I have loved, the psalmist says, because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer. It is not in the power of everyone to say I have loved, but of him who is already perfect and beyond the fear of slavery and who has been formed in the spirit of adoption as children. He does not add to I have loved the word someone, but we supply in thought the God of the universe. For, that which is properly beloved is God, since they define beloved as that at which all things aim. Now, God is a good and the first and most perfect of good things. Therefore, I have loved God, who is the highest of objects to be desired, and I have received with joy sufferings for his sake. What these things are, the psalmist goes through in detail a little later—the pangs of death, the dangers of hell, the affliction, the pain, all things whatsoever that are desirable to him because of the love of God—and he demonstrates the hope that was stored up for those who receive sufferings because of their devoutness. For I did not endure the contests, he says, contrary to my will or by force or constraint, but I accepted the sufferings with a certain love and affection, so that I was able to say, Because for your sake we are killed all the day long.^[1] And these words seem to have equal weight with the words of the apostle and to be spoken by him with the same feeling: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger or the sword?^[2] Therefore, I have loved all these things, knowing that I endure the dangers for the sake of piety under the hands of the Lord of the universe who sees and bestows the reward. Because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer. So, each one of us is able to perform the difficult tasks enjoined by the commandments whenever he displays his conduct of life to the God of the universe as if to a spectator.

Because he has inclined his ear to me. He inclined, he said, not that you might take some corporeal notion about God having ears and inclining them to a gentle voice, as we do, putting our ear close to those who speak low, so that by the nearness we may perceive what is said. But he said, he inclined, in order that he might point out to us his own weakness. Because through kindness God came down to me while I was lying on the ground, as if, when some sick person is not able to speak clearly because of his great weakness, a kind physician, bringing his ear close, should learn through the nearness what was necessary for the sick person. Therefore, He has inclined his ear to me. The divine ear, indeed, does not need a voice for perception; it knows how to recognize in the movements of the heart what is sought. Or, do you not hear how Moses, although he said nothing but met the Lord with his inexpressible groanings, was heard by the Lord, who said, Why do you cry to me?^[1] God knows how to hear even the blood of a just person,^[2] to which no tongue is attached and of which no voice pierces the air. The presence of good works is a loud voice before God.

And in my days I will call on him.^[3] If we have prayed on one day, or if in one hour for a brief time we were saddened by our sins, we are carefree as if we had already made some compensation for our wickedness. However, the holy person says that he is disclosing his confession, which is measured by the whole time of his life, for he says, In all my days I will call on him. Then, in order that you may not think that he called on God because he was fortunate in this life and because all his affairs were successful, he describes in detail the magnitude and difficulty of the circumstances in which, when he was involved, he did not forget the name of God.

Do you hear him [the psalmist] saying, The sorrows of death have compassed me? Still, I have loved the Lord even in the sorrows of death. The perils of hell have found me, not fearing indeed, but loving, but hoping, because no distress, no persecution, no dangers, no sword shall separate me from Christ.^[1] Therefore, he accepted tribulation and sorrow willingly, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.^[2] As a good athlete, he sought the contest that he might gain the crown, but he knew that this was given to him not through his own strength but by the aid of God. He could not have been victorious had he not called on him who helps contenders.

The sorrows of death, he says, have compassed me; and the perils of hell have found me. Properly the sorrows of death have been agreed on as the pains of childbirth, when the womb, distended with its burden, thrusts out the fetus; then, the generative parts, being compressed and stretched around the fetus by spasms and contractions of the muscles, produce in the mothers the sharpest pains and most bitter pangs. He transferred the name of these pains to those that besiege the animal in the division of soul and body at death. He says that he has suffered nothing moderately but that he has been tried even to the sorrows of death and has arrived at the peril of the descent into hell. Now, did he endure only these things for which he is exalted, or did he endure these things frequently and unwillingly? Nothing that is forced is praiseworthy. But, look at the nobility of nature of the athlete. When the sorrows of death compassed me and the perils of hell found me, I was so far from succumbing to these trials that I willingly proposed to myself even much greater trials than these. Trouble and sorrow, I, as it were, willingly devised for myself; I was not unwillingly seized by them.

Indeed, in the preceding words we read, The perils of hell have found me, but here, I met with trouble and sorrow. For, since I was found to be unyielding there in regard to what was brought on by the tempter, in order that I might show the abundance of my love toward God, I added trouble to trouble and sorrow to sorrow, and I did not rise up against these sufferings by my own power, but I called upon the name of the Lord. Such is also the declaration of the apostle, who says, But in all these things we overcome because of him who has loved us.^[1] For he conquers who does not yield to those who lead on by force, but he is more than conqueror, who voluntarily invites sorrows for a demonstration of his endurance. Let him who was in some sin to death^[2] say, The sorrows of death have compassed me. For everyone, he says, who commits sin has been born of the devil.^[3] Now, when I, he says, committed sin and was pregnant by death, then also I was found by the perils of hell. How, then, did I cure myself? Because I devised trouble and sorrow through penance. I contrived for myself a suffering of penance proportionate to the greatness of the sin, and thus I dared to call on the name of the Lord. But, what was it that I said? O Lord, deliver my soul. I am held in this captivity, so you give ransom for me and deliver my soul.

The Lord is merciful and just. Everywhere Scripture joins justice with the mercy of God, teaching us that neither the mercy of God is without judgment nor his judgment without mercy. Even while he pities, he measures out his mercies judiciously to the worthy; and while judging, he brings forth the judgment, having regard to our weakness, repaying us with kindness rather than with equal reciprocal measurement.

And our God shows mercy. Mercy is an emotion experienced toward those who have been reduced beyond their desert and that arises in those sympathetically disposed. We pity the person who has fallen from great riches into the uttermost poverty, one who has been overthrown from the peak of vigor of body to extreme weakness, one who gloried in the beauty and grace of body and who has been destroyed by most shameful passions. Though we at one time were held in glory, living in paradise, yet we have become inglorious and humble because of our banishment; our God shows mercy, seeing what sort of people we have become from what we were. For this reason he summoned Adam with a voice of mercy, saying, Adam, where are you?^[1] He who knows all things was not seeking to be informed, but he wished to perceive what sort Adam had become from what he had been. Where are you? instead of to what sort of a ruin have you descended from so great a height?

The Lord is the keeper of little ones; I was humbled, and he delivered me. According to natural reason human nature would not stand unless the little ones and those still infants were kept by the Lord. For, unless it was preserved by the custody of God, how could the fetus in the mother be nourished or moved while it was in such narrow spaces, with no room for turning, and while it lived in dark and moist places, unable to take a breath or to live the life of people, but, on the contrary, was borne around in liquids like the fish? And how would it last even for a short time after it had come out into this unaccustomed place and, lacking the warmth within the mother, had become chilled all over by the air, unless it was preserved by God? Therefore, the Lord is the keeper of little ones; I was humbled, and he delivered me. Or, you may understand these words thus. When I was turned and became as a little child and received the kingdom of heaven as a child and through innocence brought myself down to the humility of children,^[1] the Lord, the keeper of little ones, since I was humbled, delivered me.

Turn, O my soul, into your rest: for the Lord has been bountiful to you. The brave contestant applies to himself the consoling words, very much like Paul, when he says, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. For the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice.^[1] These things the prophet also says to himself: Since you have fulfilled sufficiently the course of this life, turn henceforth into your rest, for the Lord has been bountiful to you. For eternal rest lies before those who have struggled through the present life observant of the laws, a rest not given in payment for a debt owed for their works but provided as a grace of the munificent God for those who have hoped in him. Then, before he describes the good things there, telling in detail the escape from the troubles of the world, he gives thanks for them to the Liberator of souls, who has delivered him from the varied and inexorable slavery of the passions.

