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We shall not, therefore, be able to wonder if — which may God avert from you — you should decree to meet your day of death in your heresy, since even by signs and portents your former fellow-sacrilegists could not be recalled to worship God alone. For holy Scripture says of Jeroboam: And after this Jeroboam did not turn back from his malice, but turned back and made priests of the high places from among the people. For whoever wished lifted up his hand, and became a priest in the high places. And this thing became a sin unto the house of Jeroboam, and unto its destruction and extermination from the face of the earth.
Lest these things be said also of you, I beg you to snatch yourself away from the wicked assembly of the Arians; I beg you to be a Christian, as before you were, instead of an Arian, and do not be indignant with us that we equate your deeds with Jeroboam's; but rather I beseech you to see that all these things which I press upon you for the good of your salvation are to be called instructions rather than rebukes. For you are compared by us to Jeroboam in our times, because you have thus tried to turn all men from God, just as he tried to make the people of Israel an apostate from being a worshipper of God.
I do not want you to promise yourself any hope from this — that, though you do evil, you nevertheless reign — since you see that Jeroboam also reigned long in his crime, and Solomon's son likewise, practicing idolatry, died in the same crime, and likewise his son Abijah, of whom I find it written: And he walked in the sins of his father, which he did before him, and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father; and yet, though they served idols, they were in the kingdom and died in that dignity, and handed on to their sons the authority of the kingdom. Therefore do not applaud yourself even in this — that your father handed the kingdom over to you — saying:
'Unless my father had done well to join himself to the Arians, we his sons would not be reigning.' I do not want you to say: If I were a heretic, I would never rule so long, God would never permit me still to be in the kingdom — when you see that Baasha the son of Ahijah reigned twenty-four years over Israel, of whom you have found it written in the third book of Kingdoms: And he did evil before the Lord, and walked in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and in his sins wherewith he sinned in Israel. This King Baasha surely ought to have feared lest he be struck down like Jeroboam, if he departed from the ways of the Lord. But so it is.
You are such as turn aside from God, so that when it pleases you, to God's injury, to take up the office of idolatry, you cannot even be frightened by the example of those who have already been judged, so as to turn to God. It is written also of King Omri: And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did more wickedly than all who were before him, and walked in every way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, in his sins;
and yet this one, who is said to have sinned above all the kings who were before him, was not destroyed as soon as he forsook God, nor was he afflicted by any grave illness, so that he who is described as having sinned more grievously should be striven after to be slain by a graver punishment. You see, Constantius, even if it should befall you to pass this temporal life in the highest felicity, yet you ought all the more to fear, because you are reserved for God's judgment; and although even those who are destroyed at once, on whom here some of their punishments are divinely inflicted, are always tormented after their descent, yet if you, living in the highest felicity, are snatched from here, mark how vengeance will proceed against you, who are found in so great a crime.
Therefore do not ascribe to yourself any felicity from this — that, though you deny the only Son of God, though you persecute His family, your spirit nevertheless still remains in that executioner's body — when you consider that the son of Asa too reigned thirty-five years among the Jews, though he was sacrilegious like you; of whom you have read it written: He walked in the ways of Asa his father, and did not turn aside from them, to do what was right in the sight of the Lord, but they did not abstain from the high places, and sacrificed on the high places and burned incense. Behold, this king too is described as having slept in peace. Since therefore he practiced idolatry for thirty-five years, do not ascribe it to yourself for glory and say:
'For this reason I am not stricken by any blow, for this reason I am not yet destroyed, but I still live possessing the kingdom of the Roman Empire, because I believe rightly; because the faith of Arius is correct; because I have done well to remove the bishops and to install others such as Arius desired.' Do not, I say, glory in this — that, though you do these things, you nevertheless are proud — when you see that that king held the kingdom for thirty-five years and was taken away in peace. If, therefore, the crime of idolatry could pass unpunished for them, because they were thus taken away, it will be able to do so for you also, Constantius. Turn yourself, therefore, to the Lord, lest you be found such as Ahab was found, of whom I find it written:
And Ahab did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did more wickedly than all who were before him. And it was not enough for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, but he also took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians. And he went and served Baal and worshipped him, and set up a shrine of Baal in the house of his cults, which he built in Samaria; and Ahab made a sacred grove, to make provocation, to provoke God and to destroy his own soul, and did more wickedly than all the kings of Israel who were before him. Do not any longer allow yourself to be among the Arians, but make your passage over to us Christians, to whom all heresies are just as Baal is.
