Day 153 - 2 Chronicles 23-25

If there are any who think that they can return to the church without prayers but with threats, or think that they can make an entrance for themselves, not by lamentations and reparations but by terrors, let them certainly consider that the church of the Lord remains closed against such and that the camp of Christ, invincible and brave and fortified by the protecting Lord, does not yield to threats. The bishop of God, holding the gospel, can be killed as observing the precepts of Christ; he cannot be conquered. Zachariah, the high priest of God, suggests and gives to us examples of virtue and of faith. When he could not be terrified by threats and stoning, he was killed in the temple of God, crying out and saying the same thing that we shout also against heretics and say, “Thus says the Lord: You have forsaken the ways of the Lord, and the Lord will forsake you.”—St Cyprian of Carthage