De Fuga in Persecutione

You asked lately, brother Fabius, whether one must flee or not in persecution, since some such thing was being given out. There and then I, having said something against it as the place and time and the importunity of certain persons allowed, carried off the matter half-handled with me, intending now to render it back more fully by the pen—seeing that your consultation had commended it to me, and the condition of the times had already enjoined it by its own name. For the more frequently persecutions threaten, the more must examination be made how the faith ought to meet them. And the examination must be made among you who, by not receiving the Paraclete, the guide of all truth, are deservedly still entangled even in other questions. Therefore we have also given an order to your consultation, observing that it must first be determined concerning the very standing of persecution—whether it comes from God or from the devil—so that it may the more easily be established concerning the meeting of it. For the inspection of any matter is plainer when the author is known. It is enough, indeed, to lay down the rule that nothing happens without the will of God. But we will not at once, by this sentence, give place to other discussions, lest we be called away from the present article, if anyone should answer: "Then evil too is from God, and transgression from God; nothing now lies with the devil, nothing even with ourselves." It is of persecution that we now inquire. Concerning this, in the meantime, let me say that nothing happens without the will of God, regarding it as first of all worthy of God and, so to say, necessary—for the probation, namely, or the reprobation of His servants. For what is the issue of persecution, what other effect, but the probation and reprobation of faith, by which surely the Lord will examine His own? This is the Lord's judgment, persecution, through which a man is judged either approved or reprobate. Now judgment belongs to God alone. This is that winnowing-fan which even now purges the Lord's threshing-floor—the Church, namely—winnowing the confused heap of the faithful and separating the wheat of the martyrs from the chaff of the deniers; and this too is the ladder which Jacob dreams of, showing to some an ascent into the higher places, to others a descent to the lower. So too persecution admits of being understood as a contest. By whom is a contest proclaimed, if not by Him by whom the crown and the prizes are set forth? You read the edict of that contest in the Apocalypse—with what prizes He invites to victory, and especially those who shall have conquered properly in persecution, in conquering having wrestled truly not against flesand blood, but against the spiritual things of wickedness. So you will recognize that the arbitrament of the contest belongs to the same Master of the games who invites to the prize. The whole of what is done in persecution is the glory of God, who approves and reprobates, who sets up and casts down. But what pertains to the glory of God will surely come about by His will. But when is God more believed in, than when He is more feared? When but in the time of persecution? The Church is in awe. Then both faith is more anxious in its readiness and more disciplined in fastings and Stations and prayers and humility, in mutual diligence and love, in sanctity and sobriety. For there is leisure for nothing but fear and hope. And so from this very thing it is shown to us that that cannot be set down to the devil which makes God's servants the better.

If, because iniquity is not from God but from the devil, and persecution consists of iniquity—for what is more iniquitous than that the priests of the true God, all the followers of truth, should be treated after the manner of the most guilty?—if for this reason persecution seems to come from the devil, by whom is worked the iniquity of which persecution consists, we ought to know that, inasmuch as there is neither persecution without the iniquity of the devil nor probation of faith without persecution, the iniquity necessary for the probation of faith renders to persecution not patronage but service; for the will of God concerning the probation of faith—which is the reason of persecution—precedes, while the iniquity of the devil follows as the instrument of persecution—which is the reason of probation. For in other matters too, in so far as iniquity is the rival of righteousness, in so far is it material for the testimonies of that of which it is the rival, so that righteousness is perfected in iniquity, just as virtue is perfected in infirmity. For "the weak things of the world has God chosen, that the strong may be confounded; and the foolish things of His, that wisdom may be confounded." So too iniquity is employed, that righteousness may be proved, confounding iniquity. Therefore, since it is a service not of free arbitrament but of subjection—for persecution is the Lord's arbitrament for the probation of faith, while the iniquity of the devil is a service for the equipping of persecution—we believe that it comes through the devil, it may be, not from the devil. Nothing against the