Polemical Works 2 part 5/6

'Jacob drank wine and ate and was filled, and the beloved kicked; he grew fat and thick, he grew broad, and he forsook God who made him and departed from God his Savior. They provoked Me to jealousy with foreign gods, with their abominations they stirred Me up; and they sacrificed to demons and not to God, to gods whom they had not known; newly, at the present time, came those whom their fathers knew not. You forsook God who begot you and forgot God who nourishes you.' Thus your very treachery, which you proclaim, proves that you, like the Jews, have forsaken God and followed idolatry.

But now I have judged that you should be brought only to this, that you might see that we are not — because I tell you what you are — injurious, wanton, and proud, but truthful, fearing no one except God. The most blessed apostle John says: 'Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out.' You plainly seem to me to be one of these false prophets, since by denying the only Son of God you declare that you have in your sacrilegious mouth nothing but the spirit of Antichrist.

Hence it comes about that you cannot even bear to hear us speaking of the divine eternity of the only Son of God, since that spirit of Antichrist which abides in you cannot endure it, and is unwilling to be driven out of you, but desires to remain in you so long, until it sees you dragged off to those places in which it shall itself dwell forever; for it grieves that you, its most faithful darling, obedient to all its desires, should be torn from it. 'Beloved,' he says, 'do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you shall know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God.'

'and every spirit that destroys Jesus is not of God, and this is that of Antichrist'; and a little further on: 'They are of the world, therefore they speak of the world, and the world hears them; but we are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.' It is clear, Constantius, that you are one carrying the spirit of Antichrist, that you are driven by the spirit of error.

For just as those who said that the only Son of God did not take manhood from the womb of the blessed Virgin, who did not believe that He was incarnate, made man, are shown to have the spirit of error and are named of Antichrist, so also you Arians — when you deny that the only Son of God was truly born of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father; when you spit upon His being the true Son and that He always reigned with the Father; when you refuse to believe that the Son was never without the Father, nor the Father without the Son; when you deny that the Father and His only Son have one Godhead — you make manifest that you are full of no spirit but that of Antichrist. For one who has the Spirit of God cannot say:

'There was a time when He was not, and He was made out of nothing,' concerning the only Son of God, since he believes Him to have reigned with the Father without beginning and to reign without end. And so, when you say that He is not the true Son of God, when in short you attempt to destroy His being homoousion, as the Greeks say — which we Romans call 'of one substance with the Father' — assuredly you too are pronounced to be of those false prophets and among the antichrists. You ought not judge me insolent, because I say that you are driven by an unclean spirit, because I say that you are the forerunner of Antichrist; for your own mouth reveals you to be this, since one having the Spirit of God could not maintain such things as you Arians assert, or all your co-heretics of the various sects.

You deny that the true God has a Son, you say that He is adopted, and you judge that you have not been understood — namely that you are one of those antichrists, spoken of by the mouth of John. You have been revealed, I say, to be led by a hostile spirit. Hence it is, in short, that we have not believed you when you say concerning the Son: 'He was made out of nothing.' For we have recognized that none but the spirit of a false prophet, none but the forerunner of Antichrist, none but a henchman and bondslave of demons, could have said these things.

We could not have believed you when you say these things, since the Holy Spirit has spoken through the prophets concerning the only Son of God that He is the true Son of God, that He is eternal and coeternal with the Father, that the Son was never without the Father nor the Father ever without the Son; and the blessed apostles have related these same things, since the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, who was in the prophets, has remained also in the apostles — which Holy Spirit the Paraclete, because He is in the Church of God, and you are established outside the Church of God, since He does not abide in you, you are assuredly proven to have the spirit of Antichrist;

which unclean spirit, lest you should see these things which we press upon you, covers your heretical hearts with darkness, with the blind gloom of errors, that you may not, forsooth, be able to emerge from its snares. You judge us to be insolent, because we pronounce you to be such as we see you to be. Behold, even when I find that in the Gospel according to Matthew the Lord said, 'Behold, I send you as sheep among wolves,' you seem to me to be one of those wolves — and indeed one in whom I see gathered the fury of all the wolves roaring against the flock of God. For what denier of the only Son of God would not rejoice, would not exult, when he sees you thus laying waste the flock of Christ? I count you also as one of those unbelievers, of those treacherous ones to whom it is said:

