On Idolatry

But let all the names of crimes depart into the proper character of their own deeds; let idolatry remain in what it itself is: a name so hostile to God, a substance of crime so rich, which stretches out so many branches and pours forth so many veins, is sufficient for itself—so that on this subject above all, the matter having been taken up, we must consider in how many ways the breadth of idolatry is to be guarded against by us. Since in manifold ways it overthrows the servants of God, not only when unknown but even when dissembled. Most people think idolatry is simply to be interpreted in these ways alone: if anyone either burns incense, or offers sacrifice, or makes an offering, or is bound by certain sacred rites or priesthoods—just as if someone were to think that adultery is to be reckoned only in kisses and embraces and the actual union of the flesh, or that murder is to be counted only in the shedding of blood and the taking of life.

But we are certain how much more extensively the Lord disposes these matters, since He designates adultery even in desire, if anyone has cast his eye lustfully and stirred his soul immodestly; since He judges murder even in a word of cursing or abuse, and in every impulse of anger, and in the neglect of love toward a brother. As John teaches that he who hates his brother is a murderer. Otherwise, both the devil's ingenuity in malice and the Lord God's in discipline—by which He fortifies us against the heights of the devil—would consist in but little, if we were judged only in those sins which even the nations have decreed to be punishable. How shall our justice abound above that of the scribes and Pharisees, as the Lord has prescribed, unless we have perceived the abundance of its adversary, that is, of injustice? But if the head of injustice is idolatry, it is first necessary that we be fortified against the abundance of idolatry, while we recognize it not only in its manifest forms.

An idol did not exist for some time in the past. Before the craftsmen of this monster had bubbled forth, there were only temples and empty shrines, as even today the vestiges of antiquity remain in certain places. Yet idolatry was practiced, not under that name, but in that deed. For even today it can be carried on outside a temple and without an idol. But when the devil introduced into the world the makers of statues and images and simulacra of every kind, that crude business of human calamity both acquired its name from idols and advanced. From that point on, every art that produces an idol in any way became the head of idolatry. For it makes no difference whether a modeler fashions it, or an engraver carves it, or an embroiderer weaves it; since neither does the material matter, whether the idol is formed of plaster, or colors, or stone, or bronze, or silver, or thread.

For since idolatry can occur even without an idol, certainly when an idol is present it makes no difference what kind it is, of what material, of what form—lest anyone think that only what has been consecrated in human form is to be considered an idol. For this purpose the interpretation of the word is necessary: eidos, form in Greek sounds as "form"; from it by diminution eidolon is derived, which has equally produced for us the word "formula." Therefore every form or formula demands to be called an idol. Hence idolatry is every service and slavery around every idol. Hence also every maker of an idol is guilty of one and the same crime: unless the people committed too little idolatry because they consecrated to themselves a likeness of a calf and not of a man.

God forbids an idol both to be made and to be worshipped. By as much as the making of what can be worshipped precedes, by so much is it more primary that it not be made, if it is not lawful to worship it. For this reason, namely to eradicate the material of idolatry, the divine law proclaims: Thou shalt not make an idol. And adding, neither any likeness of those things which are in heaven, and which are on earth, and which are in the sea. He has forbidden such arts to the servants of God throughout the whole world. Enoch had foretold beforehand, predicting that all the elements, every perception of the world—those things contained in heaven, in the sea, in the earth—would be turned by demons and the spirits of the fallen angels into idolatry, so that they might be consecrated against the Lord in place of God. Therefore human error worships everything except the Creator of all things Himself. The images of these things are idols; the consecration of images is idolatry.

Whatever idolatry commits must necessarily be imputed to the maker of any idol whatsoever. Finally, the same Enoch at once condemns in his threatening both the worshippers of the idol and its fabricators. And again: I swear to you, sinners, that repentance is prepared for the day of blood and perdition. You who serve stones, and who make images of gold and silver and wood and stone and clay, and who serve phantoms and demons and infamous spirits, and all errors not according to knowledge, you shall find no help from them. But Isaiah says: You are not witnesses, if there is a God besides me. And there were not then those who mold and carve—all are vain who do their own pleasures, which will not profit them. And thereafter that whole pronouncement, in which he denounces both the makers and the worshippers, whose closing words are: Know that their heart is ashes, and they err, and no one can deliver his own soul. Where likewise David says: And let those who make them become like them.

And what more shall I, a man of modest memory, suggest? What more shall I recall from the Scriptures? As though either the voice of the Holy Spirit were not sufficient, or it were still to be deliberated whether the Lord has cursed and condemned the very makers of those things whose worshippers He curses and condemns.

We shall respond more fully to the excuses of craftsmen of this kind, who ought never to be admitted into the house of God, if anyone knows that discipline. Already that voice is customarily objected: I have no other means by which to live. It can be repelled more sharply: you have therefore to live. What have you to do with God, if you live by your own laws? Then also they dare to argue from the Scriptures, that the apostle said each man should remain in the state in which he was found. By that interpretation, therefore, it is best for all to persevere in their sins. For none of us was found without sin, since Christ descended for no other reason than to free sinners. Likewise they say the same apostle commanded, following his own example, that each man should work with his hands for his livelihood.

