Cult of the Dead

Though it promises eternal life, Christianity was forged in death. It was built upon the legacies apostles and martyrs who chose to die rather than renounce the name of their lord. In this innovative cultural history, Kyle Smith shows how a devotion to death has shaped Christianity for two thousand years.

For centuries, Christians have cared for their saints, curating their deaths as examples of holiness. Martyrs' stories, lurid legends of torture, were told and re-told, translated and re-written. Martyrs' bones were alive in the world, relics pulsing with wonder. Their shrines were visited by millions of pilgrims, many in search of a miracle. Martyrs even shaped the Christian conception of time, with each day of the year celebrating the death of a saint. From Roman antiquity to medieval England, through the Protestant Reformation and up to the present, Cult of the Dead tells the fascinating story of how the world's most widespread religion is steeped in the memory of martyrs.