On Apostate Kings

Since you deign to hold the usual word—for unless you both truly believed it, and these things which you do concerning us were pleasing to God, you would already have been extinguished—I have desired to disclose to you the deeds of a few kings equal to you in apostasy and cruelty, so that that voice of yours might be buried which says: Unless the faith of Arius were catholic, that is, my faith, unless it were pleasing to God that I should persecute that faith which they wrote against us at Nicaea, I should certainly never still be flourishing in empire. I do not mention those kings who were strangers to the knowledge of God; I deal only with those who are known to have reigned in Judea. In the book of Judges we find Jerobabel the son of Josiah chosen by God, and it was said to him: Go in thy strength, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of Midian: behold, do I not send thee?

And further on: I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite Midian as one man; which Midian Scripture says had a multitude like the sand of the sea. But when all that God had promised to Gideon was fulfilled, when he saw himself exalted from lowliness, enriched from poverty, made king from a plebeian condition, what did he do at once? He said to the people: Give me each one an earring from his spoil. And when he had received the weight of golden earrings, seventeen hundred shekels, besides the bracelets and collars and coverings and purple that were upon the kings of Midian, and besides the golden chains which were on the necks of the camels of the adversaries, what does sacred Scripture say Gideon did? Gideon, who is also Jerobabel, made an Ephod, and set it up in his city Ephrath: and the children of Israel went a-whoring there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his house. Did he perhaps delay some days, and thus afterward work this wicked work against God?

Could he perhaps have forgotten, when he undertook to do these things, that God had said to him: Go, I will be with thee? Where is that fact, that according to God's command he had thrown down Baal and cut down his groves, and had offered sacrifice to God? Where is that saying which he said to God's messenger, who said to him: The Lord is with thee, mighty in valor: In me, Lord, and if the Lord is with us, why then have all these evils overtaken us? And where are his wonders, which our fathers have told us, saying: Now God has brought us out of Egypt? And now the Lord has spurned us and delivered us into the hand of Midian? Did he not remember, at the time he attempted to act against God, that those evils had come upon them on account of idolatry?

Yet when they were delivered, so that they might live without fear of adversaries, from all those evils under which he said, together with all the people, he had been weighed down, he immediately did a thing through which both he himself and the whole people alike were, on account of idolatry, delivered into the hands of adversaries. He had heard that because they had served idols, forsaking God, all those evils had come upon them; he remembered the prophet's word; and yet on that very day, when their enemies had done nothing before them, that king—to whose folly you deign to be like—judged that idols rather than the God who had granted them all this ought to be served. And the children of Israel, says Scripture, did evil before the Lord God, and he delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years, and the hand of Midian prevailed exceedingly over Israel: and the children of Israel made for themselves, because of Midian, caves in the mountains, and dens, and strongholds.

And it came to pass, when Israel had sown, that Midian came up, and Amalek, and the children of the East, and came up against them, and encamped against them, and destroyed the produce of the land, as far as thou comest to Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass: for they came up with their cattle, and brought their tents, and led their camels, and came like locusts for multitude, for there was no number of them, and they came into the land to destroy it. And Israel was greatly impoverished because of Midian: and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord because of Midian.

The Lord sent a man, a prophet, to the children of Israel, and said to them: Thus saith the Lord God of Israel: I am he who brought you up out of Egypt, and led you forth from the house of bondage, and delivered you from the hand of the king of Egypt, and from the hand of all that oppressed you, and drove them out from before you, and gave you their land. And I said to you: I am the Lord your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell: and you have not obeyed my voice. What, after this rebuke of the Lord, does Jerobabel, who is also called Gideon, do?

As soon as he sees his enemy brought to nothing, as soon as all those adversaries who are said to have been like the sand of the sea are slain—and not by a vast number of Israelites, but by three hundred men—as soon as he sees all the foreign kings slain, he fashions that thing by which the children of Israel might sin against God; and yet he is found to have reigned in Israel forty years even after committing so great a crime. It will not be wonderful, then, if you too continue in the body still sacrilegious, when you see that King Gideon lived forty years after committing idolatry, and possessed his kingdom: for indeed sacred Scripture says that the Israelites had rest for forty years, and that no adversaries at all were permitted against them, nor had any of the foreigners any dominion over them, because they had cried out to God.

Such good things did God do for your fellow sacrilegious ones, showing indeed that he is wholly powerful, yet that they were unworthy to obtain rest, since not even for one day after receiving rest from such great dangers did they choose to serve him who had shown them so great mercy. Although the Israelites were such, yet out of his mercy he spared them even when they continued to commit idolatry afterward, nor did he requite them at once, but again, at the time it pleased him, he did requite them: the guilt of idolatry could not go unpunished for them. So also will it be brought home to you, Constantius, unless you take thought for yourself in the meantime.

If the Israelites, serving demons, forsaking God, when they had already become estranged from the knowledge of God, yet as soon as it rose up in their hearts that he was the almighty God who had brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, were heard and delivered from the hand of Midian, and from all that persecuted them; what do you suppose we can think about us Christians being snatched from your hands? Or are you, so far as I know, not aware that we worship that great God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of all the prophets, apostles, and martyrs? Believe me, we have been heard, and we shall be heard, so that you with all your fragile sublimity may lie beneath the heel of all his servants; but that there be some delay, so that he does not yet grant full security of peace to his holy Church once you Arians are destroyed, the reason is this: that it is fitting that you, as a raging adversary, come to the proof of all.

You say: If I had done evil, if I held a heresy, God would already have taken vengeance on me. Hear sacred Scripture saying that the Lord spared even a foreigner for a long time, and yet afterward they received the deserts of their deeds. Samuel said to Saul: The Lord sent me to anoint thee king over Israel, and now hear the voice of the word of the Lord: Thus saith the Lord Almighty: Now I will requite what Amalek did to thee, Israel, how he met thee in the way when thou wentest up out of Egypt. And now go and smite Amalek, and all that is his, and thou shalt not covet anything of theirs, but thou shalt utterly destroy him, and anathematize him and all that is his, and thou shalt not spare him, and thou shalt kill all that is his from man to woman, and from infant to suckling.

