On Saint Athanasius (two books) 1.15–1.22

Meanwhile, as I said above, see what Saul says when he is in his right mind, and how, when he becomes senseless, he thirsts for the blood of David, a righteous and innocent man: “And it came about,” it says, “when David had finished speaking these words to Saul, that Saul said: Is this your voice, my son David? And Saul cried out and wept. And he said to David: You are more righteous than I, for you have repaid me good, but I have repaid you evil. And you have told me today the good you have done me, how the Lord shut me up in your hands and you did not kill me. As if a man should find his friend and send him on a good way. And may the Lord repay you good for what you have done to me today. And now, behold, I know that you shall surely reign, and the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand. And now swear to me by the Lord that you will not root out my seed after me and will not destroy my name from my father's house. And David swore to Saul.” After this Saul surely ought to have changed; but still he does not cease to persecute, nor does David fail to spare him. “And Saul arose,” says Scripture, “and went down into the shady desert, and with him three thousand chosen men of Israel, to seek David”; and further on: “And David sent out spies and learned that Saul had come to Ziklag. And David arose secretly and went to the place where Saul was sleeping, and Abner the son of Ner, the commander of his army. And Saul was sleeping on splendid coverings, and the people were around him. And David spoke to Ahimelech the Hittite and to Abishai the son of Zeruiah, Joab's brother, saying: Who will go in with me into the camp to Saul? And Abishai said to David: I will go with you. And David and Abishai went in among the people by night, and behold, Saul was sleeping on costly coverings, and a splendid spear was fixed in the ground at his head, and Abner was sleeping around him. And Abishai said to David: The Lord has shut up your enemy in your hands today; and now I will kill him with the spear, fixing it once into the ground, and I will not do it twice. And David said to Abishai: You shall not touch him; for who will lay his hand on the Lord's anointed and be guiltless? And David said: As the Lord lives, unless the Lord strikes him, or his hour comes and he dies, or he goes down into battle and is added to his fathers, far be it from me, by the Lord, to lay my hand on the Lord's anointed. And now take the spear that is at his head and the jar of water, and let us go away. And David took the spear and the jar of water from his head, and they went away. And there was no one who saw, nor who knew, nor who was awake; for they were all asleep, because the fear of the Lord had fallen upon them. And David crossed over to the other side and stood on the top of a mountain far off, and there was a great distance between them. And David called to the people and to Abner, and spoke, saying: Will you not answer, Abner? And Abner answered and said: Who are you who call me? What is it? And David said to Abner: Are you not a man, and who is like you in Israel? Why have you not guarded your lord the king? For one of the people came in to destroy your lord the king. This thing you have done is not good. As the Lord lives, you are sons of death, who have not guarded your lord the king, the Lord's anointed. And now see where the king's spear is, and the jar of water that was at his head. And King Saul knew David's voice and said: Is this your voice, my son David? Your servant, my lord king. And David added: Why does my lord thus pursue after his servant? For what have I done wrong, and what malice is there in me? And now let my lord the king hear the words of his servant: if the Lord God is stirring you up against me, let him accept an offering of sacrifice; but if it is the sons of men, cursed are they before the Lord, for they have driven me out today so that I am not established in the inheritance of the Lord, saying, Go, serve other gods. And now let my blood not fall to the earth before the Lord, for the king of Israel has come out to seek a single flea, as an owl hunts in the mountains. And Saul said: I have sinned; come back, my son David, for I will do you no more harm, because my life was precious in your eyes this day, on which I have been made a fool and have been ignorant of very much. And David answered, saying: Behold the king's spear; let one of the young men come over and take it. And may the Lord repay each man his righteousness and his faithfulness, as the Lord gave you today into my hands and I would not lay my hand on the Lord's anointed. And behold, as your life was exalted this day in my eyes, so may my life be made great in the sight of the Lord, and may he take me and deliver me from all tribulations. And Saul said to David: Blessed are you, my son; you shall surely do and surely prevail.”

