Why does the believer accept martyrdom with joy?

The believer cherishes his free will that enables him to follow the Lord Christ and to be His disciple with complete liberty, even if the price for doing this is martyrdom. Minucius Felix believes that joyfully accepting martyrdom and courageously facing death is “ an assertion of our true liberty.”¹⁰⁷² He says, “How beautiful is the spectacle to God when a Christian does battle with pain; when he is drawn up against threats, and punishments, and tortures; when, mocking the noise of death, he treads under foot the horror of the executioner; when he raises up his liberty against kings and princes, and yields to God alone, whose he is; when, triumphant and victorious, he tramples upon the very man who has pronounced sentence against him!”¹⁰⁷³

And St. Clement of Alexandria says, “the free man, though threatened with death at a tyrant’s hands, and brought before the tribunals, and all his substances imperilled, will by no means abandon piety or ever fail in holding nobly to virtue.”¹⁰⁷⁴