If this precept is defended by all hands, I believe that even bath-house thieves live by their own hands, and that robbers themselves act with their hands to earn their living. Likewise forgers certainly work their evil writings not with their feet but with their hands. And actors labor for their livelihood not with their hands alone but with all their members. Let the Church therefore be open to all who are supported by their hands and their own work, if there is no exception for arts which the discipline of God does not receive. But someone objects against the proposition of the forbidden likeness: Why then did Moses in the desert make a likeness of a serpent out of bronze? Figures which were set up for some hidden dispensation are a separate matter—not to the derogation of the law, but for the sake of the exemplary purpose of their own cause. Otherwise, if we interpret these things as being against the law, do we not, like the Marcionites, ascribe inconsistency to the Almighty?

Whom they destroy in this way as mutable, since in one place He forbids and in another He commands. But if anyone overlooks the fact that that figure of the bronze serpent, hung up in the manner of a cross, was designed to prefigure the Lord's cross, which would deliver us from serpents, that is, from the angels of the devil, by hanging up the devil himself, that is, the serpent slain through Himself—or whatever other exposition of that figure has been revealed to worthier persons—provided that the apostle affirms that all those things happened to the people figuratively: it is well that the same God who by the law forbade a likeness to be made, by an extraordinary command enjoined the likeness of a serpent. If you observe the same God, you have His law: Thou shalt not make a likeness. If you also look to the command for the likeness made afterward, then you too imitate Moses: do not make any simulacrum against the law, unless God has also commanded you.

If no law of God had forbidden idols to be made by us, if no voice of the Holy Spirit threatened the fabricators of idols no less than their worshippers: we would interpret from our very sacrament itself that arts of this kind are adverse to faith. For how have we renounced the devil and his angels, if we make them? What repudiation have we declared against those, I say not with whom, but from whom we earn our living? What enmity have we taken up against those to whom we are bound by the favor of our livelihood? Can you deny with your tongue what you confess with your hand? Destroy in word what you build in deed? Proclaim one God, you who make so many? Proclaim the true God, you who make false ones? I make them, says someone, but I do not worship them. As though the reason he dare not worship were not the same reason for which he ought not to make—namely the offense of God in both cases.

Nay, you do worship, you who make them so that they can be worshipped. Moreover you worship, not with the spirit of some most vile smoke, but with your own; not at the cost of a beast's soul, but of your own soul. You sacrifice your talent to them, you pour out your sweat as a libation to them, you kindle your skill for them. You are more to them than a priest, since through you they have a priest. Your diligence is their divinity. Do you deny that you worship what you make? But they do not deny it—those for whom you slaughter this fatter and more gilded and greater victim: your own salvation.

All day long the zeal of faith will plead on this point, lamenting that a Christian comes from idols into the Church, comes from the workshop of the adversary into the house of God, lifts up to God the Father hands that are mothers of idols, adores with those hands which outside are adored against God, applies those hands to the body of the Lord which confer bodies upon demons. Nor is this enough. It would be too little if they received from other hands what they contaminate; but they themselves also hand on to others what they have contaminated. Makers of idols are enrolled in the ecclesiastical order. O wickedness! The Jews laid hands on Christ but once; these men assault His body daily. O hands to be cut off! Let them now consider whether it was said figuratively: If your hand scandalizes you, cut it off. Which hands are more to be cut off than those by which the body of the Lord is scandalized?

There are also other kinds of arts belonging to many, which, although they do not touch the making of idols, yet serve the same crime with those things without which idols can do nothing, by name they expedite. For it makes no difference whether you build or adorn, if you have fitted out a temple, an altar, or a shrine for it, if you have hammered out a plate, or fashioned its insignia, or even its dwelling. Greater is work of this kind, which confers not an image but authority. If the necessity of providing a livelihood is thus extended, there are also other kinds of work which, without transgressing discipline—that is, without any connection with an idol—may furnish the means of subsistence. The plasterer knows both how to repair roofs and how to apply stucco, and to line a cistern, and to run mouldings, and to encrust walls with many other ornaments besides images.

The painter knows this too, and the marble-worker, and the bronze-smith, and every engraver—their own broader fields, which are in every way much easier. For one who traces a statue, how much more easily does he coat a gaming-board? One who carves Mars from a linden-tree, how much more quickly does he put together a cabinet? No craft is not either the mother or the kinswoman of another craft. Nothing is without connection with something else. The veins of the crafts are as many as the desires of men. But there is a difference in wages and in fees for work. Accordingly there is also a difference in the labour. A smaller wage is compensated by more frequent employment. How many walls require images? How many temples and shrines are built for idols? But houses, and mansions, and baths, and apartment-blocks—how many are there? The slipper and the sandal are gilded every day; Mercury and Serapis are not gilded every day.

Let it suffice for the profit of the craftsmen: luxury and ambition are more frequent than all superstition. Ambition will desire plates and cups more readily than superstition will. Garlands too, luxury distributes more than solemnity does. Since, therefore, we urge these kinds of crafts toward those which do not touch an idol, nor what belongs to an idol—though there are also things common to men and to idols alike—we must also take care in this respect, that nothing be demanded from our hands by anyone, to our knowledge, for the service of idols. But if we have allowed this, and have not acted with the remedies now customary, I do not think we are free from the contagion of idolatry, we whose hands are found—not in ignorance—in the service or in the honour and use of demons.

We observe that among the arts there are also certain professions liable to idolatry. Of astrologers there is not even need to speak. But since someone in these days has provoked discussion by defending for himself the continuance of that profession, I will use a few words. I do not allege that he honours the idols whose names he has inscribed in the sky, to whom he has assigned all the power of God; that on this account men think God need not be sought, presuming that we are driven by the immutable will of the stars. I set forth one point: that those are the angels who deserted God, lovers of women, betrayers also of this curious knowledge, and on that account condemned by God. O divine sentence, persisting even to the earth, to which even the ignorant bear witness. Astrologers are expelled just as their angels were. The city and Italy are forbidden to astrologers, just as heaven is to their angels. The same penalty of exile falls upon disciples and masters.

