But Hosius, who was the more tormented on this account—if any man, while he himself had now fallen, should stand upholding the faith whole, with the firmness of his footing unshaken—caused the most valiant-minded Gregory to be produced through the public power, hoping that by the same terror by which he himself had yielded, this man too might be made to yield. Now at that time Clementinus was vicar, who, by the agreement of Hosius and the general command of the king, ordered Saint Gregory to be brought to Cordova through the official service. Meanwhile the report of the matter disturbed all who came to know of it, and there was frequent talk among the peoples: 'Who then is that Gregory, who dares to resist Hosius?' For very many were still ignorant even of the prevarication of Hosius, and they did not yet well know who Saint Gregory might be.
For even among those who happened to know him, he was as yet an untried bishop, though before Christ no untried defender of the faith, according to the merit of his holiness. But behold, they came before the vicar, and many of the administrators were present, and Hosius sat as judge—nay, even above the judge—relying upon the royal power; and Saint Gregory, after the example of his Lord, stood as though an accused man, not from an evil conscience but by the condition of the present trial, yet free in faith; and there was great expectation on all sides as to which side the victory would incline. And Hosius indeed leaned upon the authority of his age, but Gregory leaned upon the authority of truth; the one upon confidence in an earthly king, the other upon confidence in the eternal King.
And Hosius used the writing of the emperor, but Gregory prevailed by the writing of the divine word. And when Hosius was refuted in all things, so that he was condemned out of his own words, which he had earlier written on behalf of the faith and the truth, being provoked he said to Clementinus the vicar: 'To you the cognizance has been committed, but the execution. You see how he resists the royal commands: carry out therefore what has been enjoined, sending him into exile.' But Clementinus, although he was not a Christian, yet showing reverence to the name of the episcopate, especially in that man whom he saw to be maintaining his cause reasonably and faithfully, answered Hosius, saying: 'I do not dare to send a bishop into exile so long as he still perseveres in the episcopal name.
But do you first give sentence, casting him down from the honor of the episcopate, and then at last I will execute against him as against a private person that which you desire to be done by the emperor's command.' Now when Saint Gregory saw that Hosius wished to pronounce sentence, so that he might seem as it were cast down, he appealed to the true and powerful Judge, Christ, crying out with all the strength of his faith: 'O Christ God, who art to come to judge the living and the dead, suffer not that a human sentence be pronounced this day against me, thy least servant, who, standing as an accused man for the faith of thy name, offer myself as a spectacle; but do thou thyself, I beseech thee, this day judge in thine own cause; do thou deign to pronounce the sentence by way of retribution.
I do not desire this to come about as though fearing exile, since for thy name no punishment is anything but sweet to me, but that many may be freed from the error of prevarication when they behold a present and instant retribution.' And when with much fervor and holiness he was appealing to God with faithful words, behold, suddenly Hosius, as he strove to express the sentence, twisted his mouth, wrenching likewise also his neck, and was flung down from his seat to the ground, and there he expired—or, as some will have it, he was struck dumb. Yet thence he was carried out as one dead. Then, while all marveled, even that heathen Clementinus was terrified, and, although he was the judge, yet feared lest he too should be judged with a like punishment concerning himself.
He prostrated himself at the feet of so great a man, beseeching him to spare him, who had sinned against him through ignorance of the divine law, and not so much by his own will as by the command of him who ordered it. There was then amazement in all, and admiration of the divine power, for in that man an entirely new spectacle was seen: for he who had wished to pronounce a human sentence soon suffered a graver divine one. And the judge, who had come to judge, now grew pale as an accused man and feared to be judged; and he who had stood as though an accused man to be sent into exile was entreated by the prostrate judge to spare him as though he himself were now the judge. Hence it is that Gregory alone, out of the number of those defending the whole faith, was neither put to flight nor suffered exile, since every one feared to judge further concerning him.
