For thus, victory triumphing, is he snatched from these evils — one whom no vain ambition has subjected with pompous gait, nor popular greatness exalted, but whom, burning with heavenly desire, Christ has added to his kingdom. And so there is nothing so great and venerable as that which frees from death, and makes to live, and grants to reign forever. This is fitting for the saints of God, necessary for the wretched, welcome to all — whereby the good rejoice, the abject are relieved, the elect are healed. For God, the tender of all, gave martyrdom as a kind of remedy of life, since to some he bestowed it according to their merit, to others he handed it over out of his own mercy. For we see that very many, noble in faith, have come to this title of the name, so that death might honour the homage of their devotion.
But we have also often beheld others standing undaunted, so that, redeeming the sin they had committed, they might, washed in their own blood, be reckoned clean, and, being slain, might live again — they who, while alive, were counted as dead. For death indeed makes life more entire; death recovers the glory that was lost. For by this, hope, though already lost, is regained, and all salvation is restored. So, when for those who plough the seed has failed and the earth has burned parched with the dying grass, it has been of help to draw down a stream from the sloping hills, and with gushing rills to temper the thirsting fields, that the conquered barrenness of the ground might pour itself forth into abundant stalks, and, with a feigned shower of rain, the denser crop might bristle up. What then, dearest brethren, shall I chiefly recount, or what shall I say?
So, when the titles of dignity converge into one, the mind is thrown into confusion, the understanding is led astray, and in the very effort of the struggling eloquence the unequal speech fades away. For what can be said that could be sufficient, when, if you have expressed the force of eternal salvation, ambition rushes in; if you have named the ambition, greatness anticipates it? The things agree together and rush together at once, and there is nothing that seems worthy to be brought forth. Thus the examples of martyrdom have held back, entangled and ensnared as it were, and confronting from the opposite side, the impulse of daring speech. What voice, what lungs, what strength could suffice to sustain the likeness of so great a gift?
By the confession of one word, adversities succumb, glad things come forth, kingdoms lie open, dominions are prepared, punishments are overcome, death is subdued, life is brought forth, and the resisting weapons of the assailing enemy are undone. If it be a fault, it perishes; if a crime, it departs. Whence, I beseech you, weigh this in your minds, and receive from our discourse only so much as you know yourselves able to feel.
Let it come before your eyes, what a day that is, when, with the people looking on and all beholding, an unshaken devotion struggles against the earthly crosses and the threats of the age; how the anxious spirits and the troubled minds, giving thanks yet shaken by the wavering trepidation of fearful dread, are agitated with horror; what anxiety there is, what earnest longing of prayers, what vows are recalled — when, with victory still hanging in the balance and the issue in doubtful chance, the victorious crown depends over the head, and when that pestilent and raging assembly is kindled with wrath, inflamed with madness, and at last, with every fury of the breast and gnashing threats, is scorched.
For who does not know how great a thing this is: that, our frailty as it were despised and the unlooked-for boldness of human virtue giving way neither to the pains of wounds nor to the blows of the tortures, a man should stand and not be moved, be tortured and yet not conquered, but rather be armed by the very penalty by which he is tormented. Consider therefore what it is, dearest brethren; set before your senses and minds the whole dignity of martyrdom. For behold, at the passion of any one who is called, the martyrs, already long since summoned from the world, rejoice; the messengers of all good things rejoice; the elect likewise rejoice together. There the Lord is gladdened in his soldier; Christ is gladdened in the witness of his name. It is little that I say, dearest brethren, it is little.
So great a task and an admirable weight have I undertaken in this kind of speaking: but let not your gravity of judgment, I beg you, be lacking from the intention proper to it, knowing that only so much can be said of martyrdom as could be reckoned. Whence this alone was the cause for pursuing its praise — not that I judged myself equal and fitted to its glory, but that I discerned there so great a virtue that, even though I should say little of it, I would profess that I had said very much. For, though justice preserved by the good of faith may be preferred, and immaculate virginity may know itself the better amid the praises of all, yet all things must needs yield to martyrdom, and be made subject to its blood and gore. They chose the good; these imitated Christ.
But now, dearest brethren, lest anyone should suppose that I have placed all salvation in no other state than in martyrdom, first consider this indeed: that I am not so great as I may seem in speaking, nor is the order of things such that the promised hope of immortality should rest hidden in one part alone. But since the Lord has thus testified with his own mouth that there are many dwelling-places with the Father, I have believed nothing greater than that glory by which those men are approved here who are deemed unworthy of the worldly life. Therefore, dearest brethren, contending in emulous devotion, driven as by a certain spur of reward, let us undergo all the abundance of our strength and endurance.