For it is clear that the soul does not die with the body, because it is not of the body. And that it is not of the body Scripture teaches us in many ways. For Adam received the breath of life from the Lord God and became a living soul,^[1] and David says, Turn, O my soul, into your rest, for the Lord has been good to me. And learn the nature of God’s goodness: For he has freed my feet from falling. You see that David rejoices in the remedy of such a death, because an end has been put to error, because guilt has perished but not nature. And so he says, as if liberated and free, I shall please the Lord in the land of the living. For that^[2] is the land. . . . Further, he says that the land of the living is that resting place of souls,^[3] where sins do not enter in and where the glory of the virtues lives. Now that land is filled with the dead, because it is filled with sinners, and it was rightly said, Leave the dead to bury their own dead.^[4] But likewise he also said above, His soul shall dwell in good things, and his seed shall inherit the land;^[5] that is, the soul of one who fears God will dwell in good things, so that it is always in them and in conformity with them. The passage can also be taken to refer to one who is in the body, so that he too, if he fears God, dwells in good things and is in heavenly things, for he possesses his body and enjoys mastery over it as if it had been reduced to slavery, and he possesses the inheritance of glory and of the heavenly promises.

For he has delivered my soul from death: my eyes from tears, my feet from falling. He describes the future rest by a comparison with things here. Here, he says, the sorrows of death have compassed me, but there he has delivered my soul from death. Here the eyes pour forth tears because of trouble, but there, no longer is there a tear to darken the eyes of those who are rejoicing in the contemplation of the beauty of the glory of God. For God has wiped away every tear from every face.^[1] Here there is much danger of a fall; wherefore, even Paul said, Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.^[2] But there the steps are firm; life is immutable. No longer is there the danger of slipping into sin. For there is neither rebellion of the flesh nor cooperation of a woman in sin. Therefore, there is no male and female in the resurrection, but there is one certain life, and it is of one kind, since those dwelling in the country of the living are pleasing to their Lord. This world itself is mortal and is the place of mortals. Since the substance of visible things is composite and every composite thing is apt to be destroyed, we who are in the world, being part of the world, necessarily possess the nature of everything. Therefore, even before the soul is separated from the body by death, we people frequently die.^[3]

Theodosius,^[1] now at peace, rejoices that he has been snatched away from the cares of this world, and he lifts up his soul and directs it to that great and eternal rest. He declares that he has been admirably cared for, since God has snatched his soul from death, the death that he frequently withstood in the treacherous conditions of this world, when he was disturbed by the waves of sin. And God has snatched his eyes from tears, for sorrow and sadness and mourning shall flee away.^[2] And elsewhere we have, He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning or crying or pain.^[3] If, then, death will be no more, he cannot suffer a fall when he is in that rest, but he will please God in the land of the living. For while humankind is here enveloped in a mortal body subject to falls and transgressions, that will not be so there. Therefore, that is the land of the living where the soul is, for the soul has been made to the image and likeness of God; it is not flesh fashioned from earth.^[4] Hence, flesh returns to earth, but the soul hastens to celestial rest, and to it is said, Turn, my soul, to your rest.

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, came in the flesh, suffered, arose, ascended into heaven; we now believe that all of this has been fulfilled, as you hear words of past time. With us in the company of this faith are also those ancestors who believed that he would be born of a virgin, would suffer, would arise, would ascend into heaven. For the apostle pointed to them when he said, But having the same spirit of faith, as has been written, ‘I have believed and because of this I have spoken,’ we also believe, and because of this we also speak.^[1] The prophet said, I have believed, and because of this I have spoken. The apostle says, We also believe, and because of this we also speak. But, that you may know that the faith is one, hear him saying, Having the same spirit of faith, we also believe.^[2]

The same angel comes to Mary, announces to her that Christ is going to be born of her in the flesh, and Mary says something of the same kind. Zachariah, you see, had said, How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.^[1] And he is told, Behold, you shall be dumb, and you will not be able to speak until the day when these things are fulfilled, because you have not believed my words. And he was given the punishment of dumbness, earned by his unbelief. What had the prophet said about John? The voice of one crying in the desert.^[2] Zachariah is dumb, and he is going to beget the voice. It was because he did not believe that he was made speechless; rightly was he struck dumb, until the voice should be born. After all, if it rightly says, or rather because it certainly does rightly say in the holy psalm I have believed, therefore have I spoken; then because Zachariah did not believe, he very properly did not speak.

