Polemical Works 2

When you had beheld yourself, Emperor, overcome on every side by the servants of God, you said that you had suffered and were suffering from us an outrage contrary to the admonitions of the Sacred Scriptures; you say that we have shown ourselves insolent toward you, whom it was fitting to honour. If any of the worshippers of God ever spared apostates, let the things you say about us be true. From what shall we begin, so that we may be able to prove that, just as you are now rebuked by us, so all who go astray have been rebuked by the worshippers of God? From what, if not from the acts of Moses, the servant of God? We read in Exodus that Moses went up the mount after the covenant had been delivered to him, and slew very many of the people on account of the guilt of idolatry. Moses stood, it says, at the gates of the camp, and said: Who is ready for the Lord? Let him come to me.

And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves to him, and he said to them: Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Let every man put his sword upon his thigh, and go through and return from gate to gate throughout the camp, and let every man slay his brother, and every man his kinsman, and every man his neighbour. And the sons of Levi did as Moses had said to them; and there fell of the people in that day about three thousand men. And Moses said to them: You have filled your hands today for the Lord, every man against his son or against his brother, that a blessing may be given upon you. Are we insolent toward you, as Moses was toward that senseless people?

Nor did those things which were said or done by Moses please them, when they had already chosen not to serve the God who had rescued them from the power of Pharaoh, but rather that calf which the fire had cast for them. So you too, now given over not to God but to the idolatry of Arius, being convicted of having gone astray, take it ill, cry out that we are contumacious, and say that we have perpetrated an outrageous deed against you, in that we dared to say to the emperor of the Roman realm: You do ill, Constantius, to introduce idolatry into the Church. Moses, the first of the prophets, that man most beloved of God, persecuted with the sword those whose imitator you have set yourself up to be; and am I branded contumacious by you, because I have said that God has forsaken you and that you have given yourself over to idolatry?

The Sacred Scripture further cries out that the sons of Israel committed fornication with the daughters of the Moabites, and that, being invited by them, they ate things sacrificed to idols and adored those same idols; against whom, because the priest Phinehas, kindled and inflamed with the zeal of devotion, so blazed forth — and above all because he slew the idolaters with the sword in the midst of the synagogue — he so pleased God that it is written that at this deed the wrath of the indignant Lord was stilled, and he himself was made exceedingly pre-eminent before the Lord: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has restrained My wrath from the sons of Israel, in that he was zealous with My zeal among them, and I did not consume the sons of Israel in My zeal.

And behold, I give to him My covenant, a covenant of peace to him and to his seed with him, for a covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God and made entreaty for the sons of Israel. And do you judge us contumacious, because we tell you the truth as you go astray? Do you suppose that, when we displease you, we do not then please God? But I beg you, tell me, Constantius, by what authority you would have us desert the way of the righteous patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and lay hold of this new way of yours which the devil had instituted through Arius.

Have you perhaps been warned in a dream, and was it said to you that you should not suffer us to hold the way of Christ which Abel, Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Joshua son of Nun, Job, the judges and the rest of the kings — that is, David, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah — held; the way which all the prophets, apostles and martyrs held; the way which held all who are found to have pleased God? If this was said to you by the prince of demons, hear what God has determined shall be done concerning you through the glorious prophet Moses: 'But if there rise up among you a prophet, or one dreaming a dream, and he give a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder come to pass which he foretold, and he say to you, saying:'

'Let us go and serve strange gods whom you know not' — you shall not hearken to the words of that prophet or dreamer, for the Lord your God tests you, to see whether you love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and shall fear him, and shall keep his commandments and hear his voice, and cleave unto him. And that prophet or dreamer of dreams, let them die; for they have spoken to seduce you from the Lord your God. Do you recognize what you have been commanded to suffer? For whether you say you were warned by a dream, or wish to establish yourself to us as a prophet, you are an enemy of God, you who would have us forsake the apostolic faith and take up that faith which denies the only Son of God.

For all those whom I have recounted, it is manifest that they were made so great and such as they were because they believed in the only Son of God, since he who does not believe in the Son has not the Father either, but he who believes in the Son has both the Father and the Son. Since this is the voice of blessed John, and since the choir of the holy apostles is in accord with him, you ought certainly to understand that, as the apostles believed, so before them the patriarchs and prophets had believed, and so all who are known to have been honoured by the merit of faith. For you cannot prove to me that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob believed in one way, and John or all his fellow apostles in another.

For if the apostles did not believe as the patriarchs believed, why does blessed Paul summon all men to lay hold of the faith of Abraham? But you say: I accuse you, of being insolent, of having shown yourself contumelious toward the emperor; and you keep unravelling the cause of faith. The cause of faith indeed, that I may prove you to be sacrilegious, that I may prove you to have swerved from the way of truth; herein I seem contumelious to you, because I tell you that you have deserted the path of all who worship God, and have laid hold of that path which those held, and still hold, who served not God but a phantasm, and still serve it. Therefore, concerning you who urge me to withdraw from God, hear what God has sanctioned to be done through Moses:

But if your brother by father or mother, or your son or your daughter, or the wife who is in your bosom, or the friend who is equal to your own soul, secretly entice you, saying: Let us go and serve strange gods whom you know not, nor your fathers, of the gods of the nations that are round about you, near or far off — you shall not consent to go with him, nor hearken to him; your eye shall not spare him, neither shall you greet him nor conceal him. Denouncing you shall denounce him. Your hand shall be first upon him to kill him, and afterward the hand of all your people. And you shall stone him, and he shall die, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God. Being commanded indeed to slay him who invites me to forsake God, you say in your ignorance: Lucifer does me an outrage.

