'He did,' it says, 'that which is right before the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father David, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left;' and likewise below, after he had rebuilt the houses of the Lord and the priest had sent the book of the law to the king: 'And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his garments. And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Michaiah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah the king's servant, saying: Go, inquire of the Lord for me and for all Judah concerning the words of this book that is found; for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not heard the words of this book, to do according to all that is written for them.'
'And Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, keeper of the wardrobe; and she dwelt in Jerusalem. And they spoke to her according to these things. And she said to them: Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Tell the man who sent you to me — thus says the Lord: Behold, I will bring evils upon this place and upon its inhabitants, according to all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read, because they have forsaken me and turned to strange gods and provoked me to anger in the works of their hands. And my wrath is kindled against this place, and it shall not be quenched. And to the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of the Lord, thus you shall say: Thus says the Lord God of Israel:'
'As for the words which you have heard, and because you have reverenced my presence, since you heard what I spoke against this place and its inhabitants, that it should become a desolation and a curse, and you rent your garments and wept before my sight — I also have heard you, says the Lord of hosts. Therefore, behold, I gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the evils which I bring upon this place and its inhabitants.' And they returned word to the king; and King Josiah sent and gathered to himself all the elders of Judah in Jerusalem. And the king went up to the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah, and the priests and Levites, and all the people, from the least to the greatest.
And the king read in the ears of the people all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the Lord. And the king stood by the pillar and made the covenant which was found in the house of the Lord before the presence of the Lord — to walk after the Lord and to keep his commandments and testimonies and precepts with all his heart and all his soul, to establish all the words of this covenant written in this book. And all the people entered into the covenant which the king made, out of the book. And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the Ephod, that they should bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that had been made for Baal and for Asherah and for all the host of heaven.
And he burned them outside beyond Jerusalem in the burning of the brook Kidron; and he took their ashes and scattered them into the brook, and went to Bethel. And he burned the priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense in the high places of the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem — those who burned incense to Baal, and to the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven. And they carried them out of the house of the Lord, outside beyond Jerusalem into the brook Kidron; and he ground them to dust and cast it into the graves of the children of the people. And he pulled down the houses of those who were in the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the sacred garments.
And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba as far as Beersheba, and he pulled down their high places; and below: and he defiled Topheth which was in the valley of Ben-Hinnom, for men had each led his son and his daughter through the fire to Moloch. And he abolished the horses which the kings of Judah had set up to the sun at the entrance of the house of the Lord — the three horses which were at Faradin; and the shrine of the sun he burned with fire in the house; and the high place which the kings of Israel had built to that Baal and to all the host of heaven he likewise consumed.
And the altars that were upon the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the king of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, the king pulled down and drove them thence and cast their ashes into the brook Kidron. And the high places that were before the face of Jerusalem, which was on the right of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon the king had built to Astarte the idol of the Sidonians, and to Chemosh the idol, and to Milcom the idol of the children of Ammon, the king defiled. And he broke in pieces the pillars and filled their places with the bones of men. And the sanctuary that was in Bethel, the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat had made, whereby he made Israel to sin — that sanctuary and that high place he pulled down, and broke its stones and ground them to dust, and...
...he burned their groves. And Josiah the king returned and saw the monuments that were there upon the mountain, and he took the bones out of the sepulchre and burned them upon the altar and defiled it, according to the word which the man of God had spoken when Jeroboam stood at the altar on the feast day. What do you take to have been done by that king who was a worshipper of God, Constantius? And when we strike you with a word for bringing idolatry into the Church, you say, 'Lucifer does me an outrage.' Yet if you had been a man of that time, you might have been destroyed by the sword; or if you had already died, your bones too, sacrilegious as they are, would have been brought to nothing by fire. That king struck down with the sword those guilty of so great a crime; and was it not fitting that we should wound you not even with a word?
