On Apostate Kings

Contents

Reading pages: 1–5 · 6–10 · 11–12

1. 1Answering the emperor's claim that his long reign proves God's approval, Lucifer points to Gideon, who fell into idolatry yet ruled forty years.
2. 2From Saul, rejected for sparing Amalek yet left to reign and persecute David, Lucifer argues that a long reign does not prove that the emperor pleases God.
3. 3Lucifer adds Solomon, Rehoboam and Jeroboam as kings who kept their thrones for years after turning to idols, so the emperor's survival proves nothing.
4. 4Lucifer charges that Jeroboam, raised by God's promise through Ahijah, repaid him with idolatry, and warns the emperor that the same ingratitude will be punished.
5. 5Lucifer recounts how Jeroboam, though warned by Ahijah's prophecy and by his withered hand at Bethel, persisted in idolatry until death, and warns the emperor not to do the same.
6. 6Lucifer lists further idolatrous kings of Judah and Israel (Abijam, Baasha, Omri, Jehoshaphat, Ahab) who reigned long, to show that the emperor's prosperity is no proof of right faith, and begs him to return to the church.
7. 7Lucifer argues that Ahab, though an idolater and killer of prophets, was given victory over Ben-hadad to call him to repentance, and that the emperor's victories likewise prove God's patience, not his approval.
8. 8From Ahab's hatred of Micaiah, and the long reigns of Jeroboam II, the leprous Uzziah, and the idolater Manasseh, Lucifer argues that God's patience is no sign of approval and calls Arianism a leprosy of the soul.
9. 9Lucifer calls Constantius a second Manasseh who has brought heresy into the church, and says that denying the Son of God is the sacrifice the devil now prefers to the burning of children.
10. 10Lucifer says God bears with Constantius as with Manasseh only to test and crown the faithful, quotes the psalm on the sinner praised by flatterers, and cites Wisdom on God's slow judgment of the Canaanites.
11. 11From Wisdom and from Job's complaint that the wicked prosper, Lucifer argues that God's long patience with the persecuting emperor reserves him for judgment unless he repents.
12. 12Lucifer ends by urging Constantius to repent, confess the true Son of God, and receive pardon, citing the prophets, Sirach, the Psalms and Romans on God's patience.