And further on: And Saul came unto the city of Amalek, and drew near, and besieged Amalek in the valley: and Saul said to the Kenite: Go, and turn aside from the midst, and depart from Amalek, lest I destroy thee with him, for thou didst show mercy to the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt. And the Kenite departed from the midst of Amalek: and Saul smote Amalek from Havilah unto Shur, which is over against Egypt: and he took Agag king of Amalek alive, and slew all his people with the edge of the sword. Do you see how, though late, they obtained the recompense of their crime? And yet you say: Unless I did well, I would never reign so long? We find that Saul himself, because he acted against the Lord's command, was rejected, and yet reigned long after his rejection, after God said to Samuel: It repenteth me that I have made Saul king.

And you say: Unless I believed rightly, unless I lived as is pleasing to God, would I truly still be ruling now? And that you may fully grasp what we say concerning Saul, hear what he did against the Lord's command. And Saul and all his people took Agag the king, and the good things of the flocks and herds and of the food and of the vineyards, and of all the good things, and they would not utterly destroy them, but preserved everything of value, and destroyed only what was worthless. And the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying: It repenteth me that I have made Saul king, for he is turned back from following me, and has not performed my words. And Samuel was grieved, and cried unto God all night: and before daybreak Samuel went to meet Israel.

And further on: And Samuel came to Saul, and behold, Saul was offering a burnt offering to the Lord, and the first-fruits of the spoils which he had brought from Amalek: and Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him: Blessed art thou of the Lord, I have performed all that the Lord spoke. And Samuel said: What then is this bleating of the flock in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? And Saul said: They have brought them from Amalek; the people spared the best of the flock and of the oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord God, the king; but the rest I have utterly destroyed. And Samuel said to Saul: Wast thou not little in thine own sight, the head of the tribes of Israel, and did not the Lord anoint thee king over Israel, and send thee on a mission, and say to thee: Go and destroy those who sin against me, Amalek, and fight against them until thou consume them?

And why didst thou not hearken to the voice of the Lord, but didst rush upon the spoil, and didst that which is evil in the sight of the Lord? And Saul said: Because I heeded the people, I went the way which God sent me, and I brought Agag king of Amalek, and I destroyed Amalek; and the people took of the spoil, sheep and the chief of the cattle, of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the Lord our God in Gilgal. And Samuel said: Doth the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, I say: to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams; for sin is as the sin of witchcraft, and sorrow and groaning hast thou brought upon thyself: because of these things thou hast made void the word of the Lord, the Lord shall make thee of no account, that thou reign not.

And Saul said to Samuel: I have sinned, for I have transgressed the word of the Lord and thy word, because I feared the people, and heeded their voice; and now take away my sin. Return with me, that I may worship the Lord thy God. And Samuel said to him: The Lord shall this day rend the kingdom of Israel from thy hand, and shall give it to thy neighbor who is better than thou. And further on: And Samuel saw Saul no more until the day of his death, for Samuel mourned for Saul, and the Lord repented that he had made Saul king over Israel. And the Lord said to Samuel: How long wilt thou mourn for Saul? Behold, I have rejected him from reigning over Israel; fill thine horn with oil, and come, I will send thee to Jesse in Bethlehem, for I have provided me a king among his sons.

You will now be able to understand, Constantius, that even one rejected by the Lord, even one destined to eternal death, may reign long after a grave offense committed: since you see that after the glorious son of Jesse, David, was anointed king, Saul nevertheless reigned long, and even had the power to persecute him whom God had chosen for himself as prophet and king; the evil man persecuted the good, the unjust the just, the one hateful to God persecuted him whom God loved. Since this is so, do not glory that after perpetrating so great a crime you have lived thus far as Saul lived; but consider what kind of vengeance proceeded against Saul, which could also proceed against you, unless you take counsel for yourself.

For if the Lord was so indignant against him—first, because he took spoil contrary to the prohibition; second, because he persecuted his own man David—how much more must the vengeance of his indignation proceed against you, whose crimes are so enormous that you have come even into the guilt of sacrilege. If I had done evil, you say, if, as Lucifer says, I were a heretic, God would already have taken away my kingdom. Learn also that Solomon lived on after committing idolatry, and deign to understand that you too are such as he was after his idolatry. And the Lord raised up an adversary to Solomon, Hadad the Edomite, and Hezron the son of Eliada, at Rehob, Hadadezer king of Zobah his lord, and men gathered themselves against him: and he was captain of the band, and he seized Damascus, and dwelt there, and reigned in Damascus, and they were adversaries to Solomon and to Israel all the days of Solomon.

We have proved to you that even Solomon reigned some years after idolatry, and indeed serving no longer God but the devil and the world, and is noted to have clung to men devoted to the devil; so also you cling to your fellow sacrilegious Arians, who, though you are still in the body, though you remain in your kingdom, are yet found to be such as Solomon was after he had forsaken God and followed idols. You wished us to cling to such men as Solomon caused the Israelites to cling to. Where was that love of God, which is narrated through the sacred Scriptures to have been in Solomon, at the time when he deigned to follow idols, forsaking God? Whence is this? Except that he had wholly become a man estranged from sober understanding.

I do not want you to congratulate yourself that, although you are a blasphemer and destroyer of God's religion, you still hold the kingdom, and are proud after your sacrilege, when we find that Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, though he practiced idolatry, lived in his kingdom for twenty years. For sacred Scripture says of him: And King Solomon slept with his fathers in the city of David; and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead in Jerusalem, and he was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty years in Jerusalem. And further on: And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked not in the way of David his father.

