Chapter IV.

From the saying of our Lord we know that the flesh is weak, the spirit willing.6    Matt. xxvi. 41. Let us not, withal, take delusive comfort from the Lord’s acknowledgment of the weakness of the flesh. For precisely on this account He first declared the spirit willing, that He might show which of the two ought to be subject to the other—that the flesh might yield obedience to the spirit—the weaker to the stronger; the former thus from the latter getting strength. Let the spirit hold convene with the flesh about the common salvation, thinking no longer of the troubles of the prison, but of the wrestle and conflict for which they are the preparation. The flesh, perhaps, will dread the merciless sword, and the lofty cross, and the rage of the wild beasts, and that punishment of the flames, of all most terrible, and all the skill of the executioner in torture. But, on the other side, let the spirit set clearly before both itself and the flesh, how these things, though exceeding painful, have yet been calmly endured by many,—and, have even been eagerly desired for the sake of fame and glory; and this not only in the case of men, but of women too, that you, O holy women, may be worthy of your sex. It would take me too long to enumerate one by one the men who at their own self-impulse have put an end to themselves. As to women, there is a famous case at hand: the violated Lucretia, in the presence of her kinsfolk, plunged the knife into herself, that she might have glory for her chastity.  Mucius burned his right hand on an altar, that this deed of his might dwell in fame. The philosophers have been outstripped,—for instance Heraclitus, who, smeared with cow dung, burned himself; and Empedocles, who leapt down into the fires of Ætna; and Peregrinus,7    [He is said to have perished circa a.d. 170.] who not long ago threw himself on the funeral pile. For women even have despised the flames. Dido did so, lest, after the death of a husband very dear to her, she should be compelled to marry again; and so did the wife of Hasdrubal, who, Carthage being on fire, that she might not behold her husband suppliant as Scipio’s feet, rushed with her children into the conflagration, in which her native city was destroyed. Regulus, a Roman general, who had been taken prisoner by the Carthaginians, declined to be exchanged for a large number of Carthaginian captives, choosing rather to be given back to the enemy. He was crammed into a sort of chest; and, everywhere pierced by nails driven from the outside, he endured so many crucifixions. Woman has voluntarily sought the wild beasts, and even asps, those serpents worse than bear or bull, which Cleopatra applied to herself, that she might not fall into the hands of her enemy. But the fear of death is not so great as the fear of torture. And so the Athenian courtezan succumbed to the executioner, when, subjected to torture by the tyrant for having taken part in a conspiracy, still making no betrayal of her confederates, she at last bit off her tongue and spat it in the tyrant’s face, that he might be convinced of the uselessness of his torments, however long they should be continued. Everybody knows what to this day is the great Lacedæmonian solemnity—the διαμαστύγωσις, or scourging; in which sacred rite the Spartan youths are beaten with scourges before the altar, their parents and kinsmen standing by and exhorting them to stand it bravely out. For it will be always counted more honourable and glorious that the soul rather than the body has given itself to stripes. But if so high a value is put on the earthly glory, won by mental and bodily vigour, that men, for the praise of their fellows, I may say, despise the sword, the fire, the cross, the wild beasts, the torture; these surely are but trifling sufferings to obtain a celestial glory and a divine reward. If the bit of glass is so precious, what must the true pearl be worth? Are we not called on, then, most joyfully to lay out as much for the true as others do for the false?

CAPUT IV.

Scimus ex dominico praecepto, quod caro infirma 0625A sit, spiritus promptus. Non ergo nobis blandiamur, quia Dominus consensit carnem infirmam esse. Propterea enim praedixit spiritum promptum , ut ostenderet, quid cui debeat esse subjectum, scilicet, ut caro serviat spiritui, infirmior fortiori, ut ab eo etiam ipsam fortitudinem assumat. Colloquatur spiritus cum carne de communi salute, nec jam de incommodis carceris, sed ipso agone et praelio cogitans. Timebit forsitan caro gladium gravem, et crucem excelsam, et rabiem bestiarum, et summam ignium poenam, et omne carnificis ingenium in tormentis. Sed spiritus contra ponat sibi et carni, acerba licet ista, a multis tamen aequo animo excepta, imo et ultro appetita, famae et gloriae caussa; nec a viris tantum, sed etiam a foeminis, ut vos quoque, benedictae, 0625B sexui vestro respondeatis. Longum est, si enumerem singulos, qui se gladio confecerint, animo suo ducti . De foeminis ad manum est Lucretia, quae vim stupri passa, cultrum sibi adegit in conspectu propinquorum, ut gloriam castitati suae pareret , Mutius , manum suam dexteram in ara cremavit, ut hoc factum ejus fama haberet. Minus fecerunt philosophi: Heraclitus , qui se bubulo stercore oblitum exussit; item Empedocles, qui in ignes Aetnaei montis dissilivit; et Peregrinus, qui non olim se rogo immisit: cum foeminae quoque contempserint ignes: Dido , ne post virum dilectissimum nubere cogeretur; item quum Asdrubalis uxor, quae jam ardente Carthagine maritum suum supplicem Scipionis videret, cum filiis suis in incendium patriae devolavit. Regulus, dux Romanorum, 0625C captus a Carthaginiensibus, cum se unum pro multis captivis Carthaginiensibus compensari noluisset, maluit hostibus reddi et in arcae genus stipatus undique extrinsecus clavis transfixus, tot cruces sensit. Bestias foemina libens appetiit, et utique aspides, serpentes tauro vel urso horridiores, quas Cleopatra immisit sibi, ne in manus inimici perveniret. Sed mortis metus non tantus est, quantus tormentorum . Itaque, cessit carnifici meretrix 0626A atheniensis? quae conscia conjurationis, cum propterea torqueretur a tyranno, et non prodidit conjuratos, et novissime linguam suam comestam in faciem tyranni exspuit, ut nihil agere se scirent tormenta, etsi ultra perseverarent. Nam quod hodie apud Lacedaemonas solemnitas maxima est, διαμαστίγωσις , id est, flagellatio, non latet. In quo sacro, ante aram nobiles quique adolescentes, flagellis affliguntur, astantibus parentibus et propinquis, et uti perseverent adhortantibus. Ornamentum enim et gloria deputabitur majore quidem titulo, si anima potius cesserit plagis, quam corpus. Igitur, si tantum terrenae gloriae licet de corporis et animi vigore, ut gladium, ignem, crucem bestias, tormenta contemnant, sub praemio laudis humanae, possum dicere, modicae sunt istae passiones 0626B ad consecutionem gloriae coelestis et divinae mercedis. Si tanti vitrum ? quanti margaritum? Quis ergo non libentissime tantum pro vero habeat erogare, quantum alii pro falso?