Atos 21

Atos 21:13

To this sort of opposition, respond as follows: "Why are you trying to keep me from the way I have set out on by weeping at the mention of the chains and afflictions that await me when I arrive in Jerusalem? Let it be known that I will follow the Spirit that has made known to me what awaits me and that I am setting out on the road to the city. I do not go ignorant of what will happen there, for I have foreseen it, and I am not being checked from going. So do not break my heart with your tears." Whoever has been nobly prepared to be courageous enough to have no thought for his own life does not succumb to fear even if someone tries to provoke it. Now among them such dread had come to grip their thinking, and so the apostle said that his heart was being broken. He was not saying that he was weak but that he had come to such a state because of their bitter weeping. One could also say that just as little sins, in their actual commission, seem great to a holy person, so do the initial movements toward them, and so here he says the breaking of his heart is great. — CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 21.13-14