BOOK I. You compel us, Constantius, to condemn our absent fellow-priest, the devout Athanasius; but by the divine law we are forbidden to do this. By your royal authority you impel the priests of the Lord more widely to shed blood, being ignorant that the laws of justice divinely handed down to us forbid your attempt to tear this out of our minds. Or can you assert that it is divinely permitted for one absent, unheard, and — what is greatest — innocent, to be condemned? For how do you think it is divinely permitted that the unheard be punished, when you behold Adam and Eve, the heads of our race, smitten by the sentence of God after being heard? And God called Adam, and said to him: Adam, where are you? And he said: I heard your voice, Lord, in paradise, and I was afraid, because I am naked, and I hid myself.
And God said to him: Who told you that you are naked, unless you have eaten of the tree of which I had commanded you, that of this alone you should not eat? And Adam said: The woman whom you gave me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate. And God said to the woman: Why have you done this? And the woman said: The serpent persuaded me, and I ate. Since therefore you have observed that God gave such a form of judging, since you have gathered from the sacred fountains of the Scriptures that God gave sentence only after summoning them from their hiding-place and after they had confessed, of what impudence were you and are you, to give to the servants of God, for judging, a form which had not come from the law of the Lord?
Nor did you fear lest it be said to God by us concerning you, just as it was said concerning that renegade angel, the serpent: The serpent persuaded me — the emperor Constantius seduced us; we believed him, thinking he was a man. Could you not see that you might be smitten by such a sentence of an indignant God as that by which the serpent also is seen to be smitten? To whom it is said: Because you have done this, cursed are you above all cattle and above all the beasts of the earth which are upon the earth; upon your breast and your belly you shall crawl, and you shall eat earth all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall watch your head, and you shall watch his heel.
That you too could incur the offence of God, as that angel incurred it, you ought to have remembered from this one sentence of the Lord, especially since you recognized that your deed also was serpentine. Or, since that serpent was made out of the angels, did you think that you, out of men, could become a serpent? By no means; but I would have you say, what is the difference between your deed and that of this renegade apostate angel. If he by a lie seduced the untaught, so did you — and indeed you seduced men not untaught; if he for the sake of profit enticed their minds to eat the fruit of the tree, so did you, when you alleged that you were acting for the sake of peace.
And since you said that you had undertaken this work for the good of all Christians, surely, once your work is examined, it is given to be understood that you have imitated that serpent. Desiring to make men transgressors of God's commandments, you gave orders that one absent and unheard was to be condemned, and that a hearing must be denied to him who proclaimed that he could clear himself of the crime laid against him. Abel the just is slain, and Cain, when questioned, receives sentence; and do you wish a priest of the Lord to be punished unheard? Abel was made, it says, a shepherd of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the earth.
And it came to pass, after some days, that Cain brought of the fruit of the earth a sacrifice to the Lord, and Abel also himself offered of the firstlings of his sheep, and God had respect unto Abel and unto his gifts, but unto Cain and unto his sacrifices he had not respect. And Cain was very grieved, and his countenance fell. And the Lord God said to Cain: Why are you become sad, and why is your countenance fallen? Why have you not rightly offered? You have sinned, be still — and the rest; and below: Cain said to Abel his brother: Let us go into the field. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him. And God said to Cain: Where is your brother? And he said: I know not; am I my brother's keeper?
And God said: What is this you have done? The voice of your brother's blood cries to me from the earth. Was it not lawful for God to punish, before he summoned and questioned Cain? But he would not, giving a form by which manner we should begin to judge those committed to us — to us, I say, of whom he says through the prophet Jeremiah to the peoples dedicated to his majesty: And I will give you shepherds according to my heart, and they shall feed you, feeding you with discipline. Condemn, you say, him whom you know not to have offended. Why? Surely to this end, that we might now deserve to be called not bishops but madmen and butchers. Do you not fear, I pray, when commanding these things, the voice of the Lord saying to most holy Noah? Like the herbs of hay I have given you all things.
except flesh and the blood of the soul you shall not eat. For indeed I will require your blood of your souls at the hands of all beasts; I will require the soul of man. Whoso sheds the blood of man, for the blood of man shall his own be shed, because I made man to the image of God. Do you not fear, I pray, seeing that you have shown yourself the slayer of so many servants of God, that you still yourself butcher the innocent and force us to become partners in your slaughters? When it had been said to Moses by his father-in-law Jethro, why he detained the people the whole day: The people, he said, comes to me seeking judgement from God.
Therefore if the judgement of God's priests ought to be so just, in that it is said to be determined by the judgement of God, how did you order one unheard to be condemned by us, when you have found Moses saying: The people comes to me seeking judgement from the Lord? If the people flocks to us for this purpose, that it may be judged according to the law of God, why do you say: Condemn the innocent? And so, since this command which has been put forward by you does not come from the law of God, but is plainly established from the will of the devil, understand at last who you are. Lot's wife was turned into salt because she could not fulfil what was commanded; and would nothing of evils befall us — I suppose by your intervention, since forsooth you are king of the Roman empire — if we should condemn one weighed down with false charges?
The sacred Scripture in Exodus: Moses, it says, went up into the mountain of God, and God called him from the mountain, saying: These things you shall say to the house of Jacob and shall announce to the children of Israel: You yourselves have seen what things I did to the Egyptians, and I took you up as it were upon the wings of an eagle and brought you to myself. And now, if hearing you will hear my voice and keep my testament, you shall be to me a people abounding above all nations. Mine is the whole earth. But you shall be to me a most sacred kingdom and a holy nation. How a holy nation, if we should be slayers of the innocent? How a kingdom most sacred to God, if we should pass over his commandments? Likewise God says: You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
You say on the contrary: Believe me who speak falsehoods, and slay the innocent. Warning us, God says in Exodus: You shall not believe an empty report, you shall not consent with the wicked to become an unjust witness, you shall not be with the many in malice. You shall not join with the many to turn aside with the crowd, so as to pervert judgement, and you shall not pity the poor man in his cause; and below: You shall not overthrow the judgement of the poor in his cause, you shall depart from every unjust word, you shall not slay the innocent and the just, you shall not justify the impious for gifts; for gifts blind the eyes of them that see and pervert just words.
To thrust aside these commandments, you compel the servants of God to overthrow his judgement, attempting to corrupt even with gifts our conscience justly dedicated to God. If hearing, says God, you will hear my voice and do all that I shall say to you, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will withstand your adversaries. Now let it be yours to prove that God has commanded that the innocent are to be smitten, that the apostolic faith is to be forsaken and your perfidy taken up. Why did you think that these things, which are contrary to the commandments of the Lord, ought to be commanded to be done? Since you remember that in Leviticus also the Lord said to Moses: Speak to the children of Israel, and you shall say to them:
'I am the Lord your God: according to the practices of the land of Egypt, in which you dwelt, you shall not act; and according to the practices of the land of the Canaanites, into which I shall bring you, you shall not act there, nor shall you walk in their statutes. You shall execute my judgements and keep my precepts and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. Keep all my precepts and all my judgements and do them; the man who does them shall live in them. I am the Lord your God.' If you are able to teach that it is written in the precepts of the Lord that the righteous are to be appointed to punish at the promptings of the unrighteous, then you will be able to conclude that you have done and are doing all things rightly.
Show me that it is written in the commandments of God that His worshippers, sought out by slanders, are to be destroyed by us bishops at the hands of you, the persecutor of His house. Why were you led on by your fellow Arians to carry out this malice? What cause compelled you to seek from the emperor, by slanders, a man of God? Had you not read in Leviticus that God said: 'Do not seek by falsehood, neither let any one of you slander his neighbour'? And further below: 'You shall not lie, neither shall you deal falsely with your neighbour, and you shall not profane the name of the Lord your God. I am the Lord your God. You shall not harm your neighbour, and you shall fear the Lord your God. I am the Lord your God. You shall not do wrong in judgement; you shall not respect the person of the poor, nor stand in awe before the person of the mighty;'
'You shall judge your neighbour in righteousness. You shall not walk in deceit among your people. You shall not consent to the blood of your neighbour. I am the Lord your God. You shall not hate your brother in your heart; rebuking you shall rebuke your neighbour, and you shall love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord your God. Keep my law.' Since you remember that these things are written, do you suppose that we will be respecters of your person? You called for the death of an innocent man, and when you saw yourself despised, you stretched yourself out to inflict every kind of punishment. God says: 'Do not fear before the face of the rich man, and you shall honour the face of the elder and fear the Lord your God. I am the Lord your God.'
