On Flight in Persecution 12–14

As far as your problem is concerned, brother, you have the answer of our view and its exhortation. Further, whoever asks whether persecution is to be fled must also foresee the next question: whether, if it is not to be fled, it may at least be bought off. So I shall go on to advise you on this too, defining that persecution, which it is agreed is not to be fled, is likewise not to be bought off. The price is the only difference; for just as flight is a buying-off free of charge, so buying-off with money is flight. Certainly this too is the counsel of cowardice. What you fear, you buy off; so you flee. With your feet you have stood; with your money you have run. By the very fact that you have stood, you have fled by buying yourself off. But that you should redeem with money a man whom Christ redeemed with his own blood: how unworthy of God and of his arrangements, who did not spare his own Son for you, that he might become a curse for us, since cursed is he who hangs on a tree; who was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer, so he did not open his mouth, but gave his back to the scourges and his cheeks to blows, and did not turn his face from spitting, and was counted among the lawless, and was delivered to death, even the death of the cross. All this that he might win us back from sins. The sun gave up the day of our purchase. Our re-conveyance is in the underworld, and our contract is in heaven. The eternal gates were lifted up, so that the King of glory, the Lord of hosts, might enter, having bought man from the earth, indeed from the underworld, for heaven. Who is there now who struggles against him, indeed who cheapens and stains his merchandise, bought at so great a price, namely his most precious blood? Better, then, to flee than to become cheaper, if man is not to cost himself as much as he cost the Lord. And the Lord redeemed him from the angelic powers that rule the world, from the spirits of wickedness, from the darkness of this age, from eternal judgment, from everlasting death. But you bargain for him with an informer or a soldier or some petty thief of a governor, under the tunic and in the fold of the garment, as they say, as though for stolen goods: him whom Christ bought in the sight of the whole world, and indeed set free. Will you, then, value this free man at a price and possess him by a price, unless by the same price that, as we have said, he cost the Lord, namely his own blood? Why, then, do you redeem Christ from man, in a man in whom Christ is? Simon too tried to do nothing else when he offered money to the apostles for the Spirit of Christ. So let this man too hear, who by redeeming himself has bought the Spirit of Christ: “Your money go with you to perdition, since you thought the grace of God could be obtained for a price.”

Who, though, would look down on a denier? For what does that extortioner say? “Give me money.” Surely so that he may not betray you, since he is selling nothing other than what he will provide in return for your payment. When you pay, you surely wanted not to be betrayed. But not being betrayed, would you have had to be exposed? So while, by not wanting to be betrayed, you do not want to be exposed, by not wanting it you have denied, because you did not want to be exposed as what you are. “No,” you say; “while I do not want to be exposed as what I am, I have confessed that I am what I do not want to be exposed as, that is, a Christian.” Can Christ, then, claim you as a martyr for having shown him steadfastly? He who buys himself off does not show him. Before one man, perhaps, you have confessed; therefore before many, by not wanting to confess, you have denied. His very safety will judge that the man has fallen, in that he escapes. So he who preferred to escape has fallen. The refusal of martyrdom is also denial. A Christian is saved by money, and he keeps coins for this, that he may not suffer, while he will be rich against God. But Christ was rich in blood for him. Blessed, therefore, are the poor, for theirs, he says, is the kingdom of heaven, who have only their soul in their treasury. If we cannot serve God and mammon, can we be redeemed both by God and by mammon? For who will serve mammon more than one whom mammon has redeemed?

Finally, what example do you use for buying off betrayal? When did the apostles, harassed by persecutions while carrying out their ministry, free themselves with money? And money was surely not lacking to them, from the prices of estates laid at their feet, and certainly from the many wealthy believers, men and women, who also supplied their comforts. When did Onesiphorus or Aquila or Stephanas help them in this way in persecution? Paul indeed, when Felix the governor hoped to receive money for him from the disciples, and even discussed it with him in private, neither paid for himself, nor did the disciples pay for him; those disciples, surely, who, weeping because he persisted in going to Jerusalem and would not guard against the persecutions foretold there, finally said, “The will of God be done.” What was that will? Surely that he should suffer for the name of the Lord, not that he should be bought off. For just as Christ laid down his life for us, so it must be done by us for him, and not only for him but also for our brothers for his sake. John, teaching this, declared not that we must pay for our brothers, but rather that we must die for them. It makes no difference whether it is a Christian you must not redeem or buy. And so this is God's will. Look at the state of kingdoms and empires, surely arranged by God, in whose hand is the heart of the king: so many means of enlarging the treasury are devised daily, censuses, customs, contributions, military levies, and yet never up to now has anything of the kind been devised to be collected from Christians by way of a ransom for the person and the sect, although an enormous harvest could be reaped from so great a multitude, known to everyone. Bought with blood, paid for with blood, we owe no coin for our head, because our head is Christ. It is not fitting that Christ should cost money. And how could martyrdoms take place for the glory of the Lord, if we paid off the sect's licence by tribute? So he who bargains for it with a payment opposes the divine arrangement.

