At the beginning, then, when you were about to be catechized, it might reasonably have been said to you: But if it does not please you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods of your fathers who were beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. And the one catechizing you would have said to you: But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, because he is holy. But now there is no place for these things to be said to you; for at that time you said: Far be it from us to forsake the Lord, so as to serve other gods. The Lord our God, he himself is God, who brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt, and guarded us in all the way in which we walked. But also, in the covenants concerning the fear of God, you long ago answered this to those who catechized you: And we too will serve the Lord; for he is our God. If, therefore, one who transgresses covenants made with men is a truce-breaker and estranged from salvation, what must be said of those who by denial set at nought the covenants they made with God and run back to Satan, whom in being baptized they renounced? For against such a one must be spoken the words uttered by Eli to his sons: If a man sinning sin against a man, then they shall pray for him; but if he sin against the Lord, who shall pray for him?
[§18] A great theater is assembled over you as you contend and are called to martyrdom; as if we were to say that such a thing takes place in the case of certain contestants reputed to be extraordinary, †contending together, with countless multitudes gathered to the spectacle of the contest. And you will speak no less than Paul, when you contend: We have become a spectacle to the world and 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 rest, will hear us contending 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 exult, and all the trees of the plain will applaud with their branches ; or — may it not be so — the powers below that delight in evil will rejoice. And it is not out of place to see, from the things written in Isaiah, what will be said by those in Hades to the vanquished who have fallen down from the heavenly witness, that we may still shudder at the impiety involved in denial. For I think that to the one who has denied such things will be said: Hades below was embittered at meeting you; all the giants who ruled the earth were raised up together against you, who roused from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All shall answer and say to you. And what will the vanquished powers say to the vanquished, and those captured by the devil to those captured in denial — what, then, are these words? You too were captured just as we were, and you were reckoned among us. And if someone who has attained to a great and glorious hope in God is defeated in God through cowardice or through the sufferings brought upon him, he will hear: Your glory has gone down to Hades, your great gladness; beneath you they will spread rottenness, and your covering shall be a worm. But if someone who often shone in the churches like the morning star appearing to them, his good works shining before men, and afterward, contending the great contest, has lost the crown of such a throne, he will hear: How has the morning star fallen from heaven, which rose at dawn? He was crushed to the earth. And this too will be said to him who has been made like the devil through denial: You shall be cast out on the mountains like a loathsome corpse, with many dead who have been pierced with swords, going down into Hades. As a garment defiled with blood shall not be clean, so neither shall you be clean. For how shall he be clean who is defiled with blood and murder, with the abominable fault of denial, and befouled with so great an evil?
Now let us show that we have heard the saying: He who loves son or daughter above me is not worthy of me ; let us take heed, lest ever even a wavering arise in us as to whether one ought to deny or to confess; that the word of Elijah may not be said to us as well, which runs thus: How long will you go limping on both hams? If the Lord is God, go after him.
[§19] It is likely that we shall also be reproached by neighbors and mocked by some who encircle 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 mockery and derision 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 him who reproaches and speaks against me, at the face of the enemy and the persecutor. And it is blessed, when all these things befall, to say to God, with the prophet's boldness, the utterance he brings to bear upon them: All these things came upon us. And we did not forget you, and we did not deal falsely in your covenant. And our heart did not turn back.
[§20] Let us remember that, being in this life and perceiving the ways that lie outside of life, we say to God: You have turned aside our paths from your way. Now is the time to call to mind that this place, in which we have been humbled, is a place of affliction for the soul; that in praying we may say: For you have humbled us in a place of affliction, and the shadow of death has covered us. And taking courage let us say this also: 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 out these things?