'Brood of vipers, how can you speak good things, since you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart each one speaks from his mouth. The good man out of the good treasure brings forth good things, and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.' If the things you speak are good, Constantius, you can have a good treasure. I am wanton, because I tell you that darkness dwells in your heart; hence, out of your most darksome perceptions, being what you are, you dare to bring forth unclean and darksome things. Behold too, if you should hear that which was said to the blessed Peter by the Lord, you will doubtless say that I am insolent.

The most holy Matthew says: 'While He was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and elders of the people; and he who betrayed Him had given them a sign, saying: Whomever I shall kiss, that is He; seize Him. And at once, coming to Jesus, he said: Hail, Rabbi. And he kissed Him. But Jesus said: For what have you come, friend? Then they came forward and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him. And behold, one of those who were with Jesus, stretching out his hand, drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him: Return your sword to its place;'

'for all who take the sword shall perish by the sword.' You must needs call me insolent, when you hear that, if you use the sword, you shall perish by the sword. Or have you not used the sword? If you have slain no Christian by the sword, if you have persecuted none unto death because he confessed the only Son of God to be the true Son, because he held the apostolic and evangelical faith, because he refused to be an Arian, then perhaps you shall not perish by the sword? For you hear the word spoken to blessed Peter, and indeed by God, the only Son of God, that everyone who uses the sword shall perish by the sword. I am insolent, because I have said to you: it is not lawful for Christians to kill, since it is fitting for Christians to suffer, not to inflict, injury — to be slain;

for you must, for Christ's sake, slay not those who cry out that they are Christians. These are the commandments the Lord has given us; if they are kept, then we shall persevere in being Christians. But you, on the contrary, since you deign to persecute His servants with the sword, we shall assuredly no longer be able to call you a Christian, but plainly a robber or a gladiator. Meanwhile, since we have recited how your fellow-madman Judas Iscariot betrayed the Lord, in this very place let us thoroughly examine the causes of his sacrilege and of yours, and you will find that you and Judas Iscariot are one and the same. He betrayed the Lord to the Jews, because he was not a believer, save in the way that your fellow-Scot, the man of Sirmium, is now a believer — he who was and is unworthily called Photinus.

You handed him over, and indeed to the whole world, so that all might be able to deny his divinity. Which of you is the greater in wickedness? I judge that it is you. For everyone who sins against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither here nor in the world to come. You have shown yourself the betrayer of his Godhead, that all might deny it. For as far as it lies with you, you have handed him over — him concerning whom you have both issued written books and set up everywhere the preachers of your gracious purpose.

Him, that all might deny that he is the true Son of God, you made [it so] that the apostolic and evangelical faith, set down at Nicaea against you heretics, should be judged heretical, and you made your own blasphemy to be called catholic. And yet that Judas, who had betrayed him, seeing that he had wrought the destruction of his own salvation, being led by repentance brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying: I have sinned, in that I have betrayed innocent blood. But they said: What is that to us? See thou to it. And casting down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed, and went and hanged himself with a noose. He, though he repented but for a single moment and returned the price which he had received;

you — what such thing [have you done], who, being called to account, not only did not repent of committing that guilt against his servants, but even grew the more in defiance? You — what such thing, who lavish all the resources of your kingdom that you may be able to establish your sacrilege; who, those whom you could not corrupt from the truth by any other means, some of them you corrupted with the vast reward of your wealth; who so enriched a certain number of the needy that in the greatness of their riches they could be made equal to your own counts? Judas, after he perceived his crime, ended his life with a noose;

you, who for the greatness of your crime deserve to be smitten with a greater punishment — what will you do, when at last, though too late, you come to know that you have done evil; when those eyes of yours, festering with heretical poison, begin to see the things which now they can least behold? And yet, if you are willing to believe, it must needs be forgiven you, that which you do out of ignorance, even as you observe it was forgiven to the blessed apostle Paul; but if not, then like Judas you shall descend into the night of hell, and then shall say to those who now compelled you to do these things, that is, to your fellow Arians: I have sinned with you, denying the only Son of God; I have sinned in granting you authority to deny his eternal mercy.

