Rightly therefore it remains that all things should strike us at once, which all at once, ill-subdued, served our vices; and that as many joys as we formerly possessed unharmed in the world, so many torments we should afterward be compelled to feel from that same world. But it is truly to be noted what is said: Terrors from heaven and tempests. Since wintry tempests are wont to come in the ordinary course of the seasons, why are tempests here foretold to come as a sign of perdition, unless because the Lord announces the coming of those tempests which by no means keep the order of the seasons? For the things which come in an ordered way are not a sign; but those tempests are a sign which throw into confusion the very appointed order of the seasons.
Which we ourselves have also recently experienced, since we have seen the whole summer season turned into wintry rains. But because all these things are not from any injustice of Him who strikes, but from the desert of a world that suffers, the deeds of wicked men are set before, when it is said: But before all these things they shall begin to lay their hands upon you, and shall persecute you, and shall deliver you up to the synagogues, leading you before kings and governors for my name's sake. As if He openly said: First the hearts of men are disturbed, and afterward the elements, so that when the order of things is shattered, it may be shown from what retribution it now comes. For although the end of the world hangs upon its own order, yet, finding certain more perverse men who deserve to be crushed by its ruins, He makes it known, when it is subjoined:
Leading you before kings and governors for my name's sake. And this shall befall you for a testimony. For a testimony, that is to say, of whom, unless of those who either by persecuting inflict deaths, or by beholding do not imitate? For the death of the righteous is a help to the good, a testimony against the wicked, so that from it the perverse may perish without excuse, from which the elect take an example that they may live. But when so many terrors have been heard, the hearts of the weak could be troubled, and therefore consolation is added, when it is straightway subjoined: Settle it therefore in your hearts not to premeditate how you shall answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist and gainsay.
As if He openly said to His weak members: Do not be terrified, do not be afraid; you approach the contest, but I do the fighting; you utter the words, but it is I who speak. There follows: And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, and kinsfolk and friends, and some of you they shall put to death. The evils inflicted by strangers bring lesser grief. But those torments rage more within us which we suffer from those upon whose minds we had presumed, because along with the loss of the body the evils of lost charity torment us. Hence it is that the Lord says of Judas his betrayer through the Psalmist: For if my enemy had cursed me, I would verily have borne with it;
and if he who hated me had spoken great things against me, I would perhaps have hidden myself from him. But you, a man of one mind, my guide and my familiar friend, who together with me did take sweet food, we walked in the house of God with consent (Ps. 54:13 ff.). And again: The man of my peace, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, hath greatly enlarged his supplanting against me (Ps. 40:10). As if of His betrayer He said in open words: His transgression I bore the more grievously, the more I felt it from him who seemed to be mine.
All the elect, therefore, because they are members of the supreme Head, follow their Head also in His sufferings, so that they may feel as adversaries in their own death those upon whose life they had presumed, and so much the more the reward of their work increases for them, the more the gain of virtue accrues to them from the loss of another's charity. But because the things foretold concerning the affliction of death are hard, consolation is straightway subjoined concerning the joy of resurrection, when He says: A hair of your head shall not perish. We know, brethren, that cut flesh grieves, a cut hair does not grieve. He says therefore to His martyrs: A hair of your head shall not perish — plainly saying:
Why do you fear that what grieves when cut should perish, when even that which does not grieve when cut cannot perish in you? There follows: In your patience you shall possess your souls. Therefore the possession of the soul is placed in the virtue of patience, because patience is the root and guardian of all the virtues. And by patience we possess our souls, because while we learn to have dominion over our own selves, we begin to possess this very thing that we are. But patience is to endure the evils of others with equanimity, and to be stung by no grief against him also who inflicts evils. For he who so bears evils that he yet grieves in silence, and seeks the time of fitting retribution, does not have patience, but only makes a show of it. For it is written:
Charity is patient, is kind (1 Cor. 13:4). For it is patient, that it may tolerate the evils of others, and it is kind, that it may love even those very ones whom it bears. Hence Truth itself says through Himself: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who persecute and calumniate you (Matt. 5:44; Luke 6:37). It is therefore a virtue to tolerate adversaries before men, but a virtue to love them before God, because God accepts only that sacrifice which, before His eyes, the flame of charity kindles upon the altar of good work. But it must be known that oftentimes we seem to be patient for this reason, that we are not able to repay evils.
