Shall we then who have fled to God return to the world? Shall we who are dead to sin seek out sins again? Shall we who have renounced the world and the use of it again cling fast in its mire? Let us flee from here, for the time is short. Hear how you may flee: 'And those who have wives, let them be as though they had none; and those who weep, as though they wept not; and those who rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and those who buy, as though they possessed not; and those who use this world, as though they used it not; for the fashion of this world passes away.' Let not our works therefore pass away together with the passing fashion of the world, lest we ourselves also pass away; but let us abide in the truth. If we abide in Christ, we abide in the truth, and with Him we shall abide, and shall not pass away, but shall say:
'The blessing of the Lord be upon you; we bless you in the name of the Lord' (Ps. 129:8). For those who pass away cannot say this, since those passing along the way did not say: 'The blessing of the Lord be upon you,' as the prophet said. And so, if we wish that our works do not pass away, let us not pass by the commandment of God, let us not pass by the diligence of seeking the Lord Jesus, of earning His grace. That woman did not pass Him by, who, having entered even into the house of the Pharisee in which Christ reclined, poured ointment upon His feet.
Let us not pass by the advancement of any discipline, as also the young Joseph did not pass it by, since he sought his brothers and hastened to that place where they were pasturing the sheep; and when he had learned that they were in Dothan, he proceeded thither. Now by that word 'Dothan' is signified a fitting failing, that is, a failing of vain opinions, not a moderate one, but a perfect and full one, in which there is the advancement of the soul. For the wise man, when he diminishes, adds; for worldly opinions fail, which are compared to weak women. Whence beautifully, to show that Sarah had come to advancement, that she might generate laughter and joy, it says: 'It had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.'
Good therefore is the failing of lusts, the failing of vanity, since it is the addition of truth. Whence the holy one also says: 'My soul has fainted for your salvation.' For she was about to bring forth him whom God had granted and had also promised, about to bring forth joy and that sober drunkenness of gladness, about to bring forth a birth before the expected time by the swiftness of her wit, pregnant with wisdom. In short, you have also concerning the other Hebrew women that the Hebrew women bring forth before the midwives come, because the souls of the just do not wait for arts and disciplines for the sake of various inventions, nor do they seek aids for bringing forth, but pour forth their offspring of their own accord and anticipate the expectation.
Nor was Jacob less prompt in finding than in carrying out, to whom, when his mother had told him to bring food to his father, we see that kinds of definitions were at hand. For he both quickly found and testified that God was the author of his findings, in which both the palm of diligence and the abundance of native wit are signified. The first definition therefore is in invention. What is found is sought, and what is sought belongs to time, and what belongs to time belongs surely to diligence. But what anticipates the use of time, God infuses, God gives; what God gives belongs to nature, not to diligence. Native wit therefore is of the divine gift, and what is of the divine gift, this belongs to nature. Native wit therefore is of nature, invention of diligence: the one is without time, the other needs time.
And therefore the one is ready at the time, the other is investigated in the span of time; the one is above us, the other is referred to us. To the father therefore seeking the food of the word — for man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God; such food Isaac sought, such food Peter hungered for when he saw the mysteries of the Gentile people who were to believe — Esau did not have ready at hand the food of a spiritual and swifter wit. While he hunts and seeks and prepares to offer a very hard and rustic discourse, Jacob anticipates him with swift invention and with a mild and almost homely response, ministering a sweet word with which he might soothe and delight him. Whence the father, marveling, says: 'What is this, that you have found so quickly, my son?' Jacob answered:
'Because the Lord your God delivered it into my hands' (Gen. 27:20). The first definition is in the question, the second in the answer. The father therefore, finding all things full, concluded with the consummation of the definition the things which were either of wit or of diligence, saying: 'Behold, the smell of my son is as the smell of a full field which the Lord has blessed.' For a field has both the natural endowment of fertility and the temporal diligence of cultivation, and deservedly there is in it a fullness to which neither of the two is lacking. At the same time, when he added 'which the Lord has blessed,' he seems to have preferred the grace of nature to the labor of cultivation. And Esau confirmed this, saying: 'Justly was his name called Jacob; for he has supplanted me now twice, and has taken my birthright.' But perhaps you may say:
Wherein did he tarry who was sent by his father to the hunt? But consider that the father also declared that he could not have ready what was being asked spiritually. And therefore, because the support of wit or of diligence was lacking, he demanded that it be supplied. He admonishes him also of swiftness, who says: 'Take bow and arrow.' Yet he too receives the fruit of diligence who acknowledges that the gift of wit is higher. And not undeservedly did he bring homely foods, who from the domestic seeds of his own wisdom acquired for himself the union. But good diligence is with wisdom, and invention with natural wit. In short, holy Isaac, having at hand the union of wisdom, was walking in the field, or rather was being carried away from himself.
And let us first be joined to wisdom, and so go out into the field, desiring to seek and to find. For many without wisdom seek amiss. And therefore Cain, because he had not received prudence from God, sought amiss, went out amiss into the field; but Abel went out well, who fulfilled the perfect gift of sacrifice; for good is the sacrifice of wisdom, a good victim is faith and every virtue. In short, wisdom has slain her victims and mingled her wine in the bowl. And therefore, that she might give the drink of faith to the foolish Gentiles, she called them to her bowl, saying: 'Whoever is foolish, let him turn aside to me'; and to those lacking in sense she said: 'Come, eat of my bread and drink the wine which I have mingled for you.'
