Some days ago, when we most festively kept the birthday of the holy Alexander, Martyrius, and Sisinnius, this especially in their passion did we praise: that, while they resisted the sacrilegious, they merited to be martyrs, and while they gainsaid their superstitions, they attained the palm of justice. For they were not condemned to death for the reason that they were Christians, but rather they were seized to punishment for this: that the sacrilegious were rebuked, that they were not Christians and devout. In a time of peace, therefore, in which no persecuting king pressed, it was not public persecution that made the true holy martyrs, but religious devotion. For they feared not to undergo the peril of their own salvation, while they desired to provide for the salvation of many.
For when they perceived that in their own region the gentile men, by their accustomed sacrilege, which they call a lustration, were polluting all the places with deadly processions, and were staining even the innocent, or those who were absent, if not by their consent, then by their connivance—for connivance stains the man who, when by contradicting he could have prevented it from happening, as it were by dissembling permitted that it be done—when, therefore, the blessed men discerned these things, they rebuked them constantly, faithfully upbraided them, and effected this: that there they became martyrs, and made their persecutors into Christians. Therefore, brethren, since we have an example, let us imitate the holy men, if not by the martyrdom of passion, then at least by the office of Christianity.
And since we have heard that a lustrum is wont to be offered by certain sacrilegious men after the example of the saints, let us rebuke the impious, let us chastise those who err; for it is a portion of martyrdom to have done what the martyrs did. But if, seeing this, we keep silent, and by our silence also suffer it, we set ourselves up as guilty — if not by the working of the crime, yet by the assent of our pretended ignorance. For just as to oppose and speak against sacrileges justifies a man, so to feign ignorance of what you have seen stains the one who holds his tongue. For very many wretched men are wont to say: 'I do not know, I did not order it, it is no concern of mine, it does not touch me.' But this, as I have said, only the wretched or the timid say; for he denies that he ordered it to be done who was unwilling to give the order that it should not be done. For assuredly an evil that comes from custom, when it is not restrained, is thereby admitted.
'It is no concern of mine,' he says. You are deceived and in ignorance: you do not know that the cause of God is the cause of all, and that what is sinned by one is avenged in many. For just as many are sanctified by the holiness of one, so very many are defiled by the sacrilege of one. And therefore the evil which, though committed by another, is nevertheless committed with your knowledge, touches you, so long as it is held shut up within your conscience. But I do not know, brethren, what this may be, that we carry out the commandments of God so negligently — we who, whatever the princes of the world command, all anxiously obey, all vigilantly keep their orders. God commands, and to His precepts we sleep. How often has this same God commanded that the sacrileges of idols be destroyed, and we have never been willing to be concerned about this matter?
We have always feigned ignorance, we have always despised it. Afterwards an imperial decree admonished us. See how great a disparagement of the Godhead is this addition of human power. Or what judgment is passed upon us, who are compelled to live religiously not out of devotion but out of fear? Princes who are such good Christians promulgate laws for the sake of religion, but the executors do not carry them out as they ought. And therefore, the prince being cleared of blame, the executor remains in guilt; whereas, if he exercises the rigor of the law, he too is absolved of sin, and for the salvation of many he shall be granted an eternal reward.