So you are now heretics to us, just as, to those worshippers of God in those times, were those who sacrificed to idols; through this heresy of yours, believe me, you are in our times such a one as Ahab also was. Do not, therefore, be pleased with yourself that God has not immediately repaid you, when you see that to this Ahab and his wife Jezebel — who even killed the prophets of the Lord, who are found to have been so engaged in so great a crime that they did not permit any man in the land of Israel confessing himself God's to remain — mercy was shown for a very long time. Do not regard this — that, though you do evil, you nevertheless are proud in your crimes;
but I beseech you to see this: that unless you turn, just as to them, though late, the deserts of their works were repaid, so also it can be presented to you. Do not say: I am long in the kingdom here, I am powerful here, because I hold the good faith, because I act rightly by persecuting those who believe as that faith set forth at Nicaea holds — this, I say, do not say, but that I pray you to see: that you are so proud after so many of your slaughters, that either, hearing us the priests of God, you should turn yourself to God, or else you should surely receive the just deserts of your deeds then, when you shall not be able to say that you erred unknowingly.
Mark that these things are so, admonished by the example of Ahab, the slayer of the prophets of the Lord and the worshipper of all demons. Understand that this man, so wicked, was for this reason kept long in the kingdom after such great crimes: that at last, if he wished, he might turn himself — he to whom not only are the deserts of his evil deeds not presented, but who is even helped in his straits, doubtless for this, that he might be able to conclude that he was rescued not through Baal and the other demons, whom the heathen call gods, but through the God of Israel, whose prophet he saw speaking with him and declaring to him in what manner God was about to reduce the enemies of the Israelites to nothing.
For Ben-Hadad the king had besieged Samaria with thirty-two other kings, boasting so much, as though he counted the Israelites as nothing, that he alone, one man, would overcome the whole multitude of the Israelites. This foreigner God made nothing before Israel. For which king did God conquer? Surely for Ahab, for him who had forsaken Him, who had made Israel serve Baal and all the demons — for whom nevertheless He gave aid, namely that he might believe that He alone is God whose people was Israel, and no other beside Him, who had conquered for him, so that Ahab might see that it would be just for him at last to correct his errors.
As soon as the adversary began to build the siege against the city of the Israelites, behold, says sacred Scripture, a certain prophet approached the king of Israel and said: Thus says the Lord, have you heard this great tumult? Behold, today I will deliver him into your hands, and you shall know that I am the Lord. And the king said: By whom? And the prophet said: By the servants of the princes of the provinces. And the king said: Who shall join battle? And the prophet said: You. And below: And the servants of the princes of the provinces went out from the city, and the army that was behind them, and each one struck down whomever he found beside him, and the Syrians fled, and Israel pursued. How do you say, Constantius:
'If I did not serve God well, if I were not believing rightly, I would never have seen the kingdom of the Romans placed in my power, nor would I have been living so long in the kingdom?' When you see that to Ahab, king of Israel, living after the manner of the Gentiles and turning the people of God away from God — just as you also turn them away — it was said by Him against whom he was sinning, whose precepts he counted as nothing: I deliver him into your hands, that you may know that I am God.
He, therefore, who snatched him from the son of Hadad king of Syria, has likewise snatched, and snatches, you from all who desire to destroy you, for this purpose surely: that you may be able to recognize that He is the God of the patriarchs and the martyrs, that you may be able to conclude that the victory was granted you not for the merits of your faith and life — since you are in all things like King Ahab — but that mercy was shown you, against your merits, by Him whom you have forsaken, just as it was shown to Ahab. For if you should say that you conquer your adversaries because you believe well, Ahab too, worshipper of idols and slayer of the holy prophets, could have said the same. Do you not see, then, that you have been reserved for this: that you might correct your errors?