Since, then, Caesar has imposed nothing on us in this way, as a tributary sect, nor could anything of the kind ever be imposed, with the Antichrist now at hand and gaping for the blood, not the money, of Christians, how can Scripture be put to me, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's”? A soldier or an informer or an enemy extorts from me, demanding nothing for Caesar, indeed doing the opposite, when for a fee he lets go a Christian who is guilty under human laws. The denarius I owe to Caesar is a different one: the one that belongs to him, which was then under discussion, the tribute denarius, owed by tributaries, of course, not by the free. Or how shall I render to God the things that are God's, surely in the same way his image and coin, inscribed with his name, that is, the Christian man? And what do I owe God, as the denarius to Caesar, but the blood which his Son shed for me? But if I owe God the man and my blood, and I am now in the time when what I owe God is being demanded of me, I surely defraud God by acting so as not to pay what I owe. A fine way of keeping the precept, rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and denying God the things that are God's!

But I will also give to everyone who asks me, for the sake of almsgiving, not of extortion. “To him who asks,” he says. But he who extorts does not ask. He who threatens if he does not receive is not requesting but wresting. He does not expect 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 the one who receives honours God and returns a blessing to me; not where he even believes he has done me a favour and, looking at his booty, says, “For the guilt.” Shall I be angry even with an enemy? But enmities have other titles too. Yet he did not say a betrayer or a persecutor or an extortioner. For on such a one how much more shall I heap coals of fire, if I do not buy myself off? Likewise he says, “Whoever takes away your tunic, let him have your cloak too.” That applies to one who has sought to snatch my property, not my faith. I will let my cloak go too to one who does not threaten betrayal. If he threatens it, I will even demand my tunic back. All the Lord's sayings have their own occasions and rules. Their limits do not extend indefinitely or to everything. So, although he orders us to give to everyone who asks, he himself does not give a sign to those who ask. Otherwise, if you think one must give indiscriminately to all who ask, you seem to me ready to give, I do not say wine to a man with a fever, but even poison or a sword to one who wants to die. As for “Make friends for yourselves by mammon,” let the parable that precedes it teach you how it is to be understood. It was said to the Jewish people, who, having badly managed the account of the Lord entrusted to them, ought to provide for themselves friends rather than enemies from among the men of mammon, which we were, and to relieve us from the debts of sins by which we were held by God, if they would share with us the Lord's account; so that, when grace began to fail them, they might flee to our faith and be received into the eternal dwellings. Suppose now another interpretation of this parable and saying, so long as you know that it is not likely that our extortioners, won over into friendship by mammon, will then receive us into the eternal dwellings. But what will cowardice not persuade us of? As though Scripture both permitted flight and commanded buying off! In short, it is a small thing if one or another is rescued in this way. Whole churches en masse have levied a tax on themselves. I do not know whether it is to be grieved or blushed at, when Christians too are listed as tax-payers in the registers of the beneficiarii and the curiosi, among shopkeepers and … and bath-thieves and gamblers and pimps. Did the apostles, with greater foresight, lay down this form for the episcopate, so that bishops might enjoy their reign in safety under the pretext of making provision? For of course, when returning to the Father, Christ commanded that such a peace be bought from the soldiers at the Saturnalia!

“But how,” you say, “shall we assemble? How shall we celebrate the Lord's solemnities?” Surely as the apostles did, safe by faith, not by money; and if faith can move a mountain, much more can it move a soldier. Let wisdom, not payment, be your precaution. For you will not at once be safe from the populace as well if you buy off the military officials. So you need both faith and wisdom together for protection; if you do not use them, you may lose even what you paid for, and if you do use them, you will not need to pay. Finally, if you cannot assemble by day, you have the night, made bright against it by the light of Christ. You cannot run about among all of them one by one: let the church be for you even in three. It is better that you should sometimes not see your crowds than hand them over. Keep a virgin bride for Christ; let no one make a profit of her. These things, brother, may seem to you hard and intolerable; but remember that God said, “Let him accept it who can accept it,” that is, let him who cannot accept it go away. He who fears to suffer cannot belong to him who suffered. But he who does not fear to suffer will be perfect in love, the love of God, surely; for perfect love casts out fear. And so many are called, but few chosen. What is sought is not someone ready to follow the broad way, but the narrow one. And therefore the Paraclete is necessary, the guide into all truths, the encourager to every endurance. Those who have received him know neither how to flee persecution nor how to buy it off, since they have him who will be for us, who will speak for us when we are questioned and help us when we suffer.