But perhaps you are not going to suffer pagans of this kind. For some of their own despise those given to the wickedness of pleasures and drunkenness and say: "Just as you have bad Christians, so we have bad pagans. For good pagans, see what they are." Then they name the wise and philosophers of the world, as if endowed with excellent doctrine. But do not be frightened by them. Greatness is one thing, swelling is another. For what swells also seems great, but it is not healthy. Hear the Apostle saying: Beware lest anyone seduce you through philosophy and vain deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of this world and not according to Christ, because in him dwells all the fullness of divinity bodily, and you are made full in him, who is the head of all principality and power. For as they interpret their idols skillfully and as if wisely, they flee to the elements of the world. You rebuke someone because he worships idols, and it is evident that he adores the idol: he is convicted in fact, and there he has his affection - in that idol, namely -, he places his hearing there, but what does a supposedly more skilled and wiser pagan say to you? "Unskilled pagans do this, to worship the idol as an idol, just as some of yours worship columns in the church."
"The temple of your prayer is your heart."
Therefore I say, brothers: do not act in a way that pagans may mock us; enter the church in such a way that you do not give pagans a reason not to enter the church. For the church is entered because of fraternal congregation. For the temple of your prayer is your heart. Clean the place where you pray, and you will be heard. For if you cleanse the visible place where you make your prayer, it is not for the eyes of God - for He sees everything as He has created everything - but so that your own eyes are not offended and do not divert your intention, how much more should you cleanse the place where you invoke and by which you invoke God? Your inner room, where you enter and shut the door, as the Lord Himself says, that is, your sense of body, should be closed against bodily temptations; but fraternal congregation ignites fervor in praying and praising God. Just as if some weight were to be moved, and that which is called a work chant were to be sung, wouldn't the multitude of those chanting and cooperating in unison and in the same effort even stir your weak strength, so that you would also want to hold the rope and rejoice in the fellowship of that work? Thus, the gathering of brothers sharpens charity. And every person prays inwardly when he prays well, just as the Lord answered the Samaritan woman: He said, The hour is coming and now is, when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. And shortly after: He said, The hour is coming and now is, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father seeks such to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. Therefore, if God is to be asked in spirit, let it be a dwelling place: the dweller will be present. He said, We will come to him, I and my Father, and we will make our abode with him. So come to the church, that the fervor of praying may be stirred, that the devotion of a peaceful congregation may merit a hearing from God, not because God dwells in an earthly place where He may hear you. Do not think that God only hears within such walls: He heard the martyrs in the prison. He said, What house will you build for me, or what is the place of my rest? Didn't my hand make all these? And yet He said He has a place in the heart of a pious man. For He said: Upon whom does my Spirit rest? Upon the humble and quiet and those who tremble at my words.
In a great house there are hired workers, servants, and children.
Why did we say this? So that, while we criticize the pagans, we do not give them a reason to criticize us. Come to the places of the martyrs in such a way that the visit results in a holy remembrance in your hearts, and from the honor of the martyrs, let there arise an affection toward God, who did not abandon the martyrs in their tribulation, who helped them as they fought, who crowned them as they conquered. Thus you make yourselves worthy of the martyrs' prayers. Otherwise, a good servant is greatly indignant if, with the Lord being ignored, he himself is worshiped, a good servant who also became a son from being a servant. For there is a difference between one who is still a servant, yet to become a son from being a servant, and one who is already a son. A servant obeys out of fear, a son out of love. The great house has all: hirelings, servants, and sons. Hirelings are those who seek worldly benefits in the Church, about whom the Apostle says that they announce the Gospel not with pure intentions, and yet he permits it saying: Whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. Servants, however, are those who do what is commanded by the Lord out of fear. They are indeed of the house, and more interior in the great house than the hirelings; from these servants, sons are made when they begin to serve out of love. Therefore, as I began to say, the great house has all. What do we think the martyrs are, my brothers? God forbid we should count them among the hirelings, nor among those who are not yet sons! For they loved Christ and for His love they despised not only all worldly pleasures but also all torments, intoxicated by the cup of His Spirit about which it is said: Your intoxicating cup, how glorious it is! Therefore, a good servant, as I said, who is already called a son, does not want to be worshiped, but his Lord. Pay attention, brothers, and remember what you frequently attend, what the truth teaches in the Church. The faithful know in what order the martyrs are commemorated in the sacraments, when our vows and prayers are directed toward God; the faithful know, and the catechumens should hasten to learn. For who repels them? To whom is not open, if willing, what is closed to the indifferent?
"Paul and Barnabas rejected the honor of sacrifices."
But let us observe, brothers, what good servants have done while still existing in this body, when they were honored by men and began to be worshipped as gods of the nations: Paul and Barnabas, because they performed miracles in Christ, because they exceeded the human measure, were called by the pagans, according to their custom, Barnabas as Jupiter, and Paul as Mercury, because he was more prompt in speaking, and they began to offer sacrifices to them. They so abhorred this honor that they tore their garments and taught them, as much as they could, who alone should be worshipped, in whose power they did these things. Observe these things, brothers, so that you may be strong and guarded even against more elegant pagans. Why do I say more elegant, who are in greater danger? For the more learned they seem to themselves, the more unteachable they become. For they are ashamed to learn, lest they confess their ignorance, and there is no pious humility in them, which the humble God alone came to teach.
Or perhaps someone might say: "Paul and Barnabas refused the honor of sacrifices offered to them because one was called Jupiter and the other Mercury, whom the apostles detested as false gods with Christian religion, and therefore were indignant to be compared to demons or idols, not because they wanted God to be worshipped rather than themselves?"
So they would say this to those wanting to sacrifice: "You are insulting us, comparing us to demons to whom we are better"; instead, they tore their garments sorrowfully and humbly admonished that such things should not be done to them nor to anyone, but that one should turn from these vanities to the one God, saying: Men, why are you doing this? We are men like you, announcing to you that you should turn from these useless things to the one who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them. Saying these and similar things, they barely persuaded them not to sacrifice to them.
But to show the impious more fully that they did not refuse these sacrifices because they considered it an insult to themselves but so that God alone would be honored, to whose worship they worked the most to convert everyone, consider Peter: when men marveled at his deed - rather not his, but God's - when that lame man of forty years, who sat at the beautiful gate, rose and walked by the word of God, he did not want glory to be given to himself, but to Christ, and said: Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this, or why do you look at us, as if by our own power or piety we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his Son, whom you handed over for judgment.
Let us observe the good angels of God.
But if what men did is little, so that they wanted glory to be given not to themselves but to God, look at the angels. In Revelation, the holy angel - because there are also perverse angels, for whom and their leader the devil the eternal fire is prepared - thus the angel who did not fall through pride, but remaining in holy humility under God, not raising himself in haughtiness against God nor saying: I will place my throne on the northern side and be like the Most High, but remaining in the south, where Christ feeds and rests... For it is written: Where you feed, where you rest at noon. The southern part is indeed contrary to the northern: thus it signifies those who are cold and dark. But the south signifies the illuminated and fervent. Therefore, those who are good, as if in the south, are fervent and shine; but those who are evil, as if in the north, are cold and darkened by obscure gloom. With those in the south God feeds and rests, hence it is said: Where you feed, where you rest at noon, not with those, of whose part the devil says: I will place my throne in the north and be like the Most High. For he could not be worshipped except by such, who would think him to be a god. Therefore, that angel remaining in the south, fervent in holiness and luminous in wisdom, demonstrated certain things in Revelation to the apostle John. And he, disturbed, fell at the feet of the angel.
He who lives in holiness esteems solely the glory of God.
See, brothers, above all, to which angels humble men are similar and to which proud men are similar. For those who cause schisms and heresies desire their own name to be named and the name of Christ to be obscured, and they choose to sit in the north. For men would not follow them, having deserted the Church, as if they were Christ, unless their understanding was darkened and they were alienated from the warmth of charity. But to whom are those similar who, holding humility, choose to be cast out in the house of the Lord, rather than dwell in the tents of sinners?
What did Simon desire, if not to be praised in miracles and exalted in pride? For it was this very pride that compelled him to think that the gift of the Holy Spirit could be bought with money. Apostle Paul, contrary to this pride, in humility, remaining in the south, fervent in spirit, shining with prudence, says: "Neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase." And again: "Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" How he refused to be worshiped in place of Christ, how he was zealous for the bridegroom and did not want to show himself to the infidel soul in place of the bridegroom!
So what kind of holy men were they according to their measure - for they will be perfect like angels after the resurrection of the body - but nevertheless according to their measure, just as they themselves rejected the honor which men bestowed on them as if rightly their own, while they wanted him to be worshiped and all hearts to be turned to him, in whom they themselves also gloried, truly good and faithful servants, children, such holy angels. For even though they were still men in the flesh and placed in such temptations, they rejected the honor that was conferred on them to pride, so that only he who alone is honored without danger to the honoring one is honored in all.
