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| De Fuga in Persecutione.
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IX.
De Fuga in Persecutione.1133
| 1133 [Written, say,
circa a.d. 208.] |
[Translated by the Rev. S.
Thelwall.]
————————————
1. My brother Fabius, you very lately asked,
because some news or other were communicated, whether or not we ought
to flee in persecution. For my part, having on the spot made some
observations in the negative suited to the place and time, I also,
owing to the rudeness of some persons, took away with me the subject
but half treated, meaning to set it forth now more fully by my pen; for
your inquiry had interested me in it, and the state of the times had
already on its own account pressed it upon me. As persecutions in
increasing number threaten us, so the more are we called on to give
earnest thought to the question of how faith ought to receive them, and
the duty of carefully considering it concerns you no less, who no
doubt, by not accepting the Comforter, the guide to all truth, have, as
was natural, opposed us hitherto in regard to other questions
also. We have therefore applied a methodical treatment, too, to
your inquiry, as we see that we must first come to a decision as to how
the matter stands in regard to persecution itself, whether it comes on
us from God or from the devil, that with the less difficulty we may get
on firm ground as to our duty to meet it; for of everything one’s
knowledge is clearer when it is known from whom it has its
origin. It is enough indeed to lay it down, (in bar of all
besides,) that nothing happens without the will of God. But lest
we be diverted from the point before us, we shall not by this
deliverance at once give occasion to the other discussions if one make
answer—Therefore evil and sin are both from God; the devil
henceforth, and even we ourselves, are entirely free. The
question in hand is persecution. With respect to this, let me in
the meantime say, that nothing happens without God’s will; on the
ground that persecution is especially worthy of God, and, so to speak,
requisite, for the approving, to wit, or if you will, the rejection of
His professing servants. For what is the issue of persecution,
what other result comes of it, but the approving and rejecting of
faith, in regard to which the Lord will certainly sift His
people? Persecution, by means of which one is declared either
approved or rejected, is just the judgment of the Lord. But the
judging properly belongs to God alone. This is that fan which
even now cleanses the Lord’s threshing-floor—the Church, I
mean—winnowing the mixed heap of believers, and separating the
grain1134
of the martyrs from the chaff of the
deniers; and this is also the ladder1135
of which Jacob
dreams, on which are seen, some mounting up to higher places, and
others going down to lower. So, too, persecution may be viewed as
a contest. By whom is the conflict proclaimed, but by Him by whom
the crown and the rewards are offered? You find in the Revelation
its edict, setting forth the rewards by which He incites to
victory—those, above all, whose is the distinction of conquering
in persecution, in very deed contending in their victorious struggle
not against flesh and blood, but against spirits of wickedness.
So, too, you will see that the adjudging of the contest belongs to the
same glorious One, as umpire, who calls us to the prize. The one
great thing in persecution is the promotion of the glory of God, as He
tries and casts away, lays on and takes off. But what concerns
the glory of God will surely come to pass by His will. And when
is trust in God more strong, than when there is a greater fear of Him,
and when persecution breaks out? The Church is awe-struck.
Then is faith both more zealous in preparation, and better disciplined
in fasts, and meetings, and prayers, and lowliness, in
brotherly-kindness and love, in holiness and temperance. There is
no room, in fact, for ought
but fear and hope. So even by this very thing we have it clearly
proved that persecution, improving as it does the servants of God,
cannot be imputed to the devil.
2. If, because injustice is not from God,
but from the devil, and persecution consists of injustice (for what
more unjust than that the bishops of the true God, that all the
followers of the truth, should be dealt with after the manner of the
vilest criminals?), persecution therefore seems to proceed from the
devil, by whom the injustice which constitutes persecution is
perpetrated, we ought to know, as you have neither persecution without
the injustice of the devil, nor the trial of faith without persecution,
that the injustice necessary for the trial of faith does not give a
warrant for persecution, but supplies an agency; that in reality, in
reference to the trial of faith, which is the reason of persecution,
the will of God goes first, but that as the instrument of persecution,
which is the way of trial, the injustice of the devil follows.
