Faith does not fear famine. It knows that famine, no less than every kind of death, is to be despised by it for God's sake. It has learned not to regard life; how much more, food? How very few have fulfilled these things? But the things which are difficult with men are easy with God.
Yet let us not so flatter ourselves concerning the meekness and clemency of God as to indulge our necessities even to the point of affinities with idolatry; but let us shun its every breath, even from afar, as we would a plague — not only in those matters which we have set forth above, but in the whole series of human superstition, whether it be made over to its own gods, or to the dead, or to kings, as pertaining to the same unclean spirits: now through sacrifices and priesthoods, now through spectacles and the like, now through festal days. But of sacrifices and priesthoods, what shall I say? And concerning spectacles and pleasures of this kind, we have already filled a volume of their own.
In this place it is fitting to treat again of festal days and other extraordinary solemnities, which we sometimes ascribe to our wantonness, sometimes to our timidity, sharing with the nations in idolatrous matters against faith and discipline. On this point first I will take my stand: whether a servant of God ought to have communion even with the nations themselves in things of this kind, whether in dress, or in diet, or in any other manner of their festivity. To rejoice with them that rejoice, and to mourn with them that mourn, was said by the apostle when he exhorted to unanimity — among the brethren. But apart from this, there is no fellowship of light with darkness, of life with death; else we tear asunder what is written: The world shall rejoice, but you shall mourn.
If we rejoice with the world, it is to be feared that we may also mourn with the world. But while the world rejoices, let us mourn; and when afterward the world mourns, we shall rejoice. Thus too Lazarus among the dead, having obtained refreshment in Abraham's bosom, and on the other side the rich man set in the torment of fire, balance out their alternating turns of evils and goods by an answering recompense. There are certain days of gifts, which for some discharge the mark of an honour, and for others the debt of a wage. 'Now, then,' you say, 'I shall receive what is mine, or repay what belongs to another.'
If men have consecrated this custom to themselves out of superstition, why do you, a stranger to all their vanity, share in these solemn offerings to idols, as though a rule about a day had been prescribed to you also, so that you might not, apart from the observance of the day, pay what you owe to a man, or receive what is owed to you by a man? Give the pattern in which you would have dealings conducted with you. For why should you even hide yourself, when by another's ignorance you defile your own conscience? If it is not unknown that you are a Christian, you are being tested, and you act against another's conscience as one who is not a Christian; but if you also dissemble, you are, when tested, given over. Certainly, whether the one way or the other, you are guilty of confusion before God.
'But whoever shall have been ashamed of me before men, I also,' He says, 'will be ashamed of him before my Father who is in heaven.' XIV. But indeed very many have now brought themselves to the mind that they must be pardoned if at times they do what the heathen do, lest the Name be blasphemed. Now the blasphemy which is by every means to be avoided by us is, I think, this: if any of us should lead a heathen into just blasphemy, whether by fraud or by wrong or by insult or by any other matter of deserved complaint, in which the Name is deservedly struck, so that the Lord too is deservedly angered. But as for the rest, if it was said of every blasphemy, 'for your sake my Name is blasphemed,' we all perish, since the whole circus assails the Name with wicked shouts, though it has deserved nothing.
Let us cease, and it will not be blasphemed. Nay rather, let it be blasphemed while we are in the observance, not in the transgression, of discipline; while we are being approved, not while we are being reproved. O blasphemy akin to martyrdom, which then testifies me a Christian, when for that very reason it curses me! The cursing of the Name because of a discipline kept is a blessing. 'If I wished,' he says, 'to please men, I should not be a servant of Christ.' Yet the same man elsewhere bids: 'Let us take care to please all men.' 'As I,' he says, 'please all men in all things.' Was he, forsooth, pleasing men by celebrating the Saturnalia and the Kalends of January? Or by modesty and patience? Or by gravity, or by kindness, or by integrity? Accordingly, when he says, 'I became all things to all men, that I might gain all':
did he become an idolater to idolaters? Was he a heathen to the heathen? Was he worldly to the worldly? But although he does not forbid us to associate with idolaters and adulterers and other criminals, saying, 'otherwise you would have to go out of the world,' he does not thereby loosen the reins of conduct so far that, because it is necessary for us both to live and to mingle with sinners, we might therefore also sin with them. Where there is the intercourse of life, which the apostle grants, there is not the sinning, which no one permits. It is lawful to live together with the heathen; to die together is not lawful. Let us live together with all; let us rejoice together in the fellowship of nature, not of superstition. We are equals in soul, not in discipline; joint possessors of the world, not of error.
