By embracing a gruesome death—and asking his fellow Christians to celebrate and even help bring about his martyrdom—perhaps Ignatius showed supernatural faith and heroic virtue. But could we say he showed prudence?
There is at least a superficial way in which the martyr must be prudent. Classically speaking, prudence is that perfection of judgment presumed by all virtue, and hence prudence is the queen of the virtues. Prudence in this sense is necessarily at stake in any exercise of virtue and so must be especially at stake in the martyr’s choice; the extreme circumstances of heroic and saintly sacrifice would have to exhibit virtue in judgment more, and not less.
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