Persecution Comes from the Devil

Since, then, these are our Savior’s commands, and this is how the saints have acted, let these people tell us where they learned to persecute. No one can give them a name that fits their character. Let them, I say, tell us. They cannot say they learned it from the saints. No, they learned it from the devil, for that is the only answer left to them. They learned it from the one who says, “I will pursue, I will overtake.” Our Lord commanded us to flee, and the saints fled. But persecution is a device of the devil, and one he wants to use against everyone. So let them tell us which we ought to submit to: the words of the Lord, or their inventions? Whose conduct ought we to imitate: that of the saints, or that of the people whose example these men have taken up? [a]

But they probably cannot decide this question. For, as Isaiah said, their minds and their consciences are blinded, and they think “bitter is sweet” and “light is darkness.” So let someone from among us Christians come forward, rebuke them, and cry out in a loud voice: “It is better to trust in the Lord than to pay attention to the foolish sayings of these men. For the words of the Lord have eternal life, but what these men say is full of wickedness and blood.”