Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
But when, on the other hand, he states, 'Should they drive you out of one town, escape onward to another,' he does not advise flight as though being persecuted were an evil, nor does he command this flight because we fear death; rather, he wishes us to become causes or accessory-causes of no evil to anyone, neither to ourselves nor, besides, to the one who persecutes and the one who kills. For in a manner he charges him to keep out of the other's way, while the man who disregards this is rash and reckless.
But if whoever slays a servant of God commits an offense before God, then the man who delivers himself up to the tribunal becomes an accomplice of his own killer; and this would be the man who does not shield himself from the persecution, offering himself, through recklessness, to be caught. This man, so far as it depends on himself, becomes a fellow-worker in the wickedness of the persecutor, and if he even provokes it further, he is fully guilty, calling out the wild beast. In the same way, too, if a man furnishes any occasion for strife, or loss, or enmity, or a lawsuit, he has begotten an opportunity for persecution. For this reason, then, we have been charged to cling to nothing among the things of this life. But we are also to give up our cloak and tunic besides to the one who takes it, not only that we may remain free from attachment, but also that, by not contending against those who go to law with us, we may not grow savage against them and, through us, stir up blasphemy against the Name.
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