You see meanwhile that in this passage too your fellow-sacrilegious kings brought idolatry into the city of God, into the house of the Lord and into His temple—that same idolatry which Josiah, that king most devoted to God, drove out. And do you not suppose that you have undertaken this same work against God to accomplish? I do not want you to say to me: 'If I were acting wickedly, God would already have taken vengeance upon me.' Rather I beseech you to see that you are held captive by the devil, that you live in his power, just as did those kings whose deeds Josiah the king pursued and destroyed. Because we execrate your blasphemies, because we resist your wicked conspiracies, we seem to you to be doing injury.
Thus also to the Jews, whom you imitate, the most holy prophets and the most blessed apostles seemed insolent and haughty. In the book of the prophet Amos it says: 'And Amasias the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam the king of Israel, saying: Amos has made a conspiracy against you in the midst of the house of Israel; the land will not be able to bear his words. For thus says Amos: Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall be led away captive out of its own land. And Amasias said to Amos: Go, depart into the land of Judah, and there dwell and there prophesy; but in Bethel you shall no longer add to prophesy, for it is the king's sanctuary and it shall be the house of the kingdom. And Amos answered and said to Amasias:'
'I was no prophet, nor am I a prophet's son, but I was a herdsman plucking the wild figs; and the Lord took me from the flock and said to me: Go, prophesy to my people Israel. And now hear the word of the Lord: You say, You shall not prophesy in Israel, and there shall be no gathering in the house of Jacob. Therefore thus says the Lord God: Your wife shall be a harlot in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, your land shall be measured out by a line, and you shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall be led away captive out of its own land.'
Since you see that these things were done by Him who willed that truth and rebuke be announced to His erring people, why do you call us insolent, why outrageous, because we speak to you, wandering as you are, the things that are true—because we do not heed your voice that says: 'Do not believe as the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs believed, but believe as Arius has handed down'? In what matters are we found haughty in your eyes? Except in this, that we execrate your sacrileges and that we may avoid your commands as swords and poisons. This was not first done by us; all those who have already pleased God, holding this same faith which we preach, did this very thing.
No one of His servants feared to undergo death for God; none of His attendants dwelt upon the kinds of torments that are inflicted by you tyrants, but each kept His precepts before his eyes. Thus Tobias is found to have become glorious and outstanding before the Lord, since he feared not the edict of your destroyed king, but only the Almighty God. Believe that these things are so from Tobias himself who says: 'When Sennacherib the king came fleeing from Judaea because of the deliverance which the Lord wrought against them—on account of the blasphemies he had blasphemed—he slew in his anger many of the sons of Israel; but I stole away their bodies and buried them. And it was reported to the king that I was burying them, and he sought to kill me.'
'But I fled, and all my substance was plundered, and nothing remained to me except my wife Anna and Tobias my son. And it came to pass after forty-five days that his sons slew that king, and Sarchedonus his son reigned there in his stead. And when I had come into my house, and my wife Anna and my son Tobias had been restored to me, on the day of Pentecost, our feast, which is holy among the weeks, a good dinner was made for me, and I reclined to dine, and the table was set before me, and I saw dishes in great abundance, and I said to Tobias my son: Go and bring whatever poor man you may find of our brethren who are captive in Nineveh, provided he has God in mind with all his heart;'
'bring him, and let him eat this dinner together with me; behold, I wait for you, my son, until you come. And Tobias went out to seek some poor captive of our brethren, and returning he said to me: Father. And I said: What is it, my son? And he said to me: Behold, one of our nation has been slain, cast out with a noose flung about him. And I went out, leaving my dinner before I had tasted anything of it, and I take him up from the street to a certain place near me, until the sun should set, that I might bury him. And returning I washed and ate my dinner in mourning, and I remembered the word of the prophet Amos which he spoke in Bethel, saying: Your feast days shall be turned into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; and I wept.'
