NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

Homiletical.God in whom I have trusted. For I have heard that you are inferior to few in cruelty. Thisis why I have chosen this time in order to carry out my wishes.” With these words he kindledthe wrath of the governor like a fire, and roused all his fury against himself. The order wasgiven, “Call the lictors; where are the plates of lead? Where are the scourges? Let him bestretched upon a wheel; let him be wrenched upon the rack; let the instruments of torturebe brought in; make ready the beasts, the fire, the sword, the cross. What a good thing forthe villain that he can die only once!” 690 “Nay,” replied Gordius. “What a bad thing forme that I cannot die for Christ again and again!”…. . . . . . . . . . .All the town crowded to the spot where the martyrdom was to be consummated. Gordiusuttered his last words. Death is the common lot of man. As we must all die, let usthrough death win life. Make the necessary voluntary. Exchange the earthly for the heavenly.He then crossed himself, he stepped forward for the fatal blow, without changing colour orlosing his cheerful mien. It seemed as though he were not going to meet an executioner,but to yield himself into the hands of angels. 691Homily XIX. is on the Forty Soldier Martyrs of Sebaste, who were ordered by the officersof Licinius, a.d. 320, to offer sacrifice to the heathen idols, and, at their refusal, were plungedfor a whole night into a frozen pond in the city, in sight of a hot bath on the brink. Oneman’s faith and fortitude failed him. He rushed to the relief of the shore, plunged into thehot water, and died on the spot. One of the executioners had stood warming himself andwatching the strange scene. He had seemed to see angels coming down from heaven anddistributing gifts to all the band but one. When the sacred number of forty was for themoment broken the officer flung off his clothes, and sprang into the freezing pond with thecry, “I am a Christian.” Judas departed. Matthias took his place.…. . . . . . . . . . .What trouble wouldst thou not have taken to find one to pray for thee to the Lord!Here are forty, praying with one voice. Where two or three are gathered together in thename of the Lord, there is He in the midst. Who doubts His presence in the midst of forty?The afflicted flees to the Forty; the joyous hurries to them; the former, that he may find relieffrom his troubles; the latter, that his blessings may be preserved. Here a pious woman isfound beseeching for her children; she begs for the return of her absent husband, or for hislxxi690 ἀλλὰ γὰρ οἷα κερδαίνει, φησὶν, ἅπαξ μόνον ἀποθνήσκων. Garnier seems to have completely missed theforce of this exclamation in the explanation in a note, “Judex hoc dicere volebat, quem fructum referet ex suapertinacia, si semel mortuus fuerit; neque enim in hanc vitam rursus redibit, ejus ut gaudiis perfruatur, nequetamen ulla alia vita est.”691 For the tortures and modes of execution enumerated, Du Duc compares Aristoph., Pax. 452, Chrysost.,De Luciano Martyre, and Nicephorus vi. 14.123