch and punish me,
and I don't want them to do it. They are warring against me, and
I'm warring against them. They think that I don't know how I should
use my life, and I think that I do. Somebody must be mistaken; I
think that they are, and I'm doing my best to beat them. If they beat
me, well and good; and if I beat them, well and good."
This is the talk of the real artist in low life; he is in the vagabond
world because it pleases him better than any other. A little different
is the point of view of the drunkard beggar:
"I'm a fool, and I know it. No man with any sense and honor would
live as I do. But the worst of it all is, I can't live otherwise. Liquor
won't leave me alone, and as I've got to live somehow, why, I might
as well live where I can take care of myself. If people are fools
enough to let me swindle them, so much the worse for them and so
much the better for me."
To change such opinions as these is a hard task. The first can be
corrected only when the man who owns it is discouraged. When his
spirit is broken he can be helped, but not until then. The second is
the result of long suffering through passion. Until that passion is
conquered nothing can be done.

VI
WHAT THE TRAMP EATS AND WEARS
I
The tramp is the hungriest fellow in the world. No matter who he is,
—Chausséegrabentapezirer, moocher, or hobo,—his appetite is
invariably ravenous. How he comes by that quality of his defects is
an open question even in his own mind. Sometimes he accounts for
it on the ground that he is continually changing climate, and then
again attributes it to his incessant loafing. A tramp once said to me:
"Cigarette, it ain't work that makes blokes hungry; it's bummin'!" I
think there is some truth in this, for I know from personal
experience that no work has ever made me so hungry as simple
idling; and while on the road I also had a larger capacity for food
than I have usually. Even riding on a freight-train for a morning used
to make me hungry enough to eat two dinners, and yet there was
almost no work about it. And I feel safe in saying that the tramp can
usually eat nearly twice as much as the laboring-man of ordinary
appetite.
Now, what does he find to satisfy this rapacious craving? There are
two famous diets in vagabondage, called the "hot" and the "cold."
Each one has its advocates and propagandists. The hot is befriended
mainly by the persevering and energetic; the cold belongs
exclusively to the lazy and unsuccessful. The first is remarkable for
what its champions call "set-downs," that is to say, good solid meals
three times a day—or oftener. The second consists almost entirely of
"hand-outs" or "poke-outs," which are nothing but bundles of cold
food handed out at the back door.

Every man on the road takes sides, one way or the other, in regard
to these two systems of feeding, and his standing in the brotherhood
is regulated by his choice. If he joins the set-downers he is
considered at least a true hobo, and although he may have enemies,
they will not dare to speak ill of his gift for begging. If, on the other
hand, he contents himself with hand-outs, he not only loses all
prestige among the genuine hoboes, but is continually in danger of
tumbling down into the very lowest grades of tramp life. There is no
middle course for him to follow.
II
Success in vagabondage depends largely on distinct and
indispensable traits of character—diligence, patience, nerve, and
politeness. If a tramp lacks any one of these qualities he is
handicapped, and his chosen life will go hard with him. He needs
diligence in order to keep his winnings up to a certain standard; he
needs patience to help him through districts where charity is below
par; he needs nerve to give him reputation among his cronies, and
he needs politeness to win his way with strangers and to draw their
sympathy and help. If he possesses these characteristics, no matter
what his nationality may be, he will succeed. If not, he would better
work than tramp—he will find it much easier and twice as profitable.
The poke-out beggar is deficient in every one of these qualities, and
his winnings demonstrate it.
I made his acquaintance first about ten years ago. I had just begun
my life on the road, and as I knew but very little about tramping and
nothing about begging, it was only natural that I should fall in with
him, for he is the first person one meets in the vagabond world. The
successful beggars do not show themselves immediately, and the
newcomer must first give some valid evidence of his right to live
among them before they take him in—a custom, by the way, which
shows that tramping is much like other professions. But the poke-out
tramp is not so fastidious; he chums with any one he can, successful
or not; and as I had to associate with somebody, I began with him.

