And Saul was sleeping among splendid coverings, and the people were around him. And David spoke to Ahimelech the Gathite and to Abishai son of Zeruiah, brother of Joab, saying: Who will go in with me into the camp to Saul? And Abishai said to David: I will go with you. And David and Abishai came to the people by night, and behold, Saul was sleeping among precious coverings, and a splendid spear was fixed at his head, and Abner was sleeping around him. And Abishai said to David: The Lord has shut up your enemy today into your hands, and now I will strike him with the spear once, fixing it into the ground, and I will not repeat it. And David said to Abishai: You shall not touch him, for who shall lay his hand on the anointed of the Lord and be innocent? And David said:
The Lord lives, for unless the Lord strikes him, or unless his hour comes and he dies, or he goes down into battle and is destroyed—but may it not be granted me from the Lord to lay my hand on the anointed of the Lord. And now take the spear that is at his head and the jar of water, and let us withdraw. And David took the spear and the jar of water from his head, and they departed. And there was no one who saw, nor who knew, nor who was awake; for they were all sleeping, because the fear of the Lord had fallen upon them. And David crossed over to the opposite side and stood on the top of the mountain afar off, and there was a great distance between them. And David called out to the people and to Abner and spoke, saying: Do you not answer, Abner? And Abner answered and said:
Who are you who call me? What is it? And David said to Abner: Are you a man, and who is like you in Israel? Why do you not guard your lord the king? For one of the people came in to destroy your lord the king. This is not good, what you have done. The Lord lives, for you are sons of death, who did not guard your lord the king, the anointed of the Lord. And now see: where is the king's spear and the jar of water that was at his head? And king Saul recognized David's voice and said: Is this your voice, my son David? It is your servant's, my lord king. And David added: Why does my lord thus pursue after his servant? For what have I done wrong, and what evil is in me?
And now let my lord the king hear the words of his servant: If the Lord God incites you against me, to my grief and as a victim of sacrifice—but if it is the sons of men, cursed are these in the sight of the Lord, for they have cast me out today from being confirmed in the covenant of the Lord, saying: Go, serve foreign gods. And now let not my blood fall to the ground before the sight of the Lord, for the king of Israel has come out to seek a single flea, as an owl pursues in the mountains. And Saul said: I have sinned; return, my son David, for I will do you evil no more, because my soul was precious in your eyes this day, in which I have become a fool and have erred exceedingly. And David answered, saying:
Behold the king's spear; let one of the young men come over and take it. And may the Lord render to each his righteousness and his faithfulness, since He delivered you today into my hands and I would not lay my hand on the anointed of the Lord. Behold, as your soul was magnified this day in my eyes, so may my soul be regarded in the sight of the Lord, and may He deliver me and rescue me from all tribulations. And Saul said to David: Blessed are you, my son; doing you shall do, and being able you shall prevail. These things I have inserted for this reason: that you might at last conjecture that you thus unjustly persecute Athanasius or us, thus goad yourself to the destruction of your own salvation, thus draw upon yourself the perils of death before the Divinity, just as by the deeds he did Saul drew them upon himself.
If these things are not so, say why you persecute us; surely it is because we do not shed innocent blood. Whom do you wish us to imitate, you or David? For of David I find it written: And David reigned in Israel, and was doing judgment and justice among all his people; but you we perceive to be an unjust judge, a slayer of the worshippers of God. Why do you persecute us? Surely because we were unwilling, as you are, to become apostates, because we were unwilling to deny the only-begotten Son of God. The book of David speaks of the perfect Trinity and declares the one deity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; and you are found to be an apostate. Whom, I say, shall I follow, you or David? That worshipper of the Lord, that lover of mercy, or you, the sacrilegious executioner?
As a man of what wisdom do you persecute Athanasius? I would marvel that you do these things, if Ahab the king had not likewise persecuted Elijah and the other prophets of the Lord; I would marvel that you persecute a man of God, if I did not perceive you to be Ahab in all things. Finally, such things are said to you by us as were said to that one by God's household: Do not worship Baal, do not serve idols, but God; serve the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, serve the God of Israel. If you remember that Elijah and the other prophets of the Lord said such things to the apostate king Ahab, note that similar things are said to you by those to whom the Lord has given the authority to teach.
