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 con
demned 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
Himself
1477
. 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.
1476
Matt. v. 10
.
1477
Wisd. iii. 57
.