Exhortation to Martyrdom 29

But it is likely that someone, because of the words, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” not having examined closely the intention of Scripture, may think that the Savior too as it were played the coward at the time of his passion; and if he was cowardly, someone might say, who is ever brave? But first we shall ask those who suppose this of the Savior whether he was inferior to the one who says: “The Lord is my light and my Savior; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers drew near to me to eat my flesh, my oppressors and my enemies, they themselves grew weak and fell. If an army is arrayed against me, my heart will not fear. If war rises against me, in this I will hope.” And perhaps these words spoken in the prophet belong to no one else than the Savior, who, because of the light and salvation from the Father, feared no one, and, because of the protection with which God protected him, was afraid of nothing. His heart did not fear at all when the whole army of Satan was arrayed against him; and his heart, filled with God's holy doctrines, hoped in God when war rose against him. It is not, then, possible for the same person to say out of cowardice, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” and out of courage to declare, “If an army is arrayed against me, my heart will not fear.” So lest something in the passage escape us, you will pay attention to the demonstrative used of the cup in all three. For Matthew recorded the Lord saying, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me”; Luke, “Father, if you will, take this cup from me”; and Mark, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you; take this cup from me.” See, then, whether, since every martyrdom, accomplished by whatever manner of departure, is called a cup, you can say that the one who said, “Let this cup pass from me,” was not declining the kind of martyrdom (for then he would have said, “Let the cup pass from me”), but perhaps this particular form of it. And consider whether it is possible that the Savior, looking into the forms, if I may so call them, of the cups and what would come about through each, and grasping their differences with a very deep wisdom, declined this form of departure in martyrdom and secretly asked for another, perhaps heavier, so that some more universal benefit, reaching to more people, might be accomplished through a different cup; which it was not yet the Father's will should happen, since he arranges things more wisely, beyond the wish of the Son and beyond what the Savior saw, by way and by order. Clearly in the Psalms the “cup” of “salvation” is the death of the martyrs. That is why after “I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord” there follows, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his holy ones.” So a “precious death” comes to us, as God's holy ones and not unworthy of it, if we die not the common and, so to speak, idle death that has nothing to do with piety, but an exceptional death, the one suffered for Christianity, piety, and holiness.