‘And why should I suffer,’ you ask, ‘since this is no age for martyrdom?’ What are you saying, ‘This is no age for martyrdom’? It has never ceased, but is always before our eyes if we will be on the look-out. It is not only hanging on the wood which makes a martyr, for if this were the case, Job would be deprived of this particular crown. He neither appeared at a judgment-seat, nor heard the voice of a judge, nor saw an executioner, nor raised in the air and disjointed on the cross, were his ribs worn away. Yet he bore stripes harder than many martyrs did, and the voices of ceaseless messengers urged and tormented him more sharply than any stripes, and those worms devoured his flesh more rapidly than countless executioners. Was he then not fully equal to a martyr? He _was_ a thousand times a martyr. He wrestled in every single way, and was crowned; he was tried by money losses, and by children, and bodily sickness, and wife, and friends, and enemies, and servants, for they also insulted him to his face; by hunger, and curses, and pains, and stench. On this account I should say that he would equal not one, or two, or three, but many martyrs. Besides all this, the time added greatly to his crowns: for instance, it was before the law and the dispensation of grace, and he suffered during many months and with intensity, and all his misfortunes were laid upon him at once, although each was in itself overwhelming, and that which seemed the most grievous of all, the loss of his wealth. Many at least have borne stripes but have not borne the loss of property, and have chosen to be scourged for it, and would rather have endured a thousand other evils than any diminution of it, as the loss of money appeared to them the greater stripe. So this constitutes another kind of martyrdom for the man who bears its loss with endurance. And how shall we be sure of the endurance, you ask? By understanding that you gain more than you have lost by a single word, that of thanksgiving. If, when we hear of our loss, we are not agitated, but say, ‘Praised be God,’ we have found something of much greater worth. Indeed, you could not gain rewards so high by distributing your riches to the poor, nor by going about to seek out the needy, and by lavishing your good things upon them, as you gain by this one word. Hence, I admire Job not so much when he opens his house to the poor, as I proclaim and wonder at him for bearing the loss of his wealth with thanksgiving. The same is evident in the case of his children’s death. You will receive a reward not less than his was who led out his son to sacrifice him, if seeing _yours_ dead, you give thanks to the God of mercy. How is such a man less than Abraham? He did not see _his_ son lying dead, but only expected it; so that if he carries off the palm for his readiness to sacrifice, and for putting out his hand to seize the knife, he is surpassed by the fact of _your_ son being actually a corpse before your eyes.