To Flee or Not to Flee’: An Assessment of Athanasius’s De Fuga Sua

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.