[§21] Let us strive to take up perfectly not only the martyrdom that is in the open but also the one that is in secret, so that we too may cry out in apostolic fashion: 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 apostolic saying the prophetic one: He himself knows the secrets of the heart — of our heart, and especially if we are being led away to death; when we shall say to God that which is spoken by the martyrs alone: For your sake we are put to death all the day long, we were reckoned as sheep for the slaughter. And if ever, from the mind of the flesh, a fear of the judges who threaten us with death is suggested to us, then let us say to them the word from the Proverbs: My son, honor the Lord, and you shall be strong; but apart from him fear no other.
[§22] And this too is useful for the matters before us. Solomon says in Ecclesiastes: I praised all those who had died more than the living, as many as are living until now. And who could so reasonably be praised as dead as the one who has of his own free choice accepted death for the sake of piety? Such a one was Eleazar, who accepted death with glory rather than life with defilement, and of his own free choice advanced to the rack, who, having taken up a noble resolve worthy of his ninety years of age and of the eminence of his old age and of the gray hair he had acquired and made conspicuous and of his most excellent upbringing from childhood, or rather of the holy and God-established legislation, said that it is not worthy of our age to play the hypocrite, lest many of the young, supposing that Eleazar the ninety-year-old had gone over to an alien way of life, should themselves also, on account of my dissembling and for the sake of the little and brief span of life, be led astray because of me, and I should acquire defilement and a stain upon my old age. For even if for the present I should escape the punishment of men, yet neither living nor dead shall I flee the hands of the Almighty. Wherefore, by manfully now departing from life, I shall show myself worthy of my old age, having left to the young a noble example for dying gladly and nobly on behalf of the reverend and holy laws.
And I pray that you, when you have come to the very doors of death, or rather of freedom — especially if sufferings should be brought to bear (for there is nothing to be despaired of in your suffering from the purpose of the hostile powers) — may say such things as these: To the Lord who possesses the holy knowledge it is manifest that, though able to be released from death, I endure harsh pains in my body under scourging, but in my soul I gladly suffer these things because of the fear of him. Such indeed was the death of Eleazar, so that it was said of him: Not only to the young but also to the greater part of the nation he left his own death as an example of nobility and a memorial of virtue.
[§23] And the seven brothers recorded in the books of the Maccabees, whom Antiochus tortured with scourges and cords while they remained steadfast in the reverence of God, will be able to be a most excellent paradigm of a robust martyrdom to everyone who reflects — that is, if he is to be inferior to mere children — since they endured the tortures not one by one only, but also by having beheld the torment of their brothers displayed a vigorous firmness of piety. One of their number, whom the Scripture named the spokesman, said to the tyrant: Why do you delay to question and to learn? For we are ready to die rather than to transgress the laws of our fathers. And why need one tell what sort of things they endured while pans and cauldrons were being heated to fiery heat, that they might be tortured in them, each having first suffered various torments? For the one of them who was named the spokesman had his tongue cut out first; then he was scalped upon the head, and he bore the scalping as others bore the circumcision that is for the sake of the divine law, considering that in this too he was fulfilling a word of God's covenant. And Antiochus, not even content with these things, mutilated him while the rest of the brothers and the mother looked on, chastising the brothers and the mother by the sight, and supposing that he would shake their resolve through the things thus deemed fearful. So then Antiochus, not being content with these things, when he had become useless as regards the frame of his body through the means by which he first chastised him, commanded that he be brought, while still breathing, to the fire in the pans and cauldrons, and be fried. And as the vapor was given off — the flesh of the most noble athlete of piety being roasted by the savagery of the tyrant — the rest encouraged one another together with the mother to die nobly, consoling themselves with the thought that God was watching over these things; for the persuasion that the eye of God was present with those who endured was sufficient for their endurance. And the president of the contest for the athletes of piety encouraged them, being himself encouraged and, if I may so put it, gladdened at those who rose up against pains so great. And it would be fitting for us too, when we come to be in such circumstances, to say to ourselves the words of those men, which are of this manner: The Lord God watches over us and in truth is comforted concerning us.
