V. I say no more of the motive of fame. Desire for notoriety too, and a certain mental disease, have ere this trampled on all these same contests of cruelty and torture. How many civilians does a desire for [60] notoriety in arms bring to the sword! For the same reason they actually descend into the arena to the very wild beasts, and regard themselves as greatly improved in looks by their bites and scars. Persons, too, ere this, have hired themselves out to the flames to traverse a certain space in a burning tunic. Others have run the gauntlet of the beast-fighters’ whips¹¹ with most enduring shoulders.

These things, blessed ones, the Lord hath permitted to be in the world not without cause, but both for our encouragement now, and for our confusion in that day (2 Tim. iv. 8), if we through dread have avoided suffering for the truth’s sake unto salvation those things which others have eagerly entered upon for vanity’s sake unto perdition.

VI. But let us say no more of these examples of endurance arising from desire of notoriety. Let us turn to the simple contemplation of ordinary human life, and learn instruction also from those accidents which have to be bravely borne, which happen whether we will or no. How often have the flames burned men alive! How often have wild beasts devoured men both in their natural forests, and in the midst of cities when they have escaped from their dens! How many have been put an end to by brigands with the sword, and by enemies even on the cross, after having first been tortured, ay, and finally disposed of with every kind of insult! One will even suffer for the sake of a man ¹² what he hesitates to undergo in the cause of God. On this point, indeed, even the present times may furnish us with proof, when so many persons of dignity are meeting with deaths never dreamt of for them in view of their family, rank, bodily condition and age—and all in the cause of a man, being punished either by himself if they have acted against him, or by his opponents if they have ranged themselves on his side.