1. It happened lately. The bounty of our most excellent emperors was being paid out in the camp, and the soldiers were coming forward wearing laurel crowns. One there, a soldier more truly of God, more steadfast than the rest of the brethren who had presumed that they could serve two masters (Matt. 6:24), stood out--alone with head unbound, the wreath idle in his hand, a Christian even by this discipline now made public. At length they began, one by one, to mark him out and to mock him from afar, and to gnash at him close by. Presently there was a murmuring; he is reported to the tribune, and his character too: he had already departed from the ranks. At once the tribune says, 'Why so different an attire?' He declared that it was not lawful for him to do as the rest. When required to give his reasons, 'I am a Christian,' he answered. O soldier glorious in God!
Thereupon there were votes, and the matter was carried further, and the accused was brought before the prefects. There and then he laid aside the very heavy cloaks, beginning to feel himself relieved; he loosed from his feet the most cumbersome soldier's boots, beginning to plant himself upon the holy ground; he gave back the sword, not necessary even for the Lord's defence; and the laurel too dropped from his hand. And now, clad in the red of his own blood's hope, shod with the preparation of the Gospel (Eph. 6:15), girded with the sharper word of God (Eph. 6:17), wholly armed from the apostle (Eph. 6:11-17) and better crowned with the white crown of martyrdom, he awaits in prison the donative of Christ. Thereafter came sentences upon him--whether by Christians, I know not:
For [they say] these are none other than the reproaches of the heathen — that this fellow, as though rash and headlong and eager to die, when questioned about his garb has stirred up trouble for the Name; the only brave man, forsooth, among so many brothers-in-arms, the only Christian. Clearly it remains for them to plan to refuse even martyrdoms, seeing that they have spurned the prophecies of the same Holy Spirit. In short, they mutter that so good and long a peace is being endangered for them. Nor do I doubt that some are packing up the Scriptures, making ready their baggage, and girding themselves for flight from city to city; for they care for no other passage of the Gospel. I know their pastors too: lions in peace, but deer in battle. But of the questions concerning confession we shall teach elsewhere. For now, inasmuch as they raise this objection also: 'But where are we forbidden to be crowned?'
...I shall rather take up this more particular substance of the present case, so that both those who inquire out of the anxiety of ignorance may be instructed, and those who strive in defense of the offense may be refuted — especially these laurelled Christians themselves, for whom this is the only question, as though the offense which admits of question could be either non-existent or at least doubtful. Yet I shall show for the moment that it is neither non-existent nor doubtful. 2. I say that no one of the faithful ever knows a crown upon his head at any other time, apart from a time of temptation of this kind. All observe this, from the catechumens up to the confessors and martyrs, or even the deniers. You may see whence comes the authority of the custom, about which the chief question is now raised. Moreover, when it is asked why anything is observed, it is meanwhile agreed that it is observed.
Therefore the offense cannot seem either non-existent or doubtful, which is committed against an observance that must now be vindicated by its own title and is sufficiently warranted by the patronage of consensus. Granted, a reason must indeed be sought — but with the observance kept intact, not to its destruction but rather to its edification, that you may observe it the more when you are also assured of its reason. But what sort of thing is it, that one should then challenge an observance to question when he has already lapsed from it? and then inquire whence he derived the observance, when he has already abandoned it? — since, even though for this reason he may wish to appear to call it into question in order to show that he has not offended by forsaking the observance, it is nonetheless established that he offended earlier by his presumption against the observance.
For if he did not offend today by accepting the crown, he offended at some time by refusing it. And therefore this treatise will not be addressed to those to whom the question does not apply, but to those who, in their zeal for learning, bring not a challenge but a consultation. For this is not always inquired into, and I praise the faith which believed a thing ought to be observed before it learned the reason. And it is easy at once to demand where it is written that we should not be crowned. But then, where is it written that we should be crowned? For those who demand the patronage of Scripture on the opposing side prejudge that the patronage of Scripture ought to be present for their own side as well. For if it is said to be lawful to be crowned because Scripture does not forbid it, it will equally be turned back that it is not lawful to be crowned because Scripture does not command it.
