Exhortation to Martyrdom

“You who are weaned from milk, you who are drawn from the breast, expect affliction upon affliction, expect hope upon hope, yet a little, yet a little, through contempt of lips, through another tongue.” You too, then, according to Isaiah, since you are no longer fleshly nor infants “in Christ,” but have advanced “in” your spiritual “stature,” most God-fearing Ambrose and most pious Protoctetus, and no longer “have need of milk” but “of solid food,” hear, as those “weaned from milk” and “drawn from the breast,” how it is prophesied that for athletes who have been weaned there comes not simple affliction but “affliction upon affliction.” But the one who does not thrust away the affliction “upon affliction,” but like a noble athlete accepts it, at once accepts also “hope upon hope,” which he will enjoy not long after the affliction “upon affliction”; for such is the meaning of “yet a little, yet a little.”

But even if those who are strangers to the language of the holy Scriptures should despise and belittle us, calling us either impious or foolish, let us remember that the hope “upon hope,” which will be given back to us “yet a little” while, will be given back “through contempt of lips, through another tongue.” And who would not accept “affliction upon affliction,” in order at once to accept also “hope upon hope,” reckoning with Paul “that the sufferings of the present time,” by which we as it were purchase blessedness, “are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” from God? And especially since “the momentary lightness of our affliction” (“light” both being and being called so for those who are not weighed down by their circumstances), the more it abounds, the greater and more abundant “weight of eternal glory it works for us,” if, in the time of those who afflict us and wish, as it were, to crush our souls, we turn our ruling faculty away from our toils and look, not at the toils that are present, but at what is laid up by the grace of God, because of endurance in them, for those who have competed “lawfully” in Christ. For he multiplies his benefits, and beyond the worth of the contestant's labors grants as much as it befits God to give, who does not reckon stingily, who gives great gifts and who knowingly magnifies his graces toward those who, as far as they could, by despising the earthen vessel have shown their love for him with the whole soul.

I think that God is loved with the whole soul by those who, through great eagerness for communion with God, draw it away and separate it not only from the earthly body but from every body. For them it is no struggle and no tearing away to lay aside “the body” “of humiliation,” when the occasion allows them, through what is called death, to put off the body “of death,” and to be heard when they pray as the apostle did and say, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” For which of those who groan “in the tent” because they are weighed down by the corruptible body will not also give thanks, having first said, “Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” when he sees that, delivered through this communion from “the body of death,” he will holily cry out, “Thanks be to God through Christ Jesus our Lord”? But if this seems hard to anyone, he has not “thirsted” “for God,” the mighty, “the living,” nor longed for God “as the deer longs for the springs of water,” nor said, “When shall I come and appear before the face of God?” Nor has he considered within himself what the prophet considered, when it was said to him, “Where is your God?” and “every day” he poured out “his soul” within himself, rebuking it when, through weakness, it was still very sorrowful and troubled, and saying, “For I shall pass through into the place of the wonderful tent, even to the house of God, with the voice of rejoicing and thanksgiving, the sound of one keeping festival.”

So I would pray that throughout the whole present contest you would remember the great reward laid up in heaven for those who are persecuted and reviled “for righteousness' sake” and for the sake of the Son of Man, and would rejoice and be glad and leap for joy, as the apostles once rejoiced that they were counted worthy “to be dishonored for his name.” And if you should ever feel your soul shrinking back, let the mind of Christ that is in us say to it, when it wishes, as far as it can, to throw him too into confusion: “Why are you very sorrowful, my soul, and why do you trouble me? Hope in God, for I will give thanks to him,” and so on. Would that the soul might never be troubled at all, but even before the courts themselves and before the naked swords brought down on the neck might be guarded by the peace of God that surpasses “all understanding,” and be calm, reckoning that those who are away “from the body” are at home with the Lord of all himself. But if we are not so great as always to keep our calm, at least let the trouble of the soul not pour out or show itself to those outside, so that we may have room for a defense before God, saying to him, “My God, my soul is troubled within me.” And the word urges us to remember also what is said in Isaiah in this way: “Do not fear the reproach of men, and do not be overcome by their contempt.” For it is absurd, when God is so plainly present in the motion of heaven and of the things in it, and in what is accomplished on land and sea by his divine art in the births, constitutions, nourishment, and growth of animals and plants of every kind, to shut our eyes and not look to God, and to turn our eyes instead to the fear of people who will shortly die and be handed over to the judgment they deserve.

To Abraham it was once said by God, “Go out from your land”; but to us perhaps it will shortly be said, “Go out from the whole earth.” It is good to obey this, so that he may quickly show us the heavens, in which is what is called the kingdom of heaven. Now one can see that life is full of contests over many virtues, and full of those who contend. For many others besides those who belong to God's portion will be thought to have contended for self-control; and some to have died with courage, keeping their purpose toward the common Master; and those skilled in the arguments under examination to have cultivated prudence; and those who set themselves to live justly to have given themselves to justice. And against each virtue there wars either “the mind of the flesh” or most external things. But over piety only “the chosen race, the royal priesthood, the holy nation, the people for God's own possession” contends; for the rest of mankind do not show even in appearance that, if there should be things that fight against the pious, they are resolved to die for piety, preferring death with piety to life with impiety. And each of those who wish to belong to the chosen race obeys God when he hears him say at every time, even when those who under pretence of having many gods are godless plot against him: “You shall have no other gods besides me,” and, “You shall not remember the name of other gods in your hearts, nor shall it be named from your mouth.” Therefore God is “believed with the heart unto righteousness” by such people, and “confessed with the mouth unto salvation” by such people, since they understand that they will not be justified unless they so believe God with their heart so disposed, nor will they be in salvation unless their speech corresponds to their inner disposition. For those deceive themselves who think that to attain the goal in Christ it is enough that “with the heart one believes unto righteousness,” even if “with the mouth one confesses unto salvation” is not added. And one may say that it is better to honor God “with the lips” while the heart is “far” from him than to honor him with the “heart” while the mouth does not confess “unto salvation.”

If the one who says, “You shall not make for yourself an idol, nor a likeness of anything,” and what follows, speaks these words as though “You shall not bow down to them” and “nor shall you serve them” differ from each other, perhaps the one who is inwardly devoted to idols serves them, while the one who is not so devoted, but out of cowardice (which he calls accommodation) plays the part, in order to seem pious as the many are, does not serve idols but does bow down to them. And I would say that those who abjure Christianity in court, or before the court, do not serve idols but do bow down to them, applying the name of the Lord God, the name “God,” to vain and lifeless matter. In this way the people who were defiled “with the daughters of Moab” bowed down to idols and did not serve them. For it is written in these very words: “They invited them to the sacrifices of their idols, and the people ate of their sacrifices, and they bowed down to their idols and were initiated into Baal of Peor.” And observe that it is not said, “and they served their idols”; for it was not possible, after so many signs and wonders, that in a single moment they should be persuaded by the women with whom they committed fornication to believe that the idols were gods. Perhaps in the same way at the making of the calf in Exodus they “bowed down” without serving the calf, which they had watched being made. So we must regard the present temptation as a trial and test of our love for God. “For the Lord is testing you,” as it is written in Deuteronomy, “to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” But you, when tested, “will walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments,” and especially “You shall have no other gods besides me,” “and you will hear his voice and be joined to him,” who takes you from the places here and joins you to himself in what the apostle called “the growth of God” in him.