From this bowl Plato thought he should transfer something into his own books, and to its drink he summoned souls, but he knew not how to satisfy them, who ministered a drink not of faith but of faithlessness. Let us therefore flee from here, as holy Jacob fled from his fatherland; for he knew that the true fatherland was the one above. Let us flee as the harts to the fountains of waters; let our soul too thirst for those which David thirsted for. What is that fountain? Hear Him who says: 'For with you is the fountain of life.' To this fountain let my soul say: 'When shall I come and appear before your face?' For God is the fountain; but let him who desires this fountain pour out his soul over himself, that he may leave nothing to the possession of the flesh, but that everywhere the soul may overflow.
Beautifully did Susanna pour herself out, so that the fires of the body, the terrors of death, and the desires of life could not blaze up within her. Her soul, poured out over herself, quenched every carnal desire and worldly ambition. She was even able to extinguish the flames of those monstrous old men and shameless elders, in whom the flood of lust had overflowed. When slander was leveled against her by these men, on the ground that, if assent to adultery were refused, Susanna groaned and said: 'I am hemmed in on every side. For if I do this, I shall perish in eternal death; but if I do not, I shall not escape your hands.' Yet she judged it better to flee the crime than the danger. And so she wept, when the crime was laid against her:
She wept when, concerning a chaste and pure woman, they claimed for themselves the judgment proper to adulterers; she wept not in lamenting death, but lamenting the slander against her chastity, the injury to her religion, and she poured out over herself not her body, but her soul; for she would have poured out her body, had she yielded to carnal things. At last, when she was condemned to death, she cried out as one who is judge of the guilty, arbiter of the slanderers, and by the authority of an innocent conscience she summoned the divine knowledge into judgment for herself, stirred not by fear of death, but lifted high by the power of a reproving censure. Susanna therefore fled the world and entrusted herself to God, fleeing to that citadel of the eternal city which embraces the whole world, since within God are all things.
Paul too fled, that he might escape, let down through a window in a basket — for he knew that a triple cord of esparto cannot be broken — but he fled so that he might preach the Gospel of the Lord throughout the whole world, and therefore he was caught up into paradise. Let us too flee through the window, hearkening to the commands of the Lord and keeping watch with a sober gaze and chastity of the eyes. Let us flee, like Lot, the crimes of Sodom, dreading them more than their punishments. For surely he flees the contagions of wickedness more piously who shut his house against the men of Sodom and, dwelling among them, did not know them whose outrages he was ignorant of and whose disgraces he turned away from, nor did he, in fleeing, look back upon those whose ways of life he did not desire.
He flees, then, like Lot, who renounces vices, who disowns the manners of the inhabitants, who does not look back behind himself, who enters that higher city by the entrance of his own thoughts and does not withdraw from it until the prince of priests dies, who took away the sin of the world. He indeed died once, but he dies for each one who is baptized into the death of Christ, that we may be buried together with him and rise again with him and walk in the newness of his life. You flee well, if your heart does not imitate the counsels of sinners and their thoughts. You flee well, if your eye flees the cups and the bowls, lest it grow bleared while it lingers over the wine. You flee well, if your eye turns aside from another's wife, so that your tongue may guard the truth.
You flee well, if you do not answer the foolish man according to his folly. You flee well, if you withdraw the step of your feet from the mouth of the senseless. For with evil guides one quickly goes astray; but if you wish to flee well, keep your ways far from their conversations. The prince of priests has died for you, has been crucified for you, that you might cling to his cross. For in that flesh he took upon himself your sins also; the bonds of your transgressions were nailed to that gibbet, so that now you owe nothing to the world, which you once renounced. And rightly you owe nothing. To you it is given to say: 'For the world is crucified to me, and I to the world,' so that you no longer fear death, if you bear Christ, in whom you can say: 'O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?'
For indeed, when that old self of ours was nailed to the cross, sin was destroyed, the sting was blunted, guilt was emptied out, that we might cease henceforth to be slaves to vices. For the old self has departed. But now there is no longer the old self in us, but a new creation, having in itself the likeness of Christ, to the likeness of whose death we have been buried together and have taken up the image of his life, and have received the wings of the spiritual grace. Fly, therefore, in such a way that it may be said of you: 'Who are these who fly like a cloud and like doves with their young?' — that your clouds may drop down righteousness as dew, and your doves may bring forth simplicity.
Sail thus, as those crossing over the world, not as those wandering astray like the ships of Tarshish, that you may direct your course toward the harbors of the understanding and convey thither the riches of the sea. Hasten thus, that it may be said of you: 'They have been made swifter than eagles.' For you see that flight must be taken from the wrath to come, which those will be able to turn aside who have set for themselves a hope of escape through penitence and have drunk in the faith of a reconciliation to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the kingdom from the ages, both now and always and unto all the ages of ages. Amen.