Then, when you begin to know that we rightly confess one eternity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; when you begin to see that there is one greatness and one power in the Father and in his only Son and in the Holy Paraclete Spirit — where then will they be who impelled you to perpetrate this sacrilege, so that you say to them: I repent, that with you, the enemies of God, I ran, that with you I persecuted the house of God? They will be with you, without doubt, in Gehenna. Where then will be the riches of your kingdom, which profit you not for salvation, but avail for your eternal destruction? We wish indeed that God may deign to reveal the truth to you, the enemy of your own salvation, and that you may emerge from such great perils.

For the rest, how much more eminent you are in crime than Judas Iscariot, it is no labor to reckon: since you have summoned the whole world to deny his divinity, whereas Judas betrayed the Lord only to those who did not yet believe in him; you, on the contrary, have deigned to provoke even those who already believed, to deny his Godhead. Judas brought force upon no one to perish with him; you, on the contrary, are fighting against us with a military band — against us whom you know to believe as the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs believed. Assuredly, how great a distance there is between you and Judas is no great labor to weigh.

You call me insolent, because I — desiring that neither I nor those committed to my charge be wounded by your pestilential teaching, because I tell you that you are full of disease and therefore are to be shunned by the servants of God, lest we too, being made diseased, perish together with this plague of yours. 'Would that,' says the apostle to the Corinthians, 'you would bear with a little of my foolishness; but do bear with me. For I am jealous over you with the jealousy of God. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his cunning, so your minds should be corrupted from the chastity that is in Christ Jesus.'

For this reason I seem to you to be insolent, because I fear lest through your blasphemy you corrupt the chastity which we have in Christ Jesus; because we are afraid lest, as your most beloved serpent seduced Eve by his cunning, you seduce us from God and make us guilty of death. You call me contumacious, because I say you are a deceitful workman, a false Christian. These things were not first brought forth against you by me. For you hear the blessed apostle designating you a deceitful workman, a false apostle: 'For such false apostles are deceitful workmen, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light;'

'it is no great thing if his ministers also are transformed as ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works.' Hence I seem to you to be arrogant, because I say — knowing from your deeds — that you are of those whom the Holy Spirit foreshowed through the apostle would be such. If you are not a deceitful workman, refute me; for I know that you feign yourself a Christian, though you are an Arian, that you would make all of us servants of him whose henchman you are. If you are not a deceitful workman, prove it; for we indeed see that in certain respects you feign yourself pious, while you exercise all your impiety against us Christians.

If you are not a deceitful workman, how is it that, feigning peace, you had attempted to establish yourself for the destruction of the whole Church of God, for the dissolving of the peace given to it through the only Son of God? For I could not thereafter have the peace of the Lord, from the moment I had done what you were commanding me against the Lord's precept — from the moment, in short, when I had begun to deny the very only Son of God himself, as you deny him. If you have not been transformed into apostles of Christ, why — as though truly all care of the Church pertained to you — are you so anxious, namely lest anywhere a catholic bishop preside over a church, lest anyone be left who can confess himself a Christian?

You remove catholic bishops, you ordain heretics, you write horrendous threats, lest perchance a sedition arise. Assuredly, whoever is ignorant supposes you, while he beholds you doing these things, to be a Christian; we, on the contrary, who by the apostle's teaching blessedly recognize that Satan has transformed himself into an angel of light — Satan, who through you carries out all these things against the holy Church — we cannot marvel if we behold you his minister, transformed as it were into a minister of righteousness, [truly] a minister of unrighteousness. We exhort you — would that you might turn yourself to this, whereby you might be believed a servant of God, whereby you might be judged and understood a Christian. How often is it said by us to you, that you could not have become a denier of the only Son of God, save that you are full of the adversary spirit.