But if we have no right of communion in such things with strangers, how much more wickedly is it to frequent these things among brethren! Who can tolerate or defend this? The Holy Spirit reproaches the Jews for their festal days: 'Your sabbaths,' He says, 'and new moons and ceremonies my soul hates.' For us, to whom the sabbaths are foreign, and the new moons and the feasts once beloved of God, there are frequented the Saturnalia and the January feasts and the Brumalia and the Matronalia; gifts pass to and fro, and New-Year's presents; games resound, banquets clatter. O the better fidelity of the nations to their own sect, which claims for itself no solemnity of the Christians! Not the Lord's day, not Pentecost, would they, even if they had known them, have shared with us;
for they would be afraid, lest they should seem to be Christians. We, on the other hand, are not afraid of being pronounced heathen. If anything is to be indulged to the flesh, you have — I will not say your own days only, but even more. For to the heathen each festival comes but once a year, but to you every eighth day. Pick out the several solemnities of the nations and set them out in a row: they will not be able to fill up Pentecost. XV. 'But let your works shine,' He says. Yet now it is our shops and doors that shine. You may now find more doors of the heathen without lamps and laurels than of Christians. On this appearance too, what is one to think? If it is an honour to an idol, without doubt an honour to an idol is idolatry. If it is for a man's sake, let us reflect that all idolatry is for a man's sake.
Let us reflect that all idolatry is a worship rendered to men, since it is agreed, even among their own people, that the very gods of the nations were formerly men. Therefore it makes no difference whether that superstition be paid to men of an earlier age or of this present one. Idolatry has been condemned, not on account of the persons who are set up, but on account of those observances, which pertain to demons. 'The things that are Caesar's must be rendered to Caesar.' It is well that He added: 'and the things that are God's to God.' What, then, are the things that are Caesar's? Namely, those about which the consultation was then being raised, whether the tribute should be paid to Caesar or not.
For this reason the Lord demanded that a coin be shown to Him, and asked whose image it bore; and when He had heard that it was Caesar's, He said, 'Render the things that are Caesar's to Caesar, and the things that are God's to God' — that is, the image of Caesar to Caesar, which is on the coin, and the image of God to God, which is in man; so that to Caesar indeed you may render money, but to God your very self. Otherwise, what will be God's, if all things are Caesar's? 'Then,' you say, 'is it an honour to God to have lamps before the doors and laurels on the doorposts?' It is assuredly not that which is an honour to God, but that which is an honour to him who, in the place of God, is honoured by such observances — as far as it is in the open, apart from the working which is in secret, reaching to the demons.
For we ought to be assured — if it escapes any through ignorance of secular literature — that even of doors there are gods among the Romans: Cardea, named from the hinges (cardines), and Forculus from the doors (fores), and Limentinus from the threshold (limen), and Janus himself from the gate (ianua). And assuredly we know that, although the names be empty and made-up, yet when they are drawn into superstition, they draw to themselves the demons and every unclean spirit through the bond of consecration. Otherwise the demons have no name severally, but they find a name there where they also find a pledge. Among the Greeks too we read of Apollo of the Doorway (Thyraeus) and the Antelian demons, as presiding over doors.
