1. Although, beloved brethren, it is unfitting, while my speaking to you receives this indulgence, to profess any trepidation, and it very little beco

 2. For there is indeed, unless I am mistaken, even in the very power of conscience, a marvellous fear which at once disturbs and inflames us whose po

 3. For consider what glory it is to set aside the lusts of this life, and to oppose a mind withdrawn from all commerce with nature and the world, to a

 4. Therefore, since martyrdom is the chief thing, there are three points arising out of it on which we have proposed to ourselves to speak: What it is

 5. For what is there in these speeches other than empty discourse, and senseless talk, and a depraved pleasure in meaningless words? As it is written:

 6. The whole of this tends to the praise of martyrdom, the whole illuminates the glory of suffering wherein the hope of time future is beheld, wherein

 7. For there is no doubt how much they obtain from the Lord, who have preferred God’s name to their own safety, so that in that judgment-day their blo

 8. For what is so illustrious and sublime, as by a robust devotion to preserve all the vigour of faith in the midst of so many weapons of executioners

 9. Moreover, beloved brethren, regard, I beseech you, this consideration more fully for in it both salvation is involved, and sublimity accounted of,

 10. Thus, whenever the soldier returns from the enemy laden with triumphant spoils, he rejoices in his wounds.  Thus, whenever the sailor, long harass

 11. If you fear to lose salvation, know that you can die and, moreover, death should be contemned by you, for whom Christ was slain. Let the examples

 12. For it is a great glory, beloved brethren, to adorn the life of eternal salvation with the dignity of suffering: it is a great sublimity before th

 13. And now, beloved brethren, I shall come to that point whence I shall very easily be able to show you how highly the virtue of martyrdom is esteeme

 14. And, to pass over everything else, we ought to remember what a glory it is to come immaculate to Christ—to be a sharer in His suffering, and to re

 15. Wherefore, beloved brethren, with a firm faith, with a robust devotion, with a virtue opposed to the fierce threatenings of the world, and the sav

 16. Moreover, beloved brethren, so great is the virtue of martyrdom, that by its means even he who has wished to slay you is constrained to believe. I

 17. But if ambitious dignity deter you, and the amount of your money heaped up in your stores influence you—a cause which ever distracts the intention

 18. For Abraham also thus pleased God, in that he, when tried by God, spared not even his own son, in behalf of whom perhaps he might have been pardon

 19. It now remains, beloved brethren, that we are bound to show what is the advantage of martyrdom, and that we should teach that especially, so that

 20. A horrible place, of which the name is Gehenna, with an awful murmuring and groaning of souls bewailing, and with flames belching forth through th

 21. But those by whom God has always been sought or known, have never lost the position which Christ has given them, where grace is found, where in th

 22. For you deserve, O excellent martyrs, that nothing should be denied to you who are nourished with the hope of eternity and of light whose absolut

 23. There is nothing, then, so great and venerable as the deliverance from death, and the causing to live, and the giving to reign for ever. This is f

 24. What then, beloved brethren, shall I chiefly relate, or what shall I say? When all dignified titles thus combine in one, the mind is confused, the

 25. Let it present itself to your eyes, what a day that is, when, with the people looking on, and all men watching, an undismayed devotion is struggli

 26. Consider what it is, beloved brethren: set before your perceptions and your minds all the endurance of martyrdom. Behold, indeed, in the passion o

 27. But now, beloved brethren, lest any one should think that I have placed all salvation in no other condition than in martyrdom, let him first of al

 28. And to return to the praise of martyrdom, there is a word of the blessed Paul, who says:  “Know ye not that they who run in a race strive many, bu

 29. He said this who suffered, and who suffered for this cause, that he might imitate the Lord and assuredly he wished us also to suffer for this cau

 30. Therefore, beloved brethren, although this is altogether of the Lord’s promise and gift, and although it is given from on high, and is not receive

8. For what is so illustrious and sublime, as by a robust devotion to preserve all the vigour of faith in the midst of so many weapons of executioners? What so great and honourable, as in the midst of so many swords of the surrounding guards, again and again to profess in repeated words the Lord of one’s liberty and the author of one’s salvation?—and especially if you set before your eyes that there is nothing more detestable than dishonour, nothing baser than slavery, that now you ought to seek nothing else, to ask for nothing else, than that you should be snatched from the slaughters of the world, be delivered from the ills of the world, and be engaged only as an alien from the contagion of earth, among the ruins of a globe that is speedily to perish? For what have you to do with this light, if you have the promise of an eternal light? What interest have you in this commerce of life and nature, if the amplitude of heaven is awaiting you? Doubtless let that lust of life keep hold, but let it be of those whom for unatoned sin the raging fire will torture with eternal vengeance for their crimes. Let that lust of life keep hold, but let it be of those to whom it is both a punishment to die, and a torment to endure (after death). But to you both the world itself is subjected, and the earth yields, if, when all are dying, you are reserved for this fate of being a martyr. Do we not behold daily dyings? We behold new kinds of death of the body long worn out with raging diseases, the miserable results of some plague hitherto unexperienced; and we behold the destruction of wasted cities, and hence we may acknowledge how great is to be considered the dignity of martyrdom, to the attainment of the glory of which even the pestilence is beginning to compel us.8    [The heathen attributed this pestilence to the “atheism” of Christians, and hence persecuted them the more fiercely; and, as it was better to die by martyrdom than by the pestilence, he thus speaks. Death an advantage. Shaks., Hen. V., act. iv. sc. 1.]

VIII Quid enim tam eximium atque sublime est, quam inter tot instrumenta carnificum devotione robusta cunctam fidei reservare virtutem ? Quid tam magnum atque pulcherrimum, quam inter tot 0792A circumstantium gladios libertatis suae Dominum ac salutis auctorem repetita saepius voce profiteri? et maxime si ante oculos tuos ponas nihil detestabilius esse dedecore, nihil foedius servitute, nihil aliud te debere jam petere, aliud optare quam eripiendum esse cladibus saeculi, exuendum malis mundi, et inter ruinas orbis jam jamque perituri alienum a terrena contagione versari? Quid enim tibi cum hac luce, cui lux aeterna promissa est? Quid cum hoc vitae naturaeque commercio quem coeli amplitudo deposcit? Sane teneat cupiditas ista vivendi, sed quos inexpiabili malo saeviens ignis aeterna scelerum ultione torquebit. Teneat cupiditas ista vivendi, sed quibus et mori poena est et durare tormentum. Tibi jam et mundus ipse succumbit et terra cedit, qui 0792B morientibus cunctis ad hoc reservatus es ut martyr esse potuisses. An non quotidiana cernimus funera, cernimus novos exitus corporis diu tracti , saevientibus morbis inexpertae cujusdam cladis exitia, ac stragem populatarum urbium intuemur, unde possimus agnoscere quanta martyrii habenda sit dignitas, ad cujus gloriam nos cogere etiam lues coepit.