What will discipline do? Will it accept both, as though neither were forbidden, or reject both, as though neither were commanded? — 'But what is not forbidden is freely permitted.' — Nay rather, what is not freely permitted is forbidden. 3. And how long shall we draw the saw back and forth along this line, when we possess a long-established observance which, by anticipating, has settled the matter? If no Scripture has determined this, custom at least has confirmed it, which without doubt flowed from tradition. For how can anything come into use if it was not first handed down? 'Even in claiming tradition,' you say, 'written authority must be required.' Let us then inquire whether tradition too ought not to be received unless it be written.
We shall plainly deny that it ought to be received, if no examples prejudge the case — examples of other observances which we maintain without the instrument of any Scripture, on the title of tradition alone, and thereafter under the patronage of custom. In short — to begin with baptism — when we are about to enter the water, but even a little before, in the church under the bishop's hand, we solemnly declare that we renounce the devil and his pomp and his angels. Then we are immersed three times, answering something more than the Lord determined in the Gospel. Thereupon, being taken up, we taste first a mixture of milk and honey, and from that day we abstain from the daily bath for a whole week.
The sacrament of the Eucharist — though enjoined by the Lord at mealtime and upon all — we take even in gatherings before dawn, and from the hand of none but the presiders. We make offerings for the dead, and on the yearly day of their birthdays. On the Lord's Day we hold it wrong to fast, or to worship kneeling. We enjoy the same immunity from Easter Day until Pentecost. We suffer anxiously if any part of our cup or bread be let fall to the ground. At every step forward and movement, at every coming in and going out, at dressing, at putting on our shoes, at the bath, at table, at the lighting of lamps, at lying down, at sitting down — in whatever occupation engages us — we wear our forehead with the sign of the cross. 4.
If you demand a law of these and other such practices from the Scriptures, you will find none. Tradition will be alleged to you as their originator, custom as their confirmer, and faith as their keeper. The reason that will support tradition, custom, and faith you will either perceive for yourself or learn from someone who has perceived it. In the meantime you will believe that there is some reason, to which obedience is owed. I add yet one further example, inasmuch as it will be fitting to teach also from the ancients. Among the Jews it is so customary for their women to veil the head that thereby they are recognized. I seek the law; the Apostle I defer.
If Rebecca, on catching sight of her bridegroom afar off, snatched up a veil, a private sense of modesty could not make a law; or, if it made one for her own case, then let virgins alone be veiled, and that only when they come to be married, and not before they have known their bridegrooms. If Susanna too, unveiled at her trial, furnishes an argument for veiling, I can reply: Here too the veil was a matter of choice. She had come as an accused woman, blushing at her disgrace, rightly hiding her beauty — or perhaps because she now feared to please. But in the arena of her husband I would not suppose that she who pleased him had walked about veiled. Even granted that she was always veiled, in her too I seek a law of the practice, or in any other woman.
If I nowhere find a law, it follows that tradition gave this usage to custom, a usage destined one day to have the authority of the Apostle through the interpretation of its reason. By these examples, then, it will be declared that even an unwritten tradition can be defended in observance, being confirmed by custom, which is a suitable witness to a tradition that was then approved, by the very persistence of the observance. Now custom, even in civil matters, is received in place of law when law is lacking; and it makes no difference whether it rest upon writing or upon reason, since reason also commends law. Moreover, if a law consists in reason, then everything will already be law that has been established by reason, by whomsoever produced.
Or do you not think it lawful for every believer to conceive and to establish — provided only it be agreeable to God, conducive to discipline, profitable to salvation — the Lord saying: 'Why do you not of your own selves judge what is right?' And not concerning judgment only, but concerning every determination of matters to be examined, the Apostle also says: 'If in anything you are ignorant, God will reveal it to you' — he himself being accustomed to furnish counsel when he had no commandment of the Lord, and to pronounce of his own accord, having the Spirit of God as guide into all truth. And so his counsel has already obtained the force of a divine precept, by the patronage of divine reason.