After a while I was graduated out of his rank, and received into the
set-down class, but only after a hard and severe training, which I
would not go through again—even for the sake of Sociology.
III
As a rule, the poke-out beggar has but one meal a day, usually
breakfast. This is the main meal with all vagabonds, and even the
lazy tramp makes frantic efforts to find it. Its quantity as well as its
quality depends largely on the kind of house he visits. His usual
breakfast, if he is lucky, consists of coffee, a little meat, some
potatoes, and "punk 'n' plaster" (bread and butter). Coffee, more
than anything else, is what every hobo wants early in the morning.
After sleeping out of doors or in a box-car, especially during the
colder months, a man is stiff and chilled, and coffee is the thing to
revive him when he cannot get whisky, which is by no means the
easiest thing to beg. I have known tramps to drink over six cups of
coffee before they looked for anything solid, and I myself have often
needed three before I could eat at all.
The dinner of the lazy beggar is a very slim affair. It is either a free
lunch in a saloon, or a hand-out. This latter consists mainly of
sandwiches, but now and then a cold potato will be put into the
bundle, and also, occasionally, a piece of pie. After the tramp has
had one or two of these impromptu lunches he persuades himself
that he has had enough, and goes off for a rest. How often—but on
account of bashfulness, rather than anything else—have I done the
same thing! And what poor dinners they were! They no more satisfy
a tramp's appetite than they would a lion's, but the indolent fellow
tries to persuade himself otherwise. I once overheard a typical
member of the class discussing the matter with himself, or rather
with his appetite, which, for the sake of argument and
companionship, he looked upon as a personality quite apart. He had
just finished a slim and slender hand-out, had tossed into the bushes
the paper bag that held it together, and, when I saw him, was
looking up into the sky in a most confidential manner. Soon, and as

if sorry he could not be kinder to it, he cast his eyes pityingly on his
paunch, and said in a sad tone:
"Poor devil! I feel fer y'u—bet cher life I do! But yer'll have to stand
it, I guess. It's the only way I know fer y'u to git along." Then he
patted it gently, and repeated again his sympathetic "poor devil." But
not once did he scold himself for his laziness. Not he! He never does.
His supper is very similar to his dinner, except that he tries now and
then to wash it down with a cup of tea or coffee. Later in the
evening he also indulges in another hand-out, unless he is on a
freight-train or far from the abodes of men.
Such is the diet of the lazy tramp, and, strange to relate, despite its
unwholesomeness and its meagerness, he is a comparatively healthy
fellow, as are almost all tramps. Their endurance, especially that of
the poke-out tramps, is something remarkable. I have known them
to live on "wind-pudding" as they call air, for over forty-eight hours
without becoming exhausted, and there are cases on record where
they have gone for four and five days without anything to eat or
drink, and have lived to tell the tale. A man with whom I once
traveled in Pennsylvania did this very thing. He was locked into a
box-car which was shunted off on an unused side-track a long
distance from any house or place where his cries could be heard. He
was in the car for nearly one hundred and twenty hours, and
although almost dead when found, he picked up in a few days, and
before long was on the road again. I saw him at the World's Fair at
Chicago, and he was just as healthy and happy in his own way as
ever.
In some of the sparsely settled districts in Texas tramps have
suffered most appalling deaths by such accidents, but so long as a
beggar keeps his freedom I do not believe that even a lazy one
starves to death in this country. I know very well that people do not
realize this, and that they feed tramps regularly, laboring under the
delusion that it is only humane so to do.

But although the tramp hates honest labor, he hates starvation still
more, and if he finds it impossible to pick up anything to eat, he will
either go to jail or work. He loves this world altogether too much to
voluntarily explore another of which he knows so little.
IV
The clothes of the poke-out beggar are not much, if any, better than
his food. In summer he seldom has more than a shirt, a pair of
trousers, a coat, some old shoes, and a battered hat. Even in winter
he wears little more, especially if he goes South. I have never seen
him with underclothes or socks, and an overcoat is something he
almost never gets hold of, unless he steals one, which is by no
means common. While I lived with him I wore just such "togs." I
shall never forget my first tramp suit of clothes. The coat was
patched in a dozen places, and was nearly three sizes too large for
me; the waistcoat was torn in the back, and had but two buttons;
the trousers were out at the knees, and had to be turned up in
London fashion at the bottom to keep me from tripping; the hat was
an old derby with the crown dented in numerous places; and the
only decent thing I had was a flannel shirt. I purchased this rig of a
Jew, and thought it would be just the thing for the road, and so it
was, but only for the poke-out tramp's road. The hoboes laughed at
me and called me "hoodoo," and I never got in with them in any
such garb. Nevertheless, I wore it for nearly two months, and so
long as I associated with lazy beggars only, it was all right. Many of
them were never dressed so well, and not a few envied me my old
coat.
It is by no means uncommon to see a poke-out vagabond wearing a
garment which belongs to a woman's wardrobe. He is so indifferent
that he will wear anything that will shield his nakedness, and I have
known him to be so lazy that he did not even do that.
One old fellow I remember particularly. He had lost his shirt
somehow, and for almost a week went about with only a coat

