On Not Sparing Those Who Sin against God 13–18

What such thing have you seen done by us, that you see fit to say, “Lucifer has insulted me”? He killed the king's officer with the sword, and also the man of his own people whom he had seen fearing the king's edict rather than God's; I, because I resist you and yours with a word and say, “I do not abandon the apostolic and evangelical faith; I believe as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob our fathers believed,” am therefore accused before you of insults. If you had been in the hands of this Mattathias, zealous for God, or in the hand of Phinehas, to whom God bears witness through Moses in Numbers, and you had tried to live after the manner of foreigners, they would without doubt have killed you with the sword; I, because I wound with a word that mind of yours soaked in the blood of Christians, am judged by you guilty of insults. Why, emperor, do you not avenge yourself on me? Why do you not deign to defend the insults done to you, to take vengeance on a beggar? Why are you not active about it? Not because you do not want to, but because power has not yet been given you by him whose servant I trust I am, as I say these things to you with a free voice, things that seem to me crooked in comparison with your abominable deeds. Since you have seen that we have renounced you and all the riches of your kingdom, and your father too, and since you have observed that we have promised never in any way to withdraw from the faith, know that we greatly wonder why, though you are accustomed to devour with the edge of the sword those who displease you, you still spare us. For the sake of piety, I suppose; and we can believe this of your mildness. For I have been able to gather that you have killed no one, out of your exceeding kindness. You say, “He is proud.” Why do I seem proud to you? Surely because you hear from me that you are doing what the enemies of God's religion have always done. It is my office to press this upon you, a heretic. Or are you not a heretic? But if you are a heretic, why do you accuse me of being offensive to you, when I am doing toward you what God would not have me fail to do? The most holy prophet Jeremiah says that God said to him: “And you, gird up your loins and arise and say all that I have commanded you, and do not fear before their face nor dread in their sight.” Since this is so, and the necessity of the office imposed on us by God presses us to say to you, as you act, whatever God has commanded to be said to you, it remains that you either obey God's commands when you are addressed by me, a servant and priest of his mercy, or prove from the holy Scriptures, perhaps because you are a king, that it is not lawful for me to address you in the name of the Lord so that you may correct yourself. If you cannot prove that it is forbidden me, but rather begin to find that it is commanded me to accuse you, rebuke, exhort, entreat, warn, and call you to please God, why do you say that I insult you? For he has given us, his bishops, power to rebuke and teach you who are entrusted to us, so far that he said: “Do not fear before their face, do not dread in their sight. Behold, I have made you this day like a fortified city and like a strong wall of bronze against all the kings of Judah and its princes and the people of the land. And they will fight against you, and they will not prevail against you, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” What were the things Jeremiah said to the kings of Judah and its princes and the peoples of the land? Surely these: that they had forsaken the Lord and sacrificed to strange gods. You too have done and are doing this: you have forsaken the apostolic and evangelical faith, you have taken up the Arian heresy, and you are compelling all the servants of God to become idolaters. Because they dare to say this, you call proud those who long for your salvation to be secured. God says to Jeremiah: “And you, gird up your loins and arise, and say all that I tell you. Do not fear before their face nor dread in their sight.” And are you, the emperor Constantius, indignant because we say to you in your error: “Return to the saving way; forsake the error invented by Arius at the devil's prompting”?

God commands that he alone be feared; he has ordered that no one besides him be dreaded; and have you resolved to carry out things that would take away the fear of the Lord and make you the one to be dreaded? God says to Jeremiah: “Behold, I have made you this day like a fortified city and like a strong wall of bronze against all the kings of Judah and its princes and the people of the land. And they will fight against you and will not prevail against you, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord”; and do you think you can be feared by any of the servants of God? Why do you call me arrogant and proud? Why do you call me insulting? Surely because I have found by your works that you are one of those of whom blessed John says: “You have heard that Antichrist is coming; but now many are antichrists.” You mark us as guilty of wrongs as though we were the first to resist your bringing your idolatry into the church of God. You have read in the first book of Maccabees: “And each said to his neighbour: If we all do as our brothers have done, and do not fight against the gentiles for our life and our ordinances, they will soon destroy us from the earth. And they took counsel that day, saying: Whoever comes against us in battle on the sabbath day, let us fight against him, and we shall not all die as our brothers died in the hiding places. Then there gathered to them a company strong in might from Israel, everyone who offered himself willingly for the law, and all who were fleeing from evils joined them and became a support to them. And they struck down the forces, and struck down sinners in their anger and lawless men in their indignation, and the rest fled to the nations to save themselves. And Mattathias and his friends went around and pulled down the altars and circumcised the uncircumcised boys, as many as they found within the borders of Israel, by force; and they pursued the sons of pride, and the work prospered in their hand, and they rescued the law from the hands of the nations and the kings, and they did not give the horn to the sinner.” What does your mind, wounded by the poisons of Arius, deign to think? What will your heart, torn by the serpent's bites, be able to devise against this defence of ours? Though you notice that they did these things, were we to keep quiet when blasphemies came from your mouth to wound the people divinely entrusted to us? “And Mattathias and his friends,” it says, “went around and pulled down the altars and circumcised the uncircumcised boys, as many as they found within the borders of Israel, by force; and they pursued the sons of pride, and the work prospered in their hand, and they rescued the law from the hands of the nations and the kings, and they did not give the horn to the sinner.” Since those who acted so became most beloved of God, was it right for us, by flattering you and running with you in your crime, to become, as you are, most hateful to God? If we seem offensive to you because we have not been able to accept your idolatry, give me, I beg you, one of the worshippers of God who spared the adversaries of his religion. In the second book of Ezra, when people spoke against them to stop them restoring the house and temple and city in Jerusalem for the Lord: “The God of heaven,” it says, “himself will prosper us, and we his servants will arise and build; but you have no portion nor memorial in Jerusalem.” And below, when the adversaries said, “Will they sacrifice, or will they eat in their place? Will not a fox go up and break down their stone walls?”, his servant Ezra says this to God: “Hear, our God, for we have become despised, and turn their reproaches upon their own heads, and give them up to be a derision in a land of captivity; and do not cover their iniquity, and let their sins not be blotted out from before you.”

What such thing have we said about you? He to whom Ezra prayed is witness, to whom I too pray, and to whom his blessed church, established through the whole world, prays, that these are our wishes for you: that you correct your errors and be one of us. Notice meanwhile how the men of God neither feared their adversaries nor ceased pouring out prayer against the enemies of God's house, so that the strength of the adversaries of God's religion might be brought to nothing. For so too the most holy Moses says to God in the song of Exodus: “Let fear and trembling fall upon them at the greatness of your arm; let them be like stones until your people pass over, until your people pass over, O Lord, this people whom you have acquired.” They spoke such words to God when they had been handed over; and because we say to you, “Either turn to God or be sure that God will bring all your empty pride to nothing,” we seem insolent to you. Consider further what Mattathias did, that most holy man devoted to God, after the illustrious deeds he performed, what he said to his sons even at the end of his life, and see whether we priests of God do these things against you in proper order. Holy Scripture speaks, saying: “The days drew near for Mattathias to die, and he said to his sons: Now pride and rebuke have grown strong, and a time of overthrow and wrath of indignation. Now, my sons, be zealous for the law and give your lives for the covenant of our fathers, and remember the works of the fathers which they did in their generations, and you will receive great glory and an everlasting name. Was not Abraham found faithful in testing, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness? Joseph in the time of his distress kept the commandment and became lord of Egypt. Phinehas our father, by being zealous with zeal, received the covenant of an everlasting priesthood. Joshua, while he fulfilled the word, became leader in Israel. Caleb, while he bore witness in the assembly, received an inheritance. David by his mercy obtained the throne of the kingdom for ever. Elijah, while he was zealous with zeal for the law, was taken up into heaven. Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael believed and were delivered from the flame. Daniel in his innocence was delivered from the mouth of the lions. And so consider from generation to generation that all who hope in him will not be weakened. And do not fear the words of a sinful man, for his glory is dung and worms. Today he is exalted, tomorrow he will not be found, for he has returned to his earth and his thought will perish. My sons, be strong and prevail in the law, for by it you will be glorious. And behold, Simeon your brother, I know that he is a man of counsel; listen to him; he will be a father to you. And Judas Maccabeus, strong in might from his youth, shall be the commander of your army, and he will fight the battle. And you shall bring to you all who do the law, and avenge the vengeance of your people; repay the nations their recompense, and give heed to the commandment of the law.” Since you see that he gave such commands to his sons and ordered them to do what he himself had done, while he teaches that the patriarchs, prophets, and all the righteous pleased God in this way, what did you want us to do, you creature of darkness, so as not to seem defiant to you? Were we, the living, to yield to you, the dead; the servants of God to an attendant of the devil, when you see this Mattathias saying to his sons: “And so consider from generation to generation that all who hope in him will not be weakened. And do not fear the words of a sinful man, for his glory is dung and worms. Today he is exalted, and tomorrow he will not be found, for he has returned to his earth and his thought will perish”? So as not to seem offensive to you, are we to spare you as you destroy the house of God, you who are here today and tomorrow will be worms and dung, and draw upon ourselves this offence before God, so that we deserve to be brought to nothing with you?

Learn after this what the sons of this most devout Mattathias also did: whether they feared the hand of your fellow executioner, whether they kept his army before their eyes rather than our Lord, believing in whom, as we believe, as almighty, they rose against the enemy with all their strength. “And Judas, who was called Maccabeus, his son, rose up in his place. And all his brothers helped him, and all who had joined his father; and he fought the battle of Israel with gladness. And he extended the glory of his people, and put on a breastplate like a giant, and girded on his weapons of war, and set battles in array, protecting the camp with the sword. And he became like a lion in his deeds, and like a lion's whelp roaring for prey. And he pursued the lawless, searching them out, and he burned those who troubled his people. And the lawless shrank back for fear of him, and all the workers of lawlessness were confounded, and deliverance prospered in his hand. And he embittered many kings, and he made Jacob glad by his deeds, and his memory is blessed for ever. And he went through the cities of Judah and destroyed all the ungodly out of it, and turned away wrath from Israel. And he was renowned to the ends of the earth, and he gathered in those who were perishing.” They, fired with such zeal, acted against the enemies of God's house; were we not to rise against you, so as not to be called insolent? But you would rightly call me insolent if we had not rightly despised your sacrilegious edict. For look at what the leaders of the Jews, men as lost as you, commanded the apostles, and what the chorus of the blessed apostles did in reply, and you will find that we are not insolent but desire the good of both you and ourselves. “Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of those entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked for alms. And Peter, looking at him with John, said: Look at us. And he looked at them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said to him: Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk. And taking him by the right hand he raised him up, and at once his feet and ankles were made strong, and leaping up he stood and walked, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognized that he was the one who sat for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, and they were filled with fear and amazement at what had happened to him.” And below: “And while they were speaking these words to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees rose up against them, grieved that they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead; and they laid hands on them and put them in custody.” And below: “Seeing the boldness of Peter and John, and finding that they were unlearned and uneducated men, they marvelled, recognizing also that they had been with Jesus; and seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it. But when they had ordered them to go out of the council, they conferred with one another, saying: What shall we do with these men? For that a sign has been done through them is known to all who live in Jerusalem; it is plain, and we cannot deny it. But so that these words may not spread further among the people, let us threaten them not to speak any more in this name to anyone. And when all agreed, they called them and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said: Whether it is right before God to listen to you rather than God, you judge; for we cannot but speak what we have seen and heard. And they, threatening them, let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people; for all glorified God for what had happened. For the man on whom this sign of healing had been done was more than forty years old. And when they were released they went to their own and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voice to the Lord with one mind and said: Lord, you are the God who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them, who by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said: Why did the nations rage and the peoples plot vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. For truly in this city there gathered together against your holy Son Jesus, whom you anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate with the nations and the peoples of Israel, to do what your hand and your counsel had predestined. And now, Lord, look on their threats and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are done through the name of your holy Son Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place where they were gathered was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with all boldness.”

If you have now gathered why we have brought all this forward, if you have drunk in deeply the whole intent of our plea, will you dare to say any longer that we are insolent? For you see that the blessed apostles neither gave way to the leaders of the Jews nor yielded to their threats, but rather always carried out fearlessly what had been entrusted to them; and that the people of God too were not only not terrified by the threats of the unbelievers but even prayed that God would deign to grant his apostles boldness in speaking and constancy in defending the truth. If, then, this was done both by the blessed apostles and by peoples devoted to God, and they were not called defiant or insolent by God for resisting his enemies, how are we called proud, insolent, and insulting by you, we who, though sinners, hold the holy faith of the apostles and of those peoples who had believed in the only Son of God? We are proud together with the apostles, because we, soldiers of Christ, count as nothing the voice of you, an apostate, and the terrors of you, a sacrilegious man; because we preach the Son of God as the true Son of God, as the most blessed apostles preached. So we seem to you shameless, insolent, and proud, as the most holy apostles seemed to the Jews; to them, if they were in the body today, you could have said what you see fit to say to us. For we find that they were always commanded, by the mouth of your fellow blasphemers, the scribes, Pharisees, rulers, and high priest of the Jews, not to teach or preach the only Son of God. Yet hear further what they did, as it is written, in case perhaps your heart, fattened with darkness, can some day be brought to see the truth: “Through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people. And they were all with one mind in Solomon's portico; but of the rest no one dared to join them, yet the people magnified them. And more and more believers were added to the Lord, a multitude of men and women, so that they carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and pallets, that when Peter came at least his shadow might overshadow one of them. And they were freed from their infirmity. And a multitude from the cities around Jerusalem came together, bringing the sick and those troubled by unclean spirits, and all were healed. But the high priest rose up, and all who were with him, the party of the Sadducees, and they were filled with jealousy and laid hands on the apostles and put them in custody. But an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison and led them out, saying: Go, stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life. When they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and taught. But the high priest came, and those with him, and called together the council and all the assembly of the children of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought. But the officers came and did not find them in the prison, and they returned and reported, saying: We found the prison shut with all security and the guards standing at the door, but when we opened it we found no one inside. When the chief priests and the high priest heard these words, they were perplexed about them, wondering what this would be. But someone came and reported to them, saying: Behold, the men whom you put in custody are standing in the temple and teaching the people. Then the captain went with the officers and brought them, not by force, for they feared the people, lest they be stoned. And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the priest questioned them, saying: We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, and behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us. But Peter and the apostles answered, saying: Must one obey God or men?” If, then, God must be obeyed and not men, why do you call us defiant, why offensive, when you see us obeying God's commands? “And when they heard this,” says Scripture, “they raged and planned to kill them.” So you too hold us in custody and threaten to kill us, because you are possessed by the spirit by which the Jews were held captive and are still held. If you are not held captive by that unclean spirit, why do you forbid us to confess and preach the only Son of God? The angel of God, leading the apostles out of the prison of the Jews, as desperate as you, said, “Go, teach in the temple the words of this life”; and you have thought fit to remove priests from the church of God and throw them into prison, so that we may not preach the word of life.

Meanwhile I beg you to answer what difference there is between you and your fellow Scotinus, whom the people of Sirmium, by reversing the order, call Photinus. You are asked to distinguish what the difference is, how far apart you stand. See: if the rulers and high priest and the whole council of the Jews said to the apostles then, “You intend to bring this man's blood upon us,” Photinus too professes the Son of God to be a mere man, and says that he did not exist before blessed Mary. Your profession too is this: that the Son of God existed before all things indeed, that is, before heaven, earth, sea, and all that is in them, but that he came to be out of nothing, that he is a creature. What difference do you think there is between you and Paul of Samosata, or this disciple of his, your fellow Scotinus, except that you say “before all things” and he “after all things”? For the rest, you have one mind of cruelty and unbelief: to say that God does not have a true Son. See, on the other hand, how the holy church believes: “We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, born, not made, of one substance with the Father, which the Greeks call homoousion, through whom all things were made, both those in heaven and those on earth; who for us men and for our salvation came down, was incarnate, became man, suffered, rose on the third day, ascended into heaven, and will come to judge the living and the dead. We believe also in the Holy Spirit.” You see that this is the apostolic and evangelical faith, which maintains that the Son has always reigned and reigns with the Father, which confesses that the divine Trinity is perfect and has one substance. Otherwise, what difference would there be between the church and you heretics, or the Jews, if the blessed church did not believe so? What would the holy faith be? So that you may know what the Lord's church punishes in you, it has said and says of you: “But those who say, ‘There was when he was not’, and ‘Before he was born he was not’, and that he was made from things that did not exist or from another substance, saying that the Son of God is mutable and changeable, these the catholic and apostolic church anathematizes.” For this holy faith the apostles were shut in prison, received chains, were tormented with scourging hour by hour, so that they would not reveal the truth to the world; and yet they would not cease preaching until they were even slaughtered. And do you say that we are men of the greatest defiance, because, plainly, we hold the way of the apostles, because we tell you that you have gone astray, as blessed John the Baptist did to Herod? “But Herod the tetrarch, when he was rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother's wife, and for all the evils that Herod had done, added this on top of everything, and shut up John in prison.” Why did Herod shut up John? Surely because his works were being reproved. So you too act toward the servants of God, because we say to you: Do not do what you do; do not be a murderer; do not persecute the Lord's church; do not reject the apostolic faith and approve the heretical one; do not bring idolatry into the church. We think we say this especially for your salvation; and if you will not restrain yourself, you will without doubt seek eternal death for yourself, as Herod sought it. For he could not harm John, whether by throwing him into prison or by killing him, since you see that John is the friend of God and Herod the enemy of God. Seeking to harm us, who desire eternal safety to be granted you, you persecute us in every way; but the forces of your authority will not prevail to harm the servants of the only Son of God, because you are found to be one of those whom he made subject to us who believe, when he said: “Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.” You, who say I am proud because I tell you the truth, whom do you want me to be found? That servant who received one talent and hid it and returned only it to his master, and, because he did not return it to his master multiplied by interest as his fellow servants did, deserved to lose even that talent and to hear, “Wicked and lazy servant”; or the one who returned the amount he received multiplied tenfold, and to whom it was said, “Well done, good and faithful servant; because you were faithful in a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master”? But how shall I be able to hear that, if, fearing you, I do what pleases you? Look in the Gospel at what the Lord willed us to do, and stop calling us arrogant: “A certain rich man went into a far country to receive a kingdom and return. And he called ten servants and gave them ten talents, and said to them: Trade until I come. But his citizens hated him and sent an embassy after him, saying: We do not want this man to reign over us. And it came about that when he returned, having received the kingdom, he ordered the servants to whom he had given the money to be called, to know how much each had gained by trading. And the first came, saying: Lord, your talent has made ten talents. And he said to him: Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in a little, you shall have authority over ten cities. And another came, saying: Lord, your mina has made five talents. And he said to him also: You too, be over five cities. And another came, saying: Here is your talent, which I kept laid away in a napkin, because I was afraid of you, for you are a severe man; you take up what you did not lay down and reap what you did not sow. And the lord said to him: Out of your own mouth I judge you, faithless servant. You knew that I am a severe man, taking up what I did not lay down and reaping what I did not sow; why then did you not put my money in the bank, and at my coming I would have collected it with interest? And to those standing by he said: Take the talent from him and give it to him who has ten talents. For I tell you: to everyone who has, more will be given; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. But as for those enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them before me.”