What shall I say finally about those who, on this same expedition, were sanctified in various places by becoming martyrs? They were not only priests, learned men, but warriors, and ordinary people, who had had no hope of confession, but were called to this glorious fate. We have heard of many who, captured by the pagans and ordered to deny the sacraments of faith, preferred to expose their heads to the sword than to betray the Christian faith in which they had once been instructed. Among them I shall select one, a knight and an aristocrat, but more illustrious for his character than all others of his family or social class I have ever known. From the time he was a child I knew him, and I watched his fine disposition develop. Moreover, he and I came from the same region, and his parents held benefices from my parents, and owed them homage, and we grew up together, and his whole life and development were an open book to me. Although he was already an outstanding knight, he was a singularly expert warrior, but entirely free from sexual vice. He was well-known at the court of Alexis, the emperor of Constantinople, for he often traveled in his service. To consider his manner of living: although he had been blessed with wealth by fortune, he was considered to be unusually generous in giving alms; he attended divine services so regularly that he seemed to lead a life more like that of a bishop than a knight. When I recall his steadfast prayer, his pious words, and his generosity in giving gifts, I am extremely pleased with his holy purpose, but also with my own good fortune in having known him. I witnessed him perform acts that entitled him to nothing less than a martyr's death. I certainly take pride, as all those who were able to know him may take pride, in having known him, since I do not presume to say that I was his friend. Whoever saw him knew without a doubt that he had seen martyr. Captured by the pagans, who demanded that he renounce the Christian faith, he asked these unbelievers to delay until the sixth day of the week. They readily agreed, thinking that his stubbornness would be altered, and when the day arrived, and the Gentiles in their madness pressed him to agree to their demand, he is reported to have said, "If you think that I have put off the sword hanging above my head because I wanted to enjoy a few more days alive, and not because I wanted to die on the day on which my Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, then it is fitting that I give evidence of how a Christian mind thinks. Get up, then, and kill me for the example that you want, so that I may restore my soul to him for whom I die, who on this day gave his own life for mankind." Having said this, he stretched his neck out to the sword that hung over him, and when his head was cut off, he was carried to God, whose death he had longed to imitate. His name was Matthew, as his name indicates, "given to God." BOOK FIVE