Martyr saints could combine passive death with active military vengeance.

Evidence

The martyrs get to have their cake and eat it too: through death at the hands of pagans, they earn the palm of martyrdom; through a military miracle, they come back to rout the pagan host. And what more appropriate general for this celestial army than the knightly Saint George, who himself, as Tudebodus reminds us elsewhere, also “in the name of Christ accepted martyrdom from perfidious pagans.” — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 631