10. This affection the Martyrs of Christ contending for the truth did overcome: and it is no marvel that they despised that whereof they should, when death was overpast, have no feeling, when they could not by those tortures, which while alive they did feel, be overcome. God was able, no doubt, (even as He permitted not the lion when it had slain the Prophet, to touch his body further, and of a slayer made it to be a keeper): He was able, I say, to have kept the slain bodies of His own from the dogs to which they had been flung; He was able in innumerable ways to have deterred the rage of the men themselves, that to burn the carcases, to scatter the ashes, they should not dare: but it was fit that this experience also should not be lacking to manifold variety of temptations, lest the fortitude of confession which would not for the saving of the life of the body give way to the savageness of persecution, should be tremblingly anxious for the honor of a sepulchre: in a word, lest faith of resurrection should dread the consuming of the body. It was fit then, that even these things should be permitted, in order that, even after these examples of so great horror, the Martyrs, fervent in confession of Christ, should become witnesses of this truth also, in which they had learned that they by whom their bodies should be slain had after that no more that they could do.27    Matt. x. 28 Because, whatever they should do to dead bodies, they would after all do nothing, seeing that in flesh devoid of all life, neither was it possible for him to feel aught who had thence departed, nor for Him to lose aught thereof, Who created the same. But while these things were doing to the bodies of the slain, albeit the Martyrs, not frightened by them, did with great fortitude suffer, yet among the brethren was there exceeding sorrow, because there was given them no means of paying the last honors to the remains of the Saints, neither secretly to withdraw any part thereof, (as the same history testifies,) did the watchings of cruel sentinels permit. So, while those which had been slain, in the tearing asunder of their limbs, in the burning up of their bones, in the dispersion of their ashes, could feel no misery; yet these who had nothing of them that they could bury, did suffer torture of exceeding grief in pitying them; because what those did in no sort feel, these in some sort did feel for them, and where was henceforth for those no more suffering, yet these did in woful compassion suffer for them.

CAPUT VIII.

10. Martyres sepulturae curam contempserunt. Hunc affectum martyres Christi pro veritate certantes vicerunt: nec mirum quia contempserunt quod non fuerant peracta morte sensuri, qui non potuerunt eis, quos viventes sentiebant, cruciatibus vinci. Poterat utique Deus, qui leonem Prophetae corpus, quod ipse occiderat, ulterius non permisit attingere, et fecit de peremptore custodem; poterat, inquam, a suorum interfectis corporibus canes quibus fuerant projecta prohibere; poterat et ipsorum hominum innumerabilibus modis terrere saevitiam, ne cadavera incendere, ne cineres dispergere auderent: sed hoc quoque experimentum multiplici varietati tentationum deesse non debuit, ne fortitudo confessionis, quae immanitati persecutionis pro corporis salute non cederet, pro sepulcri honore trepidaret; postremo, ne fides resurrectionis consumptionem corporum formidaret. Debuerunt ergo et ista permitti, ut etiam post haec tanti horroris exempla martyres in Christi confessione ferventes, hujus quoque testes fierent veritatis, in qua didicerant, eos a quibus sua corpora interficerentur, postea nihil habere quod facerent: quoniam quidquid mortuis corporibus facerent, utique nihil facerent, quando in carne omni vita carente, nec aliquid sentire posset qui inde migravit, nec aliquid inde perdere qui creavit. Sed inter haec quae fiebant de corporibus occisorum, cum martyres ea non metuentes magna fortitudine paterentur; tamen apud fratres luctus ingens erat, quod nulla dabatur potestas sanctorum funeribus justa persolvere, nec occulte subtrahere 0600 aliquid, sicut eadem testatur historia, crudelium custodum vigiliae permittebant (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. 5, cap. 1). Ita cum illos qui occisi fuerant, in dilaceratione membrorum suorum, in conflagratione ossium, in dispersione cinerum, miseria nulla contingeret; istos tamen qui nihil eorum sepelire poterant, magna misericordia cruciabat; quia in nullo modo sentientibus ipsi quodam modo sentiebant, et ubi jam illorum nulla erat passio, erat istorum misera compassio.