Or will you deny that you invited us to take up idolatry? If you think you must deny it, the doctrinal expositions of the sect of your bishops — of your fellow-blasphemers, that is — will convict you; the pamphlets recited by you and handed even to catholic bishops at Rome will convict you, given namely to this end, that your blasphemy might be strengthened in every place. Do you not perceive into what darkness of errors you have run? Do you not see in what manner you may perish? Since you see why Achan, one of the people, acted against the divine warnings — why he took by theft from Jericho a certain portion of raiment, of silver and of gold, and how he was thus punished with death — consider what is to befall you, who deny the eternal divine majesty of the only Son of God.

Hear what was carried out concerning Achan, and at last take counsel for your salvation; return to the Church of God, from which that apostate serpent — that fugitive who perverted even Adam and Eve — has driven you away through the Arians. 'And the Lord,' it says, 'was with Joshua, and his name was over all the earth. But the children of Israel disregarded the ban with a disregarding and committed a fraud concerning the accursed thing; and the Lord was angered with wrath against the children of Israel. And Joshua sent men to Ai, which is joined to Bethel, saying: Go up and view Ai. And the men went up and viewed Ai, and returned to Joshua and said to him: Let not all the people go up, but let two or three thousand men go up and lay waste the city. Lead not all the people thither, for they are few.'

'And there went up with him about three thousand men, and they fled before the men who were in Ai. And the men of Ai slew about thirty-six of them, and pursued them from the gate and crushed them on the slope; and the heart of the people melted and became as water. And Joshua rent his garments, and Joshua fell upon his face before God until evening, he and the elders of Israel, and they cast dust upon their heads. And Joshua said: I beseech you, Lord, why has your servant brought this people over the Jordan, to deliver them to the Amorite, to destroy us? If we had remained in the land, we would have dwelt beside the Jordan. And what shall I say, seeing that Israel has turned its back before its enemy?'

'And the Canaanite and all who dwell in the land shall hear of it, and shall surround us and crush us from off the earth; and what will you do for your great name? And the Lord said to Joshua: Rise up; why have you fallen upon your face? The people have sinned and transgressed my covenant which I appointed for them, and they have stolen of the accursed thing and put it among their own vessels. The children of Israel shall not be able to stand before the face of their enemies; they shall turn their backs before their enemies, because they have become accursed. I will be no longer with you, unless you take away the accursed thing from among yourselves. Rise up, sanctify the people, and say: Let them sanctify themselves for the morrow. For thus says the Lord God of Israel:'

'There is an accursed thing among you; you shall not be able to stand before your enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among yourselves. In the morning, therefore, come near according to your tribes; and it shall be that the tribe which the Lord takes in the morning shall come near by its families, and the family which the Lord shall take shall come near man by man; and whoever is taken by the Lord shall be burned with fire, he and all that is his, because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord and wrought iniquity in Israel. And Joshua rose early in the morning and brought Israel near by their tribes, and the tribe of Judah was taken. And they came near by families, and the family of Zerah was taken; and he brought the family of Zerah near by households, and the household of Zabdi was taken.'

'And the household was brought near man by man, and Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, was taken. And Joshua said to Achan: Give glory this day to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession, and tell me what you have done, and hide it not from me. And Achan answered Joshua and said: Truly I have sinned before the sight of the Lord God of Israel; thus and thus have I done. I saw among the spoil a fair varied garment, and two hundred didrachms of silver, and one golden ingot of fifty didrachms; and I coveted it and took it, and behold, these are hidden in my tent, and the silver hidden beneath them. And Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent, and these were hidden in the tent, and the silver beneath them.'

'And they took them out of the tent and brought them to Joshua and to the elders of Israel, and laid them down before God. And they seized Achan the son of Carmi and led him into the valley of Achor, together with his sons and daughters, his oxen and his beasts of burden and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had; and all Israel was with him, and they led them to Emek-Achor. And Joshua said to Achan: Why have you troubled us? The Lord shall destroy you as this present day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and they heaped over him a great heap of stones; and the Lord turned from the fierceness of his wrath.'

Consider, Constantius, by what an example you are destined to perish, unless you make provision for yourself — what penalties you are to pay for all eternity. Achan for the transgression of the commandments met with such things; what you deserve is given hence to be understood, because you are an apostate. For if he, because he had of the accursed thing, was punished with so great a destruction, how much more you! Without doubt you shall be punished more grievously, you who make yourself accursed by denying the Son of God. In this we are wicked in your sight, in this proud and obstinate, in this insolent — because we say to you: You have committed sacrilege by being a denier of the only Son of God; because we say: Take counsel for yourself, rescue your soul from the snares of the devil. What new thing do we bishops do, if we speak to you those things which you deserve to hear?

For we find that most holy Samuel, the priest of God, said these things to King Saul, which you shall read below: 'Sorrows and groanings shall be brought upon you. Because you have counted the word of the Lord as nothing, the Lord shall count you as nothing, that you shall not reign;' and again: 'Because you have counted the word of the Lord as nothing, God shall reduce you to nought, that you be not king over Israel;' and below: 'The Lord shall rend the kingdom of Israel from your hand this day, and shall give it to your neighbour who is better than you.' If he said these things to Saul, because he had passed over the precepts of the Lord, why do you think that we ought not with free voice to declare you sacrilegious, and to declare that, unless you turn yourself to God, he will reduce you to nought?

