The distinction between honoring martyrs and worshipping idols

Stories are given to those who honor the struggles. As if someone were a devoted friend of the excellent martyrs, and set his care upon celebrating their sufferings, not a single day of the year would pass unobserved.the exploits of brave men possess a glory superior to the solar cycle.

Because the one who opposes the good has attacked the Christian faith fiercely, and sought to destroy all through his schemes and calamities, and to occupy himself vainly with the tasks of the flesh, God, having anointed a multitude of excellent men with commands and trained them for endurance and strength, set them against the shameless and the enemy of humanity.. These, moreover, faced a new kind of struggle. They did not prevail by striking or smashing, but they excelled by suffering and by being slaughtered.

And what kind of power would you say, listener, is this of war? And what kind of success is this: to be twisted and flogged, and to have one's life destroyed through fire or sword or the cruelty of prisons?But learn how the wars for piety are won in a different way than other wars. For some have excellence in killing, but others achieve victory without bloodshed through suffering and falling.ng. And the boldness of the righteous carries out missions against the world.the enemy was caught off guard by the adversaries, whether he fell or intended to. For however many he slaughtered as martyrs, so many helpers of men he prepared.

And in every kind of action, this is found in suffering; therefore, where they think they are obstructing piety, they actually prepare its increase.God stands against the purposes of the fool and the thoughtless. And we find this throughout the events of every time: the exposition of Moses and the conduct of Joseph.. Immediately in the beginning, the second man murdered Abel (Gen 4:8), so that he might cut off the seed of the pious, yet it became fruitful. For from then on, man-slayers are intensely hated, which is why Cain was cursed by God (Gen 4:15). The matter of Christ, that the Satan worked in the Jews so that they might crucify him (Matt 27), is the same. The same thing has happened to the martyrs, whom many despise, trivializing their [life/existence] through their own folly...

A reproach. Is he not a man? Was not the body spent? Is not their memory contained in a few remains and these things? Especially Greeks and Euomians say these things; let us speak to both.

We do not worship martyrs, but honor them as genuine worshippers of God; we do not revere men, but marvel at those who, in the time of trials, have reverently served God well. We place them in beautiful shrines and raise up houses of their rest with magnificent constructions, so that we may emulate the honors of those who well finished their course; and we do not show our zeal for them for pay, but we enjoy their protection toward God.

For our prayer is not sufficient to move God in the time of necessity or misfortune, for our plea is not a persuasion, but a remembrance of sins; therefore we fly to the fellow-servants who are loved by the Lord, so that they might heal our defects through their own achievements. What then is the charge, that while honoring martyrs we ourselves strive to please God? What accusation is there in flying to protectors? Let us examine also these things, if the accuser cleanses the charge. And how can it be said, that you do not honor myriads of dead men, but worship them as gods?

Did you not, through your folly, deify Demeter and Kore, and yet you honor two women with temples and these sacrifices and with all kinds of worships and healings? Are not the mysteries at Eleusis the essence of your religion, and the Attic people and all Greece flowing together to complete a vanity? Is not the dark descent there, and the solemn gatherings of the hierophant toward the altar, only from woman to woman? Do not the torches go out, and the large and countless people think their salvation to be the things done in the darkness by the two?

Do I say that you worship Dionysus the Theban as a god? For I say, know your fatherland, so that you may know the man: a man, a grape-grower and a vintner, a village leader, a people drawing together and acting shamefully through drunkenness, doing those things which incite the dissolute youths to unchastity, while they drink with the old Silenus and the satyrs who love revelry.