Martyrs are not only those who shed their blood, but also those who lead a godly life
Brothers and fathers,
The Holy Pentecost, which we have been deemed worthy to celebrate, is the feast of feasts! But the feast of All Saints 1 is also a feast, one which we are now approaching. And, since it is fitting that, on a feast day, we should gain something good through deeper reflection, consider, if you see fit, how many and how great are the Saints we commemorate. But who would stop to count the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore? So numerous are the martyrs throughout the world, who, through faith, have overcome the opposing power, and have donned their armour against the armies of tyrants, setting out to battle fire, the sword, wild beasts and all manner of misfortunes, regarding their torments as delights and the shedding of their blood as a delight. And, indeed, with this conviction, they trod upon coals of fire, extinguished blazing pyres, and performed w2ly supernatural feats with natural ease, leaving tyrants and emperors utterly astonished. Bearing witness 3 to what? That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and in His name is eternal life, as it is written. But are martyrs only those [who have shed] their blood? Of course not, but also those who lead a godly life; for the Apostle says: ‘They wandered about in sheepskins [and] in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, maltreated—men of whom the world was not worthy—wandering in deserts and mountains, in caves and in the crevices of the earth’ (Hebrews 11:37–38). And, a little further on: ‘Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us run with perseverance, the race set before us, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1–2). Do you see that he has called all lovers of holiness 4 and all who have lived a life of asceticism through patience ‘martyrs’ together? Therefore, brothers, we too have been counted amongst these martyrs; for, when we love and endure the suffering 5 of a cross-bearing life, when we keep the vow 6 of chastity and the unquestioning obedience of warriors, we bear witness that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; we confess that there is a judgement and a reward; we confess that we shall give an account, at the Dreadful Judgement of Christ, for the lives we have lived, when we resist the devil, who is the enemy of Christ and who takes vengeance on us; and, as if scourging us, he assails us with ceaseless thoughts and perishing pleasures, so that we may deny the existence of God. For those who have corrupt habits give heed to the adversary and follow him, declaring through their deeds that there is no God, in accordance with the words of Saint David: ‘The fool hath said in his heart, “There is no God!”’ (Psalm LII, 1).
If he did not instil forgetfulness of God into people’s souls, as a denial of Him, he could not persuade the mind to give in to the desires of the flesh, to the outpouring of sin, to drunkenness, to debauchery, gluttony, drunkenness, greed, idolatrous worship and every other thing out of place; and from there, seizing the soul, it compels it to follow him, snatching it away from God and giving it every support to attain the unquenchable fire of eternal torment. How wretched is this deception, but even more dreadful is the end of the deception!
But we, brothers, as witnesses of Christ, let us bear witness all the more to the good confession 7, rejoicing together with all the saints, because we have been deemed worthy to bear witness for Christ, without bowing the knee to Baal 8—that is, to the desires of the flesh and the other pleasures of this life—let us not trust in him who plants all manner of thoughts in our minds to make us cast aside obedience, but every day to resist through struggle, as if we were in the arena: struck, but not weakened, enduring with fortitude, and not overcome by fear. Furthermore, you know full well what the reward of witness is: that those who bear witness to someone during their lifetime share in that person’s joy and partake of the things to which they have borne witness. Therefore, it follows that the witnesses of Christ, as those who have borne witness to Him in all things and endured unbearable torments for the sake of true witness, will be revealed as His co-heirs in the age to come. For the Apostle says: ‘And when Christ, our Life, is revealed, then you too will be revealed with Him in glory’ (Colossians 3:4). Together with them, as we too bear our testimony—for it is a lifelong endeavour—may [the Lord] grant that we may be deemed worthy to partake of the eternal rewards and rejoice for ever with Christ, to whom be glory, honour and worship, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever and ever. Amen!
- 1
This is the first Sunday after Pentecost, All Saints’ Sunday.
- 2
Literally: ‘in nature’.
- 3
Throughout the entire Tenth Catechesis, Saint Theodore draws on the play on words arising from the two meanings of the word μάρτυς: ‘witness’ and ‘martyr’ (μαρτυρόω = ‘to bear witness’, ‘to be a martyr’). Thus, our translation in this Catechesis, using ‘martyr’, will also cover the other meanings, which Romanian usually distinguishes using different words: ‘martyr’, ‘witness’, ‘confessor’.
- 4
Literally: ‘piety’, ‘the state of a pious person’.
- 5
Literally: ‘that which is full of suffering, of pain’. This word (πολύθλιπτος) also appears in the works of Saint Ephrem the Syrian (in his Sermon on the Second Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ), where it is linked to the hour of Jesus’ coming. It is taken up here by Saint Theodore the Studite, who uses it once more in his Sixth Letter (PG 99, 928 B), addressed to his mother, Theoctista, as an epithet for βίος (‘life’), and thus with a meaning similar to that in the present context.
- 6
Or ‘the vote’.
- 7
The Greek phrase is two-part, but the limitations of the Romanian language – in this instance – do not allow for a literal translation. In the original: τὴν καλὴν μαρτυρίαν ἔτι μαρτυρήσωμεν, τὴν καλὴν ὁμολογίαν ἔτι ὁμολογήσωμεν. The two Greek words, μαρτυρία and ὁμολογία, as well as their corresponding verbs, μαρτυρέω and ὁμολογέω, do not mean practically the same thing: the former means ‘what one says or the act of speaking as a witness’, whilst the latter denotes ‘what one says or the act of saying the same thing to someone else’. However, in Romanian, both are rendered as ‘mărturisire’ and ‘a mărturisi’ respectively.
- 8
In the original, Baal is feminine, probably because it is subsequently interpreted as ‘desire’.