If we had not exhorted you, if we did not summon you to make amends, you would rightly say that you were hated by us. But when you hear us say: Repent, O emperor, correct your ways, that you may find a place of mercy — I think you ought to have considered that, because you are loved by us, you are held dear by us; and yet in this you execrate us, that we abide in the apostolic faith: you render evil for good. We do not wonder that you, from the time you withdraw from the will of God and cease not to fulfil the desire of the devil, should render evils to us who ask and long that God do good to you — since it is engrained in you to act wickedly, seeing that you have made the passage from good to evil, that is, to the devil.

If you persecute us who love you, who desire that all the highest goods come to you, it is neither great nor new, since Saul too persecuted that same Samuel, prophet and priest of the Lord. He persecuted the very one by whom he had been anointed king, and whose prayers were directed to the Lord with unceasing entreaty for the very safety of this persecutor. If you do not believe that we, the priests of God, grieve for you — because you have drunk in so great a darkness of errors, because you are thus butchering yourself — then believe God, who says to Samuel concerning Saul: 'How long do you mourn over Saul? Behold, I cast him out, that he reign not over Israel;' and above: 'And the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying:'

'It repents me that I have set up Saul as king, since he is turned away from me and has not kept my words.' And Samuel was grieved, and cried to the Lord all night and before the light. Though Samuel the priest did these things for the safety of King Saul, yet Saul afterward persecuted Samuel, not recognizing, wretched man, that he was persecuting a prophet and priest of the Lord. So too you, not knowing what you are doing, persecute us who long that you should please God, while you love those who drag you with them to eternal death, to the everlasting offence of the Lord; you are indignant at hearing the truth, though you see that Samuel the priest of the Lord did not flatter the king. Or was it fitting that our predecessors should do one thing, and we another?

Because we tell you the truth, we seem proud to you. What have you heard from us? Surely that you are a murderer. If we lie, then we are rightly called by you contumelious and proud; but if we speak a true thing, we are not contumelious, but are those who imitate men who, by not flattering those committed to them but wholesomely forewarning them, deserved to be made most beloved by God. The king of Israel sent to kill the prophet Elisha — had you but read that Elisha said to those who were with him: Do you see that the son of that murderer has sent to take off my head? — then with reason would you arraign me as guilty of injuries.

The prophet, full of the Holy Spirit, called the king of Israel the son of a murderer — that is, the son of the devil — not because he called that king's carnal father a murderer, but the devil, whose son that king showed himself to be (as you now lay yourself open to be by your deeds) by persecuting the servants of God, by daring to slay the prophets of his clemency. That you do all these things, the devil incites your hearts. That it is so, hear the Lord saying to the Jews in the Gospel: You are born of the devil your father, and you will to do the desires of your father; for he was a murderer from the beginning.

The prophet of the Lord, I say, full of the Holy Spirit, calls the king of Israel the son of a murderer, that is, of the devil; and do you deem that we do you an outrage, because we say that you are a slayer of the servants of God, a butcher of our bodies, a man of every unjust thought, a destroyer of religion, a denier of the only Son of God? What we discern you to do, this we say of you; what you are, we cry aloud that you are. You call us insolent, only because we tell you what you are. Tell me, I pray, wherefore the king of Israel deserved to hear such things from the Lord: 'Because you have done good things before me, and have done according to my heart and according to my soul to the house of Ahab, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit for you upon the throne of Israel'?

Tell me, I say, why he deserved to hear these things from God. Because he spared God's enemies? Or was it because he most fiercely persecuted them, even with the sword — because he slew the son of Ahab the idolater, and his forty sons, and Jezebel too the queen, whom, once slain, he cast to the dogs; because he extinguished by the mouth of the sword all the servants of Baal together with all the priests and prophets of confusion; because he demolished the graven images — does this please God?

As for us, what did it behove us to do concerning you, that you might not brand us as guilty of contumely — you concerning whom we see that you hold the ways of Ahab and Jezebel? It is nothing new that you do: to act against God, to assail his house, to persecute his prelates, the very men through whom he warns you to take counsel for yourself, that, while there is yet place for repentance, you may withdraw yourself from evil. There were before you men like you in sacrilege, serving idols in the same way, having forsaken the God of their fathers.

In the second book of Paralipomenon we hear that Amaziah, king of Judah, was admonished by God through a prophet not to march to war with those sons of Israel whom he had hired with a hundred thousand talents of silver to set out with him — namely because God had forsaken Israel, since they had forsaken God and served idols. The king obeyed the prophet's words and believed that the threat came from God. Yet what does he then do? After he subdued his adversaries, he thought that the idols of those same men should be carried off and transferred to his kingdom and themselves adored; and because that man of God told him that he had not acted well, in that, forsaking God, he worshipped the idols of the nations, this king strongly persecuted the prophet of the Lord.

You perceive that in you who are turned to apostasy there has always been one and the same mind, to persecute those who wish you well. 'And it came to pass,' says the holy Scripture, 'after Amaziah came from smiting Edom, that he brought thence the gods of Mount Seir and set them up for himself as gods, and adored before them, and himself sacrificed to them. And the wrath of the Lord was kindled against Amaziah, and he sent to him the prophet Baneas; and Baneas said to him: Why have you sought the gods of a people who did not deliver their own people out of your hand? And it came to pass, as he spoke to him, that the king said to him: Have I appointed you counsellor to the king? Beware lest you be scourged.'

