Let us run with patience: let us not stand still, but neither let us be disturbed; but with patience. What then? Is patience yours? Far from it. Hear the blessed martyr Cyprian: in a certain chapter of his he speaks thus: 'Patience is a thing of God' (Sermon on the Good of Patience). Whence he himself says of the Holy Spirit through David, 'You are my patience.' And to show by whom he ran, and to what he attained: 'O Lord,' he says, 'my hope from my youth' (Ps. 70:5). But Paul, speaking of the manifold cloud of witnesses, offered the sun, through which we ought to see the light. For he says, as to those set in darkness: 'Looking unto the Prince of faith and its Perfecter, Jesus.' If He is the Prince, He is the perfection; it is true that without Him we can do nothing.
But what did He do that we ought to imitate? Surely not that He is God? Surely not that He is equal to the Father? Surely not that He is the Creator of heaven and earth? Who would imitate this? O man, when will the creature be made equal to the Creator? Do not be proudly wise; hear what you ought to imitate. With joy set before Him, He endured the cross; for the example of the passion He offered the vine with its shoots. What in the shoots is superfluous must be cut off, that it may bear much fruit. 6. The praise of Stephen the protomartyr. Beloved, how did He endure the passion except through patience? Of such a branch was the most blessed and first martyr Stephen, who first followed, cleaving to the vine. Secure, when he saw the blood of the vine, he poured out his own blood;