But the Magi and astrologers came from the east. We know the fellowship between magic and astrology. The first interpreters of the stars, therefore, announced that Christ was born; the first brought him gifts. By this act they put Christ (I suppose) under obligation to themselves. What then? Will the religion of those Magi therefore now also be a patron to astrologers? The astrology of today is, of course, about Christ—it observes and predicts the stars of Christ, not of Saturn and Mars and any other of the same order of the dead. But that science was permitted only up to the Gospel, so that after Christ's appearing no one thenceforth should interpret anyone's nativity from the sky. For even that frankincense and myrrh and gold they then offered to the infant Lord as a kind of closing act of sacrifice and worldly glory, which Christ was about to take away.

Therefore, what the dream—without doubt from God's will—suggested to those same Magi, that they should go into their own country but by another way, not the one by which they had come, that is, that they should not walk in their former manner of life: would not Herod have persecuted them, who did not even persecute them, even in ignorance that they had departed by another way, since he did not know the way by which they had come either? So thoroughly must we understand the straight way and the discipline. And so the Magi were commanded to walk differently from that time forward. So also that other kind of magic which works miracles, which even rivalled Moses, drew out God's patience as far as the Gospel.

For from that point even Simon Magus, already a believer, because he was still thinking something of his itinerant sect—namely, that among the miracles of his profession he might also peddle the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands, was cursed by the apostles and cast out from the faith; and another magician who was with Sergius Paulus, because he opposed those same apostles, was punished with the loss of his sight. This the astrologers too would have suffered, I believe, if any of them had fallen in with the apostles. Yet when magic is punished—of which astrology is a species—the species is certainly condemned in the genus. After the Gospel you will find nowhere either sophists, or Chaldaeans, or enchanters, or diviners, or magicians, unless plainly punished. Where is the wise man, where is the scribe, where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? You know nothing, astrologer, if you did not know that you were going to become a Christian.

But if you did know, you ought also to have known this: that you would have nothing further to do with that profession. It would itself instruct you concerning its own danger, since it foretells the critical periods of others. You have no part nor lot in this reckoning. He cannot hope for the kingdoms of heaven whose finger or pointer abuses the sky.

We must also inquire concerning schoolmasters and the other professors of letters—indeed, there is no room for doubt that they are connected with manifold idolatry. First, they are obliged to proclaim the gods of the nations, to set forth their names, genealogies, fables, and all their honorific ornaments, and then to observe the solemn festivals and holy days of those same gods, since it is from these that their revenues come. What schoolmaster, without the tablet of the seven idols, will yet frequent the Quinquatria? The very first fee of a new pupil he consecrates to the honour and name of Minerva, so that, even if he has not been formally dedicated to any idol, he is said in word to partake of what is offered to idols. What less defilement is there in that which, as a source of gain, is dedicated by name and honour to an idol? The Minervalia belong to Minerva just as the Saturnalia belong to Saturn—which even little slaves are obliged to celebrate in the season of the Saturnalia.

New Year's gifts too must be sought, and the Septimontium, and the Bruma, and the gifts of the dear kinship must all be exacted; the schools of Flora must be garlanded. The flaminica and the aediles sacrifice; the school is honoured with holidays granted to the newly created. The same is done on the birthday of an idol; every pomp of the devil is frequented.

Who will think these things fitting for a Christian, unless it be one who also thinks them fitting for a non-teacher? We know it can be said: if it is not lawful for servants of God to teach letters, neither will it be lawful to learn them. And how could anyone be trained in human prudence for the time being, or for any understanding or activity, since literature is the instrument for every walk of life? How do we reject secular studies, without which divine studies cannot be pursued? Let us therefore consider the necessity of literary education; let us look at it from the standpoint that it can in part not be admitted, and in part be avoided. It is more fitting for the faithful to learn letters than to teach them. For the rationale of learning and of teaching is different.

If a faithful man teaches letters interwoven with the proclamation of idols, without doubt, while he teaches, he commends them; while he hands them on, he affirms them; while he calls them to mind, he bears witness to them; he seals those very gods with this title, when the law forbids (as we have said) the pronouncing of gods, and the placing of that name in vain. Hence the first faith in the devil is built up from the beginnings of education. Ask whether one who catechizes about idols commits idolatry. But when a faithful person learns these things—if he already has understanding of who God is, he neither receives nor admits them; much more so if he does not yet have understanding. Or when he begins to have understanding, he ought first to understand what he first learned, that is, concerning God and the faith; and accordingly he will reject those things and not receive them.

And he will be as safe as one who knowingly receives poison from one who does not know it is poison, and does not drink it. For him necessity is reckoned as an excuse, because he cannot learn otherwise. But it is so much easier not to teach letters than not to learn them, as also the other defilements of the schools from their public and private solemnities a faithful disciple will more easily not attend than a master will not frequent.

