Great Babylon too, when she is described as drunk with the blood of the saints, has her drunkenness ministered without doubt from the cups of martyrdoms; and what their dread is destined to bring back is likewise shown. For among all the reprobate—nay, before all—are the fearful. 'But to the fearful,' he says, 'together with the rest, there is a portion in the lake of fire and brimstone.' Thus their fear, which love casts out, has punishment. XIII. But Paul the apostle—concerning the persecutor who first shed the blood of the Church, and afterward, changing the sword for a stylus and turning the blade into a plough, a ravening wolf of Benjamin, thereafter himself bringing food according to Jacob—how does he commend martyrdoms as now to be desired even for himself!
When, rejoicing over the Thessalonians, he says: 'so that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your endurance and faith in all the persecutions and afflictions which you sustain—a proof of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of His kingdom, for which you also suffer.' Just as also to the Romans: 'and not only so, but we even exult in afflictions, being certain that affliction perfects endurance, and endurance proof, and proof hope; and hope does not disappoint.' And again: 'but if we are children, then heirs also—heirs indeed of God, but co-heirs with Christ; if indeed we suffer together, that we may also be glorified with Him. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy of the glory which is destined to be revealed in us.'
And therefore, a little later, he says: 'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall affliction, or distress, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? According as it is written: For your sake we are put to death all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we more than conquer through Him who loved us. For we are persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.' And to the Corinthians too, enumerating his own sufferings, he certainly laid it down beforehand that one must suffer:
'in labors more abundantly, in prisons very many times, in deaths often; from the Jews five times I received forty stripes save one, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned,' and the rest. And if these should seem to be hardships rather than martyrdoms, yet again: 'for which cause,' he says, 'I take pleasure in infirmities, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ.' Also in the passages above: 'we who are afflicted in all things, but not crushed; and are in want, but not utterly in want; who are harassed by persecutions, but not forsaken; who are cast down, but do not perish; always carrying about the mortification of Christ in our body.'
'But even if,' he says, 'our outer man is corrupted'—namely the flesh, by the violence of persecutions—'yet the inner man is renewed day by day'—namely the soul, by the hope of the promises. For that which is present, temporal and light in our affliction, works, by an excess upon excess, an eternal weight of glory, for us who look not on the things that are seen, but on the things that are not seen. 'For the things that are seen are temporal'—speaking of the hardships—'but the things that are not seen are eternal'—pledging concerning the rewards. And writing to the Thessalonians about his chains, he assuredly affirmed those blessed to whom it had been granted not only to believe in Christ, but also to suffer for Him: 'having,' he says, 'the same conflict which you both saw in me and now hear of.'
'For even if I am poured out as a libation upon the sacrifice, I rejoice and rejoice together with you all; and in like manner do you also rejoice and rejoice together with me.' You see how he defines the felicity of martyrdom, for which he obtains a solemn joy through mutual gladness. In short, when he had come near to the fulfillment of his own vow, how, exulting over the prospect of it, he writes to Timothy: 'For I am now being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand; I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; there remains the crown which the Lord will render to me on that day'—namely, of his passion. And he himself had also said enough above: 'It is a faithful saying. For if we have died together with Christ, we shall also live together with Him; if we endure, we shall also reign together with Him; if we deny, He also will deny us; if we do not believe, He remains faithful, He cannot deny Himself.'
'Do not therefore be ashamed of the martyrdom of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner'; for he had foretold: 'For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.' For it is by power that we suffer out of love toward God, and with a sound mind, when we suffer for our innocence. But wherever he enjoins endurance, for what does he provide it rather than for sufferings? Wherever he tears men away from idolatry, what does he prefer for them rather than martyrdoms? XIV. Plainly he admonishes the Romans to be subject to all the powers, because there is no power except from God, and because it does not bear the sword without cause, and because it is a minister of God—'but an avenger too,' he says, 'unto wrath upon him who has done evil.' For he had also premised: 'For rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil.'
'But do you wish not to fear the power? Do good, and you shall have praise from it. For it is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid.' Thus he bids you be subject to the powers not for an occasion of frustrating martyrdom, but for a summons to live well—even under regard for those very powers, as helpers of justice, as it were, as ministers of the divine judgment that even here passes sentence beforehand upon the guilty. Thereafter he also explains in what manner he would have you be subject to the powers: 'Render,' he bids, 'to whom tribute, tribute; to whom custom, custom'—that is, 'the things that are Caesar's to Caesar, and the things that are God's to God.' But man belongs to God alone.
Peter, to be sure, had ordained that the king indeed is to be honored—yet so that the king be honored then, when he keeps to his own affairs, when he is far from divine honors; because both father and mother shall be loved along with God, but not compared with Him. And beyond God it will not be permitted to love even one's own soul. XV. Are then even the letters of the apostles mutable? And are we everywhere simple souls, and only doves that gladly go astray? Out of a lust for living, I suppose. Let it indeed be so, that the senses depart from their own letters. Yet that the apostles suffered these things we know; the teaching is manifest. This alone I understand as I run through the Acts; I ask nothing more.
The prisons there, and the chains, and the scourges, and the stones, and the swords, and the onsets of the Jews, and the mobs of the nations, and the accusations of the tribunes, and the audience-halls of kings, and the tribunals of the proconsuls, and the name of Caesar, need no interpreter. That Peter is struck, that Stephen is overwhelmed, that James is sacrificed, that Paul is dragged away—these are written in their own blood. And if a heretic should require the credit of a written record, the archives of the empire will speak, as will the stones of Jerusalem. We read the Lives of the Caesars: it was Nero who first bloodied at Rome the faith then rising. Then Peter is girded by another, when he is bound to the cross. Then Paul obtains the birthright of Roman citizenship, when he is there born again through the nobility of martyrdom. Wherever I now read these things, I learn to suffer;
nor does it matter to me which masters of martyrdom I follow—the teachings or the deaths of the apostles—except that in their deaths too I recognize their teachings. For they would have suffered nothing which they had not first known must be suffered. When Agabus, by a gesture as well, had prophesied bonds for Paul, the disciples, weeping and praying that he would not commit himself to Jerusalem, had prayed in vain. For he, animated by what he had always taught, said: 'Why do you weep and grieve my heart? But I would that not only bonds at Jerusalem, but even to die for the name of my Lord Jesus Christ.' And so they yielded, saying: 'Let the will of the Lord be done'—trusting, that is, that sufferings pertain to the will of God.
For they had tried to hold him back not by the counsel of dissuasion, but out of love—longing for the apostle, not dissuading from martyrdom. But if even then a Prodicus or a Valentinus had been standing by, suggesting that confession was not to be made on earth before men—lest, forsooth, I should fear that God thirsts for human blood, or that Christ demands a requital of suffering as though He too were to obtain salvation from it—he would straightway have heard from the servant of God what the devil heard from the Lord: 'Get behind me, Satan; you are a stumbling-block to me. It is written: You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.'
But even now he ought to hear how, long afterward, he brewed these poisons of his, which will not easily harm any of the weak, unless perchance someone should drink beforehand — or even drink on top of it — this our draught of the faith.