So it was the same Lord Christ, not only as Word but also as mediator between God and humanity the man Christ Jesus,^[1] in whom the ancient fathers believed. They also handed on this same faith to us by their proclamation of it and by their prophesying. That is why the apostle says, Since we have the same spirit of faith, of which it was written: I have believed, therefore have I spoken.^[2] So, having the same spirit of faith, he says, of which it was written by the ancients, I have believed, therefore have I spoken, we too believe, therefore we too speak.^[3]

You see, if there is faith in you, Christ is living in you. You heard the psalm: I have believed, therefore have I spoken. It was impossible for him both to believe and remain dumb. It is being ungrateful to the one who fills you, if you do not pour out; so the fuller you are, the more you ought to pour out. A fountain, you see, is being born in you of a kind that is able to flow, unable to dry up: It will become in him a fountain of water leaping up to eternal life.^[1] You need have no qualms about preaching, because you are not lying about the fountain of truth; you have received what comes bubbling off your tongue. I mean, if you want to say something of your very own, you will be liars. That is what is said in this very psalm: I said in my ecstasy, Everyone is a liar. What is Everyone is a liar? Every Adam a liar. Strip yourself of Adam, and put on Christ, and you won’t be a liar.

So this is what Scripture wished to demonstrate, that every human being, absolutely every single one precisely as human, is a liar. You see, what makes us liars is what we have of our own, and all we have of our very own is the capacity to be liars; not that we cannot be true but that we cannot be true in virtue of what we are in ourselves. Therefore, in order to be true, I believed, wherefore I also spoke. Deprive him of I believed—everyone is a liar. For when he moves away from the truth of God, he will remain in his lying, because whoever speaks a lie speaks from what is his own.^[1] Say therefore, What shall I give back to the Lord for everything he has given to me?^[2] After all, it was in my panic that I said—and what I said was true—everyone is a liar. But he gave me back not punishment for lying but good for evil, and by justifying the wicked he made of a liar a speaker of the truth.

And if we must also comment on the statement, I said in my ecstasy, Everyone is a liar, its meaning again is different. It is not at all like that of a person who is out of his senses and mentally deranged (God forbid), but of one who is greatly astonished and who thinks with the powers of reason customary to those who see and act in the proper way. For since the prophet was astonished, he also speaks here because of his astonishment. Now the prophets have experienced ecstasy, but not an ecstasy of their powers of reasoning. Peter, for example, experienced ecstasy, not that he did not understand rationally but that he saw phenomena different from the everyday order among people. For he saw a large piece of cloth being lowered, bound at its four corners, and in it all the four-footed beasts and creeping things and birds of heaven. And notice that the holy Peter understands and was not out of his wits. For when he hears, Rise, kill, and eat, he did not obey as one not having a sound mind, but he says in the Lord, By no means, Lord; for never has anything common or unclean entered my mouth.^[1]

And the holy David, too, said, [I said] Everyone is a liar. But when he said, I said, he spoke on his own, and he said of people that they lie. He himself, therefore, did not lie, but being amazed and astounded at God’s love for humanity and the things that had been announced to him by the Lord, he marveled exceedingly, and when he saw every person in need of God’s mercy and recognized that every person is subject to punishment, he ascribed truthfulness to the Lord alone, to make known the true Spirit who spoke in the prophets and revealed to them the depths of the accurate knowledge of God.

Such an individual,^[1] then, guards against lying just as against sinning. Sometimes, in fact, the word lie is used for the word sin; whence the saying Everyone is a liar. So it was said as the equivalent of Everyone is a sinner. Similarly: if through my lie the truth of God has abounded.^[2] Thus, when he lies as people do, he sins as people do and will be bound by the judgment that says Everyone is a liar, and if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.^[3] But when nothing false proceeds from his mouth, it will be in consequence of that grace about which it has been said, Whoever is born of God does not commit sin.^[4] For if this birth alone were in us, no one would sin; when it alone will be in us, no one will sin. But we now are still failing, because we are born corruptible, although, if we walk well there where we have been reborn, day by day our inner person is being renewed.^[5] When this corruptible body also puts on incorruption, life will absorb all, and no sting of death will remain. But the sting of death is sin.^[6]

I am certainly obliged to love the Redeemer, and I know what he said to Peter: Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep.^[1] This was said once, said again, said a third time. Love was being questioned and toil commanded, because where the love is greater, the toil is less. What shall I pay back to the Lord for all that he has paid back for me? If I say that what I am paying back is my herding his sheep, even here it is not I who am doing it but the grace of God with me.^[2] So when can I be found to be paying him back, since he gets in first every time? And yet, because we love freely, because we are herding his sheep, we look for a reward.