Do you see the wondrous proofs of a prevarication condemned by God? All Spain knows better that we are not inventing these things. But neither was the prevarication of the holy faith unavenged in Potamius. For at last, as he was hastening to the estate which he had earned to obtain from the emperor for his impious subscription against the faith, paying new penalties of the tongue by which he had blasphemed, he died on the road, receiving no fruits of the estate, not even by sight. This was no light torment for the greedy man: he dies, who for the sake of coveting a fiscal estate had violated the holy faith, and, as he hastens to the estate, he is forestalled by a penal death, that he might not enjoy even the solace of a sight of it. In the holy Gospel we read the words of one reproaching the rich man who was most vainly glorying in himself over his stores:
'Fool,' he says, 'this night thy soul shall be required of thee; the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?' If anyone consider that this passage of Scripture also fits Potamius, he will understand that no light judgment was passed upon him, seeing that above all he suffered the punishment of the tongue, in which that rich man too is more vehemently tormented among the dead. But Florentius also, who knowingly communicated in a certain place with Hosius and Potamius now become prevaricators, himself likewise gave new punishments. For as he sat upon his throne in the assembly of the people, suddenly he was flung down and quivered, and being carried outside recovered his strength. And again a second time, when he had entered and sat down, he suffered likewise, not yet understanding the penalties of his defiled communion.
Nonetheless, when afterward he had persisted in entering, he was so shaken from the throne a third time that he seemed to be repelled as one unworthy of the throne. And flung down to the ground he was so tormented, quivering, that with a certain hardness and great agonies his spirit was wrenched from him; and thence he is now taken up, not to recover as usual but to be buried. This which we relate the great city of Emerita knows, in whose church the people saw this very thing with their own eyes. But this too must be considered, that Florentius suffered these things, who had not yet subscribed to impiety, but only because he communicated with those who betrayed the faith, not being ignorant of their prevarication. This we have brought forward for this reason,
that those men may see what they ought to do, who, although they have not subscribed as prevaricators, have nevertheless been joined to prevaricators known to them through communion. And I think they understand what, by the example of Florentius, they ought to fear. But it is long to relate also other proofs of a prevarication condemned by present penalties, which the divine judgment has exercised in various places—for this purpose, namely, that whoever by a certain reasoning does not regard the divine Scriptures may, even by the present retribution of divine chastisement, understand what he ought to follow and what to avoid. God willed to take vengeance even upon a few, without doubt for this reason also,
lest the things which through the divine Scripture are threatened concerning the future punishments of prevaricators should be reckoned as a mere fable, if now in this age He should take vengeance upon no one. Let all bishops who are prevaricators of the faith now understand for how grievous punishments they are reserved, seeing that even in this age it has been avenged upon their own fellows to the astonishment of all. For to this end also we have set forth the present penalties of prevarication, that what has been avenged upon a few may be believed to be avenged also upon all like them—especially since the divine Scripture too affirms this very thing which has been shown through the present proofs—and that this may be considered, most pious emperors, wherein they are guilty:
they who do not join the divine sacraments with such men, whose perpetual punishments are read of in the sacred books and whose examples of punishment are seen in the world. But we beseech your wondrous benevolence that, for the contemplation of Christ God, you still grant us the tireless patience of listening, while we still, though summarily, set forth to what a height impiety has grown. For the accursed Arians in the regions of the East, and especially in Egypt, were not content with this alone—that bishops, condemning the whole faith, should decline into their impious opinion—but these very men, who had first been ordained by catholic bishops,
when these had subscribed according to their desires, they reduced them into the number of laymen, and afterward the same heretics ordained them again as bishops, so that they might seem not only to condemn the catholic faith but even the ordination performed by catholic bishops. Consider in this a kind of triumph of the heretics against the catholics, and a wretched and as it were final and most foul captivity in these bishops, who, having condemned the pious faith and the catholic bishops, delivered themselves into their dominion and delusion through fear of exile, and in order that they might seem before men to retain the episcopal name—which assuredly they no longer had before God after their impious subscriptions.
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sedideonominisistiusetiamcumomnidedecorequaerebaturauctoritas, neillispossessionesecclesiaetollerentur, quasutinamnumquampossedissetecclesia, utapostolicomoreuiuensfidemintegraminuiolabiliterpossideret! etnunchistalibusnoncommunicaresummaimpietasdiciturethocsubuobisimperatoribus, qui, utuestraeconstitutioneselocuntur, uenerabilisecclesiaediuinamsanctimoniamuindicatis (nonestautemmirum. sihaectamatrociaeorumcommissaoccupatireipublicaeprouisionibusignoratis).
But for this reason was the authority of that name sought, even with all disgrace, lest the possessions of the church should be taken from them—which possessions would that the church had never possessed, that, living after the apostolic manner, it might hold the whole faith inviolably! And now not to communicate with such men is called the highest impiety, and this under you, the emperors, who—as your constitutions declare—vindicate the divine sanctity of the venerable church (yet it is no wonder if, being occupied with the provisions of the commonwealth, you are ignorant of these their crimes, so atrocious).