You see, Constantius, how demented you become, once it has pleased you to live serving the devil, once it has pleased you not to know the all-powerful God, once you have chosen for yourselves, to the insult of God, that you ought to establish idolatry. For as that king said: Have I appointed you counsellor to the king? Beware lest you be scourged — so you too say: Have I chosen you as counsellors for me, that I should not conduct myself as it pleases me, that I should not hold this way which Arius held? And do you not perceive by what example Arius perished? How vengeance was taken upon him from heaven?

Meanwhile, since you say we are contumelious to you, mark how this man of God did not spare that king, your fellow-sacrilegist, but after it was said to him, Be silent, lest you be scourged, he said to him: I know that the Lord will destroy you, who have done this thing and have not obeyed my counsel. In what matter do you perceive us to be contumelious? Surely because we say to you: We know that, unless you provide for yourself to turn to God, the Lord will condemn you to eternal punishment. This is the contumely, this the whole injury — that it is told you by the prelates of God that you will perish forever, unless you correct your ways. That king did not believe the man of God. What immediately befell him, holy Scripture says thus:

'And at the time when Amaziah departed from the Lord, they rose up against him and conspired; and he fled from Jerusalem to Lachish, and they slew him among the horses.' So too the deeds of your evil-doings were able to preserve, guard and defend you — even as they defended him who said to the man of God speaking for his own salvation: Have I appointed you counsellor to the king? Be silent, lest you be scourged. It is no first-time thing we do, if we say to you who err, who resist the ordinance of God, who labour to establish new ways: You do ill in not going by the way through which all worshippers of God have attained to the heavenly kingdoms. You have read that King Uzziah was rebuked by the priests of the Lord, because he had dared to do unlawful things: 'And he entered,' says the Scripture,

the temple of the Lord to put incense upon the altar. And Azariah the priest entered after him, and with him the priests of the Lord, thirty sons of valour; and they withstood King Uzziah and said to him: It is not lawful for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but to the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are sanctified to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have withdrawn from the Lord, and this shall not be for your honour before the Lord God.' Do you say that the priests of the Lord were contumelious to that king, or not? If they were not contumelious, neither let us seem so to you, since you hear from us things like those which he too heard:

It is not lawful for you, Constantius, an Arian, to assemble with the people of God; it is not lawful for you, the author of Arian idolatry, a denier of the only Son of God, to sit in judgment over the priests of God, a sacrilegist feigning yourself a Christian, when you are the forerunner of Antichrist. It shall not be well for you, that, removing the priests of God, you ordain his adversaries, the colleagues, that is, of your sacrilege. When you hear these things, you are angry with us; angry too, in that day, was King Uzziah with those priests of the Lord. But observe that they, being dedicated to God, kept forever the honour of their station, while Uzziah, to everlasting reproach, was at once marked with the blemish of leprosy. 'And Uzziah was angry,' it says, 'and in his hand was the censer, to burn incense on his altar.'

'And the leprosy broke out on his forehead in the sight of the priests in the house of the Lord.' These things are so; and do you suppose that you, a defiant transgressor, incur no offence before him who has commanded us to represent perpetually to his glory the offices of the priesthood? What pride is this of ours, Constantius, or what arrogance — except that we see you to be diseased, indeed pestilential, being an Arian; that we regard this elephantiasis to be in you, the very one which Arius had; that we urge you to withdraw from the people of God, just as those priests of the Lord compelled Uzziah to go out from the temple; that we thus constrain you to give honour to God?

For if the priests of God drove Uzziah out of the court of God for this reason — because they remembered that lepers were by divine command forbidden to enter the temple before their purification — how much more, consider, are we entitled to drive you out of the Church of Christ, out of the house of the Lord, because it is not lawful for a heretic to assemble with catholics, the insane with the sane, one full of unclean spirits with those in whom dwells the Spirit of God? What contumely is this, if the priests of the Lord, kindled with that same zeal with which our predecessors ever burned, tell you the things that conduce to our salvation and to yours? Lucifer is insolent, you say.

Insolent, forsooth, because I urge you to cast off the elephantiasis of Arius, and, through this faith which the most blessed apostles preached and which we, as you see, are holding, to obtain health for your mind and to be wholly snatched from the snares of the devil, that you may rejoice to have been won for God unto eternity. You, who charge us with being of monstrous haughtiness, have you found it written what Josiah, king of Judah, did to your fellow-sacrilegists, to such men as you are seen to be today — how he persecuted very many of them even after death, consuming their bones with fire? But it befitted that king to persecute the enemies of God with such zeal; was it then unworthy of us bishops, us priests of God, to resist you as you brought idolatry into the Church?

He slew your fellow-sacrilegists with the sword, and pursued even the relics long since buried, desiring to be found the most faithful worshipper of God; but ought we, on the contrary, not to resist you even with a word — you, the friend of God's enemy, you, the dearest of all to the angels turned to apostasy, you who by this your blasphemy have been made the enemy of God? Receive, then, in the fourth book of Kingdoms what Josiah, the servant of the Lord, king of Judaea, obtained on account of the things he did concerning your fellow-defiled ones; and at last cease to say of us: They are proud and contumelious.

'He did,' it says, 'that which is right before the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father David, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left;' and likewise below, after he had rebuilt the houses of the Lord and the priest had sent the book of the law to the king: 'And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his garments. And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Michaiah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah the king's servant, saying: Go, inquire of the Lord for me and for all Judah concerning the words of this book that is found; for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not heard the words of this book, to do according to all that is written for them.'

