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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
"And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing." Wonderful amplification! For even these things too he states with another addition: in that he said not, "if I give to the poor the half of my goods," or "two or three parts," but, "though I give all my goods." And he said not, "give," but, "distribute in morsels," so that to the expense may be added the administering also with all care. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
He did not say: if I give away part of my possessions, but: "all," and he did not say: if I give (δω), but: "distribute" (ψωμίσω), so that to the loss is added also obligingness, and moreover the most attentive kind. He did not say: if I die, but presents the most severe thing of all, that is, to be burned alive, and says that even this without love is useless. Someone may ask: how is it possible to give away one's possessions without love? To such a person one can answer in two ways. …
Cyprian
Can the power of baptism be greater or of more avail than confession, than suffering, when one confesses Christ before men and is baptized in his own blood? And yet even this baptism does not benefit a heretic, although he has confessed Christ, and been put to death outside the Church, unless the patrons and advocates of heretics declare that the heretics who are slain in a false confession of Christ are martyrs, and assign to them the glory and the crown of martyrdom contrary to the testimony of the apostle, who says that it will …
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
I have heard that you say that the Apostle Paul intimated the lawfulness of suicide, when he said, "Though I give my body to be burned," supposing that because he was there enumerating all the good things which are of no avail without charity, such as the tongues of men and of angels, and all mysteries, and all knowledge, and all prophecy, and the distribution of one's goods to the poor, he intended to include among these good things the act of bringing death upon oneself. …
Thomas Aquinas
Then when he says: And if I give away, he shows the same in matters pertaining to works which consists in man's doing good works, as it says in Gal (6:9): "Let us not grow weary in well-doing," and in his enduring evils patiently: "For justice will return to the righteous and all the upright in heart will follow it" (Ps 94:15). …
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