Moreover, if “every” evil “word is an abomination to the Lord” your God, how great an “abomination” must we consider the evil word of denial, and the evil speech that proclaims another god, and the evil oath by the Fortune of men, a thing without real existence? When it is put to us, we must remember him who taught, “But I say to you, do not swear at all.” For if he who swears by heaven transgresses against the throne of God, and he who swears by the earth commits impiety by deifying what is called “the footstool of God's feet,” and he who swears by Jerusalem sins, although it is the city of the great King, and he who swears by his own head offends, how great a sin must we consider it to swear by anyone's Fortune? At that time we must remember also this: for every idle word you will give “account on the day of judgment.” For what other word is so idle as the oath in denial? But the enemy will probably wish to outwit us by whatever means he can, so that we bow down “to the sun or the moon or all the host of heaven.” But we shall say that the word of God “did not command” these things. For created things must by no means be worshiped when the Creator is present, sufficient, and reaching to hear the prayer of all. Nor would the sun himself wish to be worshiped by those who belong to God's portion, and probably not by anyone else; but imitating him who said, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, God the Father,” he would, as it were, say to anyone wishing to worship him: “Why do you call me god? There is one true God. And why do you worship me? ‘For you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’ I too am created; why would you worship one who worships? For I too worship and serve God the Father, and obeying his commands I am subjected ‘to futility because of him who subjected me in hope,’ and I too, though now bound to a corruptible body, shall be set free ‘from the bondage of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.’”

We may expect also some prophet of impiety, perhaps not one but several, who will speak to us as the Lord's “word, which” the Lord “did not command,” or as a word of wisdom what is foreign to wisdom, in order to kill us by the word of his mouth. But then too, when the sinner stands against us, let us say: “But I, like a deaf man, did not hear, and like a dumb man who does not open his mouth; and I became like a man who does not hear.” For deafness to impious words is good, when we despair of correcting those who speak the worse things.

It is useful for us, in times when people call us to the contrary course, to consider what God wishes to teach when he says, “I am the Lord your God, a jealous God.” And I think that, just as a bridegroom who turns his bride toward living chastely, so that she gathers her whole self to her bridegroom and guards in every way against pouring herself out to anyone other than the bridegroom, would, if he were wise, show jealousy, using such a display toward the bride as a medicine; so he who speaks the oracle, especially if he appears to be “the firstborn of all creation,” says to the bride, the soul, that he is a jealous God, drawing his hearers away from all fornication with demons and with those who are thought to be gods. And as a God who is jealous in this way, he says of those who have in any way gone whoring after other gods: “They provoked me to jealousy with what is no god, they angered me with their idols; and I will provoke them to jealousy with what is no nation, with a foolish nation I will anger them; for a fire has been kindled from my wrath, it will burn to the lowest Hades.”

And even if the bridegroom, being wise and free from passion, does not turn his betrothed away from every defilement for his own sake, yet for her sake, seeing her defilement and abomination, he will do everything that can heal her and turn her back, offering to a nature that has free will words that turn it from fornication. What defilement, then, could you conceive worse for a soul than to proclaim in any way another god and not to confess the one who is truly the one and only Lord? And I think that, just as “he who is joined to a prostitute is one body,” so the one who confesses someone, especially in a time of torture and of the testing of faith, is blended and united with the one confessed; but the one who denies, cut off by the denial itself as by a sword from him whom he denies, suffers division, being separated from him whom he has denied. Therefore consider whether it was not as a consequence that necessarily follows, that the one who confesses is confessed and the one who denies is denied, that it was said: “Whoever confesses in me before men, I also will confess in him before my Father in heaven.” And the very Word and the very Truth might say to the one who has confessed and to the one who has denied: “With the measure you measure it will be measured back to you.” “You, then, who measured with the measure of confession toward me and filled up the measure of confession, will receive a measure of confession from me ‘pressed down, shaken together, running over,’ which will be given ‘into your lap’; and you who measured with the measure of denial and denied me will receive, in proportion to the measure of your denial, a measure of denial from me concerning you.”

How the measure of confession is filled, or is not filled but falls short, we might consider as follows. If throughout the whole time of examination and temptation we give no place to the devil in our hearts, when he wishes to defile us with evil thoughts of denial or of double-mindedness or of some plausible argument calling us toward what is hostile to martyrdom and perfection; and besides, if we do not defile ourselves with any word foreign to confession; and if we bear all the reproach from our opponents, the mockery, laughter, slander, and the pity with which they seem to pity us, supposing us to be deluded and foolish and calling us misguided; and further, if we are not dragged about and distracted by affection for our children or their mother or any of those thought to be dearest in life, toward possessions or toward this life, but turning away from all these become wholly God's and devoted to life with him and in his presence, as those who will share with his only-begotten Son and those who partake of him: then we could say that we have filled up the measure of confession. But if we fall short in even one thing, we have not filled it but have defiled the measure of confession and mixed into it something foreign. Therefore we shall need what those need who have built on the foundation “wood” or “hay” or “straw.”

And this too we must know: that we received what are called God's covenants on the terms which we made with him when we undertook to live the Christian life. And in our agreements with God was the whole way of life according to the gospel, which says: “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” And we have often been more inspired on hearing also this: “For what will a man profit, if he gains the whole world but forfeits his life? Or what will a man give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man is to come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will repay each according to his deeds.” That one must deny oneself and take up one's cross and follow Jesus was recorded not only by Matthew, whose wording we have set out, but also by Luke and Mark. For hear Luke saying: “And he said to all, If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it. For what does a man profit if he gains the whole world, but loses or forfeits himself?” And Mark: “And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, If anyone wishes to follow after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his own life will lose it; but whoever loses it for the sake of the gospel will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? For what will a man give in exchange for his life?” Long ago, then, we ought to have denied ourselves and said, “It is no longer I who live”; and now let it be seen whether we have taken up our cross and followed Jesus, which has happened if “Christ lives” in us. If we wish to save our soul, so as to receive it back better than a soul, let us also lose it by martyrdom. For if we lose it for Christ's sake, casting it upon him in death for him, we shall gain true salvation for it; but if the opposite, we shall hear that one who has gained the whole world of the senses profits nothing through his own destruction or through having forfeited himself. And once a man has lost his own soul or forfeited it, even if he gains the whole world, he will not be able to give it “in exchange for the” lost “soul.” For the soul created “in the image of God” is more precious than all bodies. One alone has been able to give an exchange for our soul that was formerly lost: he who bought us with his own “precious blood.”

And according to certain deeper meanings Isaiah says: “I have given Egypt and Ethiopia and Syene as an exchange for you, in your place; since you became precious in my sight.” But if, loving learning in Christ and wishing at last to pass beyond learning “through a mirror” and “in a riddle,” you hasten to him who called you, you will very soon know the exact account of this and of the rest “face to face,” as friends of the Father and Teacher in heaven. For friends learn by sight and not through riddles, or by wisdom stripped of sounds, words, symbols, and types, coming into contact with the nature of intelligible things and the beauty of truth. If you believe that Paul was caught up “to the third heaven” and “was caught up into paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not permitted for a man to speak,” you will know as a consequence that you will at once know more and greater things than the inexpressible words then revealed to Paul, after which he came down from the third heaven; and after that knowledge you will not come down, if, taking up the cross, you follow Jesus, whom we have as “a great high priest who has passed through the heavens.” And you yourselves, not falling away from those who follow him, will pass through the heavens, passing beyond not only earth and the mysteries of earth but also the heavens and what concerns them. For there are stored up in God sights far greater than these, which no nature in a body can contain unless it has first been freed from every body. For I am persuaded that God reserves and keeps with himself things far greater than those which the sun and moon and the chorus of stars have seen, and even the holy angels, whom God made “spirit” and “a flame of fire,” so that he may reveal them when the whole “creation” is set free “from the bondage of the enemy into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

And so one of those who are martyrs-to-be, who has more love of learning in Christ than many martyrs, will more quickly ascend beyond these things. But you, holy Ambrose, if you look carefully at a saying of the gospel, can see that perhaps none, or very few, of all who have ever lived will attain an outpouring of blessedness so exceptional and so great; and in it you too will share, if you swim through the contest without wavering. The words are these. Peter once said to the Savior: “Behold, we have left everything and followed you; what then will there be for us? And Jesus said to them” (that is, to the apostles): “Truly I say to you that you who have followed me, in the regeneration, when God sits on the throne of his glory, you also will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left brothers or sisters or parents or children or fields or houses for the sake of my name will receive many times as much and will inherit eternal life.” Because of these sayings, had I acquired as much on earth as you have, or even more, I would have prayed to become a martyr in Christ to God, so as to receive “many times as much,” or as Mark says, “a hundredfold”; for the few things that we shall leave behind if we are called to martyrdom, multiplied a hundredfold, are far more than those few. For this reason, if I am a martyr, I should wish to leave children behind too, with fields and houses, so that with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, “from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named,” I may be called father of children many times more numerous and more holy, or, to speak exactly, a hundred times more. And if there are fathers of whom it was said to Abraham, “But you shall go to your fathers in peace, nourished in a good old age,” someone might say (I do not know whether truly): perhaps those fathers are ones who were once martyred and left children behind, in return for which they became fathers of the fathers of the patriarch Abraham and of other such patriarchs. For it is likely that those who left children and were martyred become fathers not of infants but of fathers.

But if someone, as though earnestly desiring the greater gifts and counting blessed the martyrs who are rich and the martyrs who are fathers, who will beget children “a hundredfold” and receive fields and houses a hundredfold, should ask whether it is reasonable that they, compared with martyrs who were poor in this life, should have their possession of spiritual things multiplied, we must say to him this: just as those who endured tortures and pains displayed a more brilliant virtue in martyrdom than those not tested in these, so those who, besides love of the body and love of life, have cut through and broken so many worldly bonds, exercising great love for God and truly taking up the living and active Word of God, sharper “than any two-edged sword,” have been able, having cut through so many bonds and made themselves wings like an eagle, to return “to the house of” their master. It is right, then, that just as those who were not tested by tortures and pains should yield first place to those who showed their endurance on the rack and the various instruments of torture and in the fire, so also reason prompts us who are poor, even if we are martyred, to give up first place to you who, for the love of God in Christ, trample on the deceptive glory that captivates the many, and on so great a possession, and on affection for children.

At the same time note the dignity of Scripture, which promises the multiplying, even a hundredfold, of brothers and children and parents and fields and houses; but a wife is not counted among them. For it is not said, “Everyone who has left brothers or sisters or parents or children or fields or houses or wife for the sake of my name will receive many times as much”; for “in the resurrection of the dead they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven.”

What, then, Joshua said to the people when he settled them in the holy land, Scripture might now say to us too. The wording is this: “Now fear the Lord and serve him in uprightness and in righteousness.” And to us, when we are being persuaded to worship idols, it will say also what follows: “Put away the foreign gods, which your fathers served beyond the river and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.” At the beginning, when you were about to be instructed in the faith, it would reasonably have been said to you: “But if it does not please you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve, whether the gods of your fathers beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites, among whom you dwell in the land.” And the one instructing you would have said: “But I and my house will serve the Lord, for he is holy.” But now there is no room for these things to be said to you; for then you said, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods. The Lord our God, he is God, who brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt, and kept us in all the way in which we went.” And also, in your agreements about the worship of God, you long ago answered those who instructed you: “We too will serve the Lord; for he is our God.” If, then, one who breaks agreements with men is faithless and a stranger to safety, what must be said of those who by denial set aside the agreements they made with God, and run back to Satan, whom they renounced at their baptism? For to such a person we must say the words Eli spoke to his sons: “If a man sins against a man, they will pray for him; but if he sins against the Lord, who will pray for him?”

A great theater is gathered to watch you as you contend and are called to martyrdom, as if we were saying that such a thing happened in the case of some supposedly marvelous contestants, with countless thousands … to the spectacle of the contest. And when you contend, you will say no less than Paul: “We have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men.” The whole world, then, and all the angels on the right and on the left, and all men, both those of God's portion and those of the others, will hear us contending in the contest for Christianity. And either the angels in heaven will rejoice over us, and “the rivers will clap their hands together, and the mountains will rejoice,” “and all the trees of the field will clap with their branches”; or, God forbid, the powers below that rejoice in evil will rejoice. And it is not out of place to see, from what is written in Isaiah, what will be said by those in Hades to those who have been defeated and have fallen from heavenly martyrdom, so that we may shudder still more at the impiety of denial. For I think that such things will be said to the one who has denied: “Hades below was embittered on meeting you; all the giants who ruled the earth were roused for you, who roused all the kings of the nations from their thrones. They will all answer and say to you.” And what will the defeated powers say to those defeated, and those captured by the devil to those captured in denial, what are these words? “You too were captured, as we were, and you have been counted among us.” And if someone who had a great and glorious hope in God is overcome, through cowardice or the pains applied to him, he will hear: “Your glory has gone down to Hades, your great joy; under you they will spread decay, and the worm will be your covering.” And if someone often shone in the churches, appearing to them like “the morning star,” as his good works shone “before men,” and afterwards, contending in the great contest, lost the crown of such a throne, he will hear: “How the morning star that rose at dawn has fallen from heaven! He has been crushed upon the earth.” And this also will be said to him, who has become like the devil through denial: “You will be cast out on the mountains like an abominable corpse, with many dead pierced by swords, going down to Hades. As a garment soaked in blood will not be clean, so neither will you be clean.” For how will he be clean who is defiled with blood and murder by the abominable fall of denial, and soaked in so great an evil? Now let us show that we have heard the saying, “He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me”; let us take care that no hesitation arise in us even as to whether we should deny or confess, so that the word of Elijah may not be said to us too, which runs: “How long will you limp on both your hams? If the Lord is God, go after him.”