Foreseeing therefore from the beginning that doors too would come into superstition, the Holy Spirit foretold it through the most ancient prophet Enoch. For we see also that other doors are worshipped in the baths. But if there are those who are worshipped in doorways, to them the lamps and laurels also will belong. Whatever you shall have done to a door, you will have done to an idol. In this place I call to witness by the authority of God as well, because it is not even safe to withhold whatever has been shown to one man assuredly for the sake of all. I know a brother who was severely chastised through a vision in the same night, because his servants had suddenly crowned his gate on the announcement of public rejoicings. And yet he himself had neither crowned it nor commanded it; for he had gone out before, and on returning had rebuked the deed.
So strictly are we appraised before God, in the case even of a discipline of this kind concerning our household. Therefore, as regards the honours of kings or emperors, we have a rule sufficiently prescribed: that we ought to be, in all deference, according to the apostle's precept, subject to magistrates and princes and powers — but within the limits of discipline, so long as we keep ourselves separate from idolatry. For this reason too that example of the three brethren went before, who, otherwise obedient toward king Nebuchadnezzar, most steadfastly refused the honour of his image, proving that whatever is exalted beyond the measure of human honour, to the likeness of divine sublimity, is idolatry.
So too Daniel, in all else relying upon Darius, remained in office just so long as it was free from peril to discipline. For, that he might not undergo that peril, he no more feared the royal lions than those men feared the royal fires. Let them, then, kindle daily lamps for those who have no light; let them fasten upon their doorposts laurels destined soon to burn, for whom fires are impending; to those men there belong both the testimonies of darkness and the omens of punishments. But you are the light of the world, and a tree ever green. If you have renounced temples, make not your gate a temple. I have said too little: if you have renounced brothels, put not upon your house the appearance of a new brothel. XVI.
But concerning the observances of private and communal solemnities — such as those of the toga of manhood, of betrothals, of weddings, of name-givings — no peril is to be observed from the breath of idolatry which intervenes. For the occasions are to be considered on account of which the observance is rendered. These I judge to be clean in themselves, since neither the manly attire, nor the ring, nor the marital union descends from the honour of any idol. In short, I find no adornment cursed by God, except the womanly in a man. 'For cursed,' He says, 'is everyone who is clothed in women's garments.' But the toga, even by its very name, is a thing of manhood. Nor does God forbid weddings to be celebrated any more than a name to be given. But to these things sacrifices are attached.
Let me be invited, provided there be no title of sacrifice attached to the duty, and the discharge of my service be as far as is lawful for it. Would that indeed we could not even see the things which it is a sin for us to do. But since the evil one has so surrounded the world with idolatry, it will be permitted to be present at certain things which engage us as dutiful toward a man, not toward an idol. Plainly, invited to a priesthood and a sacrifice, I will not go (for that is the proper office of an idol); but neither will I take part by counsel, nor by expense, nor by any other service, in a matter of this kind. If, invited on account of a sacrifice, I stand by, I shall be a partaker of idolatry; if some other cause joins me to the one sacrificing, I shall be only a spectator of the sacrifice. XVII.
Moreover, what shall faithful slaves or freedmen do, and likewise officials attending upon their sacrificing masters or patrons or governors? Indeed, if anyone has handed the wine to one sacrificing — nay, if he has assisted with even a single word necessary to the sacrifice — he will be reckoned a minister of idolatry. Mindful of this rule, we can render our service even to magistrates and powers, after the pattern of the patriarchs and other elders, who attended upon idolatrous kings up to the point of idolatry.
Hence a discussion has lately arisen, whether a servant of God may take upon himself the administration of any dignity or power, if he can keep himself untouched by every kind of idolatry, whether by some favour or even by some cleverness — according to the manner in which both Joseph and Daniel, clean from idolatry, administered both dignity and power in the ornament and purple of the prefecture over all Egypt or Babylonia.