servants of the living God will be permitted to Satan, unless the Lord shall have permitted it, so that He may either destroy Satan himself through the faith of the elect, victorious in temptation, or convict men of having been his who fall away to him. You have the example of Job, on whom the devil could inflict no temptation, unless he had received the power from God—not even upon his substance, until the Lord had said, "Behold, all that he has I give into your hand; but upon himself do not stretch out your hand." In short, neither did he stretch it out, save after the Lord, to him asking this too, had said, "Behold, I deliver him to you; only keep his soul." So too against the apostles he asked leave of temptation, not having it save by permission, since the Lord in the Gospel says to Peter, "Behold, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not"—that is, that not so much be permitted to the devil that faith should be imperilled. Whereby it is shown that both are with God, both the shaking of faith and the protection, since both are asked of Him—the shaking by the devil, the protection by the Son. And surely, since the Son of God has the protection of faith in His own power, which He asks from the Father, from whom He receives all power in the heavens and on earth, how is it that the devil should have the shaking of faith in his own hand? But in the lawful prayer, when we say to the Father, "Lead us not into temptation"—and what greater temptation than persecution?—we profess that it befalls from Him from whom we deprecate the exemption from it. For this is what follows: "But deliver us from the evil one"—that is, lead us not into temptation by permitting us to the evil one. For then are we delivered from the hands of the devil, when we are not delivered over to him in temptation. Nor did the legion of the devil have power even over the herd of swine, unless it had obtained it from God; so far is it from having power over the sheep of God. I may say that the very bristles of the swine were then numbered with God, much more the hairs of the saints. The devil seems to have now his own power, it may be, over those who do not belong to God—men once for all reckoned by God as "a drop of a bucket" and "the dust of a threshing-floor" and "spittle" among the nations, and through this exposed to the devil as to a sort of empty possession. But against the household of God nothing is permitted him out of his own power, because the examples marked in the Scriptures show when it is permitted—that is, from what causes. For either, for the cause of probation, the right of temptation is granted him over one challenged or challenging, as in the cases above; or, for the cause of reprobation, a sinner is delivered to him, as to an executioner, for punishment, like Saul—"And the Spirit of the Lord," it says, "departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord shook him and choked him"; or, for the cause of restraint, as the Apostle relates that there was given him "a stake, an angel of Satan, to buffet him"—and not even this kind is permitted to the devil against the saints to humble them through the vexation of the flesh, except at the same time that the virtue of endurance too may be perfected in infirmity. For the Apostle himself too delivered Phygellus and Hermogenes to Satan, that they might be corrected, lest they blaspheme. You see now that the devil receives power even from the servants of God the more easily; so far is it from his possessing it out of his own property.

Since, then, these examples too come about rather in persecutions—seeing that we are then the more proved or reprobated, and are then the more humbled or corrected—it must be permitted or commanded by Him by whom, in part, these things are done catholically, namely, by Him who says, "I am He that makes peace and creates evils"—that is, war; for this is the contrary of peace. But what is war to our peace but persecution? If the issues of persecution, above all, bring either life or death, either a wound or a healing, you have the author of the same: "I will smite and I will heal, I will make alive and I will put to death." "I will burn them," He says, "as gold is burned, and I will prove them as silver is proved." For when we are burned by the heat of persecution, then are we proved as to the constancy of faith. These will be the fiery darts of the devil, by which the burning and the smelting of faith are administered—yet by the will of God. Of this who can doubt, I know not, save plainly a frivolous and frigid faith, which catches those who timidly assemble in the church. For you say: "Since we assemble in a disorderly way, and assemble all together, and many of us run together into the church, we are inquired after by the heathen, and we fear lest the heathen be disturbed." Do you not know that God is the Lord of all? And if it is His will, then you will suffer persecution; but if He shall not have willed it, the heathen will keep silence. Believe it, surely—if indeed you believe in that God without whose will not even a sparrow worth a farthing falls to the ground. But we, I think, are of more account than many sparrows.

