to snatch me
away, and to change the desire with which I burn of being united to God.
Let none of you who are present attempt to succor me. Be rather on my
side, that is, on God's. Entertain no desires of the world, having Jesus
Christ in your mouths. Let no envy find place in your breasts. Even were
I myself to entreat you when present, do not obey me; but rather believe
what I now signify to you by letter. Though I am alive at the writing of
this, yet my desire is to die. My love is crucified. The fire that is
within me does not crave any water; but being alive and springing
within, says: Come to the Father. I take no pleasure in the food of
corruption, nor in the pleasure of this life. I desire {330} the bread
of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, and for drink, his blood,
which is incorruptible charity. I desire to live no longer according to
men; and this will be, if you are willing. Be, then, willing, that you
may be accepted by God. Pray for me that I may possess God. If I shall
suffer, ye have loved me: if I shall be rejected, ye have hated me.
Remember in your prayers the church of Syria, which now enjoys God for
its shepherd instead of me. I am ashamed to be called of their number,
for I am not worthy, being the last of them, and an abortive: but
through mercy I have obtained that I shall be something, if I enjoy
God." The martyr gloried in his sufferings as in the highest honor, and
regarded his chains as most precious jewels. His soul was raised above
either the love or fear of any thing on earth; and, as St. Chrysostom
says, he could lay down his life with as much ease and willingness as
another man could put off his clothes. He even wished, every step of his
journey, to meet with the wild beasts; and though that death was most
shocking and barbarous, and presented the most frightful ideas,
sufficient to startle the firmest resolution; yet it was incapable of
making the least impression upon his courageous soul. The perfect
mortification of his affections appears from his heavenly meekness; and
he expressed how perfectly he was dead to himself and the world, living
only to God in his heart, by that admirable sentence: "My love is
crucified."[8] To signify, as he explains himself afterwards, that his
appetites and desires were crucified to the world, and to all the lusts
and pleasures of it.

The guards pressed the saint to leave Smyrna, that they might arrive at
Rome before the shows were over. He re