Since therefore both Solomon, from the time he deigned to enslave himself to idols, and his son Rehoboam, who was ever a servant of idols, though they did not walk in David's ways, yet lived in their kingdom, and both, while reigning, came to the last day of their life, how do you marvel at yourself, why, after committing your crime, living in that wickedness, you reign proudly, that neither your kingdom nor your life is taken from you by God? Since you see also that Jeroboam utterly overturned the religion of the Lord, as you have attempted to do, and yet lived on for very many years, and indeed remaining in that crime, as it is written: And there was a man of Mount Ephraim, a servant of Solomon, and his name was Jeroboam, and his mother's name was Zeruah, a harlot woman.

And in another place: And it came to pass, when all Israel heard that Jeroboam was returned out of Egypt, that they sent and called him unto the congregation, and made him king over Israel. And further on: And Jeroboam said in his heart: Now the kingdom will return to the house of David, if this people go up to offer sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem; then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord Rehoboam king of Judah. Then Jeroboam took counsel, and went, and made two golden calves: and he said to the people: It is enough for you to have gone up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

And he set the one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan; and this thing became a sin: and the people went before the one calf even unto Dan: and they made houses of high places, and he made priests of the lowest of the people, who were not of the sons of Levi. And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast that is in Judah; and he went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel, to sacrifice unto the calves which he had made; and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made; and he went up unto the altar which he had made on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, in the feast which he had devised of his own heart; and he ordained a feast for the children of Israel.

Do not therefore glory that, though you commit idolatry, you yet live possessing the glory of the kingdom, when you see that this Jeroboam made golden calves, turned the people of Israel to idolatry, and yet was not only not immediately destroyed as soon as he had transgressed, but was even permitted to live long. Could not God have removed those idolatrous kings? But it has been shown how ungrateful you are to God—you who, though so greatly exalted, not only forget him who exalts you, but even now persecute him in his servants, desiring to abolish his religion from the midst of the earth.

Know that this is so from the deed of this king Jeroboam, who, though he was the son of a maidservant, though he remembered he was born of a harlot, though he received the kingdom of his lord Solomon to the reproach of that same Solomon—why, in forsaking God, did he turn himself to idols, when, I say, Jeroboam knew that the kingdom had been given to him by God precisely because Solomon his lord had followed idols? Yet, accounting all this as nothing, he took thought to make idols, and to be enslaved to them, together with all the people who served God, rather than to the living God, who had made him—from the son of a harlot woman—to have the kingdom of Solomon his lord. Do not marvel, then, that he spares you, ungrateful and offending against him; but I exhort you to see this, that though late, if you remain in this wickedness of yours, you will receive those things which all your predecessors in sacrilege have received.

We exhort you to deign to snatch yourself from such great evils: and you have this besides—you are not the first to do so. We see also that this Jeroboam considered the warning of the Lord as nothing: And it came to pass at that time, it says, that Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, and Ahijah the Shilonite the prophet found him in the way, and Ahijah was clad with a new garment, and the two were alone in the field.

And Ahijah caught the new garment that was on him, and tore it into twelve pieces; and he said to Jeroboam: Take thee ten pieces, for thus saith the Lord God of Israel: Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and I will give ten tribes to thee; and two tribes shall remain his, for the sake of my servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, because Solomon has forsaken me, and worshipped Astarte the unclean idol of the Sidonians, and Chemosh the idol of Moab, and Milcom, the god of the children of Ammon, and has not walked in my ways to do that which is right in my sight, as David his father did; and I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand in the days of his life, for the sake of David my servant whom I chose, for I will do this to him all the days of his life: and I will take the kingdom out of the hand of his son, and give thee ten tribes; but to his son will I give two tribes, that David my servant may have a lamp always before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen for myself, to put my name there: and I will take thee, and thou shalt reign over all that thy soul desires, and thou shalt be king over Israel.

And it shall be, if thou wilt keep all that I command thee, and walk in my ways, and do that which is right in my sight, and keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did: I will be with thee, and will build thee a sure house, as I built for David. When this man born of a harlot, this man who remembered that he was born of servile stock, heard these things from God, did he, after everything the Lord had promised him was fulfilled, obey him who had promised him such great things? And did he not, as soon as he saw himself exalted, at once turn against him? Did he not immediately, as soon as God had been forsaken by all his worshippers, set to work through Jeroboam? It is said to you by us, that unless you correct yourself, unless you begin to walk in ways pleasing to God, you will perish by a new example; and you remain in your iniquity, you persevere in your sacrilege.

It was not indeed something new that this king Jeroboam had God, through his own man, cause those things already said to be delivered to him, and, when his son was seized by a great illness, sent to God's household member, and heard of the future; and yet, when he saw fulfilled even those things that had been promised as evils to him, he acted more and more against God, wished to destroy the house of God. And there was, it says, a man named Ahijah, feeble and old; he was sixty years old, and the word of the Lord was with him. And Jeroboam said to his wife: Arise and take in thine hand, for the man of God, loaves and cakes for his children, and grapes and a pot of honey. And the woman arose and did as her husband told her: And Ahijah, the old man, was very old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see. And the woman arose from Tirzah and went.

And it came to pass when she came into the city, to Ahijah the Shilonite, that Ahijah said to his servant: Go now to meet Ano, the wife of Jeroboam, and thou shalt say to her: Come in, and do not stand still, for thus saith the Lord: I am about to send hard things upon thee; and Ano came in to the man of God; and Ahijah said to her: Why hast thou brought me loaves and grapes and cakes and a pot of honey? Thus saith the Lord: Behold, thou shalt go from me, and it shall be when thou enterest the gate of the city of Tirzah, thy maidens shall go out to meet thee, and shall say to thee: The child is dead. For thus saith the Lord: Behold I will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall: and the dead of Jeroboam shall the dogs eat that die in the city, and them that die in the field shall the fowls of the air eat.