How shall this be? How can I love freely and that’s why I’m herding sheep be consistent with I request a reward, because I’m herding sheep? This could not possibly happen; in no way at all could a reward be sought from one who is loved freely, unless the reward were the very one who is being loved. I mean, if what we are paying back for his having redeemed us is our herding his sheep, what are we paying back for his having made us shepherds? Being bad shepherds, you see—which God preserve us from—is something we are by our own badness; whereas good shepherds—which God grant we may be—is something we can be only by his grace.

So let us praise the Lord, brothers and sisters, because we are holding his trustworthy promises, though we have not yet received the things promised. Do you imagine it is not enough to hold him to his promises and that we should be demanding the payment of his debts? By making promises, God has become our debtor. It is out of his goodness, not our rights, that he has become a debtor. What have we ever given him, that we should be able to hold him in our debt? Or perhaps because you heard in the psalm, What shall I render to the Lord? First of all, when he says, What shall I render to the Lord? they are the words of a debtor, not of someone demanding repayment of a debt. Something had been advanced to him. What shall I render the Lord? What is What shall I render? What shall I pay back? What for? For all the things he has rendered to me. What has he rendered to me? To begin with, I was nothing, and he made me; I had gotten lost, and he looked for me; looked for me and found me; I was a captive, and he redeemed me; having bought me, he set me free; from a slave he made me into a brother. What shall I render to the Lord? You haven’t got anything you can tender.

When you look for absolutely everything from him, what have you got that you can render to him? But wait. There is something or other the psalmist wants to say, when he asks, What shall I render to the Lord for all the things he has rendered to me? He looks around everywhere for something he can tender, pay back, and he seems to find it. What does he find? I will take the cup of salvation. Even though you were thinking of paying something back, you are still looking for something to take. Look here, please. If you are still looking for something to take, you will still be a debtor. When are you going to be a someone who pays back? So if you are always going to be a debtor, when will you ever pay back? You won’t find anything you can pay back; you won’t have anything apart from what he has given.

Christ loved you before you existed; he created you; he predestined you before the foundation of the world; once created through the agency of your father and mother, he has reared you. It is not your parents, you see, who made you, though they hand on to you their family characteristics. He loved you, he created you, he reared you, he gave himself up for you, he listened to insults for you, he endured wounds for you, he redeemed you with his blood. Aren’t you overwhelmed, and won’t you say, What shall I give back to the Lord for all that he has given to me? What will you give back to the Lord for all that he has given to you? Listen to his saying, Whoever has loved father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.^[1] Listen to him saying it, fear the menace contained in it, love the promise implied in it.

What have you given back to the Lord for all that he has given to you? So, all right, you have already given something back, eh? Well, what have you given back? Have you saved him as he has saved you? Have you opened up eternal life for him, as he has done for you? Have you created him, as he did you? Did you make him the Lord as he made you a person? Have you given anything back to him that does not come back to you? If you look frankly at the truth of the matter, you have not given him anything. . . . For what do you have that you have not received?^[2] Why don’t you find something you can give back to the Lord? Give him back yourself, give him back what he has made. Give him back yourself, not what is yours, his creation, not your perversion.

For it is absurd, the height of stupidity, no, of extreme insanity, for those only to sing the praises of the pilot who ride the rough waves and are borne on the breakers and who pass their lives in great misfortune, while those who are situated outside the range of fire, as the proverb has it, being spectators rather than contestants, hurl their blasphemous taunts at the ringmaster when they cannot pelt him literally. That those who cultivate virtue praise the God of the universe not merely when they are borne on favorable winds, but even when they are struggling with billow and storm, can be perceived from the exclamation of the blessed David, a man who spent a lifetime in warfare and struggle with countless misfortunes: What shall I render to the Lord for all the things that he has rendered to me?

For the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those who hope in his mercy, to deliver their souls from death, even eternal death, and to nourish them in their hunger, that is, after eternal life.^[1] Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of them all.^[2] Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. The Lord keeps all their bones; not one of them shall be broken.^[3] The Lord will redeem the souls of his servants. We have adduced these few quotations from a mass of the Creator’s Scriptures; and no more, I suppose, are needed to prove him to be a most good God, for they sufficiently indicate both the precepts of his goodness and the firstfruits of it.