Demand this reason now, but with respect for tradition preserved, by whatever transmitter it is reckoned; and look not to the author but to the authority, and first of all to that of custom itself, which is to be reverenced for this very reason, lest it be no interpreter of reason — so that, if God should grant this reason too, you may then learn not whether custom is to be observed by you, but why. 5. The reason for Christian observances is made greater when nature also defends them, which is the first discipline of all. And therefore nature first prescribes that a crown does not befit the head. Now I hold that the God of nature, our God, who fashioned man, ordained in him certain senses for desiring, judging, and obtaining the fruits of things — the proper organs, as it were, of his members:
He hollowed out hearing in the ears, kindled sight in the eyes, enclosed taste in the mouth, set smell to breathe in the nostrils, and appraised touch in the hands. Through these ministries of the outer man, ministering to the inner man, the fruits of the divine gifts are conveyed to the soul by the senses. What fruit, then, is there from flowers? For the proper substance — indeed the chief substance — of crowns is the flowers of the field. 'Either the scent,' you say, 'or the color, or both alike.' What will be the senses of color and of scent? Sight, I suppose, and smell. What members have been allotted these senses? The eyes, unless I am mistaken, and the nostrils. Use flowers, then, by sight and by smell, of which senses they are the fruit; use them through the eyes and the nostrils, which are the members of those senses.
The substance was handed to you by God, the fashion by the world. And yet not even the extraordinary fashion clashes with the ordinary use: let flowers be to you, whether inserted and interwoven, whether on a thread or on a rush, the very same as when they are loose and unbound — namely, matter for the sight and for the breath. A crown, if you will, reckon to be a bundle of flowers gathered in a row, so that you may carry more at once, so that you may enjoy them all together. Nay, hide them in your bosom, if their cleanliness be so great; and strew them on your couch, if their softness be so great; and commit them to your cup, if their harmlessness be so great: enjoy them in as many ways as you perceive them. But on the head, what savor of the flower is there, what perception of the crown, save only that of a band, whereby neither is the color discerned, nor the scent drawn in, nor the tenderness commended?
It is as much against nature to pursue a flower with the head as to pursue food with the ear, or sound with the nostril. But everything that is against nature deserves the mark of a monstrosity in the eyes of all, and among us moreover the charge of sacrilege against God, the Lord and author of nature. 6. Do you seek, then, the law of God? You have that common one, published in the world, in the tablets of nature, to which the Apostle too is wont to appeal — as when, concerning the veil of a woman, he says: 'Does not nature itself teach you?', or as when, to the Romans, saying that the nations by nature do the things that are of the law, he both intimates a natural law and a lawful nature.
But also in the former epistle, when he affirms that males and females changed among themselves the natural use of creation into an unnatural one, by the requital of their error in turn as its penalty, he assuredly champions the things of nature. God himself we knew first according to nature, calling him, namely, the God of gods, presuming him to be good, and invoking him as judge. Do you ask whether nature ought to precede us in enjoying his creation? [Yes,] lest we be carried away by that force whereby the rival of God corrupted the whole creation — which had been made over to man's certain uses — together with man himself; whence the Apostle too says that it, unwilling, sank down to vanity, being subverted first by vain uses, then by base and unjust and impious ones.
And so, in the matter of the pleasures of the spectacles too, creation has been brought into ill repute by those who indeed by nature perceive all things to be God's — the things out of which the spectacles are furnished — but in knowledge fall short of understanding this also: that all things have been perverted by the devil. But on this subject too, on account of our pleasure-lovers, we have done enough even with a Greek pen. 7. Accordingly, let these crown-wearers meanwhile acknowledge the authority of nature under the title of common wisdom, in respect of which they are men; but under the pledge of their own religion, in respect of which they worship the God of nature at close hand; and thus, as it were out of abundance, let them consider the other reasons also, which forbid crownings to our head in particular — and indeed all of them.
For we are pressed, from the common ground of natural discipline, to turn to the wholly Christian propriety that must now be defended in respect of the other kinds of crowns as well — those which seem to have been designed for other uses, as being constructed of other substances, lest, because they do not consist of flowers (whose use nature has marked out), like this very military laurel itself, they be thought not to admit the sect's prohibition, on the ground that they have escaped nature's prescription. I see, therefore, that the matter must be handled both more carefully and more fully, from its origins right up to its developments and excesses. For this, secular literature is necessary. For secular things must needs be proved from their own instruments. The few I have touched will, I trust, suffice.
If there was any Pandora, whom Hesiod records as the first of women, this was the first head to be crowned by the Graces, since she was endowed with gifts by all — whence 'Pandora.' But for us Moses, a prophetic, not a poetic, shepherd, describes the first woman, Eve, as girt about her shame with leaves more readily than about her temples with flowers. There was no Pandora, then. But just as the origin of the crown is to be blushed at for its falsehood, so now too let it be blushed at for its own truths. For it is certainly established that there were others who were the authors or first popularizers of the thing. Pherecydes reports Saturn crowned before all others; Diodorus reports Jupiter honored with this gift by the rest after the Titans were conquered.
The same author assigns fillets to Priapus, and to Ariadne a garland of gold and Indian gems, the work of Vulcan, and afterwards a gift of Liber, and later a constellation. Callimachus introduced the vine to Juno. So too her statue at Argos, wreathed with a vine-branch and with a lion's skin set beneath its feet, displays the stepmother triumphing over the spoils of both her stepsons. Hercules bears now the poplar on his head, now the wild olive, now parsley. You have the tragedy of Cerberus; you have Pindar and Callimachus, who also records that Apollo, after slaying the Delphic serpent, put on the laurel, as a suppliant. For among the ancients suppliants were crowned. Harpocration argues by his research that Liber — the same as Osiris among the Egyptians — was crowned with ivy, because it is in the nature of ivy to protect the brain from intoxication.
But the common crowd, too, otherwise acknowledges Liber as the originator of the crown — plainly of the laurel, in which he triumphed over the Indians — since it calls the days solemn to him the 'Great Crown.' And if you unroll the writings of Leon the Egyptian, Isis was the first to carry on her head the ears of grain she had discovered — a thing rather of the belly. To those seeking more, Claudius Saturninus, a most excellent commentator on this subject also, will set forth everything. For there is there a book on crowns, expounding their origins and causes and kinds and solemnities in such a way that you will find no grace of flower, no delight of foliage, no turf or vine-shoot that has not been consecrated to someone's head:
by which we may be sufficiently instructed how alien we ought to judge the institution of the crowned head, brought forth by those, and thereafter dispensed in honor of those, whom the world believed to be gods. For if the devil works the lie of divinity — being from the beginning a liar in this respect too — without doubt he had also foreseen those in whom that lie of divinity should be enacted. What, then, is to be thought among the men of the true God of that which was introduced by the agency of the devil's candidates and dedicated to them from the beginning, and by which men were even then initiated in the idolatry of idols, by idols, and in idols yet living? — not as though an idol were anything, but because the things done to idols by others pertain to demons.
Furthermore, if the things which others do to idols pertain to demons, how much more that which the idols made for themselves, while they were still alive? For they themselves, forsooth, procured demons for themselves, through those very persons in whom they had earlier hungered for what they procured. 8. Hold to this conclusion for the moment, while I shake off the onset of the objection. For I already hear it said that many other things also, brought forth by those whom the world believed to be gods, are nevertheless found in our usages today, and in those of the saints of old, and in the things of God, and in Christ himself — man having, of course, performed his part in no other way than through these common instruments of human existence. Granted that it be so; nor shall I yet dispute more anciently about origins. Let Mercury have been the first to expound letters:
I shall confess that letters are necessary both for the commerce of affairs and for our own pursuits toward God. And even if the same Mercury first stretched strings into sound, I shall not deny that this talent of his too served the saints and ministered to God — witness David. Let Aesculapius have been the first to explore remedies: Isaiah too recalls that he prescribed something medicinal for the ailing Hezekiah, and Paul knows that a little wine benefits the stomach. And let Minerva have been the first to build a ship: I shall behold Jonah and the apostles sailing. There is more, since Christ too is clothed; Paul, moreover, will have his cloak.