You are wont to say that we do you injury; and although I have already proved this matter in very many places — that with unclean spirits instigating your hearts you come against the family of God — yet take up in the Acts of the Apostles what things befell. 'And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, that a certain girl, having a spirit of python, met us, who brought much gain to her masters by divining. She followed after Paul and us, and cried out, saying: These men are servants of the most high God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation. And this she did for many days; which when it grieved Paul, turning to the spirit he said: I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out that same hour.'

'But her masters, seeing that the hope of their gain was gone, seized Paul and Silas and dragged them to the forum, to the magistrates, and presented them, saying: These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and preach a sect which it is not lawful for us to receive nor to practice, since we are Romans. And the whole crowd rose up together against them, and the magistrates, having torn off their tunics, ordered them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the keeper of the prison to keep them diligently. Who, having received such a charge, put them into the innermost prison and made their feet fast in the stocks.'

'And about midnight, as Paul and Silas were praying and singing a hymn to God, the rest of the prisoners were listening to them. But suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and the doors were opened and all the bonds were loosed. The keeper of the prison, being awakened and seeing the doors of the prison open, drew his sword to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had fled. But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying: Do thyself no harm, for we are all here. Which having heard, the keeper of the prison called for a light and went in, and trembling fell down before the feet of Paul and Silas, and having brought them out, said: Sirs, what must I do that I may be saved? And they said:'

'Believe in God Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house. And they spoke to him the word of the Lord, with all who were in his house. And taking them that same hour of the night, he washed [them] from their stripes, and was baptized, he and all his. And bringing them into his house, he set a table, and rejoiced with his whole house, having believed in the Lord.' Therefore, just as that spirit of python, hearing the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, was soon put to flight from its dwelling, and stirred up the whole people of the city against the preachers of the majesty of the only Son of God, so also those impure spirits have stirred up you, together with yours, against us his servants.

Do not doubt that you are driven by the same spirits by which they were driven who rose up against Paul and Silas, since you see yourself made a persecutor of the religion of God — as that mob was which had not yet believed in God's only Son, who were not such from any other cause than that they were without the Spirit of God, as you too are proved to be. That you cannot have the Holy Spirit unless you believe in God's only Son, the deed of that keeper of the prison makes manifest: who, though he had assuredly been one of that resisting people, yet after he had believed that he was now governed by the Holy Spirit by which Paul and Silas were governed, embraced holding to no way but theirs, on whose account he had seen the gates of the prison unbarred of their own accord.

So you, who are now driven by a contrary spirit, unless you believe in the only Son of God, as we too believe, cannot have within you anything but the spirit of our adversary. For that keeper said to the glorious Paul and Silas: Sirs, what must I do that I may be saved? And they said: Believe in our Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house. It is established, therefore, that you are not saved, because you have not yet believed in the Lord Jesus. Nor can you assert that you have believed in him, since you are persecuting him. Or do you perhaps suppose that you do not persecute him himself in us? If you do not persecute him himself in us, how does he himself say to Saul: Why persecutest thou me? I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.

It is hard for thee to kick against the goad. What was Saul doing, that he should hear these things from the Lord? Surely the same as you; for even so did he deny the only Son of God, as you deny him. For Paul — then a persecutor, but afterward one who began to endure persecution — was not persecuting Christians because they had believed as you believe: that there was [a time] when he was not, that he was made from nothing, and that he is [only] a true son [by creation]; but assuredly because they dared to confess the only Son of God, because the Christians affirmed that they believed that the eternity of the Father and of the Son is one, that the deity is one, that the power in the Father and the Son is one. These things Paul execrated, supposing that the Christians erred;

but when he was enlightened through him whom he denied, when he learned from the books of Moses and from all the volumes of the prophets, at once he began to defend the things which he had been attacking — the very things which those whom he persecuted had defended before he believed. For the rest, who was so senseless, as you Arians are, or as is Photinus of Sirmium (who is truly called Scotinus, the 'dark one'), as to believe in a creature, in one who was [at a time] when he was not, in one who was created from nothing? It appears, therefore, that all of you, not believing as the glorious Church believes, are led by the adverse spirit; from which adverse spirit you cannot be freed, unless you believe that he is the true Son of God. 'The bishops,' you say, 'do me injury.'