[§24] When the first had been tested in this manner, as gold is tested in a furnace, the second was led to the mocking ; and the ministers of the tyrannical savagery, tearing off his skin together with the hair, called upon the sufferer to repent, asking whether he would eat of the things sacrificed to idols before his body was punished limb by limb. And when he refused repentance, he was brought to the next torture, keeping his resolve until his last breath. For, in no way broken nor yielding to the pains, he said these things to the impious one: You, avenging fiend, release us from the present life, but the King of the world will raise us up, who have died for the sake of his laws, to an eternal renewal of life.
[§25] And the third, counting the pains as nothing and trampling upon them because of his love toward God, when his tongue was demanded, quickly put it forth, and stretched out his hands courageously, and said: Having given these up for the sake of God's laws, I hope to receive them back from God, such as God would render to the athletes of piety toward him.
And in the same way the fourth also was tortured, bearing the torments and saying that: It is preferable, when departing from among men, to await the hopes that are from God and to be raised up again by him — a resurrection which the tyrant will not be raised to; for he will be raised not unto life but unto reproach and eternal shame.
Next he tortured the fifth, who, looking intently at Antiochus, reproached him for not curbing his arrogance over his own corruptible nature, since he supposed that the tyranny lasting a few days was a great authority. And he declared, even while in these torments, that the nation had not been forsaken by God, who before long would torture Antiochus and his seed.
After this one, the sixth, when he was near dying, said: Do not deceive yourself; we, paying the penalty for our own sins, that we may be cleansed through these pains, willingly suffer these things. And he told him that he ought not to think he would go unpunished for undertaking to fight against God ; for a fighter against God is he who contends against those who have been made godlike by the Word.
[§26] Finally Antiochus took the youngest into his hands. Having become convinced that this one too was a brother of those who had reckoned such great agonies as nothing and that he held the same resolve as they did, he resorted to other means of approach, thinking that the boy would be won over by encouragements and by pledges confirmed with oaths — that he would make him rich and blessed, and that once he had turned away from his ancestral customs and been enrolled among the king's friends, he would be entrusted with royal offices. But when he was accomplishing nothing at all, since the young man from the start paid no attention to what was said, as being foreign to his own resolve, he summoned the mother and urged her to become the lad's counselor toward safety. She, however, pretending that she would persuade her son concerning the things he wished, and mocking the tyrant, roused many words in her son concerning endurance, so that the young man, not waiting for the punishment being brought upon him but anticipating it, called forth the executioners, saying: What are you waiting for, and why do you delay? For we hearken to the law given by God: no ordinance opposed to the divine words ought to be admitted. But indeed, like a king rendering a verdict against those judged under him, he pronounced the sentence against the tyrant, judging him rather than being judged; and he declared that, since he had raised his hands against the heavenly children, he would not escape the judgment of the almighty, all-seeing God.
[§27] It was possible then to see the mother of so many bearing with good courage, because of her hopes set on God, the labors and the deaths of her sons; for the dews of piety and the spirit of holiness did not allow to be kindled within her inward parts that maternal fire which in many women blazes up as at the heaviest of evils. And I think that these things too, cut short from the Scripture, have been set out as most useful for the matter before us; that we may see how much piety can do against the harshest labors and the heaviest tortures, and how the love (philtron) toward God, exceeding beyond measure every other love, is more powerful than any. And with this love toward God human weakness does not share citizenship, being driven beyond the borders away from the whole soul and not able to be active even in the least degree, where there is one such as is able to say: The Lord is my strength and my song and I can do all things in Christ Jesus our Lord who strengthens me.
