IV. We know, from the Lord's precept, that the flesh is weak, the spirit ready. ³³ Let us not therefore flatter ourselves, because the Lord hath allowed that the flesh is weak. For for this cause He first said that the spirit is ready, that He might shew which ought to be subject to the other, to wit, that the flesh should serve the spirit, the weaker the stronger, |p155 that from it it may itself also receive strength. Let the spirit confer with the flesh about the common salvation of both, not now thinking of the grievances of the prison, but of the contest and fight itself. The flesh perchance will fear the heavy sword, and the lofty cross, and the fury of the beasts, and the extreme punishment of the fire, and all the cunning of the executioner in tortures ³⁴. But let the spirit on the other hand set this before itself and the flesh, that these things, however bitter, have been nevertheless received by many with an even mind, yea and voluntarily sought after for the sake of fame and glory; and not by men only, but even by women, that ye also, O blessed women, may match your own sex. It were a long tale to name each of those who, led only by their own spirit ³⁵, have slain themselves with the sword. Of women, Lucretia is a ready example, who having suffered violation, thrust a knife into herself in the sight of her kinsfolk, that she might obtain glory for her chastity. Mutius burned his right hand upon the altar, that fame might lay hold on this his deed. Philosophers have done but little; (Heraclitus, who having besmeared himself with the dung of oxen ³⁶, burnt himself to death; and Empedocles ³⁷ who leaped down into the fires of Mount Aetna; and Peregrinus ³⁸, who, not long since ³⁹, threw himself upon a funeral pile,) since even women have despised fire: Dido, that she might not be compelled to marry after the loss of a most beloved husband: the wife of Asdrubal too, who, while Carthage was now burning, when she saw her own husband a suppliant before Scipio, rushed with her children into the flames of her native city ⁴⁰. Regulus, a general of the Romans, taken prisoner by the Carthaginians, when he would not have his single self ransomed at the price of many Carthaginian prisoners, preferred being given back to the enemy, and being crammed into a sort of chest, and |p156 pierced on every side with nails from without, experienced so many crucifixions. A woman hath of her own will eagerly encountered beasts, yea even asps, reptiles more horrid than the bull or the bear, which Cleopatra set upon herself, that she might not come into the hands of the enemy. But the fear of death is not so great as that of tortures! And so ⁴¹ the Athenian harlot yielded to the executioner, who, being privy to a conspiracy, when on that account she was put to the torture by the tyrant, did not betray the conspirators, and at last having bitten off her tongue ⁴² spat it in the tyrant's face, that the torturers might know that they availed nothing, even though they should persist yet farther! Moreover, that which is at this day the chief solemnity among the Lacedaemonians, the diamasti/gwsij, that is the scourging, is not unknown: in which solemn ceremony all the noble youths are lashed with scourges before the altar ⁴³, their parents and kinsfolk standing by and exhorting them to endure to the end. For it will be accounted a grace and a glory of an higher character in truth, if the soul rather than the body yield itself to scourgings. Wherefore if earthly glory hath so great power over the strength of body and mind, that men despise the sword, the fire, the cross, the beasts, the tortures, for the reward of the praise of men, I may say, these sufferings are trifling in the gaining of heavenly glory and a divine reward ! Is the glass bead of such value ? of how much the real pearl ^{44, 45}. Who then is not bound to spend most willingly for that which is true, as much as others do for that which is false ?