Why do we seem insolent to you? Surely because we say: Why do you feign yourself a Christian? For you appear to be an Arian, you appear to be an enemy of God's religion. Hence we seem injurious to you and yours. But behold what the most blessed apostle spoke, [showing] how we bishops should act against you wolves: 'You know, from the first day that I entered Asia, in what manner I was with you the whole time, serving the Lord in all humility and tears and temptations which befell me from the plots of the Jews; how I kept back nothing from them of the things that were profitable, how I proclaimed to you and taught publicly and from house to house, testifying to Jews and Greeks repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus.'

'And now, behold, bound in the spirit I go to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there, save that the Holy Spirit throughout every city testifies to me, saying that bonds and tribulations await me in Jerusalem. But I count my life as nothing dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry of the word which I received from the Lord, to testify to Jews and Greeks the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that you all, among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom of the Lord Jesus, shall see my face no more. Wherefore I testify to you this present day, that I am clean from the blood of all; for I have not shrunk from declaring to you all the will of God.'

'Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, over which the Holy Spirit has appointed you bishops, to rule the Church of the Lord, which he purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departure grievous wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Wherefore watch, keeping in memory that for three years, night and day, I ceased not with tears to admonish every one of you.' When you see these to be the commands of the apostle, what do you bid me do, lest I should seem insolent to you? Surely you bid me to be silent, and to permit that you, one of those grievous wolves foredesignated, in whatever manner run riot against the flock of God.

We see you wolves, whom the Holy Spirit deigned to foreshow through the apostle, the vessel of election, attempting to seize the whole flock of God; and we bishops, whom the Holy Spirit has appointed to rule the Church of God (as the blessed apostle says) — ought we to spare you the wolf? Ought we to revere the diadem of your kingdom, the earring too and the bracelets? Ought we to honor those garments of yours which you deem distinguished, and to despise the Creator and Ruler of all things? Who is more imprudent than you, that you should say: I suffer injury from Lucifer, an emperor from a needy man? — not deigning to say 'from a bishop,' because you were recognized to be a wolf and deserved rebuff.

With such odium you thought I should be burdened, that you should assert that a servant of God had proved insolent to you the emperor. If you think us injurious, receive what the blessed Paul answered to the chief priest who forbade [him] to preach the only Son of God. 'Looking intently,' says the Scripture, 'upon the council, Paul said: Men, brethren, I have conducted myself with all good conscience before God until this day. But Ananias the chief priest commanded those standing by him to strike Paul's mouth. Then Paul said to him: God shall begin to strike thee, thou whitewashed wall. For thou sittest to judge me according to the law, and against the law commandest me to be struck.'

Therefore, if the sacred law cannot judge the blessed Paul insolent because he said this to an unjust judge, neither can you justly call me proud for saying to you what is true and what you are. You designate me guilty of insults; but I ask you, tell me to whom you can complain about me? If to God — how do you complain to him whom you know not? How, since you are a stranger from his house? But if you complain to your very self — what will you do, a man who can in no part harm the servants of God? If you torture, we are the more cared for; if you crucify, we are the more refreshed; if you kill, we shall the more live. Because I dare to call you the forerunner of Antichrist, you say I am injurious.

If your own acts do not show you to be this, consider with great earnestness also the book of the most holy prophet Daniel, and you will find yourself to be one of those foreshown persecutors of the religion of God. 'In the first year of Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, Daniel saw a dream, and the visions of his head upon his bed, and he wrote down his dream: I, Daniel, saw; and behold, the four winds of heaven were striving upon the great sea, and four beasts came up from the sea, one surpassing another in magnitude. The first like a lioness, and it had wings. And it was lifted up from the earth and stood upon the feet of a man, and the heart of a man was given to it. And behold another beast, like a bear, and it stood on one side. And three ribs were in its mouth, in the midst of its teeth.'