Letters

⁹ Assuredly you now see (what, according to your letter, you did not see before) how great advantage the Christian people may obtain if, in the presence of calamity, the presence of the servants of Christ be not withdrawn from them. You see, also, how much harm is done by their absence, when “they seek their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ's,” and are destitute of that charity of which it is said, “it seeks not her own,” and fail to imitate him who said, “I seek not my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved,” and who, moreover, would not have fled from the insidious attacks of the imperial persecutor, had he not wished to save himself for the sake of others to whom he was necessary; on which account he says, “I am in a strait between two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.”