I have put this in so that you might at last infer that you persecute either Athanasius or us as unjustly, that you are goaded towards the destruction of your own salvation, that you are bringing upon yourself the perils of death before the Godhead, just as Saul brought them upon himself by what he did. If this is not so, tell us why you persecute us: surely because we do not shed innocent blood. Whom do you want us to imitate, you or David? Of David I find it written: “And David reigned over Israel, and he was doing judgment and righteousness among all his people”; but we see that you are an unjust judge, a killer of the worshippers of God. Why do you persecute us? Surely because we have refused to become apostates as you are, because we have refused to deny the only Son of God. The book of David speaks of the perfect Trinity and tells of the one Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and you are found to be an apostate. Whom, I say, shall I follow, you or David? Him, the worshipper of the Lord, the lover of mercy, or you, the man of sacrilege, the butcher? With what wisdom do you persecute Athanasius? I would wonder at your doing these things, if King Ahab had not persecuted Elijah and the other prophets of the Lord in the same way; I would wonder at your persecuting a man of God, if I did not see that you are Ahab in all things. In short, such things are said to you by us as were said to him by the household of God: “Do not worship Baal, do not serve idols, but God; serve the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, serve the God of Israel.” If you remember that Elijah and the other prophets of the Lord said such things to Ahab, the apostate king, observe that similar things are said to you by those to whom the Lord has given authority to teach: “Do not, Constantius, fight with the Arians against the house of God; do not bring the idolatry of Arius into the church; do not deny the only Son of God; cease persecuting the apostolic and evangelical faith.” Because we say this, we seem to be your enemies. So too those who told the king the truth were his enemies. Let us run through, in short, what arose and was done between Elijah the prophet of the Lord and Ahab your fellow apostate, and you will find that you are Ahab today. “As the Lord lives,” says Elijah, “before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by the word of my mouth.” When this was fulfilled, the senseless man surely ought to have recognized that the only truly almighty God was none other than the one whom Elijah served. What does Ahab do? He sees that there is no rain for three years and more, and he is the more given to idols, the more eager to kill Elijah. The prophet of God hears from the mouth of the sacrilegious Ahab: “Is it you, you who trouble Israel?” So you too say to Athanasius, or to us, that we are the ones overturning the people of God, when it is you who call Christians together to accept your heresy. But you hear from us what that worshipper of idolatry Ahab heard from the glorious Elijah: “We do not overturn the house of God; you overturn it, you and your father's house.” Or will you deny that you are thinking of nothing but to make us all your fellow apostates?

But to continue, as I had begun, with the acts of Elijah and Ahab: “And Elijah said: I do not trouble Israel, but you trouble it, you and your father's house, in that you forsake the Lord our God and go after Baal. And now send and gather to me all Israel to Mount Carmel, and the four hundred and fifty prophets of shame and the four hundred prophets of the groves, who eat and drink at Jezebel's table. And King Ahab sent to all Israel and gathered all the prophets to Mount Carmel. And Elijah came near to them all and said to them: How long will you go limping in your mind? If the Lord is God, go after him; but if Baal is, go after him. And the people did not answer him a word. And Elijah said to the people: I alone am left of the prophets of the Lord, and the prophets of this Baal are four hundred and fifty men, and the prophets of the groves four hundred. Let two oxen be given us, and let them choose one for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood and put no fire under it; and I will prepare the other ox and put no fire under it. And call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of my God; and the God who answers us by fire, he shall be God. And all the people answered and said: The word Elijah has spoken is good. And Elijah said to the prophets of shame: Choose one bull for yourselves and prepare it first, since you are many, and call on the name of your gods, and put no fire under it. And they took the bull and prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning until evening, and said: Hear us, Baal, hear us. And there was no voice nor any hearing. And Elijah the Tishbite added, saying: Call out with a loud voice together, lest perhaps he is busy or asleep, and he will be roused. And they called him with a loud voice, and cut themselves after their custom with swords and razors until the blood poured out upon them, and they prophesied until midday had passed. And it came about, when it was the time to kindle the sacrifice, that Elijah the Tishbite spoke to the prophets, saying: Stand aside now, and I will make the burnt offering. And they stood aside and went away. And Elijah said to the people: Come near to me. And all the people came near to him, and Elijah took twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of Israel, as the Lord had said to him, Israel shall be your name. And he built the stones and restored the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down, and made a trench that would hold two measures of seed around the altar, and piled the split wood on the altar he had made, and cut up the burnt offering and laid it on the wood and piled it on the altar, and said: Bring me four jars of water and pour them on the burnt offering and on the wood. And he said: Bring it again; and they brought it again. And he said: Do it a third time; and they did it a third time. And the water ran round about the altar, and they filled the trench with water. And Elijah cried to heaven and said: Lord God of Abraham and Isaac and Israel, hear me, Lord, hear me today by fire, that all this people may know that you are the Lord God of Israel and I am your servant, and that for your sake I have done these works, and that you have turned the heart of this people back. And fire fell from the Lord out of heaven and consumed the burnt offerings and the wood and the water that was in the trench, and the fire licked up the stones and the earth. And all the people fell on their faces and said: Truly the Lord God, he is God. And Elijah said to the people: Seize the prophets of Baal; let none of them escape. And they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and killed them there. And he said to Ahab: Eat and drink, for there is the sound of the feet of rain. And Ahab went up to eat and drink. And Elijah went up to Carmel and bowed himself to the ground and put his face between his knees, and said to his servant: Go up and look towards the sea. And the servant looked and said: There is nothing. Go round seven times. And it came about at the seventh time, and behold, a little cloud like a man's footprint bringing water from the sea. And Elijah said to him: Go up and say to Ahab: Harness your chariot and go up, lest the rain overtake you. And it came about here and there that the sky grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab wept and went to Jezreel; and the hand of the Lord was upon Elijah.”

You recognize in what perversity you remain today, the same in which Ahab remained. For after such great signs and wonders had been shown, he does not deign to rejoice with the people, but grieves that Elijah dared to kill the priests and prophets of the idols; nor after so much does he deign to turn to God, but rather persecutes his worshipper all the more. He sees that God is in Elijah, and seeks his life the more. He sees that the prophets of Baal and of the groves were worshippers of demons, and loves them even when dead more than the man whom in so many ways he had perceived to be of God's household. So you too are pleased to love those whom you see to be men of the Arian heretical sect, and you persecute the worshippers of God most fiercely. I have thought it right to press on you a few of the many things done between Ahab and Elijah so that you may know that, once you have forsaken God, you are not easily turned to him either by signs or by wonders, but rather, hardening in your errors, rage like monstrous beasts against the necks of God's worshippers. We beg you, Constantius, not to stay any longer in these evils of yours, but rather to come up out of the devil's whirlwinds, lest those evils overtake you that overtook Ahab and Jezebel. And do not call yourself happy in this, that you are powerful enough to persecute the men of God, when you see that Ahab and Jezebel could have been destroyed at Elijah's request, and yet were kept, so that both the endurance of Elijah, the man of God, might be more fully blessed and the measure of their impiety filled up; as though Elijah could not have asked God that the persecutors of his religion, the worshippers of idols, should burn! He asks for fire from heaven to consume the sacrifices, and at once it comes down; he asks for the rain, which had been withheld for three years and six months, and at once it is given; very many other signs are done; and could the enemies of God not have been destroyed at Elijah's request, when fire, coming down at Elijah's word, consumed even those honoured captains of fifty? You see today that, because you persecute Athanasius or us, you could be destroyed by a thunderbolt or in any other way, but that you are kept for this, either to turn yourself or that the whole measure of your iniquity may be filled up. King Ahab persecuted Elijah as you now persecute Athanasius. Jezebel, indeed, said to the prophet of the Lord, after she had learned that those mighty works had been done by Elijah and the prophets of shame and the priests of the cults killed: “May the gods do so to me and more also, if by this hour tomorrow I do not make your life as the life of one of them.” But what does Elijah hear from God after keeping a fast of forty days and nights? That he should anoint kings by whom Ahab and his associates would be destroyed. The mercy of God is with Elijah; Elijah knows that he is loved by God. Ahab, on the contrary, the persecutor of Elijah, is so wretched that he was always in the devil's power. So you ordered Athanasius to be punished as “justly” as Jezebel ordered Naboth the Jezreelite; so “true” were the witnesses you brought forward against Athanasius, as those brought forward by the men to whom Jezebel had written, saying: “Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth at the head of the people, and set two men, sons of the wicked, against him, and let them testify against him, saying, You have cursed God and the king; and bring him out, and let him be stoned and die.”

Such are your works now, you Arians. You call us guilty, you heap many charges on us, and you do not need false witnesses, for you yourselves are false witnesses in everything. So you sons of perdition, the Arians, try to kill Athanasius as Jezebel killed Naboth, as though you could escape the hand of him who sees all things. You know that God avenged the blood of Naboth and required his death from the hands of those who killed him; and do you think that God will not require the blood of his priest Athanasius from your hands? “And the Lord spoke to Elijah the Tishbite, saying: Arise and go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who is in Samaria, for he has gone down to Naboth's vineyard to take possession of it. And you shall say to him: Thus says the Lord: As you have killed Naboth and taken possession of his vineyard, therefore thus says the Lord: In the place where the dogs and the swine licked the blood of Naboth, there the dogs shall lick your blood, and harlots shall wash in your blood. And Ahab said to Elijah: Have you found me, my enemy? And Elijah said: I have found you, because you have planned to do evil before the Lord, to provoke him. Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am bringing evils upon you, and I will kindle a fire after you, and I will destroy of Ahab everyone who urinates against the wall, the one shut up and the one left in Israel. And I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for all the provocations with which you have provoked me and caused Israel to sin. And to Jezebel the Lord spoke, saying: The dogs shall eat her before the wall of Jezreel; and your dead in the city the birds of the sky shall eat.” What do you say to this, Constantius? Do you maintain that your sins are less than those of Ahab and Jezebel? They persecuted the priests of God, killed God's household, took away the religion of God and set up idolatry, turned the people away from God; and you have done and are doing all these things. So you call us your enemies, as Ahab called Elijah, who, when he had heard the Lord's indignation from the mouth of the prophet, said: “Have you found me, my enemy?” to King Ahab; because, of course, you said, “Do not serve idols, but the only God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel.” And because you are told, “Do not be a heretic, but be a Christian,” you call us enemies, because things are pressed on you, who hand down idolatry, that were also pressed on King Ahab by Elijah. Ahab would surely have loved Elijah if the prophet had decided that his idols should be served and God forsaken. Nor can you deny that you would have loved us with singular affection if we had chosen to be what you are. By these things you are understood to be a son of pestilence, a fountain of darkness, the kindling of all evils, the head and whirlpool of wickedness, the bilge of all blasphemers, the kindling of heretics, a root of bitterness, a tree destined for the fire because it bears deadly fruit, an enemy of God, a foe of the church, a falsifier of the truth, an instigator of depravity, a lover of injustice, an adversary of justice, turned into darkness and indeed inextricable darkness, made more truly a temple of all the demons, at whose prompting you, like Ahab, have committed and are committing all these evils. But not for long, unless you turn to God, will you be able to go unpunished, when you see what Ahab and Jezebel received. For if Ahab perished as had been promised him by the mouth of Elijah, if the dogs ate Jezebel, will you go unpunished for such great crimes? You, who not only do not grieve at having killed those dedicated to God but even boast, thinking you have done well. No wonder, since the one you deny, knowing the future, said in the Gospel: “The hour will come when everyone who kills you will think that he is offering service to God; but they do this because they know neither the Father nor his only Son.”

Living without knowledge of God, you knowingly persecute Athanasius, who tells you the truth and loves God with his whole heart. So too Ahab persecuted Elijah. But see the end of Elijah and of his enemy Ahab. See Elijah carried away to enjoy God's eternal friendship, and Ahab now tormented in the outer darkness. Elijah rejoices in God's friendship, and Ahab is paying everlasting penalties. Athanasius will undoubtedly be at the banquet where Elijah is; and you, unless you take thought for yourself, will be in that place of torments where Ahab is held, whose imitator you are found to be in all things. Is this wisdom, that you should have chosen the eternal unhappiness of King Ahab rather than to enjoy the everlasting happiness that Elijah obtained? Scripture tells of his being carried away in the fourth book of Kingdoms, saying: “And as they went on and talked, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire, and it parted the two of them. And Elijah went up in a whirlwind as into heaven. And Elisha saw, and he cried out and said: Father, father, the charioteer of Israel. And he saw him no more.” What you heretics have done cannot seem new to us, if you persecute the priests of the Lord, since we find in the second book of Chronicles that Jeroboam and his sons did these things. Holy Scripture says: “Judah and Benjamin and the Levites and the priests who were in all Israel came together from all their borders, for the Levites left their tents and their possessions and went to Rehoboam, because Jeroboam and his sons had cast them out from serving the Lord. And he appointed there priests for the high places and for the images and for the demons and for the calves which Jeroboam had made. And he cast them out from the children of Israel and from the tribes of Israel, those who had set their heart to seek the Lord God of Israel.” It will not be surprising, then, if you persecute us or those entrusted to us by God, if you drive us from the charge committed to us, if, in short, you ordain in our places enemies of God, men who have forsaken God with you, when you see that you are doing what Jeroboam did. For what is it to say, “Condemn the faith written at Nicaea and accept mine,” but what Jeroboam said: “Forsake God and serve my images”? What man says, “Condemn an absent, unheard, innocent man”? Surely he who had already denied the apostolic and evangelical faith, he who had destroyed the tradition of the blessed apostles, as far as it lay with you and yours. That, in short, is how you came to such madness: because, like Jeroboam, you were without God. Otherwise, if you had had God, if you had remembered that you were his worshipper, you would certainly never say: “Condemn the innocent, strike your fellow priest, absent and unheard.”

And so that you may see that you are without God, which is why you order such things to be done, consider a king with whom his God was, as he deserved; consider too his charge to the priests of the Lord, whom he urged to judge the people of God with just judgment; and look at the acts of the judges you have installed against the church and of their ministers; and you will be able to weigh whether the unclean spirits that were with Jeroboam are not with you. “And Jehoshaphat,” it says in the second book of Chronicles, “dwelt in Jerusalem, and he went out again among the people from Beersheba to Mount Ephraim and turned them back to the Lord God of their fathers. And he appointed judges in all the fortified cities of Judah, city by city. He said to the judges: See what you are doing; for you will judge not for man but for the Lord, and he is with you in the word. And now let the fear of the Lord be upon you, and keep and do; for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts. And in Jerusalem too Jehoshaphat appointed some of the Levites and the priests and the heads of Israel for the judgment of the Lord and to judge those who dwell in Jerusalem. And he charged them, saying: Thus you shall do in the fear of the Lord, with a perfect heart; and every case that comes to you from your brothers who dwell in their cities, between blood and blood, between law, in commandments and ordinances and judgments, you shall make plain to them, and they will not sin against the Lord, and there will be no wrath upon you and your brothers. Do so, and you will not sin. Behold, Amariah the chief priest is over you in every matter of the Lord, and Zebadiah the son of Ishmael, who is the governor of the house of Judah, in every matter of the king; and the scribes and Levites are before you. Be strong and act, and the Lord will be with you for good.” Did he say to the priests of the Lord, or to the princes of his kingdom, or to the other judges: “Condemn the righteous, persecute the innocent, condemn and kill all who believe in God”? Did he say, “Love what God does not love, hate justice, cherish injustice,” as you say? Or will you be able to deny that you said, “Condemn Athanasius, absent and unheard”? Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, dedicated to God, says that one must judge according to the law of the Lord; and you, a king turned to apostasy, say: “Condemn the unheard.”

Suppose meanwhile, Constantius, that King Jehoshaphat were in the body today and that both of you were speaking to us: he saying, “See what you are doing; for you will judge not for man but for the Lord, and he is with you in the word. And now let the fear of the Lord be upon you, that you may keep and do; for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God nor respect of persons”; you, on the contrary, saying that a man must be condemned unheard, and one whom you yourself know to be innocent. Whom could we bishops of God have obeyed, we whom he had promised beforehand to his people by the mouth of Jeremiah, saying: “And I will give you shepherds after my heart, and they will feed you, feeding with discipline”? Whom, I say, should we obey, you, or Jehoshaphat, a man dedicated to God, who would compel us to do what we remembered God had commanded to be done? If, then, you recognize that he taught men to fulfil the Lord's commandments, while you have become not only a destroyer of God's commandments but a deserter of God himself, it remains for you to see which of you was a man of God, which did the will of his mercy. We read it written of him: “And the Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father, and did not seek images but the Lord God of his father, and walked in his commandments, and not according to the works of Israel. And the Lord established his kingdom, and all Judah gave gifts to Jehoshaphat, and he had riches and much glory. And his heart was exalted in the ways of the Lord, and he further cut down the groves from Judah. And in the third year of his reign he sent his commanders and men of valour”; and further on: “and with them Elishama and Jehoram the priests; and they taught in Judah, having with them the book of the law of the Lord, and they went through the cities of Judah and taught the people. And the fear of the Lord fell on the kingdoms of the earth round about Judah, and they did not make war on Jehoshaphat. And from the foreigners they brought Jehoshaphat gifts and silver and presents, and the Arabians brought him seven thousand seven hundred rams of the flock; and Jehoshaphat went on growing greatly, to the heights.” What do you do of this kind? Surely you have sent through your whole realm that we should all spit on God's commandments and accept your precept, which tried to attack the Lord's precept. Jehoshaphat sent the chief men of valour of his kingdom, sent his counsellors, sent Levites and priests of the Lord, begging that all in his kingdom be worshippers of the Lord, that all with one mind offer themselves as servants to God alone; he sends also the book of the sacred law handed down through the glorious Moses, so that they should do nothing beyond what God had commanded to be done. You are found not only to have attacked the law of the Lord, which commanded that the innocent and the righteous not be killed, but to have forsaken God himself, since you hold not the apostolic faith but the faithlessness of Arius. He turned an erring people from idols to God; you have tried to make a people dedicated to God apostate, as you are, that is, sacrilegious.