But this holy man, although he was often afflicted, nevertheless found rest through his own summons. Yet against Macarius the presbyter many crimes were committed by the impious. He was a presbyter in this same city of Rome, of wondrous self-restraint, neither soothing his stomach with wine nor pampering his body with fleshly delicacies, but softening his rougher fare with oil alone, given over to fasts and prayers. Indeed, for the merit of his faith and his abstinence he possessed the grace of the Holy Spirit in this, that he cast out demons from possessed bodies. Therefore we have recorded his life and his merit, so that all the more may these be judged impious who do not suffer such men to live in the Roman Empire.
At that same time a grave persecution had bristled up against our people, with the notorious archbishop Damasus harassing them, so that it was not freely permitted to the faithful priests to summon by day the sacred assemblies of the people for the service of Christ our God. But because, according to the condition of affairs, the sacraments of our salvation must be performed at any time, even in secret, this same holy presbyter Macarius held vigils, summoning the brotherhood in a certain house, so that at least by night the holy people might strengthen their faith with the divine readings. But the devil, who favors the impious—because the impious also favor the devil—does not endure the divine sacraments to be celebrated even in secret.
Finally the clerics of Damasus laid an ambush, and when they learned that the presbyter Macarius was celebrating the sacred vigils with the people, they burst in with officials upon that house, scattered the people who offered no resistance, and having seized the presbyter himself, they did not even deign to lead him away but dragged him over the paving stones, so that a grievous wound was inflicted on his hip; and on the next day they set him before the judge as one guilty of a great crime. And indeed the judge, as if under an imperial rescript and with threats, strove to extort from him that he should come to agreement with Damasus. But the presbyter, mindful of the divine judgment and not fearing the judge before him, spurned communion with the traitor, and therefore he was given over into exile, and while he was at Ostia, he died from the savagery of that wound.
Indeed his sanctity was so great that even the bishop of that place, Florentius by name, who was in communion with Damasus, looked upon him with a certain veneration. For when the brethren had buried him in a certain old monument, this same Florentius did not allow him to lie there where the burial seemed unworthy, but transferred him thence and buried him in the basilica of the martyr Asterius, in the place of the presbytery near the sepulcher. By this pious service of his, so far as he could, he strove to distance from himself the crime of Damasus. Let Your Tranquillity take heed: if you wish these things to be done in the Roman Empire against the holy and faithful by those who are transgressors, is there not cause to fear lest the blood of the faithful weigh heavily upon the Roman Empire?
For this same Damasus, having received royal authority, pursued also other catholic presbyters and laymen as well, and sent them into exile, pleading this very cause through pagan advocates, with judges favoring him, although indeed your constitutions were decreed against heretics, not against catholics—and such catholics as did not abandon the entire faith even under heretical emperors, and who indeed endured many grievous things. But recently too he attempted grievously to persecute the most blessed bishop Ephesius, fervent in his zeal for the holy faith, ordained for the unstained Roman people by the most steadfast bishop Taorgius, himself also a man of unsullied faith.
Under the odium of a falsely imposed nickname, through his defenders he appealed to the judge Bassus, as though against the Luciferians. But Bassus, long a venerator of the catholic faith, knew that in Lucifer there had been no perversity of heresy, since he had also well known that Lucifer had endured ten years of exile for the catholic faith, and for the steadfastness of his integrity he repelled the accusations of Damasus, declaring that he would not do it—that he should persecute catholic men and men of sound faith—saying especially that the very constitutions of the emperors seemed to have been promulgated solely against heretics, not against those who preserve the most holy faith without worldly ambition.
And then for the first time Damasus blushed, because a judge was found who alone, most piously interpreting the imperial writings, would protect them. For this very thing too is necessary: that we dispel the odium of the false nickname by which they cast at us that we are Luciferians. Who does not know that the nickname of such a man is assigned to his followers, from whom also some good doctrine has been handed down to disciples by the authority of teaching? But for us Christ is the master; we follow His doctrine, and therefore we are ranked under the sacred appellation of that name, so that we ought by right to be called nothing else than Christians, because we follow nothing else than what Christ taught through the apostles. But heresies have been marked by the appellations of men, because they have handed down the inventions of men as well.
For he loses in himself the appellation of the Christian name who does not follow the discipline of Christ. Let them now say what new thing Lucifer taught—what was not handed down from the teaching of Christ, what was not transmitted to posterity by the apostles, the disciples of the Savior. And it is well that he wrote books to Constantius, not, as most do, seeking the glory of talent, but most aptly heaping up divine testimonies against the heretics and against the very patron of the heretics—kindled to divine zeal by love for the Son of God. Let them mark out what in those books is contrary to the Scriptures, what new thing he wrote like a heretic—those books indeed.
Since he acted throughout with entire integrity, Athanasius too looked up to him as a true champion, and translated them into the Greek tongue, lest the Greek language should not possess so great a good. That is little: nay, in his own letters this same Athanasius proclaims these same books as woven together with the doctrines of the prophets and the Gospels and the apostles, and with pious confession. And although he is exalted with very many praises against him, nevertheless he does not equal the heralding of his merit; and indeed, when he could praise him no further, so does the surpassing eminence of his deeds overcome any tongue however praising.
But Lucifer, though unskilled in artful eloquence, nevertheless in order to write after the manner of the prophets and the Gospel and the apostles—which is above all human eloquence—had the grace of the Holy Spirit from the merit of his right faith and most sincere conscience. Through him he also worked divine powers, not only in Sardinia but also in those very four exiles, to such a degree that his adversaries called him a magician, since they could not deny that apostolic powers were done through him. To him came also the holy Gregory, and he marveled in him at so great a doctrine of the divine Scriptures, and at his very life, which was truly as though established in the heavens.
Now how great a man Lucifer was, when even Gregory admires him—Gregory who is admirable to all, not only from that clash with Osius but also from the divine powers which, having in himself the grace of the Holy Spirit, he carries out! What then? Are they impious in this too, that whereas Lucifer both believed and taught and lived according to the divine Scriptures and worked powers in the name of Christ, they impose the name of Lucifer to crush the champions of the true faith?—not knowing, wretches, that they commit the highest sacrilege, when they designate the doctrine of Christ under the appellation of a man, just as in this too they are impious: when they defend sacrilegious institutions issued at the whim of men under the authority of the Christian name.
Is it not the highest impiety to vindicate one's own iniquities and sacrileges under the name of Christ? Is it not the highest impiety to mark with human appellations a pious doctrine consecrated under the name of Christ? But this fraud, this savagery against the faithful is carried on in Spain and at Trier and at Rome and in the diverse regions of Italy. It must now of necessity be set forth what has been done in these parts, where distinguished bishops, clothed not with the truth of the faith but only with the appellation of the catholic name, scatter the faithful and true catholics not only through judges nor only through the military hand, but sometimes also through their own clerics, while the judges are unaware or even feign ignorance, and perpetrate atrocities.
And what end will there be, if we should recount all the things which individual faithful ones have suffered and do suffer? Yet one atrocious crime of persecution must be reported in summary, which was committed in Egypt at Oxyrhynchus, under the testimony of the whole city. There is a certain part of the holy people at Oxyrhynchus, in whose sacred number very many, the more intently they have set their zeal and care upon divine things, the more solicitously and diligently do they strive to preserve the catholic faith inviolably, so that they mingle with no heretics and no transgressors through the divine sacraments.
To this observance very many of them were trained by the example and prompting of the most blessed Paul, who lived in those same times as that most famous Antony, of no lesser life nor zeal nor divine grace than was holy Antony. This the very city of Oxyrhynchus knows, which even today most devoutly celebrates the holy memory of Paul. But this very portion of the people, when it saw that the bishop of that city, Theodore by name, had fallen into impious transgression—so that he not only condemned the entire faith, and not only impiously subscribed, but even allowed himself to be made a layman by the impious George, and again to be ordained bishop by that same heretic—
they abhorred his communion, having with them presbyters and deacons of unstained faith, through whom they enjoyed the divine sacraments together with the aforementioned most blessed Paul. But afterward they also had ordained for themselves, through the catholic bishops of that time, the holy Heraclidas, all the more suitable as he ought the more firmly to be ordained against heretics and transgressors, being one who was also conspicuous in his life, from his earliest age serving God, despising worldly goods, and being perfect in faith and doctrine; wherefore also for his apostolic faith, for his evangelical doctrine, for his heavenly conversation, he is venerable in the eyes of all there, displeasing only to the heretics and transgressors;
wherefore also he pleases God the more, when he displeases such men. But this man, so great and of such quality, so began to exercise the pontificate that, to the report of his faith and doctrine and of his most holy manner of life, very many even from the most distant regions came, execrating the abominable society of the transgressors and desiring his most sacred fellowship. But that distinguished twice-made bishop does not endure this. And first indeed he harasses him through the public powers, so that several times he had him seized alone in the dead of night by lancers and carried out of the city. But when those same powers did not persist in that which they had rashly begun (for what right could they have against a catholic bishop?)—
wherefore also they rightly desisted from the persecution they had begun, especially one of them, admonished even by a divine stroke—then this distinguished twice-made bishop now relies on his own forces, and sends a mob of clerics to the church of blessed Heraclidas the catholic bishop, and overturns it, tearing down the walls on every side, so that he shattered the very altar of God with axes, amid the horror and groaning of the whole city, that that church should be overturned whose bishop even men of the opposite party confess to be of right and unstained faith. Take heed, we beseech you, most pious emperors and champions of the right faith: do you indeed publish edicts on behalf of such impious bishops, that those may be afflicted who, for the merit of their faith and most holy life, are more precious than the world itself?