'And after the sun had set, I went out and dug and buried him. And all my neighbours mocked me, saying: How is it that this man is not afraid? For already he was sought out on account of this matter that he might be killed, and he fled; and again he has begun to bury the dead.' Since therefore you behold that the servants of God have never feared, and cannot now fear, your tyrants' cruelty, but have pondered and do ponder the precepts of the Lord, how do you deem it right to judge us wanton? Assuredly it is because, by God's doing, we trample your power like mire. This our own strength does not do, but the mercy of Him bestows it—Him whom you deign to execrate in us. God says to the prophet Ezekiel:
'Son of man, I send you to the house of Israel, for they and their fathers have provoked me even to this present day. And you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord—whether they will hear or forbear, for they are a provoking house—and they shall know that you are a prophet in their midst. And you, son of man, fear them not, neither be dismayed at their faces, for they will rage and rush upon you round about, and you dwell in the midst of scorpions; fear not their words and be not dismayed at their faces, for they are a provoking house. And you shall speak my words to them, if perhaps they will hear or take fright, for they are a provoking house.'
We seem stubborn to you, just as that prophet, consecrated to God alone, seemed so to those whose darkness you follow. Doubtless on this account Ezekiel the prophet seemed stubborn to the Jews, your fellow-apostates, and haughty to the kings of Israel, because he fulfilled the Lord's commands, because he spoke to them the very things which God had commanded him to speak. Rightly do you call us haughty—us through whom He willed all His precepts to be conveyed to the knowledge of the believing peoples. Rightly, I say, do you brand us, the bishops of God, as insolent, if we speak to you those things which God has willed to be spoken to you. You hate those who love you, you persecute those who wish you well; but we cannot fear the gnashings of your butchery. For you hear the Lord say:
'And you, son of man, fear them not, neither be dismayed at their faces, for they will rage and rush upon you round about, and you dwell in the midst of scorpions. Fear not their words, be not dismayed at their faces, for they are a provoking house.' We cannot, I say, dread the threats of your empire, because your scorpion-like forces have no strength against us—us whom you may perceive to be sheltered by the power of God, whose defender and protector you may recognize God to be. And so we shall not cease to press the Lord's precepts upon you, keeping our fears for Him alone who says:
'Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak my words to them, for you are not sent to a people of deep speech, to Israel, nor to many peoples of another tongue or another language, nor to weighty ones in speech, whose words you would not understand. And if I had sent you to such, perhaps they would have heard your words; but the house of Israel will not hear you, because they will not hear me, for the whole house of Israel are contentious and hard of heart. And behold, I have made your face strong against their faces, and I will strengthen your firmness against their contention, and you shall be ever firmer than a rock. Fear them not, neither be dismayed at their faces, for they are a provoking house.'
Who among us could fear you, whom you may see made solid and firm by the power of God to beat back your stubbornness, standing with fixed foot against your fury, immovable as sturdy rocks are wont to stand in their mass against the swelling sea? For this reason you judge us your enemies, because we press you to become a servant of God instead of a scorpion. For indeed you cannot now doubt that you are one of the scorpions—one of those spoken of, of whom you have heard from the Lord to the prophet: 'And you, son of man, fear not, neither be dismayed at their faces, for they will rage and rush upon you round about, and you dwell in the midst of scorpions.' On this account we are injurious to you, because you may see yourself called a scorpion by us.
If God had not said that you are a scorpion, you would rightly call me outrageous; but as it is, by your very deeds you show yourself to be a scorpion, and you cry out in vain that you suffer an outrage from us. God says you are a scorpion, and you are angry with me because I call you by that name? What outrage is this, if it be said to you: 'Unless you turn to God, you will always remain, as you are now, one of the scorpions, one of the most rapacious enemies of God'? Run through the rest of the prophet Ezekiel, and dare to call me insolent, haughty, outrageous, stubborn: 'And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, behold, I have made you a watchman of the house of Israel, and you shall hear the word from my mouth and shall threaten them from me, in that I shall say to the wicked man: You shall die the death.'
'And you have not warned him nor spoken, that you might warn the wicked to turn from his ways that he may live—that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, and his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness and from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but you shall have delivered your soul. And when the righteous turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, I will lay a stumbling-block before his face; he shall die, because you did not warn him. And he shall die in his sins, because his righteous deeds shall not be remembered, and his blood I will require at your hand.'