It is not, I say, a new thing, if you are found persisting in this obstinacy, since you know that this Jeroboam was not deterred by all these things: for as soon as it had been spoken by the man of God, as the woman entered the city, their son died; and yet Jeroboam did not perceive what God, because he had forsaken him and caused the people with him to perish, was about to bring upon him, nor did he fear from the death of his son that other things might follow, but he grew old in his craftiness: for indeed Jeroboam had so far lost his senses, from the time he departed from him who had given him the kingdom, that although he had said: Go to the man of God and learn whether our son shall live, and had learned through the man of God that not only would their son die, but dangers hung over his whole kingdom, he nevertheless, as he had once decided, chose rather to serve the devil.

He sends to inquire of the man of God concerning the future, and yet he spurns him to whose man he sends, and makes calves to the insult of his majesty, and made the people worship them with him. He did these things, and yet was not immediately destroyed, but survived long in his kingdom; and you say: If I had been a heretic, as Lucifer, Pancratius, and Hilary say, if I attacked God's religion, would vengeance already have been taken on me?

Hear further what happened to this king Jeroboam, and yet how he was not converted to God even so, but rather, persevering in his own crime, died, and failed in his own sacrilege: And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast that is in Judah: and he went up to the sacrifice which he had made in Bethel, to sacrifice to the calves which he had made, and he placed in Bethel priests of the high places which he had made: and he went up to the altar which he had made on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, on the feast which he had devised of his own heart: and he ordained a feast for the children of Israel, and went up to the altar to sacrifice.

And behold, a man of God came out of Judah by the word of the Lord unto Bethel, and Jeroboam was standing by his altar to burn incense: and the prophet cried against the altar by the word of the Lord, saying: O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord: Behold, a son shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name, and upon thee shall he sacrifice the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall he burn upon thee: and he shall give a sign in that day, which the Lord has spoken: Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out. And when the king heard the words of the man of God, who cried against the altar that was in Bethel, he stretched forth his hand from the altar, saying: Lay hold on him. And his hand which he stretched out against him dried up, and he could not draw it back to himself.

And the altar was rent, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord. And the king answered, and said to the man of God: Entreat now the face of the Lord thy God, that my hand may be restored to me. And the man of God besought the face of the Lord, and the king's hand was restored to him, and became as it was before. When he saw these signs fulfilled, which had been spoken by the mouth of the man of God, and the impious arm stretched out for the death of the man of God suddenly dried up out of fear, and immediately, at the prayer of the worshipper of God, restored unharmed, did he do away with the idolatry which he himself had established? Did he at length remove from the midst the feast day which he himself had fixed from his own heart?

By no means; but he is found to have taken up the day of his death in that same obstinacy of his presumption. We shall not, then, be able to wonder if—which God avert from you—you should be found appointed to take up the day of death in your heresy, since not even by signs and prodigies could your predecessors in sacrilege be recalled to the worship of God alone. For sacred Scripture says of Jeroboam: And after this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but again made priests of the high places from among the people; whoever wished, he consecrated his hand, and he became a priest of the high places. And this thing became sin to the house of Jeroboam, to cut it off, and to destroy it from the face of the earth.

Lest these things also be said of you, I beg you, snatch yourself from the wicked assembly of the Arians; I beg you, be a Christian as you once were from an Arian, and do not be indignant with us that we compare your deeds with those of Jeroboam; but rather, I beseech you, perceive that all these things should be called instructions for your salvation rather than reproaches, which I bring forward for your good. For you are compared by us to Jeroboam of our times, because you have thus attempted to turn everyone from God, just as he attempted to make the people of Israel apostates from the worship of God.

Do not, then, place any hope in this, that though you do evil, yet you reign—since you see that Jeroboam too reigned long in his crime, and also the son of Solomon, likewise practicing idolatry, died in the same crime; likewise his son Abijam, of whom I find it written: And he died in the sins of his father, which he did before him, and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father; and yet, though they served idols, they remained in the kingdom and died in that dignity, and handed the authority of the kingdom on to their sons. Do not, then, congratulate yourself in this either, that your father handed the kingdom on to you, saying: Unless my father had done well to attach himself to the Arians, we his sons would not be reigning.

Do not say: If I were a heretic, I would never have such great power, God would never allow me to remain in the kingdom, when you see that Baasha the son of Ahijah reigned twenty-four years over Israel, of whom you have found it written in the third Book of Kings: And he did evil before the Lord, and walked in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and in his sins, wherein he made Israel to sin; and this Baasha ought certainly to have feared lest he be struck down like Jeroboam, if he departed from the ways of the Lord. But such are you, who turn away from God, that when it pleases you to undertake the office of idolatry to God's injury, you cannot be terrified even by the example of those who have already been judged, and turn to God.

It is also written of King Omri: And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did worse than all who were before him, and walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, in his sins; and yet this man, who is said to have sinned above all the kings who had gone before him, was not immediately destroyed as soon as he forsook God, nor was he afflicted by any grave illness, so that he might have seemed struck down with a heavier punishment, though he is described as having transgressed more grievously.

You see, Constantius, that although it happens that you live in the greatest felicity in this temporal life, yet you ought all the more to fear, since you are reserved for God's judgment: and though even those who are destroyed at once, upon whom some punishment is inflicted here by divine power, are always tormented after their descent, yet if you, living in the greatest felicity, are snatched hence, consider how vengeance will proceed against you, who are found in so great a crime.

Do not, then, ascribe to yourself any felicity from this, that though you deny the only Son of God, though you persecute his household, your spirit yet remains in that murderous body—when you consider that the son of Baasha reigned for thirty-five years among the Jews, though he was as sacrilegious as you: of whom you have read it written: He walked in the ways of Asa his father, and turned not aside from them, to do what was right in the sight of the Lord; but the high places were not taken away, and they still sacrificed and burnt incense on the high places. Behold, this king too is described as having died in peace.

