History of the Vandal Persecution 1 part 5/7

and if the Holy Spirit is adored, surely that One is adored whose Spirit He is. But no one is ignorant of this: that nothing can be added to or diminished from the divine majesty by human supplications, but each one, according to the purpose of his own will, either acquires glory for himself by faithfully venerating, or perpetual confusion by obstinately resisting; for it is certain that contention and pride condemn, but reverence awaits the fruit of devotion. And why should the faithful not honor wholly the Trinity, to which they are confident that they belong, in whose name they glory that they have been reborn, and whose servants they glory to be called?

For just as from the name of God the Father men are called «men of God»—as Elijah was called «a man of God,» as Moses was called «a man of God»—so from Christ we are named «Christians,» so also from the Spirit we are called «spiritual.» If, therefore, anyone be called «a man of God» and be not a Christian, it is nothing; and if anyone be called a Christian and yet has not been spiritual, let him not be too confident concerning his salvation. (III, 23) Let there be in us, then, according to the confession of saving baptism, an entire faith of the Trinity; let there be one devotion of piety; and let us not, after the manner of the heathen, imagine diversities of powers, or suspect a creature, as regards deity, within the Trinity.

But neither let us be moved by the scandal of the Jews, who deny the Son of God, who do not adore the Spirit; but rather, adoring and magnifying the perfect Trinity, just as in the mysteries we say with our mouth, so let us hold with our conscience: «Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth.» Saying «Holy» three times, we confess one omnipotence, because there is one religion, one glorification of the Trinity, so that we may hear the apostles, as the Corinthians heard them: «The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.»

This is our faith, founded upon the evangelical and apostolic traditions and upon the fellowship of all the catholic churches which are in this world, in which we trust and hope, by the grace of Almighty God, to abide until the end of this life. Issued on the twelfth day before the Kalends of May, by Januarius, bishop of Zattara, and Villaticus, of Casae Medianae, bishops of Numidia, Bonifatius of Forata and Bonifatius of Gata, bishops of Byzacena. (IV, 1) When our little book, having been presented, was being read, they could by no means endure the light of truth with their blind eyes, raving with cries that were to be hurled forth, and taking it grievously that we had called ourselves catholics by our own name.

And at once, lying, they suggested to the king concerning us that we had made an uproar in order to flee the audience; and he, kindled at that same hour and believing the lie, hastened to do what he wished. And already having the decree drawn up, and secretly dispatching his men with that same decree through the various provinces, on one day—with the bishops set in Carthage—he closed the churches of all Africa, and bestowed the entire property of the bishops and of the churches as a gift upon his own bishops.

Not knowing, moreover, what he was speaking, nor concerning what things he was making affirmations, they did not blush to set forth against us the law which our Christian emperors had formerly given against them and against other heretics, for the honor of the catholic church—adding many things of their own, as it pleased the tyrannical power. For this is the series of the law that was given and set forth. (IV, 2) «King Huneric of the Vandals and Alans, to all the peoples subject to our realm. It is proved to be of triumphal and majestic royal virtue to turn back evil counsels upon their authors: for whoever has devised anything of depravity imputes to himself that which he incurs. In which matter our clemency followed the nod of the divine judgment,

in that, to whatever persons—according as their deeds shall have merited, whether good or perchance things contrary to such—while He causes it to be weighed out, at the same time it also comes about that recompense is made. And so, with these provoking it—who shall have believed that the precept of our father of glorious memory, or of our own mildness, was to be despised—we take up the censure of severity. For we have caused it to be made known by authoritative decrees to all peoples, that in the territories of the Vandals the homoousian priests should hold no assemblies, nor lay claim to themselves any of the mysteries, which rather defile them.

When we saw that this was being neglected, and that very many were found saying that they retained the entire rule of faith, it is established that afterward they were all admonished—a granted space of time of nine months [being allotted] for the dispute, in case anything could be fitted from their position—so that by the Kalends of February of the eighth year of our reign they might assemble without any fear. And when they were flowing together here to the city of Carthage, after the delay of the appointed time we are known to have granted yet another postponement of a certain number of days.