'And Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, keeper of the wardrobe; and she dwelt in Jerusalem. And they spoke to her according to these things. And she said to them: Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Tell the man who sent you to me — thus says the Lord: Behold, I will bring evils upon this place and upon its inhabitants, according to all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read, because they have forsaken me and turned to strange gods and provoked me to anger in the works of their hands. And my wrath is kindled against this place, and it shall not be quenched. And to the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of the Lord, thus you shall say: Thus says the Lord God of Israel:'

'As for the words which you have heard, and because you have reverenced my presence, since you heard what I spoke against this place and its inhabitants, that it should become a desolation and a curse, and you rent your garments and wept before my sight — I also have heard you, says the Lord of hosts. Therefore, behold, I gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the evils which I bring upon this place and its inhabitants.' And they returned word to the king; and King Josiah sent and gathered to himself all the elders of Judah in Jerusalem. And the king went up to the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah, and the priests and Levites, and all the people, from the least to the greatest.

And the king read in the ears of the people all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the Lord. And the king stood by the pillar and made the covenant which was found in the house of the Lord before the presence of the Lord — to walk after the Lord and to keep his commandments and testimonies and precepts with all his heart and all his soul, to establish all the words of this covenant written in this book. And all the people entered into the covenant which the king made, out of the book. And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the Ephod, that they should bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that had been made for Baal and for Asherah and for all the host of heaven.

And he burned them outside beyond Jerusalem in the burning of the brook Kidron; and he took their ashes and scattered them into the brook, and went to Bethel. And he burned the priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense in the high places of the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem — those who burned incense to Baal, and to the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven. And they carried them out of the house of the Lord, outside beyond Jerusalem into the brook Kidron; and he ground them to dust and cast it into the graves of the children of the people. And he pulled down the houses of those who were in the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the sacred garments.

And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba as far as Beersheba, and he pulled down their high places; and below: and he defiled Topheth which was in the valley of Ben-Hinnom, for men had each led his son and his daughter through the fire to Moloch. And he abolished the horses which the kings of Judah had set up to the sun at the entrance of the house of the Lord — the three horses which were at Faradin; and the shrine of the sun he burned with fire in the house; and the high place which the kings of Israel had built to that Baal and to all the host of heaven he likewise consumed.

And the altars that were upon the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the king of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, the king pulled down and drove them thence and cast their ashes into the brook Kidron. And the high places that were before the face of Jerusalem, which was on the right of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon the king had built to Astarte the idol of the Sidonians, and to Chemosh the idol, and to Milcom the idol of the children of Ammon, the king defiled. And he broke in pieces the pillars and filled their places with the bones of men. And the sanctuary that was in Bethel, the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat had made, whereby he made Israel to sin — that sanctuary and that high place he pulled down, and broke its stones and ground them to dust, and...

...he burned their groves. And Josiah the king returned and saw the monuments that were there upon the mountain, and he took the bones out of the sepulchre and burned them upon the altar and defiled it, according to the word which the man of God had spoken when Jeroboam stood at the altar on the feast day. What do you take to have been done by that king who was a worshipper of God, Constantius? And when we strike you with a word for bringing idolatry into the Church, you say, 'Lucifer does me an outrage.' Yet if you had been a man of that time, you might have been destroyed by the sword; or if you had already died, your bones too, sacrilegious as they are, would have been brought to nothing by fire. That king struck down with the sword those guilty of so great a crime; and was it not fitting that we should wound you not even with a word?

You see meanwhile that in this passage too your fellow-sacrilegious kings brought idolatry into the city of God, into the house of the Lord and into His temple—that same idolatry which Josiah, that king most devoted to God, drove out. And do you not suppose that you have undertaken this same work against God to accomplish? I do not want you to say to me: 'If I were acting wickedly, God would already have taken vengeance upon me.' Rather I beseech you to see that you are held captive by the devil, that you live in his power, just as did those kings whose deeds Josiah the king pursued and destroyed. Because we execrate your blasphemies, because we resist your wicked conspiracies, we seem to you to be doing injury.

Thus also to the Jews, whom you imitate, the most holy prophets and the most blessed apostles seemed insolent and haughty. In the book of the prophet Amos it says: 'And Amasias the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam the king of Israel, saying: Amos has made a conspiracy against you in the midst of the house of Israel; the land will not be able to bear his words. For thus says Amos: Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall be led away captive out of its own land. And Amasias said to Amos: Go, depart into the land of Judah, and there dwell and there prophesy; but in Bethel you shall no longer add to prophesy, for it is the king's sanctuary and it shall be the house of the kingdom. And Amos answered and said to Amasias:'

'I was no prophet, nor am I a prophet's son, but I was a herdsman plucking the wild figs; and the Lord took me from the flock and said to me: Go, prophesy to my people Israel. And now hear the word of the Lord: You say, You shall not prophesy in Israel, and there shall be no gathering in the house of Jacob. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Your wife shall be a harlot in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, your land shall be measured out by a line, and you shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall be led away captive out of its own land.'

Since you see that these things were done by Him who willed that truth and rebuke be announced to His erring people, why do you call us insolent, why outrageous, because we speak to you, wandering as you are, the things that are true—because we do not heed your voice that says: 'Do not believe as the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs believed, but believe as Arius has handed down'? In what matters are we found haughty in your eyes? Except in this, that we execrate your sacrileges and that we may avoid your commands as swords and poisons. This was not first done by us; all those who have already pleased God, holding this same faith which we preach, did this very thing.

