Bearing Insults as Christ Did

I have read the document that our friend and good brother sent from the East to Pammachius, a distinguished member of the Senate, which you copied and forwarded to me. It brought to my mind the words of the prophet: “The sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.” But for the wounds that people inflict on one another with the tongue we can hardly find a physician. So I have gone to Jesus, the heavenly physician, and he has brought out for me, from the medicine chest of the Gospel, an antidote of supreme power. He has eased the violence of my grief with the assurance of the righteous judgment I will receive at his hands. The dose our Lord gave me was nothing other than these words: “Blessed are you when people persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely. Rejoice and leap for joy, for great is your reward in heaven; for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” With this medicine I was content, and as far as the matter concerned me, I had decided to keep silent from then on. For I said to myself, “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more those of his household?” (that is, you and me, unworthy though we are). And if it was said of him, “He is a deceiver; he deceives the people,” I must not be indignant when I hear that I am called a heretic, and that the name of mole is given to me because of the slowness of my mind, or even my blindness. Christ, who is my Lord, yes, and who is God over all, was called “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” How then can I be angry when I am called a man of the flesh who lives in luxury? [a]