On Idolatry 13

But why should I speak of sacrifices and priesthoods? And on the shows and pleasures of that kind we have already filled a volume of their own. At this point we must take up festival days and other extraordinary solemnities, which we sometimes grant to our wantonness and sometimes to our timidity, sharing with the nations in idolatrous things against faith and discipline. On this I will first take my stand: whether the servant of God ought to share with the nations themselves in things of this kind, whether in dress, or in food, or in any other form of their rejoicing. “To rejoice with those who rejoice and to mourn with those who mourn” was said by the apostle about the brethren, urging them to be of one mind. But in these things there is no communion between light and darkness, between life and death; or else we tear up what is written: “The world will rejoice, but you will mourn.” If we rejoice with the world, we must fear that we will also mourn with the world. But let us mourn while the world rejoices, and when the world afterwards mourns, we shall rejoice. So too Eleazar, who obtained refreshment in the underworld in Abraham's bosom, and on the other side the rich man, placed in the torment of fire, balance by a matching recompense the alternating turns of evils and goods. There are certain days of gifts, which for some discharge a claim of honor, for others a debt of wages. “Now, then,” you say, “I will receive what is mine or pay what is another's.” If men have consecrated this custom to themselves out of superstition, why do you, a stranger to all their vanity, share in solemnities offered to idols, as though for you too there were a rule about the day that forbids you to pay or receive what you owe to a man, or a man owes you, apart from the observance of that day? Settle the manner in which you want to be dealt with. For why should you even hide, when you defile your own conscience by another's ignorance? If it is known that you are a Christian, you are being tempted, and you act against another's conscience as though you were not a Christian; but if you also disguise it, you have been tempted and have surrendered. Certainly, either way, you are guilty of being ashamed of God. “But whoever is ashamed of me before men,” he says, “of him I too will be ashamed before my Father who is in heaven.”