It is likely too that we shall be reproached by neighbors and sneered at by some who surround us and shake their heads at us as at fools. But when these things happen, let us say to God: “You have made us a reproach to our neighbors, a sneering and a laughingstock to those around us. You have made us a byword among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples. All day long my disgrace is before me, and the shame of my face has covered me, at the voice of the one who reproaches and slanders, before the face of the enemy and persecutor.” And blessed it is, when all these things happen, to say to God the words that the prophet boldly adds to them: “All these things have come upon us. And we have not forgotten you, and we have not dealt falsely with your covenant. And our heart has not turned back.”

Let us remember that while we are in this life and consider the paths that lead out of this life, we say to God: “You turned aside our paths from your way.” Now is the time to recall that this place in which we have been humbled is a place of the soul's affliction, so that we may say in prayer: “For you humbled us in a place of affliction, and the shadow of death covered us.” And let us say with confidence also this: “If we have forgotten the name of our God, and if we have spread out our hands to a foreign god, will not God search this out?”

Let us strive to take up perfectly not only the martyrdom that is in the open but also that which is in secret, so that we too may cry out as the apostle did: “For this is our boast, the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and godly sincerity” “we have conducted ourselves in the world.” And let us join to the apostle's words the prophet's: “For he knows the secrets of the heart,” ours, especially if we are led away to death; when we shall say to God what only martyrs say: “For your sake we are put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.” And if ever, from the mind “of the flesh,” fear of the judges who threaten us with death is suggested to us, then let us say to them the words from Proverbs: “Son, honor the Lord, and you will be strong; but besides him fear no other.”

This too is useful for our present subject. Solomon says in Ecclesiastes: “I praised all the dead more than the living, as many as are alive until now.” And who among the dead could so reasonably be praised as the one who of his own free choice accepted death for the sake of piety? Such was Eleazar, who, “welcoming death with honor rather than life with defilement, went of his own accord to the rack,” and who, “having taken up a noble resolve, worthy of his ninety years, of the eminence of his old age, of the gray hairs he had gained and made distinguished, of his most excellent upbringing from childhood, and still more of the holy and God-given legislation,” said: “It is not worthy of our age to pretend, so that many of the young, supposing that Eleazar at ninety has gone over to a foreign way of life, should themselves be led astray because of my pretence and for the sake of a brief and momentary life, and I bring defilement and disgrace on my old age. For even if for the present I escape punishment from men, yet whether I live or die I shall not escape the hands of the Almighty. Therefore by bravely giving up my life now I shall show myself worthy of my old age, and leave to the young a noble example of how to die a good death willingly and nobly for the revered and holy laws.” And I pray that you, when you come to the doors of death, or rather of freedom, especially if pains are applied (for there is no despairing of your suffering them, from the counsel of the opposing powers), will say such things as these: “It is clear to the Lord, who has holy knowledge, that though I could be released from death, I endure hard pains in my body under the scourge, but in my soul I suffer these things gladly because of fear of him.” Such was the death of Eleazar that it could be said of him: “Not only to the young but to the great majority of the nation he left his death as an example of nobility and a memorial of virtue.”

And the seven brothers recorded in the books of the Maccabees, whom Antiochus tortured “with whips and thongs” when they persisted in the worship of God, will be able to be a most beautiful example of vigorous martyrdom to anyone who considers whether he is going to be inferior to boys, who not only endured tortures one by one but also, by having watched the torment of their brothers, displayed a firm courage in piety. One of them, having become, as Scripture called him, “the spokesman,” said to the tyrant: “What do you intend to ask and learn? For we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our fathers.” But why need I tell what they endured from frying pans and cauldrons heated red-hot, so that they might be tortured in them after each had first suffered different torments? For the one called their “spokesman” first had his tongue cut out; then he was scalped, and he bore the scalping as others bear circumcision for the sake of the divine law, thinking that in this too he was fulfilling the word of God's covenant. And not content with this, Antiochus mutilated his extremities “while the rest of the brothers and the mother looked on,” punishing the brothers and the mother by the sight and thinking to shake their purpose by what were thought such fearful things. So, not content with these things, Antiochus, when he “had become useless,” as far as the use of his body went, through the first punishments, “ordered him to be brought to the fire,” in the pans and cauldrons, “still breathing, and to be fried.” And as the vapor rose from the flesh of the most noble athlete of piety, roasted by the tyrant's cruelty, the rest, “with their mother, encouraged one another to die nobly,” consoling themselves with the thought that God was watching these things; for the conviction that the eye of God was present with those enduring was enough for their endurance. And the judge of the contest of the athletes of piety encouraged them, being himself encouraged and, if I may so call it, gladdened by those who rose above such pains. It would be timely for us too, when we come into such things, to say to ourselves their words, which run thus: “The Lord God watches over us and in truth has compassion on us.”

When the first had been tested in this way, as gold is tested in the furnace, the second was led “to the mockery”; and the servants of the tyrant's cruelty, having “torn off the skin with the hair,” called the sufferer to repentance, asking whether he would eat of the things sacrificed to idols “before his body was punished limb by limb.” But when he refused to repent, he was led to “the next torture,” keeping his firmness to his last breath. For in no way broken nor yielding to the pains, he said to the impious man: “You accursed wretch, you release us from this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up, who have died for his laws, to an eternal renewal of life.”

And the third, counting the pains as nothing and trampling on them for love of God, “when asked for his tongue, quickly put it out and boldly stretched forth his hands,” and said that, giving these up for the sake of God's laws, he hoped to receive them back from God, such as God would give back to the athletes of piety toward him. In the same way the fourth also was tortured, bearing the torments and saying that “it is preferable, when departing from among men, to wait for the hopes that come from God, of being raised up again by him,” a resurrection to which the tyrant will not rise; for he will rise not “to life” but to reproach and everlasting shame. Next he tortured the fifth, who, looking at Antiochus, reproached him with being mortal, while he did not curb his arrogance, thinking a tyranny of a few days to be great power. And even in these sufferings he said that the nation had not been “forsaken” by God, who would very soon torment Antiochus “and his seed.” After him the sixth, when he was about to die, said: “Do not be deceived”; we suffer these things willingly, paying the penalty for our own sins, that we may be cleansed in the pains. And he told him that he must not think that he would go unpunished for undertaking “to fight against God”; for he fights against God who fights against those made divine by the Word.

Last of all Antiochus took the youngest into his hands, and being persuaded that he too was brother to those who counted such great pains as nothing and had the same resolve as they, he used other approaches, thinking that he would be persuaded by entreaties and by promises confirmed with oaths that he would make him rich and “envied” “if he turned from the ways of his fathers,” and would enroll him among his Friends and entrust him with royal “offices.” But when he achieved nothing at all, since the young man paid no attention to what was said, as foreign to his own resolve, “he called the mother and urged her to become the boy's counselor for his safety.” She, making a show of persuading her son to what the king wished, and mocking the tyrant, spoke many words to her son about endurance, so that the young man did not wait for the punishment that was being brought but went ahead and called out to the executioners, saying: “Why do you delay and hesitate? For we listen to the law given by God; one must not accept a command that opposes the divine words.” And even like a king pronouncing sentence on those tried before him, he pronounced judgment against the tyrant, judging him rather than being judged; and he said that, having raised his hands against the heavenly children, he would not escape “the judgment of the almighty, all-seeing God.”

