Giving one’s body to be burned is not a license to commit suicide but a command not to resist suffering if the alternative is being forced to do wrong. Letter , To Donatus.
Since true charity loves all, if someone knows that he hates even one other person he should hasten to vomit up this bitter gall, in order to be ready to receive the sweetness of charity himself.
And do you imagine that I am thinking of a supper that is to be done away with? "For if "it is said, "I bestow all my goods, and have not love, I am nothing.".
But it is not from the same cause, or with the same object; not were they to give their whole body. "For they have not love "according to the apostle.
And though I bestow all my goods. The Greek verb signifies to put into the mouths of children or the sick bread, or food, in crumbs as cut up, as I have said ( Romans 12:20); here, however, it denotes to expend all one"s substance for such a purpose.
Though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it pofiteth me nothing. You will say, Martyrdom, then, can be without grace and charity, with sin and damnation. Note firstly, as one can give alms, so one can hand over one"s body in different ways and from different motives, e.g, for one"s country, for one"s neighbour, for correction of the body, from vain glory, or again for the faith, for the love of Christ and of God—and then it is martyrdom. Secondly, martyrdom is an act springing from the virtue of fortitude, ordered often by charity; still it can be ordered, not by charity, but by another virtue, as by religion or obedience; e.g, if a man offer himself to martyrdom, that he may honour God or obey Him. These actions, however...
S Christ before men and is baptized in his own blood? And yet even this baptism does not benefit a heretic, although he has confessed Christ, and been put to death outside the Church, unless the patrons and advocates of heretics declare that the heretics who are slain in a false confession of Christ are martyrs, and assign to them the glory and the crown of martyrdom contrary to the testimony of the apostle, who says that it will profit them nothing although they were burnt and slain.
Wonderful amplification! For even these things too he states with another addition: in that he said not, if I give to the poor the half of my goods, or two or three parts, but, though I give all my goods. And he said not, give, but, distribute in morsels , so that to the expense may be added the administering also with all care.
But not even yet have I pointed out the whole of the excellency, until I bring forward the testimonies of Christ which were spoken concerning almsgiving and death. What then are His testimonies? To the rich man He says, If you would be perfect, sell what you have and give to the poor, and come, follow me. Matthew 19:21 And discoursing likewise of love to one's neighbor, He says, Greater love has no man than this, that a man may lay down his life for his friends. John 14:13 Whence it is evident, that even before God this is greatest of all. But, I declare, said Paul, that even if we should lay down life for God's sake, and not merely lay it down, but so as ev...
On which principle also, that heretic who, by confessing Christ's name, is put to death, can subsequently correct nothing, if he should have thought anything erroneously of God or of Christ, although by believing on another God or on another Christ he has deceived himself: he is not a confessor of Christ, but in the name only of Christ; since also the apostle goes on to say, "And if I shall give up my body so that I may be burnt up with fire, but have not love, I profit nothing."
Was the first to import into Rome from Asia this kind of heretical pravity, a man in other respects of restless disposition, and above all inflated with the pride of confessor ship simply and solely because he had to bear for a short time the annoyance of a prison; on which occasion, even "if he had given his body to be burned, it would have profiled him nothing "not having the love of God,