As soon as you seized Italy, you attempted to overturn her Church; you said that God the Father is not the true God the Father, denying His only Son, affirming that He is not the true Son. You also asserted that the Holy Paraclete, the Spirit, was fashioned out of nothing; you attempted to defend that there was a time when the only Son of God existed, when He did not exist; you gave your effort with all your strength to how you might remove the apostolic and evangelical tradition from the midst; you caused bishops ordained by God's judgment to be removed by your authority, and resolved that heretics should be installed in their places, who might be able to preach your heresy;
with military force you fought against the Church in Alexandria; very many of the bishops you banished into exile, into the mines, you cast into prison, and you even killed a certain number out of all the worshippers of God. Though you have done these things, you nevertheless say: Unless I were doing well and believing soundly, God would never yet permit me to reign — as though God had been patient toward Ahab also, and your other fellow-idolaters, for the reason that they were holding to the right way.
You, therefore, because He is patient with your sins by His untiring mercy, just as He was to King Ahab, suppose that you are not sinning, but that you are spared for your merits — whom you imitate in this too: that you love those who counsel you evil, but destroy those who, for the sake of your salvation, tell you what is true.
For just as to Ahab those four hundred false prophets spoke that all prosperous things could befall him, while on the contrary God's prophet Micaiah said that all evils would befall him, and he loved those false prophets more than the true prophet of the Lord, so also you love your fellow-heretics the Arians, obey their sayings, and execrate us all, the priests of the Lord — first of all, because we confess the Son of God to be the true Son of God; secondly, because we do not flatter you, because we affirm and say that you are in danger, and that unless you turn to God, you will come into eternal punishment.
And that you may be able to believe that God's men have always been held in hatred by apostate men, but that the enemies of God's religion, that is, the worshippers of the devil, have been loved, hear whom Ahab loved and whom he held in hatred. And Jehoshaphat king of Judah said to the king of Israel: Inquire now today of the Lord. And the king of Israel gathered together all the prophets, about four hundred men, and King Ahab said to them: Shall I go to Ramoth in Gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? And they said: Go up. And below: And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel: Is there not here a prophet of the Lord, that we may inquire of the Lord? And Ahab king of Israel said to King Jehoshaphat: There is one by whom we may inquire of the Lord, but I hate him, because he does not speak good concerning me.
Likewise, after the prophet of the Lord, Micaiah, had told him not to go up, because if he went up he would not return, the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat king of Judah: Did I not tell you that this man prophesies to me not good, but rather evil? Those things seemed evil, mad and heartless, to him whom the devil had already besieged — evil, those things which were spoken by the servant of God, and those things were judged good which were spoken by the servants of the devil. Nor is it therefore to be wondered at, if Ahab listened to those whom the devil caused him to listen to, namely his own slaves, and if he would not listen to those whom both the very endurance of their sufferings and the very constancy of their assertion manifested to him to be God's servants.
The false prophets were enriched, honored, and dismissed by the king, but Micaiah the prophet of the Lord is shut up in prison, and it is said: Let him eat the bread of affliction until I return; and yet, according to the word of God's servant, he did not return at all. So you too act, Constantius; you love those who drag you with them to perpetual death, who lead your soul to utter destruction, and you deign to hold in hatred those who desire that you become God's friend.
Do not glory in this — that, though you do such great things, you nevertheless, mighty in the glory of a kingdom, still possess this fragile life — when the sacred writings relate that Jeroboam the son of Joash too reigned in Israel forty-one years in Samaria, and indeed, having forsaken God, serving idols, and not departing from the malice of Ahab king of Israel and the sacrifices of Jeroboam. 'If I had done evil,' you say, 'God would already have removed me from the kingdom' — as if the son of Amaziah, for the reason that he did not depart from vain things, was indeed filled with leprosy, but nevertheless reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem.
But in this you are more fortunate than King Uzziah: that you do not have elephantiasis, which, though it can consume all your limbs — but you have that disease which can utterly defile the soul. Grieve for yourself along with us, and shed tears for yourself; behold how this which appears as elephantiasis defiles the body, how the poison of leprosy consumes the limbs. Understand that the Arian heresy, your elephantiasis, thus defiles all your inner parts; mark that it thus affects your inner man, just as this disease does, which has seized those whom you see infused with elephantiasis. Do not say:
'Unless I acted well, I would never rule for so long a time, I would never still have been permitted to live' — when you see that Manasseh too, the son of King Hezekiah, king of Judah, received the kingdom at sixteen years of age and reigned fifty-seven years; of whom, when you have heard what things are written, you will assuredly find that you are his imitator, and you will not begin to wonder that, though you do evil, you are nevertheless still spared, seeing Manasseh — in whose cruelty and sacrilege you are not less — that, though he did such great things, he held the kingdom for fifty-seven years. 'And Hezekiah slept,' says Scripture, 'with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David, and Manasseh his son reigned in his place.'
Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-seven years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Hephzibah. And he did that which is evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel. And he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he built an altar to Baal and made groves, as did Ahab king of Israel, and he worshipped all the host of heaven and served them. And he built an altar in the two houses of the house of the Lord, and he made his sons pass through the fire, and he practised divination and made pythons and many soothsayers, that he might do what is evil in the eyes of his own soul, so as to provoke the Lord God.
And he made the graven images of the groves which he had set in the house, concerning which the Lord had said to David and to Solomon his son: In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever; and I will not again set foot to move Israel from the land which I have given, provided only they will hearken to me in all things which I have commanded them, and according to the law which my servant Moses commanded them. But they did not hearken; and because Manasseh mightily despised and seduced them, so that they did what is evil above all the nations which the Lord took away from before Israel.
And the Lord spoke by the hand of his servants the prophets, saying: Because Manasseh king of Judah has made idols, according to all that the Amorite did who was before him, and has made Judah to sin with his idols; therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel: Behold, I bring evils upon Jerusalem and upon Judah; whosoever hears these things, both his ears shall tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe out Jerusalem as a writing-tablet is wiped clean from the post before his face.
And I will give them into the hands of their enemies, and they shall be for a prey and a burning to all their foes, because they have been cast off from following me, and they were following me and yet were provoking me, from the day that their fathers came out of the land of Egypt even to this day. And the rest of the words of Manasseh and all that he did, how he made Israel to sin, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Judah? and how he shed the blood of the innocent very abundantly, until he filled Jerusalem to the very brim, besides the sin whereby he made Judah to sin, to do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord God? And Manasseh slept with his fathers, and his son reigned in his stead; and Amon was twenty-two years old.
What do you say to this, Constantius? I believe you now cease to say: If I did not act well, I would not be reigning so long a time, seeing that you behold this other Manasseh also, who did such things, reigned fifty-seven years; and since we have said that you are another Manasseh, look how you have all that was his. He set up idolatry in the house of God; you did just as much in the temple and dwellings of the Lord. He caused idols to be adored; you have usurped for yourself that which was called the Lord's, so that henceforth it may be called that of idols.
All these things you also have done, for you have brought the Arian heresy into the Church, and you who established your blasphemy to be received as though it were the Catholic faith, and commanded that faith written at Nicaea, which we know to be apostolic and evangelical, to be spat upon. As you have now craved that these things be done, so also Manasseh commanded that all idols were to be served, but that men were to depart from God. It will not therefore be a marvel if you have claimed for yourself the buildings in which we are wont to gather the people of God, and have called yourself, an idolater, a Catholic, when you see that Manasseh also did this very thing which you have now done.
So then the Lord will spare you likewise, holding to the way of Manasseh, in the same manner as he spared him, and to the extent that he spared him, so that it is written that he slept with his fathers and was buried in Jerusalem, and that his son received the kingdom in his place. Do you read that he perished in war or was weighed down by some sickness? By no means; but what do you think? I believe, in that prudence of yours you say that all those things went unpunished for king Manasseh. Such are you, that you would thus think about Manasseh, namely that, because after reigning fifty-seven years he handed over the kingdom to his son and himself died in peace, such great crimes as he committed could have gone unpunished for him.
Do not have pity on yourself, so as to turn yourself to God; do not refuse to correct your wicked deeds, and you will find yourself tormented together with Manasseh, whom, this Manasseh, you will be seen to surpass in this respect: that he shed the blood of the just only within the borders of Jerusalem, but you have shed it and are shedding it throughout the whole Roman realm. But, you say, he burned or consecrated his sons before the images of his gods; and you too, if you had had sons, would without doubt have made those same sons receive the Arian blasphemy. Or do you not know that, just as then those pleased the devil who burned their sons, since indeed they had one mind to forsake the Creator and to serve the creature, so now the devil demands nothing of you except that you deny the only Son of God?