Then one could see the mother of so many sons bearing “with good courage, because of her hopes in God,” the pains and deaths of her sons; for the dews of piety and the breath of holiness did not allow the fire of a mother's love to be kindled in her inward parts, the fire that blazes up in many at the heaviest calamities. And I think it most useful for our present subject to have set out these things, abridged from Scripture, so that we may see how much piety, and love for God, which is exceedingly stronger than every other love, can do against the harshest pains and the heaviest tortures. With this love for God human weakness does not share citizenship; it is driven out of the whole soul, into exile, and cannot act even in the least degree, where there is someone able to say, “The Lord is my strength and my song,” and, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me, Christ Jesus our Lord.”

What martyrdom is, and how much boldness toward God it produces, can also be learned from this. The saint, being generous and wishing to repay the benefits that have come to him from God, seeks what he could do for the Lord in return for all that he has received from him; and he finds nothing else that a man of good will could render to God that is, as it were, of equal weight with his benefits, except death in martyrdom. For in the hundred and fifteenth psalm the perplexity is written thus: “What shall I render to the Lord for all that he has rendered to me?” And the answer to it, as if one had said, “What will the one who speaks render to the Lord for all that he has received from him?”, is given thus: “I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.” Now it is customary to call martyrdom “the cup of salvation,” as we have found in the gospel. For when those who wished to sit at Jesus' “right” and “left” in his kingdom reached out for greater honor, the Lord said to them: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?”, calling martyrdom a cup. This is clear also from the words, “Father, if it is possible, take this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what you will.” And we learn that the one who has drunk that cup which Jesus drank will sit with, reign with, and judge with the King of those who reign. This, then, is the “cup” of “salvation,” and whoever takes it will call upon “the name of the Lord”; “and everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”

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.

Let us remember also the sins we have committed, and that it is not possible to receive forgiveness of sins without baptism, and that according to the laws of the gospel it is not possible to be baptized again with water and the Spirit for the forgiveness of sins, and that the baptism of martyrdom is given to us. For so it has been named, as is clear from the fact that “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?” is followed by “or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And elsewhere it is said: “But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am constrained until it is accomplished!” And consider whether the baptism of martyrdom, just as the Savior's became a cleansing for the world, also itself serves for the healing of many who are cleansed. For just as those who attended the altar according to the law of Moses seemed to minister forgiveness of sins to the people through the blood “of goats and bulls,” so the souls “of those beheaded” for the testimony of Jesus, not attending in vain at the altar in heaven, minister forgiveness of sins to those who pray. At the same time we know also that, just as the high priest Jesus Christ offered himself as a sacrifice, so the priests, of whom he is high priest, offer themselves as a sacrifice; on account of which they are seen at the altar as in their proper place. But of the priests, some were without blemish and, offering unblemished sacrifices, served the Deity, while those with blemishes, which Moses recorded in Leviticus, were banished from the altar. And who is the unblemished priest offering an unblemished victim, if not the one who holds fast to his confession and fulfills every requirement that the account of martyrdom demands, of which we have spoken above?

Let us not be surprised if the great blessedness of the martyrs, which will be in deep peace and calm and fair weather, must begin from what is thought a gloomier and, so to speak, wintry condition. For each of the blessed, traveling first the narrow and hard way in winter, will have to show what skill in steering he has acquired, so that afterwards may come what is said in the Song of Songs to the bride who has swum through the winter: “My beloved answers,” it says, “and says to me: Arise, come, my neighbor, my fair one, my dove. For behold, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.” And you too remember that it is not possible to hear “the winter is past” otherwise than by contending strongly and vigorously in the present winter. And after the winter is past and the rain is over and gone, the flowers will appear; “for those planted in the house of the Lord will blossom in the courts of our God.”

And we know this too: that since we have been persuaded by Jesus to leave idols and polytheistic godlessness, the enemy cannot persuade us to worship idols, but he wishes to force us; and for this reason he works such things against those over whom he gets authority, and he will make those who are tested either martyrs or idolaters. And often even now he says: “All these things I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Let us take care, then, that we never worship idols and subject ourselves to demons; for the idols of the nations are demons. And what a thing it is, to leave the kind yoke of Christ and his “light burden” and to subject oneself again to the yoke of demons and bear the burden of most grievous sin, after we have come to know that the “heart” of those who serve idols “is ashes” and their “life more worthless than clay,” and after we have said, “How false are the idols our fathers acquired, and there is none among them that gives rain.”

It was not only long ago that Nebuchadnezzar set up the “golden image,” nor only then that he threatened Ananias, Azarias, and Misael that if they did not worship he would throw them “into the furnace of fire”; but now too Nebuchadnezzar says the same things to us, the true Hebrews, who cross over. But so that we may experience the heavenly dew that quenches all fire from us and cools our ruling faculty, let us imitate those holy men. Perhaps even now Haman wishes you, the Mordecais, to bow down to him; but say, “I will not set the glory of men above the glory of God” of Israel. Let us overthrow Bel by the word of God and with Daniel kill the dragon, so that coming near the mouths of lions we may suffer nothing from them, while only those responsible for our present contest are devoured by the lions that could not swallow us. Let us hold fast to this, that among the noble deeds of Job it is said also: “If, laying my hand upon my mouth, I kissed it, let this be reckoned to me as the greatest iniquity”; for it is likely that they will order us to put our hand to our mouth and kiss it.

And let us observe this too: that the Savior's prophecies about martyrdom are given not in his words to the multitudes but in those to the apostles. For after it has first been said, “These twelve Jesus sent out, charging them: Do not go into the way of the Gentiles,” and what follows, there is added: “Beware of men; for they will deliver you up to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. When they deliver you up, do not be anxious how or what you are to speak; for what you are to speak will be given to you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking in you. Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in this city, flee to the next, and if they persecute you from that one, flee to another; for truly I say to you, you will not finish the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” And Luke records similar things: “When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious how you are to make your defense or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.” And after other things: “Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate beforehand how to answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name's sake. And not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives.” And Mark says similar things: “When they lead you away and deliver you up, do not be anxious beforehand or meditate what you are to say; but say whatever is given you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name's sake; but he who endures to the end will be saved.” And these words also, in Matthew, which urge us on to martyrdom, were spoken to no others than the Twelve; and we too must hear them, as those who will be brothers of the apostles who heard them, and will be counted with the apostles. The sayings run thus: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” And next to this the Lord teaches us that no one comes into the contest of martyrdom without providence. For it is said: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father in heaven. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. So everyone who confesses in me before men, I also will confess in him before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny him before my Father in heaven.” Equivalent to these are the words in Luke: “I say to you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will show you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows. And I tell you, everyone who confesses in me before men, the Son of Man also will confess in him before the angels of God; but he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.” And in another place: “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and that of the Father and of the holy angels.” And Mark recorded something close to this: “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Those, then, who put us to death kill the life of the body; for such is the meaning of “Do not fear those who kill the body,” said in these very words by Matthew and by Luke. And after they have killed the body, even if they wish, they cannot kill the soul; nor do they “have anything more that they can do.” For how is it possible for a soul to be destroyed that has been made alive by its confession itself? For he who urges us to martyrdom in Isaiah, and his Servant, bear witness to it in return, where it is written: “Be witnesses for me, and I am a witness, says the Lord God, and the Servant whom I have chosen.” And note this also: that this commandment was given not to Jesus' servants but to his “friends”: “Do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do.” We must fear, then, “him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” For he alone “after he has killed has authority to cast into Gehenna.” And he will cast into it those who have feared those who kill the body and have not feared “him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna,” and “him who after he has killed has authority to cast into Gehenna.” And if the hairs of anyone's head “are numbered,” they are clearly numbered for those beheaded for Jesus' sake; let us confess in the Son of God, and before men and not before gods, so that he who has been confessed may repay us by confessing us before his God and Father, and himself confess in heaven the one who confessed him on earth.

