In the early centuries, pagans were of two minds regarding Christian martyrs. Either they held them in contempt, or they admired them. Sometimes it was first the one, then the other.
Marcus Aurelius thought that the way martyrs faced death amounted to “vulgar effrontery.” Perhaps he wanted them to squeal more readily when faced with the sword or the lion. Tacitus said that Christians were “convicted of hatred for mankind,” which might seem a curious formulation to describe people almost all of whom acted innocuously and without the slightest glimmer of hate—except that they refused to worship the Roman gods, which is what rankled. Pliny the Younger described this refusal as “intractability and invincible obstinacy.” (I like that invincible. You can tell Pliny was ticked off. Pagans sentenced to death would cease being obstinate after a while, but not those intractable Christians.)
One thing that especially bothered the pagans was the apparent desire of many Christians to face death. Pagans shunned death. If wanted by the authorities, they would light out for the countryside. If pursued, they would run faster. If captured, they would fight back. Not the Christians, who so often seemed to look forward to death and would sit around, waiting for the soldiers to come for them.
Not a few pagans were intrigued by the way in which Christians met their end. Tertullian described this attitude: “Who, in fact, faced with the spectacle provided by the martyrs, is not incited to ask what is behind it? And who, once he has sought, does not join us and, once having joined, does not desire to suffer?” Granted, Tertullian had a volatile personality, eventually allowing himself to get carried away into heresy, but his observation is largely correct. There are many accounts of pagans witnessing the execution of Christians, announcing their own instantaneous conversions, and joining the condemned.
Justin Martyr—the patron of apologists, by the way; his feast day is June 1—admits to having been converted by watching martyrs die: “Seeing them fearless before death, I thought it impossible that they lived in vice and love of pleasure.” He came into the earthly Church because of others’ martyrdoms and left it through his own, suffering under Rusticus, prefect of Rome, around 165.
Some writers have commented that the Church had more martyrs in the twentieth century than in all the previous centuries combined. Perhaps so, but it depends on definitions. I wonder how many Catholics who died under the Nazis and Communists and other persecutors did so with “intractability and invincible obstinacy” and how many went the way most people meet unjust death, with something far less than the expectation and even joy manifested by many of the early martyrs. Is one counted as a martyr merely for having been put to death for being a Christian, or does martyrdom require something more, such as an openness to dying for the faith? If so, the number of “true” martyrs during the last century drops drastically.
But this is a quibble. There were martyrs in ancient times. There are martyrs in our own time. There will be martyrs tomorrow. Martyrs, like the poor, we will always have with us.