For in other respects, too, injustice in proportion to the enmity it
displays against righteousness affords occasion for attestations of
that to which it is opposed as an enemy, that so righteousness may be
perfected in injustice, as strength is perfected in weakness.1136
For the weak things of the world have
been chosen by God to confound the strong, and the foolish things of
the world to confound its wisdom.1137
Thus
even injustice is employed, that righteousness may be approved in
putting unrighteousness to shame. Therefore, since the service is
not of free-will, but of subjection (for persecution is the appointment
of the Lord for the trial of faith, but its ministry is the injustice
of the devil, supplied that persecution may be got up), we believe that
persecution comes to pass, no question, by the devil’s agency,
but not by the devil’s origination. Satan will not be at
liberty to do anything against the servants of the living God unless
the Lord grant leave, either that He may overthrow Satan himself by the
faith of the elect which proves victorious in the trial, or in the face
of the world show that apostatizers to the devil’s cause have
been in reality His servants. You have the case of Job, whom the
devil, unless he had received authority from God, could not have
visited with trial, not even, in fact, in his property, unless the Lord
had said, “Behold, all that he has I put at your disposal; but do
not stretch out your hand against himself.”1138
In short, he would not even have
stretched it out, unless afterwards, at his request, the Lord had
granted him this permission also, saying, “Behold, I deliver him
to you; only preserve his life.” So he asked in the case of
the apostles likewise an opportunity to tempt them, having it only by
special allowance, since the Lord in the Gospel says to Peter,
“Behold, Satan asked that he might sift you as grain; but I have
prayed for you that your faith fail not;”1139
that is, that the devil should not have power granted him sufficient to
endanger his faith. Whence it is manifest that both things belong
to God, the shaking of faith as well as the shielding of it, when both
are sought from Him—the shaking by the devil, the shielding by
the Son. And certainly, when the Son of God has faith’s
protection absolutely committed to Him, beseeching it of the Father,
from whom He receives all power in heaven and on earth, how entirely
out of the question is it that the devil should have the assailing of
it in his own power! But in the prayer prescribed to us,
when we say to our Father, “Lead us not into
temptation”1140
(now what greater
temptation is there than persecution?), we acknowledge that that comes
to pass by His will whom we beseech to exempt us from it. For
this is what follows, “But deliver us from the wicked one,”
that is, do not lead us into temptation by giving us up to the wicked
one, for then are we delivered from the power of the devil, when we are
not handed over to him to be tempted. Nor would the devil’s
legion have had power over the herd of swine1141
unless they had got it from God; so far are they from having power over
the sheep of God. I may say that the bristles of the swine, too,
were then counted by God, not to speak of the hairs of holy men.
The devil, it must be owned, seems indeed to have power—in this
case really his own—over those who do not belong to God, the
nations being once for all counted by God as a drop of the bucket, and
as the dust of the threshing-floor, and as the spittle of the mouth,
and so thrown open to the devil as, in a sense, a free
possession. But against those who belong to the household of God
he may not do ought as by any right of his own, because the cases
marked out in Scripture show when—that is, for what
reasons—he may touch them. For either, with a view to their
being approved, the power of trial is granted to him, challenged or
challenging, as in the instances already referred to, or, to secure an
opposite result, the sinner is handed over to him, as though he were an
executioner to whom belonged the inflicting of punishment, as in the
case of Saul. “And the Spirit of the Lord,” says Scripture, “departed from Saul, and
an evil spirit from the Lord troubled and
stifled him;”1142
or the design is to
humble, as the apostle tells us, that there was given him
a stake, the messenger of
Satan, to buffet him;1143
and even this sort
of thing is not permitted in the case of holy men, unless it be that at
the same time strength of endurance may be perfected in weakness.
For the apostle likewise delivered Phygellus and Hermogenes over to
Satan that by chastening they might be taught not to
blaspheme.1144
You see,
then, that the devil receives more suitably power even from the
servants of God; so far is he from having it by any right of his
own.
3. Seeing therefore, too, these cases occur
in persecutions more than at other times, as there is then among us
more of proving or rejecting, more of abusing or punishing, it must be
that their general occurrence is permitted or commanded by Him at whose
will they happen even partially; by Him, I mean, who says, “I am
He who make peace and create evil,”1145
—that is, war, for that is the
antithesis of peace. But what other war has our peace than
persecution? If in its issues persecution emphatically brings
either life or death, either wounds or healing, you have the author,
too, of this. “I will smite and heal, I will make alive and
put to death.”1146
“I will
burn them,” He says, “as gold is burned; and I will try
them,” He says, “as silver is tried,”1147
for when the flame of persecution is
consuming us, then the stedfastness of our faith is proved. These
will be the fiery darts of the devil, by which faith gets a ministry of
burning and kindling; yet by the will of God. As to this I know
not who can doubt, unless it be persons with frivolous and frigid
faith, which seizes upon those who with trembling assemble together in
the church. For you say, seeing we assemble without order, and
assemble at the same time, and flock in large numbers to the church,
the heathen are led to make inquiry about us, and we are alarmed lest
we awaken their anxieties. Do ye not know that God is Lord of
all? And if it is God’s will, then you shall suffer
persecution; but if it is not, the heathen will be still. Believe
it most surely, if indeed you believe in that God without whose will
not even the sparrow, a penny can buy, falls to the ground.1148
But we, I think, are better than many
sparrows.
