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To Flee or Not to Flee’: An Assessment of Athanasius’s De Fuga Sua
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
The very question ‘to flee or not to flee?’ strikes the historian of the early church as an unusual question. Forneither the martyrologies nor the histories of that persecuted body seem to entertain such. The death of Polycarp at Smyrnaseems to rule out the possibility of flight for subsequent confessors of Christ; and the events of Maximian’s reign (AD 306–13) confirm that identity with Christ, even in death, was the true vocation of the faithful. Eusebius, an eye witness of some of the events of that reign, records examples of weakness and apostasy, but only to set off what was the real character of the Christian church at the time, namely constancy and defiance in the face of persecution. Yet not only does he allude to that constancy, but he records it:
and we ourselves also beheld … many, all at once, in a single day, some of whom suffered decapitation, others the punishment of fire; so that the murderous axe was dulled and, worn out, was broken in pieces, while the executioners themselves grew utterly weary and took it in turns to succeed one another. It was then that we observed a most marvellous eagerness and a truly divine power and zeal in those who had placed their faith in the Christ of God. Thus, as soon as sentence was given against the first, some from one quarter, and others from another would leap up to the tribunal before the judge and confess themselves Christians; paying no heed when faced with terrors and the varied forms of tortures, but undismayed and boldly speaking of the piety towards the God of the universe, and with joy and laughter and gladness receiving the final sentence of death; so that they sung and sent up hymns and thanksgivings to the God of the universe even to the very last breath.
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References
1 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History (trans. J. E. L. Oulton) viii.9.2. Compare ibid. vi.41.11-13.
2 Ibid ii.17.10.
3 Athanasius, De Incamaiione 29.
4 Ibid 29. A similar commendation of the life of martyrdom occurs also in his later work, the De Vila Anlonii 79–80.
5 Athanasius, De Fuga Sua 2.
6 Ibid4.
7 Ibid3.
8 Ibid2.
9 Ibid8.
10 Ibid21.
11 Ibid 24–25.
12 Ibid7 compare ibid2, 10.
13 Matthew 10:23, compare ibid 24: 15.
14 Athanasius, De Fuga Sua 12.
15 Ibid15.
16 Ibid15.
17 Ibidi 15, compare Matthew 5: 36; 10: 29.
18 Ibid16.
19 Compare Ibid 22: 23.
20 Ibid 17, compare ibid 22.
21 Ibid 17.
22 Athanasius, De Vita Antonii 7, compare ibid 18; 19.
23 Ibid 5.
24 Ibid 52.
25 Ibid 53, compare ibid 79, where the same despising of death on account of the Truth incarnate is seen, but this time in the willingness of martyrs to die in persecutions.
26 Ibid 74–75.
27 Ibid 46.
28 Philippians 1: 21.
29 Athanasius De Vita Antonii, 17, compare ibid 45, where the same thought is couched in terms of the devoting of time to the soul rather than the body.
30 Ibid 89.
31 See J. Quasten, Patrology (Antwerp 1966) 3 p 39. Compare L. W. Barnard and B. R. Brennan, in Vigiliae Christianae, Vols. 28 and 30.
32 See A. Robertson’s preface to the Apologia de Fuga sua in P. Schaff and H. Wace, edd A select library of Nicene and post Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series 4.
33 Compare Athanasius, De Vita Antonii, preface.
34 Compare Alexander of Lycopolis, De Placitis Manichaeorum 2. PG. 18.413.
35 See Eusebius, Palestinian Martyrs 8.13.
36 Athanasius, De Vita Antonii 16.
37 Athanasius, De Incarnatione 29.
38 See H. Chadwick on Clement and Origen in A. H. Armstrong, ed Cambridge History of Creek and early Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge 1967) pp 168—195.
39 Athanasius, De Fuga Sua 17.
40 Compare The Martyrdom o/Polycarp 4. Also see Council of Elvira, Spain. AD 305. Overzealous Christians whose provocative actions involved the smashing of idols were not to be regarded if apprehended and punished as martyrs.
41 Frend, W. H. C., ‘Athanasius as an Egyptian Christian Leader in the fourth century’ in Religion, Popular and Unpopular in the Early Christian Centuries (London 1976)Google Scholar.