No one of His servants feared to undergo death for God; none of His attendants dwelt upon the kinds of torments that are inflicted by you tyrants, but each kept His precepts before his eyes. Thus Tobias is found to have become glorious and outstanding before the Lord, since he feared not the edict of your destroyed king, but only the Almighty God. Believe that these things are so from Tobias himself who says: 'When Sennacherib the king came fleeing from Judaea because of the deliverance which the Lord wrought against them—on account of the blasphemies he had blasphemed—he slew in his anger many of the sons of Israel; but I stole away their bodies and buried them. And it was reported to the king that I was burying them, and he sought to kill me.'

'But I fled, and all my substance was plundered, and nothing remained to me except my wife Anna and Tobias my son. And it came to pass after forty-five days that his sons slew that king, and Sarchedonus his son reigned there in his stead. And when I had come into my house, and my wife Anna and my son Tobias had been restored to me, on the day of Pentecost, our feast, which is holy among the weeks, a good dinner was made for me, and I reclined to dine, and the table was set before me, and I saw dishes in great abundance, and I said to Tobias my son: Go and bring whatever poor man you may find of our brethren who are captive in Nineveh, provided he has God in mind with all his heart;'

'bring him, and let him eat this dinner together with me; behold, I wait for you, my son, until you come. And Tobias went out to seek some poor captive of our brethren, and returning he said to me: Father. And I said: What is it, my son? And he said to me: Behold, one of our nation has been slain, cast out with a noose flung about him. And I went out, leaving my dinner before I had tasted anything of it, and I take him up from the street to a certain place near me, until the sun should set, that I might bury him. And returning I washed and ate my dinner in mourning, and I remembered the word of the prophet Amos which he spoke in Bethel, saying: Your feast days shall be turned into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; and I wept.'

'And after the sun had set, I went out and dug and buried him. And all my neighbours mocked me, saying: How is it that this man is not afraid? For already he was sought out on account of this matter that he might be killed, and he fled; and again he has begun to bury the dead.' Since therefore you behold that the servants of God have never feared, and cannot now fear, your tyrants' cruelty, but have pondered and do ponder the precepts of the Lord, how do you deem it right to judge us wanton? Assuredly it is because, by God's doing, we trample your power like mire. This our own strength does not do, but the mercy of Him bestows it—Him whom you deign to execrate in us. God says to the prophet Ezekiel:

'Son of man, I send you to the house of Israel, for they and their fathers have provoked me even to this present day. And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord—whether they will hear or forbear, for they are a provoking house—and they shall know that you are a prophet in their midst. And you, son of man, fear them not, neither be dismayed at their faces, for they will rage and rush upon you round about, and you dwell in the midst of scorpions; fear not their words and be not dismayed at their faces, for they are a provoking house. And you shall speak my words to them, if perhaps they will hear or take fright, for they are a provoking house.'

We seem stubborn to you, just as that prophet, consecrated to God alone, seemed so to those whose darkness you follow. Doubtless on this account Ezekiel the prophet seemed stubborn to the Jews, your fellow-apostates, and haughty to the kings of Israel, because he fulfilled the Lord's commands, because he spoke to them the very things which God had commanded him to speak. Rightly do you call us haughty—us through whom He willed all His precepts to be conveyed to the knowledge of the believing peoples. Rightly, I say, do you brand us, the bishops of God, as insolent, if we speak to you those things which God has willed to be spoken to you. You hate those who love you, you persecute those who wish you well; but we cannot fear the gnashings of your butchery. For you hear the Lord say:

'And you, son of man, fear them not, neither be dismayed at their faces, for they will rage and rush upon you round about, and you dwell in the midst of scorpions. Fear not their words, be not dismayed at their faces, for they are a provoking house.' We cannot, I say, dread the threats of your empire, because your scorpion-like forces have no strength against us—us whom you may perceive to be sheltered by the power of God, whose defender and protector you may recognize God to be. And so we shall not cease to press the Lord's precepts upon you, keeping our fears for Him alone who says:

'Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak my words to them, for you are not sent to a people of deep speech, to Israel, nor to many peoples of another tongue or another language, nor to weighty ones in speech, whose words you would not understand. And if I had sent you to such, perhaps they would have heard your words; but the house of Israel will not hear you, because they will not hear me, for the whole house of Israel are contentious and hard of heart. And behold, I have made your face strong against their faces, and I will strengthen your firmness against their contention, and you shall be ever firmer than a rock. Fear them not, neither be dismayed at their faces, for they are a provoking house.'

Who among us could fear you, whom you may see made solid and firm by the power of God to beat back your stubbornness, standing with fixed foot against your fury, immovable as sturdy rocks are wont to stand in their mass against the swelling sea? For this reason you judge us your enemies, because we press you to become a servant of God instead of a scorpion. For indeed you cannot now doubt that you are one of the scorpions—one of those spoken of, of whom you have heard from the Lord to the prophet: 'And you, son of man, fear not, neither be dismayed at their faces, for they will rage and rush upon you round about, and you dwell in the midst of scorpions.' On this account we are injurious to you, because you may see yourself called a scorpion by us.

