A foolish excuse of those reclining in an idol.
He says, "There is no God;" because it is the genius of Carthage. As if Mars or Mercury were gods. But consider how they regard it, not what it is. For I also know with you that it is a stone. If a genius is some ornament; let the citizens of Carthage live well, and they themselves will be the genius of Carthage. But if a genius is a demon, you have heard it there too: The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God: I do not want you to become partners with demons. We know that it is not God; would that they too knew this: but for the sake of those who do not know this, the weak, their conscience must not be struck. This the Apostle advises. For they too, in what they claim as a divine presence and regard as a deity, that statue, the altar testifies. What is the altar doing there, if that is not regarded as a deity? Let no one say to me, "It is not a deity, it is not God." I have already said: Would that they knew this as we all know. But what they hold, for what purpose they hold it, what they do there, that altar testifies. It convicts the minds of all worshippers, let it not convict those who recline.
To press and touch the body of Christ.
But let not Christians oppress, if pagans oppress. It is the body of Christ. Did we not say this, because the body of Christ was being oppressed, and not touched? He endured the oppressors, he sought those who touched. And would that, brothers, the body of Christ be oppressed by pagans, by whom it is accustomed to be oppressed; let not Christians oppress the body of Christ. Brothers, it is for us to speak to you, it is for us to speak to Christians. For what have I to do with judging those outside? the Apostle himself says. We address them differently, as the weak; we must be gentle with them, that they may hear the truth: in you the decay must be cut away. If you seek how the pagans may be overcome, how they may be enlightened, how they may be called to salvation: forsake their festivities, forsake their trifles; and if they do not consent to our truth, let them be ashamed of their fewness.
A prelate, whether good or bad, cannot harm the pious.
If he who is set over you is good, he is your nurturer; if he is bad, he is your tempter. Willingly receive nourishment, and be approved in temptation. Be gold. Regard this world as a goldsmith's furnace: in one narrow place, there are three things: gold, chaff, and fire. Fire is applied to those two, the chaff is burned, the gold is purified. Someone yielded to threats and was brought to an idol: woe to me, for I mourn the chaff, I see the ashes. Another did not yield to threats, did not yield to torturers; brought before the judge, he stood in his confession, he was not bowed to the idol: what does the flame do? Does it not purify the gold? Stand in the Lord, brothers: more powerful is he who called you. Do not fear the threats of the impious. Endure enemies; you have those for whom you pray; do not be terrified at all. This is health, draw from it at this feast: drink here, where you may be satisfied, not there, where you may go mad. Stand in the Lord. You are silver, you will be gold. This likeness is not from us, it is from divine Scripture. You have read, you have heard: Like gold in the furnace he has tested them; and like a holocaust offering he has accepted them. Behold what you will be to the treasures of God. Be rich in God: not making him rich, but becoming rich by him. Let him fill you, admit nothing else to your heart.
Observance of ordered powers.
Do we raise you in pride, or say to you that you should be contemptuous against the ordained powers? We do not say this. You are even sick here, touch even here the hem of the garment. The Apostle himself says: Every soul should be subject to higher powers: for there is no power except from God. The powers that exist are ordained by God. He who resists the power resists the ordinance of God. But what, if it commands that which you should not do? Here indeed you should despise the power, fearing the power. Observe the very degrees of human affairs. If the curator commands something, is it not to be done? Yet, if he commands against the proconsul, you do not despise the power, but you choose to serve the greater. Nor should the lesser be angry if the greater is preferred. Again, if the proconsul commands something, and the emperor commands something else, is there any doubt that, with the former despised, it is to be served? Therefore, if the emperor commands one thing and God another, what do you judge? Pay the tribute, be obedient to me. Rightly, but not in the idol. He forbids the idol. Who forbids? The greater power. Pardon: you threaten prison, he threatens hellfire. Here now your faith must be taken up as a shield, in which you can extinguish all the fiery darts of the enemy.
The deceit of the powerful is compared to a razor.
But a powerful one lies in wait against you, and a powerful one plots against you: he sharpens a razor to shave off hair, not to cut off the head. What I have said, you have recently heard in the Psalm: "You have wrought deceit as a sharp razor." Why has he compared the deceit of a powerful evil one to a razor? Because it only applies to our superfluities. Just as the hairs on our body seem superfluous and are shaved off without harm to the flesh, so whatever an angry powerful one can do to you, count among your superfluities. He takes away your poverty: does he take away your riches? Your poverty and your riches are in your heart. He could take away your superfluities, he could cause harm, permitted even to injure the body. Even this life, for those considering another life; this life, I say, is to be reckoned among the superfluities. For even the martyrs despised it. They did not lose life, but they gained life.
The security of the pious under the protection of God.
Be certain, brothers, that enemies are not admitted against the faithful, except as long as it benefits the testing and proving of the faithful. Be certain, brothers, let no one say otherwise. Cast all your care upon the Lord, entirely cast yourselves into Him. He does not withdraw so that you fall. He who created us and gave us assurance regarding even the hairs of our head. "Amen I say to you," He says, "the very hairs of your head are all numbered." Our hairs are numbered by God: how much more our character, of which even our hairs are known to Him? See that God does not despise our smallest things. For if He did despise them, He would not create them. For He certainly created our hairs too and keeps them numbered. But now when they are, you say, perhaps they will perish. And hear His voice from this: “Amen I say to you, not a hair of your head will perish.” Why do you fear man, O man placed in the bosom of God? Do not fall from His bosom; whatever you may suffer there, it will be for salvation, not for ruin. The martyrs endured the laceration of their limbs, and do Christians fear the injuries of the times of Christians? He who injures you now does so out of fear. He does not say openly, "Come to the idol"; he does not say openly, "Come to my altars, dine there." And if he says this, and you refuse, let him complain, let him put this in his petition, let him declare this in his complaint: "He refused to come to my altars, he refused to come to the temple which I revere." Let him say this. He does not dare say it but devises other deceitful schemes. Prepare your hair, he sharpens the razor: he will remove your excess, shave whatever you are to leave behind. Let him take whatever remains, if he can. What did the powerful wrongdoer take? What great thing did he take? What the thief, what the burglar; to rage greatly, what the robber. Even if he is allowed to put this body to death, what does he take except what the robber does? I honored him when I said: a robber. For any robber, of whatever kind, is a man. What fever, what scorpion, what bad fungus. All the power of those who rage is to do what a fungus does. People eat bad fungus and die. Behold in what frailty human life is: which you will someday leave behind, do not fight for it in such a way that you are left behind.
Eternal life is the reward of labor.
Our life is Christ: attend to Christ. He came to suffer, but also to be glorified; to be despised, but also to be exalted; to die, but also to rise again. The work terrifies you, but look at the reward. Why do you wish to reach that thing delicately, to which labor alone brings you? But you fear to lose your silver; because you have reached your silver with great labor. If you did not reach the silver, which you will sometime lose even when dying, without labor; do you wish to reach eternal life without labor? Let that be dearer to you, to which you will thus reach after all labors, so that you may never lose it. If that is dear to you, to which you thus reached after all labors, so that one day you will lose it; how much more ought we to desire that perpetual thing?
Idols, unless legitimate power is given, should not be broken.
Do not believe their words, nor be afraid. They call us enemies of their idols. Thus may God provide, and give everything into power, just as He gave what is broken. For we say this to your Charity, do not do these things when it is not in your power to do this. It is the behavior of depraved men, of the insane Circumcellions, to be savage where they have no power, and to hasten to die without cause. You have heard what we read to you, all of you who were recently present in the Mappalia. When the land has been given to you in power (first he says, in power, then he says what must be done), he says, you shall destroy their altars, smash their groves, and break all their sacred pillars. When you have received power, do this. Where power has not been given to us, we do not act; where it has been given, we do not neglect it. Many pagans have these abominations on their estates: do we approach and break them? First, we act by breaking the idols in their hearts. When they have also become Christians, they either invite us to such a good work, or they anticipate us. Now we must pray for them, not be angry with them. If great pain moves, it moves against Christians, it moves against our brothers, who wish to enter the church in such a way that they have the body here, but the heart elsewhere. Everything should be inside. If what man sees is inside, why is what God sees outside?
Unjust complaints of idolaters.
But know, dearest, that their murmurs align themselves with the heretics, with the Jews. The heretics, Jews, and Pagans have united against unity. Because it happened that in some places the Jews received discipline due to their wickedness; they accuse, suspect, or pretend that we always seek such things about them. Because it happened that somewhere heretics suffered punishments by laws for their impiety and fury of their violences; now they say we seek anything at all times for their inconvenience to their destruction. Again, because it pleased against the Pagans that laws be passed—indeed for the Pagans, if they are wise—as a severe teacher comes when foolish children are playing in the mud and dirtying their hands, and the teacher shakes off the mud from their hands, extends the book—in this way, God wanted to terrify foolish childish hearts through princes subjected to Him, that they could shake off the mud from their hands and do something useful. What is useful from the hands? Break your bread for the hungry, and bring the needy without shelter into your house. And yet the children escape the sight of the teacher and return to the mud secretly; and when they are found out, they hide their hands so they are not seen; because, therefore, God wanted it, they think we seek idols everywhere; which, when we find, we break them in all places. Why? Do not places where they are exist before us? Or do we truly not know where they are? And yet we do not do it: because God did not give it into our power. When does God give it into power? When it is a Christian whose matter it is. He now desired the matter to be done by whose it is. If he did not want to give the place itself to the Church and only ordered that there should not be idols in his matter; I believe it should be done with utmost devotion so that a Christian soul, who wants to give thanks to God on earth and does not want anything there to be an insult to God, would be helped by Christians. To this it is added that He gave the places themselves to the Church. And idols would exist in the matter of the Church? Brothers, see what displeases the Pagans. It is not enough for them that we do not remove those things from their villas, do not break them: and they want them to be kept in ours. We preach against idols, we remove them from hearts: we are persecutors of idols: we profess. Are we their preservers? I do not do it where I cannot; I do not do it where the lord of the matter complains: but where he wants it to be done and gives thanks; I will be guilty if I do not do it.