Today's reading has shaken hearts, struck the inward parts, stupefied the hearing. Behold, it says, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in dreams, saying: Arise, take the child and His mother, and flee into Egypt (Matthew II). To Him being born virginity offers no resistance, reason does not oppose, nature does not contradict—what power, what force, what peril prevails, that He should be compelled to flee? Take the child and His mother, and flee into Egypt. It would speak more reverently, Go into Egypt, that it might be a journey, not a flight; a choice, not a necessity; a judgment, not a fear; at least human, if not divine: but now flight is commanded, commanded from heaven, commanded through an angel, that heaven might seem to have followed fear more closely than earth. Take the child and His mother, and flee into Egypt.
Flee into Egypt from your own to strangers, from the holy to the sacrilegious; from your temple to the shrines of demons, to the homeland of idols from the region of the saints. Thus the breadth of Judaea does not suffice, thus the diffused possession of the world is straitened, the secret of the temple does not hold Him. The throng of priests does not receive Him, the untraceable multitude of kinsmen does not hide Him, so that profane Egypt is chosen for the hiding-places of the Deity: so does the matter press, if there is no leisure to regard the modesty of the Virgin, the toil of the mother, the shame of her sex, the peril in Joseph, the fatigue of the long distance, the ruin of the whole household, and—what is harder than these—that Jews would be sojourners among the Gentiles, with whom there is no communion, nay rather a profound shipwreck of the law through transgression.
O how hard is sojourning, even among fellow-citizens and brothers! He knows what his own home is, who feels a stranger's: and where is that word: Lord, You have become a refuge for us (Psalm XC)? And, Our God is a refuge and strength (Psalm XLVI)? If the refuge flees, if strength fears, if the safeguard migrates, what life, what hope, what security, what defence remains? Against the snares of a free king, one widow suffices for Elijah (1 Kings XVII); against the threats of the captive Herod, all Judaea does not suffice for Christ. Elijah consumes with heavenly fire those sent to him (2 Kings I), Christ is made safe by flight alone. Let it suffice thus far to have amplified the complaints of Christ's flight. Brethren, that Christ fled belonged to mystery, not to fear; it was a deliverance, not a peril of the Creator;
it belonged to divine power, it was not of human frailty; He did not flee on account of the Author's death, but He fled on account of the world's life. For He who had come to die, why should He flee death? Christ would slay the whole cause of our salvation, if He had allowed Himself as a little one to be slain. Christ had come, that those whom He had taught by precepts He might strengthen by examples, and Himself do the things He had commanded to be done; and by sight might prove possible those things which seemed impossible to the hearing. He had come, that He might pour into the world the knowledge of His deity, and take away the ignorance of the human race. He had come, that by His powers He might rouse the sluggish hearts of mortals to faith.
He had come to overcome the devil in open combat, so that the devil might be conquered both by divine command and laid low by human example. He had come to fulfil the promises of His presence, so that to those to whom He had granted to know Him, He might grant also to see Him. He had come that the Jew might come forth from his contempt of the Law; He had come to lead the Gentiles into the faith. He had come to choose apostles as teachers of the world, to fill them with heavenly doctrines, to fortify them with virtues, to arm them with signs, so that by signs they might tame the fierce, by virtues heal the sick, and by doctrines instruct the teachable:
and, to sum up, He had come to destroy death by dying, to dissolve hell by descending into it, to open the tombs by rising again, and by ascending into heaven to bestow heavenly things upon earthly men. All these things assuredly would have perished for us, if Christ, while He was in the cradle, had not fled. But you, O hearer, may say: Since He could have done otherwise, why did He submit Himself to so many and such great injuries? Why? First, because man could not be saved without a man, nor could human injuries be cut away without human injuries: he takes up another's cause who wishes to guard against harm for him; he who does not suffer with cannot cut away sufferings. Christ took us up into Himself, that He might give Himself to us; He bore our sufferings, that He might take away our sufferings.
This is why Christ fled: that He might temper our flights in persecutions. A martyr who has been seized ought to hold fast his constancy; one not yet seized ought to flee his persecutor, so that he may both grant the persecutor time to repent and not deprive himself of the time for supplication, as the Lord says: If they persecute you in this city, flee into another (Matt. x). He who provokes his persecutor makes one; he who avoids him corrects him. We ought therefore to flee, not to provoke, if we wish our persecutors to be saved, for whom it is commanded that we should pray. Pray, He says, for those who persecute you (Matt. v). We must pray, we must flee, so that both he who rages through ignorance may be healed,
and he who suffers may receive the palm from his patience, and not incur peril from his rashness. Brethren, if the martyrs had not fled from Saul, they would not have made Paul a martyr. This is what Christ taught should be done; this example He left to us, so that, when the Lord flees, the servant may not think it unworthy to flee. And there is another reason why Christ fled: because as an infant He deferred the time of His passion, because He ascended the cross beyond the thirtieth year of His bodily life; so that He who had made man perfect for life might restore him, made perfect, unto life; and such as He had given him to earth, such He might render him to heaven. And that He fled into Egypt proceeds to yet another cause. He fled into Egypt, that through the faith of the Gentiles He might chastise the perfidy of the Jews:
for the Lord, whom Judea had put to flight, Egypt received in obedient homage, so that in a figure He might reveal His Church as to be preferred over the Synagogue, the Gentiles over the Jews in the faith. Whither zeal tends, whither envy leaps forth, whither jealousy is borne, the Herodian savagery has this day laid bare: while it envied the narrow bounds of a temporal kingdom, it strove to extinguish the rising of the eternal King, as the evangelist says: Then Herod, seeing that he had been mocked by the wise men, was exceedingly angry: and sending, he slew all the children that were in Bethlehem and in all its borders (Matt. ii). Seeing that he had been mocked by the wise men. Impiety grieves that it has been mocked, cruelty rages that it has been thwarted, deceit fumes that it has been outwitted, and fraud, turned back upon itself, is dashed to pieces.