Who, having considered such things, will not cry out that saying of the apostle: “That the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us”? For how is confession before the Father not far greater than confession before men? And how does the confession in heaven by the one who has been confessed not exceed beyond measure the confession on earth by which the martyrs confess the Son of God? And let anyone who is thinking of denying “before men” remember him who said without falsehood: “I also will deny him before my Father in heaven.” And since Matthew recorded, “I also will confess in him before my Father in heaven,” and Luke, “the Son of Man also will confess in him before the angels of God,” I consider whether perhaps “the firstborn” of “all creation,” “the image of the invisible God,” will confess the one who confessed him before the Father in heaven, while he who was born “of the seed of David according to the flesh,” and is for this reason “son of man,” and was born of a woman who was herself a human being and is for this reason called “Son of Man”—by which is understood the man in Jesus—will confess those who confessed him “before the angels of God.” The corresponding account must be given of those who deny. And this too must be considered: that the one who confesses in the Son “before men” commends, as far as in him lies, Christianity and the Father of this Christianity to those before whom he confesses; while the one who is confessed by the firstborn of all creation and by the Son of Man is commended, through the confession of the Son of God and of the Son of Man, to the Father in heaven and to the angels of God. And if “it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends,” how must we not consider approved the one judged worthy of being commended to the Father in heaven and to the angels of God? And if he is approved, and those like him, whom the Lord “tested” by tortures and examinations “like gold in the furnace and accepted like a whole burnt offering,” what must be said of those who have been exposed in the furnace of temptation and have denied, whom he who denies the one deserving denial denies as unapproved before the Father in heaven and “before the angels of God”?

And we must contend not only not to deny but also not to be ashamed at all of suffering what those who are strangers to God think deserving of shame; especially you, holy Ambrose, who, having been glorified and welcomed by a great many cities, now as it were go in procession, carrying the cross of Jesus and following him as he leads you before governors and kings, so that he himself, journeying with you, may give you a mouth and wisdom, and to you also, Protoctetus, his fellow contestant, and to those who share in martyrdom with you, who fill up “what is lacking” in the sufferings “of Christ”; and that he may go with you to the paradise of God, showing you how you may pass through “the cherubim and the flaming sword that turns and guards the way to the tree of life.” For if both of these guard “the way to the tree of life,” they guard it so that no unworthy person may be allowed to pass through it and come to the tree of life. For the flaming sword will hold back those who have built on the laid foundation, Jesus Christ, “wood or hay or straw,” and the most combustible and longest-burning wood of, if I may so name it, denial; while the cherubim will receive those who are not of a nature to be held by the flaming sword, because they have built nothing akin to it, and will send them on to “the tree of life” and to all that “God planted” in the east and “made to spring up” “from the earth.” And with Jesus journeying with you to paradise, despise the serpent, conquered and crushed under the feet of Jesus, and through him under yours too, since he has given “you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.”

So we must neither deny the Son of God nor be ashamed of him or of those who belong to him or of his words, but we must listen to this: “Whoever denies me before men, I also will deny him before my Father in heaven”; and this: “For whoever is ashamed of me and of mine, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and that of the Father and of the holy angels”; and this: “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of the Father with the holy angels.” And Jesus once “endured the cross, despising the shame,” and for this reason “sat down at the right hand” of God; and his imitators too, despising shame, will sit with him and reign with him in heaven—with him who came not to bring “peace on earth” but to bring it upon the souls of his disciples, and to bring “a sword on the earth.” For since “the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart,” he now above all rules our souls with the peace that surpasses all understanding, which he left to his apostles, while he has thrust a sword between the image of the man of dust and that of the heavenly man; so that for the present he may take to himself our heavenly part, and afterwards, when we have become worthy not to be cut in two, make us wholly heavenly. And he came to bring on the earth not a “sword” only but also “fire,” of which he says, “I would that it were already kindled!” Let this fire, then, be kindled in you too, consuming every earthly and body-loving thought of yours; and the baptism by which Jesus was constrained “until it was accomplished,” be baptized with it now with all eagerness. And you who have “wife and children and brothers and sisters,” remember this: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, he cannot be my disciple”; and both of you remember this: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate,” besides the former things, “even his own soul, he cannot be my disciple.” But hate your own souls in such a way that by hating them you keep them for eternal life; “for he who hates,” he says, “his own soul in this world will keep it for eternal life.” So hate your soul for the sake of eternal life, persuaded that the hatred Jesus teaches us to feel is a good and useful hatred. And just as we must hate our soul in order that it may be kept for eternal life, so you who have “wife and children and brothers and sisters,” hate them, so that you may benefit those you hate by the very fact of having hated them, gaining boldness to do them good by becoming a friend of God.

At the same time remember also the one who prayed in the Spirit about the children of martyrs, left behind because of their love for God, and said: “Preserve the sons of those who have been put to death.” Only know that “it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God,” and that, just as it is said to those of Abraham's seed, “I know that you are Abraham's seed,” and, “If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham,” so it will be said to your children too: “I know that you are Ambrose's seed,” and, “If you are Ambrose's children, you do the works of Ambrose.” And perhaps they will do them, since you will benefit them more after such a departure than if you remained with them. For then you will love them with more knowledge and pray for them with more understanding, if you learn that they are your children and not only your seed. Have on your lips now the words, “He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me,” and, “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.”