Since, then, he practiced idolatry for thirty-five years, do not ascribe it to your glory and say: Therefore I am not wounded by any blow, therefore I am not yet destroyed, but still live, possessing the kingdom of the Roman empire, because I believe well, because the faith of Arius is right, because I have done well to remove the bishops and to appoint such officials as Arius conceived. Do not, I say, glory in this, that though you do these things, yet you are proud, when you see that this king held his kingdom for thirty-five years, and was taken away in peace. If, then, the guilt of idolatry could go unpunished for those who were thus taken away, it can also go unpunished for you, Constantius.

Turn, then, to the Lord, lest you be found such as Ahab was found, of whom I find it written: And Ahab did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did worse than all that were before him: and it was not enough for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, but he also took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians: and he went and served Baal, and worshipped him: and he set up an altar to Baal in the house of his religion, which he built in Samaria; and Ahab made a grove to provoke, to provoke God, and to destroy his own soul: and he did evil above all the kings of Israel that were before him. Do not still allow yourself to remain among the Arians, but make the crossing to us Christians, to whom all heresies are as Baal.

So now you are as much a heretic to us, as those who sacrificed to idols were to the worshippers of God of those times: through this heresy of yours, believe me, you are in our times such as Ahab was. Do not please yourself, then, that God has not immediately requited you, when you see that Ahab, and his wife Jezebel, who even killed the prophets of the Lord, who are found to have been so engaged in such great crime that they allowed no man confessing God to remain in the land of Israel, were spared for a very long time. Do not look at this, that though you do evil, you are yet proud in your crimes; but consider, I beg you, that unless you convert, just as to them, though late, the deserts of their deeds were rendered, so too can they be brought home to you.

Do not say: I have long been in the kingdom, I am powerful here, because I hold the good faith, because I do rightly in persecuting those who believe as that faith described at Nicaea holds itself; this, I say, do not say, but see this, I pray you, that though you are still, after such great funerals of your own making, proud, either hear us, priests of God, and turn yourself to God, or certainly you will receive the just deserts of your deeds then, when you will not be able to say that you erred unknowingly. Know that this is so, admonished by the example of Ahab and of the murderer of the prophets of the Lord, and worshipper of all demons.

Understand that this so wicked man was reserved so long in his kingdom after such crimes, for this reason: that he might at length convert, if he wished—to whom not only were the deserts of his evil deeds not brought home, but he was even helped in his difficulties for this very purpose without doubt: that he might be able to conjecture that he had been requited not by Baal and the rest of the demons whom the heathen call gods, but by the God of Israel, whose prophet he saw speaking with him and declaring to him how God was about to bring the enemies of the Israelites to nothing. For the son of Hadad, king, had besieged Samaria, with thirty-two other kings, boasting so much, as though he accounted the Israelites as nothing, that he alone would overcome the whole multitude of the Israelites.

God made this foreigner nothing before Israel. Against whom did God give victory to a king? Namely against Ahab, to him who had forsaken him, who had made Israel serve Baal and all the demons, because for this reason he gave help, namely that he might believe that this alone is God, whose people Israel was, and there is no other besides him who gave him victory, so that Ahab might see that it would have been fitting at length to correct his errors, as soon as the adversary began to build a siege against the city of the Israelites. And behold, says the sacred Scripture, a certain prophet came to the king of Israel, and said: Thus says the Lord. Have you heard this great noise? Behold, today I will deliver him into your hands, and you shall know that I am the Lord. And the king said: By whom? And the prophet said: By the young men of the princes of the regions. And the king said: Who shall begin the battle? And the prophet said: You.

And below: And the young men of the princes of the regions went out from the city, and the army which followed them, and each one struck whomever he found near him, and the Syrians fled, and Israel pursued. How can you say, Constantius: If I did not serve God well, if I had not believed rightly, I would never have seen the kingdom of the Romans placed in my power, or would I have lived so long in the kingdom?—when you see Ahab, king of Israel, living in the manner of the Gentiles, and turning the people of God away from God, just as you also turn them away, and it was said by him against whom he was sinning, whose commandments he counted for nothing: I will deliver him into your hands, that you may know that I am God.

Therefore, just as he delivered him from the son of Hader, king of Syria, so too he has delivered and does deliver you from all who desire to destroy you, to this end indeed, that you may be able to know that he is the God of the patriarchs and the martyrs, to this end, that you may be able to conjecture that victory was not granted to you according to the merits of your faith and life, since you are in every way like king Ahab, but that mercy was shown to you against your merits by him whom you have forsaken, just as it was shown to Ahab. For if you should say that you conquer your adversaries for this reason, because you believe well, Ahab too could have said this—the worshiper of idols and the murderer of the holy prophets. Do you not see, then, that you have been preserved for this, that you might correct your errors?

As soon as you occupied Italy, you tried to overturn its church; you said that God the Father is not the true God the Father, denying his only Son, affirming that he is not the true Son; you further asserted that the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, was made out of nothing, you tried to maintain that he descended out of nothing, that the only Son of God existed when he did not exist; you gave effort with all your strength in order that you might remove from the midst the apostolic and evangelical tradition; you had bishops ordained by God's judgment removed by your authority, you decided that heretics should be established in their places, who could preach your heresy; you fought with an armed hand against the church in Alexandria, you exiled a great many bishops, you cast some into the mines, you threw others into prison, you even killed a certain number from among all the worshipers of God.

Though you have done these things, you nevertheless say: If I were not doing well, and were not believing rightly, would God still permit me to reign until now?—as though God had also been patient toward Ahab and your other fellow idolaters because they had kept to the right way. You therefore, because he is patient with your sins out of his untiring piety, just as he was toward king Ahab, suppose that you are not sinning, but that you are being spared according to your merits: in this too you imitate Ahab, in that you love those who counsel you toward evil, but destroy those who tell you the true things that concern your salvation.

For just as to Ahab those four hundred false prophets spoke, saying that he could obtain all success, while against them the true prophet of God, Micaiah, said that all evils would come upon him, and he loved those false prophets more than the true prophet of the Lord—so you love your fellow heretics, the Arians, you obey their sayings, you curse all of us priests of the Lord; first of all, because we confess the Son of God to be the true Son of God: secondly, because we do not flatter you, because we assert that you are in danger, and say that unless you convert to God, you will come to eternal punishment. And that you may be able to believe that men have always been hated by God from among apostolic men, but that the enemies of God's religion, that is, the worshipers of the devil, have been loved, take this: whom Ahab loved, and whom he held in hatred.

And Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, said to the king of Israel: Inquire now today of the Lord. And the king of Israel gathered all the prophets, about four hundred men, and King Ahab said to them: Shall I go up to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I refrain? And they said: Go up. And below: And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel: Is there not here a prophet of the Lord, that we may inquire of the Lord? And Ahab, king of Israel, said to Jehoshaphat: There is one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, but I hate him, because he does not prophesy good concerning me. Likewise, after the prophet of the Lord, Micaiah, had told him not to go up, because if he went up he would not return: The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, king of Judah: Did I not tell you that he prophesies to me not good, but rather evil?

Things seemed evil, even from their very beginning, to him whom the devil had already possessed—those things which were spoken by the servant of God were judged evil, and those things which were spoken by the servants of the devil were judged good. It is no wonder, then, if Ahab listened to those whom the devil, whose slaves they were, made him listen to, and if he did not wish to listen to those whom God's own tolerance of sufferings and constancy of assertion showed to be his servants: the false prophets, enriched and honored, were dismissed by the king, but Micaiah, the true prophet of the Lord, was shut up in prison, and it was said: Let him eat the bread of affliction until I return: and yet, according to the word of the servant of God, he did not return at all.

So too you act, Constantius; you love those who drag you with them to eternal death, who lead your soul to utter ruin; you deign to hold in hatred those who wish you to become a friend of God. Do not glory in yourself that, though you do such things, you nevertheless still possess this frail life, flourishing in the glory of the kingdom; since the sacred writings relate that Jeroboam, son of Joash, reigned in Israel forty-one years in Samaria, indeed serving idols, having forsaken God, and indeed not departing from the wickedness of Ahab, king of Israel, and from the sacrifices of Jeroboam. If I had done evil, you say, God would already have removed me from the kingdom: as though the son of Amaziah, because he did not depart from superfluous things, was not indeed filled with leprosy, yet reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem.

But you are worse off than king Uzziah in this, that you do not have the elephantiasis which can consume all your limbs, but that which is able to stain the soul utterly. Grieve with us for yourself, and send forth tears for yourself; consider how this elephantiasis stains the body, how the poison of leprosy consumes the limbs: understand that thus the Arian heresy, your elephantiasis, stains all those inward parts of yours; observe that it makes your inner man just as this disease makes those whom you see infected with elephantiasis. Do not say: If I were not doing well, I would never rule for so long a time, I would not have been permitted to live until now.

For you may see that Manasseh, son of King Hezekiah, king of Judah, took up the kingdom at sixteen years of age, and reigned fifty-seven years; when you have heard what is written of him, you will surely find that you are his imitator, and you will cease to marvel that, though you are doing evil, you are still spared, seeing that Manasseh, than whom you are not less in cruelty and sacrilege, held the kingdom fifty-seven years while doing such things. And Hezekiah slept, says the Scripture, with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David, and Manasseh his son reigned in his place.

Manasseh was a king of sixteen years when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-seven years in Jerusalem, and his mother's name was Hephzibah: and he did what is evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the sons of Israel: and he built the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he built a shrine to Baal, and made groves as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served them. And he built a shrine in the two courts of the house of the Lord, and made his sons pass through the fire, and practiced augury, and made pythons, and many diviners, to do what is evil in the sight of his own soul, that he might provoke the Lord God.

And he made carved images of the groves which he set in the house of which the Lord said to David and to Solomon his son: In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to set my name forever, and I will not again cause the foot of Israel to wander from the land which I gave. But if they will hearken to me according to all that I have commanded them, and according to the law which my servant Moses commanded them. And they did not hearken.

And because Manasseh strongly rejected it, and Manasseh seduced them to do what is evil beyond all the nations which the Lord took away from before Israel: and the Lord spoke by the hand of his servants the prophets concerning the idols which Manasseh king of Judah made, according to all that the Amorite did who was before him, and made Judah sin by his idols: therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel: Behold, I bring evils upon Jerusalem and upon Judah: all who hear of them, both their ears shall tingle: and I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria, and the weight of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe out Jerusalem as a dish is wiped and turned upside down: and I will give them into the hands of their enemies, and they shall be for plunder and burning to all their enemies, because they have been cast off from behind me, and were behind me, and were provoking me, from the day their fathers came out of the land of Egypt even to this day.

And the rest of the words of Manasseh, and all that he did, how he made Israel sin, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Judah, and how he shed the blood of the innocent, very much indeed, until he filled Jerusalem from mouth to mouth, besides the sin which he made Judah commit, to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord God? And Manasseh slept with his fathers, and his son reigned in his place, Amon, who was twenty-two years old. What do you say, Constantius, to these things? I believe you will now cease to say: If I were not doing well, I would not be reigning for so long a time; when you see this other Manasseh, doing such things, having reigned fifty-seven years; and since we have said that you are another Manasseh, observe that you have all his ways.

He set up idolatry in the house of God, you have done the very same in the temple and houses of the Lord; he had idols worshiped, he usurped for himself what was called the Lord's, so that he could thereafter be called a worshiper of idols; you have done all these same things, since you have introduced the Arian heresy into the church, and you have decreed that your blasphemy is to be accepted as the catholic faith, while that which was written at Nicaea, which we know to be apostolic and evangelical, you order to be spat upon; just as you now have desired these things to be done, so also Manasseh commanded that all should serve idols, and depart from God.