Let us grant, then, that someone can succeed to an office, so that he may bear whatever honour in the mere name of honour alone: that he neither sacrifice nor lend his authority to sacrifices, nor let out victims, nor delegate the care of temples, nor manage their revenues, nor give shows at his own or the public expense, nor preside over the giving of them, nor proclaim or decree anything solemn, nor even take an oath; and moreover, as to what belongs to power, that he neither judge concerning any man's life or honour — for you may allow it concerning money — nor condemn nor pre-condemn, bind no one, imprison or torture no one — if it is credible that these things can be done. XVIII. But now we must treat of the mere platform and apparatus of the honour.
Everyone's proper attire pertains as much to daily use as to honour and dignity. Therefore that purple and the golden neck-ornament were, in the same manner among the Egyptians and Babylonians, the insignia of dignity, in which manner now the bordered togas, or the trabeae, or the palm-embroidered robes, and the golden crowns of the provincial priests are; but not under the same condition. For among those peoples they were conferred, in the name of honour only, upon those who deserved the intimacy of kings. Whence those clothed in the king's purple were called 'purpled,' from the purple, just as among us men are called 'candidates' from the white toga (toga candida) — but not so that that platform should be bound also to priesthoods or to any services of idols.
For if it were so, assuredly men of such great holiness and steadfastness would at once have refused defiled garments, and it would at once have become apparent that Daniel had not served idols, nor worshipped Bel or the dragon — which appeared much later. That purple, then, was simple, and was no longer the mark of dignity, but of free birth among the barbarians. For just as Joseph, who had been a slave, and Daniel, who through captivity had had his estate changed, attained the citizenship of Babylon and Egypt through the garb of barbarian free birth, so among us too the faithful, if it be necessary, may be granted, for boys the bordered toga and for girls the stola — the marks of birth, not of power; of family, not of honour; of rank, not of superstition.
But as for the purple, or the other insignia of dignities and powers, dedicated from the beginning to a dignity and to powers interwoven with idolatry, they bear the stain of their own profanation — since besides, upon the very idols too are put the bordered togas and trabeae and broad-striped robes, and the fasces also and the rods are borne before them, and rightly so. For the demons are the magistrates of this world; they bear the insignia of one and the same college, the fasces and the purples. What, then, will you gain if you use indeed the platform, but do not administer its works? No one can seem clean amid unclean things. If you put on a tunic defiled in itself, that tunic perhaps may not be defiled by you, but you cannot be clean through it.
Now then, you who argue from Joseph and Daniel, know that old things and new, rough things and polished, things begun and things unfolded, servile things and free, are not always to be compared. For those men were also of servile condition; but you are the servant of no one, inasmuch as you are the servant of Christ alone, who has freed you also from the captivity of the world, and you ought to conduct yourself after the pattern of the Lord. That Lord walked in humility and obscurity, uncertain of a home: for 'the Son of Man,' He says, 'has not where to lay His head'; unadorned in dress — for otherwise He would not have said, 'behold, those who are clothed in soft raiment are in kings' houses'; in countenance, in short, and in appearance inglorious, as Isaiah too had foretold.
If He exercised no right of power even over His own, upon whom He performed a lowly ministry; if, in short, conscious of His own kingdom, He fled from being made a king, He most fully gave the pattern to His own by turning aside from every pinnacle and platform, both of dignity and of power. For who would have made greater use of them than the Son of God? What and how great fasces would have gone before Him, what purple would have blossomed from His shoulders, what gold would have shone from His head, had He not judged the glory of the world foreign both to Himself and to His own! Therefore what He was unwilling for, He rejected; what He rejected, He condemned; what He condemned, He counted in the pomp of the devil. For He would not have condemned it, unless it were not His own; but things that are not God's cannot be another's, save the devil's.
You, if you have abjured the pomp of the devil, know that whatever you have touched of it is idolatry. Let even this admonish you: that all the powers and dignities of this world are not only foreign to God, but also hostile to Him, in that through them punishments have been decreed against the servants of God, and through them the penalties prepared for the impious are ignored. 9. But both your birth and your substance are troublesome to you against idolatry. For avoiding it, remedies cannot be lacking; since even if they were lacking, there remains that one alone, whereby one is made happier not as a magistrate on earth, but in the heavens. XIX. In this chapter something may seem to be defined also concerning military service, which lies between dignity and power.