If God had not said that you are a scorpion, you would rightly call me outrageous; but as it is, by your very deeds you show yourself to be a scorpion, and you cry out in vain that you suffer an outrage from us. God says you are a scorpion, and you are angry with me because I call you by that name? What outrage is this, if it be said to you: 'Unless you turn to God, you will always remain, as you are now, one of the scorpions, one of the most rapacious enemies of God'? Run through the rest of the prophet Ezekiel, and dare to call me insolent, haughty, outrageous, stubborn: 'And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, behold, I have made you a watchman of the house of Israel, and you shall hear the word from my mouth and shall threaten them from me, in that I shall say to the wicked man: You shall die the death.'

'And you have not warned him nor spoken, that you might warn the wicked to turn from his ways that he may live—that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, and his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness and from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but you shall have delivered your soul. And when the righteous turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, I will lay a stumbling-block before his face; he shall die, because you did not warn him. And he shall die in his sins, because his righteous deeds shall not be remembered, and his blood I will require at your hand.'

'But if you warn the righteous man that he should not sin, and he himself does not sin, that righteous man living shall live, because you have warned him, and you shall save your soul.' What, Constantius, do you say to these things? Must the priests of God keep silence and conceal His divine commands, or is it right to disclose to you all the precepts of the Lord? Shall we convey God's whole will to us and to those committed to our charge, or shall we defraud ourselves of it to our own slaughter? For the Lord says He will require your blood at my hand;

nay rather, if you do not obey God, whose divine warnings we press upon you, you will die a wicked man in your own wickedness, and the salvation of your soul will no longer be required of us, since indeed we were not terrified by your threats, but feared only Him who has commanded that no one besides Himself be feared—since indeed we have appealed to you in the name of the Lord God, that you might rescue yourself from your abominable paths. Lest I should seem to do you, an emperor, an outrage, what ought I to have done at the time when I declare you were born to turn us, God's servants, from the way of truth? For when Nebuchadnezzar had sent Holofernes, the commander of his forces, and he was besieging Jerusalem, what does Judith pray to God? Surely that He would destroy the enemies of Israel. Did she not say:

'Guard those who rise up against Your house. O Lord God of my father Simeon, who gave a sword into his hand for vengeance upon the strangers who defiled the virgin's womb unto defilement, and uncovered the thigh unto shame, and defiled the womb unto reproach. For You said: It shall not be so, and You did it. Wherefore You gave up their princes to slaughter, and their bed—which had been ashamed for her that was deceived—unto blood, and You struck the servants together with the mighty upon their thrones. And You gave their wives for a prey and their daughters into captivity, and all their spoil for division among Your beloved sons, who burned with zeal for You and abhorred the defilement of Your kindred and called upon You for their help.'

'O my God, hear me, a widow. For You wrought the former things with them, and those that came after, and now and those that are yet to come. For all Your ways are prepared, and Your creation is in Your providence. For behold, the Assyrians are multiplied in their power and exalted in horse and rider, and they have gloried in the strength of their footmen; they have trusted in shields and bent bow and slings, and have not known that You are the Lord who crushes wars. The Lord is Your name. Cast down their strength, O Eternal One, crush their fullness by Your power, and bring down their obstinacy in Your wrath. For they have purposed to profane Your sanctuary, to defile the tabernacle where Your honoured name rests, to lay hold with the sword upon the horn of Your altar.'

'Look upon their arrogance, put strength into the hand of me, a widow, as I have purposed, and smite their mouth by the lips of my persuasion—the ruler and the ruler over his servant—shatter their substance by a widow's hand. For Your strength is not in numbers, nor is Your might in the strong, nor Your gift; but You are the God of the humble, the helper of the lowly, the upholder of the weak, the Saviour of the despairing.'

'Yea, O God of my father and God of the inheritance of Israel, Lord and Ruler of the heavens and the earth, Creator of the waters, King of all creation, hear my supplication; give craft and persuasion for the wounding and bruising of those who have devised hard things against Your covenant and Your holy house and the heights of Sion and the house that holds Your sons. Cause every nation and every tribe to know that You are the God of all power and might, and that there is no other defender of the race of Israel but You.' What will your prudent mind deign to feel in response to these things? Can you possibly say, after this supplication poured out to God against the enemies of religion, that we oppose you in an evil manner because we say to you:

'Either correct your crooked ways and take no pleasure in the power of your empire, or know that you will come to nothing'? What else do we, the servants of God, the priests of His divine majesty, do today, except what those did whose imitators we long to be found? For I hold it worthy not to abandon the peoples committed to us amid so great a persecution as you have brought upon them, but to exhort them—namely, that He whose we are is mighty to snatch us out of the hands of His enemies, that you, an enemy of God's house, are not to be feared, that you are to be regarded as nothing, since indeed our God and Lord, almighty over all things, will reduce to nothing all your impious endeavours set up against His house. What injury is done to you here by us?

What outrage is offered to a Roman emperor by the bishops of the living God, if you are asked either to have eternal life, or if it is said to you—because you have taken up arms against the house of God—that unless you correct yourself, you shall perish in vast destruction? For on what account do we foretell to you the destruction of all the enemies of God's house? It is only so that, either being terrified with the fear of God you may change yourself, or, when you have made yourself punished forever, we may triumph secure on every side, because your blood cannot be required of us by God and because we shall have seen the destruction of the adversaries of His Church. Persist, then, in this your injustice, and you will find what awaits you for such great deserts. 'Lucifer is puffed up with pride,' you say, because he speaks the truth to you.

