24. Why should I go into particulars? I saw the man before his actions exactly what I afterwards found him in his actions; and were any present of those who were then with me and heard my words, they would without hesitation bear testimony to what I say; to whom I exclaimed as soon as I had observed these signs, "What an evil the Roman world is breeding!" at once making the prediction and praying against myself that I might turn out a false prophet; for that were better than for the world to be filled with these evils, and such a monstrosity make its appearance as never was seen before; though there are many celebrated deluges on record, and conflagrations, and quakings and yawnings of the earth, and men yet more savage, and beasts of strange sort and composite form, such as Nature has made out of caprice. Thus he has met with an end well suited to his folly, for God did not show His wonted long-suffering in this case, where His clemency had been an evil unto many, and had occasioned much dejection to the upright, and much arrogance in sinners; as though there were no one to superintend our affairs, nor either Providence or Retribution, but that blind Chance carried on and turned about everything----a notion springing from a wicked mind, and one that is in a dangerous condition as regards the highest subjects.
25. These are the "tales of us Galileans----of us, the vile and abject;" these are told by us who worship the Crucified One, the disciples of the uneducated fishermen, as ye call us; by us, who sit together and sing psalms with the old women; by us, wasted away and half dead with the long fasts; by us, who keep awake to no purpose, and through standing vigils grow silly----but yet overthrow |106 you. "Where are the learned men? Where are the councillors?" (I quote the song of victory from one of our own ignorant men, as ye think them). Where are your sacrifices and ceremonies and mysteries? Where are your victims, both public and those kept secret, and the art of divination by entrails, so highly lauded? Where is the jugglery of prediction, and the miracles of those having familiar spirits? Where is the glorious Babylon, so much talked of, and the whole world brought before your view by means of a little, and accursed, blood? Where are the Persians and Medes already grasped in the hand? Where are the gods that were followed in procession, and did follow your march----they that fought for you, and fought with you? Where are your predictions and threats against the Christians, and the preordained extermination of us, even to the name? All are vanished, have been falsified, have melted away----the boastings of the impious have turned out a dream!
26. Now the King of Judah, Hezekiah, when a certain king of the foreigners had come against him with a great force, and had encompassed Jerusalem with his leaguer, and uttered in a sarcastic manner blasphemous and impious words against the king and against his God, as though, whatever might happen, He should not deliver the city out of his power----he went up to the Temple, and having rent his clothes, and shedding streams of tears, extending his hands to heaven, calls God to witness the blasphemy of Sennacherib, and prays that He would become the avenger of the arrogance of his threats, saying, "Thou hast seen how greatly this stranger hath reviled Thee, the Lord of Israel; Thou hast seen it, O Lord, keep not Thou silence!" And truly he was not disappointed of his prayer: but the enemy of God perceived in the end his own madness, and went off without doing anything, with all his threats, having lost the bulk of his army by the stroke of some invisible Power, and retreating in consequence of disagreeable tidings, that |107 raised the siege unexpectedly, and ruined his hopes. Thus did Hezekiah, he that was clothed with much strength, the King of Jerusalem the great, and who perhaps would have repelled the enemy by his unassisted efforts. But we, whose sole arm, bulwark, and all other defence left, was the hope in God, stripped and shorn entirely of all human aid, whom were we to have, either as hearer of our prayer, or as hinderer of those threats, save and accept Him that swears against pride----the God of Jacob?
O the incredible tale! O the audacity of the things hoped for! We were promised, in place of all other sacrifice, to the demons; and we, the great inheritance of God, the holy nation, the royal priesthood, were made the prize of a single hope, the trophy of a single war!