But now the question is raised whether a believer can turn to military service, and whether military service can be admitted to the faith — even the common soldier, or any of the lower ranks, for whom there is no necessity of sacrifices or of capital judgments. There is no agreement between the divine and the human sacrament, between the standard of Christ and the standard of the devil, between the camp of light and the camp of darkness; one soul cannot be owed to two, to God and to Caesar. And Moses carried a rod, and Aaron a buckle, and John is girded with a leather belt, and Joshua the son of Nun leads a line of battle, and the people waged war, if it please you to trifle. But how will he wage war — nay, how will he even serve as a soldier in peace — without the sword, which the Lord has taken away?
For although soldiers had come to John and received the pattern of observance, and although even a centurion had believed, yet the Lord afterward, by disarming Peter, ungirded every soldier. No dress is lawful among us that is assigned to an unlawful act. XX. But since the conduct of divine discipline is endangered not only by deeds but also by words (for as it is written, 'behold the man and his deeds,' so also, 'by your mouth you shall be justified'), we ought to remember that a lapse into idolatry is to be guarded against even in words too, whether from the fault of custom or of timidity. The law forbids the gods of the nations to be named — not, of course, that we should pronounce their names, which our intercourse extorts from us to utter. For this must for the most part be said:
'you have that man in the temple of Aesculapius,' and 'I live in the street of Isis,' and 'he has been made a priest of Jupiter,' and many other things in this manner, since names of this kind are given to men as well. For I do not honour Saturn if I so call him by his own name; I honour him as little as I honour Marcus, if I call Marcus by his name. But He says: 'the name of other gods, mention it not, neither let it be heard from your mouth.' This He commanded, that we should not call those beings gods. For also in the first part of the law He says, 'you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain' — that is, upon an idol. He, therefore, has fallen into idolatry who has honoured an idol with the name of God. But if gods must be spoken of, something must be added by which it may appear that I do not call them gods.
For Scripture too names gods, but adds 'their own' or 'of the nations'; as David, when he had named gods, where he says, 'but the gods of the nations are demons.' But this has been laid up for me rather for what follows. As for the rest, it is a fault of custom to say 'By Hercules,' 'So help me Faith,' — with the ignorance of certain people supervening, who do not know that it is an oath by Hercules. Furthermore, what will swearing by those whom you have abjured be, but a prevarication of faith along with idolatry? For who does not honour those by whom he swears? XXI. But it is a mark of timidity, when another binds you by his gods with an oath or some attestation, and you, lest you be understood, keep silent. For by keeping silent you equally confirm their majesty, on account of which you will seem to be bound.
What does it matter whether you confirm the gods of the nations to be gods by saying it or by hearing it? whether you swear by idols, or, adjured by another, acquiesce? Why should we not recognize the wiles of Satan, who, what he cannot accomplish through our own mouth, so acts as to accomplish it through the mouth of his own, bringing idolatry upon us through our ears? Certainly, whoever he be, he binds you either in a friendly or in a hostile encounter. If hostile, you are already called to the fight, and know that you must contend; if friendly, how much more safely will you transfer your engagement to the Lord, so as to dissolve the obligation of him through whom the evil one was seeking to bind you to the honour of idols, that is, to idolatry! All patience of this kind is idolatry. You honour those to whom, once they have been imposed, you have rendered your compliance.
I know a certain man — may the Lord pardon him — who, when it had been said to him in public during a lawsuit, 'May Jupiter be angry with you,' replied, 'Nay, with you.' What else would a heathen have done, who believed Jupiter to be a god? Even if he had not hurled back the curse through the same god, nor through any like Jupiter, he had confirmed Jupiter to be a god, through whom, by returning the curse, he had shown that he had unworthily borne the curse. For why should you be indignant on account of one whom you know to be nothing? Now if you rage, you already confirm that he is; and it will be idolatry, the profession of your fear: how much more, when through that very god you curse back, do you by the same act render to Jupiter the honour which he too rendered, who provoked you?