By your eagerness for martyrdom, give place to the Spirit of your Father, who speaks in those delivered up for the sake of their worship of God. If you see yourselves hated and thought abominable and impious, then take up the words, “Therefore the world hates you,” “because you are not of this world”; “for if you were of this world, the world would love its own.” Having endured many reproaches for Christ's sake and many dangers since you believed, make progress in endurance to the end, because “he who endures to the end will be saved.” Know that, as Peter says, you will rejoice, “though now for a little while, if need be, you are grieved by various trials, so that the testing of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” But take “grieved” in the sense of “having toiled,” as is clear also from “In grief you shall bear children”; for a woman does not always bear children in grief as an emotion, but in toil. If the words are useful to the disciples of Christ, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the pride of life, is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away, and its desire”: do not then love the things that are passing away, but by doing the will of God become worthy of becoming one together with the Son and the Father and the Holy Spirit, according to the Savior's prayer when he says, “As I and you are one,” “that they also may be one in us.” And how many days can one gain by loving “the world” or “the things in the world,” while forfeiting or losing one's own soul, and carrying about a conscience weighed down beyond a “heavy burden,” weighed down by the fall of denial? Let each of us remember how often he has been in danger of dying the common death, and let us consider whether perhaps we were kept safe for this purpose: that, baptized in our own blood and washed clean of every sin, we might spend our time at the altar in heaven with those who have contended with us.

But if someone, giving way through great love of life, or softness toward pain, or what are thought the plausible arguments brought by those who try to persuade us to the worse course, should deny that there is one God and his Christ, and confess demons or fortunes, let such a one know that he is preparing “a table for the demon” and filling “a mixed cup for Fortune,” having forsaken the Lord and forgotten his holy mountain, and that he will be subject to these reproofs, as Isaiah recorded in this way: “But you who have forsaken me and forget my holy mountain and prepare a table for the demon and fill a mixed cup for Fortune, I will deliver you to the sword; you shall all fall in slaughter; because I called and you did not answer, I spoke and you did not listen, and you did evil before me and chose what I did not wish. Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; behold, my servants shall be glad, but you shall be ashamed; behold, my servants shall rejoice in gladness, but you shall cry out for pain of heart and wail for anguish of spirit. For you shall leave your name for a satiety to my chosen, but the Lord will destroy you.” But if, understanding what the Lord's table is, we wish to share in it, let us know this: “You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.” And if, understanding what is meant by “I will not drink from now on of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of heaven,” we wish to be found among those who drink with Jesus, let us attend to this: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.” And who, hearing John, the son of thunder, say, “He who denies the Father and the Son—everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who confesses the Son has the Father also,” will not be afraid of denying the Son by saying that he is not a Christian, since in denying him he will not have the Father? And who would not be moved to confess by deeds and words that he is a Christian, so that he may also have the Father? For those who confess have the Father.

If we have passed “from death to life” by having passed from unbelief to faith, let us not be surprised if the world hates us. For no one who has not passed “from death to life,” but remains in death, can love those who have passed from the dark house, so to speak, of death to the buildings of living stones, filled with the light of life. Jesus “laid down his life for us”; let us then lay down ours too—I will not say for him, but for ourselves, and, I think, also for those who will be built up by our martyrdom. The time has come for us Christians to boast; “not only so,” it says, “but we also boast in afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance character, and character hope; and hope does not put to shame”—only let “the love of God” be poured out “in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” Let Paul say, “If, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus”; but let us say, “If, humanly speaking, I was put to death in Germany.”

If, “as the sufferings of Christ abound,” “so through Christ comfort also abounds,” let us most eagerly welcome the sufferings of Christ, and let them abound in us, if we long for abundant comfort, with which all “who mourn” “will be comforted,” though perhaps not equally. For if the comfort were equal, it would not have been written, “As the sufferings of Christ abound to us, so our comfort also abounds.” Those who share in the sufferings will share also in the comfort, in proportion to the sufferings in which they share with Christ; as you learn also from him who says such things with assurance: for we know, “that as you are partners in the sufferings, so also in the comfort.” And God says through the prophet: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” What other time is so acceptable as when, for the sake of our piety toward God in Christ, we are led away under guard in procession through the world, celebrating a triumph rather than being led in triumph? For the martyrs in Christ with him strip off “the rulers and authorities” and triumph with him, as they become sharers in his sufferings and so also in his noble deeds in those sufferings; among which is also triumphing over “the rulers and authorities,” which you will shortly see conquered and put to shame. What other day is so much a day of salvation as the day of such a departure of ours from here? But I urge you: “give no offense in anything, so that” the presbyterate or “the ministry” may not “be blamed” because of you, “but in everything commend” yourselves “as ministers of God, in much endurance,” saying, “And now what is my endurance? Is it not the Lord?”; “in afflictions,” persuaded that “many are the afflictions of the righteous”; “in necessities,” so that we may claim blessedness as something necessary for us; “in distresses,” so that, having traveled the narrow and hard way without turning aside, we may arrive at life. If need be, let us commend ourselves also “in beatings, in prisons, in tumults, in labors, in sleepless nights, in fastings.” For behold the Lord, and “his reward” is in his hand “to repay each” as his works are.

Now let us show that we have longed for knowledge through works befitting knowledge. Let complete purity, free from every defilement of any sin whatever, be displayed in us. As sons of a patient God and brothers of a patient Christ, let us be patient in all that happens; “for a patient man is great in understanding, but the fainthearted is exceedingly foolish.” If one must commend oneself “with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left,” then, having commended ourselves “through glory” without being puffed up by it, let us now endure dishonor too; and if we have lived in a way that deserved good report and have been well spoken of, let us now bear the ill report of the ungodly. And if we have been admired as truthful by lovers of truth, let us now laugh at being called deceivers. Over the many dangers from which we have been rescued, many said that we were known by God; now let whoever wishes say that we are unknown, when perhaps we are the better known. So, bearing what happens, we are disciplined but not put to death, and we who rejoice seem to be sorrowful.

Paul says somewhere to those who had endured at the beginning, urging them, consistently with their former endurance, to bear second dangers for the sake of the word: “But recall the former days, in which, after you were enlightened, you endured a great contest of sufferings, sometimes being made a public spectacle by reproaches and afflictions, and sometimes becoming partners with those so treated. For you sympathized with my bonds, and you accepted with joy the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you have a better and lasting possession. Do not, therefore, throw away your boldness, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance.” Let us too, then, now endure “a great contest of sufferings,” being made “a public spectacle” “by reproaches and afflictions,” and accepting “with joy the plundering of” our “possessions”; for we are persuaded that we have “a better possession,” not earthly nor even bodily, but invisible and incorporeal. For we look not to “the things that are seen,” seeing that these are “temporary,” but those “eternal.”

Since some, not having considered the doctrine about demons—that in order to remain in this thick air around the earth they need the nourishment that comes from the fumes of sacrifice, and so watch for wherever there is always the savor of burnt fat, and blood, and incense—make light of sacrificing as a matter of indifference, we would say to them too: if those who supply food to robbers and murderers and barbarian enemies of the great King are punished as having wronged the commonwealth, how much more justly would those be accused who, by sacrificing, give to the servants of wickedness food that keeps them in the region around the earth; especially if, having learned the words, “He who sacrifices to other gods shall be utterly destroyed, except to the Lord alone,” they sacrifice to the causes of the evils on earth. And I think that for the sins committed by the demons working against men, those who nourished them by sacrificing will be accused no less than the demons who did the evil; for the demons, and those who kept them on earth, have as it were jointly done the evils to men, since the demons could not have lasted without the fumes and what are thought to be the foods suited to their bodies.