Oh, what was that spectacle of the Lord, how sublime, how exalted, how acceptable to the eyes of God in the solemn pledge and devotion of his army,^[1] as it is written in the Psalms when the Holy Spirit speaks to us likewise and warns, Precious in the sight of God is the death of his faithful ones! This death that has bought immortality at the price of its blood, that has received the crown from the consummation of its valor, is precious.

There they stood, victims of torture yet stronger than their tormentors. Their battered and lacerated limbs overcome the claws that tore and ripped at them. The savage, oft-repeated lashes could not defeat the martyrs’ inextinguishable faith, though once their entrails were prized apart it was not the limbs of God’s servants but their open wounds that were racked. It was as though their blood flowed to extinguish the fires of the persecution, to damp down the flames and burning coals of hell with its glorious streams. O what a marvelous sight it was before the Lord, how sublime, how precious! How welcome a sight to God’s eyes is the allegiance and self-offering of his legionaries! So it is written in the Psalms, when the Holy Spirit speaks likewise reminding us, How precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his just.

By the death of the martyrs, religion has been defended, the faith spread and the church strengthened. The dead have been victorious, and the persecutors have been vanquished. Accordingly, we celebrate the deaths of those of whose lives we know nothing. So, too, David in prophecy rejoiced at the departure of his own soul, saying, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of the saints. He held death in more esteem than life. The death itself of the martyrs is the prize of life. Furthermore, even the hatreds of enemies are dissolved by death.

Through such glorious deeds of the holy martyrs, with which the church blossoms everywhere, we prove with our own eyes how true what we have just been singing is, that precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints; seeing that it is precious both in our sight and in the sight of him for the sake of whose name it was undertaken. But the price of these deaths is the death of one man. How many deaths were bought by one dying man, who was the grain of wheat that would not have been multiplied if he had not died! You heard his words when he was drawing near to his passion, that is, when he was drawing near to our redemption: Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.^[1]

On the cross, you see, he transacted a grand exchange; it was there that the purse containing our price was untied; when his side was laid open by the lance of the executioner, there poured out from it the price of the whole wide world. The faithful were bought and the martyrs; but the faith of the martyrs has been proved; blood is the witness to it. They have paid back what was spent for them, and they have fulfilled what John says: Just as Christ laid down his life for us, so we too should lay down our lives for the brothers.^[2] And in another place it says, You have sat down at a great table; consider carefully what is set before you, since it behooves you to prepare the same kind of things yourself.^[3] It is certainly a great table, where the lord of the table is himself the banquet. Nobody feeds his guests on himself; that is what the Lord Christ did, being himself the host, himself the food and drink. So the martyrs recognized what they ate and drank, so that they could give back the same kind of thing.

The Lord, though, bears striking witness to his witnesses [martyrs], when after stiffening their hearts for the struggle, he does not abandon their bodies once they are dead, like the outstanding miracle he performed over the body of blessed Vincent.^[1] The enemy desired and took all necessary steps to ensure that the body should completely disappear; but a divine sign gave its whereabouts away and revealed it for religious burial and veneration so promptly that it would continue as a lasting memorial to the victory of piety and impiety’s defeat. Indeed, how precious in the sight of the Lord must be the death of his saints, when not even the earth of the flesh is ignored after the life has gone out of it; and when, as the invisible soul withdraws from its visible home, this dwelling of his servant is preserved by the Lord’s care and honored for the Lord’s glory by his faithful fellow servants.

So Vincent vanquished Dacian^[1] while he lived; he vanquished him also when he was dead. Living he trampled on the torments, dead he swam across the sea. But the one who guided and steered the lifeless corpse through the waves was the same one who had granted him an invincible spirit among the torturer’s iron claws. The torturer’s flames did not intimidate his heart, the waters of the sea did not sink his body. But all these things occurred just to show that precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. To this glory may the Lord bring us too under his protection, whose is the honor and the empire for ever and ever.

But the truth was revealed to the man^[1] who pointed out the things that were discovered. The place,^[2] you see, was indicated by preceding signs; and it was discovered to be just as it had been revealed in them. Many people received relics from there, because that was God’s will, and they came as far as here.^[3] So both this place and this day is being commended to your graces’^[4] devotion; each is to be celebrated to the honor of God, whom Stephen confessed. After all, we have not built an altar in this place to Stephen, but an altar to God from Stephen’s relics. Altars of this kind are pleasing to God. You ask why? Because precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Those who shed their blood for their Redeemer were redeemed by his blood. He shed his as the redemptive price of their salvation; the martyrs shed theirs as a means of spreading his gospel. They gave him something in exchange, but not from their own resources; their ability to do so, after all, was his gift; and for that to be done that could be done by them was his gift. As a mark of his favor, he proved them with the occasion of their martyrdom. It happened, they suffered, they trampled on the world.

Yet he himself also made precious the blood of his people for whom he gave the price of his blood; for if he did not make precious the blood of his people, it would not be said, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.^[1] And so also in regard to what Jesus says, The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.^[2] He is not the only one who did this; and yet, if those who did [so] are Christ’s members, he himself alone likewise did this. For he could do [something] without them, but how could they do [anything] without him since he himself said, Without me you can do nothing?^[3] From this we show, however, what the others also did: because John the apostle himself, who preached this Gospel that you have heard, said in his epistle, As Christ laid down his life for us, so we, too, ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.^[4] We ought to, he said; he who first showed the way made us debtors. Therefore in a certain place it has been written, If you sit to dine at the table of the ruler, wisely understand what is set before you. And put forth your hand, knowing that you ought to prepare such things.^[5] You know what the table of the ruler is; thereupon is the body and blood of Christ. He who approaches such a table, let him prepare such things. What is, let him prepare such things? As he laid down his life for us, so we, too, ought, for edifying the people and defending the faith, to lay down our lives for our brothers.

Your^[1] blessed co-apostle, Paul, vessel of election and special teacher of the nations, coming to this city, was your associate at that time when all innocence, all honor, all liberty was suffering under the will of Nero. Nero’s rage, inflamed by an excess of all vices, in this time drove him up to such a flood of insanity that he was the first to bring on the honor of a general persecution for the name of Christian. He seemed to think that the grace of God might be cut off through the slaughter of God’s holy ones. Nero did not know that the religion founded on the mystery of the cross cannot be extinguished by any kind of cruelty, since precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. This does not diminish, but it increases, the church. As if the grace of God could be blotted out by the slaughter of his holy ones, for whom it was the greatest profit that the contempt of this failing life brought the knowledge of eternal happiness. Therefore this failing life brought the knowledge of eternal happiness. Therefore precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.

Renounce pleasure, turn away from uncleanness, dispel luxury, flee unrighteousness, resist falsehood. When you see that you are waging a battle on many fronts, then you must also, in imitation of the martyrs, pursue a many-sided victory. Every time we die to sins, the sins die in us, and this death of his holy ones is precious in the sight of the Lord, because a human being dies to the world not by the destruction of senses but by the death of vices.

The earth has been filled with the blood of the martyrs as with seed, and from that seed have sprung the crops of the church. They have asserted Christ’s cause more effectively when dead than when they were alive. They assert it today, they preach him today; their tongues are silent, their deeds echo round the world. They were arrested, bound, imprisoned, brought to trial, tortured, burned at the stake, stoned to death, run through, fed to wild beasts. In all their kinds of death they were jeered at as worthless, but precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.

When we read this,^[1] we correctly understand that Solomon was a natural and genuine son and do not consider him a servant just because we hear him so called. So also concerning the Savior, who is confessed to be in truth the Son and to be the Word by nature, as the saints say, Who was faithful to him that made him, or if he says of himself, The Lord created me, and, I am your servant and the Son of your handmaid, and similar claims. Let no one on this account deny that he is the true Son of the Father and from him. As in the case of Solomon and David, let them have a correct understanding of the Father and the Son.

Learn, then, what this means: He took on himself the form of a servant. It means that Christ took on himself all the perfections of humanity in their completeness and obedience in its completeness. And so it says in the thirtieth psalm, You have set my feet in a large room. I am made a reproach above all mine enemies. Make your face to shine on your servant.^[1] Servant means the Man in whom he was sanctified; it means the Man in whom he was anointed; it means the Man in whom he was made under the law, made of the Virgin; and, to put it briefly, it means the Man in whose person he has a mother, as it is written: O Lord, I am your servant, I am your servant and the son of your handmaid; and again: I am cast down and deeply humbled.^[2]

He [the psalmist] must not give into his panic; in his panic he is likely to be mistaken. And while he was trembling with fear, he was given courage, where he said, O Lord, I am your servant and the son of your maidservant; you have burst my chains asunder. My biggest chain was the love of staying alive, and therein was the cause of my dying. Many, you see, for love of staying alive, have died eternally. And again, many martyrs, by thinking nothing of life that has an end, have gained life without end. Just as the person who loves money often disregards money for love of money, so as to gain more money by disregarding money.^[1] So we have the dictum of a well-known personage,^[2] On occasion to take no account of money is now and then extremely profitable. And that is what moneylenders do; they amass money by giving it away, as though sowing a little of it in order to reap a large quantity. In the same way, too, the martyrs for love of life disregarded life. By fearing death, they would have died; by wishing to live, they would have refused to live.

But after the Lord cried out through the Gospel, Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke on you, and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart,^[1] how many, when they heard the Gospel did what the rich man,^[2] when he heard it from the Lord’s own mouth, did not do? Therefore, let us now do it, let us follow the Lord. Let us loose the shackles by which we are prevented from following. And who is suited to loose such knots, if that one should not help to whom it was said, You have broken my bonds? And about him another psalm says, The Lord releases those that were fettered, the Lord raises up those that were bowed down.^[3]

Our Savior, dearly beloved, has ascended into heaven; therefore let us not be disturbed on earth. Let our spirit be in heaven, and peace will be here. Meanwhile let us ascend with Christ in heart, and when his promised day comes, we shall also follow in body. Nevertheless, we ought to know that pride or avarice or dissipation did not ascend with Christ. No vice of ours ascended with our physician. And for this reason, if we desire to ascend and follow the physician, let us strive here to lay aside our vices and sins. For all of our iniquities surround us as if with chains, and they strive to bind us in the network of our sins. Therefore with God’s help, according to what the psalmist says, Let us break their chains.^[1] Then we will be able to say to the Lord with assurance, You have loosed my bonds, to you will I offer sacrifice of thanksgiving. The resurrection of the Lord is our hope; his ascension is our glory.

Whoever then by this love has attained the image and likeness of God will now delight in goodness for the pleasure of goodness itself. Now having a similar feeling of patience and gentleness, they will no longer be angered by the faults of sinners, but in compassion and sympathy will rather ask for pardon for their infirmities. And remembering that for so long they themselves were was tried by the stings of similar passions till by the Lord’s mercy they were saved, they will feel that, as they were saved from carnal attacks not by the teaching of their own exertions but by God’s protection, pity and not anger ought to be shown to those who go astray. With full peace of mind they will sing to God the following verse: Thou hast broken my chains. I will offer to you the sacrifice of praise. And also: Unless the Lord had helped me, my soul would have dwelt in hell.^[1]

While we often read that sacrifices were offered by David to the Lord, he adds this passage: To you I will offer sacrifice of praise. He does not say I offer sacrifice but I will offer sacrifice, meaning that the sacrifice will have been completed when each one stands before the Lord, freed of the chains of this body, and offers himself as a victim of praise. For before death no praise is completed, nor could anyone in this life be praised with final praise, since his later actions are uncertain. Death then is the freeing of the soul from the body. And so we have taught what was written by the apostle: by far the better to be dissolved and to be with Christ.^[1] And what is the effect of that dissolution? The body is released and at rest, while the soul turns to its place of repose and is free; if it is devout, it is going to be with Christ.

My God, let me be thankful as I remember and acknowledge all your mercies. Let my whole self be steeped in love of you and all my being cry, Lord, there is none like you!^[1] You have broken the chains that bound me; I will sacrifice in your honor. I shall tell how it was that you broke them and, when they hear what I have to tell, all who adore you will exclaim, Blessed be the Lord in heaven and on earth. Great and wonderful is his name.