And you thought that you could be feared, and that Athanasius could be dishonoured — the very man whom God has commanded to be honoured! Had you not read that God said: 'You shall not act unjustly in judgement, in measure and in weight and in scales; you shall weigh with just scales'? And is it just measure that you should have decreed that an absent man be put to death by us? If it is a just judgement that the one who cries out is not heard and the absent man is punished, then your accusations against us before God will also be just — us who have spurned the commands of your rashness. In Deuteronomy the glorious Moses is found to have said to the judges whom he had appointed over the people: 'Hear the causes between your brethren and judge justly between a man and his brother and the stranger who is with him.'
'You shall not respect persons in judgement; you shall judge the small as well as the great; you shall not fear the person of any man, for the judgement is God's.' And you wish, Constantius — I believe it is because you dwell in the loftiness of royalty — that your person be received; you greatly desire that the man whose blood you thirst for be slaughtered by us, the Lord's priests. Hence we are detestable to you, because we bring forth judgement according to the will of God; hence you thought your executioner's right hand must be stretched to the sword, as though you could conquer with the sword those whom you saw, for the sake of the Son of God, neither hesitating to lose their present life nor shuddering at death. To the sons of Israel the most holy Moses declares, by the command of God:
'Behold, the Lord your God has delivered to you the land before your face; go up and possess it, as the Lord God of our fathers has said to us. Do not fear, neither be dismayed.' If it was commanded to them to fear no one except God — to them who bore the image of our calling — how much more does it befit us to dread no one except God, we who do not desire to obtain the lands of the Canaanites, the Jebusites, the Girgashites and the Amorites, but the heavenly kingdoms and the everlasting love of God? For how could the empty force of your dignity bend us, or how can it, from this purpose, since we have determined that no one is to be feared except God? We are not Christians of the sort of those who said:
'Because the Lord hated us, He led us out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites and to destroy us'; but we are of those who said and say to God: 'For your sake we are slain all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter, but in all these things we overcome for the sake of Him who loved us.' We did not fear, nor do we fear, your threats — we who know that nothing can resist God — lest we perish like those who hear from Moses: 'Your brethren have turned away your heart, saying: The nation is great and exceedingly strong and mightier than you, and the cities are great and walled up to heaven; moreover we saw there the sons of the giants.'
We Christians do not fear your sword — we who take it for granted that, when you the enemies of the religion of God are laid low, we shall come to the banquet of the patriarchs, prophets, apostles and martyrs. We soldiers of God do not dread the might of your perishable kingdom. We are not of those sons of unbelief who had reckoned that their enemies could do more than God, so that we should be in awe of your fragile power; for if the Jews had not believed thus — namely that the Canaanites, Jebusites and Amorites and the rest of their enemies could do more than God — they would never have set themselves against the voice of Moses saying: 'Do not speak, neither be dismayed because of them.'
'The Lord your God, who goes before your face, He Himself will together fight against them with you, according to all that He did for you in the land of Egypt, and in this wilderness which you see, how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, along all the way that you walked, until you came to this place, leading you by fire in the night, showing you the road, that you might walk in it, and by a cloud in the day.' If, after these saving admonitions, the sons of Israel had believed that those against whom they waged war could do more than God, they would surely never have come to complete destruction. Therefore we know that God is mighty to snatch us out of your hands, as we press on toward the heavenly kingdom promised to us.
We shall not be able to fear your cruelty, especially since we have chosen to be punished by you rather than by God. You said: 'Condemn Athanasius.' Whom, Constantius, were we to condemn? Him, whom we see confessing the Son of God, as the patriarchs, prophets, apostles and martyrs confessed Him? Or you, who deny Him, as your master Arius denied Him, as Judas Iscariot and all the Jews denied Him? God says to Moses: 'You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, nor any likeness of the things that are in heaven above and of the things that are in the earth beneath, and of whatever things are in the waters under the earth.'
'You shall not adore them, nor serve them, for I am the Lord your God, a jealous God, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, and showing mercy to thousands of those who love me and those who keep my precepts.' And you say these things, trampling on the divine commandments: 'Take up my idolatry, forsake God, kill my enemy — not God's — Athanasius, that you may be found among those who hate God, to whom He has promised that He will requite them to the third and fourth generation; take pains that you not be loved by God together with those, concerning whom He says: showing mercy to thousands of those who love me and those who keep my precepts.'
