In Praise of Martyrdom

Contents

Reading pages: 1–26 · 27–30

1. 1The speaker confesses that the greatness of martyrdom overwhelms his powers of speech, yet he dares to praise it.
2. 2Martyrdom wipes out in a single stroke all the sins contracted in life and is the surest way to the promised reward.
3. 3The martyr, detached from the world, grows stronger under torture, knowing that Christ suffers with him.
4. 4Martyrdom is defined as the end of sin and the home of life; it bears witness to Christ's name, and the martyr stands against the mob like a breakwater against the sea.
5. 5The persecutors' mockery is empty talk from blinded hearts, and their persecution only adds to their punishment.
6. 6Christ first suffered in himself what he crowns in martyrs: he became mortal so that we might be immortal and turned death into a saving remedy.
7. 7As harvests, vines, and burned fields yield more after injury, so martyrdom gives up life through death in order to preserve it.
8. 8Confessing Christ amid the executioners' swords frees the martyr from a dying world, whose daily funerals and plague show how much better a martyr's death is.
9. 9Christians, detached from this life, must not hesitate to die for Christ, since heaven opens to martyrs' blood and their crown is the most complete.
10. 10Like a victorious soldier or a sailor safe in port, the Christian must endure everything, bound by a covenant that leads either to salvation or to punishment.
11. 11Death is to be despised, since the martyr's single confession is answered by Christ's everlasting confession of him, while fire awaits those who deny.
12. 12Daniel among the lions and the three youths in the furnace show that faith overcomes the threats of power, and God rewarded them even in this life.
13. 13In a world nearing its end, martyrdom is all the more to be desired, and it frees martyrs from paying “to the last farthing.”
14. 14Martyrdom brings the Christian to Christ unstained and spares him the ruin of a world wasted by plague; he should stand firm under torture, prepared as Sirach and Paul teach.
15. 15Chains and tortures are a test, not a thirst for blood; the writer recalls how bystanders marveled at a martyr who would not yield even for his wife and children.
16. 16God tests believers like gold in the furnace, to purify them for his kingdom, as Sirach and Wisdom say.
17. 17Rank and wealth are worthless compared with salvation, and Christ has set family ties below the confession of the truth, promising a hundredfold to those who lose their life for his name.
18. 18Abraham's readiness to sacrifice Isaac, and Christ who suffered first and makes martyrs coheirs of his kingdom, show that any suffering is small beside the promised glory.
19. 19The writer turns to the benefit of martyrdom, which is understood by comparing the rewards of the saints with the punishments of the wicked.
20. 20The writer describes the punishments of gehenna: darkness, fire, crushing weights, falls, chains, wheels, and crowding.
21. 21The writer describes the paradise that awaits those who have sought God, where the martyrs receive still higher rewards.
22. 22Nothing is denied to the martyrs, for whom the world was a prison and whom Christ takes into his kingdom.
23. 23Martyrdom is God's remedy: it crowns the faithful and also restores those who had fallen, washing away their sin in their own blood.
24. 24Words fail the speaker, for a single confession of Christ overcomes adversity, sin, and death and opens the kingdom.
25. 25The writer pictures the day of a martyr's trial before the raging crowd, when the watching faithful tremble and pray, and the martyr stands unmoved under torture.
26. 26Heaven rejoices at every martyr's passion, and though righteousness and virginity are praised, all yield to martyrdom, which imitates Christ.
27. 27Salvation is not found only in martyrdom, since there are many dwellings with the Father, but martyrdom's glory is the greatest, and the nearness of the end calls for endurance.
28. 28Paul and Christ teach that those who hope for the resurrection must die to the world and hate its life in order to find eternal life.
29. 29Christ suffered in the prophets and patriarchs and at last on the cross, amid cosmic signs; martyrs who imitate his passion surpass all others in glory.
30. 30The writer asks the future martyrs to remember him, and pictures them beneath the heavenly altar, robed in white, following Christ in glory.