Oration to the Assembly of the Saints

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–10.4 · 11.1–16.2 · 17.1–26.2

1. 1.1Constantine opens his Good Friday speech to the assembly of the saints by celebrating the day of the passion as the prelude to the resurrection.
2. 1.2Nature can claim nothing, since God made it; yet unnatural error prevailed, denying God's worship and providence.
3. 1.3Despite the prophets, impiety and persecution prevailed for generations, until Christ came, fulfilled the prophecies, ascended to the Father, and founded the church.
4. 1.4Constantine asks what the pagans then contrived.
5. 1.5Paganism tried to destroy the church and brought back strife and greed, but it now lies defeated; Constantine turns to speak of the Word.
6. 2.1Constantine addresses the church and the faithful, asking them to heed the truth of his words rather than their style or speaker.
7. 2.2Constantine asks the learned to correct his errors and prays for the inspiration of the Father and the Son.
8. 3.1God, the Good beyond being, has no beginning; the Son, begotten from him without loss to the Father, was appointed Saviour over the world, and from him come life, soul and sense.
9. 3.2There is one ruler of all; rule by many gods would destroy the harmony of the world.
10. 3.3With many gods one could not know whom to pray to, whom to thank, or whom to blame.
11. 3.4Gods with divided powers could show no providence, and their rivalry would lead to universal confusion.
12. 3.5Strife among gods would destroy the order of seasons and of day and night.
13. 4.1Gods who are born must perish, and if they kept being born they would overflow heaven; the myths of divine marriages and adulteries dishonour them.
14. 4.2Poets and sculptors worship as immortal the works they made, though they know themselves mortal.
15. 4.3Pagans show the tombs of their 'immortal' gods, proving them to have been mortal men.
16. 5.1Turning from pagan myths, Constantine resolves to praise Christ, to whom he owes thanks for many benefits.
17. 5.2Christ made the world and humankind, placed the first humans in paradise ignorant of good and evil, then gave them the earth and told them to multiply.
18. 5.3As humanity multiplied, the arts arose, and animals too multiplied, each with its own natural gift.
19. 5.4God gave humans care of tame animals and struggle against wild ones, made the birds, and completed creation with a law for each kind.
20. 6.1Those who ascribe the world to nature, fate or chance contradict themselves; a law of fate implies a lawgiver, God.
21. 6.2Virtue and vice, justice and desert cannot be the product of fate.
22. 6.3Laws, rewards and punishments, and the calamities and blessings that follow human conduct show God's just providence, not chance.
23. 6.4God loves justice and humility and hates arrogance; we should live modestly, mindful that God sees all.
24. 6.5Can the heavens, the elements and the seasons really be the work of chance?
25. 6.6Even if humans devised some useful things, they did not make the eternal realities, which come from God.
26. 6.7The order of day and night and the phases of the moon reveal God's providential reason.
27. 6.8The ripening sun, winds, rains and the regular courses of the planets show obedience to God's law.
28. 6.9Mountains, valleys, plains, and the flow of water from hills to sea show God's measured providence.
29. 6.10'Chance' is an empty name with no substance.
30. 7.1People call 'chance' what they cannot explain; hot springs, whose heat survives amid cold water, are an example of wonders whose cause lies deep.
31. 7.2Such rare wonders make providence visible, joining heat and cold from one source.
32. 7.3God has given wine and oil for human comfort; the ceaseless flow of rivers is a symbol of unending life.
33. 8.1God supplied useful metals abundantly and precious ones sparingly.
34. 8.2Had gold and silver been plentiful, greed would have neglected useful iron and bronze; so precious metals cost more labour.
35. 8.3Providence everywhere urges virtue, but its full reason lies beyond human understanding.
36. 9.1Philosophers, overreaching in speculation, lose the truth and contradict one another.
37. 9.2Philosophy bred strife: Socrates was executed for his sophistry, and Pythagoras passed off as his own revelation what he had learned from the prophets in Egypt.
38. 9.3Plato rightly taught a God beyond being and a second God who derives his existence from the first and serves his commands in creation.
39. 9.4There is one God who orders all by his Word; the Word, himself God, is rightly called the Son of God.
40. 9.5Plato erred in introducing many gods with forms, which led to idolatry; so even his great wisdom is mixed with error.
41. 9.6Plato partly corrects himself by teaching that God breathed his word into us, and by distinguishing the eternal intelligible from the perishable perceptible.
42. 9.7Plato rightly taught that good souls go to heaven after death and the wicked are swept along the rivers of the underworld.
43. 10.1Some mock these teachings as myths while believing the poets' fables.
44. 10.2The poets tell of divine judges of the dead, yet also of gods who fight, grieve, and cannot help even their own children.
45. 10.3If the poets are inspired, their tales of suffering gods must be true; if poets may lie, as some say, they cannot be trusted.
46. 10.4Liars lie for gain or to hide their crimes; the poets could have spoken of the divine without lying.
47. 11.1Whoever repents and turns to God will live forever; Constantine strives to bring his subjects to faith, and confesses that he himself came to the truth only in maturity, counting repentance his salvation.
48. 11.2Constantine owes nothing to human teaching; armed with the knowledge of what pleases God, he will praise the Father of all.
49. 11.3Constantine invokes Christ's help and disclaims rhetorical ornament.
50. 11.4Constantine rebuts those who say Christ was justly condemned: God was not overcome by men; his forbearance is unmoved by insult.
51. 11.5God gathered the wisest men and gave a teaching by which the worthy become like him and gain eternal happiness.
52. 11.6Christ's victory is the reform of all peoples; blasphemy deceives the young into idolatry.
53. 11.7Christ, God and Son of God, forgave his foolish accusers; pagans, meanwhile, indulge their pleasures, ignorant that the Father appointed the Son to judge and give eternal life.
54. 11.8The Son's birth is not physical but from an eternal cause; Christ, the cause of the world's preservation, must pre-exist it, as the Father is cause of the Son.
55. 11.9The pre-existent Son came to earth out of care for creation, by a novel birth: conceived without marriage, born of a virgin, the mother of God.
56. 11.10Christ's virginal conception was followed by his wisdom from infancy and his baptism in the Jordan.
57. 11.11Christ was anointed, worked healings, answered prayers, and taught a wisdom that leads to the contemplation of God.
58. 11.12Christ gave sight to the blind, strength to the paralysed, life to the dead, and fed multitudes in the desert.
59. 11.13Constantine gives thanks to Christ, God and Saviour.
60. 11.14Christ created all from nothing, and in love makes the virtuous share their goodness with others; human corruption made his descent necessary, since no other physician could cure it.
61. 11.15Christ worked public miracles, raising the dead, healing the senses, calming the sea, and ascending to heaven, all works of God.
62. 11.16At the passion darkness covered the sun and men feared the end of the world, until Christ in his forbearance restored the light.
63. 12.1If Christ's personal teaching did not reform the wicked, nothing else could have; the fault is not God's.
64. 12.2Human perversity hindered Christ's teaching; obedience would have earned eternal life, the true life.
65. 12.3The teaching was entrusted to the wise; from faithful obedience comes fearlessness in death, and the martyr receives a crown from Christ.
66. 12.4The martyr does not boast, knowing his strength is God's gift; he is honoured with lasting memory, hymns and psalms.
67. 12.5The martyrs are honoured with a bloodless thanksgiving, lamps for prayer, and sober feasts for the relief of the poor.
68. 13.1Some blame God for making things and characters different; but diversity serves the world, while human character depends on free choice: reason ruling the passions leads to virtue and reward, vice to unquenchable fire.
69. 14.1Created things, which have a beginning and end, cannot be compared with the eternal Creator, any more than images with their originals.
70. 14.2To liken God to men or beasts, or to seek a power rivalling his, is madness; those who live by God's law will dwell in immortal mansions.
71. 14.3The only human power comparable to God's is sincere worship and contemplation; the grateful accept the order of things, the ungrateful are punished for arrogance.
72. 15.1The Son of God went about the earth for human happiness, calling the best men of his time and teaching them, despite the devil's envy.
73. 15.2Christ cared for the sick and poor, taught patience, generosity and that virtue alone matters, and trained his disciples by leading them through desert and over the raging sea.
74. 15.3Christ rebuked the disciple who drew a sword at his arrest, teaching that whoever takes the sword will perish by it.
75. 15.4Heavenly wisdom is to suffer wrong rather than do it; trusting God, who rescued his people at sea and conquered through the passion, the believer is unconquerable.
76. 16.1The prophets foretold Christ's passion, birth and time; he became flesh to destroy vice and superstition, including the human sacrifices of Egypt and Assyria.
77. 16.2Memphis and Babylon, centres of idolatry, lie desolate, as Constantine saw himself; at Memphis Moses overthrew Pharaoh by prayer alone.
78. 17.1Israel would have been most blessed had it not rejected the Holy Spirit; Moses ordered and freed it, and his wisdom was imitated by the pagan sages.
79. 17.2Pythagoras imitated Moses' wisdom; Daniel, a prophet of great virtue, overcame the hostility of the Assyrian tyrant.
80. 17.3Nebuchadnezzar's rich and cruel idolatry was rebuked by Daniel, whom the tyrant condemned to the beasts.
81. 17.4The three young men were unharmed in the furnace; Daniel, serving the Persian king, escaped the plots of the magi by Christ's providence.
82. 17.5Accused because of his thrice-daily prayer, Daniel was thrown to the lions, but his prayer tamed them.
83. 17.6The king saw Daniel praying to Christ unharmed among the submissive lions and threw the accusing magi to the beasts, who devoured them.
84. 18.1Constantine will cite pagan witnesses to Christ's deity.
85. 18.2The Erythraean Sibyl was a priestess of Apollo, given to his service by her foolish parents.
86. 18.3Inspired, the Sibyl foretold Christ's coming in an acrostic poem spelling 'Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour, Cross,' beginning with the signs of the judgment.
87. 18.4The acrostic continues with the resurrection, cosmic upheaval and the last judgment, ending with the cross as the sign of salvation and Christ the Saviour who suffered for us.
