Chapter 7
FLIGHT IN TIME OF PERSECUTION 289
they should any longer flee from persecution. Otherwise they might surely have mentioned the former command of the Lord to Paul whom they wished to save from that persecution.
(7) Since, therefore, a time limit was set to the command to flee, even in the times of the Apostles, as well as a limit to other precepts given at the same time, it surely would not be right for us to prolong a practice which ceased with our teachers, even if it had not originally been permitted exclus ively to them. If God had wanted it to continue, then the Apostles did wrong in not continuing to flee before persecu tion to the end of their normal lives.
Chapter 7 (1) Let us examine next whether or not the other com mands of the Lord are in accord with a lasting precept of flight from persecution. First of all, if persecution comes from God, how could it be that we would have a command always to avoid it, given by the very one who sends us such trials?
If He wanted us to avoid it, He would have done better not to send it at all, lest His will should seem to be thwarted by another will. He wanted us either to face persecution or to flee from it. If we were to flee, how could we suffer? And, if we are destined to suffer, how can we run from it? As you see, there is a basic inconsistency if the same one bids us flee from persecution and at the same time invites us to suffering, which is the very opposite. 'He who will acknowl edge me [before men], him will I also acknowledge before my Father.'1 How can a runaway acknowledge Christ? l Matt. 10.32.
TERTULLIAN
And, if he is to acknowledge Him, he obviously cannot run away. 'He who is ashamed of Me, him will I be ashamed of before my Father.'2 If I avoid suffering, I am ashamed to acknowledge Christ. 'Happy are those who suffer persecution for my name's sake.'3 From that it follows that those who, by fleeing, will avoid suffering according to the divine command will be unhappy! 'He who has persevered to the end will be saved.'4
(2) How can you want me to flee and, at the same time, persevere until the end? If such an inconsistency seems hardly in accord with the divine dignity, it should then be clear from all this that there was a specific and temporary reason for the command to flee, as I have shown above. However, someone might offer the explanation that 'the Lord in His goodness took pity on the weakness of some which He foresaw and therefore He suggested a haven of safety in flight.' Do you mean to say that the only way God could have saved some of us whose frailty He recognized would be by offering the mean, unworthy, and slavish chance of flight? In fact, He does not cherish the weak, but always rebuffs them, teaching that persecutors are not to be avoided, but should be boldy faced. Does He not tell us: 'Do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but can do no harm to the soul, but rather be afraid of him who can destroy both soul and body in hell'?5
Moreover, what is His answer to cowards? 'He who thinks more of his own life than of Me is not worthy of Me and he who does not take up his cross and follow Me, cannot be My disciple.'6 And finally, in the Apocalypse, it is not flight that 2 Matt. 10.33; cf. Mark 8.38; Luke 9.26.
3 Cf. Matt. 5.10,11.
4 Matt. 10.22.
5 Matt. 10.28.
6 Cf. Matt. 10.38; Luke 14.26,27.
FLIGHT IN TIME OF PERSECUTION
He offers to the fearful, but a miserable portion among the rest of the damned in the pit of brimstone and fire, which is the second death.7
Chapter 8 (1) Christ Himself fled from violence on occasion, but He did it for the same reason for which He had commanded the Apostles do so—namely, until He had fulfilled His mission.
When He had done that, He not merely stood firm [to face His persecutors], but He refused to ask of His Father assistance in the form of the angelic hosts, and He even ob jected when St. Peter reached for his sword.1 He likewise said that His soul was troubled unto death2 and His flesh weak. He did this to teach us two lessons: the first—to teach us by the weakness of His body and the timidity of His soul that both of these substances were truly human, lest you should think that the soul and body of Christ were different from ours, as some people have recently suggested;3 and second—by giving proof - of their human weakness, to show us that both of them were unequal to the task without the strength of the Spirit.
7 Cf. Apoc. 21.8.
1 Cf. Matt. 26.53,54.
2 Matt. 26.38.
3 Tertullian has in mind the Gnostics (especially Marcion, the latter's chief disciple, Apelles, and Valentinus and his school) whose teachings were based on a radical antithesis between spirit and matter, the latter being regarded inferior to the former and intrin sically evil. Hence, they also found it impossible to think of God becoming man in any real sense, and denied the full humanity of Christ. Though the above-mentioned Gnostics differed widely in their position, they were all Docetists, i.e., they reduced the historic Christ to a phantom Jesus whose suffering was only a 'semblance' (6oK£iv) .