Therefore, if it is established from whom persecution comes, we can now introduce your consultation and determine from this very preliminary treatment that one must not flee in persecution. For if persecution comes from God, in no way will that be to be fled which comes from God; just as a twofold reason defends it, that what comes from God ought neither to be avoided nor can be escaped. It ought not to be avoided, because it is good; for it is necessary that everything be good which has seemed good to God. And was it not for this reason set down thus in Genesis, "And God saw that it was good"—not that He was ignorant that it was good unless He had seen it, but that by this expression He might portend that to be good which has seemed good to God? Many things, indeed, there are which come from God and come to the harm of someone. Nay, it is good for this reason, that it comes from God—as divine, as rational. For what is divine that is not rational, not good? What is good that is not divine? But if it seems otherwise to the sense of someone, the sense of man does not prejudge the state of things, but the state prejudges the sense. For each state is something fixed and gives a law to the sense, to perceive the state as it is. But if a thing be good in its state which comes from God—for nothing from God is not good, because it is divine, because rational—yet seems evil to the sense, the state will be in safety, the sense in fault. By their state, most excellent things are modesty and truth and righteousness, which displease the sense of many. Is the state therefore made over to the sense? So too persecution is good by its state, because it is a divine and rational disposition, but it displeases the sense of those to whose harm it comes. You see also that even that evil has its rational ground with God, when someone in persecution is overthrown from salvation, just as that good happens with reason, when someone profits from persecution unto salvation. Unless someone irrationally either perishes with the Lord or is saved, he will not be able to call persecution an evil—which, even on the side of evil, is good, since it is administered by reason. So, if persecution is good in whatever way, because it is established by its state, we rightly define that what is good ought not to be avoided, because it would be a transgression to refuse what is good—the more so since it has seemed good to God—and indeed that it cannot even be avoided, because it comes from God, whose will cannot be escaped. Therefore those who think one must flee either reproach God with evil, if they flee persecution as an evil—for no one avoids a good—or they reckon themselves stronger than God, who think they can escape, if God has willed some such thing to happen.

"But what is mine," he says, "I flee, lest I perish if I deny; it is His to bring me back, if He will, even fleeing, into the midst." This first answer me: are you sure that you will deny if you do not flee, or unsure? For if you are sure, you have already denied, because by presuming that you would deny you have pledged that of which you presumed; and you flee in vain, lest you deny, who, if you are going to deny, have already denied. But if you are unsure, why, from the equality of an uncertain fear between either outcome, do you not also presume that you can confess and rather be saved—the less you flee—just as you presume that you will deny, so as to flee? Now then, either both lie with us, or the whole with God. If it is in us to confess or to deny, why do we not presume that which is better—that is, that we shall confess? Unless you wish to confess but not to suffer; but to be unwilling to confess is to deny. But if the whole is in God, why do we not leave the whole to His arbitrament, acknowledging His virtue and power—that He can, as He can bring back into the midst those who flee, so also overshadow those who flee not, nay, even those who move among the people in the midst? What kind of thing is it, that you render honour to God by fleeing—who can bring you forth into the midst even fleeing—but for confessing dishonour Him, despairing of the power of protection from Him? Why do you not rather, on this side of constancy and confidence in God, say: "I do what is mine; I do not depart; God, if He will, will Himself protect me"? This is rather our part, to stand under God's arbitrament, than to flee under our own. Rutilius, a most holy martyr, when he had so often fled persecution from place to place, and had even redeemed his peril, as he thought, with money—after all the security which he had provided for himself, being unexpectedly seized and offered to the magistrate, was torn with torments, I believe for the chastisement of his flight; thereafter, given to the fires, he rendered to the mercy of God the passion which he had shunned. What else did the Lord wish to demonstrate to us by this proof, than that one must not flee, because flight profits nothing, if God wills otherwise?