Do not, Constantius, fight with the Arians against the house of God; do not introduce the idolatry of Arius into the Church; do not deny the only Son of God; cease to persecute the apostolic and evangelical faith. Because we say these things, we seem to you to be enemies. So those who told the king the truth became his enemies. Let us then run through what arose, what happened, between Elijah the prophet of the Lord and Ahab your fellow-apostate, and you will find that you are today Ahab. The Lord lives, says Elijah, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain in these years except by the word of my mouth. And when this had been fulfilled, the madman ought to have recognized that truly the only powerful God, over all, was none but Him whom Elijah served. What does Ahab do?
He sees that for three years and more there is no rain, and the more he is inclined toward idols, the more he desires to kill Elijah. God's prophet hears from the mouth of the sacrilegious Ahab: Is it you yourself, who overthrows Israel? So you too say to Athanasius or to us that it is we who are overturning God's people, when it is you who summon Christians to take up your heresy. But you hear from us what that Ahab, worshipper of idolatry, heard from the glorious Elijah: We do not overturn the house of God, but you overturn it, and the house of your father. Or will you deny that you think of nothing except to make all of us your fellow-apostates? But as I had begun to speak of the deeds of Elijah and Ahab: And Elijah said:
I do not overturn Israel, but you overturn it, and the house of your father, in that you forsake the Lord our God and go after Baal. And now send and gather to me all Israel on the mountain, and the four hundred and fifty prophets of confusion and the four hundred prophets of the groves, who eat and drink at the table of Jezebel. And king Ahab sent to all Israel and gathered all the prophets on Mount Carmel. And Elijah drew near to all and said to them: How long do you limp in your judgment? If the Lord is God, go after Him; but if Baal is God, go after him. And the people answered him not a word. And Elijah said to the people, saying:
I alone remain, one of the prophets of the Lord, but the prophets of this Baal are four hundred and fifty men, and the prophets of the groves four hundred; let therefore two oxen be given to us, and let them choose for themselves one and cut it in pieces, and lay it upon the wood, and put no fire under; and I will prepare the other ox, and I will put no fire under. And cry out in the name of your gods, and I will cry out in the name of my God, and the god who answers us by fire, this shall be God. And all the people answered and said: Good is the word that Elijah has spoken. And Elijah said to the prophets of confusion:
Choose for yourselves one calf and do it first, for you are many, and cry out in the name of your gods, but do not put fire under. And they took the calf and prepared it, and called upon the name of Baal from morning until evening, and said: Hear us, Baal, hear us. But there was to them no voice nor answer. And Elijah the Tishbite added, saying: Call out with a great voice together, lest perhaps he be occupied, or he himself be asleep, and he will be awakened. And they called upon him with a great voice, and cut themselves according to their custom with swords and knives, until the shedding of blood upon themselves, and they prophesied until midday was past.
And it came to pass, when it was the time to kindle the sacrifice, that Elijah the Tishbite spoke to the prophets, saying: Depart now, and I will offer the burnt offerings. And they departed and went away. And Elijah said to the people: Come to me. And all the people came to him, and Elijah took twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of Israel, as the Lord had spoken to him, saying: Israel shall be your name. And he built up the stones and restored the altar of the Lord, which had been thrown down, and he made a trench which could hold two measures of seed around the altar, and he heaped the wood upon the altar which he made, and cut the burnt offering in pieces and laid the wood and heaped it upon the altar, and said:
Bring me four jars of water and pour them over the burnt offering and over the wood. And he said: Do it again. And they brought again. And he said: Do it a third time. And they repeated a third time, and the water flowed around the sanctuary, and they filled the trench with water. And Elijah cried to heaven and said: Lord God of Abraham and Isaac and Israel, hear me, O Lord, hear me today by fire, that all this people may know that You are the Lord God of Israel and I am Your servant, and that for Your sake I have done these works, and You have turned back the heart of this people. And fire fell from the Lord out of heaven and consumed the burnt offerings and the wood and the water that was in the trench, and the stones and the earth. The fire licked it up.
And all the people fell on their face and said: Truly the Lord, He is God. And Elijah said to the people: Seize the prophets of Baal; let none of them escape. And they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slew them there, and said to Ahab: Eat and drink, for there is the sound of the feet of rain. And Ahab went up to eat and drink. And Elijah went up to Carmel, and bowed himself to the ground, and put his face between his knees, and said to his servant: Go up and look toward the way of the sea. And the servant looked, and the servant said: There is nothing. Turn yourself about seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh time that behold, a little cloud, like the footprint of a man, was bringing water from the sea.
And Elijah said to him: 'Go up and say to Ahab: Yoke your chariot and go down, lest the rain overtake you.' And it came to pass on this side and on that, and the sky grew dark with clouds and winds, and a great rain fell. And Ahab wept and went into Israel, and the hand of the Lord was upon Elijah. Do you recognize in what perversity you now stand, the very perversity in which Ahab also stood? For amid so many signs and prodigies displayed, he does not deign to rejoice with the people, but grieves that Elijah dared to slay the priests and prophets of the idols; nor after such great deeds does he deign to turn himself to God, but rather still persecutes His worshipper. He sees that God is in Elijah, and yet the more he seeks his life. He looks upon the prophets.
the worshippers of Baal and of the groves, worshippers of demons, and those who were slain he loves even more than the one whom he had in so many ways perceived to be a servant of God's household. So you too deign to love those men whom you see to be of the Arian heretical sect, while you most bitterly persecute the worshippers of God. I have therefore chosen to press upon you these few things out of the many deeds done between Ahab and Elijah, so that you may know that we, since you forsake God, are not easily converted to Him by signs or by prodigies, but rather, persisting in your errors, you rage like monstrous beasts against the neck of God's worshippers.
We beseech you, Constantius, no longer to deign to linger in these your evils, but rather to escape from the whirlwinds of the devil, lest those evils overtake you which overtook Ahab and Jezebel. Do not on this account call yourself happy, that you are able to persecute the men of God, when you see that Ahab and Jezebel could have been destroyed at Elijah's petition, and yet were reserved, so that both the endurance of Elijah, the man of God, might be more fully blessed and the measure of their impiety fulfilled — as though indeed Elijah could not have asked God that the persecutors of his religion, the worshippers of idols, might be burned up. He asks fire to be given from heaven to consume the sacrifices; at once it descends. He asks for rain, which had been withheld for three years and six months, and at once it is given.
Very many other signs are wrought; and could not the enemies of God have been destroyed at Elijah's petition, since even fire descending at Elijah's word consumed those honoured captains of fifty? You see that today, because you persecute Athanasius and us, you could be destroyed by a thunderbolt or in any manner whatever, yet you are reserved for this purpose: either that you may be converted, or that the whole measure of your iniquity may be fulfilled. King Ahab persecuted Elijah, just as you now persecute Athanasius. For Jezebel said to the prophet of the Lord, after she had learned through Elijah of those mighty works displayed and that the prophets of confusion and the priests of the pagan religions had been slain:
'May the gods do so to me and more also, if by this hour tomorrow I do not make your life as the life of one of them.' But what does Elijah hear from God after keeping a fast of forty days and nights? Surely that he should anoint kings, through whom Ahab and his companions might be destroyed. The mercy of God is with Elijah; Elijah knows that he is loved by God. Ahab, on the contrary, the persecutor of Elijah, is so wretched that he was ever in the power of the devil. So you commanded Athanasius to be justly punished, just as Jezebel commanded Naboth the Jezreelite; so you produced false witnesses against Athanasius, as they produced them to whom Jezebel had written, saying:
'Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth at the head of the people, and set two men, sons of the wicked, over against him, and let them bear witness against him, saying: You have blasphemed God and the king; and lead him out, and let him be stoned and die.' Such are now the works of you Arians. You call us guilty, you charge many things upon us, and you have no need of false witnesses; for you yourselves are false witnesses in all things. So you sons of perdition, you Arians, attempt to slay Athanasius, just as Jezebel slew Naboth, as though you could escape the hand of Him who sees all things. You know that God avenged the blood of Naboth, that He required his death at the hands of the murderers; and do you suppose that God will not require from your hands the blood of His priest Athanasius?
And the Lord spoke to Elijah the Tishbite, saying: 'Arise and go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who is in Samaria; for behold, he has gone down into the vineyard of Naboth to possess it. And you shall say to him: Thus says the Lord: Because you have slain Naboth and have taken possession of his vineyard, therefore thus says the Lord: In the place where the dogs and swine licked the blood of Naboth, there the dogs shall lick your blood, and the harlots shall bathe in your blood.' And Ahab said to Elijah: 'Have you found me, O my enemy?' And Elijah said: 'I have found you, because you have thought to do wickedly before the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him. Thus says the Lord:'
'Behold, I bring evil upon you, and I will kindle a fire after you, and I will utterly destroy of yours, O Ahab, every male, and the imprisoned and the remnant in Israel. And I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for all the provocations by which you have provoked and made Israel to sin.' And to Jezebel the Lord spoke, saying: 'The dogs shall devour her before the wall of Jezreel, and the birds shall devour your dead in the city.' Because — do you, Constantius, say anything against these things? Do you claim that your sins are less than those of Ahab and Jezebel? They persecuted the priests of God, they slew the household servants of God, they took away the religion of God and set up idolatry, they turned the people away from God.
And you have done and still do all these things. Thus you call us your enemies, just as Ahab called Elijah his enemy; who, when he had heard from the mouth of the Lord's prophet the divine indignation, said: 'Have you found me, O enemy of Ahab the king?' — surely because you would say: 'Do not serve idols, but give worship to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel alone.' And now, because it is said to you: 'Do not be a heretic, but be a Christian,' you call them enemies. Why should these things be pressed upon you which were pressed upon King Ahab through Elijah? For Ahab would assuredly have loved Elijah, if he had judged that his idols were to be served in his house and that God was to be forsaken. And you likewise cannot deny this: for if we had chosen the same thing that you have, you would have loved us with singular affection.
By these things you are understood to be a son of pestilence, a fountain of darkness, the tinder of all evils, the head and gulf of wickedness, the bilge of all blasphemers, the tinder of heretics, a root of bitterness, a tree destined for the fire since it brings forth deadly fruits, an enemy of God, a foe of the Church, a corrupter of the truth, a stirrer-up of depravity, a lover of injustice, an adversary of justice, turned into darkness — and that inextricable — made rather, in very truth, a temple of all the demons, by whose instigation you have perpetrated and still perpetrate all these evils, as did Ahab. But you shall not long be able to remain unpunished, unless you turn to God, since you behold what Ahab and Jezebel received.
For if Ahab perished, just as had been promised him by the mouth of Elijah, if the dogs devour Jezebel, will you go unpunished for such great crimes? You who not only do not grieve that you have slain those consecrated to God, but even boast, thinking that you have done well. Nor is this to be wondered at, since you, a denier foreknowing what would come, said in the Gospel: 'The hour will come, and everyone who kills you will think that he is doing a service to God; but they do this because they know neither the Father nor His only Son.' You, living without knowledge of God, persecute Athanasius, who speaks the truth to you and loves God with his whole heart. So too Ahab persecuted Elijah. But behold the end of Elijah and of his enemy Ahab.
Behold Elijah translated to enjoy the eternal friendships of God, while now Ahab is tormented in outer darkness. Elijah rejoices in the friendships of God, while Ahab is paying perpetual penalties. Without doubt Athanasius shall be at the banquet where Elijah is; and you shall be in that place of torments where Ahab is held, whose imitator you are found to be in all things — unless you take counsel for yourself. Is this to be wise: to have chosen the eternal wretchedness of King Ahab rather than to enjoy the perpetual happiness which Elijah obtained? Of whose translation the Scripture speaks in the Fourth Book of Kingdoms, saying: 'And as they were going and talking, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire, and it separated the two of them.'
And Elijah went up in a whirlwind as if into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he himself cried out and said: 'My father, my father, the charioteer of Israel!' And he saw him no more. Your deed, O heretic, cannot seem novel to us, if you persecute the priests of the Lord, since in the Second Book of Chronicles we find that Jeroboam and his sons did these things. The Holy Scripture says: 'Judah and Benjamin and the Levites and the priests, who were in all Israel, gathered together out of all their borders, because the Levites forsook their pasture lands and their possessions and went to Rehoboam, since Jeroboam and his sons drove them out, so that they should not serve the Lord.'
'And he appointed there priests of the high places and of the images and of the demons and of the calves which Jeroboam had made. And he cast them out from among the sons of Israel and from the tribes of Israel, who had set their heart to seek the Lord God of Israel.' It will therefore be no wonder if you persecute us or those divinely committed to us, if you drive us from the charge entrusted to us, if in the end you ordain into our places the enemies of God, those who together with you have forsaken God — since you see that you are fulfilling these very things which Jeroboam did. For what is it to say: 'Condemn the faith drawn up at Nicaea and receive mine,' except that which Jeroboam said: 'Forsake God and serve my images'? What man are you, who say: 'Condemn the absent, the unheard, the innocent'?
Assuredly you are one who had already denied the apostolic and the evangelical faith — indeed one who had destroyed, so far as in you and yours it lies, the tradition of the blessed apostles. Hence in the end it came about that you reached such madness, because you were, like Jeroboam, without God. But if you had had God, if you had remembered yourself to be His worshipper, you would never have said: 'Condemn the innocent, strike the unheard, the absent, your fellow priest.'