And while they declared themselves ready for the contest, on the first day it seemed good to our venerable bishops to propose to them that they should properly prove the homoousion from the divine Scriptures, as they had been admonished, or at least pre-condemn that which by a thousand and more pontiffs from the whole world was cut off in the Council of Ariminum or at Seleucia. This they were by no means willing to do, recalling everything to sedition by the people whom they themselves had stirred up. Nay rather, on the second day too, when we commanded them to answer concerning that same faith, as had been proposed, they are seen to have taken up this course with foregone rashness: that, disturbing everything with sedition and clamors, they brought it about that the contest was by no means arrived at.

«Since these were provoking this, we have decreed that their churches be closed, with this condition prescribed to them, that they should remain so for as long as they preferred rather than to come to the proposed contest: which they were unwilling to do out of that obstinacy which they are seen to have assumed by their perverse counsels.» To such a degree is it necessary and most just to turn back upon these the very thing that the tenor of those laws demonstrates—laws which it then befell to be promulgated by the emperors of various times, drawn along with them into error.

Of which laws the contents seem to hold this: that no church should lie open except to the bishops of their own superstition; that nowhere should it be permitted to others either to hold contests or to exercise assemblies, nor at all to possess or build churches, either in cities or in any very small places, but, being seized, should be joined to the resources of the treasury; that, moreover, even their patrimonies, associated to the churches of their own faith, should accrue to their own bishops; and that there should be no liberty for such persons to dwell in any places whatever, but they should be rendered exiles from all cities and places;

and that they should have no faculty whatsoever of baptizing, nor by any chance dispute concerning religion, and that they should have no license to ordain either bishops or presbyters or others who happened to belong to the clergy, a severity of penalty being set forth, so that both those who allowed themselves to accept honors of this kind, and likewise the ordainers themselves, should each be fined ten pounds of gold; with this added, that there should be for them no place or access for petitioning, but even if they had earned any special favors, these should in no way avail; and if they persisted in this ruin, they should be stripped of their own property and sent into exile under suitable escort.

Against the people too the aforesaid emperors, raging in like manner, decreed that it should in no way be permitted to them to give, to make a will, or to take, or to receive what was left by others—neither under the name of a trust, nor of a legacy, nor by gifts or by bequest which is called 'in case of death,' nor by any codicil or perhaps other writings; so that even those who served in their palaces they made subject to the gravest condemnation according to the merit of their rank, that, stripped of every privilege of honor, they should incur infamy and know themselves to be subject to public criminal charge as persons of this kind, a penalty of thirty pounds of silver being set also for the officials of the various judges;

and if it happened that they incurred this five times while persisting in error, then at last such men, being convicted and subdued, should be sent into exile after a scourging. Then they had commanded that all the books of the priests whom they were persecuting be delivered to the flames; and this we decree must be done concerning books of this kind, by which iniquity persuaded itself of the error of that name. Thus.

For, as has been said, they had commanded that this be observed for each and every person, that men of illustrious rank should each give fifty pounds of gold, men of respectable rank forty pounds of gold, senators thirty pounds of gold, magnates twenty pounds of gold, those of priestly rank thirty pounds of gold, decurions five pounds of gold, merchants five pounds of gold, commoners five pounds of gold, and circumcellions ten pounds of silver; and if any by chance should persist in this ruin, all their goods being confiscated, they should be punished with exile.

Moreover, they appeared to afflict the magistrates of the cities, and also the procurators and lessees of estates, with such a penalty: that if perchance they chose to conceal such persons and did not at all make them public, and did not cause those who were detained to be presented in court, they themselves should be held liable to punishment; and on the lessees of royal estates this fine was set, that as much as they paid to the royal household, so much also they should be compelled to pay out to the treasury under the name of a penalty; and we decreed that this be observed generally in the case of all lessees or owners who believed they should persist in the same superstition; and on judges too, who did not most diligently press upon this matter, a penalty of proscription and a capital punishment of blood was to be imposed;

but also from among the chief officers three should be punished, the rest being fined with a condemnation of twenty pounds of gold. 'Wherefore it is necessary that the Homoousians be bound by these constitutions: all those who are established to have held and to hold the matter of this evil persuasion; whom we decree must abstain from all the things mentioned above, those who shall fall under the persecution that is to come throughout the orders of all the cities: but also the judges who are shown to have inflicted dread punishments negligently upon various persons concerning these matters.

We command that all who are entangled in the errors of the aforesaid faith of the homoousion—which has been condemned beforehand by the whole council of so great a number of priests—abstain from all the aforementioned matters and contracts, knowing that nothing is permitted to them; but that a like penalty await and bind them all, unless by the day of the Kalends of June in the eighth year of our reign they have been converted to the true religion which we venerate and worship. And our piety has set this appointed day so that pardon may not be denied to those condemning the error beforehand, and that fitting punishments may restrain obstinate souls.