For where do they place themselves so that he may be honored? How do they humble themselves? Does it not seem great to plant and to water? But neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters. He does not call himself anything for the salvation of those he wished to build up in Christ. If, therefore, men still living in the flesh do these things, how much more so the martyrs and angels! For the more holy they live, the more they love the glory of God and have their hope in him alone. For we too will be like angels, but after the resurrection. Thus said the Lord: "They will be equal to the angels of God."
Pagan priests prescribe idols to be worshiped.
Return, therefore, with me to what I had begun to narrate, and be instructed beneficially on why you are devoted to God. For that angel was revealing miraculous and mystical visions in the Apocalypse to the apostle John, servant of Christ, son of the mother Church, and made among the sons of God. But he, disturbed by a certain vision, as I had begun to say, fell at the feet of the angel. However, the angel did not accept the honor given to him by a man, which was owed to God, and said to him: "Rise, what are you doing? Worship God. For I am your fellow servant and of your brothers." Why did we say this? Consider the summation. We had begun to speak about the pagans, as if they were more learned - for they are less learned, about whom these do not wish to have any precedent - because they say to us: "You also have worshipers of columns and even sometimes of pictures." And would that we did not have them, and may the Lord ensure that we do not have them! But nevertheless, this is not what the Church teaches you. For which of their priests ever ascended and, from a high place, commanded the people not to worship idols, as we publicly proclaim in Christ, so that columns or stones of buildings in holy places or even pictures are not worshiped? Rather, their own priests turned to idols to offer sacrifices for the people, and still desire to offer them.
"Concerning the images of the stars and their worship."
"They say, 'We do not worship idols, but what is signified by the idol.' I ask what idols signify, I ask what the idol of the sun signifies: is it anything other than the sun? Indeed, interpretations of other idols may perhaps have hidden meanings. For now, let us set these aside temporarily. Surely, the idol of the sun signifies nothing other than the sun, and the idol of the moon signifies the moon, and the idol of the Earth signifies the Earth. If therefore they do not worship what they see in the idol, but what the idol signifies, why, having the very things signified by those idols before their eyes, do they worship the idols instead?
For if what is signified could not be seen, it would be reasonable to worship the sign instead of the thing signified. But since they see the sun which is signified by the idol of the sun, why do they turn their backs to what is signified, and their faces to the sign that signifies it? For if they did not make idols of the things they see, and only made them for the things they do not see, they could deceive the less wise and say: 'Look, we worship the sun. But because we see it, we establish no idol for it. Similarly, as we see the moon and the stars, so we worship them; we have made no idols of them. For it is foolish to place a visible sign in a closed temple for something that can be seen and worshiped in the open sky. But since we worship the mind, or intellect, or soul, or virtue, or justice - these things are indeed invisible - we establish visible idols for them, so that by seeing and worshiping these, we may reverentially contemplate the invisible things.'
But now they are most clearly convinced of being devoted to the idols themselves, and not to the things signified by the idols, since they have made idols of visible things that are obvious to the eyes of all. The idol has the sun, which if they worshiped in the sky, they would rightly be reproached for their true piety and religion. Moreover, they have reached such madness that they turn their backs to the sun and face its idol. How can you be heard, so perverse, when you turn away from it and turn to its false and deceitful image made by human hand? It is as if you come to the house of the head of the household to ask for something, and he stands in his courtyard, yet you turn your back to him and face the picture where he is painted, and pray with all your heart not to the man but to the picture, even in the presence of the man whose image the picture is. Wouldn't he have you dismissed from his house as a jester or a madman?
Nothing would be more foolish than what these people do, even if the sun were to be worshiped. But since these things are not to be worshiped, we will speak in the name of the Lord, if He grants us time and ability. But now we say these things about how they are caught in their own actions. You have made a temple for the moon, you have placed an idol for it; the moon itself rises every day, and for scarcely two or three days a month it cannot be seen: worship it, if it is to be worshiped, if you have come to such disgrace that you wish to worship the visible creature as if it were God, although the invisible creature is surely superior, which nevertheless is not to be worshiped, but only the Creator alone is to be worshiped as God.
But behold, the very things you worship are before your eyes, whether it is the sun, the moon, the stars, or the earth, why do you seek their idols, when those present things themselves are to be worshiped, unless because men are devoted to the things made by their own hands, forgetting Him by whose hands they were made?"