Again, some, supposing that names exist by convention and have no natural relation to the things of which they are names, think it makes no difference whether one says, “I worship the first God,” or “Zeus,” or “Zen”; or whether one says, “I honor and acknowledge the sun,” or “Apollo,” and “the moon,” or “Artemis,” and “the spirit in the earth,” or “Demeter,” and all the other things the wise men of the Greeks say. To them we must say that there is a very deep and recondite study concerning names, and whoever understands it will see that if names existed by convention, the so-called demons or other powers invisible to us would not have obeyed those who know them and name them with names regarded as conventional. But as it is, certain sounds and syllables and names, pronounced with rough or smooth breathing, or with long or short quantity, perhaps by some nature we cannot perceive, bring those who are called. And if this is so, and names do not exist by convention, the first God must be called by no name other than those by which the servant and the prophets and our Savior and Lord himself name him, such as Sabaoth, Adonai, Shaddai, and again, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; for “this,” he says, “is an eternal name and a memorial for generations of generations.” And it is no wonder if the demons transfer their own names to the first God, so that they may be worshiped as the first God. This is not the ancestral custom of the servant of our tradition, nor of the prophets, nor of Christ, the fulfillment of the law, nor of his apostles. We have necessarily set this out so that no one may outwit us, or defile our reasoning even in some degree; we must attend to it carefully, giving the opponents no room for their attempts.

Further, can a man still love life once he has become persuaded that the rational soul in its being has something akin to God? For both are intellectual and invisible and, as the prevailing argument demonstrates, incorporeal. And why would the one who fashioned us have implanted in us a longing for piety toward him and communion with him—a longing that even in those who have gone astray preserves some traces of the divine will—if it were not possible and attainable for rational beings to lay hold of what they naturally long for? And it is clear that, just as each of our members is naturally fitted to something akin to it, the eyes to what is visible and the ears to what is audible, so the mind is fitted to intelligible things and to God, who is beyond intelligible things. Why, then, do we shrink and hesitate to lay aside the hindering “corruptible body,” which weighs down the soul and burdens “the anxious mind,” this “earthly tent,” to be set free from its bonds and to depart from the waves that come with flesh and blood, so that with Christ Jesus we may rest the rest that belongs to blessedness? There we shall contemplate the Word himself, wholly and throughout alive, be nourished by him, grasp the most manifold wisdom in him, be formed by the very Truth, and have our minds illumined by the true and unceasing light of knowledge, so as to see what by nature is seen through that light by eyes enlightened by the commandment of the Lord.

Long ago we heard the words of Jesus, and we have now been disciples of the gospel for a long time, and we have all built ourselves a house. But where we have built—whether “on the rock,” having dug and gone deep, or “on the sand” “without a foundation”—the present contest will show. For a storm is upon us bringing rain and rivers and winds, or, as Luke calls it, a flood; and when these beat against the house, either they will not be strong enough “to shake it,” and for this reason the house will not fall, since it has been founded “on the rock,” Christ; or they will expose the unsoundness of the building, when it collapses under the present occasion. May this be far from our buildings! For great indeed is the fall in denial, or, as Luke says, “great is the ruin” of the building without the foundation. Therefore let us pray that we may be like “a wise man, who built his house on the rock.” Let there come upon such a building the “rain” from the spiritual forces “of wickedness” “in the heavenly places,” or the “rivers” of the rulers and authorities hostile to us, or the harsh “winds” from the world-rulers of this darkness, or the flood of the spirits under the earth, and let them beat against our building “on the rock,” so that not only does the house not fall, but it is not shaken at all, and the powers at work suffer from us rather than do anything to us. And let each of you, striking at the adversaries, say: “So I box, not as one beating the air.”

And since “the sower went out to sow,” let us show that our soul has received “his seed,” not as those “by the wayside,” nor as “the rocky places,” nor as “the thorns,” but as the good ground. That the word of Jesus did not fall “by the wayside” or “among the thorns,” so far as it depends on us, we shall boast in the Lord. For we have understood what was said; therefore “the evil one” has not snatched away “what was sown in our heart.” And that it was not sown “among the thorns,” many will bear witness for us, seeing that neither “the care of this age” nor “the deceitfulness of riches” nor the pleasures of life have been able to hinder the word of God in our souls. It remains for people to be in doubt whether the word of God came, as far as depends on us, “on the rocky places” or “on the good ground.” For affliction and persecution have arisen on account of the word, and a time of great temptation has come, when the one “sown on the rocky places” is exposed, and those who did not go deep, nor receive Jesus to the depth of the soul; while the one “who understands the word” “bears fruit,” and holds fast the word to the end, producing “a hundredfold” “in endurance.” For we hear how Scripture, presenting those who in time of “affliction or persecution” fall away after seeming to have received the holy teachings with joy, and who fall away because they have no root but believe for a time, says according to Matthew: “As for what was sown on the rocky places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when affliction or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away”; and according to Mark: “And these are the ones sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy, and they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when affliction or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away”; and according to Luke: “And those on the rock are the ones who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away.” And teaching about those who bear good fruit, it says: “As for what was sown on good ground, this is he who hears the word and understands it; he indeed bears fruit and yields, one a hundredfold, one sixty, one thirty”; or, “And those are the ones sown on the good ground, who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold”; or, “As for that on the good ground, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with endurance.” Since, then, according to the apostle, “you are God's field, God's building”—a “field” on the good ground, a “building” on the rock—let us stand unshaken against the storm as “God's building,” and as “God's field” let us give no thought to the evil one, nor to the “affliction or persecution” that arise “on account of the word,” nor to the care of this age or the deceitfulness of riches or “the pleasures of life”; but despising all these, let us take up the spirit of wisdom that is free from care, and hasten to the riches that have no deceit in them, and press on to the pleasures, if I may so call them, “of the paradise of delight,” reckoning in each of our toils that “the momentary lightness of our affliction works for us beyond all measure an eternal weight of glory, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are not seen.”

And let us know this also: that what was said about Abel, killed by the murderous and unjust Cain, applies to all whose blood has been unjustly shed. For let us consider that the words, “The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the earth,” are spoken also about each of the martyrs, the voice of whose blood cries out to God from the earth. And perhaps, just as we were bought with the “precious blood” of Jesus, when Jesus received “the name that is above every name,” so some will be bought with the “precious blood” of the martyrs, and they themselves will be exalted more than they would have been exalted had they been righteous but not martyred. For there is reason in calling death in martyrdom by the special name of “exaltation,” as is clear from the words, “If I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” Let us too, then, glorify God, having exalted him by our own death, since the martyr “will glorify God” by his own “death”; as we have learned also from John, who said, “He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God.”

These things I have dictated to you as well as I could, so far as it was possible, and I pray that they may be useful to you for the present contest. But if you, now above all, as those worthy to see more of the mysteries of God, grasp greater and richer things, more effective for the task before you, and despise these as childish and slight, I too would pray for this for you. For what lies before you is not that your affairs be accomplished through us, but that they be accomplished somehow. And may they be accomplished through words more divine and more wise, surpassing all human nature, and through the wisdom of God.