4. Well, then, if it is evident from whom
persecution proceeds, we are able at once to satisfy your doubts, and
to decide from these introductory remarks alone, that men should not
flee in it. For if persecution proceeds from God, in no way will
it be our duty to flee from what has God as its author; a twofold
reason opposing; for what proceeds from God ought not on the one hand
to be avoided, and it cannot be evaded on the other. It ought not
to be avoided, because it is good; for everything must be good on which
God has cast His eye. And with this idea has perhaps this
statement been made in Genesis, “And God saw because it is
good;” not that He would have been ignorant of its goodness
unless He had seen it, but to indicate by this expression that it was
good because it was viewed by God. There are many events indeed
happening by the will of God, and happening to somebody’s
harm. Yet for all that, a thing is therefore good because it is
of God, as divine, as reasonable; for what is divine, and not
reasonable and good? What is good, yet not divine? But if
to the universal apprehension of mankind this seems to be the case, in
judging, man’s faculty of apprehension does not predetermine the
nature of things, but the nature of things his power of
apprehension. For every several nature is a certain definite
reality, and it lays it on the perceptive power to perceive it just as
it exists. Now, if that which comes from God is good indeed in
its natural state (for there is nothing from God which is not good,
because it is divine, and reasonable), but seems evil only to the human
faculty, all will be right in regard to the former; with the latter the
fault will lie. In its real nature a very good thing is chastity,
and so is truth, and righteousness; and yet they are distasteful to
many. Is perhaps the real nature on this account sacrificed to
the sense of perception? Thus persecution in its own nature too
is good, because it is a divine and reasonable appointment; but those
to whom it comes as a punishment do not feel it to be pleasant.
You see that as proceeding from Him, even that evil has a reasonable
ground, when one in persecution is cast out of a state of salvation,
just as you see that you have a reasonable ground for the good also,
when one by persecution has his salvation made more secure.
Unless, as it depends on the Lord, one either perishes irrationally, or
is irrationally saved, he will not be able to speak of persecution as
an evil, which, while it is under the direction of reason, is, even in
respect of its evil, good. So, if persecution is in every way a
good, because it has a natural basis, we on valid grounds lay it down,
that what is good ought not to be shunned by us, because it is a sin to
refuse what is good; besides that, what has been looked upon by God can
no longer indeed be avoided, proceeding as it does from God, from whose
will escape will not be possible. Therefore those who think that
they should flee, either reproach God with doing what is evil, if they
flee from persecution as an evil (for no one avoids what is good); or
they count themselves stronger than God: so they think, who
imagine it possible to escape when it is God’s pleasure that such
events should occur.
5. But, says
some one, I flee, the thing it belongs to me to do, that I may not
perish, if I deny; it is for Him on His part, if He chooses, to bring
me, when I flee, back before the tribunal. First answer me
this: Are you sure you will deny if you do not flee, or are you
not sure? For if you are sure, you have denied already, because
by presupposing that you will deny, you have given yourself up to that
about which you have made such a presupposition; and now it is vain for
you to think of flight, that you may avoid denying, when in intention
you have denied already. But if you are doubtful on that point,
why do you not, in the incertitude of your fear wavering between the
two different issues, presume that you are able rather to act a
confessor’s part, and so add to your safety, that you may not
flee, just as you presuppose denial to send you off a fugitive?
The matter stands thus—we have either both things in our own
power, or they wholly lie with God. If it is ours to confess or
to deny, why do we not anticipate the nobler thing, that is, that we
shall confess? If you are not willing to confess, you are not
willing to suffer; and to be unwilling to confess is to deny. But
if the matter is wholly in God’s hand, why do we not leave it to
His will, recognising His might and power in that, just as He can bring
us back to trial when we flee, so is He able to screen us when we do
not flee; yes, and even living in the very heart of the people?
Strange conduct, is it not, to honour God in the matter of flight from
persecution, because He can bring you back from your flight to stand
before the judgment-seat; but in regard of witness-bearing, to do Him
high dishonour by despairing of power at His hands to shield you from
danger? Why do you not rather on this, the side of constancy and
trust in God, say, I do my part; I depart not; God, if He choose, will
Himself be my protector? It beseems us better to retain our
position in submission to the will of God, than to flee at our own
will. Rutilius, a saintly martyr, after having ofttimes fled from
persecution from place to place, nay, having bought security from
danger, as he thought, by money, was, notwithstanding the complete
security he had, as he thought, provided for himself, at last
unexpectedly seized, and being brought before the magistrate, was put
to the torture and cruelly mangled,—a punishment, I believe, for
his fleeing,—and thereafter he was consigned to the flames, and
thus paid to the mercy of God the suffering which he had shunned.
What else did the Lord mean to show us by this example, but that we
ought not to flee from persecution because it avails us nothing if God
disapproves?
6. Nay, says some one, he fulfilled the
command, when he fled from city to city. For so a certain
individual, but a fugitive likewise, has chosen to maintain, and others
have done the same who are unwilling to understand the meaning of that
declaration of the Lord, that they may use it as a cloak for their
cowardice, although it has had its persons as well as its times and
reasons to which it specially applies. “When they
begin,” He says, “to persecute you, flee from city to
city.”1149
We maintain
that this belongs specially to the persons of the apostles, and to
their times and circumstances, as the following sentences will show,
which are suitable only to the apostles: “Do not go into
the way of the Gentiles, and into a city of the Samaritans do not
enter: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel.”1150
But to us the
way of the Gentiles is also open, as in it we in fact were found, and
to the very last we walk; and no city has been excepted. So we
preach throughout all the world; nay, no special care even for Israel
has been laid upon us, save as also we are bound to preach to all
nations. Yes, and if we are apprehended, we shall not be brought
into Jewish councils, nor scourged in Jewish synagogues, but we shall
certainly be cited before Roman magistrates and
judgment-seats.1151
So, then, the
circumstances of the apostles even required the injunction to flee,
their mission being to preach first to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel. That, therefore, this preaching might be fully
accomplished in the case of those among whom this behoved first of all
to be carried out—that the sons might receive bread before the
dogs, for that reason He commanded them to flee then for a
time—not with the object of eluding danger, under the plea
strictly speaking which persecution urges (rather He was in the habit
of proclaiming that they would suffer persecutions, and of teaching
that these must be endured); but in order to further the proclamation
of the Gospel message, lest by their being at once put down, the
diffusion of the Gospel too might be prevented. Neither were they
to flee to any city as if by stealth, but as if everywhere about to
proclaim their message; and for this, everywhere about to undergo
persecutions, until they should fulfil their teaching.
