Matthew 10:18

18 And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.

Ver. 18. And ye shall be brought before governors ] Yea, they offered themselves to them, crying Christiani sumus, We are Christians, and so tiring them thereby, that one of them a in a great chafe cried out, O miseri, si libet perire, num vobis rupes aut restes desunt? Can ye find no other way to despatch yourselves, but that I must be troubled with you?

And before kings, for my sake ] As Paul before Agrippa, and afterwards Nero; Luther before Charles V; Lambert before Henry VIII.

a Artius Antoninus, apud Tertul.