13. Example of Our Lord

When they see these things, or rather even hear of them, for see they do not, will they not desire, as it is written, to become fuel of fire¹⁴⁴¹ ,' because their counsels and their words are contrary to what the Lord both did and taught? Also when John was martyred, and his disciples buried his body, when Jesus heard of it, He departed thence by ship into a desert place apart¹⁴⁴² .' Thus the Lord acted, and thus He taught. Would that these men were even now ashamed of their conduct, and confined their rashness to man, nor proceeded to such extreme madness as even to charge our Saviour with cowardice! for it is against Him that they now utter their blasphemies. But no one will endure such madness; nay it will be seen that they do not understand the Gospels. The cause must be a reasonable and just one, which the Evangelists represent as weighing with our Saviour to withdraw and to flee; and we ought therefore to assign the same for the conduct of all the Saints. (For whatever is written concerning our Saviour in His human nature, ought to be considered as applying to the whole race of mankind¹⁴⁴³ ; because He took our body, and exhibited in Himself human infirmity.) Now of this cause John has written thus, They sought to take Him: but no man laid hands on Him, because His hour was not yet come¹⁴⁴⁴ .' And before it came, He Himself said to His Mother, Mine hour is not yet come¹⁴⁴⁵ :' and to them who were called His brethren, My time is not yet come¹⁴⁴⁶ .' And again, when His time was come, He said to the disciples, Sleep on now, and take your rest: for behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners¹⁴⁴⁷ .'

14. An hour and a time for all men.

Now in so far as He was God and the Word of the Father, He had no time; for He is Himself the Creator of times¹⁴⁴⁸ . But being made man, He shews by speaking in this manner that there is a time allotted to every man; and that not by chance, as some of the Gentiles imagine in their fables, but a time which He, the Creator, has appointed to every one according to the will of the Father. This is written in the Scriptures, and is manifest to all men. For although it be hidden and unknown to all, what period of time is allotted to each, and how it is allotted; yet every one knows this, that as there is a time for spring and for summer, and for autumn and for winter, so, as it is written¹⁴⁴⁹ , there is a time to die, and a time to live. And so the time of the generation which lived in the days of Noah was cut short, and their years were contracted, because the time of all things was at hand. But to Hezekiah were added fifteen years. And as God promises to them that serve Him truly, I will fulfil the number of thy days¹⁴⁵⁰ ,' Abraham dies full of days,' and David besought God, saying, Take me not away in the midst of my days¹⁴⁵¹ .' And Eliphaz, one of the friends of Job, being assured of this truth, said, Thou shalt come to thy grave like ripe corn, gathered in due time, and like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season¹⁴⁵² .' And Solomon confirming his words, says, The souls of the unrighteous are taken away untimely¹⁴⁵³ .' And therefore he exhorts in the book of Ecclesiastes, saying, Be not overmuch wicked, neither be thou hard: why shouldest thou die before thy time¹⁴⁵⁴ ?'

15. The Lord's hour and time.

Now as these things are written in the Scriptures, the case is clear, that the saints know that a certain time is measured to every man, but that no one knows the end of that time is plainly intimated by the words of David, Declare unto me the shortness of my days¹⁴⁵⁵ .' What he did not know, that he desired to be informed of. Accordingly the rich man also, while he thought that he had yet a long time to live, heard the words, Thou fool, this night they are requiring thy soul: then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided¹⁴⁵⁶ ?' And the Preacher speaks confidently in the Holy Spirit, and says, Man also knoweth not his time¹⁴⁵⁷ .' Wherefore the Patriarch Isaac said to his son Esau, Behold, I am old, and I know not the day of my death¹⁴⁵⁸ .' Our Lord therefore, although as God, and the Word of the Father, He both knew the time measured out by Him to all, and was conscious of the time for suffering, which He Himself had appointed also to His own body; yet since He was made man for our sakes, He hid Himself when He was sought after before that time came, as we do; when He was persecuted, He fled; and avoiding the designs of His enemies He passed by, and so went through the midst of them¹⁴⁵⁹ .' But when He had brought on that time which He Himself had appointed, at which He desired to suffer in the body for all men, He announces it to the Father, saying, Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son¹⁴⁶⁰ .' And then He no longer hid Himself from those who sought Him, but stood willing to be taken by them; for the Scripture says, He said to them that came unto Him, Whom seek ye¹⁴⁶¹ ?' and when they answered, Jesus of Nazareth,' He saith unto them, I am He whom ye seek.' And this He did even more than once; and so they straightway led Him away to Pilate. He neither suffered Himself to be taken before the time came, nor did He hide Himself when it was come; but gave Himself up to them that conspired against Him, that He might shew to all men that the life and death of man depend upon the divine sentence; and that without our Father which is in heaven, neither a hair of man's head can become white or black, nor a sparrow ever fall into the snare¹⁴⁶² .