Accordingly the Saviour says, “Ye will not go over all the cities
of Israel.”1152
So the
command to flee was restricted to the limits of Judea. But no
command that shows Judea to be specially the sphere for preaching
applies to us, now that the Holy Spirit has been poured out upon all
flesh. Therefore Paul and the apostles themselves, mindful of the
precept of the Lord, bear this solemn testimony before Israel, which
they had now filled with their doctrine—saying, “It
was necessary that the
word of God should have been first delivered to you; but seeing ye have
rejected it, and have not thought yourselves worthy of eternal life,
lo, we turn to the Gentiles.”1153
And from
that time they turned their steps away, as those who went before them
had laid it down, and departed into the way of the Gentiles, and
entered into the cities of the Samaritans; so that, in very deed, their
sound went forth into all the earth, and their words to the end of the
world.1154
If,
therefore, the prohibition against setting foot in the way of the
Gentiles, and entering into the cities of the Samaritans, has come to
an end, why should not the command to flee, which was issued at the
same time, have come also to an end? Accordingly, from the time
when, Israel having had its full measure, the apostles went over to the
Gentiles, they neither fled from city to city, nor hesitated to
suffer. Nay, Paul too, who had submitted to deliverance from
persecution by being let down from the wall, as to do so was at this
time a matter of command, refused in like manner now at the close of
his ministry, and after the injunction had come to an end, to give in
to the anxieties of the disciples, eagerly entreating him that he would
not risk himself at Jerusalem, because of the sufferings in store for
him which Agabus had foretold; but doing the very opposite, it is thus
he speaks, “What do ye, weeping and disquieting my heart?
For I could wish not only to suffer bonds, but also to die at
Jerusalem, for the name of my Lord Jesus Christ.”1155
And so they all said, “Let the
will of the Lord be done.” What was the will of the
Lord? Certainly no longer to flee from persecution.
Otherwise they who had wished him rather to avoid persecution, might
also have adduced that prior will of the Lord, in which He had
commanded flight. Therefore, seeing even in the days of the
apostles themselves, the command to flee was temporary, as were those
also relating to the other things at the same time enjoined, that
[command] cannot continue with us which ceased with our teachers, even
although it had not been issued specially for them; or if the Lord
wished it to continue, the apostles did wrong who were not careful to
keep fleeing to the last.
7. Let us now see whether also the rest of our
Lord’s ordinances accord with a lasting command of flight.
In the first place, indeed, if persecution is from God, what are we to
think of our being ordered to take ourselves out of its way, by the
very party who brings it on us? For if He wanted it to be evaded,
He had better not have sent it, that there might not be the appearance
of His will being thwarted by another will.
For He wished us either to suffer persecution or
to flee from it. If to flee, how to suffer? If to suffer,
how to flee? In fact, what utter inconsistency in the decrees of
One who commands to flee, and yet urges to suffer, which is the very
opposite! “Him who will confess Me, I also will confess
before My Father.”1156
How will he
confess, fleeing? How flee, confessing? “Of him who
shall be ashamed of Me, will I also be ashamed before My
Father.”1157
If I avoid
suffering, I am ashamed to confess. “Happy they who suffer
persecution for My name’s sake.”1158
Unhappy, therefore, they who, by
running away, will not suffer according to the divine command.
“He who shall endure to the end shall be saved.”1159
How then, when you bid me flee, do you
wish me to endure to the end? If views so opposed to each other
do not comport with the divine dignity, they clearly prove that the
command to flee had, at the time it was given, a reason of its own,
which we have pointed out. But it is said, the Lord, providing
for the weakness of some of His people, nevertheless, in His kindness,
suggested also the haven of flight to them. For He was not able
even without flight—a protection so base, and unworthy, and
servile—to preserve in persecution such as He knew to be
weak! Whereas in fact He does not cherish, but ever rejects the
weak, teaching first, not that we are to fly from our persecutors, but
rather that we are not to fear them. “Fear not them who are
able to kill the body, but are unable to do ought against the soul; but
fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.”1160
And then what does He allot to the
fearful? “He who will value his life more than Me, is not
worthy of Me; and he who takes not up his cross and follows Me, cannot
be My disciple.”1161
Last of all,
in the Revelation, He does not propose flight to the
“fearful,”1162
but a miserable
portion among the rest of the outcast, in the lake of brimstone and
fire, which is the second death.