"Nay," he says, "He fulfilled the precept by fleeing from city to city." For so a certain man—himself too a fugitive—chose to argue; and those who likewise are unwilling to understand the sense of that pronouncement of the Lord, so as to use it for a veil of their own timidity, whereas it had its own persons and times and causes. "When they begin," He says, "to persecute you, flee from city to city." This we maintain to pertain properly to the persons of the apostles and to their times and causes, as the senses that follow will prove, which suit none but the apostles: "Go not into the way of the nations, and into a city of the Samaritans enter not; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But to us both the way of the nations lies open—in which we have both been found and walk even to the end—and no city is excepted, whither throughout the whole world we preach; nor is the care of Israel enjoined upon us out of order, save in so far as we ought to preach to all the nations also. Even if we are seized, we shall not be led into their councils nor scourged in their synagogues, but shall surely be cast before Roman powers and tribunals. Thus, then, the condition of the apostles required the precept of flight too, since first it had to be preached to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. In order, therefore, that the preaching might be accomplished among those with whom it had first to be accomplished—that the sons might take the bread before the dogs—therefore was it then enjoined upon them to flee for a time: not for the sake of eluding the peril of persecution under its own name—for He foretold that they would suffer persecutions, and taught that they must be endured—but for the sake of the advancement of the announcement, lest, by their being immediately oppressed, the dissemination too of the Gospel should be destroyed. For they were not to flee across, as it were silently, into some city, but as men who were everywhere to announce, and from this everywhere to undergo persecutions, until they should have filled up their teaching. In short, "You shall not have completed," He says, "the cities of Israel." So far within the bounds of Judaea was the precept of flight contained. But to us no preordination of Judaea suits, the Holy Spirit being now poured out upon all flesh in our preaching. And so Paul and the apostles themselves, mindful of the Lord's precept, attest it to Israel, whom they had already filled with their teaching: "To you it behoved that the word of God be first delivered; but since you have repelled it and judged yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn ourselves to the nations." And thenceforth, themselves also turned, as their predecessors had instituted, they both went into the way of the nations and entered into the cities of the Samaritans—so that, namely, "into all the earth their sound went out, and into the bounds of the world their voices." If, then, the exception of the way of the nations has ceased, and the entrance into the cities of the Samaritans, why should not the precept of flight too, given out alongside, have ceased? In short, from the time when, Israel being satisfied, the apostles passed over to the nations, they neither fled from city to city nor hesitated to suffer. But indeed even Paul, who had let himself be loosed down by the wall to be delivered from a persecution which up to that time was of the precept—the same man now, at the close of his ministry and the consummation of the precept, when the disciples greatly besought him not to commit himself to Jerusalem, where he would suffer what Agabus had prophesied, did not subscribe to their solicitude, but on the contrary said: "What do you, weeping and troubling my heart? For I would not only suffer bonds, but even die at Jerusalem for the name of my Lord Jesus Christ." And so all said, "The will of the Lord be done." What was the will of the Lord? Surely not now to flee persecution. For the rest, those who had preferred that he should shun persecution could have set forth too the earlier will of the Lord, by which He had commanded flight. Therefore, since even under the apostles themselves the precept of flight was temporary, like the rest of the prescripts, it cannot persist among us which has ceased among our teachers, even if it had not been issued properly to them; or, if the Lord willed it to persist, the apostles transgressed, who did not take care to flee even to the end.

Let us see now whether the other edicts of the Lord too accord with a perpetual precept of flight. First indeed, if persecution is from God, what kind of thing is it, that the same One should command it to be fled who also brings it on? Which, if He wished it to be escaped, He had better not send in, lest He should seem to prevaricate against His own will by another will. For either He willed us to suffer persecution or to flee. If to flee, how to suffer? If to suffer, how to flee? And indeed, how great is the inequality of the sentences of One who bids us flee and invites us to a passion contrary to flight! "He who shall confess Me, I too will confess him before My Father." How shall one confess in fleeing? How shall one flee in confessing? "He who shall be ashamed of Me, I too will be ashamed of him before the Father." If I avoid the passion, I am ashamed of the confession. "Happy are they who shall have suffered persecution for the cause of My name." Unhappy, then, are they who, by fleeing according to the precept, shall not have suffered. "He who shall endure to the end, he shall be saved." Why then, bidding me flee, do You will me to endure to the end? So great a diversity of sentences, if it does not accord with the divine gravity, makes it appear from these too that the precept of flight then had its own reason, which we have shown. "But," he says, "the Lord, foreseeing the infirmity of some, of His humanity nonetheless pointed out the harbour of flight too. For He was not fit to make safe in persecution, even without flight, those whom He knew to be infirm, by so base and unworthy and servile a defence." But indeed He does not cherish, but always rejects the infirm, first teaching that persecutors are not to be fled, but rather not to be feared: "Fear not those who can kill the body, but can do nothing to the soul; but fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell." And thereafter, what does He prescribe to the timid? "He who shall have made more of his soul than of Me is not worthy of Me; and he who does not take up his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple." Finally, in the Apocalypse He offers the timid not flight, but, among the rest of the reprobate, a portion in the lake of sulphur and fire, which is the second death.