6. The Lord's example followed by the Saints.

Our Lord therefore, as I said before, thus offered Himself for all; and the Saints having received this example from their Saviour (for all of them before His coming, nay always, were under His teaching), in their conflicts with their persecutors acted lawfully in flying, and hiding themselves when they were sought after. And being ignorant, as men, of the end of the time which Providence had appointed unto them, they were unwilling at once to deliver themselves up into the power of those who conspired against them. But knowing on the other hand what is written, that the portions' of man are in God's hand¹⁴⁶³ ,' and that the Lord killeth¹⁴⁶⁴ ,' and the Lord maketh alive,' they the rather endured unto the end, wandering about¹⁴⁶⁵ ,' as the Apostle has said, in sheepskins, and goatskins, being destitute, tormented, wandering in deserts,' and hiding themselves in dens and caves of the earth;' until either the appointed time of death arrived, or God who had appointed their time spake unto them, and stayed the designs of their enemies, or else delivered up the persecuted to their persecutors, according as it seemed to Him to be good. This we may well learn respecting all men from David: for when Joab instigated him to slay Saul, he said, As the Lord liveth, the Lord shall smite him; or his day shall come to die; or he shall descend into battle, and be delivered to the enemies; the Lord forbid that I should stretch forth my hand against the Lord's anointed¹⁴⁶⁶ .'

17. A time to flee and a time to stay.

And if ever in their flight they came unto those that sought after them, they did not do so without reason: but when the Spirit spoke unto them, then as righteous men they went and met their enemies; by which they also shewed their obedience and zeal towards God. Such was the conduct of Elijah, when, being commanded by the Spirit, he shewed himself unto Ahab¹⁴⁶⁷ ; and of Micaiah the prophet when he came to the same Ahab; and of the prophet who cried against the altar in Samaria, and rebuked Rehoboam¹⁴⁶⁸ ; and of Paul when he appealed unto Cæsar. It was not certainly through cowardice that they fled: God forbid. The flight to which they submitted was rather a conflict and war against death. For with wise caution they guarded against these two things; either that they should offer themselves up without reason (for this would have been to kill themselves, and to become guilty of death, and to transgress the saying of the Lord, What God hath joined let not man put asunder¹⁴⁶⁹ '), or that they should willingly subject themselves to the reproach of negligence, as if they were unmoved by the tribulations which they met with in their flight, and which brought with them sufferings greater and more terrible than death. For he that dies, ceases to suffer; but he that flies, while he expects daily the assaults of his enemies, esteems death lighter. They therefore whose course was consummated in their flight did not perish dishonourably, but attained as well as others the glory of martyrdom. Therefore it is that Job was accounted a man of mighty fortitude, because he endured to live under so many and such severe sufferings, of which he would have had no sense, had he come to his end. Wherefore the blessed Fathers thus regulated their conduct also; they shewed no cowardice in fleeing from the persecutor, but rather manifested their fortitude of soul in shutting themselves up in close and dark places, and living a hard life. Yet did they not desire to avoid the time of death when it arrived; for their concern was neither to shrink from it when it came, nor to forestall the sentence determined by Providence, nor to resist His dispensation, for which they knew themselves to be preserved; lest by acting hastily, they should become to themselves the cause of terror: for thus it is written, He that is hasty, with his lips, shall bring terror upon himself¹⁴⁷⁰ .'

18. The Saints who fled were no cowards.

Of a truth no one can possibly doubt that they were well furnished with the virtue of fortitude. For the Patriarch Jacob who had before fled from Esau, feared not death when it came, but at that very time blessed the Patriarchs, each according to his deserts. And the great Moses, who previously had hid himself from Pharaoh, and had withdrawn into Midian for fear of him, when he received the commandment, Return into Egypt¹⁴⁷¹ ,' feared not to do so. And again, when he was bidden to go up into the mountain Abarim¹⁴⁷² and die, he delayed not through cowardice, but even joyfully proceeded thither. And David, who had before fled from Saul, feared not to risk his life in war in defence of his people; but having the choice of death or of flight set before him, when he might have fled and lived, he wisely preferred death. And the great Elijah, who had at a former time hid himself from Jezebel, shewed no cowardice when he was commanded by the Spirit to meet Ahab, and to reprove Ahaziah. And Peter, who had hid himself for fear of the Jews, and the Apostle Paul who was let down in a basket, and fled, when they were told, Ye must bear witness at Rome¹⁴⁷³ ,' deferred not the journey; yea, rather, they departed rejoicing¹⁴⁷⁴ ; the one as hastening to meet his friends, received his death with exultation; and the other shrunk not from the time when it came, but gloried in it, saying, For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand¹⁴⁷⁵ .'

19. The Saints courageous in their flight, and divinely favoured.

These things both prove that their previous flight was not the effect of cowardice; and testify that their after conduct also was of no ordinary character: and they loudly proclaim that they possessed in a high degree the virtue of fortitude. For neither did they withdraw themselves on account of a slothful timidity, on the contrary, they were at such times under the practice of a severer discipline than at others; nor were they condemned for their flight, or charged with cowardice, by such as are now so fond of criminating others. Nay they were blessed through that declaration of our Lord, Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake.¹⁴⁷⁶ ' Nor yet were these their sufferings without profit to themselves; for having tried them as gold in the furnace,' as Wisdom has said, God found them worthy of Himself¹⁴⁷⁷ . And then they shone the more like sparks,' being saved from them that persecuted them, and delivered from the designs of their enemies, and preserved to the end that they might teach the people; so that their flight and escape from the rage of them that sought after them, was according to the dispensation of the Lord. And so they became dear in the sight of God, and had the most glorious testimony to their fortitude.