8. He sometimes also fled from violence
Himself, but for the same reason as had led Him to command the apostles
to do so: that is, He wanted to fulfil His ministry of teaching;
and when it was finished, I do not say He stood firm, but He had no
desire even to get from His Father the aid of hosts of angels:
finding fault, too, with Peter’s sword. He likewise
acknowledged, it is true, that His “soul was troubled, even unto
death,”1163
and the flesh weak;
with the design,
(however,) first of all, that by having, as His own, trouble of soul
and weakness of the flesh, He might show you that both the substances
in Him were truly human; lest, as certain persons have now brought it
in, you might be led to think either the flesh or the soul of Christ
different from ours; and then, that, by an exhibition of their states,
you might be convinced that they have no power at all of themselves
without the spirit. And for this reason He puts first “the
willing spirit,”1164
that, looking to
the natures respectively of both the substances, you may see that you
have in you the spirit’s strength as well as the flesh’s
weakness; and even from this may learn what to do, and by what means to
do it, and what to bring under what,—the weak, namely, under the
strong, that you may not, as is now your fashion, make excuses on the
ground of the weakness of the flesh, forsooth, but put out of sight the
strength of the spirit. He also asked of His Father, that if it
might be, the cup of suffering should pass from Him.1165
So ask you the like favour; but as He
did, holding your position,—merely offering supplication, and
adding, too, the other words: “but not what I will, but
what Thou wilt.” But when you run away, how will you make
this request? taking, in that case, into your own hands the removal of
the cup from you, and instead of doing what your Father wishes, doing
what you wish yourself.
9. The teaching of the apostles was surely
in everything according to the mind of God: they forgot and
omitted nothing of the Gospel. Where, then, do you show that they
renewed the command to flee from city to city? In fact, it was
utterly impossible that they should have laid down anything so utterly
opposed to their own examples as a command to flee, while it was just
from bonds, or the islands in which, for confessing, not fleeing from
the Christian name, they were confined, they wrote their letters to the
Churches. Paul1166
bids us support the
weak, but most certainly it is not when they flee. For how can
the absent be supported by you? By bearing with them? Well,
he says that people must be supported, if anywhere they have committed
a fault through the weakness of their faith, just as (he enjoins) that
we should comfort the faint-hearted; he does not say, however, that
they should be sent into exile. But when he urges us not to give
place to evil,1167
he does not offer
the suggestion that we should take to our heels, he only teaches that
passion should be kept under restraint; and if he says that the time
must be redeemed, because the days are evil,1168
he
wishes us to gain a lengthening of life, not by flight, but by
wisdom. Besides, he who bids us shine as sons of light,1169
does not bid us hide away out of sight as
sons of darkness. He commands us to stand stedfast,1170
certainly not to act an opposite part by
fleeing; and to be girt, not to play the fugitive or oppose the
Gospel. He points out weapons, too, which persons who intend to
run away would not require. And among these he notes the
shield1171
too, that ye may be
able to quench the darts of the devil, when doubtless ye resist him,
and sustain his assaults in their utmost force. Accordingly John
also teaches that we must lay down our lives for the brethren;1172
much more, then, we must do it for the
Lord. This cannot be fulfilled by those who flee. Finally,
mindful of his own Revelation, in which he had heard the doom of the
fearful, (and so) speaking from personal knowledge, he warns us that
fear must be put away. “There is no fear,” says he,
“in love; but perfect love casteth out fear; because fear has
torment”—the fire of the lake, no doubt. “He
that feareth is not perfect in love”1173
—to wit, the love of God. And yet
who will flee from persecution, but he who fears? Who will fear,
but he who has not loved? Yes; and if you ask counsel of the
Spirit, what does He approve more than that utterance of the
Spirit? For, indeed, it incites all almost to go and offer
themselves in martyrdom, not to flee from it; so that we also make
mention of it. If you are exposed to public infamy, says he, it
is for your good; for he who is not exposed to dishonour among men is
sure to be so before the Lord. Do not be ashamed; righteousness
brings you forth into the public gaze. Why should you be ashamed
of gaining glory? The opportunity is given you when you are
before the eyes of men. So also elsewhere: seek not to die
on bridal beds, nor in miscarriages, nor in soft fevers, but to die the
martyr’s death, that He may be glorified who has suffered for
you.