What did you bid me do at this time when you, the forerunner of Antichrist, have raised arms against the house of God to slay us? At the time when you have shown yourself a denier of the only Son of God? Was I to be silent and to allow you, a wolf coming to lay waste the flock of God? Or do you deem it would have been worthy for us shepherds to go out to meet you with throats made ready and dry, to be devoured together with those committed to us? Was it enough of a great deed that this woman Judith, longing to please God, should slay the enemy with her own hand, and that we, appointed shepherds, should not resist you even with a word from the Lord? The Lord says in the Gospel: 'The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep;'

'he who is a hireling and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf snatches them and scatters them, because he is a hireling and it does not concern him about the sheep.' What therefore were we to do, lest we should seem to have been outrageous to you? We recognized you as a wolf, we saw you stretch out your hands against the sheep of the Lord, we beheld you attempt at one moment to tear apart all who call upon the name of the Lord. Was it fitting that we should show ourselves not shepherds but hirelings? To blessed Peter He says: 'Feed my lambs,' and again: 'Feed my little sheep'; and when the wolf comes, do you wish those who are found to be the successors of blessed Peter to play the part of hirelings?

those whom He had long ago promised to His people through Jeremiah, saying: 'And I will give you shepherds according to my heart, and they shall feed you, feeding you with discipline'—and He did not say: I will give you Constantius the emperor, who can turn you into the devil's prey. You may say that we act wickedly because, protected by the strength of God, we resist your sacrilege. Let us see also what, at the time when your fellow-tyrant Antiochus arose as a persecutor of our religion, those did who remembered that none besides God is to be feared. But first you must know what he, to whom you are like, wrote;

for thus you will be able to understand that those servants of God, whose partakers we long to be found, resisted the sacrilege of Antiochus, just as we too, God being favourable, resist you. Holy Scripture speaks, saying in the first book of Maccabees: 'And the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people and that each should abandon his own laws. And all the nations accepted according to the word of the king, and many out of Israel consented together with them and profaned the Sabbath.'

'And the king sent letters by the hand of messengers to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, that they should follow the laws of a foreign land, and forbid holocausts and sacrifice and libation from the sanctuary, profane the Sabbaths and solemn days, defile the sanctuary, set up shrines and idols, sacrifice swine's flesh and common beasts, leave their sons uncircumcised, and defile their souls with every uncleanness and abomination, so that they should forget the law and change the ordinances; and whoever should not act according to the word of the king should die. According to all these words he sent writings throughout his whole kingdom and set overseers over the people. And he commanded the cities of Judah to sacrifice city by city.'

'And many of the people gathered to them, everyone forsaking the law, and they did evil in the land'; and further on: 'And they built the abomination of desolation upon the altar, and in the cities of Judah round about they erected altars, and at the doors of the houses and in the streets they burned incense. And the books of the law which they found they burned with fire, torn to pieces; and with whomever a book of the covenant was found, and if anyone consented to the law, the king's decree put him to death. In their might they did thus to Israel, to those who were found in each and every month in the cities; and on the twenty-fourth day of the month they sacrificed upon the altar which was over the altar. And the women who had circumcised their sons they slew according to the command.'

'They hung the infants from their necks, and slew both their households and those who had circumcised them. And many in Israel held firm and were strengthened among themselves not to eat common food, and they chose to die rather than be defiled with foods and profane the holy covenant. And a great wrath came exceedingly upon Israel in those days. And there arose Mattathias son of John son of Simeon, a priest of the sons of Joarib from Jerusalem, and he had five sons'; and further on: 'And they saw the blasphemies which were done in Judah and in Israel, and he said: Woe is me, why was I born to see the crushing of the holy city, and to sit there while it was given into the hand of enemies, the sanctuary into the hand of strangers?' And further on:

'All her adornment has been taken away; from a free woman she has become a slave. Behold, our holy things and our beauty and our glory are laid waste, and the nations have defiled them. Why should we still live?' And Mattathias and his sons rent their garments and covered themselves with sackcloth and mourned exceedingly. And there came those who were from the king, and they compelled apostasy in the city of Modin, that they should sacrifice. And many of Israel drew near to them. And Mattathias and his sons gathered together. And those who had been sent by the king answered and said to Mattathias, saying: 'You are a ruler and noble and great in this city and are strengthened with sons and brothers.'

'Now come first and carry out the king's command, as all the nations and the men of Judah and those who are left in Israel have done, and you and your sons shall be friends of the king, and you and your sons shall be glorified with silver and gold and many gifts.' Mattathias answered and said with a loud voice: 'If all the nations that are in the king's house obey him, so that each departs from the worship of his fathers, and they have chosen to follow his commands—yet I and my sons will walk in the covenant of our fathers. May the Lord be favourable to us; we will not forsake the law and the ordinances. We will not hear the word of the king; we will not turn aside from the service of our worship to the right hand or the left.'

When he had ceased to speak these words, a Jewish man came forward in the sight of all to sacrifice in Modin according to the king's command. And Mattathias saw it and was inflamed, and his loins trembled, and he brought forth wrath according to judgment. And running to the altar, he slew him. And the king's man who was compelling them to sacrifice he killed at that time, and he destroyed the altar. And he was zealous for the law, as Phinehas did to Zambri son of Salom. And Mattathias cried out in the city with a loud voice, saying: 'Let everyone who is zealous, establishing the covenant, come out after me.' And he fled, both he and his sons, into the mountain, and they left whatever they had in the city. What such deed have you seen done by us, that you should deign to say: 'Lucifer has done me an outrage'?