Concerning trade, if we reconsider the rest of its offences, first of all covetousness, the root of all evils, by which some, ensnared, have suffered shipwreck in the faith; although idolatry too has been called covetousness by the same apostle. Then lying, the servant of covetousness. I say nothing of perjury, when it is not even lawful to swear. Is trade fitting for a servant of God? Otherwise, if covetousness departs—which is the reason for acquiring—with the reason for acquiring removed, there will be no necessity for trading. Let there now be some justice in gain, secure in the observance of covetousness and lying: I think it still runs into the crime of idolatry—that which pertains to the very soul and spirit of idols, which fattens every demon. Is not that indeed the principal idolatry? Let them consider whether the same merchandise—I mean frankincense and other foreign goods for the sacrifice of idols, which are also useful to men for medicinal pigments, and to us moreover for the comfort of burial—is a matter of concern.

Certainly when the processions, the priesthoods, the sacrifices of idols are furnished from the dangers, losses, inconveniences, deliberations, journeys, and trading activities, what else do you show yourself to be but a steward of idols? Let no one contend that controversy can be raised in this way against all trading. The graver offences each extend the diligence of their observance in proportion to the magnitude of the danger, so that we withdraw not only from these things but also from those through which they come about. For even if it is done by others, it makes no difference if it is done through me. I ought to be necessary to no one else when he does what is not lawful for me. From the fact that I am forbidden to do a thing, I ought to understand that I must take care that it not be done through me. Finally, in another matter of no lighter guilt I observe this precedent. For since fornication is forbidden to me, I render no service or complicity to others for that purpose.

For since I have separated my own flesh from brothels, I acknowledge that I can exercise neither pandering nor gain of that kind for another's sake.

So also the prohibition of homicide shows me that the trainer of gladiators is likewise to be excluded from the Church; nor will he by himself not do what he supplies to others to be done. Behold a still more immediate precedent. If a contractor for public victims comes to the faith, will you permit him to remain in that business? Or if one already faithful has undertaken to do it, will you think he should be retained in the Church? I think not—unless someone will also turn a blind eye to the incense-seller, since of course the procurement of blood falls to some, and of odours to others. If before idols existed in the world, this still unformed idolatry was transacted with these wares, so also now the work of idolatry is almost perpetrated without an idol by the burning of odours—is the incense-seller not of greater service to the demons? For idolatry is more easily practised without an idol than without the wares of the incense-seller.

Let us interrogate the conscience of the faith itself. With what mouth will a Christian incense-seller, if he passes through the temples, spit upon and blow away the smoking altars, for which he himself has provided? With what constancy will he exorcise his own foster-children, to whom he furnishes his house as a storehouse? He indeed, if he has cast out a demon, should not be pleased with himself on account of his faith. For he has not cast out an enemy. He ought easily to have obtained this from one whom he feeds every day. Therefore no craft, no profession, no trade, which administers anything either to the equipping or the forming of idols, will be able to be free from the title of idolatry: unless we interpret idolatry as something altogether different from the servitude of idols to be worshipped.

We applaud ourselves wrongly for the necessities of human provision, if after the faith has been sealed we say: I have nothing to live on. For here I will answer that abrupt proposition more fully: it is said too late. For deliberation ought to have come first, after the likeness of that most provident builder who first reckons the cost of the work against his own resources, lest, when he has begun, he afterwards blush at his failure. But even now you have the words of the Lord, and examples that take away from you every excuse. For what do you say? "I shall be in want." But the Lord calls the poor blessed. "I shall have no food." But, He says, take no thought for food. And for clothing we have the example of the lilies. "I needed my substance:" and yet all things are to be sold and distributed to the needy. "But provision must be made for children and posterity." No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the work.

"But I was under a contract." No one can serve two masters. If you wish to be a disciple of the Lord, you must take up your cross and follow the Lord, that is, your hardships and torments, or your body alone, which is in the form of a cross. Parents, spouses, children were to be forsaken for God's sake. Do you hesitate about trades and businesses, and about professions even for the sake of children and parents? It was already shown to us that pledges, crafts, and businesses are to be abandoned for the Lord's sake, when James and John, called by the Lord, forsake both their father and their boat; when Matthew is raised up from the tax-booth; when even to bury one's father was too slow for faith. None of those whom the Lord chose said, I have nothing to live on. Faith does not fear hunger. It knows that hunger too is no less to be despised for God's sake than every kind of death.

Having learned not to regard life, how much more does it disregard food? How few have fulfilled these things? But what is difficult with men is easy with God.

Yet let us not flatter ourselves on the gentleness and clemency of God to such a degree that we grant to necessities any approach to idolatry: but let us shun every breath of it, as we would a plague, even from afar, not only in those things which we have set forth above, but throughout the entire range of human superstition, whether enslaved to its gods, or to the dead, or to kings, as pertaining to the same unclean spirits, now through sacrifices and priesthoods, now through spectacles and things of that kind, now through feast days. But what shall I say of sacrifices and priesthoods? Concerning spectacles and pleasures of that sort we have already filled a volume of our own. In this place it is fitting to treat again of feast days, and other extraordinary solemnities, to which we sometimes subscribe out of wantonness, sometimes out of timidity, communicating with the nations against the discipline of faith in idolatrous matters.

On this point I will first take my stand: whether a servant of God ought to communicate with the nations themselves in things of this kind, whether in dress, or in food, or in any other manner of their rejoicing. To rejoice with them that rejoice, and to weep with them that weep, was said by the apostle of brethren, exhorting to unanimity. Otherwise, there is no fellowship between light and darkness, between life and death: or we tear asunder what is written: The world shall rejoice, but ye shall mourn. If we rejoice with the world, there is reason to fear that we shall also mourn with the world. While the world rejoices, let us mourn, and when the world afterwards mourns, we shall rejoice. So also Lazarus in the lower regions, having obtained refreshment in Abraham's bosom, and on the other hand the rich man set in the torment of fire, compensate for the alternating vicissitudes of evils and goods with a retribution that mirrors the other.

