[Meditationes seu Contemplationes devotissimae]

Why then do you swell with pride, O wretched pellis mœtiana a derogatory Latin idiom referring to a vile or worthless skin/person? Where are you tending, you who are putrid? Why are you puffed up? The prince is humble, yet you are proud. The head is humble, and the member is proud; may this be far from us.

Concerning the flight of Joseph with Mary and the child into Egypt

Joseph, what are you doing? You are truly performing an act that suspends me in the deepest wonder. Fearing that Herod might destroy the child, you flee into Egypt with the child and his mother. O stupendous event! Is not this child that small infant who was born to us only a few days ago, of whose rule, as the holy prophet says, the government is upon his shoulder, the mighty God, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace? You were truly too terrified of Herod's power, since you feared he might destroy a little child to whom belongs immense power, infinite majesty, and insurmountable strength. O almighty and most merciful Father, what necessity was there for your only-begotten Son to flee in such a way? Could you not have kept him unharmed from the fury of Herod by your power, you who have at your command innumerable legions of angels? Listen, faithful soul, and if this seems marvelous to you because the judgments of God are an inscrutable abyss, yet they are not divorced from reason. Why, then, was Joseph ordered to depart with the child and his mother into Egypt?

It was not because of any powerlessness of the child, who is of insurmountable power, but it was done by a pious dispensation. First, because it was necessary that that little child should preserve the rule of human nature which he assumed, even in this part. It is common for those constituted in the age of childhood to flee the power of hands. Second, to provide us with an example of humility. It was certainly an act of the most profound humility not to desire to return evil for evil, but to give place to the fury of his persecutor, whom he could nevertheless have destroyed and annihilated in a single moment. Third, it was done through the disposition of divine counsel as a preeminent example of patience. Is it not a singular example of patience to suffer one's most innocent self to be excluded from one's fatherland and relegated to an unknown province? Fourth, that little child was born to act in such a way that, when the necessity of persecution should press upon other Christians, he would leave behind an example of fleeing. Indeed, it would seem reprehensible to the saints if they were to flee, and he himself, the teacher of the churches, had not fled first. For what he showed through his example, he later taught with words. For he says: "If they persecute you in one city, flee into another." Do not suspect that his flight into Egypt was separated from reason, since this was done by divine dispensation for three reasons.