But those who shall remain in the same error, whether occupied in the service of our household, or perhaps set over various offices and duties, are to be compelled to bear, according to their ranks, the impositions of the fines set out above, those things availing nothing which perchance any of such persons happened to obtain by stealth. Against private persons too, or persons of whatever rank and place, this our proclamation commands to be observed what seemed to be expressed concerning such persons in the aforesaid laws, that they be subjected to fitting penalties. And the judges of the provinces, being negligent in carrying out what has been decreed, we decree are to be bound by the higher penalty which has been prescribed for such persons.

But to the true worshipers of the divine Majesty, that is, to our priests, we have decreed by this edict that all the churches of the entire clergy of the aforesaid name, established in whatever lands and regions, which by the favor of the divinity are possessed under the rule of our empire, together with the goods that belong to them, ought to accrue, not doubting that what is justly conferred upon the most holy pontiffs profits more toward the sustenance of the needy. This law therefore, flowing from the fountain of justice, we command to be made known to all, so that no one may be able to plead that what is commanded was unknown to him. We wish you to be well. Given on the sixth day before the Kalends of March.

At Carthage.' (IV, 3) After these deadly edicts, twisted with poisoned venom, he ordered that all the bishops who had been gathered at Carthage—whose churches, houses, and substance they had already seized—be stripped in the lodgings where they were, and, once stripped, be driven outside the wall. Not an animal, not a slave, not even the clothes they were wearing, ready to be changed, are at all left to them; he adds further that no one should receive any of them into lodging or provide them sustenance; and whoever attempted to do this out of compassion should be burned by fire together with his whole house. Wisely then also the cast-out bishops acted, so that, although beggars, they would not depart from there;

for if they withdrew, they would not only be recalled altogether by force, but men would lie about them—as indeed they did lie—that they had fled the conflict; especially because, when they returned, there was no longer any place, their churches, substance, and houses being occupied. While therefore they lay groaning around the walls in the open air, it happened that the impious king went out to the fishponds. They all chose rather to run to meet him, saying: 'Why are we afflicted in this way? For what evils, committed perhaps, do we suffer these things? If we were gathered for a debate, why have we been despoiled?

Why are we paraded, why are we put off, and, without our churches and houses, suffering hunger and nakedness outside the city, are we made to wallow in the midst of dung?' Looking upon them with grim eyes, before he had heard their plea, he ordered horses with riders to be let loose upon them, so that by such violence they might not only be crushed but even killed. Many of them were then crushed, especially the old and the infirm. (IV, 4) Then next, those men of God are ordered to assemble at a certain place which is called the Shrine of Memory, not knowing the fraud prepared for them. When they had come there, a rolled-up paper is shown to them, and it is said to them with this serpentine subtlety:

'Our lord King Huneric, although he grieves that you have been despisers and still delay to obey his will, that you should become of his religion, which is his own, nevertheless has now devised a good thing concerning you: if you will swear thus, that you will do what this paper contains, he releases us to our churches and houses.' To which all the bishops answered: 'We always say, and have said, and shall say: We are Christians, we are bishops, we hold the one and true apostolic faith.' And when, after this confession of faith, there was a brief silence, those who had been appointed by the king were hastening to extort an oath from the bishops. Then the blessed men, the bishops Hortulanus and Florentianus, on behalf of all and with all, said:

'Are we then irrational animals, that, not knowing what the paper contains, we should swear easily or rashly?' Those sent by the king also hastened to reveal to them the tenor of the writing, which had been colored with words of this kind. For thus the calumnious wording ran: 'Swear, if after the death of our lord the king you desire his son Hilderic to be king, and whether none of you will send letters to regions across the sea; for if you give an oath on this matter, he will restore you to your churches.'

Then the pious simplicity of many thought, even against the divine prohibition, to give the oath, lest the people of God should say in time to come that it was through the fault of the priests, who refused to swear, that the churches were not restored. Other shrewder bishops, perceiving the cunning of the fraud, were unwilling by any means to swear, saying that it had been forbidden by the authority of the Gospel, the Lord himself saying: 'You shall not swear at all.' To these the king's ministers said: 'Let those who are disposed to swear withdraw to one side.' And when they withdrew, with notaries writing down who said what and from which city he was, it was likewise done concerning those who refused to swear; and immediately each party is committed to custody.