Execrating these their impieties, the bishops who were enduring the penalties of exile for the faith, or who had given themselves to flight, although they were separated in body by the intervals of regions, yet being placed in one spirit, through mutual letters with apostolic vigor decreed that in no manner could there be communion with such bishops as had betrayed the faith in the way we have related above, unless they should seek lay communion, grieving over their impieties. But when Constantius, the patron of the heretics, was dead, Julian alone held the empire; by whose command all the catholic bishops were released from exile. The Divinity is wont to do this, that even through adversaries it may take counsel for its own Christian religion, so that all the more
who are worshippers of Christ, may labor on behalf of the faithful. But not long after, Julian being cut off, Jovian was made emperor, who, vindicating the catholic faith, gave his vote to the catholic bishops. But those distinguished bishops, although under Constantius they had condemned by heretical subscription the whole faith which they had defended, seeing that the emperor was intervening on behalf of the catholic bishops, transferred themselves again to the confession of the catholic faith. And where now is the faith and veneration of Christ, when at the will of an earthly emperor bishops now become heretics out of catholics, and these same men return from heretics to the catholic faith? But even if certain confessors, wearied, believed that at the last they must join themselves to the communion of such men,
overturning those decrees which they had earlier decided against them by prophetic and evangelical and apostolic authority—can this overthrow the divine truth? Can this prejudice the evangelical doctrines? Can it weaken the apostolic sentences, and especially that word of God who says: 'He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved'? But also of the apostle Paul, a vessel of election, proclaimed such by Christ the Lord, whose words, writing to the Galatians, are these: 'But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach a gospel other than that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema!' Whence the same man further pursues in the same epistle, saying: 'For if
those things which I destroyed, these I build up again, I make myself a prevaricator.' A confessor he assuredly became out of the Gospels, out of the voices of the prophets, out of the doctrines of the apostles: what faithful man could doubt that such a one has not the merit of confession, if, subverting the ordinances of the divine Scriptures, he begin to build up those things which the Gospels destroy? Or are not the divine Scriptures assailed, when ecclesiastical peace is joined with bishops who are deniers of the Son of God? For who is he who, considering the force of the divine religion, would trust that the peace of the perfidious is pleasing to God—unless, as was decreed by the Fathers, they deliver themselves into the number of the laity, grieving over their perfidy? But be it so; let them have peace with the unbelievers:
in what, nevertheless, do they offend, in what do they injure the emperors, in what do they vex the commonwealth—those who, out of contemplation of the divine judgment, reject a peace of this kind, which receives the sacrilegious, honors prevaricators of the faith, favors hypocrites, despises the truth, sets up the deniers of Christ, the true Son of the true God, as though lords of the church, contaminates the people with the stain of perfidy, and overturns the Gospels? For this we are held guilty, for this, under the authority of your name, we suffer persecutions from those bishops who, at the nod of the former emperor, vindicating heresy, harangued against the catholic faith. Alas, the groanings!
The same bishops, heretics, against the faithful and the defenders of the catholic faith, used to bring forward the decrees of the former emperor; the same bishops now against the faithful and the defenders of the catholic faith put forward the laws of catholic emperors! These things we speak, weeping with grief of all our inmost being—not because it is not glorious for the faithful to suffer for the truth under anyone, but because so great is the stupor in the age that this impiety of theirs, wrapped in such great perfidies, is not recognized—so that no one understands how they always deceive even the royal ears unto the vexation of Christians and of faithful priests; but under the name of peace impiety is cloaked, and the specious name of unity is set up as a protection for the perfidious.
But well it is that the Savior Himself set forth the virtue of His peace, lest anyone should be captivated by the simple name of peace and join it with whatsoever impieties of the world, saying: 'My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as this world giveth do I give unto you.' He distinguished His own peace from the peace of the world. For if this peace is pleasing to God, which has received unbelieving bishops into the church, what need then is there to endure the heats of persecutions, to bear prison, to go to meet the sword, and to endure every kind of punishment and of death—since indeed after denial, after the sacrileges of perfidy, for the sake of this peace which they trust to be pleasing to God, every one of the unbelievers is received, secure as though undefiled, with his episcopal honor unimpaired?
