Christians of medieval Europe were a strange bunch. I heard them described recently by Blindboy as being viciously intolerant but also wonderfully merciful. The image above is of a Catherine Wheel, a beautiful firework which was crafted to celebrate the breaking on the wheel of St. Catherine. She is one of the Great Martyrs of the Christian Church and one of the 14 Holy Helpers.

The firework neatly captures the contradiction. The breaking wheel was a savage form of torture and almost always resulted in death. But it is celebrated as a bright toy to delight the children in us.

The funny thing about Catherine is that she may not have been a Christian at all, there is considerable speculation that she was a Pagan Greek philosopher named Hypatia. Catherine is venerated because she upheld her Christian religion in the face of dreadful torture by the Emperor Maximian, including breaking on the wheel. The Christian tradition says that her touch shattered the breaking wheel rather than the other way around.

In truth it was not the Pagans who performed such punishments but the Christians themselves. Medieval Christians were a dour and savage lot. They were intolerant of the mildest whiff of blasphemy or heresy. They were eager to save the soul of a sinner by raining down the wrath of heaven on their flesh. They figured a few months of intolerable pain on earth was better than an eternity in hell. They figured they were doing you a favour.

Behind all this savagery was a belief in the power of absolute mercy. This required a flip of a switch from the old to the new testament. If you were prepared to throw yourself on the mercy of your persecutor sometimes, from time to time, they would completely forgive you and set you free.

Our Martyr: by Alice Walker

When the people
have won a victory
whether small
or large
do you ever wonder
at that moment
where the martyrs
might be?
They who sacrificed
themselves
to bring to life
something unknown
though nonetheless more precious
than their blood.
I like to think of them
hovering over us
wherever we have gathered
to weep and to rejoice;
smiling and laughing,
actually slapping each other’s palms
in glee.
Their blood has dried
and become rose petals.
What you feel brushing your cheek
is not only your tears
but these.
Martyrs never regret
what they have done
having done it.
Amazing too
they never frown.
It is all so mysterious
the way they remain
above us
beside us
within us;
how they beam
a human sunrise
and are so proud.