He Himself too at times shrank from violence, but for the same reason for which He had commanded the apostles to flee—until, namely, He should fill up His teaching; which being consummated, He did not, I say, stand fast only, but did not even desire help from the Father of the armies of angels, Peter's sword being even rebuked. He Himself indeed professed both a soul "anxious unto death" and a flesh "infirm," that He might show you first that in Himself both human substances were present—from the property of the anxiety of the soul and the weakness of the flesh—lest you should interpret either the flesh or the soul of Christ as another, as some now have introduced; and thereafter, that, the conditions of these being demonstrated, you might know that they avail nothing through themselves without the spirit. And therefore He sets the spirit before as "willing," that you, regarding both the condition of either substance, may understand that there is in you also the fortitude of the spirit, as well as the infirmity of the flesh; and that from this you may know what to do with which, and what to subject to which—the weak, namely, to the strong—lest, as you now do, you plead indeed the infirmity of the flesh, but dissemble the firmness of the spirit. He Himself too asked of the Father that, if it could be, the cup of the passion might pass from Him. Ask you too; but standing, as He did; but only asking; but subjoining the rest too, "Yet not what I will, but what You will." But fleeing, how will you ask this—yourself granting yourself the translation of the cup, and doing not what the Father wills, but what you will?

All things the apostles taught according to God, surely; all things they unrolled from the Gospel. Where do you show that they restored the precept of fleeing from city to city? For they could not even have established any such thing so contrary to their own examples, that they should command flight—who, at the very time, were writing to the churches from bonds or islands, in which they were detained for confession, not for flight, of the Name. Paul bids us "bear with the infirm"—surely, then, not the fleeing. For how can the absent be borne with? Or by patience? He says they are to be borne with, if anywhere through the infirmity of their faith they have given offence—as the faint-hearted are to be consoled, yet not sent into flight. But when he admonishes us not to "give place to evil," he does not suggest a counsel of flight, but teaches a tempering of anger; and if he says the time is "to be redeemed, because the days are evil," he wishes us to gain a respite not by flight, but by the wisdom of conduct. For the rest, He who bids us "shine as sons of light" does not bid us hide by flight as sons of darkness. He commands us to stand "immovable"—surely not movable by flight—and "girded": for flight, or for the encounter of the Gospel? He shows arms too, which would not be necessary to those about to flee. Among which is also "a shield, with which you may extinguish the darts of the devil"—resisting, without doubt, and receiving all his force. Likewise John teaches that our lives are to be laid down even for the brethren, much more for the Lord. This cannot be fulfilled by those who flee. Finally, mindful of his Apocalypse, in which he had heard the issue of the timid, of his own sense he too admonishes that fear is to be cast away: "Fear," he says, "is not in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment"—surely the fire of the lake; "but he who fears is not perfect in love"—of God, namely. Now who will flee persecution but he who will fear? Who will fear but he who has not loved? But if you consult the Spirit, what does the Spirit approve more than that utterance? For it exhorts almost all to martyrdom, not to flight; that we may be reminded of that too: "You are published," it says, "it is good for you; for he who is not published among men is published in the Lord. Be not confounded; righteousness brings you forth into the midst. Why are you confounded, carrying away praise? Power comes, when you are beheld by men." So too elsewhere: "Wish not to go forth on your couches, nor in miscarriages and soft fevers, but in martyrdoms, that He may be glorified who has suffered for you."

But some, omitting the divine exhortations, apply to themselves rather that Greek versicle of worldly sentiment: "He who fled will fight again"—that he may perhaps flee again too. And when will he conquer who, since he has fled, is conquered? He renders a good soldier to Christ his commander who, so fully armed by the Apostle, deserts the day of persecution when the trumpet of persecution is heard. I too will answer something out of the world: "Is it so wretched a thing to die?" Let him die in whatever way, whether conquered or conqueror. For even if he fall by denying, yet he has fought with torments. I prefer one to be pitied than to be blushed at. Fairer is the soldier in battle, pierced by the javelin, than safe in flight. Do you fear a man, O Christian—you who ought to be feared by angels, since you are to judge angels; who ought to be feared by demons, since you have received power over demons too; who ought to be feared by the whole world, since in you too the world is judged? You have put on Christ, since you have been baptized into Christ—you who flee the devil. You have cheapened the Christ who is in you; you have made yourself a fugitive together with the devil. But fleeing the Lord, you reproach all fugitives with the vanity of their counsel. A certain spirited prophet too had fled the Lord, had crossed over from Joppa to Tarshish, as if he could ferry away even from God; but him I find—I do not say on the sea and on the land, but even in the belly of the beast, in which he could neither die through three days nor even thus escape God. How much better is he who, whether fearing God's enemy, does not flee him but rather despises him, confident, namely, of the Lord's protection; or, dreading God, the more stands before His eyes, saying: "He is the Lord, He is powerful. All things are His; wherever I shall be, I am in His hand; let Him do what He will: I do not depart; and if He should will me to perish, let Him Himself destroy me, so long as I keep myself for Him. I prefer to make Him resentment by perishing through His own will, than to make Him bile by escaping through mine."