But he who does not repay evil for the reason that he by no means has the power, is without doubt, as we have said before, not patient, because patience is sought not in outward show, but in the heart. And through the vice of impatience the very nurse of the virtues, teaching, is scattered. For it is written: The learning of a man is known by his patience (Prov. 19:11). Therefore each one is shown to be so much the less learned, the more he is convicted of being less patient. For he cannot truly bestow good things by teaching, if by living he knows not how to tolerate the evils of others with equanimity. With how great a height the virtue of patience prevails, Solomon again indicates, saying: Better is the patient man than the strong, and he who rules his own spirit than the taker of cities (Prov. 16:32).
Less therefore is the victory to take cities by storm, because the things conquered are outside. But greater is that which is conquered through patience, because the mind is overcome by its own self, and subjects itself to its own self, when patience lays it low in the humility of endurance. But it must be known that it often is wont to happen to the patient, that at the very time when they suffer adversities or hear insults they are pricked by no grief, and so exhibit patience that they take care to preserve even the innocence of the heart.
But when, after a little while, they recall to memory these very things which they endured, they are goaded by the fire of the most vehement grief, they seek arguments of vengeance, and the meekness which they had while enduring they lose in their own re-examination, condemning their own selves. For the crafty adversary stirs up war against two, inflaming the one, namely, that he may first inflict insults; but provoking the other, that being injured he may return the insults. But because he has already become the victor over the one whom he moved to utter insults, he grieves more bitterly against the one whom he could not move to return injuries; whence it comes about that with all his strength he rises up against him whom he considers to have bravely struck down the insults.
Because he could not move him at the very time of the hurling of injuries, withdrawing for the while from open combat, in the secret thought he seeks a time of deception, and he who lost in open war blazes up to display hidden snares. For at the time of quiet he returns to the mind of the victor, and brings back to memory either the losses of goods or the darts of injuries; and vehemently exaggerating all the things that have been inflicted on him, he shows them to have been intolerable, and so disturbs the mind of the one who is at rest with such fury, that oftentimes the patient man, even after his victory, blushes as a captive that he had tolerated those things with equanimity; and grieves that he did not return the insults, and seeks to repay worse things, if occasion be given.
To whom then are these like, but to those who by their valour are victors on the field, but by their negligence are afterward captured within the enclosures of the city? To whom are these like, but to those whom a grievous sickness rushing in does not take from life, but a recurring fever, coming lightly, kills? He therefore truly keeps patience, who both for the time tolerates the evils of others without grief, and, reflecting on these same things, exults that he endured such things, lest the good of patience should perish in the time of quiet, which is guarded in disturbances. But because we celebrate the birthday of a martyr on this present day, my brethren, we ought by no means to consider ourselves strangers to the virtue of his patience.
For if, with the Lord aiding us, we strive to keep the virtue of patience, then even though we live in the peace of the Church, we nevertheless hold the palm of martyrdom. For there are two kinds of martyrdom: one in the mind, another in the mind and action together. And so we can be martyrs, even if we are slain by no sword of persecutors. For to die at the hand of a persecutor is martyrdom in open deed; but to bear insults, to love the one who hates, is martyrdom in hidden thought. For that there are two kinds of martyrdom, one in hidden deed, the other in public, Truth bears witness, who asks the sons of Zebedee, saying: Can you drink the cup which I am about to drink? (Matt. 20:22). And when they straightway answered:
We can, the Lord straightway answered, saying: My cup indeed you shall drink. For what do we understand by the cup, but the grief of the passion? Of which He says elsewhere: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. And the sons of Zebedee, that is, James and John, did not both die by martyrdom, and yet each heard that he would drink the cup. For John by no means ended his life by martyrdom, and yet he was a martyr, because the passion which he did not undergo in the body he preserved in the mind. And we therefore by this example can be martyrs without the sword, if we truly guard patience in the soul. Not without cause do I judge, most beloved brethren, that I should speak to you one example of preserving patience, for edification.