If for each article of furniture and for each individual vessel you should name some author from among the gods of the world, I must needs acknowledge Christ too reclining on a couch, and when he offers a basin for the disciples' feet, and when he pours water from a pitcher, and when he girds himself about with a linen cloth — the very garb of Osiris. To a question of this kind I everywhere reply thus: I do indeed admit the sharing of utensils, but I summon it to the distinction between the rational and the irrational, because indiscriminate acceptance deceives, casting a shadow over the corruption of the creation whereby it is made subject to vanity.
For we say that those things at last were suited both to our usages and to those of our forefathers, and to the things of God and to Christ himself, which procure mere utilities and sure supports and honorable comforts for the necessities of human life, since they are given by the very inspiration of God, who is the foremost provider and instructor and, if you will, delighter of his own man; but that those things which have exceeded this order do not befit our usages — especially those which, for that very reason, are recognizable neither in any saint, nor in the things of God, nor in the conversations of Christ. 9. In short, what patriarch, what prophet, what Levite or priest or ruler, what apostle later, or evangelist or bishop, is found crowned?
I think not even the temple of God itself, nor the ark of the covenant, nor the tabernacle of witness, nor the altar, nor the candlestick — for which surely, both at the first solemnity of dedication and at the second thanksgiving of restoration, it would have been fitting to be crowned, if it were worthy of God. But if these were figures of us — for we are both the temples of God and altars and lights and vessels — this too they portended figuratively: that the men of God ought not to be crowned. The truth must correspond to the image. If perhaps you object that Christ himself was crowned, to this you shall for the moment briefly hear: So be crowned yourself too; it is permitted. Yet not even that crown of insulting impiety did the people decree.
It was a contrivance of the Roman soldiers, from the usage of a secular matter, which the people of God never admitted, either in the name of public rejoicing or of inborn luxury — returning more readily from the Babylonian captivity with timbrels and pipes and psalteries than with crowns, and rising up after food and drink to play without crowns. For neither the description of their rejoicing nor the noting of their luxury would have been silent about the adorning or dishonoring effect of a crown. Indeed Isaiah too says: 'For they drink wine with timbrels and psalteries and pipes' — he would have said 'with crowns as well,' if this usage had ever existed also among the things of God. 10.
So when you propose, for this reason, that the contrivances of the secular gods are found even among God's people, in order thereby to claim the crown of the head also for common use, you yourself already prescribe for yourself that what is not found in the things of God is not to be held among us in common use. For what is so unworthy of God as that which is worthy of an idol? And what is so worthy of an idol as that which is also worthy of a dead man? For it belongs to the dead too to be thus crowned, since they themselves immediately become idols, both by the garb and by the cultus of their consecration, which among us is a second idolatry. Therefore for those who lack sense, it will be all the same to use a thing of which they lack the sense, as if they wished to misuse it, provided they did not lack the sense. But there is no difference in misusing, when the truth of using ceases:
for when the natural power of perceiving whereby one might use ceases, how shall anyone misuse a thing, when he has nothing with which to use it? But for us it is not lawful to misuse, according to the Apostle, who rather teaches not to use at all. Except that those who perceive nothing do not even misuse, but are wholly idle; and the work itself too is dead, so far as concerns idols — plainly alive, however, so far as concerns the demons to which the superstition pertains. 'The idols of the nations,' says David, 'are silver and gold: they have eyes, and see not; nostrils, and smell not; hands, and shall not handle.' For it is by these that flowers are enjoyed. But if he declares that those who fashion idols shall become like them, then such already are those who use anything after the manner of the adornment of idols. 'All things are clean to the clean'; so too all things are unclean to the unclean. But nothing is more unclean than idols.
