Byzantine soldiers and the afterlife

[Epictetus]

Unfortunately, I don’t know of any other examples of this. But I find this fascinating for another reason: early in the history of the Church there was apparently a belief that death in battle would not give any benefit in the afterlife. (Tertullian even tries to convince Christians not to serve in the military.) Specifically, early Church Fathers disavowed that death in battle was a form of martyrdom.

And the ancients laud the death of those among the Greeks who died in war, not that they advised people to die a violent death, but because he who ends his life in war is released without the dread of dying, severed from the body without experiencing previous suffering or being enfeebled in his soul, as the people that suffer in diseases. For they depart in a state of effeminacy and desiring to live; and therefore they do not yield up the soul pure, but bearing with it their lusts like weights of lead; all but those who have been conspicuous in virtue. Some die in battle with their lusts, these being in no respect different from what they would have been if they had wasted away by disease.

Then Heraclitus says, "Gods and men honour those slain in battle;" and Plato in the fifth book of the Republic writes, "Of those who die in military service, whoever dies after winning renown, shall we not say that he is chief of the golden race? Most assuredly." But the golden race is with the gods, who are in heaven, in the fixed sphere, who chiefly hold command in the providence exercised towards men.

Clement, Miscellanies, The Praises of Martyrdom

At some point this belief changed, and fighting for the secular empire became equated with fighting for God, and hence a form of martyrdom was given to those who died in battle.