There are certain days of gifts, which with some discharge a title of honour, with others a debt of payment. Now therefore, you say, I will receive what is mine, or repay what belongs to another. If men have consecrated this custom to themselves from superstition, you who are a stranger to all their vanity, why do you share in idolatrous solemnities, as though it were also prescribed for you by the day, that you should not pay what you owe to a man, or receive what is owed to you by a man, apart from the observance of the day? Give the form in which you wish to be dealt with. For why should you also hide yourself, when by the ignorance of another you defile your own conscience? If it is not unknown what you are, namely a Christian, you are being tested, and you act against the conscience of another, as though you were not a Christian. Indeed even if you have dissembled, being tested, you are bound.

Certainly, whether in this way or in that, you are guilty of confusion before God. For whosoever shall be ashamed of me before men, him also will I be ashamed of, He says, before my Father who is in heaven.

But indeed most people have now persuaded themselves that pardon is to be granted, if at any time they do what the pagans do, lest the Name be blasphemed. Now blasphemy, which we must altogether avoid, is this, I think: if any one of us leads a pagan to just blasphemy, whether by fraud, or by injury, or by insult, or by some other matter deserving of complaint, in which the Name is deservedly struck, so that the Lord too is deservedly angered. But if the saying, your cause makes my name to be blasphemed, was spoken of all blasphemy, we all perish; since the whole circus assails the Name with wicked shouts without any deserving on our part. Let us cease, and it will not be blasphemed. Nay, let it be blasphemed, so long as we are in the observance, not in the transgression of discipline, so long as we are approved, not reprobated. O blasphemy akin to martyrdom, which then bears witness that I am a Christian, when on account of it the Name is execrated!

It is a blessing of the Name, a cursing of the discipline that is kept. If I wished to please men, he says, I should not be a servant of Christ. But the same man elsewhere bids us take care to please all. How I, he says, please all men in all things. Surely he pleased men by celebrating the Saturnalia and the Kalends of January?

Or by modesty and patience, by gravity, by humanity, by integrity? Likewise when he says, I became all things to all men, that I might gain all, did he become an idolater to idolaters, a pagan to pagans, a worldling to worldlings? But even if he does not forbid us to associate with idolaters and adulterers and other criminals, saying: otherwise ye must needs go out of the world; he certainly does not so alter the reins of association that, since we must needs both live and mingle with sinners, we may therefore also sin with them. There is the commerce of life, which the Apostle permits; here is sinning, which no one permits. It is lawful to live with pagans; it is not lawful to die with them. Let us live with all: let us rejoice together from the fellowship of nature, not of superstition. We are equals in soul, not in discipline: fellow-possessors of the world, not of error.

But if we have no right of fellowship in such things with strangers, how much more wickedly are these things practised among brethren! Who can endure or defend this? The Holy Spirit upbraids the Jews with their own feast days: Their sabbaths, He says, and new moons and ceremonies my soul hateth. For us, to whom sabbaths are foreign, and new moons and festivals once beloved of God, are the Saturnalia, and the Januaries, and the Brumalia, and the Matronalia frequented? Do gifts pass to and fro? Do new-year presents ring out? Do games and banquets resound? O better is the faith of the nations toward their own sect! Which claims for itself no solemnity of the Christians, not the Lord's Day, not Pentecost; even if they had known them, they would have shared them with us; for they would have feared lest they should seem to be Christians. We, lest we be pronounced pagans, have no such fear.

If any indulgence is to be granted to the flesh, you have, I will not say two days only, but even more. For among pagans each feast day comes but once a year: for you every eighth day is a feast. Gather up the individual solemnities of the nations and weave them in order, and they will not be able to fill up Pentecost.

But let your works shine, He says. Yet now our shops and doorways shine: you will find more doors of pagans without lamps and laurels than of Christians. Concerning this appearance also, what seems right? If it is an honour to an idol, without doubt the honour of an idol is idolatry. If it is for the sake of a man, let us reflect that all idolatry exists for the sake of man. Let us reflect that all idolatry is the worship of men, since it is agreed even among their own people that the very gods of the nations were formerly men. Therefore it makes no difference whether this superstition is rendered to men of a former age or of the present. Idolatry has been condemned not on account of the persons who are set against it, but on account of those very offices which pertain to demons. The things of Caesar are to be rendered to Caesar, well that He set against it, and the things of God to God. What then are the things of Caesar?

Namely those things about which the consultation was then raised, whether tribute should be paid to Caesar or not: and therefore the Lord asked that a coin be shown to Him, and inquired about the image, whose it was. And when He heard, Caesar's: Render, He said, the things that are Caesar's to Caesar, and the things that are God's to God; that is, the image of Caesar to Caesar, which is on the coin, and the image of God to God, which is in man: so that you render money to Caesar, but yourself to God. Otherwise, what will belong to God, if all things belong to Caesar? Therefore, you say, it is an honour to God, the lamps before the doors and the laurels on the doorposts? Not at all, because it is an honour to God; but to him who in such offices is honoured in place of God, as far as appears outwardly, with the hidden operation, reaching to the demons, kept safe.

