Song of Apologetics against the Jews and Greeks 573–1027

After his ascension they worked many miracles; they healed the sick by a word in the name of Christ. If he had been such as these faithless men say, mighty works would not have been done through him at the witnesses' word. He ascended into the heavens, as the Scripture also sang: “Receive the king, you princes, in the heights of heaven!” What more need is there to recite everything from the law? These things suffice for the unlearned, to be kept with a good heart. But if they themselves will not know God by reading these things, let them blame themselves when they come where they would not. Virgil is read, Cicero, or Terence likewise; they only train the mind; of life they say nothing. What use is it to pursue worldly things vainly on earth, and to know about the vices of kings and their wars? And to know the mad forum, skilled in law, when the laws totter, unless perhaps they are steered by a bribe? Though he be an advocate, though a divine orator, he will gain nothing at death if, while living, he denied Christ. Rather let him first ask where his life is laid up! So he would be wise, even if otherwise he is blamed. They read the laws and learn wonderful phrases, but in pleading they get the better of the wretches for whom they speak. Unhappy is he who has fallen into their mouths; they carry off the praise, and he a victory with losses.

The wretch stands in the middle, mute, aching all the more within; they thunder with their mouths, and he is silenced by his coins. Meanwhile the polished voice clamors the whole day, and often a bad case becomes the better by giving a little more. Hence the wise man seeks a fee, hence he rejoices to win; though he acts wrongly, so long as he wins, he is sick. He deals with nothing of his own cause while he strives for gain; he takes up another's hope and puts his own behind him. Many are carried off by success in the forest of the world; while they rejoice in brief things, they stay far from the grace of Christ; while they covet much with the eye, while they seek to increase, God is nothing to them but the life of this world. They busy themselves for the belly; the contest for it is daily, and they spurn the true contest for eternal salvation. Whoever is watchful, as it were, for the world is praised as sharp; but he who follows God is judged dung by them. O happy beyond measure, whoever shuns worldly things! Let him be a fool to others, so long as he is wise to God most high. This is the whole hope: to believe God, who hung on the wood; though it be a shameful thing, yet it is useful for the life to come. For that first people was deceived by this, that he called himself Son, though he himself is the God of old. He went before them in the pillar of cloud and fire, when he freed them, to a man, from Egypt.

He commands a cruel deed concerning the only son, to test Abraham, to whom an angel said from heaven: “Spare him!” And he is God, and he likewise made himself man, and whatever he wills he will do: so that dumb things speak. He made Balaam's ass speak to him as he sat on it, and a dog, so that it said to Simon: “Peter calls for you!” That many might speak of him to Paul as he preached, he made a lion speak to the people with a divine voice. Then, what our very nature does not allow, he made an infant in its fifth month speak out to the crowd. He was to come, mingled with our blood, to be seen as man; but God lay hidden in the flesh. “Not an elder will come, nor an angel,” said Isaiah, “but the Lord himself will come to show himself to us.” Him the sea feared, him the winds, him Tartarus itself; all creation recognized the hidden Lord. Only the wicked people raised a … against him: “Far be it that the Lord should have come in such a form!” He walked upon the waves of the sea as on land, and commands the winds, to make the sea calm. He broke the law of Tartarus by his word, present there, and raises from the tomb Lazarus, stinking on the fourth day. And to one who was being carried out, when he met him: “Rise, young man!” he said. And he rose up from the bier.

At the father's entreaty he raises the daughter of the synagogue ruler, already lifeless, while they mourned. He made the mute speak, and above all the deaf hear, and the man blind from the womb see the light. After thirty-eight years he bade the paralytic rise, whom they marveled to see carrying his bed on his neck. By touching his garment a woman was healed of her flow. Five loaves he broke for five thousand men, and again he fed four thousand from seven. That the Lord might show more fully that he was present, he changed water, so that it became the best wine. He had been invited to a wedding with his mother herself; when he was asked to help because the wine had run out, he bade them quickly fill the jars with water, which he tasted first and then ordered to be served. Not even so could they recognize the Lord by his deeds, but they raged, as though to put a wicked man to death. This he himself allows, since he had resolved so to suffer; yet if they believe, then at last they will have pardon. He is the firstborn, foretold long before by the prophets, to be called on earth the offspring of the Most High. Happy the men who put their hope in him, for the foolish shun him as a thing accursed.