You see, most prudent emperor, that this seems good to you which is evil, and this evil which is good. Either you will deny that it is good, or you will deny that you understand good things to be evil and evil things good. If you deny it, answer: is it good to condemn the innocent, or evil? Is it good to forsake God and go after idolatry, or evil? If you say it is evil, we shall say to you: why then do you do these things? Again Moses cries out in Deuteronomy, saying: 'Keep the commandments of the Lord your God and His testimonies and His ordinances, whatever He has commanded you, and you shall do what is pleasing and good before the Lord your God, that it may be well with you. And you shall enter in and possess for an inheritance the good land which the Lord swore to your fathers.'
And you have chosen these to be the good things, these pleasing to God: that, to the insult of His majesty, idolatry be established through the might of your kingdom, and that those be slaughtered who have confessed themselves His worshippers. 'Behold,' says Moses, 'I have set before your sight this day a blessing and a curse: a blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you this day.' Since therefore they are blessed who do not punish the innocent — they who keep the Lord's commandments and refuse to condemn a man unheard — how do you suppose yourself blessed, when by your own deed you prove yourself set among the accursed? Or if you are not among the accursed, why do you scorn Moses who says?
'But if there be found among you in one of your cities, which the Lord your God shall give you, a man or a woman who has done what is wicked before the Lord your God, transgressing His covenant, and going they have served strange gods and adored them, either the sun or the moon or all who are in the world in the heavens' — and further below: 'You shall bring forth that man or that woman, and you shall stone them with stones, and they shall die. By two or three witnesses he shall die; dying he shall not die by one witness. And the hand of the witnesses shall be upon him first to kill him, and the hand of all the people last. And you shall put away the wicked from among yourselves.' If you are not, Constantius, running with the accursed, why did you not obey Moses, the servant of the commandments of God?
Why, when he says that even an idolater is to perish by two or three witnesses, did you refuse to grant even a hearing to a man dedicated to God, and made him be denied a hearing — the very man to whom you had been handed over by God, the one against whom, if you resisted him defending what is just, you would have been commanded by the mouth of Moses to die the death? For that the judgements of the priest may remain inviolate, He speaks thus: 'Rising up you shall go up to the place which the Lord your God shall choose, to have His name invoked there.'
'And speak to the priests, the Levites, or to the judge, whoever shall be in those days, and inquiring they shall declare to you the judgement, and you shall act according to every precept which those who are in that place declare to you, in the place which the Lord your God chose to have His name invoked there; and observe yourself exceedingly. You shall act according to all that they appoint for you. According to the law and according to the judgement, whatever they say, you shall do; you shall not turn aside from any word which they declare to you; you shall do whatever they show you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or the left.'
'And any man who acts in pride, so as not to hear the priests who stand to perform their offices in the name of the Lord God, or the judge, whoever he shall be in those days, that man shall die, and you shall put away evil from Israel. And all the people hearing shall fear and shall act impiously no more.' But you say: 'How, in this passage, did Moses, most devoted to God, make mention of the priests, and likewise of the judge?' Prove that you have been made judge over us; prove that you were appointed emperor for this — that with your arms you might lead us on to fulfil the whole will of your friend the devil. Since you cannot prove it...
...since it is commanded you not only not to lord it over the bishops, but even so to obey their decrees that, if you should attempt to overturn their decisions, if you should be caught in pride, you would be commanded to die the death — how will you be able to say that you can pass judgement on bishops, whom, unless you obey, you have already, as far as God is concerned, been condemned to the penalty of death? Since these things are so, why do you, who are profane, arrogate to yourself this authority over the household of God, over the priests of God — when even the Jews themselves, back then, when they remained in the law of God, He permitted to have their judges from their own kindred?
'For if,' says Moses, 'you shall say: I will set a prince over me, as also the other nations round about me, appointing you shall appoint over yourself as prince whomever the Lord your God shall choose. Him from among your brethren shall you appoint. You shall not be able to set over yourself a foreign man, because he is not your brother.' And it follows, why he did not wish a foreigner to be made prince, namely lest he draw others to his own sect. Therefore he says: 'lest he lead us back into Egypt,' that is, to the worship of idols — as I say, like one such as you, who have usurped for yourself this authority which God did not hand over to you.
And if He were to hand it over and permit you to be among them, in the first place you would have had to be a Christian, because it would be a crime for a foreigner to judge the servants of God, for an enemy of religion to judge the household of God. Then, if you had been a Christian and God had judged that you were to be made a partner with the priests in ruling His people, hear what kind of man He commanded you to be.
'And it shall be, when he sits on his throne, he shall write for himself this Deuteronomy in a book before the priests and the Levites, and it shall be with him, and you shall read it to him all the days of his life, that they may learn to fear the Lord your God, to keep all these commandments and to do these ordinances, that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandments to the right hand or the left, that he may be of long time in his rule, he and his sons with him among the sons of Israel.' What have you of this kind, except all things contrary, except everything that assails the house of God? First you are a heretic, then a persecutor of the household of God; you have attempted and you attempt to slaughter Athanasius, as though you were a man who does not remember what is written:
'If a man hating his neighbour lie in wait for him and rise up against him and smite him mortally and he die, and he flee into one of these cities, the elders of that city shall send and take him thence and deliver him into the hands of those who seek blood, and he shall die. Your eye shall not spare him, and you shall cleanse the blood of the innocent from among them, and it shall be well with you.' And again: 'One witness shall not stand up in testimony against a man for any iniquity and for any sin whatever that is committed. By the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every matter be established. But if an unjust witness stand up against a man, accusing him of wrongdoing,'
'then both men who have the dispute shall stand before the Lord and before the priest and in the sight of the judge, whoever shall be in those days. And the judges shall inquire diligently, and behold, if the witness be an unjust witness who has testified falsely, resisting against his brother, then do to him as he wickedly thought to do to his brother, and you shall put away the evil from among yourselves. And the rest hearing shall fear, and shall no more do this wicked thing among you. Your eyes shall not spare him: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.' Since you perceive that God has appointed these things to be done concerning a murderer such as yourself, tell me, I pray, what else is it to say:
'Condemn him whom you know to be innocent, act against the commandments of God' — if not, 'Tear out your hearts, strip yourselves of understanding, of your own accord slaughter your souls; though you see that there is a pit, feign yourselves blind, and cast yourselves headlong into the everlasting abyss, plunge into that pit from which you perceive you cannot be rescued, take life from your own selves, take up eternal death'? What else is it to say 'do what God has forbidden to be done' but 'be enemies to God, gain the devil for a friend, take pains that you not attain paradise, nor in the end the kingdom of heaven which God has promised you, if you keep His commandments;'
'love hell, cherish the burning lake, desire to be with all those who are forever paying penalties, desire to be called the devil's men'? These are the rewards which your excellent counsels procure, these those best things which bring forth everlasting death, these which plunge a man already near heaven down to hell. Did you not yet know that it is written, that you should ask us to do these evils? 'There shall not be in your bag a weight and a weight, greater or smaller. There shall not be in your house a measure and a measure, greater and smaller.'
'You shall have a true and just weight, and you shall have a true and just measure, that you may be of many days and it may be well with you upon the land which the Lord your God shall give you for a lot, because everyone who does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God, everyone who does unjust things.' Since it is recorded in the sacred writings that whoever does not keep whole weights and just measures is an abomination, I suppose you thought we would then be most acceptable, if we had unjustly pronounced judgement against him. Moses says: 'Cursed is he who removes his neighbour's landmarks.' We are forbidden to tear away and to transfer from place to place a neighbour's boundaries — and his weight — and yet you say: 'Go forth, priests of God, from the boundaries of justice.'
'Cursed,' says the Holy Spirit through the mouth of Moses, 'is whoever perverts the judgement of the stranger, the orphan and the widow.' And you, making sport for yourself out of our blood, said: 'Punish him whom you do not know to have done wrong.' We were unwilling, Constantius, to be accursed with you; rather, desiring you the more, we are found blessed together with us in the holy Church. We do not heed your voice, which provokes us to incur the offence of God, but we heed Moses, the servant of the Lord, who says: 'And it shall be, if you do not hearken to the voice of the Lord your God, to keep and to do all His commandments, whatever I command you this day, that all these curses shall come upon you and find you.'