The Example of Our Lord

When they see these things, or rather even hear of them, for see them they do not, will they not wish, as it is written, to become “fuel for the fire,” since their counsels and their words are contrary to what the Lord both did and taught? Again, when John was martyred and his disciples had buried his body, “when Jesus heard of it, he left there by boat for a deserted place by himself.” So the Lord acted, and so he taught. If only these men were ashamed of their conduct even now, and kept their rashness to men, and did not go on to such extreme madness as to charge even our Savior with cowardice! For it is against him that they are now uttering their blasphemies. But no one will put up with such madness. Indeed, it will be plain that they do not understand the Gospels. [a]

The cause which the evangelists present as moving our Savior to withdraw and flee must be a reasonable and just one, and so we ought to give the same cause for the conduct of all the saints. For whatever is written about our Savior in his human nature ought to be taken as applying to the whole human race, because he took our body and showed human weakness in himself. Now John has written of this cause as follows: “They sought to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come.” And before it came, he himself said to his mother, “My hour has not yet come,” and to those who were called his brothers, “My time has not yet come.” And again, when his time had come, he said to the disciples, “Sleep on now and take your rest; for look, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.”