For we ought to be certain—if it is hidden from any through ignorance of secular literature—that even the god of doorways among the Romans, Cardea, is named from hinges, and Forculus from doors, and Limentinus from the threshold, and Janus himself from the gate: and we certainly know that, even though the names be empty and invented, yet when they are drawn into superstition, they attract to themselves demons and every unclean spirit through the bond of consecration. Otherwise demons have no individual name, but find their name there where they also find their pledge. Even among the Greeks we read of Apollo Thyraios, of the doorway, and the Antelii, as demons presiding over doorways. These things therefore the Holy Spirit, foreseeing from the beginning, foretold even that doorways would come into superstition, through the most ancient prophet Enoch. For we see also other doorways in baths being worshipped. But if they belong to those things which are worshipped at doorways, to them also will the lamps and laurels belong.

Whatever you do to the doorway, you do to the idol. In this place I also call to witness by the authority of God, that it is not safe to suppress anything that has been shown to one person, since it is assuredly for the sake of all. I know a brother who was severely chastised in a vision that very night, because his servants had crowned his door on the sudden announcement of public rejoicings. And yet he himself had not crowned it, nor had he given the order, for he had gone out before and on his return had rebuked the deed: so greatly is even the discipline of our household reckoned before the Lord in such matters. Therefore, as regards the honours of kings or emperors, we have sufficient precept: that we ought to be in all obedience, according to the Apostle's command, subject to magistrates and princes and powers: but within the limits of discipline, up to the point where we are separated from idolatry.

For this reason also that example of the three brethren ran before us, who, otherwise obedient toward king Nebuchadnezzar, most steadfastly rejected the honour of his image, proving that whatever is exalted beyond the measure of human honour after the likeness of divine majesty is idolatry. So also Daniel, submissive to Darius in other things, remained in his duty so long as he was free from danger to discipline. For lest he should incur that, he feared the king's lions no more than those others feared the king's fires. Let them therefore light their lamps daily, for whom there is no light; let them affix to their doorposts laurels that will afterwards burn, for whom fires threaten; to them belong both the testimonies of darkness and the omens of punishments. You are the light of the world, and a tree ever green. If you have renounced temples, do not make your doorway a temple. I have said too little: if you have renounced brothels, do not clothe your own house in the appearance of a new brothel.

Concerning the duties at private and public solemnities, such as the toga virilis, betrothals, weddings, name-givings, I think there is no danger to be observed from the breath of idolatry that intervenes: for the causes must be considered for which the duty is rendered. These I consider to be clean in themselves, because neither the male garment, nor the ring, nor the marriage union, derives from the honour of any idol. Finally I find no observance cursed by God except the female in a man: For cursed, He says, is every one who puts on women's clothing. But the toga is even by its name a male garment. Marriages God no more forbids these to be celebrated than a name to be given. But to these are attached sacrifices. Let me be called, and let there be no title of sacrifice in the discharge of my duty and service, and let it be struck out as much as it pleases. Would that we could not even see what it is unlawful for us to do!

But since the Evil One has so encompassed the world with idolatry, it will be permissible to be present at certain things which make us serviceable to a man, not to an idol. Plainly, if called to a priesthood and sacrifice, I will not go (for that is the proper office of an idol): but neither will I take part in counsel, nor in expense, nor in any other service in such matters. If I stand by having been called on account of a sacrifice, I shall be a partaker of idolatry: if some other cause joins me to one who is sacrificing, I shall be only a spectator of the sacrifice.

But what shall faithful slaves or freedmen do, likewise those of the workshop, who attend upon their masters or patrons or governors when they sacrifice? But if someone has handed wine to one who is sacrificing, or even assisted the sacrifice with some necessary word, he will be held a minister of idolatry. Mindful of this rule, we can also render service to magistrates and powers, after the example of the patriarchs and other forebears, who served under idolatrous kings right up to the limit of idolatry. Hence a dispute has recently arisen whether a servant of God may take on the administration of any dignity or power, if he can keep himself untouched by every form of idolatry, whether by some favour or even by cleverness: in accordance with which both Joseph and Daniel stood free from idolatry, and administered dignity and power in the adornment and purple of all Egypt or Babylon.

Let us therefore believe it possible for someone to succeed in holding any honour, so as to proceed in the mere name of honour alone, and neither sacrifice, nor lend his authority to sacrifices, not assign victims, not delegate the care of temples, not manage their revenues, not put on spectacles at his own or the public expense, nor preside over those that are put on: to pronounce or proclaim nothing solemn, not even to swear: and further, in matters that belong to power, neither to judge concerning anyone's life or honour (for you might bear with his judging in money matters), nor to condemn nor pre-condemn, to bind no one, to imprison no one, or to torture anyone; if it is credible that these things can be done.

Now indeed the platform itself and the trappings of honour must be reconsidered; the proper dress of each person is, both for daily use and for honour and dignity. Therefore that purple and gold as an ornament for the neck were among the Egyptians and Babylonians marks of dignity in the same manner as the bordered togas, or the trabea, or the embroidered robes, and the golden crowns of provincial priests are now, but not under the same condition. For they were conferred in the name of honour only upon those who merited the familiarity of kings. Hence those clad in purple were also called the king's men from the purple, just as among us candidates are called from the white toga: but not so that that platform was also bound to priestly functions or to any services of idols.