It will not, then, be a wonder if you have claimed for yourself the buildings in which we are accustomed to gather God's people, and have called yourself, an idolater, catholic, when you see that Manasseh did that very thing which you now do; so, in the end, the Lord will also spare you, keeping to the way of Manasseh, just as he spared him, and for as long as he spared him, so that it is written that he slept with his fathers, and was buried in Jerusalem, and his son took up the kingdom in his place. Do you read that he perished in war, as though weighed down by some illness? Not at all; but what do you think, I believe, according to your prudence, you say that all things passed with impunity for King Manasseh. Such are you, that you should think this of Manasseh; because, having reigned fifty-seven years, he handed over the kingdom to his son, and himself died in peace, so such great crimes could have passed with impunity for him.

Do not have pity on yourself in such a way that you fail to turn yourself to God, do not fail to correct your wicked acts, or you will find yourself tormented along with Manasseh, whom you will be seen to surpass in this: that whereas he shed the blood of the just only within the borders of Jerusalem, you have shed and are shedding it throughout the whole Roman kingdom. But, you say, he burned or consecrated his sons before his idols: and if you had had sons, you would doubtless have made them accept the Arian blasphemy. Or do you not know that, just as then those who burned their sons pleased the devil, since indeed they had one mind, to forsake the Creator and serve the creature, so now the devil demands nothing from you except that you deny the only Son of God?

This is the most acceptable sacrifice to him, that you believe as Arius believed: this is more to him in our times, that you deny the Son of God, than if you should wish to be burned in fire in honor of all the demons. For he sees that the worship of idols is despised by all, since it has been found vain; now he desires, through you and your notorious heretics, to deceive us, the servants of God. How, you say, deceive? Just as he has already deceived you, so he wishes to deceive us also: since you are an Arian, you feign yourself a Christian for this reason, until with the poison of your heresy you can wound the worms, so that thereafter they may not be Christians, as we are, but Arians, as you are. This is the fattening of your offices which is displayed by you on behalf of the demon.

For who but the devil and his children could say concerning the only Son of God: He is the Son, and not the true Son; He is God, and not the true God? Therefore when you say, I am a Christian, but I do not believe that God has a true Son, I do not believe in one power of the Father and the Son; when you say the Son is a creature, made out of nothing; when you say that he existed at a time when he did not exist, you sacrifice better to the devil than Manasseh did when he consecrated his sons to all the demons through fire, or when he burned them. I grieve for you, Emperor, that though you are of such folly, and though you do such evils, you still deign to say: If I were not doing well, I would not still be in the kingdom; God would already have destroyed me.

Do you not see that this Manasseh, in sacrilege and unbelief, is to be compared to you, since, as I have often said, he held the kingdom fifty-seven years in Judea?—he indeed who made the people of the Lord sin, and serve idols; he indeed who placed idols in the temple of the Lord and in the houses of God, who made the house of God, where the shrine of his majesty was, a shrine of idols. So also God endures you, so he bears with you, until he tests his household, and crowns the worthy, and punishes the unworthy along with you, unless you correct yourself, with eternal punishment. But believe that he could in one blink of an eye destroy both Manasseh then and you now: but he spares, not because he cannot, but because it is fitting both that his worshipers be crowned, who remain unmoved against your cruelty, and that his enemies, if you resolve to persist as you are, despite his clemency, be condemned to everlasting punishment.

That you may say: If I were not doing well, I would never still be reigning—this is brought about by those who not only refuse to correct you in your error, but drive you on to perish as well. No wonder; for it is written that both you and they will be such: The sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, and he who does unjust things is blessed: the sinner has provoked the Lord according to the abundance of his wrath, he will not seek: God is not before his eyes, his ways are defiled at all times: let his judgments be taken away from before his face.

When, therefore, you say: We do well to remove those bishops who confess that they hold the faith written at Nicaea; and to establish those who confess as Arius confessed; and they say: Rightly indeed you are that sinner who is unjustly praised for the desires of your soul: and you are the unjust one, who, though you have been forsaken by God because of your blasphemies, nevertheless with your flatterers, whatever you do wrong, is not reproved, but rather it is said that you do well. When you say: I did well to send soldiers to Alexandria to remove Athanasius; and they say most correctly: You will be compared to yourself—unless indeed to him who is marked by the Holy Spirit through the psalmist; because, though he does unjust things, though he is most wicked and execrable, he still desires to be so praised?

You say: If I were not doing well, God would not yet have spared me; and I find it said to God: For this reason you correct with warnings those who curse their fathers, and you address and admonish those who sin, that having abandoned their wickedness they may believe in you, Lord: and hating also those ancient inhabitants of your land, because they did things hateful to you through wicked charms and unlawful rites, and merciless slayers of children, you willed to destroy them by the hands of our forefathers, that they might receive a worthy sojourning of the sons of God, which is dearer to you than all the earth: but you spared even them as men, and sent hornets as forerunners of your army, to exterminate them by degrees: were you not able to attack the impious, to subject the wicked to the just, or to destroy them all at once with fierce beasts, or with a harsh word: but judging them by degrees, you gave place for repentance, not being ignorant that their nation was wicked and their malice natural, and that their thought could not be changed forever: for it was a cursed seed from the beginning, nor did you, fearing anyone, give leniency to their sins.

For who shall say to you: What have you done? Or who shall stand against your judgment?

Likewise you too are spared, Constantius, that you may do penance, or else perish by the example of those who, though known by God, would not do penance, would not turn themselves to God; wherefore though from the beginning they were wicked, yet He spared them, and did not immediately punish them as soon as they sinned. Do not therefore say: If I were not acting well, surely God would never have spared me; when you see that a place for penance was long shown to your criminal deeds, so that at last they might see the causes of their evil doings, and might make sufficient satisfaction to God for their offense. You too, then, unless you shall have been converted to God, will be one of that accursed race of which it is said to God: Not being ignorant that their nation is wicked, and their malice natural, and that their thought cannot be changed forever: for it was a seed accursed from the beginning.

