Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
1| Moreover, the Son of God calls everyone to virtue, appointing himself teacher of his Father's precepts to all who are of sound mind. Unless, that is, we are deceiving ourselves in a shameful ignorance, not seeing that it was for our benefit, that is, for the blessedness of humankind, that he went about the earth; and that, calling to himself the best of the men of that time, he trained them in a teaching profitable for life, one that kept them sober against the envy that comes from the opposing nature, whose delight is to lure and deceive the inexperienced.
2| So he visited the sick, relieved the weak of the evils that held them, and comforted those who had sunk to the very depths of poverty and want. He praised moderation joined with the reason of prudence, and he commanded them to bear every kind of insult and every kind of contempt nobly and without resentment, teaching that the Father's care is such that those who bear with greatness of soul whatever befalls them always prevail. For this, he affirmed, is the strength that surpasses all others beyond measure: firmness of mind together with philosophy, which is the knowledge of the true and the good. It accustoms even those who have grown rich by just means to share what they have with the poorer by a humane distribution. He forbade domination in every form, and showed that just as he had come to people of modest means, so he would leave those who let go of their wealth in modest means, by his grace; and that for the human race the beginning of life is out of want and nakedness, and its end likewise ends in want and nakedness. Virtue alone, he declared, is worthy of all care. He charged them, then, to honor it, since the salvation of the soul is set under the helm of the highest virtue, and above all to practice piety, self-control and gentleness. For this, he said, is the method that stands against every storm that besets our life. And so, having instructed the souls of his disciples with these very precepts and many more like them, so that they might pursue the most profitable way of life not only by spoken commands but also in deed, he led them, going before them, on a long and uninhabited journey across waterless and scorched sand. He also led them through the waves of a raging sea, made savage by the winds, and the waves held firm and bore up, resisting like solid ground, the footprints of God and of righteous men as they walked,
3| and having tested the faith of the peoples who obeyed him by a trial of this kind and of this magnitude, he made them not only despisers of things dreadful and terrible but also the truest disciples of the hope placed in him. Once, indeed, when one of his companions gave way too far to anger, he rebuked him sharply and restrained him. That man had happened to be trying to defend himself with a sword against a swordsman who was coming at him, as though the Savior's help were not at hand. He ordered him to stay calm and to let go of the sword, reproaching him for having despaired of taking refuge in him, and laying down as a plain law that anyone who begins with unjust hands, or who sets out to wrong the one who began, and uses a sword, will perish by violence.
4| This is truly the heavenly wisdom: to choose to suffer wrong rather than to do wrong, and, when necessity arises, to be ready to suffer evil rather than to inflict it. For since doing wrong is the greatest of evils, it is not the one who is wronged but the one who does wrong who is wrapped in the greatest punishment. Yet for one who obeyed God it was possible neither to do wrong nor to suffer it, trusting in the protection of God, who is always present and always helping, so that none of those who obey him is harmed. How, then, could that man have given himself the best counsel, or what was he thinking when, refusing God's help, he supposed that he ought to help himself? It was a fight between two men, and the victory was uncertain; and no one in his right mind prefers what is uncertain to what is secure. And how was he going to doubt the presence and help of God, he who had been through so many dangers and had always been rescued from them easily by the mere nod of God, he who had walked through the sea when, at the Savior's command, it was laid flat and offered a solid road to the peoples crossing it? This, I think, is the evident ground of faith and this the foundation of trust: when we see these wonderful and incredible things happen and come to pass at the command of the One who exercises providence. From this, too, comes the refusal to regret one's faith whenever one meets with the trial of evils, and the possession of a hope in God that cannot be shaken. For once this disposition has taken root in the soul, God is established in its understanding; and since he is unconquerable, the soul that holds the unconquerable within its own understanding will not be overpowered by the evils that surround it. This we have learned by experience from the victory of God, who, while exercising his providence on behalf of all, was abused by the injustice of the ungodly, yet reaped no harm from his suffering; instead he crowned himself with the greatest trophies of victory and with an everlasting wreath over wickedness, bringing to fulfillment the purpose of his providence and of his tender love for the righteous, and crushing the savagery of the unjust and the ungodly.
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