What the Saints Gained in Flight

So, for example, the patriarch Jacob was favored in his flight with many visions, divine ones too. While he himself stayed quiet, he had the Lord on his side, rebuking Laban and thwarting the designs of Esau. Afterward he became the father of Judah, from whom the Lord sprang according to the flesh, and he handed out the blessings to the patriarchs. And when Moses, the beloved of God, was in exile, it was then that he saw that great sight. Kept safe from his persecutors, he was sent as a prophet into Egypt, and being made the minister of those mighty wonders and of the law, he led that great people in the wilderness. [a]

And David, when he was persecuted, wrote the psalm, “My heart uttered a good word,” and, “Our God will come, even visibly, and will not keep silent.” And again he speaks with more confidence, saying, “My eye has seen its desire on my enemies,” and again, “In God I have put my trust; I will not be afraid of what man can do to me.” And when he fled and escaped from Saul “to the cave,” he said, “He has sent from heaven and saved me. He has put to shame those who would trample me underfoot. God has sent his mercy and his truth, and has rescued my soul from the midst of lions.” So he too was saved by God’s arrangement. Afterward he became king, and received the promise that our Lord would come from his seed.

And the great Elijah, when he withdrew to Mount Carmel, called on God and destroyed more than four hundred prophets of Baal at once. And when two captains of fifty with their hundred men were sent to take him, he said, “Let fire come down from heaven,” and so rebuked them. He too was kept safe, so that he anointed Elisha in his own place and became a pattern of discipline for the sons of the prophets. And after the blessed Paul wrote the words, “what persecutions I endured; but out of them all the Lord rescued me, and will rescue me,” he could speak with more confidence and say, “But in all these things we are more than conquerors, for nothing will separate us from the love of Christ.” For it was then that he was caught up to the third heaven and admitted into paradise, where he heard “inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak.” And for this purpose he was kept safe then, so that “from Jerusalem as far as Illyricum” he might “fully preach the good news.”