“But now that the Saviour has raised His body, death is no longer terrible”

But now that the Saviour has raised His body, death is no longer terrible

Athanasius of Alexandria · On the Incarnation of the Word, and Against the Heathen · NPNF2 IV, On the Incarnation §27

Written by a man who watched the last great persecution as a boy in Alexandria. He treats the willingness of ordinary Christians to die as evidence rather than as piety: something has changed about death, and the behaviour of the martyrs is where you can see it.