Hobbes - Leviathan.pdf

*(3) Luke, 6. 31
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But what then shall we say of all those martyrs we read of in the
history of the Church, that they have needlessly cast away their
lives For answer hereunto, we are to distinguish the persons that
have been for that cause put to death; whereof some have received a
calling to preach and profess the profess the kingdom of Christ
openly; others have had no such calling, nor more has been required of
them than their own faith. The former sort, if they have been put to
death for bearing witness to this point, that Jesus Christ is risen
from the dead, were true martyrs; for a martyr is, to give the true
definition of the word, a witness of the resurrection of Jesus the
Messiah; which none can be but those that those that conversed with
him on earth, and saw him after he was risen: for a witness must
have seen what he testifieth, or else his testimony is not good. And
that none but such can properly be called martyrs of Christ is
manifest out of the words of St. Peter, "Wherefore of these men
which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went
in and out amongst us, beginning from the baptism of John unto that
same day he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a martyr"
(that is, a witness) "with us of his resurrection":* where we may
observe that he which is to be a witness of truth of the
resurrection of Christ, that is to say, of the truth of this
fundamental article of Christian religion, that Jesus was the
Christ, must be some Disciple that conversed with him, and saw him
before and after his resurrection; and consequently must be one of his
original Disciples: whereas they which were not so can witness no
more, but that their antecessors said it, and are therefore but
witnesses of other men's testimony, and are but second martyrs, or
martyrs of Christ's witnesses.
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* Acts, 1. 21, 22
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He that to maintain every doctrine which he himself draweth out of
the history of our Saviour's life, and of the Acts or Epistles of
the Apostles, or which he believeth, upon the authority of a private
man, will oppose the laws and authority of the civil state, is very
far from being a martyr of Christ, or a martyr of his martyrs. It is
one article only, which to die for meriteth so honourable a name,
and that article is this, that Jesus is the Christ; that is to say, he
that hath redeemed us, and shall come again to give us salvation,
and eternal life in his glorious kingdom. To die for every tenet
that serveth the ambition or profit of the clergy is not required; nor
is it the death of the witness, but the testimony itself that makes
the martyr: for the word signifieth nothing else but the man that
beareth witness, whether he be put to death for his testimony, or not.
Also he that is not sent to preach this fundamental article, but
taketh it upon him of his private authority, though he be a witness,
and consequently a martyr, either primary of Christ, or secondary of
his Apostles, Disciples, or their successors; yet is he not obliged to
suffer death for that cause, because being not called thereto, it is
not required at his hands; nor ought he to complain if he loseth the
reward he expecteth from those that never set him on work. None
therefore can be a martyr, neither of the first nor second degree,
that have not a warrant to preach Christ come in the flesh; that is to
say, none but such as are sent to the conversion of infidels. For no
man is a witness to him that already believeth, and therefore needs no