[§28] Of what sort martyrdom is, and how great a boldness (parrhēsia) toward God it produces, is possible to learn from this too. Being one who loves honor and wishing to repay the benefits that have come to him beforehand from God, the holy man seeks what he might do for the Lord in return for all that he has received from him; and he finds nothing else that can be rendered by a well-disposed man to God as, so to speak, of equal weight to the benefits, as the end in martyrdom. For it is written in the one hundred and fifteenth psalm — the part expressing perplexity — thus: What shall I render to the Lord for all that he has rendered to me? And the part expressing the answer to it — when the speaker has asked what he shall render to the Lord for all that he has received from him — is spoken thus: I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. Now it is customary for martyrdom to be named the cup of salvation, as we find in the Gospel. For when those who wished to sit at the right hand and at the left hand of Jesus in his kingdom were reaching for a greater honor, the Lord says to them: Are you able to drink the cup that I drink? — calling martyrdom a cup. This is clear also from: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not what I will but what you will. But we learn that the one who drinks that cup which Jesus drank will sit together with, and reign together with, and judge together with the King of those who reign. This, then, is the cup of salvation, which the one who takes it will call upon the name of the Lord ; and everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
[§29] But it is likely that someone, because of the words Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, not having examined precisely the intention of the Scripture, may think that in a manner even the Savior grew fainthearted at the season of his passion; and, that one having grown fainthearted, someone might say: who then is ever noble? But first we will inquire of those who suppose such things about the Savior, whether he was less than the one who says: The Lord is my light and my savior, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defender of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? When those who do evil draw near against me to devour my flesh, those who afflict me and my enemies, they themselves were weakened and fell. Though a battle-line be arrayed against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war rise up against me, in this will I hope. And perhaps these words spoken in the prophet belong to no other than the Savior, who because of the illumination from the Father and the salvation from him fears no one, and who because of the protection with which God shielded him is afraid of nothing. His heart also in no way feared, though the whole army of Satan was arrayed against him; and his heart, filled with God's sacred teachings, hoped in God though war rose up against him. It is not, therefore, according to the same disposition and out of faintheartedness that one says: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, and out of courage declares: Though a battle-line be arrayed against me, my heart shall not fear.
Let nothing, then, escape us in this passage, and you will fix your attention on the demonstrative word this of the cup spoken by the three. For Matthew recorded the Lord as saying: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, but Luke: Father, if you will, take this cup away from me, and Mark: Abba, Father, all things are possible to you; take this cup away from me. See, then, whether you can — since every martyrdom accomplished on any pretext of departure is called a cup — declare that the one who said let this cup pass from me was not begging off the class of martyrdom (for he would have said: let the cup pass from me), but perhaps this particular kind. And attend, if it be possible, to the Savior looking into the kinds, so to name them, of the cups and to what would come about through each, and grasping with a certain most profound wisdom their differences, begging off this kind of departure from martyrdom, and perhaps secretly asking for another heavier one, that some more universal benefaction, reaching also to more people, might be accomplished through another cup — which was not yet the will of the Father to come about, he ordering matters more wisely than the will of the Son and than what the Savior saw, by way and order. But clearly in the Psalms the cup of salvation is the death of the martyrs. Therefore to the words I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord there is added: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his holy ones. Precious, then, does death come upon us as the holy ones of God and not the unworthy — not to die the common, so to name it, and idle death of religious observance, but a certain choice one, that which is for the sake of Christianity and piety and holiness.
[§30] Let us also call to mind the things in which we have sinned, and that it is not possible to receive forgiveness of sins apart from baptism, and that according to the evangelical laws it is not possible to be baptized again with water and 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 to the words Are you able to drink the cup that I drink? there is added: or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized? And elsewhere it is said: I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I constrained until it be accomplished. And consider whether the baptism according to martyrdom, just as the Savior's baptism became a cleansing for the world, itself also comes about for the healing of many who are being cleansed. For as those who attended upon the altar according to the law of Moses seemed to minister forgiveness of sins to those people through the blood of goats and bulls, so the souls of those who have been beheaded for the sake of the testimony of Jesus, not attending in vain upon the altar in heaven, minister forgiveness of sins to those who pray. And at the same time we also know that, just as Jesus Christ the high priest offered himself as a sacrifice, so the priests, whose high priest he is, offer themselves as a sacrifice; on account of which they are seen at the altar as at their own proper place. But of the priests, those who were without blemish and offered unblemished sacrifices served the divine, while those blemished with the blemishes which Moses recorded in Leviticus were banished from the altar. And who is the unblemished priest offering an unblemished victim but the one who holds fast the confession and fulfills every number which the account of martyrdom requires? Concerning which we have spoken before in the passages above.