(IV, 5) But then the fraud which was being concealed appeared. To those who had sworn it was said: 'Because you wished to swear contrary to the precept of the Gospel, the king has ordered that you may never see your cities and churches, but, being banished, you shall receive lands to till by the right of tenant-farming, yet on this condition: that you neither chant the psalms nor pray, nor carry a book in your hands for reading, nor baptize, nor ordain, nor presume to reconcile anyone.' Likewise to those who had not sworn he said: 'Because you do not wish the kingdom for the son of our lord, for that reason you refused to swear;

for which cause you are ordered to be banished to the island of Corsica, that you may cut timber useful for the lord's ships.' (V, 1) And so that beast, thirsting for the blood of the innocent, while the bishops had not yet been sent into exile, decided to dispatch most cruel torturers at one time throughout all the provinces of the African land, so that no house and place remained where there was not wailing and mourning, so that no age and no sex was spared, except those who submitted to their will. Some they beat with cudgels, others they hanged, others they burned with fire. Women, and especially noblewomen, against the laws of nature, they tortured wholly naked in public view. Of these I will name in passing and briefly one of ours, Dionysia.

When they saw that she was not only bold but also fairer than the other matrons, they first endeavored to prepare her, stripped, for the cudgels. When she pleaded and said, secure concerning her Lord, 'Torture me in whatever way you please, but do not strip bare my modest members,' they, raging all the more, stripped her of her garments and set her in a higher place, making her a spectacle to all. She, amid the blows of the rods, while streams of blood now flowed over her whole body, said with a free voice: 'Ministers of the devil, what you reckon to do to my disgrace, that very thing is my glory.' And because she was full of the knowledge of the divine Scriptures, hemmed in by torments and herself now a martyr, she strengthened others toward martyrdom;

and by her holy example she set free almost her whole homeland. When she beheld her only son, still of very tender age and delicate, made fearful by dread of the torments, beating him with the nodding of her eyes and rebuking him with a mother's authority, she so strengthened him that he was rendered far braver than his mother. To him, set amid cruel scourgings, she thus spoke: 'Remember, my son, that in the name of the Trinity we were baptized in our Catholic mother. Let us not lose the garment of our salvation, lest the inviter, coming, find no wedding garment, and say to his ministers: Cast him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping of eyes and gnashing of teeth.'

'That punishment is to be feared which never ends; that life is to be desired which is held forever.' And so, strengthening her son with such words, she swiftly made him a martyr. Indeed the venerable youth, Maioricus by name, rendering up his spirit in the contest of confession, completed the palm-bearing course; and she, embracing her own victim, giving thanks to the Lord with all the voices she could, chose to bury him in her own house, for the joy of future hope, so that, as often as she poured out prayers to the Trinity over his tomb, she might trust that she was never separated from her son. How many therefore through her in that city, as we have said, were won for God, it would be long to relate.

For also her sister, Dativa by name, and Leontia, daughter of the holy bishop Germanus, and Dativa's kinsman, the venerable physician Emilius, the devout Tertius also, renowned for his confession of the Trinity, and Bonifatius of Sibida—how much they endured and with what tortures the men and women were disemboweled, let him who is able tell in order. (V, 2) The slaves too of the chief man of the city of Tuburbo, a man of generous and noble birth—what punishments he endured for Christ, who could expound? He, after the beatings of innumerable cudgels, being raised aloft by frequent pulleys, while he hung through the whole city, now being lifted on high, with a swift stroke the ropes were let go, and coming again with the weight of his body upon the flints of the streets, like a stone he crashed upon the stones;

but also he was dragged often and scraped with the sharpest stones, so that, the skins being separated, you might see the hides of his body hanging from his sides and back and belly. This man had already, in the times of Geiseric, endured things not very different, lest he should lay bare the secrets of a certain friend of his; how much more now, to safeguard the sacraments of his faith! And if he faithfully showed faith to a man for nothing, how much does he owe to Him who is to render the reward for faith! (V, 3) But in the city of Culusi I cannot announce what was done, because it is impossible for a man to reckon up the very number of the martyrs or even of the confessors.