This is to him the most acceptable sacrifice, that you should be a believer just as Arius also believed; in our times this is more to him, that you deny the Son of God, than if you were willing to be burned in flames in honour of all the demons. For he sees that the cult of idols is despised by all, because that invention proved empty; now he is eager, through you his servants the heretics, to deceive us the servants of God. How, you ask, to deceive? In the same way as he has already deceived you, so he wishes us also to be deceived. Since you are an Arian, you feign yourself a Christian for this purpose, until with the poison of your heresy you may wound the defenceless, so that thereafter they may be not Christians, which we are, but what you Arians are. This is the fattening of your services which is offered by you to the demons.
For who indeed, save the devil and his sons, can say of the only Son of God: He is a son and yet not a true son; he is God and yet not true God? Therefore when you say, I am a Christian but I do not believe God to have a true Son, I do not believe in one power of the Father and the Son; when you say the Son is a creature, made out of nothing; when you say there was a time when he was not, then you sacrifice to the devil better than Manasseh did of old, when he either consecrated his sons to all the demons through fire or when he burned them. I grieve for you, emperor, why, when you are of such folly and when you do such great evils, you nonetheless deign to say: If I did not act well, I would no longer be in the kingdom; God would already have destroyed me.
Do you not perceive that this Manasseh, in sacrilege and in cruelty, is to be compared to you, in that he held the kingdom in Judaea for fifty-seven years, as I have often said? This is he who made the people forsake God and serve idols, this is he who set up images in the temple of the Lord and in the dwellings of God, who made the house of God, who made the sanctuary of his majesty into a sanctuary of idols. So too God bears with you, so he endures until he both proves his household and crowns the worthy, and, if you do not correct yourself, punishes the unworthy along with you unto eternal punishment.
For the rest, believe that he could, both then Manasseh and now you, destroy you in a single instant, in the twinkling of an eye; but he spares, not because he cannot, but because it is fitting that his worshippers also be crowned, who remain unmoved against your cruelty, and that he condemn you, the enemies of his clemency, to everlasting punishment, if you resolve to persist such as you are. As for your saying, If I did not act well, I would never yet be ruling, this is the doing of those who not only refuse that you, straying, be corrected, but even drive you on to perish. No wonder; for it is written that both you and they would be such: The sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, and he who does wickedly shall be blessed. The sinner has provoked the Lord; according to the multitude of his wrath he will not seek him.
God is not before his eyes; his ways are defiled at all times; your judgements are taken away from before his face. When therefore you say: We do well to remove those bishops who confess that they hold the faith written at Nicaea, and to appoint those who confess as Arius confessed; and they say: You are indeed rightly that sinner who is praised unjustly for the desires of your soul; and you are the wicked one who, though you have been forsaken by God for your blasphemies, yet, along with your flatterers, whatever you transgress is not rebuked, but rather it is said that you act well. When you say: I did well to send a soldier to Alexandria to carry off Athanasius, they say most rightly:
To whom shall you be compared, save to him who is marked out by the Holy Spirit through the psalmist, in that, though he does wicked things, though he is most base and detestable, he nonetheless is eager to be praised? You say: Unless I acted well, God would no longer have spared me; and I find it said to God: Because you correct in part those who have strayed, and you address, admonishing, those who sin, that, having forsaken those evils, they may believe in you, O Lord. For you also, hating those ancient inhabitants of your land, because they were doing works hateful to you through sorceries and unjust sacrifices, and being slayers of children without mercy, you willed to destroy them by the hands of our fathers, that the land which is dearer to you than all might receive a worthy sojourning of the children of God.
But even these you spared as men, and you sent ahead of your army wasps, that they might exterminate them by degrees. Were you powerless to attack, to subject the impious to the just, or to destroy them at once with the fiercest of beasts or with a harsh word? But judging by degrees, you gave place for repentance, not being ignorant that their race was wicked and their malice inborn, and that their thought could never be changed for ever; for the seed was accursed from the beginning, and, fearing no one, you granted pardon to their sins. For who shall say to you: What have you done? or who shall stand against your judgement? In like manner you too are spared, Constantius, that you may do penance, or perish by their example, who, when