Whoso dies for any temporal good dies “for the old man.” But when thou hast stripped 306 thyself of all “that old man,” thou hast imitated the wisdom of the serpent. Imitate him in this again; “keep thy head safe.” And what does this mean, keep thy head safe? Keep Christ with thee. Have not some of you, it may be, observed, on occasions when you have wished to kill an adder, how to save his head, he will expose his whole body to the strokes of his assailant? He would not that that part of him should be struck, where he knows that his life resides. And our Life is Christ, for He hath said Himself, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”2221 Here the Apostle also; “The Head of the man is Christ.”2222 Whoso then keepeth Christ in him, keepeth his head for his protection. 4. Now what need is there to commend to you in many words the simplicity of the dove? For the serpent’s poison had need to be guarded against: there, there was a danger in imita- tion; there, there was something to be feared; but the dove may you imitate securely. Mark how the doves rejoice in society; everywhere do they fly and feed together; they do not love to be alone, they delight in communion, they preserve affection; their cooings are the plaintive cries 2223 of love, with kissings they beget their young. Yea even when doves, as we have often noticed, dispute about their holes, it is as it were but a peaceful strife. Do they separate, because of their contentions? Nay, still do they fly and feed together, and their very strife is peaceful. See this strife of doves, in what the Apostle saith, “If any man obey not our word by this epistle, mark that man, and have no company with him.” Behold the strife; but observe now how it is the strife of doves, not of wolves. He subjoined immediately, “Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.”2224 The dove loves even when she is in strife; and the wolf even when he caresses, hates. Therefore having the sim- plicity of doves, and the wisdom of serpents, celebrate the solemnities of the Martyrs in sobriety of mind,2225 not2226 in bodily excess, sing lauds to God. For He who is the Martyrs’ God, is our Lord God also, He it is who will crown us. If we shall have wrestled well, we shall be crowned by Him, who hath crowned already those whom we desire to imitate. 2221 John xiv. 6. 2222 1 Cor. xi. 3. 2223 Gemitibus amoris murmurant. 2224 2 Thess. iii. 14, 15. 2225 See, as to the excesses which prevailed at the festivals of the Martyrs, a letter of St. Augustin to Aurelius Bishop of Carthage and Primate of Africa (Ep. 22, al. 64), urging him to use his authority to suppress them. St Ambrose had prohibited these feasts in the Church of Milan (Augustin, Conf. lib. 6. 2 [Am. edition i. 90, note]). Aurelius succeeded in getting a canon (xxx.) made in the third Council of Carthage (A.D. 397), obliging the clergy to abstain from all such feasts in the Church, and as far as in them lay to restrain the people from the same practice (Conc. Labbe, t. 2, p. 1171; Bingham, B. xx. vii. § 10). 2226 Ebrietate ventris. 646 On the words of the Gospel, Matt. x. 16, ‘Behold, I send you forth as sheep…