The Secret of the Kingdom

PART TWO

JULIUS, MY SON

Let us turn to the champions of recent times and pick out the noble examples provided by our generation. It was because of envy and malice that the greatest most upright pillars of the Church were persecuted and had to carry the contest to the point of death. Let us conjure up those good Apostles in our mind’s eye-Peter who, because of wicked envy, had to undergo not one, not two, but many sufferings and, having thus witnessed to our faith, went to the glorious place appointed for him; and it was because of jealousy and strife that Paul became an example of the reward to be won by patient endurance: for he was imprisoned seven times, driven into exile, stoned, became a preacher in both the East and the West, and thereby gained the noble renown which was the reward of his faith, after teaching goodness to the whole world and going to the very farthest West. And so, having witnessed to our faith before the authorities, he left the world and went to the holy place-having proved a splendid example of patient endurance.

These saintly men were joined by a vast number of the chosen who, being victims of jealousy, through many humiliations and tortures set a magnificent example among ourselves. And women who were persecuted through malice and underwent cruel, unholy tortures as Danaides and Dircae, safely attained the goal in the race of faith and, even though weak in body, won a noble prize. Clement of Rome-Epistle to the Corinthians I: 5, 6.