'But if you warn the righteous man that he should not sin, and he himself does not sin, that righteous man living shall live, because you have warned him, and you shall save your soul.' What, Constantius, do you say to these things? Must the priests of God keep silence and conceal His divine commands, or is it right to disclose to you all the precepts of the Lord? Shall we convey God's whole will to us and to those committed to our charge, or shall we defraud ourselves of it to our own slaughter? For the Lord says He will require your blood at my hand;
nay rather, if you do not obey God, whose divine warnings we press upon you, you will die a wicked man in your own wickedness, and the salvation of your soul will no longer be required of us, since indeed we were not terrified by your threats, but feared only Him who has commanded that no one besides Himself be feared—since indeed we have appealed to you in the name of the Lord God, that you might rescue yourself from your abominable paths. Lest I should seem to do you, an emperor, an outrage, what ought I to have done at the time when I declare you were born to turn us, God's servants, from the way of truth? For when Nebuchadnezzar had sent Holofernes, the commander of his forces, and he was besieging Jerusalem, what does Judith pray to God? Surely that He would destroy the enemies of Israel. Did she not say:
'Guard those who rise up against Your house. O Lord God of my father Simeon, who gave a sword into his hand for vengeance upon the strangers who defiled the virgin's womb unto defilement, and uncovered the thigh unto shame, and defiled the womb unto reproach. For You said: It shall not be so, and You did it. Wherefore You gave up their princes to slaughter, and their bed—which had been ashamed for her that was deceived—unto blood, and You struck the servants together with the mighty upon their thrones. And You gave their wives for a prey and their daughters into captivity, and all their spoil for division among Your beloved sons, who burned with zeal for You and abhorred the defilement of Your kindred and called upon You for their help.'
'O my God, hear me, a widow. For You wrought the former things with them, and those that came after, and now and those that are yet to come. For all Your ways are prepared, and Your creation is in Your providence. For behold, the Assyrians are multiplied in their power and exalted in horse and rider, and they have gloried in the strength of their footmen; they have trusted in shields and bent bow and slings, and have not known that You are the Lord who crushes wars. The Lord is Your name. Cast down their strength, O Eternal One, crush their fullness by Your power, and bring down their obstinacy in Your wrath. For they have purposed to profane Your sanctuary, to defile the tabernacle where Your honoured name rests, to lay hold with the sword upon the horn of Your altar.'
'Look upon their arrogance, put strength into the hand of me, a widow, as I have purposed, and smite their mouth by the lips of my persuasion—the ruler and the ruler over his servant—shatter their substance by a widow's hand. For Your strength is not in numbers, nor is Your might in the strong, nor Your gift; but You are the God of the humble, the helper of the lowly, the upholder of the weak, the Saviour of the despairing.'
'Yea, O God of my father and God of the inheritance of Israel, Lord and Ruler of the heavens and the earth, Creator of the waters, King of all creation, hear my supplication; give craft and persuasion for the wounding and bruising of those who have devised hard things against Your covenant and Your holy house and the heights of Sion and the house that holds Your sons. Cause every nation and every tribe to know that You are the God of all power and might, and that there is no other defender of the race of Israel but You.' What will your prudent mind deign to feel in response to these things? Can you possibly say, after this supplication poured out to God against the enemies of religion, that we oppose you in an evil manner because we say to you:
'Either correct your crooked ways and take no pleasure in the power of your empire, or know that you will come to nothing'? What else do we, the servants of God, the priests of His divine majesty, do today, except what those did whose imitators we long to be found? For I hold it worthy not to abandon the peoples committed to us amid so great a persecution as you have brought upon them, but to exhort them—namely, that He whose we are is mighty to snatch us out of the hands of His enemies, that you, an enemy of God's house, are not to be feared, that you are to be regarded as nothing, since indeed our God and Lord, almighty over all things, will reduce to nothing all your impious endeavours set up against His house. What injury is done to you here by us?
What outrage is offered to a Roman emperor by the bishops of the living God, if you are asked either to have eternal life, or if it is said to you—because you have taken up arms against the house of God—that unless you correct yourself, you shall perish in vast destruction? For on what account do we foretell to you the destruction of all the enemies of God's house? It is only so that, either being terrified with the fear of God you may change yourself, or, when you have made yourself punished forever, we may triumph secure on every side, because your blood cannot be required of us by God and because we shall have seen the destruction of the adversaries of His Church. Persist, then, in this your injustice, and you will find what awaits you for such great deserts. 'Lucifer is puffed up with pride,' you say, because he speaks the truth to you.
