Turn you to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope: even today do I declare that I will restore double unto you;
Read Chapter 9
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
“You have led me down, because you have been made my hope: a tower of strength from the face of the enemy.” My heart is vexed, says that unity from the ends of the earth, and I toil in the midst of temptations and offenses. The heathen are envious, because they have been conquered. The heretics lie in wait, hidden in the cloak of the Christian name. Within the church itself the wheat suffers violence from the chaff. In the midst of all these things when my heart is vexed, I will cry from the ends of the earth. But there forsakes me not the same that has exalted me upon the rock, in order to lead me down even unto himself, because even if I labor, while the devil through so many places and times and occasions lies in wait against me, he is to me a tower of strength, to whom I shall have fled for refuge. Not only I shall escape the weapons of the enemy, but even against him securely I shall myself hurl whatever darts I shall please. For Christ himself is the tower. He has been made for u...
Hold. Return ye, who stay behind, to Jerusalem. God will make good all that you abandon; or come, Judas has procured liberty for the people, 1 Machabees iv. 36. (Calmet)
Embrace the gospel, and enter the Church. (Menochius)