For now, according to this assertion, even the martyrs are to be judged. To what fruits did they choose rather to bear punishments and death? For if those who through fear of persecution denied the Son of God have no penalty—nay, rather are honored—then neither ought the martyrs to have hoped for the crown of their passion; nay, rather they pay the penalties of their rashness. This must of necessity follow; for it cannot be that contraries should not be judged. Is it not manifest to what a saying they are constrained by the name of this peace, or what they are compelled to pronounce—namely, that if the deniers of the Son of God are rightly confirmed in honor, we must believe the martyrs to be punished as it were for their rashness? But far be it—far be it that the Christian conscience should admit this;
for we believe the Son of God who declares: 'Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father; and whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father.' Nevertheless in this cause too recognize that the divine judgment has been brought forth by present proofs, lest anyone should think that the peace of such bishops must be accepted, even if they should return to the confession of the true faith after impious subscriptions or nefarious communions with heretics, to which they knowingly submitted, lest they should lose either the possessions of the church or their honors. The holy man Maximus, a bishop whom we mentioned above, vindicating the right faith and reprobating the fellowship of heretics, was led into exile.
In his place the prevaricators ordained one named Zosimus, who himself also had earlier defended the catholic cause. This matter was done in Naples, a city of Campania. Saint Maximus learns of this, and writing from exile gives sentence against him, not only by episcopal authority but even fervent with the emulation and virtue of martyrdom unto the divine glory. But after some years the blessed Lucifer, journeying to Rome from his fourth exile, entered Naples, a city of Campania, as we have said; to whom Zosimus attempted to come, with that confidence, forsooth, by which he seemed already to have amended himself of impiety. But this man the confessor Lucifer would not receive, not being ignorant of what he had done.
Nay rather, with the fervor of the Holy Spirit, he more forcibly carries out the sentence of the bishop and martyr Maximus, saying that the very episcopate, which as a spiritual adulterer he claims for himself, he shall not have, by the judgment of the God who takes note, and here too he shall feel the penalty of his impiety. And not long afterward the same Zosimus, when in the assembly of the people he wished to perform the offices of the priesthood, in the very midst of the priestly words his tongue is thrust out, nor can he draw it back within the compass of his mouth, in that, against the manner of nature, it hung outside the mouth like that of a panting ox. But when he saw that he had lost the function of his tongue, he goes out of the basilica, and—wondrous thing!—outside the tongue was again recalled to its function.
And at first indeed it is not understood that the sentence of the martyr and confessor is being fulfilled in him; but when he suffers this as often as he attempted to enter the basilica on various days, he himself at last recognized that for this reason his tongue was denied him amid the solemn words of the pontifical office, so that the sentence duly pronounced against him by the holy bishops might be proved. At last he resigned the episcopate, that the tongue which had failed him might be restored. We do not relate ancient matters, which are wont by a certain reasoning to come into doubt: these present proofs still live, for Zosimus is even today in the body, no longer losing the use of his tongue, after he chose to live, with the loss of the episcopate, grieving over his impieties.
Has it not likewise been prejudged concerning such men, that it profits them nothing that they persevere as though under the correction of a bishop? For this is no correction but a mockery—to change the faith according as the times of the emperors are. This, this thing deceived even the emperor Valens, when he saw in the heretics a constancy of defense, but in these distinguished catholics an inconstancy of faith.
For assuredly it was proved to him that these men, who asserted themselves to be catholics, had earlier subscribed together with the heretics, condemning the faith which they had first defended; and the heretics said: 'If our faith is bad, why under Constantius was it subscribed to on its behalf by these men who now call themselves catholics, vindicating this faith which, when they first defended it, being convicted by reasonings under Constantius they condemned?' Moved by these things, Valens, ignorant of the power of the true faith and comparing constancy with inconstancy, vindicated the impiety of the heretics with a certain justice. And we are silent about the fact that even under Valens certain men again delivered themselves to the heretics, whom nonetheless we now see numbered among the catholics.
Hence it is that even the congregations of the heretics have been strengthened in their impious faith, while the heretics persevere in evil, and those who are thought to be catholics fall away from the good, at times succumbing to the heretics. For by what authority do such bishops preach against heresy, to which they cannot deny that they have subscribed? And with what confidence do they strive to persuade the people of the catholic faith, when it is established that they have reprobated it by impious subscriptions?
Do you see that even in your times—though, as we believe, without your knowledge—the pious faith is indeed vindicated (and would that it were even truly so; but even if truly, yet with a certain injustice), when it is vindicated through unworthy bishops unto the affliction of the priests defending the pious faith, and unto the ruin of the faithful laity? But it is reckoned a crime to cast down so many prevaricators and to reprobate a crowd conscious of injustice. And where is the justice of the true religion, if it must be surrendered to an impious multitude, and this under most pious and most religious emperors? Not thus was it judged in the Flood, that the crowd of the unbelievers should prevail; but that most just Noah rather pleased God for this reason, that in that destruction of the world he alone was found just.