10. But some, paying no attention to the
exhortations of God, are readier to apply to themselves that Greek
versicle of worldly wisdom, “He who fled will fight again;”
perhaps also in the battle to flee again. And when will he who,
as a fugitive, is a defeated man, be conqueror? A worthy soldier
he furnishes to his commander Christ, who, so amply armed by the
apostle, as soon as he hears persecution’s trumpet, runs off from
the day of persecution. I also will produce in answer a quotation
taken from the world: “Is it a thing so very sad to
die?”1174
He must die,
in whatever way of it, either as conquered or as conqueror. But although
he has succumbed in denying, he has yet faced and battled with the
torture. I had rather be one to be pitied than to be blushed
for. More glorious is the soldier pierced with a javelin in
battle, than he who has a safe skin as a fugitive. Do you fear
man, O Christian?—you who ought to be feared by the angels, since
you are to judge angels; who ought to be feared by evil spirits, since
you have received power also over evil spirits; who ought to be feared
by the whole world, since by you, too, the world is judged. You
are Christ-clothed, you who flee before the devil, since into Christ
you have been baptized. Christ, who is in you, is treated as of
small account when you give yourself back to the devil, by becoming a
fugitive before him. But, seeing it is from the Lord you flee,
you taunt all runaways with the futility of their purpose. A
certain bold prophet also had fled from the Lord, he had crossed over
from Joppa in the direction of Tarsus, as if he could as easily
transport himself away from God; but I find him, I do not say in the
sea and on the land, but, in fact, in the belly even of a beast, in
which he was confined for the space of three days, unable either to
find death or even thus escape from God. How much better the
conduct of the man who, though he fears the enemy of God, does not flee
from, but rather despises him, relying on the protection of the Lord;
or, if you will, having an awe of God all the greater, the more that he
has stood in His presence, says, “It is the Lord, He is
mighty. All things belong to Him; wherever I am, I am in His
hand: let Him do as He wills, I go not away; and if it be His
pleasure that I die, let Him destroy me Himself, while I save myself
for Him. I had rather bring odium upon Him by dying by His will,
than by escaping through my own anger.”
11. Thus ought every servant of God to feel
and act, even one in an inferior place, that he may come to have a more
important one, if he has made some upward step by his endurance of
persecution. But when persons in authority themselves—I
mean the very deacons, and presbyters, and bishops—take to
flight, how will a layman be able to see with what view it was said,
Flee from city to city? Thus, too, with the leaders turning their
backs, who of the common rank will hope to persuade men to stand firm
in the battle? Most assuredly a good shepherd lays down his life
for the sheep, according to the word of Moses, when the Lord Christ had
not as yet been revealed, but was already shadowed forth in
himself: “If you destroy this people,” he says,
“destroy me also along with it.”1175
But Christ, confirming these
foreshadowings Himself, adds: “The bad shepherd is he who,
on seeing the wolf, flees, and leaves the sheep to be torn in
pieces.”1176
Why, a
shepherd like this will be turned off from the farm; the wages to have
been given him at the time of his discharge will be kept from him as
compensation; nay, even from his former savings a restoration of the
master’s loss will be required; for “to him who hath shall
be given, but from him who hath not shall be taken away even that which
he seemeth to have.”1177
Thus
Zechariah threatens: “Arise, O sword, against the
shepherds, and pluck ye out the sheep; and I will turn my hand against
the shepherds.”1178
And against
them both Ezekiel and Jeremiah declaim with kindred threatenings, for
their not only wickedly eating of the Sheep,—they feeding
themselves rather than those committed to their charge,—but also
scattering the flock, and giving it over, shepherdless, a prey to all
the beasts of the field. And this never happens more than when in
persecution the Church is abandoned by the clergy. If any one
recognises the Spirit also, he will hear him branding the
runaways. But if it does not become the keepers of the flock to
flee when the wolves invade it—nay, if that is absolutely
unlawful (for He who has declared a shepherd of this sort a bad one has
certainly condemned him; and whatever is condemned has, without doubt,
become unlawful)—on this ground it will not be the duty of those
who have been set over the Church to flee in the time of
persecution. But otherwise, if the flock should flee, the
overseer of the flock would have no call to hold his ground, as his
doing so in that case would be, without good reason, to give to the
flock protection, which it would not require in consequence of its
liberty, forsooth, to flee.
12. So far, my brother, as the question proposed
by you is concerned, you have our opinion in answer and
encouragement. But he who inquires whether persecution ought to
be shunned by us must now be prepared to consider the following
question also: Whether, if we should not flee from it, we should
at least buy ourselves off from it. Going further than you
expected, therefore, I will also on this point give you my advice,
distinctly affirming that persecution, from which it is evident we must
not flee, must in like manner not even be bought off. The
difference lies in the payment; but as flight is a buying off without
money, so buying off is money-flight. Assuredly you have here too
the counselling of fear. Because you fear, you buy yourself off;
and so you flee. As regards your feet, you have stood; in respect
of the money you have paid, you have run away. Why, in this
very standing of yours there was a fleeing from persecution, in the
release from persecution which you bought; but that you should ransom
with money a man whom Christ has ransomed with His blood, how unworthy
is it of God and His ways of acting, who spared not His own Son for
