This book presents fresh, lively translations of fourteen such homilies, the majority for the first time in English. The homilies were delivered in some of the main cities of the Greek East of the later Roman Empire, by well-known figures such as Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostom, as well as the equally gifted preachers Asterius of Amasea and Hesychius of Jerusalem.

'Let us die that we may live' offers an approachable, surprising, and not always reverent insight into the life of the Early Church. It reveals the full importance of the martyr homily in terms of style, treatment of its subject, and social and liturgical issues, in a way that will be useful across disciplines such as theology, classical studies, and religion.