Believe, most religious emperors, that blessed Heraclidas is one of that number of saints of whom the divine Scripture speaks, saying: 'They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted in tribulations and sorrows; of whom the world was not worthy.' For how is blessed Heraclidas not such a man, who, spurning all worldly delights, through the very bitterness of this rugged life, imitating the Lord's footsteps, naked and unencumbered follows the saving path of virtues—who thus conspires for the love of the divine faith, just as we read the saints also conspired?
Having nothing of the world but, for the faith, tribulations and sorrows—so living, so walking, just as those saints also, concerning whom the testimony was set down above. Rightly therefore both blessed Gregory and the other holy bishops are, as it were, relieved by divine consolations amid so many evils of the afflicted Church, by the venerable fellowship of this holiness. But Theodore raged not only against so venerable a bishop but also against his most holy people, which was instituted in the doctrine and morals of a most sincere and faithful priest. And it is long to recount what things he contrived against the modesty and purpose of the sacred virgins, whose monasteries the city itself venerates for the merit of their holiness.
But he also several times afflicted with atrocious injuries the very servants of God, those whom he had rather proved to be holier. Yet what wonder is it if he afflicts the sheep like a wolf, whose good shepherd he frequently afflicts? Behold, one who, under you pious emperors who come to the aid of the catholic faith, boasts himself to be a catholic, while overturning the church of the catholics, persecuting catholic priests and servants of Christ, and impiously afflicting also His sacred virgins!
This is that distinguished and most holy bishop who, when he had first been ordained bishop by catholic bishops, and afterward had been reduced by the impious George into the rank of laymen, was nonetheless ordained bishop by that same George for the harassment of the faithful, sitting and communicating in one and the same city with Apollonius, bishop of the Melitians, who consented to the impieties of George; and together with that same Apollonius this same Theodore persecutes blessed Heraclidas, the champion of the catholic faith!
Behold, to whom, as though to a catholic, the basilica of Apollonius has now been handed over by the authority of your general edict—although indeed this same Theodore, who as though a catholic received the basilica of the heretic Apollonius, acted just as impiously as Apollonius acted, except that Theodore acted more atrociously, since from a catholic bishop he became a layman, condemning the pious faith and subscribing to the Arian impiety, that he might again be ordained bishop by a heretic! Indeed hence he wishes to be seen as a catholic, in that he himself now makes certain presbyters or deacons of Apollonius into laymen by a kind of persuasion, and again ordains them, so that he may seem to repay in turn that most shameful ordination which he himself underwent.
Does it not exceed all sacrilege to vindicate these mockeries under the catholic name for the affliction of faithful priests and laymen? But also in Palestine, in Eleutheropolis, there is a sacred virgin of Christ, Hermione by name, born indeed of noble lineage but made far nobler by faith and holiness, adorning her very virginity by contempt of worldly things and human glory—to which most people aspire, even those who boast that they have renounced the world and the concupiscence of the flesh. In the degree that she guards the chastity of the body with sacred strictness, in that same degree she preserves the purity of the soul by the chaste observance of pious faith, not with heretics—
nor communicating with transgressors, because she understands that the virginity of the body profits nothing unless one also guards the integrity of the soul by sacred confession, fleeing the stain of adulterous communion and pursuing the saving sacraments of faithful priests. Finally she appeals by devout letters to blessed Heraclidas, that she might be aided by his sacred visitations. But in place of blessed Heraclidas the holy Ephesius visits her, who at that time had come from the city of Rome to bishop Heraclidas for ecclesiastical needs. This is that Ephesius whom we said above was ordained bishop for the unstained Roman people by the most steadfast bishop Taorgius.