This every servant of God ought to feel and do, even of a lesser place, that he may become of a greater, if he shall have ascended any grade in the endurance of persecution. But when the very leaders—that is, the very deacons and presbyters and bishops—flee, how shall the layman understand for what reason it was said, "Flee from city to city"? And so, when the leaders flee, who from the common rank will sustain a persuasion to fix his grade in the line of battle? Surely indeed "the good shepherd lays down his soul for the flock"—as Moses, the Lord Christ being not yet revealed but already figured in himself, says, "If You destroy this people, destroy me also together with it." But, Christ confirming His own figures, "the bad shepherd is he who, seeing the wolf, flees and abandons the flock to be rent." A shepherd of this kind will be cast out of the farmstead; the wages of his commission will be detained from him in compensation; nay, even from his former private store the restitution of the Lord's loss will be exacted of him. For "to him that has, it shall be given; but from him that has not, even that which he seems to have shall be taken away." So Zechariah threatens: "Draw a sword upon the shepherds, and pluck out the sheep; and I will bring my hand over the shepherds." Against whom both Ezekiel and Jeremiah inveigh with the same threats, because they not only feed unworthily on the flock, feeding rather themselves, but also scatter the flock and make it to be a prey to all the beasts of the field, while there is no shepherd for them. Which never happens more than when in persecution the Church is forsaken by the clergy. If anyone shall recognize the Spirit too, he will hear it branding fugitives. Now if it neither becomes—nay, is not even lawful—for those who preside over the flock to flee when the wolves rush in (for He who pronounced such a shepherd bad surely condemned him; and everything that is condemned has without doubt been made unlawful), therefore it will not behoove the presidents of the church to flee in persecution. For the rest, if the flock ought to flee, neither ought the president of the flock to stand, since he would stand without cause for the protection of the flock, which the flock would not desire, by the license, namely, of flight.

As regards your problem, brother, you have the response of our opinion and the exhortation. But he who asks whether persecution is to be fled must of necessity now look ahead also to the following question: whether, if it is not to be fled, it is at least to be redeemed. Of my own accord, then, I will suggest to you concerning this too, defining that persecution, which it is established is not to be fled, is likewise not to be redeemed. There is a difference of price; but as flight is a redemption without cost, so a money redemption is a flight. Certainly this too is the counsel of timidity. What you fear, you redeem; therefore you flee. With your feet you have stood, with money you have run. By this very thing, that you have stood, you have fled by redemption. But that you should redeem a man with money, whom Christ redeemed with His own blood—how unworthy of God and of His dispositions, who "spared not His own Son for you," that He might become "a curse for us"—because "cursed is he who has hung upon the tree"—who was "led like a sheep to the victim, and like a lamb before the shearer, so He opened not His mouth," but gave His back to the scourges, and His cheeks to the palms, and turned not His face from the spittings, and "was reckoned among the iniquitous," and "was delivered up unto death"—the death, moreover, of the cross. All this, that He might gain us from our sins. The sun yielded the day of our purchase. With those below is our repurchase, and our pledge in the heavens. "The everlasting gates were lifted up, that the King of glory might enter, the Lord of hosts"—who purchased man from the earth, nay, from the lower regions, into the heavens. Who is there now who struggles against Him—nay, who cheapens His merchandise, bought at so great a price, namely, the most precious blood, and defiles it? Now then it is better to flee than to be made cheaper, if a man shall stand himself at not so much as he stood to the Lord. And the Lord indeed redeemed him from the angels, from the world-holding powers, from the spiritual things of wickedness, from the darkness of this age, from eternal judgment, from perpetual death. But you bargain for him with an informer or a soldier or some petty-thieving magistrate, under the tunic and in the bosom, as they say, as for a stolen thing—him whom Christ bought before the whole world, nay, even manumitted. Will you, then, value this freedman at a price, and possess him at a price, save at the same blood—namely, His own—at which, as we have said, he stood to the Lord? Why, then, do you redeem Christ from a man in the man in whom Christ is? Not otherwise did Simon attempt to do, when he offered money to the apostles for the Spirit