There was in our days a certain man named Stephen, father of a monastery established near the walls of the city of Rieti, a man very holy, singular in the virtue of patience. And there survive many who knew him, and who tell of either his life or his death. Now his tongue was rustic, but his life was learned. This man, for the love of the heavenly homeland, had despised all things; he fled from possessing anything in this world; he shunned the company of many men, and was intent upon frequent and lengthy prayers. Yet the virtue of patience had grown up so vehemently in him, that he counted as a friend one who had done him any annoyance; he returned thanks for insults; if any loss had been inflicted upon him in his very poverty, he thought this to be the greatest gain;
he esteemed all his adversaries as nothing other than helpers. When the day of death was urging him to go forth from the body, many gathered, that they might commend their souls to so holy a soul departing from this world. And when all those who had gathered were standing about his bed, some with bodily eyes saw angels entering, but were in no way able to say anything; others saw nothing at all; but so most vehement a fear struck all who were present, that no one, while that holy soul was going forth, could stand there. And so both those who had seen, and those who had seen nothing at all, all struck and terrified by one fear, fled; and no one was able to stand there while he was dying.
Consider therefore, brethren, how greatly almighty God will terrify when He shall come as a stern Judge, if He so terrified those standing by when He came as one gracious and rewarding; or how He can be feared when He shall be seen, if He so laid low the minds of those present even when He could not be seen. Behold, most beloved brethren, that patience preserved in the peace of the Church, to how great a height of retribution it raised this man. What did his Creator give him within, of whom so great a glory has been made known to us even outwardly on the day of his departure?
With whom shall we believe this man to be associated, but with the holy martyrs — he whom, as bodily eyes also bore witness, it is certain to have been received by the blessed spirits? By no sword struck down did he die, and yet the crown of patience which he held in his mind he received at his going forth. We prove daily that what was said before us is true, that holy Church, full of the flowers of the elect, has lilies in peace, roses in war. Moreover it must be known that in three ways the virtue of patience is wont to be exercised. For some things there are which we sustain from God, others from the ancient adversary, others from our neighbour. From our neighbour, namely, persecutions, losses, and insults; from the ancient adversary, temptations; but from God we tolerate scourges.
But in all these three ways the mind ought to circumspect itself with a watchful eye, lest against the evils of the neighbour it be dragged to the repaying of evil, lest against the temptations of the adversary it be seduced to the delight or consent of sin, lest against the scourges of the Maker it break forth into the excess of murmuring. For the adversary is perfectly conquered when our mind is neither drawn by his temptations to delight and consent, and is guarded from hatred amid the insults of the neighbour, and is restrained from murmuring amid the scourges of God. Nor, while doing these things, let us seek that present goods be repaid to us; for in return for the labour of patience the goods of the life to come are to be hoped for, so that then the reward of our labour may begin,
when now all labour utterly ceases. Whence it is also said through the Psalmist: The poor man shall not be forgotten unto the end; the patience of the poor shall not perish unto the end (Ps. 9:19). For the patience of the poor seems, as it were, to have perished, when nothing is recompensed to the lowly for it in this life. But the patience of the poor shall not perish unto the end, because then its glory is received, when all laborious things are together brought to an end. Keep therefore, brethren, patience in the mind, and, when the matter demands, exercise it in action. Let no insulting words move any of you to hatred of your neighbour, let no losses of perishing things disturb you. For if with fixed mind you dread the losses that shall abide, you do not count grievous the losses of transitory things;
If you behold the glory of the eternal recompense, you will not grieve over a temporal injury. Bear, therefore, with your adversaries, but love as brothers those whom you bear with. Seek eternal rewards in exchange for temporal losses. And let none of you presume that he can fulfil this by his own strength, but obtain it by prayers, that He who commands may Himself bestow it. And we know that He gladly hears those who ask, since what is begged is the very thing He enjoins to grant. When He is knocked upon continually in prayer, He comes swiftly to help in temptation, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with Him, God in the unity of the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages. Amen.