you, that He might be made a curse for us, because cursed is he that
hangeth on a tree,1179
—Him who was
led as a sheep to be a sacrifice, and just as a lamb before its
shearer, so opened He not His mouth;1180
but gave His
back to the scourges, nay, His cheeks to the hands of the smiter, and
turned not away His face from spitting, and, being numbered with the
transgressors, was delivered up to death, nay, the death of the
cross. All this took place that He might redeem us from our
sins. The sun ceded to us the day of our redemption; hell
re-transferred the right it had in us, and our covenant is in heaven;
the everlasting gates were lifted up, that the King of Glory, the Lord
of might, might enter in,1181
after having
redeemed man from earth, nay, from hell, that he might attain to
heaven. What, now, are we to think of the man who strives against
that glorious One, nay, slights and defiles His goods, obtained at so
great a ransom—no less, in truth, than His most precious
blood? It appears, then, that it is better to flee than to fall
in value, if a man will not lay out for himself as much as he cost
Christ. And the Lord indeed ransomed him from the angelic powers
which rule the world—from the spirits of wickedness, from the
darkness of this life, from eternal judgment, from everlasting
death. But you bargain for him with an informer, or a
soldier or some paltry thief of a ruler—under, as they say, the
folds of the tunic—as if he were stolen goods whom Christ
purchased in the face of the whole world, yes, and set at
liberty. Will you value, then, this free man at any price, and
possess him at any price, but the one, as we have said, it cost the
Lord,—namely, His own blood? (And if not,) why then do you
purchase Christ in the man in whom He dwells, as though He were some
human property? No otherwise did Simon even try to do, when he
offered the apostles money for the Spirit of Christ. Therefore
this man also, who in buying himself has bought the Spirit of Christ,
will hear that word, “Your money perish with you, since you have
thought that the grace of God is to be had at a price!”1182
Yet who will despise him for being
(what he is), a denier? For what says that extorter? Give
me money: assuredly that he may not deliver him up, since he
tries to sell you nothing else than that which he is going to give you
for money. When you put that into his hands, it is certainly your
wish not to be delivered up. But not delivered up, had you
to be held up to public ridicule? While, then, in being unwilling
to be delivered up, you are not willing to be thus exposed; by this
unwillingness of yours you have denied that you are what you have been
unwilling to have it made public that you are. Nay, you say,
While I am unwilling to be held up to the public as being what I am, I
have acknowledged that I am what I am unwilling to be so held up as
being, that is, a Christian. Can Christ, therefore, claim that
you, as a witness for Him, have stedfastly shown Him forth? He
who buys himself off does nothing in that way. Before one
it might, I doubt not, be said, You have confessed Him; so also, on the
account of your unwillingness to confess Him before many you have
denied Him. A man’s very safety will pronounce that he has
fallen while getting out of persecution’s way. He has
fallen, therefore, whose desire has been to escape. The refusal
of martyrdom is denial. A Christian is preserved by his wealth,
and for this end has his treasures, that he may not suffer, while he
will be rich toward God. But it is the case that Christ was rich
in blood for him. Blessed therefore are the poor, because, He
says, the kingdom of heaven is theirs who have the soul only treasured
up.1183
If we cannot serve God and mammon, can
we be redeemed both by God and by mammon? For who will serve
mammon more than the man whom mammon has ransomed? Finally, of
what example do you avail yourself to warrant your averting by money
the giving of you up? When did the apostles, dealing with the
matter, in any time of persecution trouble, extricate themselves by
money? And money they certainly had from the prices of lands
which were laid down at their feet,1184
there being,
without a doubt, many of the rich among those who believed—men,
and also women, who were wont, too, to minister to their comfort.
When did Onesimus, or Aquila, or Stephen,1185
give them aid of this kind when they were persecuted? Paul
indeed, when Felix the governor hoped that he should receive money for
him from the disciples,1186
about which matter
he also dealt with the apostle in private, certainly neither paid it
himself, nor did the disciples for him. Those disciples, at any
rate, who wept because he was equally persistent in his determination
to go to Jerusalem, and neglectful of all means to secure himself from
the persecutions which had been foretold as about to occur there, at
last say, “Let the will of the Lord be done.” What
was that will? No doubt that he should suffer for the name of the
Lord, not that he
should be bought off. For as Christ laid down His life for us,
so, too, we should do for Him; and not only for the Lord Himself, nay,
but likewise for our brethren on His account. This, too, is the
teaching of John when he declares, not that we should pay for our
brethren, but rather that we should die for them. It makes no
difference whether the thing not to be done by you is to buy off
a Christian, or to buy one. And so the will of God accords
with this. Look at the condition—certainly of God’s
ordaining, in whose hand the king’s heart is—of kingdoms
and empires. For increasing the treasury there are daily provided
so many appliances—registerings of property, taxes in kind
benevolences, taxes in money; but never up to this time has ought of
the kind been provided by bringing Christians under some purchase-money
for the person and the sect, although enormous gains could be reaped
from numbers too great for any to be ignorant of them. Bought
with blood, paid for with blood, we owe no money for our head, because
Christ is our Head. It is not fit that Christ should cost us
money. How could martyrdoms, too, take place to the glory of the
Lord, if by tribute we should pay for the liberty of our sect?