of Christ. He too, then, shall hear—who, redeeming himself, has redeemed the Spirit of Christ—"Your money be with you unto perdition, because you have thought the grace of God a thing to be obtained at a price." Yet who would spurn the denier? For what does that extortioner say? "Give me money." Surely, that he may not deliver you up—since he sells nothing other than what he is to furnish as your reward. When you give, surely you wished not to be delivered up. But, not being delivered up, were you to be convicted? Therefore, while by being unwilling to be delivered up you do not wish to be convicted, by being unwilling you have denied that which you were unwilling to be convicted of being. "Nay," you say, "while I am unwilling to be convicted of what I am, I have confessed it to be that which I am unwilling to be convicted of—that is, a Christian." Can Christ, then, vindicate you as a martyr, as having constantly shown forth? In redeeming, he did not show forth. Before one man, it may be, you confessed; therefore before more, by being unwilling to confess, you have denied. Salvation itself will judge that the man fell away, since he escapes. He fell away, then, who preferred to have escaped. The refusal of martyrdom too is a denial. The Christian is safe by money, and in this has coins, that he may not suffer, while against God he will be rich. But Christ was rich in blood for him. Happy, then, are the poor, because "theirs is," He says, "the kingdom of heaven," who have the soul alone in their treasury. If we cannot serve God and mammon, can we be both redeemed by God and by mammon? For who will serve mammon more than he whom mammon has redeemed? Lastly, by what example do you make use of in the redemption of betrayal? When did the apostles, harried by persecutions in their dealings, free themselves by money? Which surely was not lacking to them, from the prices of estates laid at their feet—surely many wealthy men and women believing, who supplied them even with refreshments. When did Onesiphorus or Aquila or Stephen succour them in this way in persecution? Paul indeed, when the governor Felix had hoped that he would receive money for him from the disciples—about which he too dealt with him in private—neither did he himself reckon for himself, nor the disciples for him. Those disciples, surely, who, weeping because he likewise persisted in pressing toward Jerusalem and did not guard against the foretold persecutions there, at last say, "The will of God be done." What is that will? Surely that he should suffer for the name of the Lord, not that he should be redeemed. For it behooves that, as Christ laid down His soul for us, so it should be done by us for Him—and not only for Him, nay, even for the brethren for His sake. Which John, teaching, pronounced that even for the brethren we are to reckon out not money, but rather to die. It makes no difference if a Christian whom you ought not to redeem or to buy. And indeed the will of God is thus. Look at the state of kingdoms and empires—surely disposed by God, in whose hand is the heart of the king. So many remedies of revenues, taxes, contributions, and stipends are daily provided for the increase of the treasury, and never up to now has any such thing been provided out of the Christians, under any redemption of head and sect to be levied—whereas a vast revenue could be reaped from so great a multitude, unknown to none. Bought with blood, reckoned with blood, we owe no coin for our head, because our Head is Christ. It is not fitting that Christ should stand at a price of money. How too could martyrdoms be made to the glory of the Lord, if by tribute we compensated for the license of the sect? And so he who bargains for it at a reward sets himself against the divine disposition. Since, then, Caesar has enjoined nothing upon us after this manner of a tributary sect—and indeed no such thing could ever be enjoined, antichrist already pressing on and gaping after the blood, not the money, of Christians—how can the Scripture be set before me, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's"? A soldier or an informer or an enemy extorts from me, exacting nothing for Caesar—nay, doing the contrary, when he dismisses for a fee a Christian, guilty under human laws. There is another denarius which I owe to Caesar, which pertains to him of whom it was then treated—a tributary one, owed by tributaries, namely, not by free men. Or how shall I render to God the things that are God's—surely likewise His image and coin, inscribed with His name, that is, the Christian man? But what do I owe to God, as the denarius to Caesar, save the blood which His Son shed for me? But if to God I owe the man and my blood, but now I am in that time when I am demanded for what I owe to God, surely I commit a fraud against God in acting so as not to pay what I owe. I have well observed the precept, rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, but denying to God the things that are God's!

