Chapter 11
TERTU LLIAN
You have put on Christ, you have been baptized into Christ,5 yet you flee before the Devil! You certainly make little of Christ who is in you when, as a fugitive, you hand yourself back to the Devil!
(3) In trying to run away from the Lord you show up the fickleness of all who plan flight. A certain headstrong Prophet also had run away from the Lord, crossing the sea from Joppa to Tarsus,6 7 as if he could escape from God, but God found him, not on land or on sea, but in the belly of a beast, where for three days he could not die,8 or even in that way escape from the eyes of God. Is that man not better off who, though he fears the enemy of God, does not flee from, but despises, him, trusting in the protection of God, or, if you will, has an even greater fear of God, having stood the longer in His eyes and says: 'He is the Lord, He is mighty, all things are His, and wherever I shall be I am in His hands; let Him do what He will, I shall not run away, and if He wishes me to die, let Him destroy me, as long as I faithfully serve Him. Much would I rather bring odium on Him, by dying according to His Will, than to live by my own cowardice.'
Chapter 11 (1) Thus should every servant of God both think and act, even if he is in a lower station of life, that he might rise higher, if, perchance, by bearing the storm of persecution he may raise himself somewhat. But, when those in authority—
6 Cf. Gal. 3.27.
7 Cf. Jonas 1.3.
8 Cf. Jonas 2.1.
FLIGHT IN TIME OF PERSECUTION
I mean deacons, priests, and bishops—take flight, how is the mere layman to understand the sense in which it was said:
'Flee from city to city'? When the leaders run away, who of the common crowd can hope to persuade anyone to stand firm in battle? Without a doubt, the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep,1 as Moses said, at a time when Christ, the Lord, had not yet come, but was prefigured in Moses:
'If you will destroy this people, then destroy me also along with it.'2
(2) Besides, Christ Himself has confirmed this prefigurement of Himself when He said that he is a wicked shepherd who flees when he sees the wolf and leaves the flock to be devoured.3 Such a shepherd will be banished from the farm, his separation pay will be kept from him as compensation for the damage; in fact, he will have to pay back something from his former wages, to indemnify the losses of his master.
'For to him who has shall be given and from him who does not have even that which he seems to have shall be taken away.'4 Thus Zacharias threatens: 'Arise, O sword, against the shepherds, and pluck ye out the sheep and I will turn my hand against the shepherds.'5 And against them Ezechiel and Jeremias thunder with similar recriminations, in that they have not merely battened upon their sheep and fattened themselves, but they have themselves dispersed the flock and, without a leader to guide them, left them the prey to all the beasts of the field.6 For, this is what happens when the Church is deserted by the clergy in time of persecution.
1 Cf. John 10.11.
2 Cf. Exod. 32.32.
3 Cf. John 10.12.
4 Luke 8.18.
5 Zach. 13.7.
6 Cf. Ezech. 34.2ff.; Jer. 23.Iff.