between his body and the world at large. Some of his pals, although
they were of his own class, told him that he ought to find another
shirt, and the more he delayed it the more they labored with him.
One night they were all gathered at a hang-out near Lima, Ohio, and
the old fellow was told that unless he found a shirt that night they
would take away his coat also. He begged and begged, but they
were determined, and as he did not show any intention of doing as
he was bidden, they carried out the threat. And all that night and
the following day he was actually so lazy and stubborn that he would
not yield, and would probably be there still, in some form or other,
had his pals not relented and returned him the coat. As I said, he
went for nearly a week without finding a shirt, and not once did he
show the least shame or embarrassment.
Not long after this experience he got into limbo, and had to wear the
famous "zebra"—the penitentiary dress. It is not popular among
tramps, and they seldom wear it, but that old rascal, in spite of the
disgrace and inconvenience that his confinement brought upon him,
was probably pleased that he did not have to find his own clothes.
Such are the poke-out tramps of every country where I have studied
them, and such they will always be. They are constitutionally
incapacitated for any successful career in vagabondage, and the
wonder is that they live at all. Properly speaking, they have no
connection with the real brotherhood, and I should not have referred
to them here, except that the public mistakes them for the genuine
hoboes. They are not hoboes, and nothing angers the latter so much
as to be classed with them.
The hobo is exceedingly proud in his way,—a person of
susceptibilities,—and if you want to offend him, call him a "gay-cat"
or a "poke-outer." He will never forgive you.
V
Almost the first advice given me after I had managed to scramble
into the set-down class came from an old vagabond known among

his cronies as "Portland Shorty." He knew that I had been but a short
time on the road, and that in many respects I had not met with the
success which was necessary to entitle me to respect among men of
his class, but nevertheless he was willing to give me a few pointers,
which, by the way, all hoboes are glad to do, if they feel that the
recipient will turn them to profit.
I met Shorty for the first time in Chicago, and while we were
lounging on the grass in the Lake Front Park, the following
conversation took place:
"Cigarette," he began,—for I had already received my tramp name,
—"how long 'v' y'u been on the road?"
I replied: "About two months."
"Wall, how long d' y'u 'spect to stay there?"
"Oh, 's long 's I'm happy."
"Ez long ez yer happy, eh? Wall, then, I'm goin' to chew the rag wid
y'u fer a little while. Now, 'f yer wants to be happy, here's a little
advice fer y'u. In the first place, make up yer mind jes wha' cher
goin' to be. Ef y'u 'spect to work fer yer living why, get off the road.
Moochin' spiles workin' jes ez workin' spiles moochin'. The two don't
go together nohow. So 'f yer goin' to be a bum fer life, never think o'
work. Jes give yerself entirely to yer own speshul calling fer 'f y'u
don't yer'll regret it. 'N the second place, y'u wan' to decide what
kind o' beggar yer goin' to make. Ef yer a thief, 'n' playin' the beggar
jes as a guy, why, then y'u knows yer bizness better 'n I do. But ef
y'u ain't, 'n' are jes browsin' round lookin' fer a berth, then I wants
to tell yer somethin'. There's diffrent kinds o' beggars; some gits
there, 'n' some doesn't. Them what gits there I call arteests, 'n'
them what doesn't I call bankrupts. Now, wha' cher goin' to be,
arteest or bankrupt?"
I replied that I was still undecided, since I had not yet learned
whether I could make a success on the road or not, but added that
my inclination would be toward the "arteest" class.

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The Other Christs Imitating Jesus In Ancient Christian Ideologies Of Martyrdom Candida R Moss

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