The spirit must strengthen the flesh for the contest

We know from the Lord's command that the flesh is weak, the spirit is ready (Matthew 26:41). So let us not flatter ourselves because the Lord agreed that the flesh is weak. He said the spirit is ready precisely to show what should be subject to what: the flesh should serve the spirit, the weaker serving the stronger, so that from it the flesh may also take strength. Let the spirit converse with the flesh about their common salvation, thinking no longer of the prison's discomforts but of the contest itself and the battle. The flesh will perhaps fear the heavy sword, the towering cross, the rage of beasts, the extreme punishment of fire, and every device the executioner's ingenuity can bring to torture. But let the spirit set before itself and the flesh that, bitter as these things are, many have accepted them with equanimity—indeed, have even sought them out voluntarily—for the sake of reputation and glory, and not only men but women too, so that you also, blessed women, may answer to your sex. It would take long to list one by one those who have killed themselves with the sword, driven by their own resolve. Among women, an example is close at hand. Lucretia, who suffered the violence of rape, drove a knife into herself in the sight of her relatives, to produce glory for her chastity. Mucius burned his own right hand on the altar, so that his deed might win renown. The philosophers did less: Heraclitus, who smeared himself with cow dung and burned to death; likewise Empedocles, who leaped into the fires of Mount Etna; and Peregrinus, who not long ago threw himself onto a pyre. Women too have despised fire: Dido, when she was forced to marry after the death of her most beloved husband; likewise Hasdrubal's wife, who, when Carthage was already burning, threw herself with her children into the flames of her homeland rather than see her husband begging Scipio. Regulus, a Roman leader, was captured by the Carthaginians. When he refused to be exchanged one man for many Carthaginian captives, he preferred to be handed back to the enemy, and packed into a kind of box pierced on every side from the outside with nails, he felt as many crosses. A woman willingly sought out beasts—and serpents more terrible than a bull or bear—which Cleopatra applied to herself, to avoid falling into the hands of her enemy. But the fear of death is not so great as the fear of torture. So the Athenian courtesan yielded to the executioner: she was party to a conspiracy, and when she was tortured by the tyrant for that reason, she did not betray the conspirators, and finally bit off her own tongue and spat it into the tyrant's face, so that the torturers might know they could accomplish nothing against her, even if they continued. For what is today the greatest solemnity among the Lacedaemonians—the diamastigosis, that is, the whipping—is no secret. In that sacred rite, noble young men are beaten with whips before the altar, while their parents and relatives stand by and urge them to persevere. It is counted as an ornament and glory, and with a greater title, if the spirit rather than the body yields to the blows. Therefore, if so much is permitted to earthly glory from the vigor of body and spirit that it despises sword, fire, cross, beasts, and torture under the reward of human praise, I can say these sufferings are moderate for obtaining heavenly glory and divine reward. How much is a glass pearl worth, compared to a true one? Who then would not most gladly spend as much for the true as others spend for the false?