Herod gnashes his teeth as he himself falls into the snare he had stretched out: hence he unsheathes the iniquity he had contrived; from faith he takes up the arms of perfidy; with earthly fury he seeks Him whom he does not believe born from heaven; he drives the soldiers' camps to the bosoms of mothers, he assaults the citadel of piety amid the breasts, upon tender breasts he hardens the sword, he pours out weeping before blood, he gives them to feel death before life, he heaps darkness upon those entering into the light. Thus speaks the master of evil, the minister of guile, the artificer of wrath, the inventor of crime, the author of impiety, the plunderer of piety, the enemy of innocence, the foe of nature, evil to all, worse to his own, worst to himself: whom Christ fled, not that He might escape, but that He might not behold him. Reaching for the heights, he falls from on high; striking at heaven, he enters the deep;
he goes against himself who goes against God; he slays himself who tries to slay Life, because salvation cannot be seized by destruction, nor life by killing, nor eternity by an end. O ambition, ever how blind! O presumption, ever how wicked! O how he loses what is granted, who grasps at what is forbidden! Herod, besieging an earthly kingdom, assails the heavenly one; gaping after earthly things, he rushes upon the divine, and with utter impiety persecutes piety itself. He had heard that a King was born; he had asked where, when, whence, and to what end; but how he ought to have acted, that he did not ask, because in him was the love of sinning, and no love of innocence remained. Destined for wickedness, ready for sacrilege, prepared for crime,
he does not inquire into the claims of innocence, he abrogates justice, he confounds right and wrong; wickedness is his companion, equity is hateful to him, iniquity is ever his friend; he lives by slaughters, he fortifies himself with blood, he pursues credulity, on whom fear rests wholly, on love nothing stands firm. Herod then, blind, thus seeks Christ with swords, tracks Him by gore, searches Him out by cruelty; fearing a successor, he attacks the Author; he slays the innocent, wishing innocence itself to perish.
The ruler of the people, the guardian of morals, the censor of discipline, the investigator of justice, the defender of equity, the preserver of innocence, the enlarger of the people, makes the innocent's cause the crime of the innocent, turns the gift of the prophets into a punishment, commands that the rising of the Author be the setting of those rising, decrees that the business of the Saviour be the peril of those to be saved. A judge summons those who hear, questions those who speak, convicts those who deny, presses the accused, strikes down the guilty, rebukes the accomplices, adds on the confederates, hands over to sentence those detected. But the infants—what of them? Whose tongue was silent, whose eyes saw nothing, whose ears heard nothing, whose hands did nothing, and of whom there is no deed—whence the guilt? They received death who knew not how to live; their tender age did not profit them.
Their age did not excuse them, their silence did not defend them, for whom before Herod their only crime was that they had been born. And truly, how should they not render to nature what was entrusted, when from them the Author's cause was being exacted? Unhappy man, who prepared everything for his own accusation, who left no room for excuse, but prepared all for punishment! Who shall excuse him, whom innocence beats upon, whom infancy assails, whom milk accuses like blood? This much against Herod. But Christ, foreknowing things to come, conscious of secrets, judge of thoughts, searcher of minds—why did He forsake those whom He knew would be sought on His account, and knew would be slain on His account?
The new-born King, and the heavenly King—why did He neglect the soldiers of His innocence, why did He despise an army of the same age as Himself, why did He so leave the sentinels assigned to His cradle, that the enemy, about to seek the King alone, raged wholly against the soldiery? Brethren, Christ did not despise His soldiers, but advanced them; to whom He gave to triumph before to live, whom He made to seize victory without a struggle; whom He endowed with crowns before with limbs; whom He willed to pass beyond vices by virtues, to possess heaven before earth, and not to be grafted into human things before divine. Christ therefore sent His soldiers on ahead, He did not lose them; He received His battle-ranks, He did not abandon them. Blessed are they whom we have seen to be born for martyrdom, not for the world.
Blessed are they who exchanged toils for rest, sorrows for refreshment, mournings for joy. They live, they live who truly live, who are counted worthy to be slain for Christ. Blessed are the wombs that bore such ones, blessed the breasts that poured themselves out for such, blessed the tears that, shed for such, conferred the grace of baptism upon them as they wept. For in a different manner, by one gift, the mothers are baptized in their tears, and the sons in their own blood. In the martyrdom of their sons the mothers suffered; for the sword, passing through the limbs of the sons, reached the hearts of the mothers, and it must needs be that they are sharers of the reward who were companions of the passion.
The little one smiled at his slayer, the infant played with the sword, the suckling in place of his nurse gazed upon the horror of his executioner, the age doomed to die yet knowing nothing of the light rejoiced; the infant son looks upon every man not as an enemy but as a parent. The mothers bore whatever there was of anguish and of grief, and therefore they shall not lack the joy of martyrdom, they who shed the tears of martyrdom. Here let the hearer attend, let him attend, that he may understand that martyrdom does not stand by merit but comes by grace. In these little ones, what will was there, what choice, where nature itself was held captive? For martyrdom, therefore, we owe everything to God, nothing to ourselves.
To conquer the devil, to yield up the body, to despise one's own flesh, to bear torments, to weary the torturer, to seize glory out of injuries, life out of death—this is not of human virtue, it is of a divine gift. He who runs to martyrdom by his own strength does not through Christ attain the crown; but may He Himself lead us to the heavenly pasture, who deigned to lie for our sake in a stable, Jesus Christ of Nazareth our Lord, who lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen.