A Isaiah, by the sublimity of his voice, excelling all the prophets. This much, however, makes a difference: that he calls and testifies against Israel, who had rejected the law of God, while I do so against a tyrant who not only rejected it, but who died miserably, as his own impiety deserved.
B III. Hear these things also, O soul of Constantius the Great, if there is any sensation for the dead, and all you souls of those who held the empire before him, who were pious and lovers of Christ; but especially you, who, having grown up along with Christ's inheritance and having increased it as much as your strength allowed, and confirmed it by the duration of time, so that for this reason you became more renowned than all the emperors who ever held office—(O the mischief! 71)—you lapsed into an ignorance quite unworthy of your own piety. You unwittingly nurtured the enemy of Christ for the Christians, and in this one thing alone of all your actions, you did not rightly employ your humanity and kindness, in that you both saved and raised to the imperial throne one who was to be so evilly preserved and who was to govern so disastrously. And I would believe that for this reason most of all, as from the suppression of impiety and the return of Christian affairs to their ancient splendor, so also from this oration, you would derive the greatest pleasure. C For I shall dedicate to God a discourse as a thank-offering, purer and holier than any irrational sacrifice, not according to his impious discourses and trifles, nor his more impious sacrifices, whose excellence and power was the power of impiety, and an unwise—if I may so speak—wisdom. For all the power and erudition of this age walks in darkness, and falls far short of the light of truth. And that indeed is such, and among such people, and has such fruits, like grass quickly withering, and like the green herbs of the field quickly falling D and passing away together with their ancestors, who perish with a sound, and are more manifest for their ruin than for their impiety.
IV. But to me, offering a sacrifice of praise today, and bestowing the bloodless honor of words, who will provide a theater that equals the favor? Or what tongue will sound out in sympathy as much as I wish? What ear will display an equal eagerness for the discourse? For it is not only to the Word that the expression of gratitude which is repaid through words is most fitting and appropriate, being, among other ways in which it is named, most akin; and for this, it rejoices especially in the designation and the power of the calling—but to Him also is the justice due, as to the Word.
A Yet this punishment also becomes him handsomely, that for the crime he committed against our discourses, he should be tortured by discourse. For although they are common to all rational beings, he envied them to the Christians as if they were his own peculiar property, thinking most foolishly about discourses—a man who, in his own judgment, was the most eloquent of all mortals.
V. First, because he craftily and wickedly transferred the name to an opinion, as if "Greek" belonged to the religion and not to the language: and for this reason, like a thief of another’s property, he drove us away from the discourses—just as if he had also debarred us from the arts that have been discovered among the Greeks; B and he thought this made a difference to him because of the homonymy. Next, because he supposed he could escape our notice, not that he was about to deprive us of any primary good (for we ourselves hold these discourses in great contempt), but because he feared the refutations of his impiety, as though they possessed strength in the elegance of the diction and the bait of words, and not rather in the knowledge of the truth and in the arguments, by which we are less restrained and checked than we are hindered from confessing God, even while possessing the language; since we sacrifice even language, along with other things, just as we do our bodies, whenever the occasion arises where it is necessary to contend with these also for the defense of the truth. C Wherefore, he who issued this edict forbade us to speak in the Attic manner, but he did not at all prevent us from speaking the truth; and while he exposed his own instability, he did not escape the refutations: nay, rather, he unwittingly subjected and entangled himself in them all the more.
VI. For it was not the part of a man confident in his own religion, or even in the discourses themselves, to suppress our discourses; just as if someone were to think himself the strongest of all athletes and demand to be heralded before everyone else, yet he ordered that none of the brave men should enter the contest or descend into the arena, or he cut off one of his limbs—which is a proof of cowardice D rather than strength. For it is those who are contending, not those who are sitting in the higher seats, who carry off the crowns.
A And it is against those who fight, not against those who have been stripped of the greater part of their strength, that one should be compared. If you were afraid to engage at all and to come to blows, by this very fact you have declared your own defeat, and it has been my lot to win the palm without any struggle, while you were so anxious to avoid the struggle.
This was the policy of our wise emperor and lawgiver, who, that no part of his tyranny might be wanting, and that he might proclaim his folly at the very beginning B of his reign, tyrannized over speeches before all else. But for us, it is honorable and excellent to give thanks to God for the very speeches to which freedom has been restored, and to honor Him both with votive offerings—sparing neither money nor possessions which, having been caught under the power of the times and the tyranny, God's mercy has preserved—and especially to honor Him with speeches, which is a just oblation and common to all who have partaken of grace. And let this speech, instituted for the sake of speeches, have its end, lest by extending it further we fall C outside the proper measure, and seem to be occupied with something other than that for the sake of which we have gathered.
VII. But now my discourse leaps and bounds toward the festal celebration, and rejoices with the things we see, and calls everyone to a spiritual dance—both those who were devoted to fasting and tears and prayer, asking by night and by day for release from the grievous things that oppressed them, and making of the hope that does not put to shame a healing medicine for their evils; D and those who, having endured great struggles and contests, and having been struck by the many and cruel onslaughts of the time, became a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men, according to the word of the Apostle; and who, though worn out in body, remained unconquered in soul, and were able to do all things in Christ who strengthened them; and those who, having put aside the worldly material of vice and authority, either accepted with joy the plunder of their goods, or—as it is said—were unjustly driven from their own, whether men or women, or parents or children, or by whatever other names of small intimacy we are held, being separated from these for a little while, and Christ’s
sufferings for Christ having borne fruit in their blood, they might now well say and sing at the proper time: "You have let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us out into a place of refreshment."
B VIII. I call also to the celebration of the festival another part, namely those who, while confessing God as the God of all, and being sound in mind up to this point, yet do not at all penetrate the reasons of providence—which usually manages better outcomes from contrary circumstances and invites amendment through kindness—but, because of the poverty and fickleness of their souls, while the wicked man is proud in his thoughts, they are ignited and inflamed, and, to speak with the psalmist, they do not endure the peace of sinners, nor do they sustain the waiting for the counsel of God, nor do they maintain steadfastness of soul to the end; but, being always slaves to things present and to those which fall under sight, they are confirmed in the truth by such miracles.
IX. Now I also call those souls that marvel with astonishment at this scene and this great theater of the world; and I call them with these words of Isaiah: "Women coming from the spectacle, draw near hither, and having recalled the eye of your soul from outward wandering and gathered it in, be still and know that He is God, who is exalted among the nations and exalted in the earth," always indeed in all the miracles and portents which He has wrought, but more clearly and expressly in those now present.
C X. And would that that group also would join our choir, which, although it formerly sang with us to God a song that was by no means adulterated or ignoble, and was once held worthy of the right-hand station—and, I trust, shall shortly be held worthy again—yet I know not by what impulse moved, it suddenly alters its song to a different one, and arranges itself in another degree and order. And what I marvel at even more, it cannot be brought to join with us even for the sake of the common joy; but rather it institutes privately a certain dance of its own, neither well-measured nor harmonious. For this, with their good leave, I might perhaps be allowed to say: but what, and of what kind? Zeal, I admit, urges me, but faith restrains D me; and I will suppress the harshness of my speech for the sake of the hope by which I am moved. I still cherish and embrace my members; I still have greater regard for former charity than for present contempt, and for that reason I show myself more lenient, so that I may later rebuke more sharply and fervently.
[XI.] I reject and drive away from this joyous celebration one class—one kind of soul—groaning and grieving indeed, and perhaps not even hearing my groans, nor weeping for them as they fail to perceive their own destruction. For this is the most miserable part of their plight. Yet I reject them nonetheless: those who were sown not upon the solid and unshakable rock, but upon the dry and barren ground. These are they who approached the doctrine of piety superficially and with little faith, and because they had planted no deep roots in the earth, they sprang up immediately; and, gazing about to please others, they subsequently withered and died at the brief and slight assault of the devil and the heat of temptation. And even worse than these, and still more to be excluded from this festival, are those who did not resist the time for even a moment, nor those who lead us into evil captivity—away from Him who ascended on high and who so wondrously took us captive. Instead, they appeared wicked and cheap in their abundance, not resisting even for a little while, nor—when any affliction or temptation arose—were they scandalized for the sake of the Word. Rather, the wretches bartered away their own salvation for some brief and fleeting gain, or favor, or petty power.
[XII.] But since we have purified the entire choir with our discourse, come, let us—as far as possible—having purified both bodies and souls, and having assumed one voice and been attuned by one and the same Spirit, sing that song of victory which Israel once sang over the Egyptians who were covered by the Red Sea, with Miriam leading and beating the timbrel: *Let us sing to the Lord, for He has been gloriously glorified; the horse and his rider He has thrown*—not into the sea (for I transpose this from the song), but wherever it was pleasing to Him, and as He Himself judged just. He who does and changes all things, as Amos says in his prophecy, philosophizing most divinely: *He who turns the shadow of death into the morning, and darkens the day into night*, and who guides and leads the whole world as if by some cycle, and our own affairs as well—things that are at once shaken and unshaken, moved and turned about by [these] changes, and appearing now in one way, now in another; yet, according to the order of divine providence, they are fixed and stable, even if they proceed through opposites, manifest to the Word, though unknown to us. He who cleanses princes from thrones, and adorns the inscrutable...
A with a diadem; for this too I receive from divine Scripture: He who imparts strength to weak and feeble knees, and breaks the arms of the sinner and the wicked; for these too I take from another canticle, as each occurs to my memory: for many passages compose the song for me, and contribute to the weaving of my thanksgiving. He grants that the impious one may now be seen raised above the cedars, and now cast down and brought to nothing, if only we can pass by his impiety with a cautious and swift foot.
XIII. Who among those who recount divine things will chant and tell of these things as befits their dignity? Who will speak of the powers of the Lord, and make all his praises heard? With what voice or with what power of speech will one match this miracle? B Who has broken weapon, and sword, and war? Who has crushed the heads of the dragons in the water? Who has given him as food to those peoples to whom he also delivered him? Who has stilled the storm into a breeze? Who has said to the sea, "Be silent, be muzzled"? Or, "In you your waves shall be broken"—and indeed he broke them, when they had not for long surged and boiled. Who has granted this to us, that we should tread upon serpents and scorpions, no longer watching the heel in secret, as the condemnation requires, but rising up openly and crushing the head, to the treading of which they were condemned? Who is he who has wrought judgment and unexpected justice? Who is he who has not entirely let go the rod of sinners, dare we say, into the lot of the just? Or, what is more moderate, into the lot of those who know Him? C The Lord is mighty in war.
XIV. For we were not delivered over and afflicted as the just are; for this happens to few and rarely, in order that they, like noble athletes, may cover the tempter with ignominy; but we were condemned as sinners, and afterward obtained mercy, struck thus far, surely, with providence and fatherly love, that we might be made more prudent, and chastised thus far, that we might turn ourselves to Him. For He reproves, but not in fury; and He corrects, but not in wrath: by both demonstrating His kindness, that is, both through warning and through indulgence. Who is he who has made vengeance among the nations, and rebukes among the peoples? The Lord is strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in war.
XV. AGAINST JULIAN I.
XV. I find one voice, one song, in some way worthy of the present benefits—that, namely, which Isaiah proclaimed before us, which fits this time marvelously and vies with the magnitude of the benefit: A Let the heaven rejoice from above, and let the clouds drop down righteousness; let the mountains break forth in gladness, and the hills in exultation! Since all creation—and the heavenly powers too—in my opinion, perceive these things in a sense; for not only does the whole creation groan and travail together, subject to corruption, that is, those who are born and die on earth, awaiting their end and revelation, so that it too may then attain the hoped-for liberty, as it is now bound with them against its will because of the Creator's power; but it also together with the children of God who are rejoicing, proclaims His glory and exults.
XVI. Therefore—for I will not refrain from divine words while explaining divine power—let the desert exult, and let it bloom like the lily, that is, the Church, B who yesterday and the day before, as it seemed, was a widow and lacking a husband, just like all those whom the envious and unpleasant winter of impiety had formerly shriveled; because God has had mercy on His people and has not forsaken His inheritance; because He has done marvelous things, a counsel of old, true; that is, that He was well-pleased toward those who fear Him and who hope in His mercy; because He has broken the gates of bronze and shattered the iron bolts; because for our iniquities we were humbled, but we have been recalled, and, having broken the snare, we have been delivered by the grace of God who called us and who comforts the humble in heart.
XVII. Do you see C how I weave a song with divine words and sentiments? And I do not know how I am lifted up and adorned with what is not my own, and, as if inspired, I am moved by delight; whereas I despise all that is base and human, joining and fitting some things with others, and bringing together into one what belongs to the same Spirit?
XVIII. But previously, the miracles of God were attested by Enoch as he was being translated; by Elias as he was being taken up; by Noe as he was being saved, and as he was saving the seeds of the generations in a small vessel—the world, fleeing the deluge of the whole earth—so that the map might be adorned again with holier D inhabitants; by Abraham as he was being called, and was gifted with a son beyond his natural age, for the confirmation of the other promised seed, and as he was offering his only-begotten as a ready and eager sacrifice, receiving a strange victim in place of his son, and a paradoxical destruction of the wicked.
A consumed by fire and brimstone; and even more paradoxical than this, the theft of the righteous: a pillar of salt, triumphing over the turn toward wickedness; Joseph, while being sold, and loved, and maintaining chastity, and being made wise by God, and being liberated, and rule, and distributing grain for a greater dispensation; Moses, deemed worthy of the vision of God, and receiving laws and delivering them, and becoming a God to Pharaoh, and leading Israel to the land of promise; the numerous plagues of the Egyptians, and the preservation of those oppressed by labors in the midst of the Egyptians; and the sea giving way at the stroke of the rod and closing again at the command, and letting the former pass as if on dry land, while engulfing the latter in accordance with its own nature.
XIX. And all the other things which followed these: the pillar of cloud shading by day, the pillar of fire providing light by night, and both leading the way; bread in the desert poured down like rain, and provisions sent from heaven, the one corresponding to the need, the other bestowed even beyond the need; water from the rock, in one part flowing out, in the other made sweet; Amalek defeated and routed through prayer and the secret and B mystical configuration of hands; the sun standing still and the moon held back; the course of the Jordan divided; walls collapsed by the circuit of the priests, the sound of trumpets, and a number possessing power; the earth and the fleece, alternately rained upon and remaining dry; power in hair, balanced against a whole army; a few picked soldiers who lapped [the water], who were believed to be going to win, and who won according to their hopes—the small number [overcoming] the many thousands. But why is it necessary for me to enumerate one by one all the things which through Christ himself, at the time of his saving presence and incarnation, and those which after him and through him, have been miraculously performed by his most holy apostles and ministers of the Word? How many books and memories bring these around?
XX. But now, come, hear, and I will C relate, all you who fear God,
A so that another generation, and the successions of generations, might know the wonders of God's power. Yet since it is not possible to declare these without setting forth the magnitude of the danger—and this is not possible without exposing the malice of his character and from what origins and seeds of vice he fell into such great misfortune, gradually fueling that impiety, just as the most bitter venom of serpents and wild beasts—we shall leave the acting out of all his crimes in tragedy to books and histories. For we have no leisure to spin out a discourse longer than the present subject allows. But we ourselves, having rehearsed a few things from the many, will leave behind, as it were, a stele for those after us, directing our discourse to the most important and notorious of the events that occurred under him.
B XXI. One act, and a primary one, is this: having been saved by the great Constantius, who had just succeeded his father in the empire (at the time when the military was armed against those in authority, fearing new revolutionary changes, and affairs of the palace were being established by new leaders), and having been saved, together with his brother, with a salvation both incredible C and marvelous, he showed no gratitude to God for his safety, nor to the emperor by whom he had been saved; but he appeared evil to both, nurturing apostasy toward the former and rebellion toward the latter.
XXII. That which it is necessary for me to mention to you before this [concerns] the diet and care they were deemed worthy of in one of the royal residences by the most humane emperor, as they were being kept for the empire as remnants of the lineage. He did this with the intention, on the one hand, of defending himself D against the actions that had been innovated at the beginning of his reign, as though they had not been dared according to his will; and on the other hand, of showing his magnanimity by admitting them to the fellowship of the empire; and thirdly, of making his rule more secure by these additions—a plan which was kinder than it was wise.
XXIII. Since they were at leisure from all business, then...
while the empire was still in expectation and only in contemplation, and while their age and expectations did not yet advance them to secondary dignities, they made use A of teachers of other arts as well, the emperor their uncle himself instructing them in every kind of encyclical discipline. But they applied themselves more zealously to our philosophy—not that which is concerned only with words and doctrine, but that which has piety seated in the character—associating with the best of men, and applying themselves to the most noble actions, and those which offered a clear specimen of virtue. They even enrolled themselves among the clergy, to such an extent that they would read the divine books to the people, thinking this to be no less grand and honorable for them than anything else, and indeed considering piety to be the greatest and most excellent of all ornaments.
B XXIV. By the most sumptuous monuments to the martyrs, and by the munificence of their votive offerings, and by all else that characterizes the fear of God, they made manifest their love of wisdom and love of Christ. The one, in truth and seriously, professed piety; for although he was naturally rather fierce and fervent, yet he worshipped God sincerely. The other, however, was redeeming the time, and hiding his wickedness under a cloak and pretense of gentleness. And this may be conjectured from the following occurrence; for I could not pass over in silence the miracle that happened at that time, as it is especially worthy of memory, and of such a nature that it might serve as a lesson to many of the impious.
C XXV. As I said, they were both laboring for the martyrs, and were vying with each other in splendor with their munificence and liberality, using the labor of many hands and great expense to erect the holy edifice. But because they did not apply themselves to this work with the same intention or spirit, for that reason their labor did not proceed to the same end. For the work of the one—that is, of the elder brother—was being completed and proceeded according to reason, as God willingly accepted the offering, like the sacrifice of Abel, rightly offered and divided: and this offering was, as it were, a certain consecration of the firstborn—D but as for the other—alas for the dishonor hereafter of the impious, to which those subsequent events bear witness—
and by small tokens foretelling great things, A just as the God of the martyrs rejected the sacrifice of Cain.
XXVI. And so he labored, but the earth shook off what had been produced. He struggled all the more vehemently, but the earth refused to receive the foundations of his corruption with piety, as if crying out the earthquake that would come from it, and honoring the martyrs through the very dishonor done to the most impious man. This work was a kind of prophecy of the man's later arrogance and folly, and of his dishonor toward the martyrs, and his lawlessness toward the holy houses; B escaping the notice of others, but pursuing the persecutor from afar, and signaling beforehand the wages of his impiety.
XXVII. O soul, wise for evil-doing, yet not fleeing its own torment! O the singular providence of God, proclaiming future events, so that he might either check the impiety or demonstrate his foreknowledge! O miracle, new indeed and wondrous, but more true than it is wonderful! O the brotherly love of the martyrs! They did not accept the honor from one who was about to dishonor many martyrs; they did not accept the gift of one who was about to prove many athletes, or rather, who was going to begrudge them the very contest itself—or, to speak more truly, they could not bear that they alone out of the whole number of martyrs should be insulted, C while other holy houses were to be built and venerated by pious hands, and not to provide the architect of wickedness an opportunity to boast of the insults branded upon them; lest by the same hand the monuments of the martyrs should be partly raised and partly destroyed, and some martyrs be honored, while others be dishonored—the feigned and simulated honor forerunning their true disgrace by a little while—and lest he who is wise in his own eyes should imagine, by the magnitude of the insult, that just as he deceives men, so too he could deceive God, who is the most acute and wisest of all, and who catches the wise in their craftiness D through the very problem that appears—but rather that he might know himself to be seen, and not be puffed up as one who thinks he is understood, perceiving that his fraud is held in check.
XXVIII. For even if the God of the martyrs did not restrain that impiety, nor at once dry up or check the wickedness he was meditating and harboring in his mind, as though it were some evil flood—for reasons which He Himself, in His ineffable power and governance, knows and has explored, and by which He permitted the iniquity of the Amorites also to reach its fullness and be completed by a fixed counsel—it was nonetheless fitting, for the sake of the many, that such depravity should be met with hatred and detestation, that this honor should be rejected, and that God’s equity and purity regarding all things offered to Him should be demonstrated.
XXIX. For He who said to the impious Israel, *If you offer fine flour, it is vain; incense is an abomination to me*—insofar as He even rejects their New Moons and Sabbaths and the great day; for He who is full does not need any small human thing, that he should take delight in gifts offered unworthily; and the sacrifice of an iniquitous man, even if he sacrifice a calf, He execrates as a dog, and incense as blasphemy, and drives and shakes it from the temple like the hire of a harlot, and values only that sacrifice which pure hands, and a mind that is lofty and expiated from every stain of vice, offer to the most pure Divinity; what wonder is it if He did not even accept that honor which he was offering wickedly and with a wicked mindset, He, I say, who does not see as man sees, nor looks at the external appearance, but at the hidden man, and at the internal workshop of vice or virtue? And this matter is such as this. But if anyone thinks I am to be credited less, I shall produce as witnesses those very people who were present at the spectacle: for I have many who have transmitted this miracle to us, and will transmit it to those who come after. C
XXX. But after they had already advanced to man's estate, and had tasted the doctrines of philosophy (would that they had never done so!)—and had assumed the power of speech, which, just as it is an instrument and aid of virtue for the upright and honest, so it becomes a goad of vice for the wicked and flagitious—they were no longer able to keep the disease entirely shut up in their mind, nor could he meditate the fraud of impiety to himself alone. But rather, just as fire lying hidden in matter, even if it is not yet raised into a bright flame, marks itself by certain darting sparks or smoke from the depths; or, if you prefer, just as those fountains which move with a certain breath through subterranean caverns, and then, being most tightly compressed and having no free exit, send vapor on high in many places of the earth, D while being pushed from below by the spirit [of the air], and being held back and beaten back by the pressure from above: so also he, for the most part, [was unable to contain] the great [surge] of impiety.
A hidden by the occasion and the discipline of him who held power; for it was not yet safe to show impiety openly. Nevertheless, there were places where he would bare the unfortified state of his mind—impiety or intelligence—to those who were sharper; in his discussions with his brother, he argued more than was well on behalf of the Greeks (under the pretext, indeed, of exercising an inferior argument, whereas in truth it was an exercise against the truth), and he took delight in all those things by which an impious character is marked.
XXXI. But after the emperor’s kindness declared his brother CaesarB and entrusted to him no small part of the inhabited world, and there was available to him great power and freedom, and the ability to associate with the most pernicious of discourses and teachers (for Asia was to him a school of impiety, insofar as it is engaged in the vanity of star-science and nativities, and the phantom-show of foreknowledge, and the sorcery that follows these)—there was one thing yet lacking: for power to be added to this impiety. Not much time passed in the middle, and our overflowing iniquity grants even this to him against us, and the "good health" C of the Christians, if one may so speak, carried to the extreme, seeking the contrary change, as well as the power and the honor, and the satiety by which we lapsed into insolence and petulance.
XXXII. For in truth it is more difficult to guard and retain good things that are present than to acquire those that are absent; and it is easier for prosperity—once departed—to be called back by...
A affliction, as the Proverbs well say, than for humility to be followed by glory; or, to speak more clearly, ruin follows pride, and success follows humility. For God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble; and he who metes out all things justly, brings about the opposites in turn for their opposites. Knowing this, the divine David also includes being humbled among the number of good things; and he gives thanks to Him who brought him low, as if it were from this that a knowledge of the divine statutes came to him. "Before I was humbled," he says, "I went astray; therefore I have kept your word," placing humility intermediate between transgression and correction, as though it were born from the former and gave birth to the latter. For indeed sin is the parent of humiliation, but humiliation is the parent of repentance. We, at any rate, when we were upright and moderate, having been raised up and having advanced little by little until we reached such a state and such a multitude under the guidance of God—when we became fat, we kicked; and when we were broadened, we were straitened. And the glory and power which we had gathered in persecutions and afflictions, we have squandered by acting improperly in prosperity, as the rest of the discourse will show. B
33. On Caesar and his life, an end is reached; for those things which happened in the interim I shall pass over in silence, out of regard for both him who did it and him who suffered it; revering the piety of both, I in no way praise the rashness. For since it was necessary that, being men, they should commit some sin, this is perhaps that which someone might censure in both; unless, even here, while we accuse the one, we might absolve the other from blame. Julian, however, immediately succeeds his brother in the empire, but not in piety; and a little later he succeeds even him by whom he had been created emperor—partly because he was willing, and partly because he was compelled by the common end; and he was so overcome that this disaster was fatal and ruinous to the whole world. C
34. What has happened to you, O most divine and Christ-loving of emperors? (For I am carried away to expostulate with you as if you were present and listening, although I know you to be far superior to our censure, being ordered according to God). D
A And since you were transferred to a status as much better as the heavenly glory is superior to the earthly kingdom, what was this plan you devised, you who in wisdom and keenness of mind far excelled everyone, not only the emperors of your own time 22 but also those of former days? You who purged the barbarian nations all around, and subdued the tyrants at home, some by words and others by arms, and did each of these things so dexterously and excellently that the one caused you no trouble while you were occupied with the other. You who had great trophies won by arms and battle, but greater and more illustrious ones won without any shedding of blood; to whom embassies and supplications flocked from every side; to whom some nations already submitted, while others were on the point of doing so 24; and for whom what was hoped for was already equal to what was conquered; who were guided by the hand of God in every plan and action; whose wisdom was admired even more than the strength of your hands, and whose hands were again more admired than your wisdom; and in both, the glory of your piety was more illustrious still.
B XXXV. How, then, did you appear so ignorant and thoughtless in this matter alone 25? What is this haste of inhuman humanity? What demon 26 crept into your deliberation? How could you hand over that great inheritance and ancestral ornament—I mean those who are named after Christ, the nation shining everywhere throughout the world, the royal priesthood, grown great through much toil and many sweats—in so short and brief a moment of time to this common pest and fury?
C XXXVI. Perhaps, brothers, I seem to you to be acting impiously and showing an unjust and ungrateful spirit in these words, because I do not immediately join the words of truth to the words of the accusation. And yet, I have sufficiently defended him, even through the very things of which I have accused him, if you have only paid attention to the accusation. And here alone the accusation contains its own acquittal 27; for in mentioning his kindness, I have made manifest his defense. For who is there, even among those who know him but moderately, who is unaware that because of his piety and his love for us, and his readiness to wish us all good things—not to mention that he would have overlooked 28 honor for himself, or the prestige of his whole family, or the increase of the empire—that he would not have readily exchanged the empire 29 itself and all his possessions, and his life itself for our safety and preservation, than which nothing is more precious to anyone?
A XXXVII. For no man was ever gripped by such fierce love and desire for any matter as he was for the growth of the Christians and for our coming into the highest amplitude of glory and power. Neither conquered and subjugated nations, nor a commonwealth constituted and governed by most excellent laws, nor abundance of wealth, nor greatness of glory, nor the fact that he was and was called king of kings, nor all the other things by which the happiness of men is manifest, nor finally anything of all these matters brought him as much pleasure as this: that through him we might be commended and through us he might be commended, both before God and before men, and that our power might remain firm and stable for us for all time. For he perceived well—thinking of these things, clearly, more loftily and more regally than most are wont to do—that together with the affairs of the Christians the affairs of the Romans also had received an increase, and that the empire had entered in together with the coming of Christ, when before this it had not yet completely prevailed so as to come into the single monarchy of one person. And for this reason, and indeed rightly, he appeared to me to embrace our affairs the more. And he indeed, even if he caused us some trouble, did not do so out of contempt for us, nor to inflict outrage upon us, nor to grant favor to certain others rather than to us, but in order that we might all come together into one, and be joined in the consensus of our souls, and not be split or dissected by schisms among us. B
XXXVIII. But, as I was saying, simplicity is insufficiently cautious, and to benevolence is attached weakness; and he who has a soul free and pure from wickedness suspects wickedness least. For this reason the future was ignored, the feint and dissimulation were not detected, and impiety crept in little by little, and two kindnesses met one another—the one toward the pious race, and the other toward the most impious and greatest contemner of divine majesty of all. What, then, of him, who having nothing to complain of regarding the Christians, nothing to disapprove of in our doctrine, and again nothing which he deemed extraordinary and excellent among the dogmas of the Gentiles, and of such a kind that it could hardly be refuted by speech, and finally, following the example of none of his ancestors in this matter, rendered himself most noble through impiety and contended in a new way with him by whom he had been designated Caesar? For when he could not surpass him in virtue and in glorious deeds, he strove by way of C the contrary...
path, that is, through a certain immoderate and unbridled impiety and a stubborn pursuit of vice, to acquire for himself the splendor of a name. Such, then, is the defense of Constantius regarding the Christians and toward the Christians, and it is most equitable and just, at least for those who are endowed with reason.
A XXXIX. Since, however, there are some who, even if they absolve us of this charge, do not release him from another, but accuse him of foolishness for having entrusted the empire to his most hostile and bitter enemy, and for having first made him an enemy and then furnished him with power—laying the foundation of enmity through the slaughter of his brother, and then adding strength to it through the empire—it is necessary for me also to speak briefly about this and to show that this clemency was by no means entirely inconsiderate or alien to reason, nor removed from imperial nobility of mind and providence. For I would be overcome with shame if, having received such honor from him and being convinced that he excelled in such praise of piety, we were not to offer him a just defense; this is something owed even to those who have bestowed no benefit upon us by us, who profess the worship of the Word and the Truth, and especially after his departure from life, when there is no longer cause to fear that we might fall into the reputation of flattery, and B the discourse is now free from any evil suspicion.
XL. For who would not have hoped that, if nothing else, the honors would at least have rendered him more mild? And who would not have expected that, because of the trust placed in him—a trust even beyond what was fair—he would be more just? As though, by a just and imperial judgment, the one had been punished and the other selected. For since he bestowed upon the younger man honors that no one would have hoped for—not even the one who received the honor—it is manifest that he would not have taken action against the former without just anger; and the one is to be attributed to his own recklessness, but the other to the humanity of him who bestowed the honor. C
XLI. And at the same time, he had the confidence—if I may say the greater thing—not so much relying on the other's faith as on his own power. It was this, I believe, that Alexander the Great relied upon when, having defeated Porus, he not only spared his life—and this even though he had contended so strenuously for the empire—but also restored to him the kingdom of the Indians; as if in no other way could he display his magnanimity than by this, for he considered it more disgraceful for Alexander to be conquered in such matters than to be surpassed in arms, especially since it was in his power, should he find him wicked and ungrateful for the kindness, to send him back under the yoke of his D dominion. Thus, this kindness flowed from a certain great confidence of soul.
XLII. But why do I labor and contend so much in this matter, when it is easy for me to win the case, and even when it is already won? For if the one who was entrusted is wicked
A even before he was supposedly proved to be at fault, where shall we place wickedness itself? But in truth, wickedness is a thing altogether devoid of reason; and there is no way for anyone to make the wicked better, since even that man, from the very things by which he ought to have appeared more kindly and just, and from which he should have extinguished whatever sparks of wickedness he possessed, was instead inflamed to greater hatred, and considered how he might avenge himself upon his benefactor. What, then, could any man expect from one such as that? And if one who has been entrusted with power is so devoid of reason—for wickedness is a thing devoid of reason, and a wicked man perceives neither justice nor equity, as even the ancient saying suggests—what sort of men are those B who have been gathered to him?
XLIII. These are the things which the Platos and Chrysippuses, and the brilliant Peripatetic school 53, and the venerable Stoa 54, and those who let fall their elegant phrases from their throats have taught. These are the things which the equality of geometry and the discourses concerning justice, and that noble saying that it is better to choose to suffer injustice than to commit it 55, have taught. These are the things which those noble masters, those fellow-combatants and lawgivers of the empire, whom he had gathered to himself from the crossroads and the pits 56, professed! He did not praise their character, but admired their eloquence—and perhaps not even that, but their impiety alone, as a sufficient counselor and mistress of things to be done or left undone 57.
XLIV. Yet why is it not fitting to admire these men, who with their reason create cities C that cannot in reality exist, and all but worship their own imposing tyrannies 58, and value an obol above the gods, and bear themselves with such pride 59? And some of them claim that there is no God at all, while others 60 maintain that God has no concern for human affairs, but that all things are borne along randomly and by chance; others claim that all things are moved by the stars and the configurations of necessity 61—I know not by whom moved or whence—while others suppose that all things tend toward pleasure 62, and that this is the final end of human life. For them, virtue is nothing more than a pretty name, and it does not extend beyond this present life, nor is there any account taken of things done in this life D after it has reached its end. For there being two things—committing injustice and being treated with injustice—we say that committing injustice is the greater evil, and being treated with it the lesser.
A For did any of those accounted wise among them perceive these things? On the contrary, they were engulfed in deep mire—as the saying goes—and in the lightless gloom of deceit and ignorance, their understanding so far from being cleansed that they might behold the rays of truth, that they remained wallowing in earthly and sensible mire, incapable of conceiving anything in their minds above the demons or of being raised up as is worthy of the Creator. And if any did look up even a little, they were carried away by the more plausible argument, and by that which from its very closeness more easily entices the masses, not using God as their guide but human reason.
B XLV. What wonder is it, then, if a man who proceeded from such doctrines and was governed by such guides should show himself evil and wicked toward one who had trusted him and honored him? For if one must, through accusation, defend him somewhat—not so much because he grieved for the death of his brother (since he regarded him also as an enemy on account of his religion), but because he bore with great annoyance the growth of Christian affairs and, raging against piety, dared to attack the established order and sought freedom for his own recklessness—for it was fitting that philosophy and empire, according to their doctrine, should come together; not so that cities might cease from evils, but that they might be filled with them.
C XLVI. And his first act of arrogance and recklessness was to crown himself, and to honor himself with that great title (which is not a prize of fortune, but a reward of virtue, or granted by time, or by the emperor's vote, or by the judgment of the senate, as was the custom of old)—nor did he refer the measure of this honor to the emperor's will. And as for the second—for he knew that he had already made recklessness necessary for himself by what he had already dared—what does he contemplate? And to what lengths of impiety and boldness does he proceed? O, the madness of that soul! He marches against him, and...
moves his footsteps from the West: apparently with the excuse—as he would have it A believed—of clearing himself concerning the diadem he had seized, for he still wanted to keep his madness hidden; but the truth was, that he might transfer the entire empire to himself and be admired for his impudence and ingratitude. And in this hope he was not in the least disappointed.
XLVII. Yet let not those who do not understand the unfathomable depth of the rational principles of God, by which all things are governed, wonder at this; nor let them refuse to yield to the Architect of providence—who is certainly wiser than us, and who leads his own creatures as and where He wills, but always toward what is better and toward the healing of our ailments, even if those who are being treated find it hard to bear. B By these divine principles he was not himself incited to evil—for God is in no way the cause of evil, being good by nature, and wickedness belongs to the one who chooses it—but he was not restrained in his impetus. In truth, with great speed, he traversed both his own territory and a portion of the barbarian border, and, having slipped through—rather by deception than by conquest—he began to threaten the heart of the empire. According to those who defend his side, he was carried away to embark on this expedition by a foreknowledge of the future and by the impulse and urging of demons, who promised him successful events and declared that a change in affairs was ordained. C But as they say who speak the truth, he arrived at a time predetermined for an arcane and hidden crime, and was hurrying toward the death of which he himself was the architect, concealing his attempt in the meantime through one of his domestics. Thus that crime was not a matter of foreknowledge, but of fore-planning, and it was a work of wickedness, not a favor of demons—and how clever they are in such things, Persia clearly demonstrated. Let those who attribute his speed to demons finally be put to silence; unless, indeed, we are to add this very wickedness of his to their account as well.
XLVIII. For if the death of the emperor had not anticipated the tyrant’s arrival and assault, and if the secret war had not prevailed more than the open attack, perhaps that D wretched and impious man would have learned...
to bridle his own madness, and would have paid the penalty within the borders of the Romans, upon whom he so wickedly dared to encroach. Evidence of this is that even while he was still advancing and, as he thought, unknown to our most noble emperor A, he was surrounded by an army which was cutting off his retreat, as was clearly shown by subsequent events—for even when he (Julian) already held sovereign power, it was no small task for him to overcome that army. But now, he who was boiling over with rage, both against his own insanity and his impiety, and who held that most wise man in his snares—oh, the magnitude of our own wickedness!—ended his life in the prime of his journey, having defended his own clemency with many words both to God and to men, and having shown to the Christians, through his own impetuous rush, the movement toward piety B.
XLIX. At this point, tears mingled with joy come to me because of what follows in my discourse; they are like the battle, the mingling, and the conflict of a river and the sea, resisting and joining one another. For instance, from the latest events I experience a sense of pleasure, but from those that preceded them, tears; and this not only for the sake of the Christians and the affliction that befell them—which was either brought on by the devil, or permitted by God for reasons He alone knows, perhaps because our own pride stood in need of purification—but also for the sake of his soul itself, and for those who were snatched away by him to that same destruction C.
L. For some people lament only the final blows and the torments suffered in this present age; these are the people who consider only the present life and do not penetrate with their minds to what lies beyond, nor do they believe that there is any accounting or recompense for what is done here. Instead, they live the life of irrational animals, existing only for the day and the present moment, measuring happiness by this simple standard of worldly ease and tranquility, and defining unhappiness as the opposite, namely, the occurrence of adverse events. But I feel it is a more serious matter to mourn them because of the torments of the life to come, and the punishments that await the wicked and the impious. And I do not yet speak of the greatest thing of all, namely, the sheer magnitude of the penalty involved in being cast out from God D.
A LI. How, then, shall I not weep for the miserable man? How shall I not lament the seekers of his company even more than those who were persecuted? And how shall I not mourn even more for the one who dragged others into ruin than for those who ran into wickedness of their own accord? Or rather, for the former, to suffer for Christ’s sake is no terrible thing—nay, it is of all things the most blessed—not only because of the rewards to come, but also because of the glory and boldness in this life which they gained for themselves through their trials. But for the others, the things they have already suffered are merely a prelude to the things laid up and threatened for them; and it would have been better for them to have been punished for a longer time in this life than to be reserved for the tribunals of the world to come. This much I say because of the law that forbids rejoicing at the fall of an enemy [(Prov. XXIV 17)], and demands compassion from those who stand firm. But I must now turn my speech back to him B once again.
LII. What is this such pertinacious zeal for evil? What is this great love of impiety? What is this headlong rush to destruction? Whence does it come that a disciple of Christ should be so hostile to Christ? He who had been conversant with so many and such great discourses of the truth, having himself uttered some, and having heard others from those who lead to salvation? For he had barely inherited the empire before he openly and freely professed impiety, as if he were ashamed even of this name, that he had once been a Christian, or was angry on that account at the Christians with whom he had been joined in the communion of that name. And from this he began his wicked deeds, as they tell it who boast of his secrets (alas, into what language I am forced to fall!). He wipes away his baptism with impure and wicked blood, opposing to our initiation an execrable initiation, like the sow wallowing in the mire, as the proverb says; and he profanes his hands, so that he might, forsooth, wash off C and purge them from the unbloody sacrifice through which we communicate with Christ and His passion and divinity. By means of incisions and sacrifices he constitutes his imperial court, employing bad counselors for a bad reign.
LIII. But since I have made mention of incisions and the superstition—or, to speak more appropriately, the diabolical insanity—to which the man was driven in such matters, I am not yet sure whether I should commit to writing this much-bruited wonder, or wheth-
whether I should deny it credence. For I am myself of a doubtful and uncertain mind, and know not to which side I should incline, as those things which deserve belief are mingled with those that appear to lack it. For that some sign or prodigy should accompany so novel and unusual a wickedness and impiety is not at all contrary to the truth, but has very often happened during the greatest upheavals. But that it should have happened in this particular way—this is what seems to me, at least, to be worthy of supreme wonder, and to all who desire that things which are pure should be purely declared and considered.
A LIV. The story goes, then, that when he was offering sacrifice, the entrails displayed a crowned cross. This sight indeed filled others with horror and anxiety, and made them recognize our power; but to the master of impiety it obviously gave courage, as if we were hemmed in and trapped on all sides—for this is how he improvised his interpretation of the cross and the circle. This, indeed, is what I regard in the light of a miracle. But if it is false, may it vanish into the air; yet if it is true, once again Balaam prophesies, and Samuel is drawn up—or seems to be—through a ventriloquist, and demons unwillingly confess Jesus, and by means of the very things that are contrary, the truth is demonstrated so that it may have all the more faith and authority. And perhaps Providence was acting through these matters to restrain his impiety. For God knows how to open many wondrous ways of salvation in an B unusual manner, inclining toward human kindness and mercy. And that this is reported by many is not foreign to the faith, and I shall pursue it in my discourse.
LV. He was descending into a certain sanctuary, inaccessible and terrifying to the multitude (would that he had also gone down into Hades before breaking forth into such wickedness!), having as a companion one who was worthy of many such sanctuaries—that is, a man wise or "sophical" in such matters, or rather a sophist and impostor. For this, too, is a kind of divination among them: to hold communion with subterranean demons in a dark cave concerning future events. This is either because they delight more in darkness, since they themselves are darkness and C craftsmen of the darkness of vice; or because they flee the fellowship and meeting of pious men who are on earth, and are rendered weaker by them. But as that excellent man was proceeding, terrors began to assail him, and immediately
A struck by the unexpected, for he was slow to learn such things, he fled for refuge to the cross and the ancient remedy, and with this (21) he signed himself against the fears, and made the pursued one his helper. And the things that followed were more terrifying.
LVI. The seal prevailed; the demons yielded; the fears were dispersed. What then? The evil took heart, regained its boldness, and made its assault once more; and the same fears returned, and the seal was invoked again, and the demons kept quiet. The student remained at a loss for counsel, and the initiator, who stood by his side, interpreted the truth sinisterly: "We have been," he said, "an abomination to them, not a terror; what is worse prevails." For he spoke these things, and by speaking persuaded, and having persuaded, he led B the student to the pit of destruction. And this should not seem surprising, for the wicked man follows evil more promptly and willingly than he is held back by the good. As to what he said or did, or by what impostures he was deluded, before he was sent back up, let those know who in these mysteries partly initiate others and are partly initiated themselves. But he returned, both possessed in his mind and in his actions, and sufficiently signifying by the furious gaze of his eyes whom he had worshipped; unless, indeed, from that day on which he admitted such nefarious things into his soul, he was filled with demons. But that became more manifest then, so that it would not appear that he had descended in vain, and that he had not become a participant of the demons—that which they call "enthusiasm," changing the names in a refined way. These were his first deeds.
LVII. But when he could no longer contain what he was giving birth to, and the persecution broke out, he began to perceive something C worthy of a man who was wise in vice and excellent in impiety; or perhaps he was instructed by those who were sharpening and, as it were, anointing him for it. For he reasoned with himself that if he were to undertake war openly, and profess himself the leader of impiety, besides the fact that this would be too rash and foolish, it would furthermore be entirely contrary to the goal at which he was aiming. For he thought that if force were brought to bear, we would exert ourselves with sharper contention for victory, and would set against the tyranny an opposing zeal for the defense of piety. For it is the habit of noble spirits to be emboldened against what dominates by force, D and, like a flame being fanned by the wind, to be kindled the more, the more violently one tries to extinguish it.
And he could have perceived this not only by reasoning but also from the previous persecutions, which had made Christianity more precious rather than weaker, stirring the souls of the faithful toward piety and, like water tempering glowing iron, making them more resilient through these dangers. If he had campaigned with shrewdness and sought to cloak force with persuasion—or, as it were, to wrap the bait of tyranny in the bronze of gentleness—then he might have made the contest both clever and formidable for himself.
B 58. For, among other things, he even envied these athletes the honor commonly paid to martyrs. And for this reason, he devises a plan to use force himself while appearing not to use it, so that we might suffer punishment indeed, yet be deprived of the honor that is usually accorded to those who suffer for the name of Christ. O singular folly of the man! First, if he thought that the cause for which we encounter danger could remain hidden, and that he would succeed in obscuring the truth with his sophistry, he failed to see that not only would he not hide it, but the more he plotted against those honors, the greater and more glorious he would make them.
C 59. Secondly, if he presumed that we endure danger out of a desire for glory rather than for the love of truth—let such things be playground for their Empedocles, and Aristæi, and certain Empedotimi, and Trophonii, and all that host of miserable men! Of them, the one who tried to deify himself, as he imagined, in the craters of Sicily and to depart from us to a better realm, was revealed by his favorite sandal being cast out by the fire. He was not shown to be a god after having been a man, but an empty-headed, unphilosophical man—even after death—and devoid of even common sense. As for the others, having buried their own selves in certain secret places out of the same disease of vanity, and then being caught, they gained no more honor from such a fugitive retreat than they suffered disgrace for the fraud discovered.
D 60. But for Christians, it is more pleasing to suffer for the sake of piety, even if no one is ever to know of it, than it is for others to flourish in impiety and bask in glory. For we care very little about pleasing men, but our whole longing—no, even more than that, for those who are truly philosophical and lovers of God, our very life—is directed toward the honor that comes from God; indeed, we rise even higher than this towards the...
A treasures laid up for us hereafter. For this is the second rank of those who are praiseworthy: to do something for the sake of a reward and in exchange. Just as the third rank is to avoid wickedness through fear of punishment. Such, then, are our affairs, and in this state they exist; and it is easy for those who wish to demonstrate this through many arguments.
LXI. Here, however, as if he were about to deprive the Christians of some great honor (for most men judge the affairs of others by their own passions), he pursues this glory and the fame of our name before any other. But he does not, with a strenuous and noble spirit as was the custom of other persecutors, profess his impiety by an edict, nor, if not royally, at least tyrannically has he made any clear plan against us: so that his crime might be distinct and honorable, in that he had brought violence upon the people of the world, and had oppressed with tyranny the doctrine that is superior to all doctrines: but he distresses piety in a very base and cowardly manner, and he introduced into the persecution which he stirred up against us the deceits and guiles of a treacherous spirit. Therefore, since the power to rule B is divided into two things, persuasion and coercion, he so arranged things that he permitted the more inhumane part—that is, force and tyranny—to the popular mob and the cities, whose insane audacity, on account of their reckless movements of spirit and headlong impulses toward all things, seemed to be unbridled; and this he did not by any public edict, but by not restraining their impulse and audacity, proclaiming his own will as if by some law that was not written.
LXII. But what was milder and more humane, and more becoming to an emperor, this he evidently assumed for himself, namely the role of persuasion and enticement. And yet he did not keep even this throughout. For nature did not allow that a leopard should cast off its spots, C or an Ethiopian his blackness, or fire its burning, or the wicked one D
A who was a murderer from the beginning his wickedness, from which he launched himself against us. But just as they say the chameleon easily turns into anything and assumes all colors—saving only white (I omit that fabulous Egyptian sophist Proteus)—so he too became everything to the Christians, save for kindness; and his own kindness was for him profoundly inhuman, and his persuasion was violence, and his goodness was but an apology for his cruelty, so that he might reasonably seem to be using force when he failed to persuade.
B LXIII. And this is evident from the fact that his use of persuasion was small, while the use of force immediately followed it, so that—just as in hunting—we might be taken either by snares or by persecutions, and in one way or the other fall completely into his power. Having planned and organized this, he proceeded with that second strategy—the only safe one, though utterly godless—which was common to all persecutors: he began his wickedness with those B closest to him and within his own circle. For it is not even possible to attempt things against those outside unless these people have been won over, just as one cannot lead an army against enemies while its general is in revolt.
C LXIV. And it was for this reason that he changed the whole court, having first removed some by death and pushed others aside; not so much because they were well-disposed to the Great Emperor, but because they had greater goodwill toward a greater Emperor, and were thus troublesome to him on both accounts. He also tempted the military, both by himself and through those who held office, whom he judged to be more easily persuaded, because they were partly devoted to honors and partly carried away by simple-mindedness, acknowledging no other law than the prince's will.
D LXV. Rather, if one must speak more accurately, he drew over a not insignificant part of the military, and as many of them as he found to be sickly and weak—at the time and before—and those who were already slaves to the moment; some of these he had already brought under his power, and others he hoped to bring. For he did not capture everyone, nor did he give so much power against us to the persecutor who was stirred up by him; but there remained more than seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal, nor worshipped the golden image, nor been struck by the serpents.
for they looked upon that serpent which was hung up and destroyed by the sufferings of Christ. Many, indeed, of those in power and in high position—whom it was even less surprising to see yielding and surrendering, both from fear of dangers and from hope of honors—and many also of the common order, known only by number, whom, when he attacked, he was repulsed no differently than a light engine by a very firm wall. But he was of such a mind that he was not so much vexed by those who escaped him, as he was, being driven by fury, overconfident regarding those who were captured; and his own will represented that which had been conceived in hope as if it were already held in his hands.
B
LXVI. But now he is also emboldened against that great standard, which marches with the cross and leads the army raised on high, possessing the power of relieving labors, hence taking its name among the Latins, and holding, so to speak, the primacy over all the other standards. These are both adorned with the images of emperors and with outstretched textiles in various colors and illustrations of letters, and they seem to exult, just as those that are inflated by the dreadful gaping mouths of dragons and raised upon the tips of spears, and are agitated along their lengths by means of woven, distinct scales—presenting to the eyes a spectacle at once most delightful and horrific. But after he had settled domestic affairs to his own satisfaction, and had warded off that danger which was, as he thought, in his hands, he then set about those matters which follow.
C
LXVII. O most foolish, most impious, and most ignorant of great matters! Do you [set yourself] against such a lot, and against the Church spread throughout the whole world, which by the lowliness of speech and the foolishness of preaching, as you yourselves might perhaps say, has encompassed all the ends of the earth? Which has conquered the wise, has silenced demons, and has surpassed time; the same being at once both old and new, as you fabulously devise of some one of your gods—that one for the few, this one for the promiscuous multitude; that one by a mere shadowing, this one by the perfection of the mystery reserved for its own times? Do you [set yourself] against the great inheritance of Christ? (Who are you, and how great, and whence?) Against that great [inheritance]—I say—which, even if some should be more frenzied and insane than you, will not [be conquered], but will prevail more and more always.
For I place my faith in the predictions and in what we see; [that inheritance] which God created, and which as man He inherited; which the law shadowed forth, and grace fulfilled, and Christ dedicated; which the prophets built together, and the apostles bound fast, and the evangelists perfected. B
LXVIII. Do you set your pollutions against the sacrifice of Christ? Do you set your blood against the blood that cleansed the world? Do you set war against peace? Do you set your hand against that which was transfixed with nails for you and on your behalf? Do you set your taste against the gall? [Do you set yourself] against the trophy of the cross? Against the destruction of death? Against the resurrection, [do you set] an insurrection and rebellion? Against the martyr, [do you set yourself], and not even against the martyrs [themselves]? Are you a persecutor after Herod, and a traitor after Judas? Except that, unlike him, you did not show the sign of a repentant mind by the noose; a Christ-killer after Pilate, and after the Jews an enemy of God?
LXIX. Did you not reverence those who were slaughtered for Christ? Did you not fear those great champions, that John, that Peter, Paul, James, Stephen, Luke, Andrew, Thecla, and those who before them and after them risked their lives for the sake of the truth? C They who contended eagerly against fire, and sword, and wild beasts, and tyrants, and against present and threatened evils, as if they were in the bodies of others, or rather as if they were bodiless. And to what end? That they might not betray piety even by a word. These are they for whom great honors and festivals are established; by whom demons are driven out and diseases cured; whose manifestations and whose predictions [we witness]; those whose very bodies avail as much as their holy souls, whether they are touched or honored; whose smallest drops of blood, and slight tokens of their passion, can do as much as their bodies.
LXX. These things you do not reverence, but you dishonor them; you, who admire D the pyre of Hercules, [which was] the result of misfortune and injury by women, and [you]—having no [honors] at all.
A And you admire the butchery concerning women, that hospitable—or rather, God-loving—deed, from which the Pelopidae are distinguished by their shoulders and by the ivory? And the Phrygian excisions, of those who are soothed by the flute and insulted after the piping? B And the tortures and "just" or even "mystical" burnings in the rites of Mithras? And the murder of guests among the Tauri, and that sacrifice of the royal maiden at Troy, and the blood of Menoeceus shed on behalf of the Thebans, and later that of the daughters of Scedasus at Leuctra? You, who praise the Spartan youths being lashed with whips, and the blood upon the altar delighting a chaste and virgin goddess? You, who extol the hemlock of Socrates, and the leg of Epictetus, and the wineskin of Anaxarchus—whose philosophy was rather forced and necessary than free and voluntary—and the leap of Cleombrotus the Ambraciote, philosophized upon in the discourse *On the Soul*, and the Pythagorean contention over beans, and the contempt of death by Theano, or I know not whom else among those who were initiated into the Pythagorean mysteries and followed his doctrines.
A LXXI. But if you do not marvel at those former things of ours, then certainly marvel at the present things, O most wise and most noble man, who look upon those Epaminondases and Scipios with regard to their endurance; who journey on foot with the army, and accept a meager and accessible diet, and praise that method of waging war in which the leader manages everything himself. For it belongs to a noble and philosophical soul not even to despise the virtue of enemies, but to attribute more to the fortitude of enemies than to the sloth and softness of one’s own people, even those who are most intimate. Do you see these men, devoid of the resources of life, and homeless, and almost without flesh and blood, and for this very reason drawing closer to God? These, I say, the "unwashed-footed" and "ground-sleepers," as your Homer says—in order that he might honor some one of the demons with that creation—these men who are on the earth and yet higher than earthly things? These who are among men and yet above human things? Bound and yet free? Overpowered and yet uncontrollable? Of whom nothing is in the world, and yet all things are above the world? Whose life is twofold: the one part despised, the other zealously cultivated and sought after? These, I say, who are immortal through mortification, and joined to God through dissolution? Who are strangers to cupidity, but kindled with a love that is divine and free from mental perturbation? Whose source is light, and whose are already the rays of that light? Whose are the angelic psalms, and the all-night vigil, and the soul’s departure—already snatched up to heaven—toward God? Whose is the purification, and whose is the being purified, since they know no limit to ascent and deification? Whose are the rocks, and whose are the heavens? Whose is the being cast aside, and whose are the thrones? Whose is the nakedness, and whose is the garment of immortality? Whose is the solitude, and whose is the celebration of the other world? Whose are the suppressed and constrained pleasures, and whose is the perpetual delight of souls that exceeds every faculty of speech? Whose tears are a flood for sin, a cleansing for the world? Whose outstretched hands extinguish flames, lull wild beasts to sleep, blunt the edges of swords, put battle-lines to flight, and—believe me—will also suppress your impiety, even if you are exalted for a short time and play out the drama of impiety with your demons?
B C LXXII. How is it that not even these things are fearful to you, O most audacious man, and, if anyone is, one headlong toward death? How do you not revere them? These things are indeed much more precious than the greed of Solon, who was a wise man and a lawgiver, D
by the insatiable greed of islands, which Croesus exposed with Lydian gold; and by the A Socratic love of youths—for I am ashamed to speak of the love of boys, even if it be craftily cloaked under a more honest name—and by the Sicilian gluttony of Plato, for which he was even sold, and was not redeemed by any of his disciples, nor indeed by any Greek; and by the voracity of Xenocrates; and by the talkativeness of that Diogenes who lived in a tub, by which he made his guests yield their place to the tyrants out of tragedy, [preferring] cheap loaves to honey-cakes; and by the philosophy of Epicurus, which defines no good beyond pleasure. Great among you is Crates, for it is indeed a philosophic thing to have left his lands to be grazed by sheep, [a deed] similar to those philosophers among us. But he parades his freedom with a public proclamation, as if he were someone B more studious of glory than of wisdom. Great is he who, when his ship was tossed by a storm and all was being thrown into the sea, returned thanks to Fortune, as if she were leading him back to the straits of a philosopher’s cloak. Great is Antisthenes, who, having been struck across the whole face by some insolent and bold man, merely inscribed the name of his assailant on his forehead, as an artist does on a statue, perhaps that he might accuse him more bitterly. You praise also one of those who lived not long before our time, because he stood the whole day in the sun and prayed; perhaps having watched for it to be closer to the earth, so that he might even finish his prayer by ending it with the setting sun; and [you praise] him who at Potidaea, in the winter season, labored all night through in contemplation, so that
he did not even feel the intensity of the cold on account of the abstraction of his mind. Moreover, you praise the love of learning in Homer regarding the Arcadic question, and in Aristotle the philosophy and long delay regarding the shifting tides of the Euripus, by which both met their death; and the well of Cleanthes, and the strap of Anaxagoras, and the gloom of Heraclitus. C
LXXIII. But how many are there, and for how long, who have excelled in these virtues? Do you not marvel at and admire the thousands and tens of thousands among us, who philosophize on these things and on others yet more wondrous than these throughout their whole life and in every part, so to speak, of the inhabited world—men and women alike, emulating one another in courage, and at this point alone forgetting their nature, where God must be reconciled through purity and endurance; not only those who are obscure and ignoble, and accustomed to labor by reason of their initial poverty, but even those who were formerly very exalted and brilliant, in wealth, in birth, and in power, innovationally choosing hardship for the sake of the imitation of Christ? Even if their discourse is not present (for piety is not even placed in discourse, and the fruit of wisdom from the mouth is small, as also seemed to one of your own poets), still the reasonableness is greater, and the instruction in their actions. D
LXXIV. But nevertheless, having overlooked all these things, and looking only to this one thing—how he might find favor with the demons by whom, as was fitting, he had often been cast down—before he had established anything else of public concern, he turns against the Christians. And these two things were what he was busy with [...]
the Galileans, as he himself A used to call us in mockery, and the Persians, who were holding out stoutly in the war; yet he considered the war against the Persians a matter of such small concern and such child’s play—to such a degree did he attend to our destruction with greater care and fervor of spirit—that he deemed it a trifle. And although he did not openly declare this, he did not hide it either. So great was the abundance of his madness that he never ceased confessing it to everyone. And this the man who was considered the most sagacious of all and the best administrator of the commonwealth did not perceive: that in the former persecutions there was little confusion and disturbance, because our doctrine had not yet spread to many, but the truth still resided in a few and lacked its full splendor; but now, when the saving word had already been poured forth B and had become dominant among us, to attempt to change and stir up the Christian faith was nothing other than to shake the Roman Empire, to put the whole commonwealth in danger, and—a thing that not even our enemies could have prayed for more harmfully against us—to suffer these things at our own hands, and to fall away from this new and admirable philosophy and rule, by which we are blessed, and through which we have returned to that golden age and mode of governing the commonwealth—that age, I say, which was entirely free of sedition and strife.
LXXV. For was it to be that a tolerable administration of the public post, and the relaxation of taxes, and the selection of magistrates, and the punishment of thefts, and all other such things—which pertain to short-lived and momentary C happiness and display—would bring some great benefit to the commonwealth, and that our ears ought to be dinned with praises of these things? But as for the strife and discord of peoples and cities, and the splitting of families, the division of households, and the breaking up of marriages—all things which it was likely would follow from that evil, and which indeed did follow—did these things bring him some signal glory, or the state some security? Who is so prone to impiety, or so bereft of common sense, as to agree to this? For just as in bodies, when one or two D members are ailing,
the remaining parts recover without great difficulty, and the benefit of health is preserved for the greater portion, by whose aid the diseased parts sometimes return to a better state; but when most members are at variance with one another and are gravely distressed, it is impossible for the whole body not to fall ill and be in clear danger—so too with those who are under imperial rule: it happens that the diseases of individuals are hidden by the more convenient health of the state; yet when many are ulcerated and affected by disease, the whole state is now in danger. In my judgment, any other man, even one most hostile and bitter toward us, would have noticed this, especially at this time, and given so great an expansion and increase of Christians. But the wickedness of this man has cast darkness over his reason and judgment; and for this cause, he devises persecution for small and great alike. B
76. And that, indeed, is very youthful and trivial...
That indeed is something very juvenile and shallow, and not worthy of any other human being, let alone one possessed of even moderate gravity of mind—to say nothing of an emperor—that he imagined that along with the change of name there would follow a transformation of our minds, or at any rate that it would be a source of shame to us, as if we were accused of some most disgraceful crime. Thus he immediately decided to innovate regarding the designation, naming us Galileans instead of Christians and legislating that we be so called, showing by his action that the name of Christ is the greatest for glory and most precious, since he devised to deprive us of it. Unless perhaps he did this for the reason that he feared the power of the name, like the demons, and for that reason proceeded to another name that was less known and common. CLXXVII. Nos vero nomina ipsis haudquaquam invertemus...
As for us, we shall not alter their names; for there is nothing more ridiculous that could be devised into which we might change them: phalloi, and ithyphalloi, and melampygoi, and apygoi, and the goat-footed one, and the venerable Pan—that one god out of all the suitors, who received his name from insult, as was fitting. For among them, it is necessary either to inflict injury upon one and the most powerful of many, or for one most deformed to be created out of many. Therefore, we shall begrudge them neither their deeds nor theirA folly, and let them take pride in the most shameful things. But if they wish, we will also pass over their Buthoenas B and Triesperus, that we may win even greater favor with them by honoring one who is born in such a way, and begets so magnificently, and who made it his thirteenth labor, in a single night, to embrace the fifty daughters of Thestius, so that for these deeds he might be named a god! For if we cared to innovate with such names, many C names from his own life, both more shameful and more appropriate, would be available to Christians against him. For what would prevent us from also playing the same game against the Emperor—the Roman Emperor who, as he himself thought, was Emperor of the whole world, but who was actually deceived by demons—by calling him Idolianus, and Pisæus, and Adonæus, and Tauricremus, as some of our witty and festive men have already called him? Since the ease of doing this is remarkable, how many other names might we bend or forge, which history truly offers us to cast against him?
LXXVIII. But this is the most absurd thing of all: that when the Savior himself, and Lord of all, and Creator and Governor of this universe, he who is the Son of the great Father, and Word, and D Conciliator, and High Priest, and sharer of the throne—he who for our sake, who had dishonored his image and been cast down to the dust, and reduced to such a state that we were ignorant of the great mystery of this union, not only descended to the form of a servant but even ascended the cross, and took my sin with him that it might perish there; when this one, I say, heard the Jews call him a Samaritan, and what is much more wicked, accuse him of being possessed by a demon, he neither blushed nor complained against his revilers—and this even though it was within his power to punish the wicked men through an army of angels or by a single word; but he sent the insulting men away quite gently and calmly, and shed tears for the salvation of those by whom he was being led to the cross—when these things, I say, are so, is it not the height of absurdity to think that the name of "Galileans" will be either a cause of grief or shame for us, or that we would be deterred on this account from our zealous pursuit of virtue?
A I would even say, we might rather ask whether they will have greater regard for these insults than for all the wrongs done to our souls and bodies, things which we have been accustomed to treat with contempt and count as nothing for the sake of the defense of the truth. But as for this, as I have said, it is more ridiculous than serious or troublesome, and we consign it to the stage and the theaters. For we could certainly never be superior to those who easily play and are played with in such matters upon the stage.
B LXXIX. But now, that indeed very base and malicious thing, that when he could not openly persuade us, nor, for very shame, had the endurance to compel us tyrannically, he cloaked the fox’s skin with the lion’s, or, if you prefer, set the mask of Minos over his most unjust conduct (in what words could I properly express this?), and applied force with a show of gentleness. I shall leave other matters for those who desire to record and write of them, as my discourse is hastening on; although I think many will be eager to compose either the tragedy or the comedy of that time, to whom it will seem a part of piety to attack that impious and sacrilegious man in speech, so that a matter so great, and so far from deserving to lie in obscurity, may be transmitted to those who come after. I, however, will set forth one or two examples for all, for the sake of those who so greatly admire his life, so that they may understand themselves to be praising a man for whom no sufficiently worthy vituperation can be devised.
C LXXX. It is a royal custom—I know not whether it be among all other men who are subject to imperial rule, but at least among the Romans it is most studiously observed—that emperors should be honored with public statues. For neither crowns and diadems, nor the shimmer of purple, nor numerous bodyguards, nor the multitude of subjects are sufficient to establish their empire for them; but adoration must also be added, by which they may appear more august: not only that which is offered to them in person, but also that which is paid to their images and paintings, so that the reverence paid to them may be more insatiable and more complete. Furthermore, some emperors rejoice to have other things added to these images: some, the most illustrious cities offering gifts; some, victories crowning their heads; some, magistrates adoring them, and adorned with the tokens of their dignities; D others, the slaughter of wild beasts and skillful javelin-throwing; others, the slaughter of barbarians, and under their...
A feet, those who had been cast down or slain—various and manifold figures. For they love not only the truth of the things about which they have high opinions, but also their images.
LXXXI. But what does this man devise? And what snare does he set for the more steadfast of the Christians? Just as those who mix poisons with food, so he determined to mix impiety with the customary honors of emperors, and to fuse together the laws of the Romans and the worship of idols. Therefore, when he had added demons—like other customary paintings—to the images, he then set those images before the peoples and the cities, and especially before the governors of the provinces, so that in no way possible could the evil be avoided: but either the honor of the demons might be joined with the honor of the emperors, or, by avoiding them, the emperors might be insulted by that mingled worship.
Few of the more pious and sagacious escaped this fraud and this snare of impiety, so craftily devised, and even they paid the penalty for their sagacity: under the specific pretext that they had sinned against the honor of the emperor, but in reality [they were] brought into danger for the sake of the true Emperor and for piety. But very many of the simpler and more unskilled were caught; to whom, perhaps, some pardon might be granted on account of their ignorance, insofar as they were carried away into impiety by art and fraud. And this is indeed such a thing that it is abundantly sufficient, of itself alone, to brand the intent and the disposition of such an emperor for perpetual infamy. For I do not think that the same things befit princes and private individuals, since they are not of the same dignity. For we might perhaps grant that a private man may act craftily; for if a man cannot use force openly, he deserves some pardon if he acts in a sly and crafty manner. But for an emperor, when it is base enough to be overcome by force and power, it is much baser, in my opinion, and more unbecoming, to conceal his attempts and his intent by artifice.
LXXXII. I will now add another point to the foregoing; B one which, while it is of the same mind and intent, is far more atrocious in magnitude and more impious, inasmuch as the evil permeates a greater number. The day of the imperial donative had arrived—whether it was the anniversary, or one established for the occasion by the emperor out of his own wickedness and craft—and the military orders had to be present, in order that everyone might receive a donative according to his rank and dignity. Again the scene of illiberality; again the tale of impiety. For he strives to spice his cruelty with a certain kindness, and to bait the foolishness of the soldiers with money, along with greed, with which the...
life of mortals is in great part filled. He therefore presided in splendor, celebrating the feast day in a splendid manner against piety, and being greatly elated in his mind by his machinations. You might suspect him to be some Melampus or Proteus: so much did he turn himself into all things, and so easily did he change himself into diverse forms. But what things were these that happened to him, which are worthy of lamentations and complaints, not only for those who were present then in the eyes of the discerning, but also for those who now hear of that spectacle?
B
83. Gold was proposed.
Gold was set forth, incense was set forth, the fire was near, the instigators were at hand. Moreover, how plausible was the appearance, so that this custom might seem to be of imperial largess, and indeed of an older and more honorable sort. What then? One had to burn incense over the fire, and in this way receive from the emperor the reward of destruction—a pittance for such a business—that is, the price of their own souls and of impiety against God. O miserable gain! O miserable reward! The whole army was for sale through a single trick and fraud; and those who had subdued the entire world with arms were falling for a little fire and gold, and for the sake of a little smoke, the greater part not even knowing their own slaughter, which was the most grievous thing of all. Someone approached to make a gain, and after the gain did not even possess himself; he worshipped the right hand of the emperor, and did not know that he was worshipping his own executioner. And to those who did know C there was no advantage, being once caught by the evil, and counting the original madness as a law that could not be broken. What myriads of Persians, what archers, what slingers, what iron-clad soldier—invulnerable from every side—what engines against walls, could have accomplished what a single hand, and a single moment, and a foul council achieved?D
LXXXIV. Hic narrationem quamdam admiscebo.
I shall mix into these things a story more pitiable and miserable than those mentioned. They say that some of those who had been deceived and circumvented through ignorance, after they had suffered this and had returned home, shared in the table with their messmates; and then, after the drinking had proceeded further, they went on to the customary cold draught, asA one who has suffered no grievous harm might do, and with the sign of the cross raised their eyes on high and called upon Christ. When one of their messmates marveled at this and asked, "What is this? Do you call upon Christ after your abjuration?" they were stunned by these words and said, "By what means have we abjured? And what is this strange talk?" He replied, "Because you offered incense to the fire: which is the same," he taught, "as denying Christ." Then, without a moment's delay, they sprang up from the banquet like men possessed and beside themselves, burning with zeal and indignation, and ran through the marketplace, shouting and saying: "We are Christians, we are Christians in our hearts; let every mortal hear, and before all, God, to whom we both live and shall die. We have not lied to you, Savior Christ; we have not abjured the blessed confession. If the hand has sinned, yet the mind has not followed. We have been B outwitted by the Emperor's deceit; we have not been wounded by gold. We put off the impiety; now we are cleansed by our blood." Afterward, they ran quickly to the Emperor and, casting the gold from them with very bold spirits, shouted in this manner: "We have not received gifts, Emperor, but have been condemned to death. We were not called for the sake of honor, but branded with ignominy. Grant this favor to your soldiers; sacrifice us to Christ, to whose empire alone we are subject. Requite fire with fire; for that ash, reduce us to ash. Cut off the hands which we wickedly stretched forth, and the feet with which we wickedly ran. Honor others with gold, those who shall not repent of having received it; for us, Christ is sufficient, whom we have instead of all." When they had spoken this prayer, and at the same time encouraged others to perceive the deception, to sober up from their drunkenness, to wake C up, and to make satisfaction to Christ with their own blood; then the Emperor, incensed with anger, avoided openly putting them to death, so as not to make them martyrs—as, regarding them, they were—but by consigning them to exile, he thus took his revenge and bestowed upon them the greatest benefit, that of standing far away from his own pollutions D and craftiness.
Note on columns 611-612
34, 35. But especially in Book XV, c. 5, where a passage occurs which may be seen to have been written to illustrate Gregory and to confirm the interpretation of the Basilian scholiast: "The Greeks, when wine unmixed is brought to the table during the meal, invoke the good god with a loud cry, venerating him who discovered it. And this was Bacchus. But when during the first cup after the meal they are served wine mixed with water, they shout with joy, 'Zeus the Savior'." In Book X, c. 6, he says: "Therefore, having prayed to the gods—as Plato says in his *Philebus*—let us mix the wine, whether it is Bacchus, or Vulcan, or whoever else among the gods has received this honor, when wine is mixed"; or, as is evident from another passage in Athenaeus and from the history which is related here, has received the honor for the discovery of the mixture. Here it is worth observing that at banquets they first drank wine unmixed and strong, but as the drinking proceeded, and after the meal, the cups were commonly mixed. [alt-version omitted]A [LXXXV] But although he was of such a temperament, and employed his malice and craftiness to many ends, yet, because his mind had no fixity, and was moved more by the impulse of the demon than by his own reasonings, he did not maintain his purpose to the end, nor keep the secret of his wickedness. B But just as the Etnaean fire is said to be hidden in the roots of Etna, overflowing from below and held back by force—whether it be some other such thing, or the panting breath of a giant undergoing punishment—at first indeed emitting a fearsome sound, and belching forth smoke from its summit as a sign of the approaching evil; but if by chance it should become more abundant and exuberant, and too rapid to be contained, then truly, being driven out by the violent heat from its recesses and tending upwards, it pours itself out over its vents and devastates some of the adjacent parts of the earth with that incredible and horrible flood: in the same way one might find that he, too, while for a time holding himself and his sophisticated theory in check, and harming our affairs through fraud, yet whenever the impotence of his anger became too redundant, could no longer suppress or disguise his inward perversity, but began to wage open and naked persecution against our pious and divine company.
C [LXXXVI] For, to pass over the edicts that were published against the holy houses—both those posted publicly and those carried out privately—and the plundering of votive offerings and money, which sprang not more from impiety than from greed; and the seizure of sacred vessels, which were handled insolently and contumeliously by profane hands; and the priests and the subject populace who were dragged away because of these things and tortured in the most bitter ways, and the columns smeared with blood, encircled and girded by the hands of those who were being scourged with whips; and those roaming archers throughout the cities and countrysides, more savage and more hot-headed than the one who ordered these things, as if they were subjugating us to his authority and empire in place of Persians and Scythians and other barbarians; to pass over, I say, all these things, D whose knowledge of the temper of the Alexandrians is so small? They, in addition to many other things which they insolently perpetrated against us, abusing the occasion without measure—being a people naturally seditious and manic—are said to have added even this to their impieties: that they filled our holy house with a double amount of blood, both that of the sacrifices and that of men.
And they accomplished these things under the leadership and auspices of one of the imperial philosophers, receiving fame for these things alone. A Who is ignorant of the conspiracy of the Heliopolitans? Who is ignorant of the madness of the Gazaeans, those who were admired and honored by him because they truly perceived his magnificence? Who is ignorant of the fury of the Arethusians, who, though formerly obscure and ignoble, from that time became most well-known and celebrated? For it is not only an excellent deed that brings fame, but also wickedness, which surpasses the renown of evil men.
LXXXVII. For they—to mention one example out of many, which is enough to strike horror even into the hearts of the ungodly—brought out into the midst, and stripped of their garments, virgins who were chaste and transcendent, such as had scarcely ever come into the sight of men, in order to first insult them with the very sight of it, and then to rend and dissect them—O Christ, how can I endure your patience of that time!—and it is said that some they consumed, having mangled them with their own teeth, and, as befitted their execrable fury, gorged themselves on their raw livers; and, once they had finished that food, they admitted to the common and customary fare: others, having sprinkled swine's fodder over their still-palpitating bowels and set the fiercest of pigs upon them, presented this spectacle, so that they might see the flesh being eaten and torn apart along with the barley—a mixed food, which was then seen and heard for the first time; and the architect of these crimes was worthy only to nourish his own demons with that, just as, as was fitting, he also nourished them with that blood and with the wound which he received in his heart; even if the wretches are devoid of perception regarding such things, and, by reason of their impiety, are not even in possession of their own minds.
LXXXVIII. And now, concerning that of the admirable B Marcus, and— C D
A who among us is so far removed from our world as to be unaware of him, or to be overtaken in his telling by another who recounts the story? This man, during the reign of the illustrious Constantius, when the authority granted at that time to the Christians allowed it, destroyed a certain dwelling-place of demons and brought many Christians over from the error of the Greeks unto salvation—not less by the splendor of his life than by the power of his words. For this, he had long been an object of wrath to the Arethusians, or rather to those among the Arethusians who were lovers and worshippers of demons. B But once the state of affairs for the Christians changed, and the things of the Greeks began to seethe, he did not escape the power of the moment. For the masses, even if for a time they restrain their impulses and desires—just like fire lying dormant in wood or a river held back by force—are accustomed, should they find the opportunity, to ignite and burst forth. Seeing therefore the movement of the people against him, and that they were neither conceiving nor threatening anything moderate, he at first planned to flee; not so much out of cowardice, but because of the commandment that bids us to flee from city to city, and to withdraw before those who persecute us. For it is right that Christians, even if they be exceeding brave and perseverant, should not look only to their own concerns, but also spare those who persecute them, so that, in so far as it lies within them, they do not contribute anything to the danger and condemnation of their enemies. C But after he perceived that many were being dragged and led away on his account, and that many others were in danger of their lives because of the cruelty of the persecutors, he could no longer endure to overlook the others facing danger while he himself remained in safety. And for this reason, he devised a plan which was most excellent and most philosophical: he returned from his flight and, freely offering himself to the people, surrendered to them to do with him as they willed, and he set himself in array against the difficulty of the times. What form of cruelty was missing there? What was not contrived, even more atrocious? For they were all bringing, one after another, their contribution to a single conspiracy of evil, not even respecting the philosophical nature of the man, if nothing else, of the calamities before them. And for this reason they were all the more enraged, as they regarded his presence not as bravery in the face of dangers, but rather as a display of contempt for them.
B 89. A certain aged priest—a voluntary athlete—was led through the middle of the city, a man venerable in age, and still more venerable in his way of life, held in reverence by all save his persecutors and executioners. He was led by all, of any age, condition, or fortune—all pressing in equally: men, women, the young, the old, those who managed public affairs, and those endowed with honors and dignities. For there was one contest proposed to all: to surpass one another in the cruelty of their rage against the old man. Each thought it a part of piety to inflict as many evils upon him as possible, and to overcome the aged champion who was struggling against the entire city. He was dragged through the squares and shoved into the sewers; he was pulled by his hair and by every other part of his body—contumely being mixed with his torment—by those who, in the rites of Mithras, are themselves justly punished with similar torments. He was tossed back and forth by boys like a pendulum, who received that noble body with styli and considered this tragedy to be a game. The calves of his legs were compressed by machines down to the very bones; his ears were severed with linen threads, and indeed with the thinnest and strongest ones. Meanwhile, he was hoisted aloft in a basket, drenched everywhere with honey and garum, and stung by bees and hornets in the midday heat, while the sun was shining most intensely. For the sun was melting his flesh, while it made the meal of those blessed—I certainly will not call them miserable—wrecks of flesh all the more sharp for them. At this point, indeed—for this is also worthy of being committed to writing—they say that this old man, who was a youth in the face of contests (for he did not abandon his cheerfulness of spirit even in his torments, but rather derived pleasure from the very tortures), uttered that celebrated and memorable saying: namely, that that sign pleased him, because he saw himself aloft, while they were cast down and lying on the ground. To such an extent was he superior to those by whom he was held, and so far was he from the things that cause pain, that he seemed as if he were a bystander watching another in danger, and as if he were taking the matter as a procession, and not as a calamity to himself.
A And yet, who with even a moderate amount of civility and humanity would not have respected or been moved by the old man's steadfastness? But the circumstances, and the impulse of the emperor, which demanded cruelty from the people, cities, and governors—even if it did not seem so to the majority of those who were ignorant of the depth of his malice—did not allow them to be lenient. This the firm and steadfast old man endured. And if you ask for the reason, it is this: so that he would not throw a single gold coin to the torturers. From this it can be clearly understood that he endured these torments for the sake of piety. For as long as the people of Arethusa had made an exorbitant estimation of the temple and were demanding the entire sum of gold, or were commanding him to rebuild the temple himself, his resistance could have appeared to be based on the impossibility of the command rather than the piety of his soul. But when, by his endurance, he gradually overcame them and was always subtracting something from the estimation, he finally brought the matter to such a point that what was demanded was very small, and something he could most easily pay. Then an equal contest took place between them: for them, to win by taking even a tiny amount, and for him, not to be defeated by paying even a small sum. Although there were many who were willing to contribute more, not only out of piety but also because of the man’s invincibility and impassivity, it was then clearly shown B that his struggle was not about money, but about piety.
91.
Are these, then, marks of leniency and gentleness, or are they rather signs of audacity and inhumanity? Let those who admire the "philosophical" emperor explain this to us. I, for my part, believe that there is no one at all who would be at a loss for a just and true answer. And I have not yet added that he was one of those who had saved that wicked and execrable man when his whole race was in danger, and had whisked him away by stealth—a fact for which he perhaps deserved to suffer these things, and even more, because in his ignorance he had saved such a great evil for the whole world. For this reason, the man who was then performing the duty of prefect (for he was a man who was a Hellene in religion, but in character was superior to a Hellene, and comparable to the most illustrious and praiseworthy men of both ancient and our own memory), finding the man’s C various tortures and endurance unbearable, said this to the emperor with boldness: "Are we not ashamed, O emperor, being so thoroughly defeated by all the Christians, that not even..."one old man have we been able to overcome, even though we have raged against him with every kind of torment?" And is it not a sign of extreme misery to have been defeated by one whom to conquer would be no great or honorable feat? Thus, as it appears, the prefects were ashamed of these same things, while the emperors took pride in them. What could be more wretched than this, not so much for those who suffered, as for those who inflicted these things? The deed of the Arethusians was such, and in such a state, that the cruelty of Echetus and Phalaris is small when compared to their savagery and inhumanity—or rather the cruelty of him by whose authority and incitement these things were committed; for the sprouts are of the seed, and the shipwrecks are of the wind.
C XCII. What other things, I ask, and how grave they are! Who will provide me with the leisure and tongue of Herodotus or Thucydides, so that I might hand down this man’s wickedness to future time, and record the history of this period as if inscribed upon a column for those to come? I will hold my tongue regarding Orontes and the nocturnal corpses, which this man used to hide alongside the emperor, being crowded by heaps of dead bodies and bringing about death in secret. For here it would be more fitting to use the words of the poet. I will also pass over the hollow and most remote parts of the palace, which were teeming in pits, wells, and trenches with evil treasures and mysteries; not only of boys and maidens cut open for the conjuring of spirits, for divination, and for D illicit sacrifices, but also of those who were in danger for the sake of piety. Let us pass over these, if it seems good, as even he was ashamed of them, he—
*If this man here defeat thee, and prove the better,* *I shall send thee to Epirus, casting thee into a black ship,* *To King Echetus, the destroyer of all mortals,* *Who shall shear off thy nose and ears with pitiless bronze.*
*If the son of Cronus has granted to thee to destroy all the Trojans,* *Driving them from me, to perform grim deeds across the plain.* *For my own lovely streams are filled with the dead,* *Nor can I any longer pour my flow into the divine sea,* *Being constricted by the dead; but thou slayest in secret.* *But come now and desist; awe possesses me, O Achilles.*
A This he did with some moderation, yet it is evident that he attempted to hide it, considering it unseemly that such an atrocity should be published abroad; for though the outrage against our people of Caesarea, men of great spirit and fervent in piety, thus brought low and insulted by him, perhaps deserves no reproach—he seemed, in just indignation at the fortune which had suffered misfortune in a time of prosperity, to have arrived at this retribution; since some allowance must be made for power when it dominates unjustly.
B
XCIII.
But who is ignorant of the case where a mixed multitude, having raged against the Christians and committed much slaughter, and threatened more—because the governor of the nation, walking a middle path between the times and the laws (for while he thought it necessary to serve the times, he also had a moderate respect for the laws), had led away many of the Christians but punished a few of the Greeks; and being thereafter accused and brought before the emperor, and having stood trial with great ignominy; and though he defended himself by the laws under whose authority he had been entrusted to judge, he came close to being led away to death, but in the end, having obtained leniency, was sentenced to exile? And what a wonderful and humane decision! For what is the gravity of the matter, says the just judge, who is by no means a persecutor of Christians, if one Gentile hand has destroyed ten Galileans? Is this not manifest C cruelty? Is this not an edict of persecution, and indeed much more explicit and formidable than those posted publicly? For what difference is there between proclaiming and announcing danger to the Christians, or showing that you take pleasure in the persecutors of Christians and counting it as a great crime to exercise any moderation toward them? For the will of the emperor is a law not written, hedged about by the patronage of empire and power, and far stronger than written laws which are not supported by such power.XCIV.
No, say those who reverence his deeds and fashion for us a new god, a sweet and humane one; but because he did not openly promulgate that the Christians should be vexed and suffer all things, whatever it pleased the persecutors to inflict, for this reason they acquit him of the crime of persecution. But no one ever called the hydra D gentle, because it offered nine heads instead of one, if there is any truth in the fable.Nor the Patarean Chimaera, A because it offered three and different ones, so that it might be more fearful; nor the Cerberus in Hades, because it had so many and similar ones; nor that sea-scourge, Scylla, because it had six in a circle and most repulsive ones. And yet they say that her upper parts were pleasant and human, and not unpleasing to behold—for she was a maiden and had some affinity with us—but that the heads which grew from her, dog-like and beast-like, were of no good, snatching up entire fleets and differing in nothing, as far as danger is concerned, from the opposing Charybdis. B Or would you also blame the arrows and stones of the archers and slingers, but not the slingers and archers themselves? Or the dogs of the hunters, the poisons of the sorcerers, and the horns and claws of the butting cattle and tearing beasts—while those who use them are placed beyond blame and are not to be participants in the guilt of those things which they have committed? These would truly be proofs of great stupidity, and the work, without doubt, of a sophist who undertakes to defend his own vices and cover the truth with the powers of eloquence. But there is no way he can hide himself, not even if he turns himself every which way, and through his craftiness changes into every shape, and puts on the "helmet of Hades," as the saying goes, or steals himself away with the ring of Gyges and the turning of the bezel. On the contrary, the more he tries to slip away and escape, the more he is caught and convicted before the tribunal of truth C and before the most prudent judges of these matters, since he is the one doing and committing these things which not even he himself could argue were done justly. So easy a thing to overcome is wickedness, and from every side it fights against itself.
95.
Nor should it be thought that the things which he was doing were of such a kind and so far removed from imperial nobility and magnificence; whereas those things which he was planning to do were more humane and more worthy of an emperor. It would indeed be a thing of great value, if they were not even more inhuman than those already mentioned. For just as when a dragon is set in motion... DA moving away, they were much more inhuman and cruel. For just as when a dragon begins to stir, its scales part of them already bristle, part of them bristle more, part are soon to bristle, and part, even if they chance to be quiet for the moment, cannot but eventually be moved—or, if you prefer, like lightning, some parts are already occupied, while others are first stained with blackness until the evil also pervades them—so too were other things being enacted by him iniquitously and wickedly, while others were merely shadowed forth by the hopes and threats he aimed at us; and these things were so absurd and foreign to established custom that it could occur to his mind alone to devise them and to wish to carry them into act, although there had been many persecutors and enemies of the Christians before him.
B For what neither Diocletian, who first infested the Christians, nor Maximian, who succeeded him and surpassed him, nor Maximin—who, as he was later in time, was also superior in the atrocity of the persecution (the tokens of which, the wounds once received for this cause, are still borne by statues publicly displayed, marking with eternal infamy those foul mutilations of the body)—ever thought of, these things he indeed meditated, as those who were his confidants and witnesses tell us; but he was restrained and held back by the kindness of God and by the tears of the Christians, which many shed in great abundance, having this as their only medicine against the persecutor. For he determined to deprive the Christians of all liberty and confidence, and to exclude them from all assemblies, C markets, public gatherings, and even their courts of law. For it was not to be allowed for anyone to use these things unless he had first burned incense before the altars placed in front, and had paid such a price for so small a matter. O laws, and lawgivers, and kings! Who, just as the beauty of the heavens, and the light of the sun, and the diffusion of the air lie open to all as a common and abundant beneficence, so too have set forth the participation in the laws to all free men, equal and of the same honor; yet he intended to deprive the Christians of this, so that those oppressed by violence might neither be permitted to obtain justice, nor might those suffering loss of property, or any other injury, small or great, be permitted to seek aid from the laws—but D instead that they should be outcasts, and put to death, and almost...
denied even the breath of life. These things, as they brought greater glory and confidence before God to those who suffered, so they brought greater iniquity and infamy upon those who perpetrated them.
B XCVII. Furthermore, how clever and acute is the reasoning of that executioner and patron, that transgressor of laws and legislator, or, to speak more aptly, that enemy and avenger, as our discourse puts it! For our law ordains that we should not avenge an injury received, nor go to law, nor possess anything at all, nor call anything our own; but that we should live elsewhere, and count present things as empty and vain, and hold them for nothing. It is not permitted to anyone to return evil for evil, nor, if someone should strike one cheek, to spare the other, but even to offer it to the striker, and over and above the cloak, to yield up the tunic as well. He will perhaps add that it also prescribes that we should even pray for those from whom we receive injury, and wish every good thing for those who persecute us. And why should he not have known these things accurately, who was once a reader of the divine oracles, and had been exalted and honored with the dignity of the great sanctuary, and who used to honor the martyrs with shrines and temples?
C XCVIII. I marvel at this first of all: how it is that, while he was diligently and accurately conversant with these books, he did not read that, or else deliberately passed it over: *The wicked shall miserably perish*. That is, whosoever has abjured the divine Power, and what is more grave, harasses those who persist in His confession, and casts them into such calamities as he himself deserved to fall into. Indeed, if, just as he prescribes to us that we should be such as these, and abide by the established laws, he can also demonstrate that it is commanded and enjoined upon him to be most wicked, or that this seems honest and noble to his gods—and since habits are divided into virtue and vice, that the better part has been assigned and attributed to us, while the worse has been cast upon them: let him say this, and thus we shall win the cause, with our very enemies, those who persecute our affairs, as witnesses. But if they themselves also claim for themselves some measure of probity and lenity, if not in deeds, at least in word; and if they are not so shameless, even though they be very wicked D and delight in wicked gods, that they would assert that wickedness belongs to them as a kind of lot—for...
A show me how, or where, it is just that we, even when suffering, should endure it with patience, while they—who do not even spare those who show them mercy—should be spared? For consider it thus: since there have not been wanting times when we have flourished in power, while to you, in the turns of time, these things have come and shifted in various ways, what like this have your followers ever suffered at the hands of Christians, such as Christians have often suffered at yours? Of what freedom have we deprived you? Against whom have we stirred up raging mobs? Against whom have our prefects acted, carrying out even more than they were commanded? To whom have we brought danger concerning their lives? Or rather, whom have we removed from public offices and other honors which are due to the most excellent men? And, to sum it up, upon whom have we inflicted anything similar to those many things which have been in part carried out by you, and in part threatened? But not even you would say this, you who are accustomed to make a charge against us of our gentleness and humanity.
B
XCIX.
Furthermore, how do you not perceive this, O wisest and most intelligent of all men, who would compel the Christians to the peak and summit of virtue, that in our laws, some things impose a necessity of obedience, and cannot be omitted without danger, while others do not bind by necessity, but are placed within the choice and will; and thus they have this principle, that those who keep them are rewarded with honor and prizes, while those who fail to fulfill them fear no danger? For if it were possible for all to be best, and to reach the highest pinnacle of virtue, this certainly would be most glorious and perfect. But since divine things are separated from human, and some excel in every kind of virtue, while others think they are doing well if they even reach a middle ground, what is your reasoning in legislating these things which are not for all, or in considering those who do not keep them as condemned? For just as he who is not worthy of punishment is not immediately worthy of praise and commendation, in the same way, neither is he who is not worthy of praise and commendation immediately worthy of punishment; but we must keep ourselves within the bounds of our philosophy and of human strength, and thus demand what is done rightly and according to virtue.C. But I must again direct my speech to those...
things, and I must endeavor to plead for them to the utmost of my power; for although there are many grave charges for which he justly deserves to be hated, there is nothing in which he appears to have acted more lawlessly than in this. And let everyone who delights in words and the studies of doctrine, and who is devoted to this pursuit—a number to which I do not deny that I also belong—be indignant with me. For I have left all other things to those who desire them: wealth, nobility of birth, glory, power, and the rest that belongs to this earthly display and to vain, dream-like pleasure. But I embrace words alone, and I do not complain of the toils borne on land or sea which have secured them for me. And would that strength of words might be with me and my friends; for this is what I have embraced, and still embrace, next to the thing which is first—that is, next to divine things and to hopes remote from the senses of the eyes. Wherefore, if, as Pindar says, “his own burden presses upon everyone,” then it is truly necessary for me to hold discourse concerning these matters; and it is above all just, as I know not if any other thing is, to render thanks to words with the discourse which has been instituted for the sake of words.
A CI. Whence, therefore, did this come into your mind, O most light and insatiable of all men, that you should deprive Christians of their words? For this was of the number of those things which were not set down in threats, but were already decreed and sanctioned by law. Whence, and for what cause? What logical Mercury, as you yourself would say, put this into your mind? What evil Telchines and envious demons? If you please, we shall also provide the cause of this thing. For it was fitting that, since you were attempting many impious crimes, you should finally be driven to this, and should clearly run into your own self, so that in the very thing in which you thought you had the greatest reason to boast, you should imprudently play the fool the most, and should incur the mark of brute stupidity. Answer me, then: What does this decree of yours mean? And what reason moved you to think that there should be some innovation concerning words? For if you appear to bring forward anything just, we shall indeed be grieved, but we shall by no means reproach you. For, just as we have learned to conquer with reason, so we have also learned to be honorably and B laudably conquered.
CII. They are ours, he says, and ours is the HelDlenic…
way of venerating the gods; but yours is stupidity and rustic ignorance; and your wisdom consists in nothing above the command "Believe." Yet, I suppose, those among you who follow the philosophy of Pythagoras would not mock this; for them, the saying "He himself said it" is the first and greatest of all doctrines—which they hold to be more choice than the Golden Verses, or rather, the Lead ones. For after that first and (to those initiated into his philosophy) most celebrated philosophy of silence, that they might learn the measures of speech by practicing silence, it was the custom and rule, they say, that whenever they were questioned on any of the doctrines and a reason was requested, they should answer nothing else but that it had been so decided by Pythagoras; and the "reason" for the doctrine was just that it had occurred to him, exempt and free from any examination or scrutiny. And so, "He himself said it" comes to the same thing as our "Believe," even if you never cease to mock and disparage it with your syllables and words. C For our argument desires that it not be permitted for us to distrust what has been said by God-bearing men, but that the trustworthiness of those men should be the proof of the word, being stronger than any power of logic or counter-argument.
CIII. But even let this be open to the insults of our detractors; how, then, will you demonstrate that the words belong to you? And if they are yours, how, according to your own legislation and senselessness, is it not permitted for us to share in them? For whose are the words by which men "Hellenize," and in what sense is "Hellenizing" spoken and understood? For I wish—since you are a captious quibbler over ambiguous terms—to define for you the force of the name, and the things that are signified by it: whether they are different things under one designation, or the same things under different designations, D or different things under different ones. For you will say that this belongs either to the religion, or clearly to the race and to those who first discovered the power of the language. If, then, to the religion, show where and among which of the priests "Hellenizing" is lawful, just as sacrificing is also [lawful], and in what places, even in theaters and comedies.
A For it is not the case that the same things apply to all, nor all things to one, nor in the same way, as seems proper to the Hierophants 20 among you, and to those who are experts in the theory of sacrifices. For where, as is the case for the Lindians, is it considered pious to curse the Buthoenas 21, and for this to be an honor to the god—to heap insults upon him? Or, as with the Taurians, to murder strangers; or, with the Lacedaemonians, to be flogged with rods at the altar of Diana; or, with the Phrygians, to be castrated while charmed by the music of pipes, and to be unmanned by dancing; or, among others, to practice pederasty, or among others, to engage in prostitution, or—lest I recount each individually—all the other things usually performed in the various mysteries; is it thus specifically and exclusively the property of one of the gods or demons to "Hellenize"? And yet, even if this were the case 25, it is not yet clear that it was something "Hellenic," or that it was set apart as the common property of any one of the gods or demons among you, just as many other things have been decreed as common matters for sacrifice. B
CIV. But if you will not say this, but rather claim this language as your own, and for that reason remove us far from it, as if from a paternal inheritance, and as if it had nothing to do with us, first of all I do not see by what reasoning you could do this, or how you could refer this to the demons. For it does not follow that, if it so happens that the same people are both "Hellenizing" in language and also in religion, that for that reason the discourses of that religion are also [ours], and that on that account we should be justly expelled from it. For they do not even agree that such a conclusion can be drawn—those among you who have written on the art of dialectic. For it is not the case that if two people are occupied with the same thing, both are therefore the same thing; for by the same reasoning, if we were to imagine the same person to be both a goldsmith and a painter, the melting of gold would not result in painting, nor painting in the melting of gold, such that they would encompass one another: for these things are surely too frivolous and absurd.
CV. C Furthermore 31, I will ask you, my friend of the Hellenes and lover of letters, whether you will keep us away from all "Hellenizing," for example, from even those common and pedestrian words, and those in the usage of the multitude, or only from the more elegant and sublime ones, which no one, unless endowed with excellent learning, could aspire to 32? For if [you mean] from this latter kind of "Hellenizing," what is the basis for the partition—that one thing [is] the terrible 34
[words like] "clanging," "I ween," "methinks," "hither," and "somehow," belong to the dialect alone, while the rest are to be cast away into the Cynosarges, as A bastard children were of old? But if the meanness and lack of ornament of the speech belong equally to "Hellenizing," why do you not deprive us of these as well, and, in a word, of the entire Greek language, whatever it may be and however it may happen to exist? This would have been more humane on your part, and would have completely avoided your own barbarism.
CVI. For it is as follows—if I may philosophize on these matters for you more loftily and perfectly:
If indeed there are certain divine voices that proceed from vocal organs and are poured through the air and flow into the ears—voices superior and more significant than our own (for I laugh at you grave men, such as you wish to be thought, [holding in such high regard] these words: Moly, and Xanthus, and Chalcis), or if they have intercourse with one another via bare thoughts and images, it is not for us to say. But of our own, the matter is as follows: B Speech is not merely the property of those who first discovered it, but of all who partake in it; nor is any art or pursuit whatever something of which you might think you have the exclusive sense. Rather, just as in artistic and musical harmony, one sound [is] for one of the strings, either tightened or relaxed, yet all belong to the one arranger and craftsman, all tending toward the one beauty of the harmony; so too in these things, the craftsman and creator, the Word, has set forth one person as the discoverer of one pursuit or art, and another as the discoverer of another, yet has placed all things in common for all who desire them, binding our life together with the social and philanthropic tie, and making it more civilized.CVII. Is "Hellenizing" your own? Tell me, what of it? Is not the alphabet from the Phoenicians? Or, as some say, from the Egyptians? Or C from the Hebrews, who are even wiser than these, who [received] the law inscribed on tablets by the very hand of God?
Is speaking Attic yours? Is using pebbles and counting and calculating with your fingers, and measures and weights, and even before these, military training and warfare, whose are they? Are they not the Euboeans'? If, that is, the inventor of many things, Palamedes, was—as he was—a Euboean, and because of this was envied, and even summoned to judgment for his wisdom, and put to death by those who had undertaken the expedition against Ilium? What then? If the Egyptians, and the Phoenicians, and the Hebrews, whom we use for our own education, or if those who inhabit the island of Euboea A should claim these things as their own, according to your principles, what shall we do? Or what plea can we make to them, held fast and bound by our own laws? Will it not be necessary for us to be completely deprived of these things? And will not the same thing happen to us as to the jackal—that is to say, that once the borrowed feathers are stripped from us, we shall be naked and shameful?
CVIII
Are the poems yours? But what of that? Are they not rather that old woman's, who, when a certain person walking with a hurried gait from the opposite direction struck her shoulder—for so the story goes—and she later assailed him with reproaches, poured forth a poem in the vehemence of her impulse; and since this greatly pleased the young man, and was more carefully constrained into rhythm, it created this admirable poetry for you? What of the rest? For if you boast of your arms, from whom, pray, O bravest of men, did your arms come? Is it not from the Cyclopes, from whom the smith's art was born? But if the purple appears to you to be a great, or rather the greatest, thing, from which you emerged as a wise man and a promulgator of such laws, what then? Will you not attribute this to the Tyrians, from whom came that pastoral dog, who, with its mouth eaten by the murex and its lips stained with blood, revealed the flower to the shepherd, and through this B delivered to you emperors that garment, mourning for the wicked and arrogant? But what are we to say if the Athenians bar us from agriculture and ship-building, recounting the Demeters and Triptolemuses, and the dragons, and besides these the Celei and Icarii, and all the mythology concerning them—which has even made these C things for you a matter to be celebrated in a shameful and obscene mystery, and one truly worthy of the night?CIX
And, to pass over other things, let me ascend to the very head of your madness, or rather of your impiety,A that is, to be initiated and to initiate, and to worship gods, whence did this flow to you? Does not the name itself show it to be from the Thracians? Is sacrificing not from the Chaldeans, or from the Cypriots? Is astronomy not a Babylonian invention? Is geometry not from the Egyptians? Is magic not from the Persians? And the divination that occurs in dreams, from whom do you hear it comes, if not from the Telmessians? And the art of augury from whom, if not from the Phrygians, who were the first to observe most curiously the flight and motions of birds? And, not to be long-winded, whence do you have each individual thing? Is it not one thing from each? And when all these have come together into one, has there not been formed a single mystery of superstition? What then? Shall we accept that, once all things have returned to their first discoverers, we possess nothing of our own except vice, and this innovation regarding the Divine? For B you were the first of the Christians to devise a rebellion against the Master, just as, they say, slaves once did against the Scythians. Yet it would have been worth much if this wicked organization had been dissolved by you, according to your own terms and laws, so that we might have been free from such matters, and it might have been granted to see the Roman Empire return to the ancient C prosperity, being free from all civil strife; for this is far more to be avoided and more to be feared than war from without, in as much as it is more horrible to consume one's own flesh than that of strangers. D CX. But if these things seem to you to be a matter of wickedness, and you established that it would be wiped out and destroyed, so that, having been freed from all affairs, you might live a joyful and blessed life, as when paganism flourished of old, and not one agitated by any dissensions due to the contrary religion of the Christians, etc. Let us be permitted to bring forward a fourth interpretation. Primarily, indeed, we think these words: "for you were the first of the Christians," etc., are an interpretation of the preceding expression, which surely no one would deny. Then, with this interpretation, as if closed in a parenthesis, and having been recalled to the limits of his own discourse in its comparison, the orator proceeds. For what he just now called "one mystery of superstition," he now calls a "wicked agmen" [army/procession], and that body and structure of Greek superstitions is to be dissolved, either by Julian himself or by the laws of Julian himself, if indeed he had restored each thing to its own authors and inventors, or if they themselves had reclaimed them by their own right, just as Julian reclaimed the Greek language for himself. By which Gregory shows how insipid and inconsistent was Julian's mind and reasoning. Nor can the meaning of this passage any longer be ambiguous, nor can the sense of these words be in doubt: "according to your own laws and rules," that is, according to the reasoning and principles of Julian, which he used against the Christians, in order to interdict them from literature. With this interpretation, everything is plain. Furthermore, we have said concerning Julian, or by others, that the procession of superstitions is to be dissolved; and the sequence and argumentation of the discourse persuade us of this.
A Since it is disguised and far removed from imperial magnificence, come, I shall present to you things even more cunning than these. For seeing that our doctrine is great in its dogmas and in the testimonies from above, and that it is the same both old and new—old, I say, in the predictions and the flashing movements B of the Divinity; and new in the later advent of God and the miracles that were designated both from it and around it—and furthermore, that it is greater and more recognizable than the forms of the Church that were handed down to us and have been kept to this day; that not even this might escape his malicious craftiness, what does he contrive, and what does he do? He imitates Rabsaces the Assyrian, who was campaigning for Sennacherib the king of the Assyrians. This man, having marched against Judea, and besieging Jerusalem with a great force and hand, and sitting down before the city, since B he was neither able to take the city by strength nor was anything inside being betrayed to him by traitors, undertook to win over the city with gentle words and in the vernacular tongue. When the besieged understood this, they first requested this: that he speak to them in the Syrian language, and not in Hebrew, lest perhaps they might be furtively seduced into slavery by the sweetness of his speech.
CXI. The same man, therefore, thinking these things here too, was prepared to establish schools in every city, along with pulpits and official seats and lower benches; both readings and expositions of Hellenic dogmas, as many as regulate character, and as many as occupy themselves with the treatment of more abstruse matters; C also a form of alternating prayers, and of imposing penances upon those who sin according to the measure of the offense; and rites of initiation and perfection, and all things that are undoubtedly of our discipline. He was also establishing inns and hospitals, and monasteries as well as convents for virgins, and at the same time adding humanity and benevolence toward the poor, which existed both in other respects and in the letters of recommendation by which we send those in need from nation to nation—things which he had especially admired in our own affairs.
CXII. These things, indeed, the new dogmatist D and sophist was planning in his mind. But that his attempt was empty and vain, and that the man's undertaking did not come into effect, I do not know...
whether it is a gain for us, who have been delivered from him and his crimes more quickly A than those who lived until the dream-like vision; for it would have been shown what are the movements of men, and what are the imitations of apes. For even these are said to imitate certain of the human enticements that are craftily set before them; yet they are also caught by these, for their imitation cannot reach our cleverness. For not more than the Thessalian mare, and the Laconian woman, and the men who drink of Arethusa—I mean the Sicilians, as the oracle about them says—possess the choice part of those of the same race, do such customs and ordinances B belong to the Christians of what is most fitting; and such that they could be emulated by none others of those who wish to follow us; since such things have prevailed not so much by human inventions as by divine power and the firmness of time.
CXIII. But nothing would be more useful than to contemplate and learn this wonderful fiction, or rather transformation, of theirs as if upon a stage, what their manner of teaching would be, and what the goal of their assemblies; so that, as Plato says regarding the city in speech, we may see their design in motion. For since all philosophy is divided into these two, C I mean contemplation and action; and while the former is higher, though harder to judge, whereas the latter is humbler, yet more useful; with us both flourish through the help of the other. For we make contemplation a companion on the journey toward things above, and action a companion of contemplation.
Indeed, it is impossible for those who have not lived wisely to be possessors of wisdom. But regarding them, I know not which will be thought more ridiculous and feeble: that they do not possess the power of their constitution from divine inspiration, not unlike those roots which, because they are not fixed in a stable place, are carried off by the waves. A Let us, therefore, cast ourselves into their blessed company, so that, just as they themselves play and tell myths—as is accustomed to happen in most theatrical performances—we too may play along a little; and to the command to rejoice with them that rejoice, and to weep with them that weep, let this also be added: that we endure to trifle with them that trifle. For even the poets very often recognize laughter in tears.
CXIV. Let the theater, therefore, be well prepared
—for I know not by what other name they would order their own temple to be called—let the heralds cry out; let the people gather; let those preside who are preeminent either in age, and gray hair, and integrity of life, or those who are conspicuous for the splendor of their lineage and glory, and for that wisdom which is woven together with earthly things, B and which possesses more of delight than of true piety; for we shall grant this to their choosing. What will they do next? Let them appoint their own presiding officers and prelates. Purple will adorn them, and ribbons, and the bloom and beauty of garlands; since in many places I have known gravity and majesty to be affected by them, and that they strive to excel private individuals and the common people—as if, forsooth, what is common and lowly comes easily into contempt, whereas what is lofty and swollen with pride, and difficult to attain, brings authority. Will they humble themselves even to us here, and judge that sublimitatem—not in gesture and external appearance, but in character—is what is appropriate for them, after our own likeness? C For we indeed care very little for external appearance, as though it were a painting; but we put much more effort and study into the inner person, and we strive primarily to draw the spectator toward those things which are discerned by the mind, and in this way, we instruct the masses even more effectively.CXV.
And thus let these matters stand. What, then, is to follow?Will you present them to the interpreters of divine oracles—as you yourselves would call them—and will you unroll for them books both theological and ethical? Which books, pray tell me, and by whom? It would be a fine thing for the *Theogony* of Hesiod to be sung to them, with its wars and tumults, its Titans and Giants, along with their terrifying names and deeds: Cotus, Briareus, Gyges, Enceladus, your dragon-footed ones, your thunder-wielding gods, and the islands hurled upon them—weapons and tombs at once for those who met them in battle—and their bitter offspring and complications, Hydras, Chimaeras, Cerberus, Gorgons, the very collection of all evil. Let these be the noble things of Hesiod set before the ears of the audience. Let Orpheus come forward with his lyre and his song that draws all things to itself, and let him thunder forth to Zeus those great and extraordinary words and concepts of your theology:
"Most glorious Zeus, greatest of gods, who wallows in dung, As much of sheep, as much of horses, as much of mules,"
so that from this, I suppose, the life-giving and life-bearing power of God might be demonstrated, for it could not be shown in any other way; nor should one spare even other such grandiloquence:
"Thus the goddess spoke, and uncovered both her thighs, To initiate her lovers,"
which to this day are still performed through signs and gestures. Beyond all this, let Phanes and Ericapaeus come forward, and he who devours all the other gods and then brings them forth again, that he might become the father of gods and men. Let these things be pressed upon the marvelous listeners of [this] theology, and let allegories and portentous interpretations be devised for them; and let the discourse, wandering far from the matters at hand, be carried off into precipices, into a contemplation that has no firm standing.
CXVI. And where will you place Homer, that great playwright—shall I call him a writer of comedies or tragedies?—for your gods? For you will find both in his marvelous poems: some things worthy of tragedy, others of laughter. For it is truly a matter of no small concern to contemplate how Oceanus is to be reconciled with Tethys through the help of Hera, who is adorned in the manner of a harlot—since there was danger to the whole universe if they were to practice temperance for a time—or whether it is necessary for the dry nature and the moist to be reconciled, lest the whole be confounded by the excess of one or the other; or do you imagine something else that is more absurd than these? And what is the marvelous union of the cloud-gatherer and the noble Hera, when it induces him to behave indecently in the middle of the day?
Even if the poets flatter him with their meters, spreading out a dewy lotus and making saffron and hyacinth bloom from the earth, whence come these things, and what is the account of them? And how is it that the same Hera in your view, the sister and spouse of the great Zeus, is now A suspended in the ether and clouds, dragged down by iron anvils and bound in golden shackles—she, the white-armed and rosy-fingered, so that even when the gods strive to intercede for her, such human suffering is not without risk—while now she assumes the entire girdle of love and entices Zeus with such wanton adornment that he himself confesses all his former loves for all women to be far inferior to this one? And what is this fear, that because of the gods being stirred up for the Laconian adulteress and heaven thundering, the seat of the earth might be rent asunder, the sea might be overturned, and the kingdom of Hades might be exposed, and those things which had been covered for a long time might come into the open? What, furthermore, is that nod of the dark brows and the shaking of the divine locks, which makes the whole Olympus tremble? What, too, is that Mars who is wounded or locked in a bronze prison? He, I say, the uncouth lover of the golden Aphrodite and the careless adulterer, who was caught and bound by the lame Vulcan, gathered a theater of the gods to witness his own indecency, and was released for a small price?
C CXVII. Since all these things, and more than these, are so cleverly and variously composed and so altogether extraordinary, who among you is so great and lofty, and truly equal to Zeus in counsel, that he can, by means of reasons that are raised above the clouds of contemplation and that transcend the capacity and measure of our mind, render them honest and seemly? And indeed, if these things are true, let them not be ashamed, but rather let them boast, or prove that they are free from such turpitude. For what need is there for them to have recourse to myth, as if to a covering for their turpitude? For myth is not the refuge of those who are confident, but of those who are afraid and turning their backs. But if they are false, first let them show us the naked theologians, D so that we may enter into a discussion with them. Next, let them say whether it is not foolish to boast of those things as firm and sure, while being ashamed of the very same things as fictitious and fabulous; and to take things that might have been obscure and unknown to the multitude—for not everyone possesses learning—and to publish them to the eyes of all in the form of fabrications and masks, and, most terrible of all, with
so much financial loss, in temples, on altars, with foundations 45, with votive offerings, and with immensely expensive sacrifices, when it is possible to be pious without financial loss, yet one prefers to be impious and suffer loss? [657, B] [658, A]
CXVIII.
But if they say that these are merely the fabrications and nonsense of poets, who make use of two things for this—namely, meter and myth—in order to make poetry pleasant and to charm the ear, while believing that there is a more mysterious and deeper meaning stored within them, accessible only to the few among the wiser, look at how simply and justly I shall discuss these matters. First of all, how is it that they praise those who offer insults to the gods they worship 47, and deign to grant them almost divine honors, for whom it would have been sufficient gain simply not to have to pay the penalty for impiety? For if, for those who blaspheme even against one 48 of their gods in private and in a small way 49, the penalty 50 established by the laws is death, what should those have suffered who let loose their poetry upon all of them at once and in public, and concerning the most shameful matters, and handed down their comedy for a long time? Furthermore, this also deserves consideration: there are, I do not deny, certain hidden discourses among us, but what is the nature 51 of their duality, and what is their power? It is not the case that the external representation is indecorous, while the hidden meaning is marvelous 52 and brilliant for those who are initiated into the depths; rather, just as a beautiful and unapproachable body is not covered by a vile garment, so too, as it at least seems to me, not even the indications 53 and impressions of divine things ought to be indecorous and unworthy of the things being signified, nor such that men would be vexed by the things said about them; but they ought to possess either the greatest beauty or, at the very least, be free of the most shameful qualities, so that the one might gladden the wiser, while the other does not 55 harm the majority.CXIX.
[657, C] [658, C] For you, however, neither is the meaning credible, and what is presented to the eyes is destructive. What kind of prudence is it to lead one through mire 56 towards the city, or to strive for the harbor through reefs and underwater rocks? For what will come 57 of this, and what will be the end of these arguments? You will indeed utter nonsense and allegorize your own misfortunes or fantasies; but there will be no one to believe you, for what is seen is more persuasive. You have not, therefore, benefited the listener, and you have destroyed the spectator along with the appearance.and has come to pass. A But for them, the theoretical topic is such, and so far removed from its premises, that one could sooner join all things together and bring into one that which is parted by a long interval, or compose and harmonize these things and affirm them to be by the same man—I refer to their myths and their shrouds—than bring these into agreement.
CXX. What, moreover, would you say regarding that part of their discipline that deals with morals? From whence, and from what starting points, and using what arguments could they be able to mold them toward virtue and make them worthy of the highest praise for their exhortations? For instance: concord is an excellent thing, and it is an excellent thing for cities, and peoples, and families, and individual men to be joined together in B equal agreement of mind, following the law and order of nature, which has both divided and bound all things together, and has made this entire mass a single universe out of many things. By what examples will they teach this? By recounting the wars of the gods, and their dissensions, and their rebellions, and the multitude of evils which they themselves both possess and inflict upon one another, privately and publicly, with which almost all history and poetry is filled? They would more quickly render the peaceful warlike, and the wise senseless and demented, through such examples, than they would render the bold and foolish moderate and prudent. For whom, even when the enticements of vice are removed, it is difficult to turn away from evil and move from the worse part to the better, who, I ask, would persuade these men to be gentle and self-restrained when they have the gods as leaders and patrons of their vicious passions? C Where it is not only not considered shameful to be vicious, but even honorable (inasmuch as one adopts some god as a defender and patron who labors under this vicious passion), and it is adorned with altars and sacrifices and has obtained legitimate license? For this is the most indignant thing of all, that things which are punished by the laws, these they worship as divine: such is the abundance and amplitude of injustice among them.
CXXI. Secondly, let honor and reverence toward parents be proposed to them: and [the principle] that, immediately after the First Cause, the cause of one's birth must be honored and venerated: let both reason teach this, and let theology persuade it. But how would Saturn D not persuade this, when he mutilated the procreative parts of Coelus, so that he might not beget gods, and gave them to the waves to create a god, the offspring of foam?
Jupiter A against Saturn, rising up by the example of his father—that sweet stone, I say, and cruel tyrant-slayer; or if there is anything else of this sort concerning the honor of their progenitors that is contained in their volumes? Let a third thing be theirs: to despise and spurn riches, and not to seek gain from every source, nor to accept unjust acquisition as a pledge of calamity. How then will Lucrius be established for them, and the money-bag be brought forward, and the thievish power and faculty of the god be honored—and that saying, "Without money Phoebus does not utter prophecies," and that nothing is more precious than an obol? For these are their grave and venerable opinions.
CXXII. What more? Let them teach modesty, let them urge continence. And he who persuades is close at hand—Jupiter, of course, who, on account of his love for women, B assumes any shape whatsoever, and becomes the most beloved amorous eagle for the Phrygian youths (so that the gods might feast most pleasantly, being served wine by the catamites of Jupiter); and that Hercules, the "three-evening" hero, struggling in one night with the fifty daughters of Thestius, and completing this thirteenth labor—which I do not know why it was omitted from the number of his other contests. Let Mars restrain his anger, Bacchus his drunkenness, Diana her hatred of strangers, the oblique one—their own prophet—his deceit, that god who limps and leans on thin, spindly legs restrain his immoderate laughter while the other gods are grieving; let Jupiter restrain his gluttony, running off for a rich banquet to the blameless Ethiopians together with the other demons; and C the "Ox-feaster," who used force against a plowman and devoured a yoke-ox, and took his name from the deed; and finally all of them, rushing with great haste toward the odors of meat and libations.
CXXIII. But can these things apply to our religion and doctrine, with whom the law and rule of friendship is each person himself, and to wish for one’s neighbors the same things as for oneself? And with whom crime is not merely the having committed an evil, but even having come near to evil—so that even the desire itself is punished almost as if it were the act; with whom the pursuit of modesty is so great that even the eye is bridled and restrained, and the murderous and deadly hand is kept so far away that even anger itself is disciplined; and perjury is considered so terrible and monstrous, D that it would even render ambiguous oracles, which have led very many into error and the greatest calamities.
it is considered bitter and nefarious, that even swearing should be forbidden to us alone? But as for money, for many it never existed at all; many, B on the other hand, for this very reason gladly possessed much, that they might despise much, cultivating extreme poverty as if it were the sum of all riches. Furthermore, having cast aside the belly, as a bitter and detestable master and the mother of all evils, to the vulgar crowd—it would not be a great thing to say of them that they exert such force upon themselves as to appear almost devoid of flesh itself, consuming that which is mortal by that which is immortal; and this is their one law of virtue: not to succumb even to the slightest vices, and those neglected by all others. And there is nothing more excellent or distinguished than the fact that, while others punish the finished acts of crimes according to the laws, we strike at the very principles, and like a certain evil and hardly restrainable torrent, we check it far in advance.
C 124. Where, I ask, and among what men, is it ordained that those who are reviled should bless, that those who are blasphemed should entreat—since accusation does not harm us any more than the truth does—that those who suffer persecution should yield, that those who are despoiled of their clothes should strip themselves further, that those who are met with curses and execrations should pray for those who curse them? In a word, to conquer audacity and importunity with kindness, and to make those who do injustice better through our patience? And even if we should grant that they restrain vice with their painted precepts, how in the end could they have arrived at the stage of our virtue and teaching, when we judge them—not that they make progress in virtue, nor that they become new men out of old, but that they remain in the same state—to be stagnant in vice? For the same thing would happen to us as to tops, which we see spinning in a circle, but not advancing, and unmoved, so to speak, D while rotated by the force of the lash. Therefore, it behooves us to have such an established way of life that we partly perform virtues, partly apply ourselves to them, and partly eagerly desire them, until we have arrived at that end and deification, for which we were created and toward which we hasten, if indeed we are of a lofty mind and one that penetrates on high, and hope for something worthy of the magnificence of God.
ORATION V.
Second Invective against Emperor Julian.
I. And indeed, the first contest of my words is completed and finished. For the man’s A first labor has been accomplished and brought to an end; for—