19
You are not ignorant of the affection of family ties, which the divine and all-wise Providence has bequeathed through the fathers to their descendants and which was implanted in the mother's womb.
20
There each of the brothers spent the same length of time and was shaped during the same period of time; and growing from the same blood and through the same life, they were brought to the light of day.
21
When they were born after an equal time of gestation, they drank milk from the same fountains. From such embraces brotherly-loving souls are nourished;
22
and they grow stronger from this common nurture and daily companionship, and from both general education and our discipline in the law of God.
23
Therefore, when sympathy and brotherly affection had been so established, the brothers were the more sympathetic to one another.
24
Since they had been educated by the same law and trained in the same virtues and brought up in right living, they loved one another all the more.
25
A common zeal for nobility strengthened their goodwill toward one another, and their concord,
26
because they could make their brotherly love more fervent with the aid of their religion.
27
But although nature and companionship and virtuous habits had augmented the affection of family ties, those who were left endured for the sake of religion, while watching their brothers being maltreated and tortured to death.