Extant Fragments: Against Bishop Germanus. 11

1. Now I speak also before God, and He knoweth that I lie not: it was not by my own choice, neither was it without divine instruction, that I took to flight. But at an earlier period, indeed, when the edict for the persecution under Decius was determined upon, Sabinus at that very hour sent a certain Frumentarius to make search for me. And I remained in the house for four days, expecting the arrival of this Frumentarius. But he went about examining all other places, the roads, the rivers, the fields, where he suspected that I should either conceal myself or travel. And he was smitten with a kind of blindness, and never lighted on the house; for he never supposed that I should tarry at home when under pursuit. Then, barely after the lapse of four days, God giving me instruction to remove, and opening the way for me in a manner beyond all expectation, my domestics and I, and a considerable number of the brethren, effected an exit together. And that this was brought about by the providence of God, was made plain by what followed: in which also we have been perhaps of some service to certain parties.