For if it were so, men of such great holiness and constancy would immediately have refused garments thus defiled, and it would immediately have appeared that Daniel had not served idols, and did not worship Bel or the dragon, which appeared much later. That purple therefore was simple, and was no longer a mark of dignity, but of free birth among Barbarians. For just as Joseph, who had been a slave, and Daniel, who had changed his status through captivity, obtained citizenship in Babylon and Egypt through the dress of barbarian free birth: so also among us, if it shall be necessary, the bordered toga may be granted even to boys, and the stola to girls, as marks of birth, not of power: of family, not of honour: of rank, not of superstition.

But the purple and other insignia of dignities and powers, dedicated from the beginning to dignity and powers intertwined with idolatry, bear the stain of their profanation: since moreover the bordered togas and trabea and broad stripes are put upon the very idols themselves, and the fasces and rods are also carried before them, and rightly so. For demons are the magistrates of the world, and they bear the insignia of this college, the fasces and the purples. What then will you gain, if you use the platform indeed, but do not administer its functions? No one can appear clean among unclean things. If you put on a tunic that is defiled in itself, it may perhaps not be defiled by you, but you cannot be clean through it. Now then, you who argue from Joseph and Daniel, know that old and new things, rough and polished, things begun and things completed, things servile and things free, are not always to be compared.

For those men were also in the condition of slaves: but you, a slave of no one, insofar as you are a slave of Christ alone, who has also freed you from the captivity of the world, you ought to act according to the Lord's pattern. That Lord walked in humility and obscurity, uncertain of a dwelling: For the Son of Man, he says, has nowhere to lay his head; unadorned in dress, for he would not otherwise have said: Behold, those who are clothed in soft garments are in the houses of kings; and finally inglorious in face and appearance, as Isaiah also had declared. If he exercised no power even over his own, whom he served in lowly ministry: if finally, conscious of his own kingdom, he fled from being made king, he gave the fullest pattern to his own by directing them away from every elevation and platform of dignity as much as of power. For who would have made more use of these than the Son of God?

What fasces, and how great, would have gone before him! What purple would have bloomed upon his shoulders! What gold would have shone from his head, had he not judged the glory of the world to be alien both to himself and to his own! Therefore what he did not will, he rejected; what he rejected, he condemned; what he condemned, he reckoned among the pomp of the devil. For he would not have condemned it unless it were not his own: but it could not belong to another than the devil, since it does not belong to God. If you have renounced the pomp of the devil, whatever of it you touch, know that to be idolatry; or let this remind you that all the powers and dignities of this world are not only alien but also enemies of God, because through them punishments have been devised against the servants of God, through them also the penalties prepared for the impious are inflicted. But also your birth and your substance are burdensome to you in opposition to idolatry.

Remedies for avoiding it cannot be lacking; since even if they should be lacking, there remains that one unique thing whereby, made more blessed, you are a magistrate not on earth but in heaven.

In this chapter a decision might also seem to be given concerning military service, which stands between dignity and power. But now the question is raised whether a believer can turn to military service, and whether military service can be admitted to the faith even in the lower ranks, or any inferior grade, for whom there is no necessity of sacrifices or capital judgments. The divine oath and the human oath are not compatible, the sign of Christ and the sign of the devil, the camp of light and the camp of darkness: one soul cannot be owed to two masters, God and Caesar. Moses also carried a rod, and Aaron a clasp; John is girded with a leather belt; Joshua leads an army; and the people also made war, if one likes to play with examples. But how will he make war, nay how will he even serve in peace, without the sword, which the Lord has taken away?

For even if soldiers had come to John, and had received a form of conduct to observe, even if a centurion had believed; the Lord afterwards, by disarming Peter, ungirded every soldier. No dress that is assigned to an unlawful act is lawful among us.

But indeed, since the conduct of divine discipline is endangered not only by deeds but also by words (for, as it is written: Behold the man and his deeds, so also: By your mouth you will be justified); we ought to remember that even in words the incursion of idolatry must be guarded against, whether from the fault of custom or of timidity. The law forbids the gods of the nations to be named, not of course so that we should not pronounce their names, which the necessities of conversation force us to say; for this must often be said: you will find him at the temple of Aesculapius, and I live in the street of Isis, and he has been made priest of Jupiter, and many other things of this kind, since names of this sort are also given to men. For I do not honour Saturn if I call him by his own name, any more than I honour Marcus if I call him Marcus.

But it says: You shall not make mention of the names of other gods, neither shall it be heard from your mouth. This it commanded, that we should not call them gods. For also in the first part of the law: You shall not take, it says, the name of the Lord your God in vain, that is, upon an idol. He therefore falls into idolatry who has honoured an idol with the name of God. But if gods must be named, something must be added by which it appears that I do not call them gods. For Scripture also names gods; but adds their own, or of the nations. As David, when he had named gods, says: But the gods of the nations are demons. But this is prepared by me more for what follows: otherwise it is a fault of custom to say "by Hercules," "by Dius Fidius", with the added ignorance of some who do not know that it is an oath by Hercules.

Moreover, what was swearing by those whom you have renounced, but a betrayal of faith combined with idolatry? For who does not honour those by whom he swears?

It is a matter of timidity, moreover, when another binds you by his gods with an oath or some attestation, and you keep silent lest you be recognized. For by keeping silent equally you confirm their majesty, by reason of which you will appear to be bound. What difference does it make whether you confirm the gods of the nations by calling them gods, or by hearing them so called? Whether you swear by idols, or acquiesce when adjured by another? Why do we not recognize the cunning of Satan, who, since he cannot accomplish through our own mouth what he desires, acts so that he may accomplish it through the mouths of his own, bringing idolatry into us through our ears? Certainly whoever that person is, he binds you either in a friendly or in a hostile encounter. If hostile, you are already called to battle, and you know that you must fight.

