Chapter 55

Let us also bring forward examples from the heathen. Many kings and rulers, when a time of pestilence has set in, have followed the counsel of oracles, and given themselves up to death, that they might rescue their subjects through their own blood. Many have gone away from their own cities, that sedition might have an end.

We know that many among ourselves have given themselves to bondage that they might ransom others. Many have delivered themselves to slavery, and provided food for others with the price they received for themselves.

Many women have received power through the grace of God and have performed many deeds of manly valour.

The blessed Judith, when her city was besieged, asked the elders to suffer her to go out into the camp of the strangers.

So she gave herself up to danger, and went forth for love of her country and her people in their siege, and the Lord delivered over Holofernes by the hand of a woman.

Not less did Esther also, who was perfect in faith, deliver herself to danger, that she. might rescue the nation of Israel from the destruction that awaited it; for with fasting and humiliation she besought the all-seeing Master of the Ages, and he saw the meekness of her soul, and rescued the people for whose sake she had faced peril.