Martyrdom vs. Suicide

THERE EXISTS NOTHING that is more opposed to martyrdom than suicide. It is difficult to imagine this because both involve someone willingly laying down their own life, but Chesterton highlights the stark differences between the two. Here he explains the contrast:

Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far he is concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all buildings; it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds; but the suicide is not; that is his crime. He cannot be bribed, even by the blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments the things he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults everything on earth by not stealing it... A martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside him, that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man who cares so little for anything, outside him, that he wants to see the last of everything. One wants something to begin: the other wants everything to end.*

This post is about more than just death, it is about life and how we live it. The mentality of a martyr is one of a person who knows that there is more to life than living, and that is God. We are all called to the life of a martyr which means to be willing to end your life so that something else may begin. It is a renewal, Christ died so that we could have life. If we are ever called, we must be willing to die, so that our soul may live.

_______________

Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton; pg. 64