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. It is written, and we read: “Endure in suffering, and in thy humiliation have patience, because gold and silver are tried by the fire.”16    Ecclus. ii. 4. Since, therefore, the Lord proves us by earthly temptations, and Christ the Judge weighs us by these worldly ills, we must congratulate ourselves, and rejoice that He does not reserve us for those eternal destructions, but rejoices over us as purged from all contagion. But from those whom He adopts as partners of His inheritance, and is willing to receive into the kingdom of heaven, what else indeed does He ask than a walk in integrity? He Himself has said that all things are His, both those things which are displayed upon the level plains, and which lift themselves up into sloping hills; and moreover, whatever the greatness of heaven surrounds, and what the gliding water embraces in the circumfluent ocean. But if all things are within His ken, and He does not require of us anything but sincere actions, we ought, as He Himself has said, to be like to gold. Because, when you behold in the glistening ore17    Or, “earth.” the gold glittering under the tremulous light, and melting into a liquid form by the roaring flames (for this also is generally the care of the workmen), whenever from the panting furnaces is vomited forth the glowing fire, the rich flame is drawn away from the access of the earth in a narrow channel, and is kept back by sand from the refluent masses of earth. Whence it is necessary to suffer all things, that we may be free from all wickedness, as He has said by His prophet: “And though in the sight of men they have suffered torments, yet is their hope full of immortality; and being vexed in a few things, they shall be well rewarded in many things, because God has tried them, and has found them worthy of Himself, and has received them as a sacrifice of burnt-offering.”18    Wisd. iii. 4.

XVI. Etenim, charissimi fratres, virtus est tanta martyrii, ut per illam credere etiam ille cogatur qui te voluit occidere. Scriptum est et legimus: In dolore sustine, et in humilitate tua habe patientiam, quoniam per ignem probatur aurum et argentum (Eccli. II, 4). Quoniam ergo nos terrenis tentationibus probat Dominus, et his saeculi malis scrutator Christus expendit, gratulandum nobis est atque laetandum quod non illis nos perennibus reservet exitiis, sed gaudeat ab omni contagione purgatos. Caeterum ab his quos haereditatis participes adsciscit et in regna coelorum libenter assumit, quid utique aliud quam 0795D integritatis ambitum quaerit? Sua ipse dixit universa, et quae jacentibus se explicant campis, et quae in obliquos se erigunt colles, sed et quod coeli magnitudo 0796A circumvenit, et quod pelago circumfluente lubricum aequor includit. Quod si illi adjacent omnia, nec a nobis exposcit nisi facta sincera, auro, ut ipse dixit, similes esse debemus. Aurum quippe cum relucentibus terris tremulo videris splendere sub lumine et in liquidum flammis torrentibus resolvi, nam et artificis gratia fere sic est, caminis quoties anhelantibus aestuans ignis evomitur, aditu terrae canali angusto dives flamma elicitur; et refluentibus glebis arena retinetur. Unde necesse est universa sufferre, quo possimus omni scelere carere, sicut per Prophetam suum dixit: Et si corum hominibus tormenta passi sunt, tamen spes illorum immortalitate plena est, et vexati in paucis, in multis bene disponentur, quoniam Deus tentavit illos, et invenit illos 0796B dignos se , et quasi holocausti hostiam accepit illos (Sap. III, 4).