What did you bid me do at this time when you, the forerunner of Antichrist, have raised arms against the house of God to slay us? At the time when you have shown yourself a denier of the only Son of God? Was I to be silent and to allow you, a wolf coming to lay waste the flock of God? Or do you deem it would have been worthy for us shepherds to go out to meet you with throats made ready and dry, to be devoured together with those committed to us? Was it enough of a great deed that this woman Judith, longing to please God, should slay the enemy with her own hand, and that we, appointed shepherds, should not resist you even with a word from the Lord? The Lord says in the Gospel: 'The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep;'
'he who is a hireling and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf snatches them and scatters them, because he is a hireling and it does not concern him about the sheep.' What therefore were we to do, lest we should seem to have been outrageous to you? We recognized you as a wolf, we saw you stretch out your hands against the sheep of the Lord, we beheld you attempt at one moment to tear apart all who call upon the name of the Lord. Was it fitting that we should show ourselves not shepherds but hirelings? To blessed Peter He says: 'Feed my lambs,' and again: 'Feed my little sheep'; and when the wolf comes, do you wish those who are found to be the successors of blessed Peter to play the part of hirelings?
those whom He had long ago promised to His people through Jeremiah, saying: 'And I will give you shepherds according to my heart, and they shall feed you, feeding you with discipline'—and He did not say: I will give you Constantius the emperor, who can turn you into the devil's prey. You may say that we act wickedly because, protected by the strength of God, we resist your sacrilege. Let us see also what, at the time when your fellow-tyrant Antiochus arose as a persecutor of our religion, those did who remembered that none besides God is to be feared. But first you must know what he, to whom you are like, wrote;
for thus you will be able to understand that those servants of God, whose partakers we long to be found, resisted the sacrilege of Antiochus, just as we too, God being favourable, resist you. Holy Scripture speaks, saying in the first book of Maccabees: 'And the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people and that each should abandon his own laws. And all the nations accepted according to the word of the king, and many out of Israel consented together with them and profaned the Sabbath.'
'And the king sent letters by the hand of messengers to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, that they should follow the laws of a foreign land, and forbid holocausts and sacrifice and libation from the sanctuary, profane the Sabbaths and solemn days, defile the sanctuary, set up shrines and idols, sacrifice swine's flesh and common beasts, leave their sons uncircumcised, and defile their souls with every uncleanness and abomination, so that they should forget the law and change the ordinances; and whoever should not act according to the word of the king should die. According to all these words he sent writings throughout his whole kingdom and set overseers over the people. And he commanded the cities of Judah to sacrifice city by city.'
'And many of the people gathered to them, everyone forsaking the law, and they did evil in the land'; and further on: 'And they built the abomination of desolation upon the altar, and in the cities of Judah round about they erected altars, and at the doors of the houses and in the streets they burned incense. And the books of the law which they found they burned with fire, torn to pieces; and with whomever a book of the covenant was found, and if anyone consented to the law, the king's decree put him to death. In their might they did thus to Israel, to those who were found in each and every month in the cities; and on the twenty-fourth day of the month they sacrificed upon the altar which was over the altar. And the women who had circumcised their sons they slew according to the command.'
'They hung the infants from their necks, and slew both their households and those who had circumcised them. And many in Israel held firm and were strengthened among themselves not to eat common food, and they chose to die rather than be defiled with foods and profane the holy covenant. And a great wrath came exceedingly upon Israel in those days. And there arose Mattathias son of John son of Simeon, a priest of the sons of Joarib from Jerusalem, and he had five sons'; and further on: 'And they saw the blasphemies which were done in Judah and in Israel, and he said: Woe is me, why was I born to see the crushing of the holy city, and to sit there while it was given into the hand of enemies, the sanctuary into the hand of strangers?' And further on: