David Koresh and Jim Jones convinced their followers that suicide that would lead to an idyllic afterlife. Suicide bombers call themselves martyrs. But where did such ideas of martyrdom originate and how have the martyrs of the past shaped today's public death spectacles?

In The Blood of Martyrs, historian Joyce Salisbury chronicles the horrific displays of martyrdom during the first three centuries of the Christian era, describing the role of martyrdom in the early Church and its continuing influence on today's ideas.

For the Roman rulers, the elaborately staged dismembering of the bodies of a growing religious minority was one of several futile efforts to preserve the authority of a dying state. For pagan spectators, the fearless Christians and their mysterious beliefs exerted an attraction akin to the schadenfreude that draws millions to today's "Survivor." For the Christians themselves, the martyrs' sacrifice connected elements of ancient religion--blood offerings, miracles, and folk rituals--with the metaphysical language of their new faith.

Exploring a disturbing intersection of faith and murder, The Blood of Martyrs shows how this torture led people to see the world as a struggle of good against evil, a view that haunts our cultural memory to this day, shaping our ideas of sacrifice, suicide, magic, violence, and resurrection.