spilled, where the body, at whose death the elements trembled, rested
in its tomb. What sort of veneration might we think it deserves? If,
soon after our Lord's death, while the city was still in the
possession of the Jews, the Evangelist called it sacred, when he said,
"Many bodies of the saints that have been asleep here have awoken,
and come to the holy city, and they been seen by many."[84], and it
was said by the prophet Isaiah, "His tomb will be glorious,"[85],
since this very sanctity, once granted by God the sanctifier himself,
cannot be overcome by any evil whatsoever, and the glory of his tomb
in the same way remains undiminished, then, O my dearly beloved
brothers, you must exert yourselves, with all your strength, and with
God leading you and fighting for you, to cleanse the holiness of the
city and the glory of the tomb, which has been polluted by the thick
crowd of pagans, if you truly aspire to the author of that holiness
and glory, and if you love the traces that he has left on earth. If
the Maccabees once deserved the highest praise for piety because they
fought for their rituals and their temple, then you too, O soldiers
of Christ, deserve such praise, for taking up arms to defend the
freedom of your country. If you think you must seek with such effort
the thresholds of the apostles and of others, then why do you
hesitate to go see and to snatch up the cross, the blood, and to
devote your precious souls to rescuing them? Until now you have
waged wrongful wars, often hurling insane spears at each other,
driven only by greed and pride, for which you have deserved only
eternal death and damnation. Now we propose for you battles which
offer the gift of glorious martyrdom, for which you will earn present
and future praise. If Christ had not died and been buried in
Jerusalem, had not lived there at all, if all these things had not
taken place, surely this fact alone should be enough to drive you to
come to the aid of the land and the city: that the law came from Zion