Exhortation to Martyrdom 25

And the third, counting the pains as nothing and trampling on them for love of God, “when asked for his tongue, quickly put it out and boldly stretched forth his hands,” and said that, giving these up for the sake of God's laws, he hoped to receive them back from God, such as God would give back to the athletes of piety toward him. In the same way the fourth also was tortured, bearing the torments and saying that “it is preferable, when departing from among men, to wait for the hopes that come from God, of being raised up again by him,” a resurrection to which the tyrant will not rise; for he will rise not “to life” but to reproach and everlasting shame. Next he tortured the fifth, who, looking at Antiochus, reproached him with being mortal, while he did not curb his arrogance, thinking a tyranny of a few days to be great power. And even in these sufferings he said that the nation had not been “forsaken” by God, who would very soon torment Antiochus “and his seed.” After him the sixth, when he was about to die, said: “Do not be deceived”; we suffer these things willingly, paying the penalty for our own sins, that we may be cleansed in the pains. And he told him that he must not think that he would go unpunished for undertaking “to fight against God”; for he fights against God who fights against those made divine by the Word.