And that you may see yourself to be without God — whence too you commanded such things to be done — consider a king with whom, according to his merits, his God was present; consider also his exhortation to the priests of the Lord, whom he urged to judge a just judgment for the people of God; consider likewise the deeds of the judges you set up against the Church and of their ministers; and you will be able to weigh whether unclean spirits are not with you, the very ones that were with Jeroboam. 'And Jehoshaphat dwelt,' says the Second Book of Chronicles, 'in Jeroboam, and he turned back and went out among the people from Beersheba as far as Mount Ephraim, and he turned them to the Lord God of their fathers. And he set up judges in all the fortified cities of Judah, and in each several city. He said to the judges:'
'Take heed what you do; for you shall not judge for man, but for the Lord, and He is with you in the word of judgment. And now let the fear of the Lord be upon you, and keep and do; for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of bribes.' And in Jerusalem too Jehoshaphat appointed some of the Levites and priests and heads of the households of Israel for the judgment of the Lord and to judge the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And he commanded them, saying: 'Thus shall you do in the fear of the Lord, with a perfect heart; and every judgment which shall come to you from your brethren who dwell in their cities, between blood and blood, between law and law, in the commandments and ordinances and unto the judgments,'
'you shall instruct them, and they shall not sin against the Lord, and there shall not be wrath upon you and upon your brethren. Do so, and you shall not sin. Behold, Amariah the priest is chief over you in every matter of the Lord, and Zebadiah the son of Ishmael, who is the ruler of the house of Judah in every matter of the king, and the scribes and Levites are before you. Be strong and act, and the Lord shall be with the good.' Did he say to the priests of the Lord, or to the princes of his kingdom, or to the other judges: 'Condemn the just, persecute the innocent, condemn, kill all who believe in God'? Did he say: 'Love what God does not love, hate justice, cherish injustice,' as you say? Or can you deny that you have said:
'Condemn Athanasius, absent and unheard'? Jehoshaphat, a king of Judah dedicated to God, speaks according to the Lord's law of judging; and you, a king turned to apostasy, say: 'Condemn the unheard.' Suppose meanwhile, Constantius, that King Jehoshaphat were today in the body and that you both spoke to us — he indeed thus: 'Take heed what you do; for you shall not judge for man, but for the Lord, and He is with you in the word. And now let the fear of the Lord be upon you, that you may keep and do; for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons' — while you on the contrary say that the unheard is to be condemned, and indeed one whom you yourself know to be innocent.
Whom could we, the bishops of God, have obeyed — we whom before He had promised to His people by the mouth of Jeremiah, saying: 'And I will give you shepherds according to my heart, and they shall feed you, feeding you with discipline'? Whom, I say, should we obey — you, or Jehoshaphat, the man dedicated to God, who would compel us to do that which we remembered God had commanded to be done? If therefore you recognize that he fulfilled the commands the Lord had enjoined, but that you have proved to be not only a destroyer of God's commandments, but even a deserter of God Himself, it remains for you to see which of you was the man of God, which of you did the will of His clemency. We read thus written of him:
'And the Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father, and did not seek the images, but the Lord God of his father, and walked in His commandments, and did not do according to the works of Israel. And the Lord established his kingdom, and all Judah gave gifts to Jehoshaphat, and he had riches and much glory. And his heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord, and he further removed the groves from Judah. And in the third year of his reign he sent his officers and the sons of the mighty,' and further on: 'and with them Elishama and Jehoram the priests, and they taught Judah, and with them was the book of the law of the Lord, and they went about through the cities of Judah and taught the people.'
'And the fear of the Lord was upon the kingdoms of the earth and round about Judah, and they did not war against Jehoshaphat. And from the foreigners they brought gifts and silver and presents to Jehoshaphat, and the Arabs brought him seven thousand seven hundred rams of the flock; and Jehoshaphat went on and grew great, exalted on high.' What such thing do you do? Surely you sent throughout all your kingdom that we all should spit upon the commands of God and take up your decree, which sought to assail the Lord's decree. Jehoshaphat sent the princes of the might of his kingdom, he sent his counsellors, he sent the Levites and the priests of the Lord, beseeching that all the worshippers of the Lord in his kingdom, all with one mind, might offer themselves as servants to God alone;