— 'But the substances themselves are clean, as being God's things, and by this their condition are common to use.' — But the manner of the use itself also matters. For I too slaughter a cock for myself, no less than Socrates did for Aesculapius, and if the smell of some place offends me, I burn something of Arabia; but not with the same rite, nor with the same garb, nor with the same apparatus with which it is done among idols. For if creation is polluted by a bare word — as the Apostle teaches: 'But if anyone shall say, This is offered to an idol, do not touch it' — how much more, when you have danced attendance in the garb and rite and apparatus of things offered to idols, is it contaminated. And so the crown too becomes a thing offered to an idol.
For with this rite and garb and apparatus it is offered up to the idols, its authors, whose peculiar use it especially is — so that it cannot be admitted into common use, since it is not found in the things of God. Therefore the Apostle cries out: 'Flee idolatry!' — all of it, assuredly, and the whole of it. Consider the forest, and how many thorns lie hidden. Nothing is to be given to an idol; so too nothing is to be taken from an idol. If to recline in an idol's temple is alien to the faith, what of being seen in an idol's garb? 'What fellowship has Christ with Belial?' And therefore, flee. For he enjoins a long separation from idolatry. We are to act in no way near it: even the earthly serpent draws men in by its breath from afar. More deeply John says: 'Little children, keep yourselves from idols!';
— no longer from idolatry as a service, but from idols, that is, from their very image. For it is unworthy that you, the image of the living God, should become the image of an idol and of a dead thing. Thus far we have claimed the peculiar character of this garb for the idols, both from the reckoning of its origin and from the use of superstition, and moreover from this: that, since it is not referred to in the things of God, it is more and more assigned to those in whose antiquities and solemnities and offices it is met with. In short, the very doors and the very victims and the altars, the very attendants and priests of them, are crowned. You have the crowns of all the priestly colleges in Claudius.
But we have also inserted that distinction of the differing rational and irrational things, which meets those who defend a sharing in all things on the occasion of certain examples. For this part, then, it remains that the very reasons of the crowns be examined, so that, while we show them to be foreign — nay, even contrary — to discipline, we may prove that none of them is supported by the patronage of reason, whereby a garb of this kind too might be vindicated for common use, as are certain things whose examples are thrown up at us. 11. And indeed — to take up the very case of the military crown — I think it must first be inquired whether military service befits Christians at all. What is the point, otherwise, of discussing incidentals, when the fault lies with what precedes them?
Do we believe it lawful for a human oath to be superimposed upon a divine one, and to answer to another lord after Christ, and to forswear father and mother and every neighbor — whom the law commanded to be honored and, next after God, to be loved, and whom the Gospel too, making Christ alone of more account, honored in this way likewise? Shall it be lawful to occupy oneself with the sword, when the Lord declares that he who has used the sword shall perish by the sword? And shall the son of peace take part in battle, when it does not even befit him to go to law? And shall he administer chains and prison and tortures and punishments, he who is not the avenger even of his own wrongs? Now too, will he keep watches either for others rather than for Christ, or even on the Lord's Day, when he does not do so even for Christ? And will he mount guard for the temples he has renounced?
And will he dine there, where it does not please the Apostle? And those whom by day he has put to flight with exorcisms, will he by night defend them, leaning and resting upon the pike with which the side of Christ was pierced? Will he also bear a standard that is a rival to Christ's? And will he demand a watchword from his commander, he who has already received one from God? Will the dead man, moreover, be disturbed by the trumpet of the bugler, he who expects to be roused by the trumpet of the angel? And shall a Christian be cremated according to camp discipline, he to whom it was not permitted to cremate, and to whom Christ has remitted the deserts of fire? How many other unlawful things among camp duties can be discerned, to be interpreted as transgression! The very transferring of one's name from the camp of light to the camp of darkness is a transgression.