But the faithful man in such a case ought to laugh, not to rage; nay rather, according to the precept, not even to curse back through God, but plainly to bless through God, that you may both destroy idols and preach God and fulfil discipline. XXII. Likewise the one initiated into Christ will not endure to be blessed through the gods of the nations, so that he may always reject the unclean blessing and, turning it to himself in God, cleanse it. To be blessed through the gods of the nations is to be cursed through God. If I have given alms to someone, or bestowed some benefit, and he in turn invokes his gods, or the genius of the colony, to be propitious to me, then my offering or good work will be an honour to idols, through which he requites the grace of the blessing.
But why should he not know that I acted for God's sake, so that both God may rather be glorified, and the demons may not be honoured in that which I did on account of God? If God sees that I acted for His sake, He likewise sees that I did not wish to show that I had acted for His sake, and I have in a manner made His precept a thing offered to idols. Many say, 'no one ought to publish himself'; but I think that neither ought he to deny himself. For he denies, whoever dissembles in any cause and is held for a heathen; and assuredly every denial is idolatry, just as every idolatry is denial, whether in deeds or in words. XXIII.
But there is a certain species of this kind, in deed and in word, twice-edged and dangerous on both sides, though it flatters you as though it were free on both counts, since the deed is not seen because the word is not held. Borrowing money from the heathen under pledges, men who are placed under bond and have sworn give guarantees and deny themselves — they mean, of course, that they know the time of persecution and the place of the tribunal and the person of the governor. Christ prescribes that one must not swear. 'I wrote,' one says, 'but I said nothing: it is the tongue, not the letter, that kills.' Here I call in nature and conscience: nature, because the hand can write nothing — even though the tongue in dictating stays unmoved and quiet — which the soul has not dictated;
although the soul dictated it to the tongue itself as well — a thing either conceived by itself or handed on by another. Now, lest it be said, 'another dictated it,' here I appeal to conscience, whether the soul takes up what another dictated and, whether with the tongue accompanying or resting, transmits it to the hand. And it is well that the Lord said that transgression is committed in the mind and conscience. 'If,' He says, 'concupiscence or malice ascend into the heart of a man, you are held as for the deed.' You have therefore guarded against what plainly ascended into your heart, which you can neither contend that you were ignorant of, nor that you were unwilling. For when you guarded against it, you knew; when you knew, you assuredly willed; and it exists as much in deed as in thought. Nor can you exclude the greater crime by the lighter, so as to say that what you do not do is plainly made false by guarding against it.
'Yet I did not deny, because I did not swear.' Nay rather, even if you had done no such thing, you would nonetheless be said to swear, if you consented to have done it. The voice is not without force when silent in the writing-stylus, nor is the sound mute in the letters. But indeed Zacharias, punished with a temporary deprivation of voice, conversing with his mind, passes over the useless tongue; with his own hands he dictates from the heart and pronounces the name of his son without a mouth: he speaks in the stylus, he is heard in the wax — a hand clearer than any sound, a letter more vocal than any mouth. Ask whether he spoke, who was found to have spoken.
Let us pray to the Lord that no necessity of a contract of this kind may beset us; and if it so happen, that He may grant to the brethren the means of acting, or to us the constancy to break off every necessity, lest those denying letters, the surrogates of our mouth, be brought forth against us on the day of judgment, sealed with the seals no longer of advocates, but of angels. XXIV. Amid these rocks and bays, amid these shoals and straits of idolatry, faith sails, its sails spread by the Spirit of God, safe if wary, secure if watchful. But for those thrown out, the deep is unswimmable; for those dashed upon them, the shipwreck is inextricable; for those swallowed up, the drowning gulf in idolatry is unbreathable. Whatever billows of it choke a man, every whirlpool of it sucks down to the shades below. Let no one say: