Letters 10–19

To the most clement emperors, and Christian princes, most glorious and most blessed, GRATIAN, VALENTINIAN, and THEODOSIUS, the Council which assembled at Aquileia.

1. The Suppression of Arian Resistance in the West

Provision has indeed been made, most clement princes, by the decrees of your tranquility, that the perfidy of the Arians can no longer either lie hidden or creep further; for indeed we think that the effect of the decrees of the council will by no means be lacking: for as far as concerns the western parts, only two have been found who would dare with profane and impious voices to oppose the council, men accustomed scarcely to trouble a corner of Ripensian Dacia.

2. Concern Over Ursinus's Renewed Ambitions

There is another matter about which we are more distressed, which, since we have come together, had to be duly treated; lest the whole body of the Church, spread throughout the whole world, might be entirely thrown into confusion. For although we have frequently gathered that Ursinus could not have crept unnoticed upon your piety (although he allows nothing to remain quiet, and amidst so many necessities of war an untimely intrusion is being attempted), yet lest your holy mind and tranquility of spirit, which is eager to take counsel for all, be bent by the feigned flattery of an importunate man, we deem it proper to entreat and beseech you, if you consider it worthy, not only guarding against the future, but also shuddering at the past, at what has already been done by his own rashness. For if he should find any way open to his boldness, what would he not throw into confusion?

3. Ursinus's Alliance with the Arians at Milan

But if the compassion for one man can move you, much more should the entreaty of all the priests move you. For which of us would be joined to him in communion, when he has attempted to usurp for himself a rank not due to him, nor could he by right attain to it; and what he sought importunately he strives to seek again most importunately? Condemned so many times for disturbances, he still walks about as though he need not shudder at past examples.

He who very often (as we have learned and seen in this council) was joined and united with the Arians at the time when he was attempting to disturb the Church of Milan by a detestable assembly with Valens: now before the doors of the Synagogue, now in the houses of the Arians, mingling secret councils, and joining his own people to them; and since he himself could not openly come forth into their gatherings, instructing and informing them how the peace of the Church might be disturbed: he took breath in their fury, because he was able to win over their favorers and companions.

4. Scriptural Grounds for Shunning Ursinus

Since therefore it is written: A heretic after one admonition avoid; since also another man, speaking by the Holy Spirit, said that such beasts are to be shunned, and are not to be received even with a greeting, nor with any meeting: how can it be that we should not judge him, whom we have seen inserted into their fellowship, to be also a champion of their perfidy? And even if that were lacking, still your clemency ought to have been besought not to allow the Roman Church, the head of the whole Roman world, and that most sacred faith of the Apostles, to be disturbed; for from it flow the rights of venerable communion to all. And therefore we ask and beg that you deign to remove from him the opportunity of creeping in.

5. Ursinus's Reputation and His Agent Paschasius

We know the holy modesty of your clemency; that he not bring anything unworthy to your hearing, that nothing foreign to the office and name of a priest resound before you, that he not speak to you shameless things: he who ought to have had testimony even from those who are outside—with what testimony even his own fellow citizens have pursued him, may your clemency deign to recall. For it is shameful to say, unseemly to recount, with what a disgraceful report he has wounded his own name. By which shame at least he ought to have been constrained to be silent; and if he had any conscience as a priest, he would prefer the peace and concord of the Church to his own ambition and zeal. But being far removed from all shame, through that cut-off man Paschasius, the standard-bearer of his fury, by sending letters, he sows disturbances, and strives to stir up gentiles and every kind of lost men.

6. Plea for the Removal of Ursinus

We pray, therefore, that you now grant both to the Roman people, who hang in uncertainty after the report of the Prefect of the City, and to us priests, the security that has been withheld, by the removal of this most importunate man.

Which having been obtained, we shall celebrate thanksgiving before God the Almighty Father, and Christ and the Lord God, in unbroken continuance.

To the most clement and Christian emperors, and glorious, most blessed princes GRATIAN, VALENTINIAN, and THEODOSIUS, the holy Council which assembled at Aquileia.

1. Thanksgiving for the Eastern Churches' Restoration

However abundant our thanksgivings, we can by no means equal the benefits of your piety, most clement emperors, and most blessed and most glorious princes, Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius, beloved of God the Father, and of his Son our Lord Jesus Christ. For since, after many times and various persecutions which the Arians inflicted on the Catholics—especially either that Lucius who raged with impious slaughter of monks and virgins, but also Demophilus, the dire head of perfidy—all the churches of God, especially those throughout the East, have been restored to the Catholics: while in the western parts scarcely two heretics have been found who could oppose the holy council; who is there who could think himself a fit reporter of your favors?

2. The Council's Prayers for the Emperors' Welfare

But nevertheless, even though we cannot explain your benefits in words, yet we desire to make recompense by the prayers of the council: for although through each several church we daily keep watch before our God on behalf of your empire; yet, gathered together as one—than which office we think nothing more beautiful—we give thanks to our almighty God both for the empire, and for the peace and welfare of you, in that through you peace and concord have thus been poured back upon us.

3. The Faith United Across West and East

Indeed, throughout the Western regions, it seemed that the faith was being assailed only in two quarters, that is, on the side of Dacia Ripensis and Moesia: to which, we now suppose, care must at last be taken forthwith after the sentence of the council, by favor of your clemency. But through all tracts and regions, and even to the enclosures of villages, as far as the ocean, there remains one and unimpaired communion of the faithful. In the Eastern parts, however, we have learned, with the greatest joy and gladness, that the Arians who had violently invaded the churches having been cast out, the sacred temples of God are now frequented by Catholics alone.

4. Dissensions Among Catholics at Alexandria and Antioch

But yet, since the envy of the devil is never wont to rest, we hear that among the Catholics themselves there are frequent dissensions and unappeased discord; and we are altogether confounded in spirit, because we find that very many things have been made matters of innovation, and that those are now burdened who ought rather to be aided, who had always remained steadfast in our communion. In short, Timothy, bishop of the Church of Alexandria, and likewise Paulinus of the Church of Antioch, who have always kept unimpaired concord of communion with us, are reported to be pressed hard by the dissensions of others, whose faith wavered in former times.

These indeed, if it can be done, and if their full faith commends them, we desire to be joined to our fellowship: but in such a way that the prerogative of the partners of the ancient communion be preserved to them, for whom our concern is by no means superfluous—first of all, because fellowship of communion ought to admit no offense; and next, because we have long since received letters from both parties, and especially from those who were at variance within the Church of Antioch.

5. Request for a Council at Alexandria

And indeed, had not the hostile incursion stood in the way, we had arranged to send even some of our own number thither, to act as intermediaries and arbiters for the restoring of peace, if it could be done. But since our efforts at that time could not take effect on account of the public disturbances, we suppose that our petitions have already been laid before your piety, in which, in accordance with what had been done by the parties, we requested that, upon the departure of one, the rights of the Church should remain with the survivor, and that no superordination should be attempted by force. Therefore we ask you, most clement and Christian princes, that you decree a council of all the Catholic bishops to be held at Alexandria, who may more fully treat among themselves and determine to whom communion is to be granted and to whom it is to be preserved.

6. Appeal to Preserve the Order of Alexandria's Church

For although we have always upheld the disposition and order of the Church of Alexandria, and, according to the custom and usage of our forefathers, preserve its communion in indissoluble fellowship even to these times; yet lest either any should seem to be slighted, who even by the compact which we wish to stand have sought our communion, or the advantages of that peace and fellowship of the faithful be neglected—this we entreat, that when they have treated among themselves in fuller assembly, they may also seek the aid of your piety's episcopal decrees. And may you deign to have this brought to our knowledge, lest we waver with faltering affection, but rather, glad and secure, we may give thanks to your piety before Almighty God, not only because perfidy has been excluded, but because faith and concord have been restored to Catholics.

That which the African and Gallican Churches beseech of you through their legates, namely that you should make the bishops throughout the whole world your debtors—although the debt owed to your virtue is by no means small.

7. Legates Sent to the Emperors

Now to entreat your clemency and to obtain what we ask, we have sent our brothers and fellow presbyters as legates, whom we ask that you deign to hear graciously, and that you order them to return promptly.

To the most blessed Emperor and most clement prince THEODOSIUS, AMBROSE and the other bishops of Italy.

1. Grief Over Discord Among Catholics

We knew that your holy mind was devoted to Almighty God with pure and sincere faith: but you have crowned it with recent benefits, in that you have restored the churches to the Catholics, Emperor Augustus. And would that you had restored the Catholics themselves to their former reverence, so that they might innovate nothing against the prescriptions of our forefathers, nor rashly either rescind what ought to be kept, or keep what ought to be rescinded. And so, Emperor, we groan—perhaps more from grief than from want of counsel—that it could more easily be brought about that the heretics be expelled than that concord be reached among Catholics. For what confusion has lately arisen cannot be described.

2. The Disputed Succession at Antioch After Meletius

We had written some time ago that, since the city of Antioch had two bishops, Paulinus and Meletius, whom we supposed to be in harmony of faith, either peace and concord should be established between them, the ecclesiastical order being preserved; or at least, if one of them should die while the other survived, no substitution should be made in the place of the deceased while the other lived. But now, Meletius having died, and Paulinus surviving—whom the fellowship handed down without offense from our forefathers testifies to have remained in our communion—contrary to right and ecclesiastical order, one is asserted to have been, not so much substituted, as set up over him in the place of Meletius.

3. Maximus of Alexandria's Ordination Defended

And this deed is alleged to have been done by the consent and counsel of Nectarius, whose ordination—what order it followed—we do not see. For lately in council, when Maximus, bishop of the Church of Alexandria, had shown, by the reading of the letters of Peter, a man of holy memory, that communion with him remained; and had shown by clear testimony that his ordination took place within a private house—because the Arians still held the basilicas of the church—bishops being sent as delegates to perform the ordination; we had nothing, most blessed of princes, on account of which we could doubt concerning his episcopate; since he testified that force had been brought against him, resisting though he was, by very many, even of the people and clergy.

4. Deferring Maximus's Case to a Common Council

Yet, lest we should seem to have presumed to determine anything while the parties were absent, we thought your clemency should be instructed by letter; that provision might be made for him in the interest of the public peace and concord; because indeed we perceived that Gregory in no way, according to the tradition of the fathers, claimed for himself the priesthood of the Church of Constantinople. We therefore, in synod, judged that nothing ought rashly to be determined regarding that which seemed to be prescribed for the bishops of the whole world.

So much so that those very persons who declined the general council are said to have acted thus at Constantinople itself; for when they had learned that Maximus had come thither for the purpose of pleading his cause before the synod (which, even if no council had been convened, he would rightly and according to the custom of our forefathers have been entitled to do—as did Athanasius of holy memory, and Peter formerly, bishops of the Church of Alexandria, and very many of the Orientals, so as to seem to have taken refuge in the judgment of the Church of Rome, of Italy, and of the whole West); when, as we have said, they had discovered that he wished to make trial of his case against those who had rejected his episcopate, they ought at least to have awaited our judgment also on the matter. We do not claim any prerogative of examination, but there ought nonetheless to have been a sharing in the common decision.

5. The Council's Rulings on Maximus and Nectarius

Finally, it ought first to have been established whether the priesthood seemed to be taken away from this man, or to be conferred upon another—especially by those by whom Maximus complained that he had been either abandoned or wrongfully assailed. And so, when our fellowship received Bishop Maximus into communion, since it was established that he had been ordained by Catholic bishops, we did not think he should be removed from claim to the episcopate of Constantinople. His plea we judged ought to be weighed in the presence of both parties. But as for Nectarius, since our humble self has lately learned that he was ordained at Constantinople, we do not see how our communion coheres with the Eastern parts; especially since Nectarius is said to have been immediately deprived of the fellowship of communion, without partnership therein, by the very ones by whom he had been ordained.

6. A Scruple Over the Broken Communion

This scruple, then, is no small one. Nor is it any private zeal or ambition that troubles us in this matter, but rather it is the dissolving and severing of communion that disturbs us. Nor do we see how it can be otherwise reconciled, unless either he who was first ordained be restored to Constantinople; or else, concerning the ordination of the two, a council of ourselves and of the Orientals be held in the city of Rome.

7. The Precedent of Summoning Bishop Acholius

Nor indeed does it seem unworthy, Augustus, that a matter should have to undergo the examination of the bishop of the Roman Church, and of the neighboring and Italian bishops, when they thought that the judgment of a single bishop, Acholius, ought so to be awaited that they judged he should be summoned from the Western parts to Constantinople. If something has been reserved for this one man alone, how much more ought it to be reserved for many!

8. A Plea for Common Judgment and Consensus

We, however, admonished by the most blessed prince, the brother of your piety, to write to your imperial clemency, request that where there is one communion, there may be a common judgment as well, and an agreeing consensus.

To the most blessed Emperor and most clement prince THEODOSIUS, AMBROSE and the other bishops of Italy.

1. Restoring Unity Between Eastern and Western Churches

The knowledge of your faith, spread throughout the whole world, has soothed the innermost feeling of our mind; and therefore, that this glory too might be added to your reign—that you should be seen to have restored unity to the Churches of the West as well as of the East—we thought your clemency ought both to be entreated and instructed by our letter concerning ecclesiastical affairs, most tranquil and most faithful Emperor. For it was a matter of grief that the fellowship of sacred communion between Easterners and Westerners had been interrupted.

2. Passing Over Blame for the Rift

We now pass over in silence by whose error or by whose fault, lest we seem to be sowing tales and idle talk. Nor do we regret having attempted what, left untried, would have fallen into blame. For we were often reproached on this score, that we seemed to slight the fellowship of the Orientals and to refuse their favor.

3. The Purpose of the Proposed Synod

We thought, moreover, that labor ought to be undertaken by us—not for Italy, which has long been at peace and secure from the Arians, nor troubled by any disturbance of heretics; not, I say, for ourselves, for we do not seek what is our own, but what belongs to all; not for Gaul and Africa, which enjoy the concordant fellowship of all the bishops; but so that those matters which had disturbed our communion from the side of the East might be examined in synod, and every scruple removed from among us.

4. Apollinaris Must Be Tried and Refuted

For not only concerning those matters about which your clemency has deigned to write, but also concerning those who are attempting to introduce into the Church some dogma or other, said to be that of Apollinaris, many things have moved us which ought to have been cut off with both parties present; so that, once convicted of the new doctrine and refuted in his error, he might in no way hide under the general name of the faith; but that immediately, since he did not hold to the teaching authority, he should lay down both his office and the title of priest; nor should any fibers of it remain afterward for those wishing to deceive, nor any devices of trickery. For he who has not been convicted with both parties present will always seize again the handle of the question to be reopened—which indeed your clemency, in a truly august and princely response, has determined.

5. A Fair Hearing for the Absent Accused

For this reason we entreated the assembly of priests, that no one be allowed to fabricate a falsehood against one who is absent, and that in council the truth of the matter be discussed. And so no suspicion of intent or of laxity falls upon those who observed everything with both parties present.

6. Instructing the Case, Not Prejudging It

We have indeed woven together what has been alleged, for the sake not of deciding, but of instructing; and we who have sought judgment do not prejudge the case. Nor ought any reproach be reckoned against those bishops who were summoned to council, whose absence was often more felt than their presence, when it was a matter of common deliberation. Nor indeed did we ourselves think it any reproach, when a single presbyter of the Church of Constantinople, Paul by name, requested within Achaia a synod of both Easterners and Westerners together.

7. A Peaceful Council Following the Fathers' Precedent

Your clemency perceives that this request was not unreasonable, since it was also sought by the Orientals. But because Illyricum is stirred by suspicion, therefore places by the sea, and safer, were sought. Nor indeed have we, as it were, introduced any innovation of our own devising: but keeping to the definitions made in councils by our fathers, of holy memory Athanasius, who was as it were a pillar of the faith, and of ancient sanctity—we do not remove the boundaries which our fathers set; nor do we violate the rights of hereditary communion; but, reserving to your reign the honor that is its due, we show ourselves zealous for peace and quiet.

AMBROSE to ANATOLIUS, NUMERIUS, SEVERUS, PHILIP, MACEDONIUS, AMMIANUS, THEODOSIUS, EUTROPIUS, CLARUS, EUSEBIUS, and TIMOTHY, priests of the Lord, and to all the clergy and beloved people of the Thessalonians, greeting.

1. News of Acholius's Death

While I ever desire to keep fixed in my mind that holy man, and, as if set upon a watchtower, to observe all his doings, I drew in, through the excessive searching of my anxiety, the bitterness of a swifter message, and—what I would rather still not know—I learned that the man whom we were seeking on earth is now at rest in heaven.

2. How Word of His Death Arrived

You ask who announced this, since letters from your holiness had not yet arrived? I do not know the author of the report; and indeed it commonly happens that we do not gladly retain the messenger of sorrow; yet nonetheless, the sea being closed at that time, and the regions of the lands being occupied by barbarian invasion, when there was no one who could have come, there was yet no lack of one to bring the news—so that it seems to me that the saint himself announced himself to us, in that he now enjoyed the everlasting reward of his labor, and, the bonds of the body loosed, cleaved to Christ amid the ministries of angels, desiring to release from error one who loved him; lest we should pray for length of this life for him, to whom the rewards of eternal life were already being conferred.

3. Departed, Not Dead

He has therefore departed, not died, and this veteran of Christ Jesus has migrated from us, exchanging the soil of this earth for heaven, and clapping his wings and spiritual oars, says: Behold, I have fled far away. For he desired long since, with apostolic spirit, to leave the earth: but he was held back by the prayers of all, as we read concerning the Apostle, because it was necessary for the Church that he tarry longer in the flesh. For he lived not for himself, but for all; and he was the people's minister of eternal life, so that he might attain the fruit of it first in others, before he attained the knowledge of it in himself.

4. A Dweller in the Heavenly Jerusalem

He is, then, now a dweller in the heights, a possessor of that eternal city, the Jerusalem which is in heaven. There he sees the immense measure of that city, the pure gold, the precious stone, the everlasting light without a sun: and all these things, though known to him long before, now seen face to face manifested, he says: As we have heard, so also we have seen, in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God. Placed there, therefore, he calls to the people of God, saying: O Israel, how great is the house of God, and how vast the place of his possession! Great, and having no end.

5. Acholius as a Wall Against the Goths

But what is this? While I consider the merits of the man, and follow him as it were departing in spirit, and mingle myself among the choirs of the saints who escort him, not by any merit but by affection, I have almost forgotten myself. Has then such a wall of faith, of grace, and of holiness been snatched from us: a wall which, however often the bands of the Goths pressed upon it, the barbarian darts could by no means pierce, nor the warlike fury of many nations storm? Indeed, in other places they were the ravagers, but there they begged for peace; and when men marveled what could resist them, with no soldier present, it was made known by the more prudent that within there dwelt an imitator of Elisha, inferior in age but not in spirit; they should beware lest, after the example of the Syrian army, blindness should likewise be poured over them.

6. Prayers That Routed the Goths

And yet the gifts of Christ toward his disciples are diverse. Elisha indeed led the captive ranks of the Syrians into Samaria; but the holy Acholius by his prayers caused conquerors to flee from the regions of Macedonia. Do we not understand that this too was the work of a higher power: that where no soldier was present, there men were driven back without a soldier? Is it not likewise a form of blindness, that they fled whom no one pursued? But holy Acholius pursued and fought, not with swords, but with prayers; not with weapons, but with merits.

Is it unknown to us that the saints do battle even while they rest? Was not Elisha at ease? At ease indeed in body; but he was vibrant in spirit, and did battle by his prayers, when in the camp of Syria the sound of horsemen and the sound of a great host was heard: so that the Syrians thought that the armies of other kings were coming against them to aid the people of Israel; whence, struck with great terror, they fled, so that four lepers, who had gone out desiring death, plundered the camp of the enemy. Did not the Lord work similar wonders in Macedonia through the prayers of holy Acholius, or perhaps even greater ones? For it was not by an empty fear, nor by a groundless suspicion, but by a raging plague and a burning pestilence that the Goths were thrown into confusion and terrified. Then indeed they fled, that they might escape; afterward, returning, they begged for peace, that they might live.

8. Likened to Elisha and Elijah

We have seen, then, in the merits of so great a man, former ages, and we have beheld the works of the prophets which we used to read. As it were an Elisha, he moved among arms, among battle-lines, while he lived, composing wars by his merits. Then, when security was restored to those dwelling together—a thing harder for him than the war itself—he breathed out his holy spirit. As it were an Elijah, he was lifted up even to heaven, not indeed by a fiery chariot, nor by fiery horses—unless perhaps we simply did not see them—nor in a commotion of the air: but in the will and tranquillity of our God, and in the joy of the holy angels, who rejoiced that so great a man had passed over to them.

9. The Mantle Passes to Anysius

We certainly cannot doubt these things, since the rest have corresponded to them. For at the very moment when he was still being lifted up, as though letting fall a certain mantle of his sheepskin, he clothed his holy disciple Anysius, and vested him with the insignia of his own priesthood: whose merit and grace I do not now hear of for the first time, nor did I learn of them in your letters, but I have recognized them from your letters. For as though foreknowing that he would succeed him, even though he veiled it with promises, yet he pointed it out by signs, recalling that he had been aided by his care, labor, and service; so that he now seemed to declare him a partner, one who was not coming as a novice to the highest priesthood, but approaching as an old executor of the priesthood. To him that Gospel saying fits beautifully: “Well done, good and faithful servant, because you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things”.

10. A Personal Bond with Acholius

These things about holy Acholius I hold in common with you; but this is special to me, that I am bound to the man of blessed memory; because he granted me not to be ignorant of him. For when, on his coming to Italy, I was laid low by illness, so that I could not go to meet him, he himself came to me and visited me. With what eagerness, with what affection did he rush upon me, and I upon him! With what groaning did we lament the evils of this age, and the things that were happening here! So much so that we drenched our garments with a flood of tears, while we enjoyed a most longed-for greeting, a mutual desire, one long sought, and clung together in embrace. And so what was my wish became his kindness, because I was able to see him. For although the greater portion, and the fuller knowledge, is in the spirit by which we love; yet we also desire to see the bodily form.

So once the kings of the earth sought to see the face of Solomon, and to hear his wisdom (3 Kings:).

11. Anysius Presented as His Successor

He has therefore departed from us, and left us on this open sea; but what was useful to him is heavier to many than that barbarian fury itself; because it drove him away, but who will be able to present this man to us in his place? But the Lord presents him, and presents himself in his disciple. Your judgments present him, to whom it was said: “Give Levi his manifest tokens, and his truth to the holy man”. You have given his manifest token, inasmuch as he was founded upon his instruction: you have given an imitator of the man who said to his father and his mother: “I have not seen you”; and he did not know his brothers, and did not acknowledge his sons: he kept the word of the Lord, and observed his Covenant. The peoples will declare his justice.

12. The Life and Rise of Acholius

Such is the life of the man, such the inheritance, such the manner of life, such the succession. He gave himself to monasteries as a boy, and though shut up within Achaia in a narrow hut, yet by grace he traveled the far reaches of many lands. Called to the highest priesthood by the peoples of Macedonia, chosen by the priests; so that where before the faith had been shut in by a priest, there afterward, through a priest, the wall-like foundations of the faith might be confirmed.

13. Anysius's Imitation of His Master

Not otherwise also by imitation of him is his disciple, who himself likewise said to his father and his mother: “I have not seen you”. For he did not see them by inclination, did not see them by affection; and he did not know his brothers, because he desired to know the Lord. And he too has recognized the word of the Lord, and kept his covenant, and will place honor upon his altar forever. Bless, O Lord, his faith, his holiness, his diligence. May your blessing come upon his head, and upon his neck. May he be honored among his brothers; may there be in him the likeness of the bull, that he may winnow the hearts of his enemies, and soothe the minds of the saints, and may the judgment of your priests flourish in him like a lily. Farewell, brothers, and love me, for I love you.

AMBROSE the bishop to brother ANYSIUS.

1. Grief and Joy at the Succession

I have long held him in mind, though I read of him now for the first time; and by his merits I have come to know him whom I had not seen with my eyes. I grieve indeed that this has happened, but I rejoice that this has followed; because, though while I survive I would not have wished it to occur, yet I hoped that, after the passing of that holy man, this alone could rightly succeed. We hold you, then, as the longtime disciple of Acholius of holy memory, now his successor, and heir either of his honor or of his grace. A great merit, brother. I rejoice for you, that not even for one moment was there doubt about the successor of so great a man. And a great burden, brother, to have taken up the weight of so great a name, of so great a balance, and of so great a testing.

Acholius is sought in you: and as he was in your affection, so in your duties is desired the image of his virtue, of his discipline, the strength of his mind in so aged a body.

2. A Body Disregarded for the Spirit

I saw, I confess, the man; for this too I owe to his merits, that I saw him: I saw him so present in the body that I thought him outside the body: I saw the image of him who, not knowing whether in the body or out of the body, had seen himself caught up to paradise; for so did he course through all things with frequent travel, Constantinople, Achaia, Epirus, Italy, that younger men could not keep up with him. Men stronger in body yielded, because they knew he had no hindrance from the body; so that he used it only as a veil, not as a duty: indeed for service, not for support; for he had so disposed his body that in it he crucified the world, and crucified himself to the world.

3. Blessed Youth and Call to the Priesthood

Blessed be the Lord, and blessed his adolescence, which he spent in the tabernacles of the God of Jacob, placed in monasteries, in which, when he was sought by parents or kinsfolk, he would say: “Who are my brothers, or who is my mother?” I know no father, or mother, or brothers of mine, except those who hear the word of God and do it. Blessed too the progress of his youth, in which he was chosen to the highest priesthood, already proved by the mature service of his virtues. For he came, as it were, like David to restore peace to the people. He came like that ship bearing with it intelligible gold, and cedar wood, and precious stones (2 Chron. 9:21), and those silvered wings of the dove, by which, between the lots, he slept in the sleep of peace and tranquil rest.

4. The Sleep of the Saints

For the sleep of the saints too is laborious, according to what is written: “I sleep, and my heart watches”. And as holy Jacob, sleeping, saw divine mysteries which waking he had not seen, of heaven made passable to the saints from earth, of the Lord looking upon him, and promising him possession of the land. And so, sleeping a brief sleep, he obtained what his heirs afterward acquired with great labor. For the sleep of the saints is at rest from all bodily pleasures, from all disturbance of the mind, bringing tranquillity to the mind, and peacefulness to the soul; so that, as though loosed from the bond of the body, it lifts itself up and clings to Christ.

5. True Old Age Measured by Merit

This sleep is the life of the saints, which holy Acholius was living, whose old age too was blessed. That truly is the venerable old age, which grows white not with gray hairs, but with merits; for that is the reverend gray hair, which is the gray hair of the soul, shining forth in gray thoughts and works. For what is truly the age of old age, except a life unspotted, which is propagated not by days or months, but by ages, whose duration is without end, whose length of years is without weakness? For the longer it lasts, the stronger it is; and the longer one has lived that life, the more strongly he grows into a perfect man.

6. A Prayer for Anysius as Successor

May the Lord, then, approve you as his successor, not only in honor but also in character, and deign to establish you with the highest grace; so that to you also the peoples may run together, of whom you may say: “Who are these that fly like clouds, and like doves with their young” (Isa.:)? May they come also like the ships of Tharshish (2 Chron. 9:21), which received the grain that the true Solomon dispensed, twenty measures of wheat. May they receive the oil and wisdom of Solomon, and may there be peace between you and the people, and may you keep the covenant of peace. Farewell, brother, and love us, for we too love you.

AMBROSE the bishop to the most blessed prince, and most Christian emperor VALENTINIAN.

1. Emperors as Servants of the True God

Since all men who are under Roman rule serve you as emperors and princes of the earth, you yourselves in turn serve almighty God and the sacred faith. For safety cannot otherwise be secure, unless each one truly worship the true God, that is, the God of the Christians, by whom all things are ruled; for he alone is the true God, who is to be venerated with the innermost mind: for the gods of the nations are demons, as Scripture says.

2. No Consent to the Worship of Idols

Whoever, therefore, serves this true God, and receives him for worship with inward affection, offers not dissimulation, not connivance, but zeal of faith and devotion. Finally, if not that, he ought at least to show no consent to the worship of idols and to the profane cults of ceremonies. For no one deceives God, to whom even the hidden things of the heart are all manifest.

3. The Plea to Restore Pagan Altars

Since, then, faith must be shown by you, most Christian Emperor, to the true God, along with the zeal, the caution, and the devotion of that faith, I wonder how it has come into the hope of certain persons that you should restore, by your command, the altars of the gods of the nations, and also provide funds for the purposes of profane sacrifices; for what has long since been claimed either for the treasury or for the exchequer, you would seem rather to be contributing from your own means, than restoring from theirs.

4. Pagan Complaints of Lost Privileges

And they complain of losses, they who never spared our blood, who overthrew the very buildings of the churches. They ask also that you grant them privileges, they who by the recent law of Julian denied us the common use of speaking and teaching, and those privileges by which even Christians have often been deceived: for some they wished to entangle in those privileges, partly through imprudence, partly to avoid the vexations of public burdens; and because not all are found strong, even under Christian princes many have fallen away.

3. Gratian's Abolition Already Stands

But if these things had not already been abolished, I would approve of their being removed by your command: but since they have been prohibited and forbidden throughout almost the whole world by several princes in times past, and at Rome, moreover, by the brother of your clemency, Gratian of august memory, they have been abolished by reason of the true faith, and rendered obsolete by rescripts given; do not, I beg, either overturn what has been faithfully established, or rescind a brother's precepts. Concerning civil matters, if he has decreed anything, no one thinks it should be violated; and yet a precept concerning religion is trampled underfoot.

6. Against Yielding to Pagan Influence

Let no one steal upon your younger age: whether he be a pagan who demands these things, he ought not to entangle your mind in the bonds of his own superstition: but he ought to teach and admonish you by his own zeal how you ought to be zealous for the true faith; since he defends vain things with such great zeal for what is true. That deference should be paid to the merits of illustrious men, I too urge: but it is certain that God ought to be preferred above all.

7. Liberty of Conscience in Religion

If counsel must be taken concerning military matters, the opinion of a man experienced in battles ought to be awaited, his counsel approved: when a matter of religion is being treated, think upon God. It is an injury to no one, to whom Almighty God is preferred. He has his own opinion. You do not compel an unwilling man to worship what he does not wish; let this same liberty be permitted to you, O Emperor, and let each one bear it patiently, if he does not wrest from the emperor what he would take ill if the emperor desired to wrest it from him. It is the pagans' own custom to be displeased at a wavering disposition; for each one ought freely to defend the faith of his own mind and to keep his resolve.

8. The Peril of Compromise for Christians

But if some who bear the name of Christian think that some such thing ought to be decreed, let not bare words capture your mind, let not empty names deceive you. Whoever urges this, sacrifices, and whoever decrees this, does the same: yet the sacrifice of one is more tolerable than the fall of all. This whole senate of Christians is imperiled.

9. A Hypothetical Pagan Altar Oath

If today, Emperor, some pagan—which God forbid—should set up an altar to idols, and should compel Christians to assemble there; so that they should be present at sacrifices, so that the breath and mouths of the faithful should be filled with ash from the altar, cinders from the sacrilege, smoke from the funeral pyre: and in that curia he should pronounce his opinion where those sworn at the altar of the idol would be compelled to give their vote (for that is why they interpret the altar as having been placed there, so that, by its sacrament, as they themselves suppose, each one summoned might deliberate publicly, since the curia is now filled with a greater number of Christians)—a Christian would believe it to be persecution, to be compelled by such a choice to come to the senate: which indeed often happens; for men are compelled to assemble even by penalties. Shall Christians, then, with you as emperor, be compelled to swear at an altar?

What is it to swear, but to confess the divine power of him whom you call to witness as the guardian of your faith? Is this what is sought and demanded, with you as emperor: that you should order an altar to be raised, and expense to be given for profane sacrifices?

10. Damasus and the Senators' Petition

But this cannot be decreed without sacrilege; wherefore I beg you not to decree it, not to establish it, nor to subscribe to decrees of this kind. I, a priest of Christ, appeal to your faith: all we bishops would appeal to you together, had not this incredible and sudden report reached the ears of men, that some such thing had been either suggested in your council, or petitioned by the senate. But far be it that the senate should be said to have petitioned this: a few pagans make use of the common name. For about two years ago also, when they attempted to seek this, the holy Damasus, bishop of the Roman Church, chosen by the judgment of God, sent to me a petition which the Christian senators had presented, indeed innumerable in number, declaring that they had given no such mandate, that it was not fitting to give consent to petitions of this sort from the pagans; complaining also, both publicly and privately, that they would not come to the curia if any such thing were decreed.

Is it worthy of your times—that is, of Christian times—that dignity should be taken away from Christian senators, so that the effect of a profane will might be granted to the pagans? This petition I sent to the brother of your clemency; from which it was established that the senate had mandated nothing to its legates concerning the expenses of superstition.

11. Answering the Absence of Christian Senators

But perhaps it may be said: Why then did they not lately attend the senate when these things were being sought? They speak clearly enough of what they wish, who did not attend: they have spoken clearly enough, who have spoken before the emperor. And yet we wonder if they take away from private persons at Rome the freedom of resisting, who are unwilling that it should be free to you not to command what you do not approve; to keep to what you feel.

12. Referring the Matter to Theodosius

And therefore, mindful of the embassy lately entrusted to me, I again appeal to your faith, I appeal to your mind; that you neither think you should reply according to such a petition of the pagans, nor add to a reply of this kind the sacrilege of your subscription. Certainly refer the matter to the parent of your piety, the emperor Theodosius, whom you are accustomed to consult concerning almost all the greater matters. Nothing is greater than religion, nothing more sublime than faith. If it were a civil case, a reply would be reserved to the opposing party; it is a matter of religion, I, a bishop, appeal to you. Let a copy of the report sent be given to me, that I may answer more fully; and thus, having been consulted concerning all things, let the parent of your clemency deign to reply.

Certainly, if otherwise it is decreed, we bishops cannot bear this with equanimity and dissimulate it; it will be permitted you to come to the Church: but there you will not find a priest, or you will find one who resists.

14. The Priest's Refusal of Divided Homage

What will you answer to a priest saying to you: The Church does not seek your gifts, because you have adorned the temples of the pagans with gifts? The altar of Christ rejects your offerings, since you have made an altar for idols; for your voice, your hand, and your subscription—it is your own work. The Lord Jesus refuses and rejects your homage, since you have paid homage to idols; for he has said to you: You cannot serve two masters. Virgins consecrated to God do not have your privileges, and yet the virgins of Vesta claim them? Why do you seek the priests of God, to whom you have preferred the profane petitions of the pagans? We cannot take up fellowship with another's error.

15. Youth No Excuse in Matters of Faith

What will you answer to these words? That you are a boy who has fallen? Every age is perfect to Christ; every age is full of God. Boyhood is not excused in matters of faith: even little children confessed Christ with fearless mouth before their persecutors.

16. The Rebuke of Brother and Father

What will you answer to your own brother? Will he not say to you: I did not believe myself conquered, because I left you as emperor: I did not grieve to die, because I had you as my heir: I did not lament departing from empire, because I believed my decrees, especially concerning divine religion, would endure for all ages? These trophies of pious virtue, then, had I set up; these spoils from the world, these plunder from the devil, these spoils from the adversary of all did I offer, in which is eternal victory. What more could my enemy have taken from me? You have annulled my decrees—which even he who raised arms against me has not yet done. Now I receive a heavier weapon than in the body, because my statutes are condemned by my brother. In the better part of me I am imperiled at your hand; for that other death was of the body, this is of virtue.

Now empire is taken from me, and, what is more grievous, it is taken away by my own kin, taken away by mine own: and that is taken away which even my adversaries proclaimed in me. If you consented willingly, you have condemned my faith: if you yielded unwillingly, you have betrayed your own. Therefore, what is more grievous, I am imperiled in you as well. What will you also answer to your father, who will confront you with even greater grief, saying: Concerning me, my son, you have judged most wickedly, in thinking that I granted connivance to the pagans: no one reported to me that there was an altar in that Roman senate-house; I never believed such wickedness possible, that in that common council of Christians and pagans the pagans should sacrifice—that is, that the pagans should insult the Christians present, and that unwilling Christians should be compelled to be present at sacrifices.

Many and various crimes were committed while I reigned; whatever was detected, I avenged: if anyone then lay hidden, must he therefore say that I approved what no one had reported to me? You have judged most wickedly of me, if you think that a foreign superstition, and not my faith, preserved the empire.

17. The Threefold Injury of the Decree

Wherefore, since you perceive, Emperor, that injuries are done first to God, and then to your father and brother, if you decree any such thing; I ask that you do what you understand will profit your salvation before God.

2. "Discharging, then, a twofold office, I both, as your prefect, pursue the public business, and, as a legate, present the mandate of the citizens. There is here no dissension of wills; for men have already ceased to believe that they gain favor with the court by discord. To be loved, honored, cherished, is greater than empire. Who could bear that private contests should have harmed the commonwealth? Deservedly does the senate pursue those who have preferred their own power to the fame of the prince. 3. "But our labor keeps watch on behalf of your clemency. For to whom does it more profit that we defend the institutions of our ancestors, the laws and destiny of our fatherland, than to the glory of the times: which is then the greater, when you understand that nothing is permitted you contrary to the custom of your forefathers? We ask, therefore, for the restoration of the state of religion which long profited the commonwealth.

Surely let the princes of each sect, of each opinion, be numbered; the more recent one honored the ceremonies of the fathers, the one before him did not remove them. If the example of the ancients does not create precedent, let the toleration of those most recent do so. 4. "Who is so familiar with the barbarians as not to require the altar of Victory? We are cautious for the future, and we avoid the omens of such things. Let honor at least be restored to the name, which has been denied to the deity. Your eternity owes much to Victory, and shall owe still more. Let those disdain this power to whom it has profited nothing: do you not abandon a patronage friendly to your triumphs. To all, this power is a thing wished for: let no one deny that it should be worshipped, which he confesses ought to be desired. 5. "But if this omen were not justly to be avoided, it would still have been fitting to abstain from the ornaments of the curia at least.

Grant, I beg you, that what we received as boys, we may leave as old men to our posterity. The love of custom is great. Deservedly did the deed of the deified Constantius not long stand. All examples ought to be avoided by you, which you have learned were soon removed. We are concerned for the eternity of your fame and name; lest any future age should find something to correct. 6. "Where shall we swear to your laws and words? By what religion shall the false mind be terrified, lest it lie in testimony? All places indeed are full of God, and no place is safe for the perfidious: but it avails much toward the fear of wrongdoing that the presence of religion itself should also press upon us. That altar preserves the concord of all, that altar binds the good faith of each; nor does anything give greater authority to our decrees, than that our whole order decrees all things as it were under oath.

Shall the seat, then, lie open, unhallowed, to perjuries, and shall my illustrious princes judge this a fitting thing, they who are themselves kept safe by public oath? 7. "But the deified Constantius is said to have done the same. Let us rather imitate the other deeds of that prince: who would have attempted no such thing, had any before him gone astray in this. For the fall of the earlier corrects the one who follows, and from the censure of a preceding example comes correction. It was permitted that parent of your clemency, in a matter then still new, not to guard against odium. Can the same defense apply also to us, if we imitate what we remember was disapproved? 8. "Let your eternity receive other deeds of that same prince, which it may more worthily draw into use.

He took nothing away from the privileges of the sacred virgins, he filled the priesthoods with nobles, he did not deny the expenses of the Roman ceremonies, and, following the joyful senate through all the streets of the eternal City, he beheld with a tranquil countenance the shrines, he read the names of the gods inscribed on the pediments, he inquired into the origins of the temples, he admired their founders.

And although he himself followed other religions, he preserved these for the empire; for each has his own custom, each his own rite. The divine mind has distributed various guardians and cults to cities. As souls are allotted to those being born, so fated guardian spirits are divided among peoples. There is added utility, which most of all establishes the gods for man. For since all reason lies hidden, from what source does knowledge of the divine powers come more rightly than from the memory and records of successful outcomes? Now if long duration gives authority to religions, faith must be kept through so many ages, and we must follow our forefathers, who followed their own with good fortune. 9. "Let us now suppose Rome herself standing before you, and addressing you with these words: Excellent princes, fathers of the fatherland, reverence my years, to which dutiful rite has brought me. Let me use my ancestral ceremonies; for I do not repent of them. Let me live in my own way, because I am free.

This worship reduced the world to my laws; these sacred rites drove Hannibal from my walls, and the Senones from the Capitol. Was I preserved for this, then—to be reproached for my great age? I shall see what is thought fit to be established; yet the correction of old age comes late and is a reproach. 10. "Therefore we ask peace for the gods of our fathers, for the gods of our own land. It is fair that whatever all worship should be considered one thing. We look upon the same stars, the heaven is common, the same universe surrounds us all. What does it matter by what wisdom each seeks the truth? By one path alone one cannot arrive at so great a mystery: but this is a matter of leisurely dispute; now we offer prayers, not contests." 11. "With what advantage to your sacred treasury has the privilege of the Vestal Virgins been taken away? Is that denied under the most generous emperors which the most frugal provided?

Honor alone is, as it were, the stipend of chastity in their case. Just as they make it the crown of their life's dignity, so it is reckoned a mark of distinction that their sacrifice should be free of material reward. They seek the bare name of immunity, as it were, since by their poverty they are safe from loss. And so those who take away something of their material advantage add all the more to their praise; since virginity, dedicated to the public welfare, grows in merit when it lacks reward. 12. "Let such savings be absent from the purity of your treasury. Let the treasury of good princes be increased not by losses to priests, but by the spoils of enemies. Does any gain compensate for ill will? And because avarice does not fall within your character, those are the more wretched for whom the old subsidies have been stripped away.

For under emperors who abstain from what belongs to others, who resist greed, it is taken away only to the injury of the one who loses it, since no desire moves the one who takes it. 13. "The treasury also withholds fields bequeathed to the virgins and ministers by the will of the deceased. I beg you, priests of justice, that private succession be restored to the sacred rites of your city. Let men dictate their wills in security, and let them know that under princes who are not greedy, what they have written stands firm. May this happiness of the human race delight you; the example of this cause has already begun to trouble the dying. Are Roman religions then not entitled to Roman law? What name shall be given to the confiscation of property which no law, no chance event, has made forfeit? Freedmen receive legacies, slaves are not denied the just benefits of wills: only noble virgins, and the ministers of the fated sacred rites, are excluded from estates acquired by inheritance?

What benefit is it to dedicate a chaste body to the public welfare, and to support the eternity of the empire with heavenly protections, to attach favoring powers to your arms, to your eagles, to undertake effective vows on behalf of all, and yet to have no legal rights in common with all? Is servitude, then, better, when it is bestowed upon men? Do we injure the republic, for which it is never expedient to be ungrateful? 14. "Let no one think that I am defending only the cause of religion: from crimes of this kind have arisen all the misfortunes of the Roman race. The law of our ancestors had honored the Vestal virgins and the ministers of the gods with modest sustenance and just privileges: the integrity of this benefaction stood firm until degenerate money-changers turned the nourishment of sacred chastity into wages for common porters. This deed was followed by public famine, and a sickly harvest disappointed the hope of all the provinces. These are not faults of the earth. We impute nothing to the stars.

Neither did blight harm the crops, nor did wild oats destroy the grain: the year withered from sacrilege; for it was necessary that all should perish, since what was owed to religion was denied. 15. "Certainly, if there is any precedent for such an evil, let us impute so great a famine to the force of the years: a harsh drought once constrained such barrenness: life was sustained on wild woodland growth, and again the want of the rustic populace flew to the oaks of Dodona. What such thing did the provinces endure, when public honor fed the ministers of religion? When was the oak shaken for the use of men, when were the roots of herbs torn up, when did mutual fruitfulness abandon the alternating failures of regions, when the grain supply was shared between the people and the sacred virgins? For the sustenance of the priests commended the produce of the earth, and it was more a remedy than a largess.

Is it doubtful that what was always given out of the abundance of all is now what the want of all has claimed?" 16. "Someone will say that public expense has been denied to the outlays of a foreign religion. Far be it from good princes to hold such an opinion, that what has been contributed from the common fund to certain persons should be regarded as belonging to the right of the treasury. For since the republic consists of individuals, what proceeds from it becomes, in turn, the property of individuals. You rule over all things, but you preserve to each his own: and justice avails more with you than license. Consider, surely, your own generosity: would you wish these things to be regarded as public property, which you have transferred to others? Once benefits have been conferred for the honor of the city, they cease to be the property of those who bestowed them: and what was at first a favor, becomes, through use and time, a debt.

Vain, therefore, is the fear that someone tries to instill into your divine mind, if he asserts that you bear the guilt of the givers, unless you incur the odium of those who take away. 17. "May the hidden protections of all the sects favor your clemency: and may these especially, which once aided your ancestors, defend you, be cultivated by us. We ask for that condition of religions which preserved the empire for your deified father at the height of his power, which supplied lawful heirs to the fortunate prince. That elder deified one looks down from the starry citadel upon the tears of the priests, and considers himself blamed by the violation of a custom which he himself gladly preserved. 18. "Grant also to your deified brother the correction of another's counsel: cover over the deed which he did not know had displeased the senate; since it is agreed that the embassy was excluded for this reason, lest public judgment should reach him.

It is for the reputation of former times that you should not hesitate to abolish what is proven not to have been approved by the prince."

AMBROSE, bishop, to the most blessed prince and most clement emperor VALENTINIAN Augustus.

1. Symmachus's Petition to Restore the Altar

When the most illustrious man, the prefect of the city, Symmachus, had reported to your clemency that the altar which had been removed from the senate house of the city of Rome should be restored to its place; and you, emperor, though still new in years, flourishing in the apprenticeship of a lesser age, yet a veteran in the virtue of faith, did not approve the petitions of the gentiles; at the same moment that I learned of this, I presented a petition: in which, although I included what seemed necessary for my representation, I nevertheless asked that a copy of the report be given to me.

2. The Deceptive Gleam of Pagan Rhetoric

Therefore, not doubtful of your faith, but provident of caution, and certain of a pious examination, I respond in this discourse of a report to the assertion, asking this one thing, that you consider not the elegance of the words, but the force of the matters to be expected. For golden, as the divine Scripture teaches, is the tongue of learned and wise men, which, endowed with adorned speech, and gleaming with a certain flashing brilliance of splendid eloquence like a precious color, captivates the eyes of the mind with the appearance of beauty, and dazzles the sight. But this gold, if you handle it more carefully with the hand, is a price on the outside, but metal within. Unroll, I beg, and examine the sect of the gentiles: they sound precious and grand things, but defend truths that are barren; they speak of God, they worship an image.

3. Three Arguments in the Prefect's Report

Three points, then, has the most illustrious man, the prefect of the city, set forth in his report, which he thought were strong: that Rome, as he says, seeks back her ancient cults; and that emoluments should be granted to her priests and Vestal Virgins; and that, the emoluments of the priests having been denied, a public famine followed.

4. Hannibal and the Power of Roman Rites

In the first proposition, Rome, with tearful complaint of speech, weeps, seeking back, as he says, the ancient cults of ceremonies. These sacred rites, he says, drove Hannibal from the walls, the Senones from the Capitol. And so, while the power of the sacred rites is proclaimed, weakness is betrayed. For Hannibal for a long time mocked the Roman sacred rites, and, with the gods fighting against him, came victorious all the way to the walls of the city. Why did they allow themselves to be besieged, they for whom the arms of their gods were fighting?

5. The Sacred Geese of the Capitol

For what shall I say of the Senones, who, penetrating the secret places of the Capitol, would not have left the remnants of Rome, had not a goose betrayed them with a fearful noise? Behold what kind of guardians the Roman temples have. Where then was Jupiter? Was he speaking in the goose?

6. Gods Fighting on Both Sides

But why should I deny that the rites of the sacred things served the Romans well? But Hannibal too worshipped the same gods. Let them choose, then, which they wish. If the sacred rites conquered on the side of the Romans, then they were overcome on the side of the Carthaginians; if they triumphed on the side of the Carthaginians, then they certainly did not benefit the Romans.

7. Rome Renounces Her Ancient Rites

Let that envious complaint of the Roman people, then, depart: Rome did not commission this. She addresses them with other words: Why do you daily stain me with the vain blood of an innocent flock? Not in the entrails of cattle, but in the strength of warriors, are the trophies of victory. By other disciplines did I subdue the world. Camillus was a soldier, who, when the standards had been taken from the Capitol, and the conquerors of the Tarpeian rock slain, brought them back: valor laid low those whom religion did not remove. What shall I say of Attilius, who devoted even his military service to death? Africanus found his triumph not among the altars of the Capitol, but amid the battle lines of Hannibal. Why do you bring forward for me examples of ancient times? I hate the rites of the Neros. What shall I say of two-month emperors, and of the boundaries of kings joined to their beginnings? Or is it perhaps a new thing that barbarians have gone beyond their own borders?

Were those also Christians, by whose pitiable and unprecedented example one captive emperor, and under another a captive world, betrayed—having deceived those who promised victory—their own ceremonies? Was there not then also an altar of Victory? I repent of the fall: the ancient hoariness has drawn a blush from shameful blood. I am not ashamed to be converted along with the whole world after so long an age. But it is indeed true that no age is too late to learn thoroughly. Let old age blush, which cannot amend itself.

It is not the hoariness of years that is praised, but that of character. There is no shame in passing over to better things. This alone I had in common with the barbarians, that before I did not know God. Your sacrifice is a rite of being sprinkled with the blood of beasts. Why do you seek the voices of God in dead cattle? Come, and learn on earth heavenly warfare: here we live, and there we fight. Let God himself, who founded the mystery of heaven, teach it to me: not man, who did not know himself. Whom should I trust more concerning God than God himself? How can I believe you, who confess that you do not know what you worship?

8. The Only Path to Divine Truth

"By one path," he says, "one cannot arrive at so great a mystery." What you do not know, we have learned by the voice of God. And what you seek by conjectures, we have found out from the very wisdom and truth of God. Your things, therefore, do not agree with ours. You beg peace for your gods from the emperors, we ask peace for the emperors themselves from Christ. You worship the works of your own hands, we consider it an injury that whatever can be made should be thought to be God. God does not wish to be worshipped in stones. Even your own philosophers, in the end, laughed at these things.

9. Answering Pagan Doubts about Christ's Death

But if for this reason you deny Christ to be God, because you do not believe that he died (for you do not know that that death was of the flesh, not of the divinity, which brought it about that now no one of those who believe dies), what could be more imprudent of you, who worship with insult, and disparage with honor; for you think your own god is wood. O insulting reverence! You do not believe Christ could have died. O honorable obstinacy!

10. The Altar of Christ Alone

But, he says, the old altars must be restored to the images, the ornaments to the shrines. Let these be demanded back from a partner in superstition: a Christian emperor has learned to honor the altar of Christ alone. Why should they force pious hands and faithful mouths to render service to their sacrilegious rites? Let the voice of our emperor echo Christ, and let it speak of him alone, whom he perceives; for the heart of a king is in the hand of God. Has a gentile emperor ever raised an altar to Christ? While they demand back what once existed, by their own example they show how much reverence Christian emperors owe to the religion which they follow, since the gentiles conceded everything to their own superstitions.

11. Growth through Persecution, Not Privilege

We began long ago, and now those who were excluded follow. We glory in blood, loss troubles them. We reckon these things as victory, they consider it an injury. They never conferred more upon us than when they ordered Christians to be beaten and proscribed and put to death. Religion made a reward out of what perfidy thought to be a punishment. Behold their magnanimity! Through injuries, through poverty, through punishment we have grown; they do not believe their own ceremonies can survive without profit.

11. The Few Vestal Virgins

"Let the Vestal virgins," he says, "have their immunity." Let those say this who do not know how to believe that virginity can be gratuitous: let those who distrust virtue offer rewards. Yet how great have the rewards promised to those virgins made them? Scarcely seven Vestal maidens are gathered. Behold the entire number, which the fillets of the veiled head, the purple dyes of their garments, the pomp of the litter surrounded by a retinue of attendants, the greatest privileges, the immense profits, and, finally, the prescribed periods of chastity, have compelled together.

12. Christian Virgins Contrasted with the Vestals

Let them lift up the eyes of mind and body, let them behold the people of modesty, the people of integrity, the assembly of virginity.

Not fillets for the head as an ornament, but a lowly veil for use, noble for chastity; not the studied but the disowned allurements of beauty; not those insignia of purple, not the luxury of delights, but the practice of fastenings: no privileges, no profits: in short, all such things that you would think one is being called away from her pursuit, while these offices are being performed. But while the office is performed, the pursuit is furthered. Chastity is heaped up by its own costs. That is not virginity which is bought with a price, nor possessed by zeal for virtue; nor is that integrity which is bid for at any monetary auction for a fixed profit. The first victory of chastity is to conquer the desires for wealth; because zeal for gain is a temptation to modesty. Let us grant, however, that subsidies of largess should be conferred upon virgins. What gifts will overflow to Christians? What treasury will suffice for such great wealth?

Or if they think it ought to be conferred only on the Vestals, is it not shameful that they, who claimed everything for themselves under pagan emperors, should not think, under Christian princes, that our lot ought to be a common one?

13. Public Sustenance for Pagan Priests

They also complain that public sustenance is not owed to their own priests and ministers. What a great tumult of words has arisen from this? But on the contrary, even the profits of private inheritance are denied to us by recent laws, and no one complains; for we do not consider it an injury, since we do not grieve over the loss. If a priest should seek a privilege, so as to avoid a curial burden, he must give up his native and ancestral property and the possession of all his goods. How would the pagans, if they had such a grievance, aggravate this complaint, that a priest buys exemption from his ministry at the cost of his whole patrimony, and purchases, at the expense of all private advantage, the exercise of public service; and, while professing to keep watch for the common welfare, consoles himself for domestic want with a reward; because he has not sold his ministry, but has purchased favor.

14. Inheritance Rights Denied to Clergy

He will bring together the cases. You wish to excuse the decurion, though it is not lawful to excuse a priest of the Church. Wills are written in favor of the ministers of temples; no one profane is excepted, no one of the lowest condition, no one lost to shame: to the clergy alone, of all men, the common right is closed—to him alone, on behalf of all, the common vow is undertaken, the common office is conferred: no legacies even from grave widows, no donation. And where no fault is detected in their morals, yet a penalty is prescribed for their office. What a Christian widow bequeaths to the priests of a shrine is valid; what she bequeaths to the ministers of God is not valid. This I have set down, not to complain, but that they may know what it is I do not complain of; for I would rather that we be lesser in money than in grace.

15. The Seizure of Temple Goods Recalled

But they report that whatever has been given or bequeathed to the Church has not been violated. Let them also say who took gifts away from the temples—for this is what was done to Christians. If this had been done to pagans, the injury would be restored rather than inflicted. Is justice only now being put forward, is equity only now being demanded? Where was that sentiment then, when, with the seizure of the goods of all Christians, they begrudged them their very vital breath, and nowhere denied to the dead prevented the traffic in final burial? Those whom the pagans hurled down, the seas restored. This is the victory of faith, that they themselves now find fault with the deeds of their ancestors, whose acts they condemn. But what reasoning is this, alas, that they should seek the gifts of those whose deeds they condemn?

16. The Church's True Revenue Is Charity to the Poor

Yet no one has denied gifts to the shrines and bequests to the soothsayers: only estates have been taken away; because they were not being used religiously, though defended by the right of religion. Those who make use of our example, why did they not make use of our office? The Church possesses nothing for herself except faith. These are the revenues she offers, these the fruits. The possession of the Church is the expense of the needy. Let them count how many captives the temples have redeemed, what sustenance they have provided for the poor, to what exiles they have furnished the means of living. Therefore the estates were intercepted, not rights.

17. The Famine Blamed on the Loss of Temple Rites

Behold what has happened: to expiate what dismal wickedness, a public famine, as they say, took vengeance; because that began to be useful to all which was profitable to the advantages of the priests. Therefore, they say, with the arbors stripped and their bark removed, they licked their mouths with a pitiful juice as they failed. Therefore, exchanging the Chaonian crop for acorns, and driven again to the pasture of cattle, and recalled to the sustenance of a wretched diet, shaking the oak, they consoled their miserable hunger in the woods. New prodigies of the earth indeed, which had never happened before—when pagan superstition was flourishing throughout the whole world! In truth, when before did a crop mock the hopes of the greedy farmer with empty ears, and did the sought-for blade of grain in the furrows fail the hope of the rustic folk?

18. The Oracles of Dodona and the Absurdity of the Charge

And whence did the Greeks have oracles from their oak, unless because they thought the remedy of woodland nourishment was a gift of heavenly religion? For such are the gifts they believe their gods to grant. Who worshipped the Dodonaean trees, except the pagan populace, when they bestowed the honor of groves upon the sad fodder of the field? It is not likely that their gods, being indignant, would have inflicted as a punishment what they were accustomed, when appeased, to confer as a gift. But what equity is there, that, grieving over sustenance denied to a few priests, they themselves should deny it to all, since the vengeance would be harsher than the fault? Therefore that is not a fitting cause which constrained so great an affliction of a deceived world, that while the crops were still green the hope of the year, though full-grown, should suddenly perish.

19. Why Did the Gods Delay Their Vengeance So Long

And certainly many years ago the rights of the temples were abolished throughout the whole world: has it now, only now, occurred to the gods of the pagans to avenge their own injuries? Was it for this reason that the Nile did not swell with its accustomed flow, so as to avenge the losses of the priests of the City, when it did not avenge its own?

20. This Year's Abundant Harvest Refutes the Charge

Yet grant that they think the injuries of their gods were avenged in the previous year—why in the present year were they held in contempt? For now the country folk are no longer fed by roots torn up from plants, nor do they seek the comforts of wild berries, nor snatch food from brambles: but the year, joyful with prosperous works, itself marveling at its own harvests, has filled our fast with the satisfaction of our vows: the earth has rendered to us returns with interest.

21. Bountiful Harvests Across the Provinces

Who then would be so unfamiliar with human affairs as to be astonished at the changes of years? And yet even in the previous year we know that most provinces abounded in fruits. What shall I say of the Gauls, richer than usual? Pannonia sold grain which they had not sown; and Rhaetia the Second came to know the envy caused by its own fertility; for that which was accustomed to be safer through scarcity, by its abundance stirred up an enemy against itself: the autumn grain fed Liguria and the Venetias. Therefore that year did not wither on account of sacrilege, and this year has flourished with the fruits of faith. Let them also deny that the vineyards overflowed with abundant produce. And so we have received a harvest with interest, and we possess the benefits of a more generous vintage.

22. Why the Gods Cannot Defend the Emperors

There remains a last and greatest point, whether you, O emperors, ought to restore those subsidies which have profited you; for he says: Let them defend you, let them be worshipped by us. This is what we cannot bear, most faithful princes; that they reproach us, saying that they make supplication to their gods in your name, and, though you do not command it, they commit an immense sacrilege, interpreting your silence as consent. Let them keep their own defenses to themselves: let them, if they can, defend their own. For if they cannot be of help to those by whom they are worshipped, how can they defend you, by whom they are not worshipped?

23. Answering the Appeal to Ancestral Custom

But, he says, the rite of our ancestors must be preserved. What of the fact that all things afterward advanced to something better? The world itself, which at first, with the seeds of the elements gathered together through the void, had congealed in a tender globe, or, while its work was still confused and undigested, was dark with dread—did it not afterward, when the distinction of sky, sea, and land was marked out, receive the forms of things by which it appears beautiful? Stripped of the moist darkness, the earth marveled at the new sun. The day does not shine at its beginning, but as time proceeds it flashes with an increase of light, and grows hot with heat.

24. The Moon as a Figure of the Church

The moon herself, by whose form the appearance of the Church is figured in prophetic oracles, when first rising she is renewed into her monthly ages, is hidden from us in darkness: and gradually, filling out her horns, or, opposite the sun, completing her circuit, glows red with the splendor of bright radiance.

25. How Men Learned to Cultivate the Earth

Men did not formerly know how to labor for the fruits of the earth: afterward, when the anxious farmer began to command the fields, and to clothe the formless soil with vineyards, they cast off their wild spirits, softened by domestic cultivation.

26. The Seasons of the Year as a Pattern of Growth

The first age of the year itself, which colors us with an equal use by the nod of growing things: but in its progress it blossoms with flowers destined to fall, and grows ripe with the final fruits.

27. Faith's Maturity Compared to the Ripening Harvest

We too, unpracticed in age, have the infancy of understanding: but, changed by the years, we lay aside the rudiments of our wit. Let them say, then, that all things ought to have remained in their beginnings; that the world, once wrapped in darkness, displeases now because it has been lit by the splendor of the sun.

And how much more welcome is it that the darkness of the mind should be driven away, than that of the body, and that the radiance of faith should shine forth, than that of the sun? Therefore, just as with all things, the first beginnings of the world too wavered, that the venerable, hoary old age of faith might follow. Let those whom this troubles find fault with the harvest, because its fruitfulness is late; let them find fault with the vintage, because it comes at the year's decline; let them find fault with the olive, because it is the last of the fruits.

28. The Faith of Souls as the Church's Harvest

Therefore our harvest is the faith of souls; the vintage of the Church is the grace of merits, which from the beginning of the world was green in the saints, but in the last age spread itself among the peoples, so that all might perceive that the faith of Christ had not crept in among untried minds (for there is no crown of victory without an adversary), but, once the opinion which had before prevailed was refuted, that which was true came, by right, to be preferred.

30. Rome's Adoption of Foreign Gods and Rites

If the ancient rites delighted them, why did that same Rome pass over to foreign rites? I pass over the ground concealed by price, and the shepherd's huts gleaming with degenerate gold. Why, to answer them concerning the very thing of which they complain, did the rivals of a strange superstition receive the images of captured cities, and conquered gods, and foreign rites of sacred things? Whence, then, comes the example that Cybele washes her chariot in a river made to represent the Almo? Whence the Phrygian seers, and the divinities of Carthage, ever unequal and hateful to the Romans? Her whom the Africans worship as Coelestis, the Persians as Mithras, many worship as Venus, according to a difference of name, not a difference of divinity. So too they believed Victory to be a goddess, who is in fact a gift, not a power: she is granted, she does not rule; she is a favor of legions, not the power of religions.

Is she then a great goddess, whom the multitude of soldiers claims for itself, or whom the outcome of battles bestows?

31. Objecting to the Altar of Victory in the Senate

They seek to have her altar erected in the senate house of the city of Rome, that is, in the very place where most of the Christians assemble. There are altars in all the temples; there is an altar even in the temple of the Victories. Since they delight in number, they celebrate their sacrifices everywhere. What is this but to insult the faith, to claim the sacrifice of a single altar? Is it to be borne, that a pagan should sacrifice, and a Christian be present? Let them drink in, he says, let them drink in, even unwillingly, the smoke with their eyes, the music with their ears, the ash with their throats, the incense with their nostrils, and let the ash stirred up from our hearths sprinkle even the faces of those who turn away, however averse they are. Are not the baths enough for them, not the porticoes, not the streets filled with images? Shall there be, even in that common council, no common condition?

Shall the pious portion of the senate be bound by the voices of those adjuring, by the oaths of those swearing? If it refuses, it will seem to betray a falsehood: if it acquiesces, to confess a sacrilege.

32. Oaths, Compulsion, and Constantius's Removal of the Altar

Where, he says, shall we swear by your laws and your words? Does your mind, then, which is bound and enclosed within laws, gather assent through the ceremonies of the pagans, and bind faith? Now not only the faith of those present, but of the absent as well, and what is more, even your own faith, O emperors, is being assailed; for you compel, if you command. Constantius, of august memory, not yet initiated into the sacred mysteries, thought he would be defiled if he beheld that altar. He ordered it to be removed; he did not order it to be restored. The former act has the authority of a deed done; the latter has not the authority of a command.

33. The Senate's True Allegiance to the Emperors

Let no one flatter himself on the score of absence. He is more present who inserts himself into minds, than he who bears witness with his eyes. For it is more to be joined in mind, than to be coupled in body. The senate has you as the leaders who compel its assembly; it convenes for you: it renders its conscience to you, not to the gods of the pagans: it prefers you to its own children, yet does not prefer you to its own faith. This is the affection to be sought, this is an affection greater than empire—if the faith which preserves the empire be kept safe.

34. The Changing Fortunes of Human Affairs

But perhaps someone may be troubled that so faithful a prince was thus abandoned: as though the reward of merits were to be measured by fleeting present circumstances. For what wise man does not know that the affairs of human matters are set within a certain orbit and circuit; since they do not always have the same outcomes, but their conditions vary, and their turns change?

35. The Fall of Gnaeus Pompey

Whom did the Roman temples send forth more blessed than Gnaeus Pompey? Yet he, after having encircled the world with three triumphs, driven from the battle line, a fugitive in war, and an exile from the borders of his own empire, fell by the hand of a Canopic eunuch.

36. The Death of Cyrus at a Woman's Hand

Whom more noble than Cyrus did the lands of the whole East give to the Persians as king? He too, after conquering the most powerful princes opposing him, and sparing the conquered, perished, routed by a woman's weapons. And that king, who had honored even the vanquished with a seat of honor, had his head cut off and, enclosed within a skin full of blood, was bidden to be sated, and was made a mockery of feminine rule. So true is it that in the course of this life, like things are not rendered to like, but far different fates!

37. Hamilcar's Death Amid His Own Sacrifice

Whom, moreover, do we find more devoted to sacrifices than the Carthaginian general Hamilcar? Who, while stationed the whole time of battle between the lines as the armies fought, was performing a sacrifice; when he learned that part of his men had been defeated, hurled himself into the very fires he was tending, so that he might quench with his own body those fires which he had learned had profited him nothing.

38. The Fate of Julian and the Soothsayers

For what shall I say of Julian? Who, being all too credulous of the responses of the soothsayers, deprived himself of the means of returning. Therefore in a common misfortune there is no common offense; for our promises have deceived no one.

39. An Appeal to Faith and Brotherly Duty

I answered as one provoked, though not provoked; for my zeal was to refute the Relation, not to expound superstition. Yet let their very Relation, O emperor, make you more cautious. For when it had woven a tale about the earlier emperors, saying that the earlier number of them cultivated the ceremonies of the fathers, and the more recent did not remove them; and had added also: if the religion of the ancients does not make an example, let the dissembling of those nearer to us make one—it clearly taught what you owe to your faith, that you should not follow the example of pagan rite; and to piety, that you should not violate your brother's decrees.

For if, on their own behalf alone, they proclaimed the dissembling of those emperors who, though Christians, nevertheless did not remove the decrees of the pagans: how much more must you defer to brotherly love, so that you, who ought to dissemble even if perchance you did not approve something, lest you should derogate from your brother's statutes, should now hold to what you judge fitting both to your faith and to the bond of brotherhood.

Ambrose to Vigilius.

1. Instruction for a Newly Ordained Bishop

You have asked of me the marks of your instruction, since you have been newly called to the priesthood. And since you have built yourself up, as was fitting, being judged worthy of so great a gift, it seems necessary to show also how you may build up others.

2. The Allegory of Mesopotamia and Marriage Within the Faith

First of all know that the Church of the Lord has been entrusted to you; and therefore you must always beware lest any offense creep in, and it become as it were a common body through admixture with the gentiles. Whence Scripture says to you: Take not a wife of the daughters of the Chananites, but go into Mesopotamia, into the house of Bathuel, that is, the house of wisdom; and acquire for yourself union with her. Now Mesopotamia is a region in the parts of the East, which is surrounded by the two greatest rivers of those places, the Euphrates and the Tigris, whose source is in the regions of Armenia. They flow by different courses into the Red Sea; and therefore by the name of Mesopotamia is signified the figure of the Church, which by the greatest streams, as it were of prudence and justice, makes fruitful the minds of the faithful, upon whom it pours the grace of holy baptism—whose type went before in the Red Sea—and washes away guilt.

Teach the people, therefore, that the union of marriage should be sought not from foreigners, but from Christian households.

3. Do Not Defraud the Hired Laborer

Let no one defraud the hireling of his due wage; because we too are hirelings of our God, and from him we await the wage of our labor. And you indeed, O whoever you are, merchant, refuse a monetary wage to your hireling, that is, a vile, perishable one; but the wage of the promised heavenly things will be refused to you: You shall not therefore defraud, as the Law says, the hireling of his wage.

4. The Prohibition of Usury

You shall not give your money at usury; since it is written that he who has not given his money at usury shall dwell in the tabernacle of God; for he is tripped up who seeks the profits of usury. And so let the Christian man, if he has means, give money as one who will not receive it back—or, at any rate, expecting to receive back the principal he gave. He has in this no small interest of grace. Otherwise this is to deceive, not to help. For what is harsher than to give your money to one who has none, and yourself to exact double? He who did not have the single sum to pay, how shall he pay the double?

5. Tobias as a Model Against Usury

Let Tobias be an example to us, who never demanded back the money he had given, except at the last time of his life; more to avoid defrauding his heir than to force back and recover the deposited money. Peoples have often fallen through usury, and it has become the cause of public ruin. Whence let this especially be a care to us priests, that we cut away those vices which seem to creep in upon very many.

6. Hospitality Freely Given, Not Compelled

Teach that hospitality ought to be voluntary rather than a matter of necessity; lest, in offering hospitality, one betray an inhospitable disposition of soul, and in the very reception of the guest grace be violated by injury: but rather let it be cultivated by the practice of good offices, and by some ministry of humanity. For rich gifts are not required of you, but voluntary services, full of peace and fitting concord; for better are herbs with friendship and grace, than if a banquet be adorned with exquisite dishes, if the affection of grace be lacking. We read that peoples were destroyed by grievous slaughter on account of violated rights of hospitality. Also on account of lust atrocious wars were waged.

7. The Dangers of Marriage to an Unbeliever

But almost nothing is graver than to be joined to a foreigner, where incentives both of lust and of discord, and the crimes of sacrilege, are kindled together.

For since marriage itself ought to be sanctified by the priestly veil and blessing, how can it be called marriage where there is no concord of faith? Since prayer ought to be common, how among those unequal in devotion can there be a common charity of marriage? Often very many, captivated by love of women, have betrayed their faith; as the people of the fathers did in Beelphegor. Whence Phinees, seizing the sword, killed the Hebrew and the Madianite woman, and appeased divine indignation, lest the whole people be destroyed.

8. The Peril of Marrying a Foreign Woman

Why should I speak of many examples? Out of many I will bring forward one, and let it be clear from its recollection how ruinous it is to have taken up union with a foreign woman. Who was stronger, and from his very cradle more fortified by the Spirit of God, than the Nazarite Samson? And he too was betrayed, and he too, through a woman, could not keep his own grace The whole course of whose birth and life, arranged in historical style, we shall recount according to the content of the sacred book, in this manner—not in the sequence of words, but in sense.

9. The Hebrews Subjugated by the Palestinians

For many years the Palestinians held the Hebrew people subject and subjugated; since it had lost the prerogative of faith, by which the fathers had obtained victory. Yet the mark of election had not entirely perished with its author, nor the cord of inheritance; but because they were often puffed up by the insolence of prosperity, he frequently gave them into the power of enemies, that, according to the way of human nature, they might seek from heaven a remedy for their evils. For then are we subject to God, when we are pressed by some adversities: prosperous things lift up the mind. Which, though proved by experience elsewhere, was most of all proved in that reversal of affairs, by which things were changed again in turn from the Palestinians to the Hebrews.

10. Samson Foretold as a Man of Strength

For when, by the long injury of a lengthy subjection, the hearts of the Hebrews were so depressed that no one dared, with manly spirit, to raise his mind to freedom, there was born to them Samson, foreordained by divine oracle, a great man, not to be numbered among the many, but most outstanding among the few, and, what is beyond all controversy, easily first of all in bodily strength.

And he is to be regarded by us with great admiration from the beginning—not for those marks of temperance and sobriety which, from boyhood, his abstinence from wine gave as illustrious signs, nor for those marks by which, as a Nazarite with unshorn head, he long kept the sacred observance: but from adolescence, which age is in others more soft, in him it produced outstanding deeds of perfect virtue beyond the human measure, astonishing deeds, by which he soon opened the credibility of the divine oracle, that so great a grace had not perfunctorily gone before him; so that an angel came down, by whom his birth was announced to his parents beyond hope, as one who would be the future rule and defense of his own people; for they had long been afflicted by the heavy dominions of the Palestinians.

11. The Angel's Promise to Samson's Parents

His father was of the tribe of Dan, fearing God, born of no ignoble place, excelling the rest: his mother was barren of womb, but not barren in the virtues of her spirit; who deserved to receive in the lodging of her own mind the vision of an angel, held the command, fulfilled the oracle. Yet she did not suffer to know even the secret of divinity without her husband, but disclosed to her husband that a man of God, of splendid appearance, had appeared to her, bearing oracles of a future offspring; by which promise she, trusting together with her husband, might share the pledge of heavenly promises. When he learned this, he prayed piously to God, that to him too the grace of that vision might be granted, saying: Let your angel come to me, O Lord.

12. Manoah's Fear and His Wife's Reassurance

Whence I judge that it was not out of jealousy over the woman, who was of noteworthy beauty, that he held any suspicion, as someone has supposed; but rather, moved by zeal for divine grace, he wished to share in the vision of that sacred sight. For had he not been thus disposed in the virtues of his soul, he would not have found such grace before the Lord, that an angel should return into his house: who, having given him the counsels which the use of the oracle had required, suddenly, raised up in the likeness of a mighty flame, withdrew himself. This was fearsome to the man, but the woman, interpreting it more wholesomely, turned it into joy, and removed his anxiety, on the ground that it is a sign of prosperous things, not of adverse ones, to see God.

13. Samson Seeks a Wife at Timnah

Commended by such marks from heaven, as soon as he grew up he turned his mind to marriage, whether because he shrank in spirit from the wandering and familiar custom of slippery lust common to young men, or because a cause was already being sought whereby he might turn away from the necks of his people the power and harsh dominions of the Palestinians. Going therefore into Thamnata (this is the name of a city situated in those places, which at that time was inhabited by settlers of the Palestinians), he beheld a maiden of pleasing appearance and comely countenance, and he asked his own parents, in whose company he was walking, that they ask her in marriage for him.

But they, not knowing that his intention tended to this, that he might either become more hostile to the Palestinians if they refused, or, if they agreed, take away from himself the disposition of inflicting injury upon subjects—since from the union an equal parity and the grace of alliance would rightly increase, or if anything gave offense, the efforts of vengeance would proceed further—they judged that a foreign woman should be avoided. But when they found their attempts vain to bend his mind by the objection of legitimate ties, they yielded, willing, to his judgment.

14. The Lion Slain and Honey Found

His petition thus granted, Samson, when he came again to visit her who had been promised to him, turned aside, and for a little while stepped off the raised road; and straightway a fierce lion from the forest ran to meet him, savage with wild freedom. No companion was with him, no weapon at hand at all: shame forbade retreat, and conscious strength gave confidence. Embracing in his arms the beast rushing upon him, he killed it, and, having strangled it with the strength of his arms, cast it aside off the road among the woodland growth, and left it. The place was pleasant with grassy pasture, planted with vineyards. And so he believed that the spoils of the beast would not for a moment be fitting before his most beloved bride; since the seasons of such things are made more charming not by terrible spoils, but by gentle joys and festive foliage.

At length, returning by the same way, he found a honeycomb in the belly of the lion, and took it away, to be a gift for the parents and the girl to come; for such gifts befit a bride; and having tasted the honey, he gave the comb to those aforesaid to eat, suppressing the cause.

15. Samson Proposes His Riddle at the Feast

But on a certain day it happened that the wedding feast was being celebrated, joyful youth at the banquet inviting one another to play with mutual speech; when one would needle another with rather salty wit, as is the custom in such things, a contest of merriment was kindled. Then Samson proposed this riddle to the young men feasting together: Out of the eater came forth food, and out of the strong came forth sweetness; promising a reward to those who solved it, as a wage of wisdom, thirty linen garments and as many robes, according to the number of the men feasting, or a fine for those who could not.

16. The Wife Pressed to Betray the Riddle

When they could not unravel the intricate matter, nor untangle the ambiguity, they drove his wife, partly by exciting her with threats, partly by wearying her with pleas, to demand from her husband the solution of his riddle, as it were a mark of the grace of marriage in reward for love. And she, whether terrified in mind, or bent by feminine cunning, began, as if with a dutiful complaint, to cloak the grief of a husband's supposed hatred, on the ground that he, the partner and confidant of her whole life, had not entrusted her with his secret, and that she was regarded like the rest, to whom her own husband's secret was not entrusted: You have hated me, she said, and have not loved me, whom you have concealed until now.

17. The Riddle Answered and Thirty Men Slain

By these and other such words, his mind, unconquered in other matters, was softened by feminine blandishments, and he disclosed to his beloved the proposed riddle, and she to the citizens. From whom, scarcely at last on the seventh day, which had been fixed for solving the parable, before sunset, the answer was found and reported in this manner: What is stronger than a lion? What is sweeter than honey? And he replied: nor is anything more treacherous than a woman: For if you had not plowed with my heifer, you would never have understood my riddle; and immediately he went down to Ascalon and slew thirty men, and, taking their spoils, gave them to those who had solved the proposed riddle, as the promised reward.

18. The Burning of the Foxes and the Grain

He abstained, moreover, from marriage with the girl whose treachery he had detected, and betook himself back to his father's house. And the young woman, troubled in mind, dreading with just fear that the indignation of the wronged man and the ferocity of the strongest of men would prove her undoing, entered into marriage with another man; the very man whom Samson, when he had taken her to wife, had taken to himself as best man, like a faithful companion. Yet not even so, though marriage had intervened, did she avert the danger of his offense.

For (Judges 15:1ff.) when the matter was disclosed, and, wishing to return to his wife, he found access barred, because her father said she had married another man, though he might, if he wished, take her sister instead; goaded by the sting of the injury, he devised a public vengeance in his indignation at the domestic insult: and having caught three hundred foxes, in high summer, when the grain in the fields was already ripe, he tied them two by two, tail to tail, and thrust between them a burning torch, and bound them with an unbreakable knot, and, as avenger of the wrong, let them loose over the sheaves of the grain harvest which the inhabitants of Palestine had reaped. But the foxes, terrified by the fire, wherever they rushed headlong, scattered the blaze, and burned up their standing grain. Moved by this loss, since all the fruits of their lands had perished, they informed their princes of the deed.

And these sent men into Timnath, who burned with fire the woman who had changed faith by varying her marriage, along with her whole house and her kinsfolk; declaring that she was the cause of their devastation and injury, and pronouncing that the man ought not to have been wronged, since he was able to avenge himself by public harm.

19. Samson's Retreat to the Rock of Etam

Yet Samson did not grant the peoples of Palestine forgiveness for their offense, nor was he content with that measure of vengeance: but he cut them down in a very great slaughter, and very many of them perished by the sword. He himself, however, withdrew to Etam, to the torrent in the desert. There was a rock there, a stronghold of the tribe of Judah. But the Philistines, since they dared not provoke him, nor overcome the steep and difficult heights of the stronghold, having declared war they pressed upon the tribe of Judah, urging battle; and when the men of Judah perceived that just complaint was being made against them—since it seemed neither true nor equitable nor to the public advantage that subjects and tributaries of theirs should be utterly destroyed, especially for another's crime—taking counsel together, they demanded that the one responsible for so great an outrage be handed over to them, so that what he had done might be without penalty to themselves.

20. Samson's Protest to the Men of Judah

With this condition prescribed for them, men of the tribe of Judah, gathering three thousand of their own, went up to him, and having first stated that they were subjects of the Philistines, to whom the necessity of obedience remained, not from choice but from fear of danger, they turned back upon those who had the right of compulsion the odium of the deed. Then he said: "And what form of justice is this, O race of the sons of Abraham, that having first been deceived of my wife, then having had her taken from me, vengeance should be ruinous to me, and that it should not be permitted to avenge a domestic wrong without peril? Have your minds sunk so low into shameful servility to slaves, that you offer yourselves as executors of another's insolence, and turn your hands against your own selves? If I must perish because I had a grief that was my own, it pleases me rather to perish at the hands of the Philistines.

My house was assailed, my wife solicited: if it was not permitted me to live without their fraud, at least let it be permitted me to die without the crime of my own people. Have I returned the injury received, or was I the one who inflicted it first? Judge yourselves whether it was a fitting retribution. They complain of the loss of their crops, I of the loss of my wife: compare the sheaves of harvest with the partner of my bed. They themselves have proved my grief, whose wrongs they avenged. See of what service they think you worthy. They wish you to put to death the very man whom they themselves judged worthy of vengeance against those who had wronged him, and to whose vengeance they furnished aid. But if you bear necks so bowed beneath the proud, hand me over to the hands of the enemy; do not you yourselves kill me. I do not refuse death, but I flee contagion with you.

Yet if you yield through fear to insolent men, bind my hands with cords: though unarmed, once the knots are loosed, strength will find weapons for itself." Certainly they thought it would suffice for the condition imposed, if they delivered him alive into their power.

21. An Oath Sworn Not to Kill Him

Hearing this, although three thousand men had gone up, they gave their oath that no violence would be done to his life by them; only that he should submit patiently to bonds, so that they might complete his surrender, and thereby be cleared of the crime of which they were accused.

22. Samson Breaks His Bonds with the Jawbone

Having received this pledge, he came forth from the cave, abandoning the stronghold of the rock: and bound with two ropes, when he saw the mighty men of the Philistines summoned approaching to receive him, he breathed forth his spirit, and burst all the bonds asunder; and seizing the jawbone of an ass lying there, he struck down a thousand men, and put the rest to flight, a great spectacle of valor; since the ranks of armed men gave way before one unarmed man. And those who had dared to close with him hand to hand were slain with ease and no toil; flight spared the rest from death. Whence to this day the place is called Agon, because there Samson accomplished a glorious contest by outstanding valor.

23. Samson's Boast After the Victory

But would that he had been as moderate in victory as he was brave against the enemy. But, as easily happens through the presumption bred by success, a spirit grown insolent from prosperous affairs, which ought to have attributed the outcome of the battle to divine favor and protection, arrogated it to itself, saying: "With the jawbone of an ass I have slain a thousand men." He set up no altar to God, nor offered any sacrifice: but, neglecting sacrifice, appropriating the glory to himself, that he might consecrate his triumph with a perpetual name, he called the place "the Slaying of the Jawbone."

24. Thirst, Prayer, and the Spring from the Jawbone

And soon he began to burn grievously with thirst, and drink was lacking, and he could no longer bear and endure it. Whence, understanding that nothing of human strength is so easy but that it becomes difficult without divine aid, he cried out and besought that Almighty God would not turn it into an offense against him, that in his imprudence he had, by an incautious word, attributed something to himself.

Indeed he now ascribed that victory to God, saying: "Thou hast given by the hand of thy servant this great deliverance, and now help; for behold I die of thirst, and am condemned by the necessity of thirst into the power of those over whom thou hast granted so great a triumph." Then, by God's mercy, when he had cast away the jawbone, it opened a cleft, and a spring burst forth from it, and Samson drank, and recovered his spirit, and called the place "the Invocation of the Fountain," because he had corrected the boastfulness of victory by the prayers of invocation: thus were shown, in quick succession, judgments of different kinds, that arrogance quickly incurred offense, while humility, without any offense, reconciled itself again.

25. Samson Carries Off the Gates of Gaza

But when, in the course of events, he had settled the war with the Philistines, and, disdaining the cowardice of his own people and despising the hand of the enemy, he betook himself to Gaza: this was a city in the territory of the Philistines, and he lodged there in an inn. When this became known, the men of Gaza (Judges 16:1ff.) by no means let it pass unnoticed, but hastening, surrounded his lodging, and beset all the approaches to the house, lest he should arrange flight by night. So Samson, having learned what was being prepared, forestalling in the middle of the night the ambush that had been arranged, embraced the pillars of the house with his hands, and, sustaining with his mighty neck the whole framework and mass of the roof, carried it away to the summit of a very high mountain overlooking the city of Hebron, which was inhabited by the peoples of the Hebrews.

26. Samson's Love for Delilah

But when, with free and wandering impulse, he overstepped not only the boundaries of his native land, but also the limits of morals prescribed by the observance of his ancestors, he found for himself therein a pestilence that would soon bring ruin. For, having experienced how little to be trusted was his first marriage with a foreign wife—a thing he ought to have been wary of even afterward—he did not shun a second union, with the harlot woman Delilah; and since he loved her exceedingly, he furnished, by loving her, an occasion for hostile schemes to test him. For the Philistines, coming up to her, promised to give her, man by man, eleven hundred pieces of silver, if she would betray to them wherein his trust in his strength was placed: for once this was known, he could be surrounded and captured.

27. The Trick of the Green Withes

But she, who had once prostituted herself for money, craftily enough and cunningly, amid cups and the allurements of love, as though admiring the eminence of his strength, began to ask by what means he so surpassed the powers of others; and at the same time, as though timid and anxious, to beg that he entrust to his beloved what bonds, if he were bound, would subject him to another's power. But he, still sober and firm of mind against harlot enticements, returned trick for trick, saying that if he were bound with vines still green, and not dry, he would be reduced in bodily strength to the likeness of other men. When the Philistines learned this from Delilah, and had bound him with green vine-withes while he slept, roused as though by surprise, he was found no less than usual in his accustomed strength; for, the bonds being loosed, his freedom, though set upon by many, resisted and fought back.

28. The New Ropes and the Woven Locks

But when this achieved little, again Delilah, as though mocked and complaining, did not fail to renew her arts, and to demand proof of his love. To her Samson, his wits still strong against the deceit, laughing at the trick, indicated that if he were bound with seven ropes that had never yet been used, he would fall into the power of his enemies: but this too was in vain. A third time also, as though disclosing a mystery, and now nearer to his fall, he said that if the seven locks of his head were unbound and woven, as it were, into a cubit's length, his strength would depart from him. And this too he made sport of, at the expense of the plotters of the ambush.

29. Delilah Learns the Secret of His Strength

But at last, when the shameless woman had lamented being so often mocked, grieving that she was held unworthy to be entrusted with her beloved's secret, and seeing that what she sought as a remedy was suspected as treachery, she compelled belief by tears: at the same time, since it was owed to a man whose strength up to that time had been unconquered, that he should fall into calamity, wounded in spirit he laid open the secret: that the power of God rested upon him, and that he was consecrated to the Lord, and by his precept nourished his hair, which, if it were shorn, he would cease to be a Nazirite, and would lose the use of his own strength. The Philistines, having learned through the woman the man's vulnerability, brought the price of the crime, that, bound by the payment, she might accomplish the deceit.

30. Samson's Hair Cut and His Strength Lost

Then she, with harlot allurements, lulled the man, wearied with love, into sleep, and, a barber having been brought in, cut off the seven locks of his head with a razor applied thereto, and immediately, through the violation of the command, his strength was diminished. At length, roused from sleep, he said, "I will do as I am wont, and shake myself free against my adversaries"; but he recognized neither the readiness of his spirit nor his strength: neither vigor nor grace remained. And so, reflecting within himself that he had rashly trusted himself to women, and, thinking himself shorn, that he had ruined his eyes to try anything further—condemned to the blindness of weakness—he gave his hands to bonds, and, bound in fetters, entered a prison unknown to him for many seasons.

31. Samson Mocked Before the Philistines

And now, as time went on (Judges 16:22ff.), his hair had begun to grow again; and so, when there was a solemn feast, Samson was brought forth from prison to the assembly of the Philistines, and set in the sight of the people. There were nearly three thousand persons, of male and female sex; and they insulted him with heavy reproaches, driving him about with mockeries, which a man conscious of his innate strength endured with more difficulty than the mere condition of captivity itself. For to live and to die is the function of nature, but to be made a mockery is accounted a disgrace. Wishing therefore to console himself for so great an insult either by vengeance or by forestalling it with death, feigning that because of bodily weakness and the shackles of his fetters he could not sustain himself, he asked the boy who guided his steps to bring him near the pillars nearby, by which the whole house was supported.

And being brought near, he grasped with both hands the supports of the whole building, and, while the Philistines were intent upon the festivities of the sacrifice which they were offering to Dagon their god, through whom they thought their adversary had been given into their power, reckoning the treacheries of a faithless woman among the benefits of heaven, he cried out to the Lord, saying: "O Lord, remember me yet once more, that I may take vengeance for my two eyes upon the nations; lest they give glory to their gods, because with their help they have gotten me into their power: nor do I value my life more."

Let my soul die with the Philistines, that they may know that my weakness was no less fatal to them than my strength.

32. The Pillars Fall and Samson Dies

He then shook the pillars with great force, and loosened and shattered them: and the ruin of the roof above followed, and overwhelmed him too, and hurled down headlong all those who were watching from above. There a great multitude of men and women alike was slain, and the triumph he sought was achieved by his own death—an end by no means unworthy or dishonorable, surpassing all his previous victories. For though up to that point, and even afterward, he had been inviolable and incomparable among men experienced in war in this life, yet in death he conquered himself, and bore an unconquerable spirit, so that he despised, and held as nothing, the end of life dreaded by all.

33. Samson's Death Judged a Triumph

It was, then, a mark of virtue that he closed his life with a tally of victories, and found an end not of captivity but of triumph. That he was circumvented by a woman, however, must be ascribed rather to the frailty of nature than to any fault of his own person; for the human condition is weaker than sin, and it is overcome and yields to the enticements of vice. And so, since Scripture testifies concerning him that he slew more in death than he had slain while set in the light of this life, he seems to have been taken captive rather for the destruction of his adversaries, than that he himself should thereby become more abject or less. For he did not find himself inferior, whose burial was more glorious than his power had been.

In the end, he was crushed and buried not by weapons but by the bodies of his enemies, covered by his own triumph, leaving to posterity an illustrious mark of honor; because the people whom he had found in captivity he ruled in freedom by his own judgment for twenty years, and, being buried in his native soil, left behind him an heir of liberty.

34. The Lesson Against Foreign Alliances

By this example, therefore, it is clear that the company of foreigners must be shunned; lest, in place of conjugal affection, the snares of treachery creep in. Farewell, and love us, since we love you.