Martyrdom of Polycarp 3

1Blessed, therefore, and noble are all the martyrdoms that have taken place according to the will of God—for it behooves us to be very scrupulous and to assign to God power over all things. For who could fail to admire their nobility, patient endurance, and loyalty to the Master? For, when they were so torn by lashes that the mechanism of their flesh was visible even as far as the inward veins and arteries, they endured patiently, so that the very bystanders had pity and wept; while they themselves reached such a pitch of bravery that none of them uttered a cry or a groan, thus showing us all that at that hour the martyrs of Christ, while being tortured, were absent from the flesh—or rather, that the Lord was standing by and conversing with them. And, giving heed to the grace of Christ, they despised the tortures of this world, purchasing at the cost of one hour a release from eternal punishment. And they found the fire of their inhuman torturers cold, for they set before their eyes escape from the eternal fire that is never quenched; while with the eyes of their heart they gazed upon the good things reserved for those who endure patiently, things that neither ear has heard nor eye has seen, neither have they entered into the heart of man, but were shown to them by the Lord, for they were no longer men but already angels. And in like manner also those condemned to the wild beasts endured fearful punishments, being made to lie on sharp shells and buffeted with other forms of manifold tortures, so that the devil might, if possible, by the persistence of the punishment bring them to a denial; for he tried many wiles against them.