"But to everyone that asks me I will give"—in the cause of alms, not of extortion. "To him that asks," He says. But he who extorts does not ask. He who threatens, if he shall not have received, does not petition, but wrings out. He does not await alms who comes not to be pitied, but to be feared. I will give, then, in the name of my mercy, not of my timidity—where he who receives honours God and renders me a blessing, not where he both believes that he has rendered a further benefit, and, looking at his prey, says: "Of the indictment." Shall I be angry too at an enemy? But enmities have other titles. Yet He did not say "betrayer" or "persecutor" or "extortioner." For on this one, how much the more shall I heap coals upon his head, if I do not redeem myself? "Likewise," He says, "to him who shall have taken away your tunic, concede even your cloak too." This pertains to him who has sought to snatch my property, not my faith. I will concede my cloak too, to one not threatening betrayal. If he shall have threatened, I will demand back even my tunic. Of all the Lord's sentences now there are their own causes and rules. Their bounds do not look to infinity nor to all things. And so, though He bids us give to everyone that asks, He Himself gives no token to those who ask. Otherwise, if you think one must give to all indiscriminately who ask, you seem to me to be about to give—I do not say wine to a fever-stricken man, but even poison or a sword to one who desires death. "Make to yourselves friends of mammon"—how this is to be understood, let the parable set before it teach you. It was said to the Jewish people, who, when they had ill administered the account of the Lord committed to them, ought, out of the men of mammon (which we were), rather to provide friends for themselves than enemies, and to relieve us from the debts of sins, by which we were detained to God, if they would confer that on us by the Lord's account—so that, when grace should begin to fail from them, taking refuge in our faith, they might be received into the eternal tabernacles. Although now suppose another interpretation of the parable and of that sentence, provided you know it is not likely that our extortioners, reduced to friendship through mammon, should then receive us into the eternal tabernacles. But what will timidity not persuade? As though the Scripture both permitted flight to be written and commanded redemption to be enjoined. It is too little, in short, if one or another is thus delivered. In a mass, whole churches have imposed a tribute upon themselves. I know not whether one should grieve or blush, when in the registers of the beneficiaries and the curious, among tavern-keepers and water-thieves and bath-thieves and gamblers and pimps, the Christians too are contained as tributaries. Did the apostles found this form of the episcopate the more providently, that they might enjoy their reign in security, under the pretext of providing for it? For of course Christ, returning to the Father, commanded that such a peace was to be redeemed from soldiers through the Saturnalia!

"But how shall we assemble," you say, "how shall we celebrate the Lord's solemnities?" Surely as the apostles too did—safe by faith, not by money; which faith, if it can transfer a mountain, much more a soldier. Be cautious by wisdom, not by reward. For neither will you be at once safe even from the people, if you have redeemed the military offices. For your protection, then, you have need of both faith and wisdom together; without which, you may even lose your redemption, and with which, you will not desire redemption. Lastly, if you cannot assemble by day, you have the night, luminous with the light of Christ against it. You cannot run about among individuals; let the church be for you even in three. It is better that you sometimes not see your crowds than that you make them over. Keep for Christ the virgin bride; let no one make gain of her. These things, brother, perhaps seem hard and intolerable to you; but recall that God said, "He that can receive it, let him receive it"—that is, "He that cannot receive it, let him depart." He cannot be His who suffered, who fears to suffer. But he who fears not to suffer, he will be perfect in love—of God, surely. For perfect love casts out fear. And therefore many are called, few chosen. He is not sought who is prepared to follow the broad way, but he who follows the narrow. And therefore the Paraclete is necessary, the guide of all truths, the exhorter to all endurances. They who have received Him have known neither to flee persecution nor to redeem it, having Him who will be for us, as He will speak in the interrogation, so He will help in the passion.