Exhortation to Martyrdom 36

And we must contend not only not to deny but also not to be ashamed at all of suffering what those who are strangers to God think deserving of shame; especially you, holy Ambrose, who, having been glorified and welcomed by a great many cities, now as it were go in procession, carrying the cross of Jesus and following him as he leads you before governors and kings, so that he himself, journeying with you, may give you a mouth and wisdom, and to you also, Protoctetus, his fellow contestant, and to those who share in martyrdom with you, who fill up “what is lacking” in the sufferings “of Christ”; and that he may go with you to the paradise of God, showing you how you may pass through “the cherubim and the flaming sword that turns and guards the way to the tree of life.” For if both of these guard “the way to the tree of life,” they guard it so that no unworthy person may be allowed to pass through it and come to the tree of life. For the flaming sword will hold back those who have built on the laid foundation, Jesus Christ, “wood or hay or straw,” and the most combustible and longest-burning wood of, if I may so name it, denial; while the cherubim will receive those who are not of a nature to be held by the flaming sword, because they have built nothing akin to it, and will send them on to “the tree of life” and to all that “God planted” in the east and “made to spring up” “from the earth.” And with Jesus journeying with you to paradise, despise the serpent, conquered and crushed under the feet of Jesus, and through him under yours too, since he has given “you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.”