But when he had come to Eleutheropolis, not only was Hermione with her sacred monastery relieved, but also certain most faithful servants of God; among whom too was the noble house of Severus, a man of religious devotion to the catholic faith, formerly of the tribunes, who for a long time indeed did not communicate with heretics and transgressors, but had not yet found the sacred communion of the catholics. But when he saw the holy Ephesius, after many examinations, proving him to be a catholic, he gave himself over to him into sacred communion, judging himself blessed that the divine mercy had unexpectedly visited his house by the coming of so holy a priest—led into admiration of him not only by the purity of his life but also by certain heavenly proofs.
For blessed Ephesius is of such great faith and holiness that wherever he goes, divine grace accompanies him. This too the holy people at Oxyrhynchus, in communion with blessed Heraclidas, proved, who—bound by pious love of him on account of the merit of divine grace, as once the Asians loved the apostle Paul—escorted him with great weeping as he set out. We speak these things not out of a zeal for praising, but that you may be able to know how holy and faithful souls, under the authority of your name, are afflicted with most grievous persecutions by those who, it is established, even now, without your knowledge, are either heretics or transgressors or associates of such.
But against the holy Ephesius, these men to whom the sacred truth is burdensome attempted something small in Palestine, and afterward desisted, fearing in him both the liberty of faith and the constancy of mind, and considering this very thing, that their heresy and impiety could the more be exposed, if under you catholic emperors they had more sharply harassed a bishop of sound and constant faith.
But when this same blessed Ephesius, invited by the letters of the faithful, sailed to Africa, giving us a precept after the apostolic manner, that we should apply ourselves to the divine and ecclesiastical offices concerning the holy brotherhood—the holy brotherhood there also requesting this very thing—the distinguished Turbo, bishop of the Eleutheropolitan city, despising our smallness, began to wish to accomplish upon us what he had not dared to accomplish upon the holy Ephesius, not knowing that the grace of Christ our God gives its patronage even to His least little servants, especially to those laboring for the cause of the right faith. For this Turbo, after he heard that certain men were joining themselves to the sound faith and that by the grace of God the cause of the truth was growing, threatens us with ruin and tumults.
He threatened the house of Severus too with fire, on account of the truth—Severus, who vindicates the faith of God all the more, the more faithfully he served in the Roman army. He attempts also to pursue the sacred virgin Hermione, that woman whom whoever has come to know, has admired as one of the women of the Gospel. But he lays ambushes also for each and every one who is joined with us in the fellowship of sacred communion, casting it up as though a crime out of that law of Babylon—that within our own dwellings, without the stain of heresy and without the communion of perfidy, according to the evangelical and apostolic traditions, we celebrate the divine sacraments for the faithful who desire them.
For with a like fury they once pursued holy Daniel of Babylon with hostile hatreds, because in his own house he worshiped God by the observance of the divine law. This is that Turbo who was a deacon of Eutychius the heretic, under whom blessed Lucifer suffered exile in the Eleutheropolitan city, and who violently afflicted with many atrocities Lucifer himself as he freely vindicated the faith. There are even today in Palestine those who at that time, when these men were persecuting, paid the most grievous penalties, because they were meeting together with Lucifer, the bishop of the catholic faith. Let them deny it, if they did not, among their other atrocities, break down the closed door with axes; if they did not, bursting in upon Lucifer, the most faithful priest, overthrow even the divine sacraments.
Beating each one of those brethren there who had assembled, with impious slaughter; let them deny it, if they do not even today possess in their keeping the mystical vessels which they then impiously plundered from Lucifer, together with the sacred codices. Then indeed Turbo consorted with Eutychius the heretic: from that time, calling himself a catholic, he persecutes catholics under the authority of your name. In contemplation of your pious authority you vindicate the catholic faith: will you permit, most pious emperors, that under the authority of your name impiety should everywhere and for long lord it over the faithful? For this profits the Roman Empire (which nevertheless we say out of regard and faith toward it, such as you show to Christ our God)—that those who piously proclaim Christ should suffer persecutions and deaths.