If friendly, how much more safely will you transfer your response to the Lord, so as to dissolve his obligation, through which the Evil One sought to attach you to the honour of idols, that is, to idolatry. All patience of this kind is idolatry. You honour those upon whom, when imposed, you have rendered obedience. I know of a certain man (whom the Lord may pardon), to whom it was said in public during a quarrel, "May Jupiter be angry with you," and who replied, "Rather with you." What else would a pagan have done, who believed Jupiter to be a god? Even if he had not hurled back the curse by the same god, nor by any like Jupiter; he had confirmed Jupiter as a god, by showing through his counter-curse that he had taken it ill to be cursed by him. For why are you indignant on account of one whom you know to be nothing?

For if you are enraged, you thereby confirm that he exists, and it will be a profession of idolatry through your fear: how much more when you curse back by him in the same way, you do honour to Jupiter equally with him who provoked you? But a believer in such a case ought to laugh, not to rage: nay, according to the precept, not even to curse back by God, but plainly to bless by God, so that you may both destroy idols, and proclaim God, and fulfil the discipline.

Likewise one initiated into Christ will not endure being blessed by the gods of the nations, so as always to reject the unclean blessing, and turning it toward God for himself, to cleanse it. To be blessed by the gods of the nations is to be cursed by God. If I have given alms, or rendered some benefit, and he invokes upon me the propitious favour of his gods, or the genius of the colony, my offering or service will then be an honour to the idols, through whom he repays the grace of the blessing. But why should he not know that I have done it for God's sake, so that God may rather be glorified, and demons not be honoured in what I did for God's sake? God sees that I did it for his sake: he likewise sees that I was unwilling to show that I did it for his sake, and I have in a manner made his precept into an idol-offering.

Many say: "No one ought to make it public:" but I think neither ought one to deny it; for whoever dissembles denies, in whatever cause he is reckoned as a pagan. And certainly every denial is idolatry, just as every idolatry is a denial, whether in deeds or in words.

But there is a certain kind of this sort in deed and in word, doubly sharp and dangerous on both sides, though it flatters you as though it were void in both respects, since the deed is not seen because the word is not held to. Money borrowing from pagans under pledges of surety, bound by oath they take care, and so they deny. They wish to know, forsooth, the time of the persecution, and the place of the tribunal, and the person of the governors. Christ prescribes that one must not swear. "I wrote," he says, "but I said nothing: the tongue, not the letter, kills." Here therefore I call upon nature and conscience: upon nature, because the hand can write nothing, even if the tongue rests motionless and still in its dictating, which the soul has not dictated, although the soul itself also dictates to the tongue, either something conceived by itself or delivered by another.

Now, lest it be said, "another dictated it," here I appeal to conscience, whether what another dictated the soul receives, and whether with the tongue accompanying or at rest transmits it to the hand. And rightly, because the Lord said that sin is committed in the mind and conscience. If, he says, concupiscence or malice has ascended into the heart of a man, you are held as for a deed. You have therefore taken care regarding what plainly ascended into your heart, which you can neither contend you were ignorant of, nor that you were unwilling. For when you took care, you knew; when you knew, you assuredly willed it; and you are entangled as much in the deed as in the thought, nor can you exclude the greater crime by a lesser one, so as to say that what you do not do is plainly made false by taking care of it.

"Yet I did not deny, because I did not swear." Nay, even if you had done nothing of the sort, you would still be said to forswear yourself if you consented. A silent voice in the pen, and a mute sound in letters, has no force. But indeed Zacharias, penalized with a temporary loss of vocal speech, having conversed with his mind, passes over his useless tongue, dictates from his heart with his own hands, and pronounces the name of his son without his mouth, speaks with the pen, is heard in the wax—his hand clearer than any sound, the letter more vocal than any mouth. Ask whether he spoke, who was found to have spoken. Let us pray the Lord that no necessity of such a contract may beset us.

And if it so befalls, may he grant to our brethren the opportunity of acting, or to us the steadfastness to break off every necessity, lest those letters of denial, substitutes for our mouth, be brought forward against us on the day of judgment, sealed with seals—no longer of advocates, but of angels.

Among these rocks and inlets, among these shallows and straits of idolatry, faith, sailing with the wind of God's Spirit, navigates—safe if cautious, secure if watchful. Otherwise the deep is unspeakable for those who have been cast out, the shipwreck inextricable for those who have been dashed upon it, the submersion unbreathable for those swallowed up in idolatry: whatever waves of it choke, every whirlpool of it swallows down to hell. Let no one say: "Who will take precaution so safely? One will have to leave the world;" as though it were not worth as much to leave as to stand as an idolater in the world. Nothing can be easier than caution against idolatry, if the fear of it be foremost. Whatever necessity is less than the danger, is nothing in comparison with it. For this reason the Holy Spirit, when the apostles were then consulting, relaxed the bond and yoke from us, so that we might be free to avoid idolatry.

This shall be our law, to be administered the more fully as it is unencumbered, the law proper to Christians, by which we are recognized and examined by pagans: this is to be set before those approaching the faith, and to be impressed upon those entering the faith, so that those approaching may deliberate, those observing may persevere, those not observing may renounce themselves. For we shall see whether, according to the type of the ark, the raven and the kite and the wolf and the dog and the serpent shall be in the Church; certainly the idolater is not found in the type of the ark. No animal was figured as the idolater: what was not in the ark, let it not be in the Church.