The Canonical Epistle, with the Commentaries of Theodore Balsamon and John Zonaras 9Canon IX.

With those also who, as it were from sleep, themselves leap forth upon a contest which is travailing long and likely to be protracted, and draw upon themselves the temptations as it were of a sea-fight, and the inundations of many waves, or rather are for the brethren kindling the coals of the sinners, with them also we must communicate, inasmuch as they come to this in the name of Christ, even though they take no heed unto His words, when He teaches us "to pray that we enter not into temptation;" and again in His prayer, He says to His Father, "and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." And perhaps also they know not that the Master of the House and our Great Teacher often retired from those who would lay snares for Him, and that sometimes He walked not openly because of them; and even when the time of His passion drew on, He delivered not up Himself, but waited until they came to Him with "swords and staves." He said to them therefore, "Are ye come out, as against a thief with swords and staves, for to take Me?" And they "delivered Him," He says, "to Pilate." As it was with Him it happens to those who walk keeping Him before them as an example, recollecting His divine words, in which, confirming us, He speaks of persecution: "Take heed unto yourselves, for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues." Now, He says, they will deliver you up, and not, ye shall deliver up yourselves; and "ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for My sake," but not, ye shall bring yourselves, for He would have us pass from place to place as long as there are those who persecute us for His name's sake; even as again we hear Him saying, "But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another." For He would not have us go over to the ministers and satellites of the devil, that we might not be the cause to them of a manifold death, inasmuch as thus we should be compelling them both to be harsher, and to carry out their deadly works, but He would have us to wait, and to take heed to ourselves, to watch and to pray, lest we enter into temptation. Thus first Stephen, pressing on His footsteps, suffered martyrdom, being apprehended in Jerusalem by the transgressors, and being brought before the council, he was stoned, and glorified for the name of Christ, praying with the words, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Thus James, in the second place, being of Herod apprehended, was beheaded with the sword. Thus Peter, the first of the apostles, having been often apprehended, and thrown into prison, and treated with igominy, was last of all crucified at Rome. Likewise also, the renowned Paul having been oftentimes delivered up and brought in peril of death, having endured many evils, and making his boast in his numerous persecutions and afflictions, in the same city was also himself beheaded; who, in the things in which he gloried, in these also ended his life; and at Damascus he was let down by night in a basket by the wall, and escaped the hands of him who sought to take him. For what they set before themselves, first and foremost, was to do the work of an evangelist, and to teach the Word of God, in which, confirming the brethren, that they might continue in the faith, they said this also, "that we must out of much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." For they sought not what was profitable for them, but that which was profitable for the many, that they might be saved, and that they might be enabled to say unto them many things conducing to this, that they might act suitably to the Word of God, "unless," as says the apostle, "the time should fail me in speaking."