{
  "id": "CH05.P017",
  "oid": 116,
  "kind": "paragraph",
  "label": null,
  "work": "orthodoxy",
  "edition": "pg16769-r1",
  "work_metadata": {
    "title": "Orthodoxy",
    "authors": [
      "G. K. Chesterton"
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    "description": "G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy (1908), his account of how he came to Christian belief: the full text with annotations, cited sources and commentary.",
    "original_publication_year": 1908,
    "alternate_titles": [],
    "subjects": [
      "Christian apologetics",
      "Christianity",
      "Philosophy of religion",
      "Paradox",
      "G. K. Chesterton",
      "English literature, 20th century"
    ],
    "metadata_version": 2,
    "metadata_updated_at": "2026-11-07T20:29:57Z"
  },
  "parent": "CH05",
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  "prev": "CH05.P016",
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  "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH05.P017",
  "text": "This was the first of the long train of enigmas with which Christianity entered the discussion. And there went with it a peculiarity of which I shall have to speak more markedly, as a note of all Christian notions, but which distinctly began in this one. The Christian attitude to the martyr and the suicide was not what is so often affirmed in modern morals. It was not a matter of degree. It was not that a line must be drawn somewhere, and that the self-slayer in exaltation fell within the line, the self-slayer in sadness just beyond it. The Christian feeling evidently was not merely that the suicide was carrying martyrdom too far. The Christian feeling was furiously for one and furiously against the other: these two things that looked so much alike were at opposite ends of heaven and hell. One man flung away his life; he was so good that his dry bones could heal cities in pestilence. Another man flung away life; he was so bad that his bones would pollute his brethren's. I am not saying this fierceness was right; but why was it so fierce?",
  "length_cp": 1053,
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  "children": [],
  "annotations": [
    {
      "id": "a_g2p22v7y",
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      "revision_oid": 165221,
      "created_at": "2026-11-07T17:17:31Z",
      "updated_at": "2026-11-07T17:17:31Z",
      "title": "Bones that continue the martyr's service",
      "work": "orthodoxy",
      "edition": "pg16769-r1",
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          "unit": "CH05.P017",
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          "exact": "his dry bones could heal cities in pestilence",
          "start": 850,
          "end": 895,
          "prefix": "y his life; he was so good that ",
          "suffix": ". Another man flung away life; h",
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      ],
      "metadata": {
        "run": "chapter-05-restart-2026-11-07",
        "paragraph_investigator": "P017",
        "task": [
          {
            "approach": "Theological contextualization",
            "question": "Does the categorical contrast between martyrdom and suicide describe the distinctions actually made by early and later Christian authorities?"
          },
          {
            "approach": "Assumed knowledge and unusual language",
            "question": "What religious practice makes the contrast between healing bones and polluting bones intelligible?"
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      "revision_oid": 165701,
      "created_at": "2026-11-07T19:04:35Z",
      "updated_at": "2026-11-07T19:04:35Z",
      "title": "Loving the world enough to change it: allegiance, revolt, and the separate Creator",
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        "run": "argument-articles-restart-2026-11-07",
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        "task": "Developing argument of chapter V, The Flag of the World",
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