27. Is this the recompense from thee to the Christians, in return for having been saved (unluckily) by their means? Didst thou thus repay the Lord thy God? Formerly, whilst God still bore with thee, and delayed His revenge on our account, nor had yet kindled all His indignation, but held up His hand on high against the ungodly, and was bending and making ready His bow, but held it back by force, and, like some concealed constitutional disease, He waited first for the whole of its virulence to break out; as indeed is the regular course of God's judgments, in order that either He may save through repentance, or punish with greater cause: at that time we being discontented at what had taken place, and apprehensive of what was to come (for we did not bear patiently the hidden goodness of God towards His own people), we uttered those expostulations unto God, at one time invoking Him as a master, at another supplicating Him as a kind father, partly upbraiding and expostulating with Him, as is the wont of people in grief: "Wherefore hast Thou rejected us, O God; for ever? Hath Thy Spirit been wroth against the sheep of Thy pasture? Remember the help that Thou hast possessed from the beginning, which Thou hast obtained through |108 the sufferings of Thy Only-begotten Word, which Thou hast thought worthy of the great Covenant, which Thou hast drawn up to the heavens by the New Mystery and by the pledge of the Spirit: and lift up Thine hand against their pride at last; remembering what the enemies have done against Thy saints, and how they have boasted against Thy festivals." The sword also we invoked, and the plagues of Egypt, and besought Him to execute His own judgment, and exhorted Him to rise up at last against the ungodly, saying, "How long, Lord, shall the sinners----how long shall the sinners boast themselves, and shall tread down Thy people, and harm Thine inheritance, and shall alike speak and do what is unlawful?" And again those pitiful and yet more appropriate expressions, "Thou hast made us a thing to be spoken against, and a contempt unto those near at hand; a bye-word to our neighbours, and a laughing-stock to all men." A vine (we used to say) transplanted out of Egypt (out of dark ignorance of God), which had grown up to this beauty of faith and bigness, then the fence was taken away which formerly defended us (the protection of God); it was laid open to all passers by (to bad rulers); it was laid waste by the wild boar (by him that chose wickedness for his own, and was covered with the mire).
28. These things therefore did I think and cry aloud unto God, but now for what expressions, and in place of what, do I exchange them? Henceforth, I bewail the destruction of the wicked, I become loving unto those that hated me, and I cry aloud in words like these: "How have they been turned into desolation! Of a sudden they have failed, they have perished through their own transgressions, as dust that a whirlwind hath carried away, like down tossed about by the winds; as the morning dew, as the whizzing of a dart that is thrown, as a clap of thunder, as lightning flying past." If now they should be converted, and ceasing from their long error and infatuation should follow after Truth, then perchance some |109 good would accrue to them from their disaster: inasmuch as the being chastised is often for the advantage of those suffering chastisement. But if they should remain in the same mind, and cleave unto their idols still, nor be corrected by misfortune (a thing that makes even fools wise) ----then doth Jeremiah bewail Jerusalem so greatly, that he exhorts even things inanimate to lamentation, and demands a tear from the very walls. But for these people, what adequate lamentation can be found, and who can fittingly bewail their present condition, though he cease to shed a tear for their future chastisement? Because "they have become foolish, and have gone afar off, and have worshipped the creature beyond the Creator"----not only so, but have risen up against those that served God, and have lifted up an impious hand, well deserving of such great plagues!
29. Let these things therefore take their course in what way soever is well-pleasing to God! Who knows whether He "who looseth those that be bound, and bringeth back from the Gates of Death him that is heavy and bowed down," He "who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather his conversion," who enlightened and corrected us who were sitting in darkness and the shadow of death----will not some time or another take to himself these men also, and will lead them like a flock with the shepherd's rod, laying aside the heavy rod of iron. But my speech will again run back to the same song of triumph: "Bel hath fallen, Dagon is broken to pieces, Sharon hath become a marsh, Lebanon is ashamed:" they will not longer "bid the fool to reign over them," that is, the motionless, senseless host of idols: neither will they seek after the goddess of flies, Accaran, or any other more ridiculous than she: they will no more think about the groves, and the high-places, and every well-wooded and shady mountain: they will no more sacrifice their sons and their daughters unto devils, for which Israel of old was rebuked by the prophets; but what is all this to me? Let me turn to |110 the present, and what concerns ourselves. No more shall they cast an evil eye upon our sacred edifices; no more shall they defile with polluting blood the altars named after the most pure and bloodless sacrifice: no more shall they disgrace with impious altars the places not to be approached: no more shall they plunder and profane the consecrated gifts, uniting rapine with sacrilege: no longer shall they insult the hoary hairs of priests, the gravity of deacons, and the modesty of virgins: no more shall they let loose the fury of swine upon the entrails of saints cut open, in order that they may gorge themselves at once with food and with entrails: no more shall they set fire to the monuments of the martyrs, as though they could check the zeal of others to follow their example by their insults against them: no more shall they destroy with fire the relics of saints, polluting their bones by mixing them with the vilest bones, and then scatter them to the winds, in order to defraud them of the honour due even to such remains: no more shall they set up a pulpit of pestilences, and revel in their blasphemies against bishops and presbyters, nay, against Prophets and Apostles, and even against Christ himself! No more shall they hold festivals against us; and exclude us by law from the cultivation of false learning, as though they could at the same time put a gag upon our tongues!
80. Give me thy reasons, both as an emperor, and as a sophist, thy conclusive arguments and syllogisms: let us see what our own fishermen and vulgar folks will have to say for themselves, "Put away the sound of thy songs, and the music of thy instruments," as my Prophet exhorts thee. Let David again sing with freedom, he that struck down the lofty Goliath with the Mystic Stones, he that overcame many through meekness, and who healed Saul through his spiritual harmony, when possessed by the Evil Spirit. Let the torch-bearer put out his fire; let the wise and holy virgins kindle their own lamps for the bridegroom; let the hierophant put off his harlot's attire: ye |111 priests clothe yourselves with righteousness, and with the garment of glory, instead of the spirit of sloth, and with that great and spotless vesture, namely, Christ, our proper decoration!
31. Let thy herald hush his disgraceful proclamation; let my herald cry aloud the words of inspiration: destroy thy books of jugglery and divination, let only those of the Prophets and Apostles be opened: put a stop to thy infamous rites, so full of darkness: I will raise up against them our sacred vigils of the Light: stop up thy sanctuaries and the roads leading unto hell; I will show thee the open road and that leads to heaven! What mighty preparations of arms, or contrivances of engines have brought these things? How many myriads of men and legions had effected such great things as we have done merely by our prayers, and the Lord who willed the same! He hath scattered the darkness, He hath restored the light, He hath founded firmly the earth, He hath bent the heavens like a bow, He hath put the stars in their order, He hath sown the air, He hath set bounds to the sea, He hath drawn out the rivers, He hath given life to animals, He hath formed Man after His own image, He hath placed the universe around all, He hath by one word set free the darkened earth and restored it to light, order, and pristine harmony. No more shall gluttonous and sinful demons have dominion; no more shall the creature be dishonoured under pretence of honour, being worshipped in the place of God! Throw down thy Triptolemuses, and thy Eleusis, and thy foolish Dragons: shame thyself of the books of thine oracular Orpheus: accept the gift of the season that covers thy nakedness; and if these things be but fables and fictions, I will reveal to thee the mysteries of Night!
32. No more does the Oak speak; no more does the Cauldron give oracles; no more is the Pythia filled with I know what, save lies and nonsense. Again the Castalian Fount has been silenced and is silent, and becomes no |112 longer an oracular stream, but an object of ridicule: again a voiceless statue is Apollo: again is Daphne a shrub bewailed in fable: again is thy Bacchus a catamite, with a train of drunkards tied to his tail, as well as thy grand mystery, the Phallus; and a god abandoning himself to the beautiful Prosymnus: again Semele is struck with lightning: again Vulcan is lame (though quick to catch an adulterer), and a god grimed with soot, although a famous artificer, and the Thersites of Olympus: again Mars is a prisoner for adultery, with all his terrors, and frights, and tumults, and gets wounded through his audacity: again Venus is one, formerly a harlot, to her shame, and the procuress of shameful copulations: again Minerva is a maid, and yet brings forth a dragon: again Hercules is mad, or rather has ceased to be mad: again out of lasciviousness and impurity, Jove, teacher, and sovereign of the gods, turns himself into all sorts of things; and though able to draw up all the gods together with all living things, is himself drawn down by none: again Jupiter's tomb is shown in Crete. If I see thy god of gain, thy god of speech, thy president of games, I close my eyes and run past thy god out of shame for the exhibition: thou mayest, for ought I care, adore the tension of his----speech (shall I call it), and his money-bag. One thing alone of them all is respectable----namely, the honours paid amongst the Egyptians to the Nile by the catamite, also those to Isis, and the gods of Mendes and the Apis bulls, and the other things thou dost sculpture or paint, composite and monstrous creatures, thy ludicrous Pan, thy Priapus, thy Hermaphroditus; and the gods who castrate themselves, or tear themselves to pieces. These subjects, however, I will leave to the stage, and to those |113 who decorate them with pomps and ceremonies, and I will conclude my discourse with an exhortation.
33. Men and women, young and old, all ye that have been admitted to this tribunal, and all ye that are set in the lower place, all ye whom the Lord hath redeemed, first, out of error and ungodliness, and now from the rebellion of the gentiles, from the dangers already present, and from those anticipated: hear the words of a man not slightly versed in such matters both from what daily takes place and from ancient histories, books, and facts. It is a great thing never to have experienced any trouble----though perhaps, after all, not a great thing if the saying be true, "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth the son whom He accepteth and for whom He careth." But truly it is a great thing never to have sinned at all----at least heinously, inasmuch as completeness in virtue the Lord has placed beyond mortal reach; and secondly, it is a great thing that such as have somewhat stumbled and been chastised, and then set on their feet again, should abide sensible of that correction, and shun a second scourging for a second offence.
34. Wherefore let us be really corrected by this divine correction; let us show ourselves deserving, not only of what we have suffered at first, but of the blessings we obtained afterwards; let us make some defence, as regards the calamity that overtook us, in the fact that we were not given over to the gentiles as malefactors, but have been chastised as sons; let us not forget the tossing in the calm, nor the sickness in time of health, nor the captivity when restored to Jerusalem, nor Egypt after leaving Egypt. Let us not make the time of suffering better for us than that of delivery, but we shall make it so if we show ourselves at that time chastened and moderate, and raising up all our hopes to heaven; but now puffed up and boastful, and running back again into the same sins out of which we were carried into the calamities that then befell us. "Not so, my children, not so," says in some place |114 Eli the priest, reproving his sons when offending against God. For we know that it is easier to recall past discipline than to preserve it when sent to us from God; because a virtuous course brings back the one, whilst negligence dissipates the other: also our bodies when diseased, recover through strict diet and fasts, but when recovered they fall back through gradual careless living and surfeiting, and tumble again into the same maladies. Knowing these things, and teaching others the like, let us be masters over ourselves, and use the occasion with prudence.
35. First, therefore, brethren, let us keep a festival, not with cheerfulness of face, nor changes and sumptuousness of apparel, nor with revellings and drunkenness, the fruit whereof ye have been taught is chambering and wanton-ness; neither let us crown the streets with flowers, nor our tables with the scandal of perfumes, nor let us decorate the entrances of our dwellings; neither let our houses be illuminated with the material light, nor resounding with concerts and the clapping of hands----for this is the pride of a heathen festivity. But let not us glorify God, or celebrate the present occasion with such things as these, wherewith it is not fitting----but rather with purity of soul and cheerfulness of temper, and with the lamps of the Church that illuminate the body, I mean with godly contemplations, add thoughts raised aloft upon the Sacred Lamp-stand, and diffusing a light over all the world I Compared to such a Light, I esteem as a mere trifle all that men light up when they hold festival. I have also a certain unguent, but one wherewith only priests and kings are anointed, being of various ingredients and very |115 costly, and poured out for our sake, but compounded by the art of the Great Ointment-maker. Ob, that it may be mine to offer up to God the sweet savour of this ointment! I have likewise a table, this spiritual one, which the Lord hath prepared for me, when He rescued me out of the hand of the oppressors, at the which I refresh myself and revel, yet do not grow wanton out of fulness, but calm down all rebellion of my passions. Flowers, too, I have, more blooming and lasting than all those of spring, "out of the full land that the Lord hath blessed," that is, the holy and sweet-smelling pastors and teachers, and all that is pure and choice of the congregation; with these do I desire to be crowned and to go in procession, "having fought the good fight, having finished my course, having kept the faith," according to the holy Apostle. Let us take up hymns instead of timbrils, psalmody instead of profane talking and songs, the applause of thanksgiving instead of the applause of the theatre, and action that is of good report, understanding instead of laughter, instead of drunkenness, sober reflection, instead of luxury, gravity of demeanour. And if thou must needs dance, like a festival-keeper and reveller, then dance, but not the dance of Herodias the immodest, the end whereof was the death of the Baptist, but rather that of David upon the stopping of the Ark, the which I take for an emblem, of a rapid and diversified walking after the will of God. This is the first and chiefest chapter of my exhortation.
36. Secondly, the words I am about to utter will be unpleasant and hard of acceptation, I well know, to the generality (for man when placed in a position to retaliate loves to do so, more especially when justly provoked at what he has lately suffered, while reason is far from compelling anger to obey the rein). Nevertheless, they deserve to be listened to and followed. Let us not use the occasion unsparingly; let us not abuse our power; let us |116 not be bitter towards those that have wronged us; let us not do the same things that we have blamed in others, but profiting by the change so far as escaping danger goes, let us detest all thoughts of retaliation: a sufficient vengeance for reasonable men is the terror of those that have injured them, and their expecting the treatment of which they are deserving, and the torments of their own conscience; for what a person fears that he is about to suffer, the same he does suffer even though he does not actually suffer it; and perhaps even more from himself than he would from those that should inflict it. Let us, therefore, not consent for anger to be meted out as their due to our enemies, nor let us show ourselves punishers too gentle for their deserts; but seeing that we cannot exact from them the full debt of vengeance, let us forgive them the whole; let us be better and more highminded than those who have wronged us; let us show them what their demons teach them, and what Christ hath taught us , who having glory in the things that He suffered, was not less superior in the things He refrained from doing, though He had the power. Let us render unto God our thankoffering; let us magnify the Mystery by our goodness, and to this end let us improve the occasion.
37. Let us conquer those that have oppressed us, with clemency; and above all let humanity be our director, and the force of that commandment which promises us like for like mercy whenever we need the same; for "with what measure ye mete, with the same shall it be measured to you again," as we well know. And if any of you feel exceedingly bitter, let us leave to God those who have vexed us, and to the tribunal of the next world; let us not diminish aught of the coming wrath by means of our own violence; let us not think of confiscation; let us not, bring them before the tribunals; let us not banish them from their country; let us not torture them with scourges, nor, to sum up all, let us not do to them anything of all that they have done to us. Let us make them better, if |117 perchance that be possible, by our own example. If any one's father has been a sufferer, or his son, or wife, or kinsman, or friend, or any of those dear to him, let us render the suffering profitable to them by persuading them to bear patiently the things which they have suffered; in this way we shall do them a greater favour than in any other. Shall I mention the greatest of the blessings we now enjoy? Those that persecuted us are hooted by mobs and cities, and market-places, and assemblies. The old state of things is cried up, the new derided, even by those who joined in the persecution, which is a strange thing; the gods themselves are pulled down amidst all sorts of execration by the very men who set them up, as though they had deceived them for a long time and the delusion had come to an end at last; and he that was yesterday a worshipper is to-day a reviler. What greater thing than all this do we seek for? At the present time this (perhaps too light for their offences) is the fate of those wretched men---- a time will come when I shall behold them and their Great Leader bewailing their own sin, at the time when all wickedness shall be judged and tormented!
38. I pass over the inspired, and our own denouncements, and the punishments that, according to us, are in store in the world to come: turn, pray, to thine own stories that are accepted, not by the poets only, but also by people who were philosophers; I mean thy Pyriphlegethons, Cocyti, and Acherons, wherewith they punish wickedness, Tantalus, Tityos, Ixion. Julian, your king of this fraternity, shall be reckoned amongst these----nay, at the head of them all, according to my calculation and definition----though he be not tormented with thirst whilst up to his chin in a lake; nor fearing (as Tragedy pleases) the rock overhanging his head, continually pushed away, continually rolling back; nor revolving along with the whizzing wheel; nor torn by vultures in his liver, never coming to an end, always renewed----whether all this be truth, or fable foreshowing the truth |118 in fictions----but we shall see with what, and what sort of torture he will be punished, and how much more severely than all the rest----if, indeed, punishments and retributions be adjudged according to the measure of offences.
39. Here is "a keepsake for thee in return for a kick," thou best and wisest of men! (to address thee in thy own words); this do we offer thee, we that were excluded from the use of words, according to thy mighty and wonderful legislation; thou seest that we were not destined to be silenced for ever, or be condemned to speechlessness by thy decrees, but to utter a free voice demonstrative of thy folly. For neither is there any means of holding-in the cataracts of Nile, which tumble down from Ethiopia upon Egypt, nor yet the solar beam, even though it may be veiled for a little space by the snowfall, nor to tie the tongue of Christians from exposing to ridicule thy religion. These words Basil and Gregory send thee, "those opponents and counterworkers of thy scheme," as thou wast wont to call them and persuade others to do the same----doing us honour by what thou didst threaten us with, and moving us all the more to piety----persons who being well known for their life, discourse, and mutual affection, and whom thou wast acquainted with ever since our common residence in Greece, thou didst treat with the honour the Cyclops paid Ulysses; thou didst keep us in reserve as the last victims for the persecution, and didst probably design as a thankoffering for victory to thy own demons (a great and splendid one, in truth!) in case we should get thee back returning triumphant |119 from Persia; or else them didst hope, in thy infatuation, to drag us along with thee into the same abyss as thyself!
40. For we two were not less courageous than the youths who were cooled with dew in the furnace; and who overcame the wild beasts through Faith; and who zealously faced danger along with the mother that bore them and the yet bolder priest----showing that Faith alone of all things is invincible; or than those youths in thy own time, one of whom having insulted thy "Mother of the gods," and pulled down her altar, was brought before thee as a criminal, but came before thee as a triumphant champion, and after casting much ridicule upon thy purple robe and thy speeches, as mere counters and things to be laughed at, went out again with greater confidence than one returning from a feast or splendid entertainment; whilst another, deeply lacerated over all his body with scourges, and having but little breath left in him from his wounds, was so far from giving in to his torments or making a hardship of his condition, that when he perceived any part of his body not marked by the lashes, he forthwith accused his torturers as defrauding him, and not conferring honour upon his whole body, but letting some part pass unlacerated and unhallowed----holding out his leg as the only part that had escaped the claws, and bidding them not spare that also. |120
41. This is the meaning of the lies and ravings of thy Porphyry (of which ye all boast as divinely-inspired words), and of thy "Misopogon," or rather "Antichrist," for thou gavest both names to the book----than which nothing is more contemptible in the eyes of Christians; though at the time thy imperial rank made it important, aided by the parasites that extolled all thy actions; but now it is a Beard tossed about and plucked at, and the object of ridicule together with those that helped make it; in which book thou art mighty proud about the frugality of thy way of living, and of never suffering from indigestion in consequence of over-eating; whilst thou dost purposely omit how bitterly thou didst persecute the Christians, and eat up so great and holy a people. And yet what damage is it to the public if an individual has indigestion, or emits natural eructations? But when so great a persecution as this is stirred up, and such great disturbance occasioned by the change, it is unavoidable that the Roman empire should be in a bad way, as now it proves to have been.
42. Here is a pillar for thee, raised by our hands, more lofty and more conspicuous than the "Pillars of Hercules;" for they were set up to commemorate one |121 Labour, and are only visible to such as visit that part of the world; but this cannot fail as it moves about to be known to all men in all places; and which the time to come, I well know, will receive, holding up, as it does, to infamy thee and thy actions, and warning all that remain never to venture upon any such rebellion against God, lest if they do the same things, they may meet with the same retribution!
[Footnotes have been renumbered and placed at the end]
1. Probably an allusion to the mysterious death (perhaps the result of slow poisoning) of the Prefect of Egypt, Julian's uncle, of the same name.
2. It is to be remarked that the preacher never once mentions Julian by name. Was this meant for an expression of contempt?
3. Brasmw~| . Gregory knows nothing of the "metuendi flammarum globi," with which Ammian adorns the story. It is plain from this account, written but a few months after the occurrence, that a sudden storm of wind sufficed to frighten the superstitious Jews, who saw in it a sign of the displeasure of Heaven with the work they were about.
4. This must be Helena's Church: Gregory terms the Temple new_j .