For the perishing things ought not to move us — things that are ever perishing, and that now are pressed hard not only by the law set before them but even by the very end of time. John cries out and says: 'Already indeed the axe is laid to the root of the tree' — showing plainly and revealing that it is the last old age of all things. But the Lord himself also says: 'Walk while ye have the light, lest the darkness overtake you.' And if he foretold that we must walk at that time, surely he showed thereby that we ought all the more to walk. And, to return to the praise of martyrdom, it is the voice of the most blessed Paul, saying: 'Know ye not that they who run in the race all contend, but one receives the palm? Run ye so that ye may all be crowned.'
But also elsewhere, that he might exhort to martyrdom, he called us co-heirs of Christ. Nay, that he might leave nothing out, he says: 'If ye have died together with Christ, why, as though living in this world, do ye decree ordinances?' For, dearest brethren, we who look for the rewards of the resurrection, who seek the day of judgment, who finally trust that we shall reign with Christ, ought to be dead to the world. For neither wilt thou be able to desire martyrdom unless thou first hate the world, nor to attain to the reward of God unless thou love Christ. But whoever loves Christ does not love the world. For Christ was cast off by the world, even as the world by Christ, according as it is written: 'The world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.'
The world was loved by no one whom the Lord had not first condemned, nor could he enjoy eternal salvation who gloried in the life of the world. This is the voice of Christ, saying: 'He who in this age has loved his soul shall lose it in the age to come; but he who in this age has hated it shall find it in the age to come.' But the apostle Paul also says: 'Be ye imitators of me, even as I also of Christ.' And elsewhere he himself says: 'I would that ye all, if it might be, were my imitators.' He said this — he who suffered; and because he suffered unto this end, that he might imitate God, surely he willed that we too should suffer unto this end, that through him we might imitate Christ. If thou art just and believest in God, why dost thou fear to pour out thy blood for him whom thou knowest to have suffered so often for thee?
In Isaiah he was sawn asunder; in Abel he was slain; in Isaac he was offered up; in Joseph he was sold; in man he was crucified: and of the rest indeed I am silent, which neither can speech utter nor the mind endure. The conscience is overcome by the example of his lowliness; and when it considers what things befell while he suffered, it marvels that he suffered for whose sake all things trembled. The day fled into night; in darkness all the light withdrew; and, the balance being shifted through alternating turns, the whole earth, being shaken, split apart; the shades were disturbed, the tombs laid bare, and, the sepulchres gaping into a chasm, the bodies restored to the light stood forth from the earth; the world quaked at the flowing of the blood; the veils that hung at the doors were rent; the whole temple bellowed.
Whence it is a great thing to imitate him who by dying convicted the world: therefore, when after the example of the Lord's passion and unto every testimony of Christ thou layest down thy soul and fearest not to pour out thy blood, all must needs yield to martyrdom. O the inestimable glory of martyrdom, the boundless measure, the immaculate victory, the noble virtue, the inestimable title, the immense triumph: seeing that he who is preferred by the praise of his own steadfastness is adorned as it were with the blood of Christ his companion. And so, dearest brethren, although this whole thing belongs to the Lord's promise and gift, and although it is bestowed from on high and cannot be grasped except by his command — yet it can neither be conceived in the mind, nor expressed in words, nor run through in speech, nor be fulfilled by any powers of eloquence whatsoever:
yet it will be a mark of your goodwill, it will be of charity and love, if you should be willing to be mindful of us when the Lord shall have begun to honour martyrdom in you. That holy altar encloses you within itself, that great throne of the venerable name encloses you within itself as within a certain bosom of an embracing lap; the dominions of everlasting time sustain you, and that which is that you shall reign forever and shall live. O blessed, and those unto whom sins are truly remitted — if indeed you, who are the fellows of Christ, have ever sinned. O blessed, whom from the beginning of the world the blood of the Lord has stained, and whom the splendour of that snowy garment shall deservedly clothe, and the whiteness of the encircling robe shall adorn.
Indeed I seem to myself already to behold, and, according to the judgment of the human mind, that divine and signal sight rushes before my eyes and gaze: I seem, I say, already to behold how that true and noble host of Christ accompanies the glory and the journey of its own Lord. Before his face shall go the happy company of the victors, and, their squadrons thickening, as at the sun's rising it shall bring in the whole host, illumined, into his power. And would that at last it might befall me, most abject as I am, to see this: but this the Lord will be able to accomplish — he who is believed not to deny to you who ask.