So that nowhere is it permitted to set up pious altars to God, or at least, when they have been set up, they are destroyed? Under the impious king Ahab of Israel, when the prophets had been slain and the altars destroyed, Elijah appeals to God against Israel in the book of Kingdoms, saying: 'Lord, they have slain thy prophets, they have destroyed thine altars, and I am left alone, and they seek my life.' Do you permit this odious appeal to be made to God even in your times by each and every one of the faithful priests? For even if they should be silent, is God ignorant that these very things are being done? What then?
Do we suppose that these things are perpetrated against true catholics and against His true Church without offense to God—things which, once perpetrated against the servants of God, were most grievously avenged by divine chastisements? And whence are so many plagues by which the Roman world is shaken and pressed? There is no need now for us to recount each and every one of the plagues which Your Tranquillity recognizes with the fever and anxiety of your rule: let us, even by keeping silent, mitigate this common sorrow, lest we should seem not so much to suffer with you as to exacerbate the wound.
But this, we beseech you, most pious emperors, deign to consider: from what causes these things come about—whether because the faithful servants of Christ, fearing the divine laws, are unwilling to assemble with the faithless, or because true catholics are trodden down by false priests. For how are they not false priests, who now must be avoided not only on account of the transgression set forth above, but also because very many of them even now vindicate their own heresies under a feigned profession of the catholic name before you? For who among the bishops would now fear to preach impious things, when impiety committed so often has been honored, since he is by no means cast down from the priesthood? Finally, since some of them are Origenists, others anthropomorphites—
and others upholding the sect of impious Apollinaris, in a threefold wedge—others blaspheming with diverse pursuits against the Holy Spirit alone, but also these very ones too who are thought to believe piously among them, vindicating or maintaining that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are three substances: nonetheless all these boast of your edicts and vindicate churches for themselves, although our fathers always condemned these impious sects by apostolic and evangelical authority. To discuss these indeed is not for the present little work: but nevertheless, that which may move your mind, intent upon the true faith, to horror, we say. There is one, as we suppose—
a heresy was taken up at Ariminum under a heretical king, and now under you pious catholic emperors so many heresies are vindicated, no less impious than is the impiety of Arius. And although each one writes books or letters against the others, yet all communicate with one another either directly or by an oblique concatenation, quarreling by mere disputations in the vain pursuit of philosophers, and not, as Christians, avoiding one another as impious out of devotion to the sacrament—so that now, as in the schools of talent, there seems to be a contest among them, but not a sacred defense of the true religion, since among themselves they do not separate the sacraments, though they are separated from one another by impious opinions.
But they do this for this reason, because some of them are eager for human glory, others indeed for avarice; and hence it is that they collude with one another under impious dissimulation, so that they may lose neither the possessions of the church nor honors. And meanwhile, that they may veil so many of their impieties, to the deception of individuals, putting forward as it were tokens of a most benign mind, they say that they join themselves in the fellowship of ecclesiastical communion even with those who hold contrary views, lest the good of peace should perish in the Church—as though indeed such a peace were pleasing to Christ our God, which admits so many impieties into His Church. But let those who think thus hear what is written of them: 'And the way of peace they have not known; there is no fear of God before their eyes.'
But more plainly too we read in Jeremiah concerning that impious and wicked peace, as the appended testimony sets forth: 'From the least of them even to the greatest, all have committed iniquity; from the priest even to the false prophet, all have wrought falsehood, and they devised the crushing of my people, esteeming it as nothing, and saying: Peace, peace! And where is peace?' And it must be marked how atrocious the things are which he pursues concerning them who glory in this most vain peace; for it follows: 'They were confounded, because they failed; and not even so did they, sustaining confusion, blush, and they did not know their own ignominy. Therefore shall they fall in their ruin, and in the time of visitation they shall be weakened.' What evil do we commit?
What do we do impiously, if, keeping faith with Christ, we reject such a peace, whose great confusion and ignominy and most grievous ends are described? But these distinguished lovers of peace stir up war against the faithful priests. For what does the devil want, but that the impious and the transgressors should glory in the peace of the world? For what does the devil want, but that those who are pious and faithful should be vexed by the persecution of their assailants? We have pursued these things for this reason, lest through your ignorance the blood of Christians defending the most pious faith should long be shed. For what does it profit, if you are champions of the catholic faith, and you allow the followers of the catholic faith to be everywhere tortured, everywhere put to flight, and the pious faith nowhere to be freely proclaimed?