Exeunt: The question of suicide at the origin of early Christianity

This chapter engages with some of the shifting attitudes toward ‘voluntary death’ within early Christianity. It consists of three general movements which proceed in chronologically reverse order. The first is a reading of Augustine’s censure against voluntary death in City of God. The second is a reading of Ignatius’ strong desire to die the death of a martyr in his Epistle to the Romans. The third reads the complex reception of the death of Jesus as a voluntary death, arguing that this reveals a deep anxiety toward questions of suicide and imitation at the heart of Christianity’s subsequent development.