We have spoken thus as if men hasten to martyrdom and are hindered by their wives: let us also console the weaker sex. How many women have been crowned and were not overcome by their husbands' unmanly blandishments! From where did Perpetua become perpetual, unless because she... perpetually? From where was Felicitas capable of such happiness, unless because temporal unhappiness did not frighten her? Therefore, lest even women be seduced in this matter by the blandishments of men, let them observe Perpetua, let them observe Felicitas, and let them hold onto perpetual happiness.
We are commanded to hate our own soul.
Therefore, let not the father and mother be angry in such a cause, nor the wife, nor the children, nor the brothers; and if they become angry, it is added: you should hate your own life as well. Therefore, in this cause you love your wife badly, who are also ordered to hate your own life. What does it profit a man, he says, if he gain the whole world, but suffer the loss of his own soul? And yet you are ordered to hate it too, lest it deceive you as it wishes to remain here, wishes to always cling to this flesh, unwilling to migrate to better things; hate such a life, so that you do not have such a one. For what else does the danger of persecution whisper inwardly in men whom it tempts, than "Deny, live: afterwards you will repent"? It is the soul: it wants to perish. Hate it wanting to perish. Do not allow it to perish, chastise, reprove, teach, call upon God for help. For it withers away from you and weakens in the dangers of this life, it does not rightly contemplate eternal life with the eyes of faith: lift it up with encouragement and say: Why are you sad, my soul, and why do you trouble me? Perhaps it will answer you: "Because I am weak." Therefore you have what follows: Hope in the Lord, He will be your strength, He will be your firmness. Hope in the Lord, for I will confess to Him, I will not deny Him, for I will confess Him. But you, soul, were murmuring: "Deny Him." I will confess to Him: the salvation of my countenance and my God. Therefore whoever loves his life will lose it here, so that he may find it in eternal life. Therefore do not listen to those whispering contrary things, neither father nor mother, nor wife, nor children, nor even your own soul.
Every stage of human life has received the crown of martyrdom.
As long as a wife should be heard with the fear of conjugal separation, so long as she does not advise anything by which God is offended. Thus all ranks will hold their own order: outstanding virginity, subsequent widowhood, thirdly marital union, none without reward. Virgins should think of Mary, widows of Anna, married women of Susanna. All have their rewards, and from all these ranks martyrs were by no means lacking. A husband fears in the moment of martyrdom lest his wife should be Eve to him, and a wife fears in the moment of martyrdom lest her husband should be the serpent to her. But let no one hear anyone advising anything against God. Hitherto, carnal affection should prevail; the weakness of the flesh should not transcend the spiritual wall: let it be below, because it is below. Let the soul, subject to God, lead the flesh; let the soul not be seduced from God by the principality of the flesh: it is perverse. You wish to have authority in your house, much more does God in His. Hold and meditate on these things, imitate these things in all the solemnities of the martyrs, and the God of peace will be with you. Turned to the Lord...