Eternity is prepared for whoever believes in Christ, that man may be God's companion, living after death. The law and the prophets teach who are worthy of the God of the heavens, and to whom the hidden golden ages are revealed. Through so many seers the Son of God is proclaimed, and those first called sons of God closed their eyes; who, having done the crime, did not remember it in their reading, but persisted in saying: “We are the chosen!” Still they befool the profane into going to baths, whom they make clean, they claim, to please God most high. Water washes off dirt, not the inner wickedness of the heart, nor could sacrilegious things be washed holy by such care. The Lord did not command this, to give holy things to the wicked; and again he spoke, that men be kept clean from idols: “Let no one make himself an image of a demon,” he says; for he said to them as well: “Do not serve idols.” If God commanded that idols be strictly avoided, why do they deceive the Gentiles that they are pure by washings? Rather, when they receive such people, they ought to teach them to serve no others, but only to please the Most High. While they seek to cover up the crime of Christ's death, they throw the doors open everywhere, so that men may come in to them. Hence those perish who think they can become pure for God by water, having first been accomplices of the robber.

Now he worships anything at all in vain, now he seeks holy things, not knowing, ignorant man, where to run first; he serves idols, and again he seeks the thirtieth days; now he follows unleavened bread, who before kept a pagan fast. It did not please God that men be partakers with demons, he who instituted the law so that there might be a passing over from there. Two ways are set before you: choose which you will, for you will not split yourself so as to walk both; but you must choose from them the one that is fitting; lest you fall into the jaws of robbers, be more careful. Seek the one God, who seeks no victims, that, washed clean, you may rise again in the renewed age. Why do you heed the wicked and judge the saints unjust, who show you not one word from the law? They recount the power of God which he worked among them; but of their own wicked deeds they will not speak, ever murderers, ever with bloody hands, whom the Lord could never tame by warning. It had been enough for them, through sloth, to have done such things and to say: “So it was written; now it is right to believe.” But the Lord himself darkened their minds, he hardened them, as he did Pharaoh, among them; and he said he would not hear their prayers, and in anger cast them out of their land.

Since he had already called them sons long before, he had willed that those born of him should live with a good heart; for a father rejoices when his son is good to him; but if he is bad, he curses the son in hatred. No one endures a son who sets himself against him; all love is shut out from a cruel son, nor does the father make him heir of his whole estate; rather, if he can spend it all first, he rejoices to spite him. An impious and savage offspring, a tyrant over his property, the father, provoked by him, cannot bear even to meet. What do these presume, when they are only adopted, saying: “Of all peoples we are the dearest to the Most High”? One who murders his father and is ever proud toward him — can he be dear, or be called heir by right? If fathers in the flesh detest such children, how much more the Lord, who has sons in plenty to choose! To meek, humble children, full of obedience, the goods are divided, not to the impious nor to tyrants. The Jews had plainly been adopted as sons, but in the testament they obtained the name of impious. Let them consider for themselves: having committed bloody crime, how could they share in the goods? Why do they gnash at us, why do they envy us as heirs? Had they done good, they too would have had a share in the legacy.

Nor are they silent today, and they will not believe in Christ, who had been foretold to them in the law as the bringer of salvation; of whom you have already heard how the prophets sang: that the Lord would come to earth, whom the Gentiles would worship. Him indeed they bid us recognize as the Most High, who renews man and forgives former sins. For he himself threatens the worshipers of gods: “Whoever sacrifices to idols will perish in the second death.” So whoever follows gods fashioned of gold, silver or stone, of wood or cast bronze, unhappy man, will be sent with them into the fire, his body restored, and will not die there, but, wicked, will pay in torments. There are men like cattle by nature, who will not take the bridle of God most high, but wander; though they themselves will not bear such things from their slaves, whose blood they often savagely shed. And they add, saying: “There is nothing after our death; while we live, this is all,” and they wallow like swine; “Let no luxury pass us by in our lifetime; while there is time of life, let us enjoy all the world's things.” Undisciplined, they reject the mercy of God, chasing after New Year's gifts, as if this life were all there is. So they turn back from God, who promises everlasting life: they fight against the good, when they should fight against the wicked.