88. 18.5Constantine calls the Sibyl blessed, chosen by Christ as a prophetess.
89. 19.1Many suspect a Christian poet forged the Sibyl's verses.
90. 19.2Careful chronology shows the Sibyl's verses predate Christ.
91. 19.3Cicero translated the Sibyl's poem before his death, long before Christ came under Tiberius, and Virgil speaks of the new race that then arose.
92. 19.4Virgil's Fourth Eclogue announces a new race of men and the fulfilment of the Cumaean Sibyl's prophecy.
93. 19.5Virgil foretells the return of the virgin bringing a beloved king.
94. 19.6Constantine interprets the virgin as the one who conceived by the Holy Spirit and remains ever a virgin, returning when Christ comes again.
95. 19.7Virgil bids the moon worship the newborn child who brings a golden age and heals mortal wounds.
96. 19.8The verses speak of Christ's deity both openly and in allegory.
97. 19.9Virgil veiled the truth to avoid persecution, speaking of altars and sacrifices for the child in pagan terms.
98. 20.1Virgil's child will share God's life, be seen with the righteous, rule the world with his father's virtues, and receive the earth's first gifts.
99. 20.2Virgil foretells goats giving milk, flocks unafraid of lions, the serpent perishing and fragrant balsam blooming; Constantine reads the lions as rulers whom faith does not fear.
100. 20.3The swaddling clothes signify the Spirit's power; the perishing serpent is the one who deceived Adam and Eve.
101. 20.4Before Christ the serpent crushed human hope; through his passion and resurrection the resurrection was revealed, sins were washed away in baptism, and believers given hope.
102. 20.5Death and the serpent's power ended; the 'Assyrian balsam' blooming everywhere signifies the multitude of believers, branches from one root.
103. 20.6The heroes' praises signify the deeds of the righteous, and the father's virtues the creation and the church's laws of righteous living.
104. 20.7Virgil's gradual golden age, with ripening grain, grapes on brambles and honey from oaks, signifies the gradual growth of the fruits of God's law.
105. 20.8Traces of the old evils remain, such as seafaring, walls and war; Constantine praises Virgil's discretion, since speaking openly was dangerous.
106. 20.9Virgil's Achilles signifies the Saviour, and Troy the world, where Christ fought the power of evil at the Father's command.
107. 20.10When the child comes to manhood, the earth will yield all things without labour; he will receive the sceptre from his father, and all creation will rejoice, a theme the poet longs to sing.
108. 21.1Virgil's prophecy cannot refer to a mere man: nature's response, the elements' joy, and the poet's prayer point to God's coming.
109. 21.2The Sibyl longs to be kept until Christ's coming; Virgil's closing lines tell of the child who knew neither marriage bed nor feast.
110. 21.3The child's Father is the formless God, and the Holy Spirit knows no marriage bed; divine wisdom has nothing to do with pleasure.
111. 21.4Constantine invokes Godliness personified, to whom he owes his healing; the impious turn from God, though the whole world is his.
112. 22.1Constantine credits his victories to God; Rome, which had wrongly chosen an unworthy ruler (Maxentius), now rejoices with him.
113. 22.2When the tyrants made war on the churches, godliness faced it with faith, and the persecutors' cruelty only won it glory.
114. 22.3The torturers grew weary, while the Christians stood firm and bold.
115. 22.4Constantine addresses the persecutor: honouring the gods could not justify slaughtering the righteous.
116. 22.5The persecutor's appeal to tradition rests on the folly of thinking man-made images powerful, gods that need human care.
117. 23.1Christianity offers concord, loving correction, faith, mercy, simplicity, and knowledge of the one true God.
118. 23.2True religion leads to eternal life; the one who confesses God does not die but completes his service, and his endurance wins God's favour.
119. 23.3God, more than any human benefactor, rewards virtue, partly now and fully at death, when the soul is judged: eternal life for the righteous, punishment for the wicked.
120. 24.1Constantine taunts the persecutor Decius, who fell with his army against the Goths.
121. 24.2Valerian, another persecutor, was captured by the Persian king Sapor, flayed and preserved as a trophy.
122. 24.3Aurelian, who planned persecution, was murdered on the road in Thrace.
123. 25.1Diocletian, after persecuting, abdicated and confessed his folly by retiring into obscurity.
124. 25.2Constantine witnessed at Nicomedia Diocletian's terror and the lightning fire in his palace, which sensible people had foretold.
125. 25.3People foresaw God's vengeance on the persecution; the emperor even condemned Christian virgins and wives to violation, but the people refused, and the army turned its swords on its own citizens.
126. 25.4God avenged the persecution through civil wars, in which the army of the usurper at Rome was destroyed when Rome was freed.
127. 25.5The world, the stars, the new age, and the thanksgiving of the liberated all testify to God's judgment and love.
128. 26.1Constantine credits his achievements to God, whose inspiration began his service.
129. 26.2Constantine's victories came through prayer, which never fails where faith is firm; all should thank Christ and pray to him, the invincible ally, judge and giver of eternal life.