How glorious then will you appear to yourself, when you begin to be among such, when you see yourself judged among such, when, found among such, you shall be sent into unquenchable flames? You, then, will be first of all and even greatest there in those punishments: for no one can be found equal to you in wickedness, save the devil alone; so that someone might be seen better than you in those torments. Do you dare to say: If I were not living well, if my works were not right, if my faith, that is, the Arian, had not been catholic, if I had not done right in removing those bishops who preach the faith set down by the three hundred at Nicaea and more, I would never have reigned so long, I would never have shone so far in my kingdom, that, even for a little time, I alone should have ruled within the bounds of the Roman empire.

If it is as you say, why does Job, that most just worshipper of God, say to those who assailed his righteousness with false charges: Hear me, for the pains of my wound compel me to speak: Why do the wicked live, and their houses are not overthrown, and fear is far from them? Their cow has never miscarried, always has carried her calf to term; they themselves remain like sheep forever, and their children, taking up the instrument, play with delight, so that they pass their life in good things, though the Lord says: Depart from me, you wicked, I do not wish to know your ways: for the lamp of the wicked shall be put out, and they shall grieve with groaning in their life: they shall be like chaff which is carried off by the wind, or like dust which is whirled by the storm; and let their eyes see death.

Since I know that the Lord has said of them, Know that none of you can compel me to be silent, why does most glorious Job say these things? Unless because he knew that very many indeed do evil, and yet are not immediately requited, but are kept for this purpose, that they may either correct themselves or certainly after death feel the punishments of their offenses, feel what it was not to have sought the Lord, not to have served Him while there was opportunity, by believing in Him alone, and by serving Him to merit His favor.

Now, convinced by the testimony of so great a man, cease to say that you did rightly in removing the Lord's priests, and ordaining men even of the Arian faith, and commanding the faith of the Arian doctrine to be preached, in that you proscribed and deported, and applied torments and killed those believing in the only Son of God; cease, I say, to say that you live for this reason, and flourish so in your kingdom, because you have done these things, and continue to do them, when you hear the just man Job saying—whom God said served Him without complaint, whom He declared His true worshipper—that though very many act impiously, yet they live in this life most pleasantly. Deign still to receive what he says further below about you the impious, and learn how, though you do evil, you are meanwhile spared, and present yourself to God through penance. I did not know that such darkness would come before my face. Why then, Lord, could I not hide for one hour?

But the wicked pass over into others' borders, and have snatched flocks of sheep with their shepherds, and have afflicted the cattle of orphans, and taken the widow's ox in pledge, have reaped a field not their own before the season, and have compelled men to labor in their vineyards for nothing, and have despoiled many, and taken bread from the hungry, and have besieged many throats, and have not understood the way of justice. Let their portion be cursed on earth. For what hope is there for wicked men, or what access can they have with the Lord? But if they grow strong, they will come to want, and those who remain of them shall die an evil death, and no one will have pity on their widows, and if they gather gold or silver like mud, all these things the just shall possess.

Do not therefore now deign to flatter yourself unjustly, O emperor, because, being such as we have declared, you suppose that you live so very long in this life, being a murderer and sacrilegious, because your works are acceptable to God: your works are such as those of them against whom the Holy Spirit inveighs by the mouth of Isaiah, saying: Thus says the Lord who delivered you, the Holy One of Israel: I am God, I have shown you the way in which you should walk; and if you had heard my commandments, your peace would have become like a river, and your justice like the waves of the sea, and your seed would have become like the sand of the sea, and the offspring of your womb. But, you say, these things were said to the Jews; indeed to those whose imitator you have made yourself; and now, as has often been said, change your wicked ways, believe as the holy Church believes, and He will be propitious to you in all things.

For He Himself says: Return to me with your whole heart, both with fasting and weeping and mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return with your whole heart to God, acquiesce in these healthful remedies for perceiving the understanding of your crime; open the eyes of your heart, groan with your whole heart, gathering that you have sinned so gravely; then he will have mercy on you who says: When, converted, you have groaned, then you shall be saved, and you shall know where you have been. Remember that the prophet consecrated to God said: I do not wish the death of the dying, says the Lord, but rather that he should turn and live. Do not now think, because your works are evil, that you act well, why you have not immediately received punishment for your deeds, but observe it is written, that the Lord is patient, that you may repent. Do not say: I have sinned, and what sad thing has happened to me? For the Most High is a patient rewarder.

Hear also blessed Paul inviting you to God, opening to you concerning your appeasement, that He is patient, and the merits of your works are not immediately rendered, because He wishes you at last to emerge from evils through penance, through true satisfaction. Do you despise the riches of His goodness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart you treasure up wrath for yourself against the day of wrath, and the revelation of the just judgment of God, who will render to each according to his work. Return, Constantius, to God: against the brigandage of your inward enemy take up the arms of penance; flee flatterers, who have not deigned to tell you the pernicious praise which they hold; remember that the Lord said by the mouth of Isaiah: Those who call you happy lead you into error, and disturb the path of your feet.

Believe in the only Son of God, receive pardon for your crimes, repeat the saying of the psalmist: Who shall confess to you among the dead? And again: Shall the dust make confession to you? Return to God, groan for your crimes, hear the voice of the Lord through Jeremiah, saying: Shall not he who falls rise again, or he who turns away, not be converted? You fell on the day you denied the Son of God; you shall rise in the hour you have confessed Him: because the enemy's wound has settled in you, hand yourself over for healing to medicine, apply the remedy to yourself. You wounded yourself by saying: He is not the true Son of God; you shall heal yourself again, if you say, as we say and believe, that He is the true Son of God. Return, says Joel, to the Lord your God, for He is merciful and gracious and patient, and of great compassion, and one who turns aside the sentence against the evil inflicted.

If you shall think this promised indulgence for your funerals ought to be rejected, you will desire to obtain it there, where you will receive nothing but the torments of punishments.