And so he who stipulates to have it at a price, opposes the divine
appointment. Since, therefore, Cæsar has imposed nothing on
us after this fashion of a tributary sect—in fact, such an
imposition never can be made,—with Antichrist now close at hand,
and gaping for the blood, not for the money of Christians—how can
it be pointed out to me that there is the command, “Render to
Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s?”1187
A soldier, be he an informer or an
enemy, extorts money from me by threats, exacting nothing on
Cæsar’s behalf; nay, doing the very opposite, when for a
bribe he lets me go—Christian as I am, and by the laws of man a
criminal. Of another sort is the denarius which I owe to
Cæsar, a thing belonging to him, about which the question then was
started, it being a tribute coin due indeed by those subject to
tribute, not by children. Or how shall I render to God the things
which are God’s,—certainly, therefore, His own likeness and
money inscribed with His name, that is, a Christian man? But what
do I owe God, as I do Cæsar the denarius, but the blood
which His own Son shed for me? Now if I owe God, indeed, a human
being and my own blood; but I am now in this juncture, that a demand is
made upon me for the payment of that debt, I am undoubtedly guilty of
cheating God if I do my best to withhold payment. I have well
kept the commandment, if, rendering to Cæsar the things which are
Cæsar’s, I refuse to God the things which are
God’s!
13. But also to every one who asks me I will
give on the plea of charity, not under any intimidation. Who
asks?1188
He says. But he who uses intimidation
does not ask. One who threatens if he does not receive, does not
crave, but compels. It is not alms he looks for, who comes not to
be pitied, but to be feared. I will give, therefore, because I
pity, not because I fear, when the recipient honours God and returns me
his blessing; not when rather he both believes that he has conferred a
favour on me, and, beholding his plunder, says, “Guilt
money.” Shall I be angry even with an enemy? But
enmities have also other grounds. Yet withal he did not say a
betrayer, or persecutor, or one seeking to terrify you by his
threats. For how much more shall I heap coals upon the head of a
man of this sort, if I do not redeem myself by money? “In
like manner,” says Jesus, “to him who has taken away your
coat, grant even your cloak also.” But that refers to him
who has sought to take away my property, not my faith. The cloak,
too, I will grant, if I am not threatened with betrayal. If he
threatens, I will demand even my coat back again. Even now, the
declarations of the Lord have reasons and laws of their own. They
are not of unlimited or universal application. And so He commands
us to give to every one who asks, yet He Himself does not give to those
who ask a sign. Otherwise, if you think that we should give
indiscriminately to all who ask, that seems to me to mean that you
would give, I say not wine to him who has a fever, but even poison or a
sword to him who longs for death. But how we are to understand,
“Make to yourselves friends of mammon,”1189
let the previous parable teach you.
The saying was addressed to the Jewish people; inasmuch as, having
managed ill the business of the Lord which had been entrusted to them,
they ought to have provided for themselves out of the men of mammon,
which we then were, friends rather than enemies, and to have delivered
us from the dues of sins which kept us from God, if they bestowed the
blessing upon us, for the reason given by the Lord, that when grace
began to depart from them, they, betaking themselves to our faith,
might be admitted into everlasting habitations. Hold now any
other explanation of this parable and saying you like, if only you
clearly see that there is no likelihood of our opposers, should we make
them friends with mammon, then receiving us into everlasting
abodes. But of what will not cowardice convince men? As if
Scripture both allowed them to flee, and commanded them to
buy off! Finally, it is
not enough if one or another is so rescued. Whole Churches have
imposed tribute en masse on themselves. I know not whether
it is matter for grief or shame when among hucksters, and pickpockets,
and bath-thieves, and gamesters, and pimps, Christians too are included
as taxpayers in the lists of free soldiers and spies. Did the
apostles, with so much foresight, make the office of overseer of this
type, that the occupants might be able to enjoy their rule free from
anxiety, under colour of providing (a like freedom for their
flocks)? For such a peace, forsooth, Christ, returning to His
Father, commanded to be bought from the soldiers by gifts like those
you have in the Saturnalia!
14. But how shall we assemble together? say
you; how shall we observe the ordinances of the Lord? To be sure,
just as the apostles also did, who were protected by faith, not by
money; which faith, if it can remove a mountain, can much more remove a
soldier. Be your safeguard wisdom, not a bribe. For you
will not have at once complete security from the people also, should
you buy off the interference of the soldiers. Therefore all you
need for your protection is to have both faith and wisdom: if you
do not make use of these, you may lose even the deliverance which you
have purchased for yourself; while, if you do employ them, you can have
no need of any ransoming. Lastly, if you cannot assemble by day,
you have the night, the light of Christ luminous against its
darkness. You cannot run about among them one after
another. Be content with a church of threes. It is better
that you sometimes should not see your crowds, than subject yourselves
(to a tribute bondage). Keep pure for Christ His betrothed
virgin; let no one make gain of her. These things, my brother,
seem to you perhaps harsh and not to be endured; but recall that God
has said, “He who receives it, let him receive
it,”1190
that is, let him
who does not receive it go his way. He who fears to suffer,
cannot belong to Him who suffered. But the man who does not fear
to suffer, he will be perfect in love—in the love, it is meant,
of God; “for perfect love casteth out fear.”1191
“And therefore many are called,
but few chosen.”1192
It is not
asked who is ready to follow the broad way, but who the narrow.
And therefore the Comforter is requisite, who guides into all truth,
and animates to all endurance. And they who have received Him
will neither stoop to flee from persecution nor to buy it off, for they
have the Lord Himself, One who will stand by us to aid us in suffering,
as well as to be our mouth when we are put to the
question.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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