Likewise in Sodom and Gomorrah the impious multitude paid grievous penalties, whence the most hospitable Lot was delivered for his justice, with only two daughters. But neither was Elijah, the zealot of God, who was alone, crushed, when four hundred and fifty false priests strove against him; rather the whole impious throng of priests paid the penalties beneath the hand of one faithful man, and this while King Ahab looked on, who impiously championed the false priests. But neither did Jehu, king of Israel, defer to the impious multitude of priests;
for at last all the false priests who under King Ahab had been at the height of power, when with a pious deceit he had summoned them into the house of impious worship as though about to reward them after the rites of that religion, he ordered to be slain, so that none of them remained; and we read that on account of this deed it so pleased the Lord that the sons of the same king should sit upon the throne of Israel unto the fourth generation. There are also many other very similar examples—which indeed we do not cite as though we wished anyone's blood to be shed: far be this from our prayers; for whoever now desires this to be done, deviates from the Christian laws. It was indeed done then, because at that time this very thing was permitted to be done by the divine law,
while still everything was carried on corporeally, until spiritual instruction should grow. But not because it is indeed now not lawful for the good and the faithful to desire the blood of false priests, are the faithful therefore to be surrendered to false priests, so that they should be afflicted by their most grievous persecutions. Let what we say seem false, if in various places the churches of the faithful priests have not been invaded here and destroyed there, if by their interpellations the holy ones have not each been seized and long shut up for injuries and at last sent into exile;
if others also, some in prison, others beaten by dragging and blows, have not given up their souls, for no other cause than that through fear of the divine judgment they were unwilling to communicate with the perfidious or with the associates of the perfidious. In Spain what atrocities did the presbyter Vincentius, a prelate of the true faith, not suffer from the prevaricators, because he was unwilling to be an associate of their impious prevarication, because he communicated with the most blessed Gregory—that Gregory whose faith and virtue we related above, as best we could?
Against him they first lodged complaint with the consular of the province of Baetica; then at last, under the guise of a requested intercession, a plebeian multitude is gathered from other places, and they rush into the church on the Lord's Day; and Vincentius indeed they do not find, because he himself, being forewarned, had even foretold to the people that they should not go forth on that day, when men were coming with slaughter. For he thought this better to be done, if he gave place to their wrath. But those who had come prepared for slaughter, lest their fury should seem to have come without cause, so battered with clubs certain ministers devoted to Christ God, who were found there, that not long after they expired.
But because the holy people of the presbyter Vincentius execrated them the more after those slaughters of theirs which were done on the Lord's Day, the distinguished bishops, in order that the whole people might be terrified, begin from the leading men themselves: at last they demand the production of the decurions of that city, and that they be shut up in prison. Of these, one, a leading man of his own country, because he steadfastly retained the faith as a faithful man in God, execrating the stain of prevarication, was among them himself also chained and killed by hunger and cold, with the weeping and groaning of that province, which had known his honorable life full well. The distinguished and catholic bishops Luciosus and Hyginus are the authors of this cruelty.
And meanwhile they indeed invaded the basilica, but the faith of the people they could not invade. At last elsewhere, in a small field, the same people built for themselves a basilica of the church, to which they assembled with Saint Vincentius. But Satan, who nowhere suffers Christ to be piously worshipped, inflames them, and again, the petition being laid aside, a multitude of decurions and plebeians is gathered from divers cities. At the same time also his presbyters come to the place, break down the doors of that church, plundering thence whatever pertained to the sacred ministries of the church; and at last—which is a thing of horror to tell—to the crowning of the sacrilege perpetrated, they took away the very altar of God from the Lord's house and set it in a temple beneath the feet of an idol.
These things assuredly do those men do, who, penitent for their impious subscription, have been received into catholic discipline for the good of peace and unity! What worse would a heathen worshipper of idols do, if he had license to persecute the church? But at Trier the presbyter Bonosus, shut up, intestate, an old man, long paid penalties for his observance of that undefiled faith, for which also the renowned Paulinus, bishop of the same city, gave up his soul as a martyr in exile. In the very city of Rome too, how grievous were the persecutions inflicted upon the faithful! Where also the blessed bishop Aurelius, communicating with the most blessed Gregory, was several times afflicted;