[§31] Let us not be surprised if so great a blessedness of the martyrs, one that will be theirs in deep peace and calm and fair weather, must begin from something reckoned rather gloomy and, so to speak, from a wintry condition. For first, while one travels the narrow and afflicted road in winter, each of the blessed must display the steersmanship he has acquired, so that afterward there may come to pass what is said in the Song of Songs to the bride who has swum through the winter; for it says, My kinsman answers and says to me: Rise up, come, my neighbor, my fair one, my dove. For behold, the winter is past, the rain is gone, it has gone its way. And you too, still remember that it is not otherwise possible to hear the words the winter is past unless you contend against the present winter stoutly and with vigor. But after the winter has passed and the rain has gone and has gone its way, the flowers will appear; for those planted in the house of the Lord, in the courts of our God, shall put forth blossoms.
[§32] And this too we know, that once we have been persuaded by Jesus to forsake the idols and the polytheistic godlessness, the enemy is unable to persuade us to idolatry, but he wishes to compel us by force; and for this reason, against those over whom he receives authority, he brings about such things, and he will make those who are tempted either martyrs or idolaters. And often even now he says, All these things I will give you, if you fall down and worship me. Let us therefore take heed, lest at any time we commit idolatry and subject ourselves to the demons; for the idols of the nations are demons. What a thing it is, having forsaken the kindly yoke of Christ and his light burden, to submit oneself again to the yoke of demons and to bear the burden of the most grievous sin, after we have come to know that the heart of those who serve idols is ashes and that their life is more worthless than clay, and after we have said, As false things did our fathers acquire idols, and there is none among them that sends rain.
[§33] Not of old only did Nebuchadnezzar set up the golden image, nor then only did he threaten Ananias and Azarias and Misael, if they would not worship, to cast them into the furnace of fire ; but even now Nebuchadnezzar says the same things to us who are the pilgrim and true Hebrews. But we, that we may experience the heavenly dew which quenches every fire from us and cools our ruling faculty, let us imitate those holy men, lest even now Haman should wish us, the Mordecais, to worship him; but do you 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 let us together with Daniel slay the dragon, that when we draw near to the mouths of lions we may be able to suffer nothing from them, since those alone who are the cause of our present struggle will be devoured by the lions that cannot swallow us down. Let us hold fast to what is said also among the noble deeds of Job: If, laying my hand upon my mouth, I kissed it, may this too then be reckoned to me as the greatest lawlessness ; and it is likely that they will command us to lay our hand upon our mouth and to kiss it.
[§34] And let us observe this too, that it is not in the words addressed to the multitudes that the things concerning martyrdom are prophesied by the Savior, but in those addressed to the apostles. For after it has first been said, These twelve Jesus sent forth, charging them: Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and what follows, there is added, Beware of men; for they will deliver you up to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you; and you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what you shall speak; for it will be given you in that hour what you shall speak; for it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaks in you. And brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise up against parents and put them to death. And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But he that endures to the end, this one shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee into the other, and if they persecute you from this one, flee into another; for verily I say to you, you shall not have finished the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.
And Luke too records such things: But when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, take no thought how you shall make your defense or what you shall say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what things you ought to say. And after other matters: Settle it therefore in your hearts not to premeditate your defense; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or gainsay. And you will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and kinsmen 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 shall perish; in your endurance you shall gain possession of your souls. And Mark too says such things: But when they lead you away, delivering you up, take no thought beforehand nor premeditate what you shall speak, but whatever is given you in that hour, that speak; for it is not you that speak, but the Holy Spirit. And brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise up against parents and put them to death. And you will be hated by all for my name's sake; but he that endures to the end, this one shall be saved.