There a certain matron, the author of her own name, Victoria, while she was being burned by continuous suspension in the sight of the crowd, was thus entreated by her husband—already lost—with her children present: 'What are you suffering, wife? If you despise me, at least, you impious one, have pity on these whom you have borne; why do you forget the little ones of your own womb and count for nothing those whom you bore with groaning? Where are the covenants of conjugal love? Where the bonds of fellowship which the tablets, drawn up by the right of honor, long ago made between us? Look, I beg, upon your children and husband, and hasten to fulfill the command of the royal order, that you may both gain release from the torments still threatening, and at the same time be granted to me and to our children.'

But she, hearing neither the weeping of her children nor the blandishments of the serpent, lifting her affection far higher above the earth, despised the world with its desires. When those who tortured her now beheld her dead from the continuance of the suspension, her shoulders even being wrenched out, they took her down, utterly lifeless in every part. She afterward related that a certain virgin had stood by her and touched her individual members, and that she had at once been healed. (V, 4) But how I should preach Victorianus, citizen of the city of Hadrumetum, then proconsul of Carthage, I know not, words failing me. Than whom in the parts of Africa none was richer, who even with the impious king was held most faithful concerning the affairs always committed to him.

A message is sent to him from the king in a friendly manner, and it is said that he would hold him above all others, if he lent ready assent to the command. But that man of God gave to those sent to him such a reply with great confidence: 'Secure concerning God and Christ my Lord, I say what you are to tell the king: let him set me to the fires, let him drive me to the beasts, let him torment me with every kind of torture: if I shall consent, I was baptized in vain in the Catholic Church. For if this present life were the only one, and we did not hope for another, which truly is, eternal, even so I would not have acted to glory for a little while and temporarily, and to prove ungrateful as a debtor to Him who conferred His faith upon me.'

At which the tyrant, roused, with how long-lasting and how great punishments he afflicted him, human speech will not be able to explain. He, exulting in the Lord and happily consummating, received the crown of martyrdom. (V, 5) At the city of Tambaia too, who could explain the contests of the martyrs? There two brothers of the city of Aquae Regiae, secure concerning the Lord, swore to one another that they would ask the torturers that they be tortured with one and the same punishment and equal torment. And while at first, in suspension with masses of stones tied to their feet, they hung the whole day, one of them asked to be taken down and to be given a respite. The other brother, fearing lest he deny the faith, cried out even from his suspension: 'Do not, do not, brother; we did not so swear to Christ:'

'I will accuse you, when we shall come before His dread throne, because we swore upon His body and blood that we would suffer for Him one for the other.' Saying this and many other things, he strengthened his brother for the battle of the passion, who, crying out with a mighty voice, said: 'Drive me with whatever punishments you wish, and bind the Christians with cruel torments; what my brother is going to do, that also I.' With how many fiery plates they were burned, with what hooks they were torn, with what tortures they were racked, the very thing teaches, that the torturers themselves cast them from their sight, saying: 'The whole people imitates these, so that no one at all is converted to our religion'; and especially because no bruises, no traces of the punishments at all appeared in them.

(V, 6) But what was done at Tipasa, a city of Mauretania Caesariensis, I hasten to make known, to the praise of God. When they saw an Arian bishop ordained for their city—from the notary Cyrila, for the destruction of souls—the whole city at once, by naval transport, fled nearby to Spain, very few being left who had not found the means of sailing. These the Arian bishop began to compel, first by blandishments, afterward by threats, to make them Arians. But, strong in the Lord, they not only laughed at the madness of the persuader, but even began publicly to celebrate the divine mysteries, gathered together in one house; and he, learning this, secretly dispatched a report to Carthage against them.

When this had become known to the king, dispatching a certain count with wrath, he commanded that in the middle of the forum, the whole province being gathered there, their tongues and right hands should be cut off at the root. When this had been done, by the gift of the Holy Spirit they spoke and speak in the same way as they spoke before. But if anyone should wish to be unbelieving, let him now go to Constantinople, and there he will find one of them, the subdeacon Reparatus, speaking polished discourses without any impediment; for which cause he is held in exceedingly high regard in the palace of the emperor Zeno, and especially the queen venerates him with wondrous reverence.

(V, 7) But who could set forth in fitting speech or heap together the varieties of punishments which, by the order of their king, even the Vandals themselves exercised upon their own people? In the very things too that were done at Carthage, if a writer should strive to set them forth one by one even without ornament of speech, he could not utter even the very names of the torments. This matter, set forth in plain sight even today, demonstrates it.