This chapter considers how self-harm, suicide, and views of the afterlife reveal the radical shift between Greco-Roman tradition and Christianity with regard to the self. Classical Greek language uses the same auto- compound words to indicate self-willed action, suicide and kin-murder. From Homer through to Roman ideals of masculinity, significant action is generally understood with regard to the possibility of lasting fame, not with regard to a punishment or reward in an afterlife. In contrast to this picture, Christianity insists that each action is evaluated after death and contributes either to punishment or reward in an afterlife: life is a preparation for the afterlife. In particular, and in contrast to the earlier tradition, suicide becomes now a morally reprehensible act. For the faithful, however, martyrs become a model of willing death, which must be kept separate from suicide in evaluation. Ascetics enact a bodily self-harm to perfect their own holiness: physical self-harm becomes a positive gesture of self-fulfilment, dependent on the promise of a life after death. The Western model of the self is deeply influenced by this Christian modelling – and yet neither self-harm nor death play any role in Charles Taylor’s discussions of the history of the self