We all went openly astray, persuaded by the world, but by the grace of the Lord we are called to believe the law. Therefore he came and won his trophies in secret, and God was man, to have us for the future. But very many perish who think they can please both, idols and God, though no one can please two. There is one God in heaven, God of heaven, earth, and sea, whom Moses taught hung on the wood for us. Hence some, slow of mind, go astray [doubting] that he suffered such things, not attentive enough to God's secret mystery. By the devil's envy death came into the world, and God, born of a virgin, destroyed it in secret. At this birth the blind Jews lose their wits; blood-stained, having committed the crime, they befool the foolish. No one can offer any excuse hereafter, since now the opportunity to believe has been given us. Not in vain did the Lord come from heaven to earth, but he came to make a people called by his name. Whoever has not confessed him while in this nature loses even what he has lived, and cries out too late in punishment; or surely, while he hopes to believe when gray, waiting, he dies and is shut out from eternal life for long ages. So we must turn our minds to him the more quickly, who promises to give us back life after death.

Moreover he adds this: that we shall be immortal and enjoy, by seeing, what the eye had not seen before. These things will come when six thousand years are fulfilled, at which time I hope we shall be already on the harbor's shore. Then man will rise, brought back at the course of the sun, and rejoices in God, remembering what he was before; and as he heard, while frail in his former flesh, now incorrupt, he recognizes what was promised before. Marveling at the glory that has come to man, he says: “As I heard before, so I see each thing.” This all cry out together, raised from the underworld: “As we heard before, behold, we see!” All pain will leave the body, the sore will leave too, nor will there be any anxiety, but joys forever. Whoever believes in the three and perceives that one is present, he will be everlasting, reborn into the eternal ages. But some say this: “When do we think these things will come?” Hear in a few words after what events they will follow. Many signs indeed will come at the end of so great a plague, but the beginning will be our seventh persecution. Behold, already he knocks at the door and is girded with the sword, who will soon cross over, the Goths bursting across the river. With them will be King Apollyon, dreadful in name, who will break up the persecution of the saints by arms.

He marches on Rome with many thousands of his people and, by God's decree, takes captive those he partly subdues. For many senators will then weep as captives and blaspheme the God of the heavens, conquered by the barbarian. Yet these heathen feed the Christians everywhere, whom they seek out rather as brothers, full of joy. For the luxurious and those who worship vain idols they persecute, and they put the senate under the yoke. These evils befall those who persecuted the beloved: for five months they are slaughtered under this enemy. Meanwhile, at that very time, Cyrus arises, to terrify the enemies and set the senate free from them. He returns from the underworld, who had been snatched from his throne, and, long preserved, is recognized in his former body. This one, we say, is the Nero of old, who first punished Peter and Paul in the city. He himself returns again at the very end of the age from hidden places, he who was kept back for this. The senate marvels that he is seen; and when he appears, they will think him a god. But before he comes, Elijah will prophesy, at the divided time, at the midpoint of the week. When that span is complete, the accursed one succeeds, whom the Jews too, together with the Romans, then worship.

Although there will be another, whom they await from the east, yet in our slaughter they will rage together with King Nero. So while Elijah prophesies in the land of Judea and marks the people with a sign in the name of Christ — since so many of them will not believe him, in anger he prays the Most High that it rain no more: the sky will be shut from then on and not be wet with dew, and in anger he turns the rivers too into blood. The earth becomes barren and does not sweat with springs of water, so that famine invades; there will then also be plague in the world. Because he does these things, the Jews, tormented, forge many false charges against him, and first stir up the senate to rise in anger, and say that Elijah acts as an enemy of the Romans. Then at once the senate, moved by them, entreat Nero with prayers and wicked gifts: “Remove from human affairs the enemies of the people, by whom our gods too are trampled and no longer worshiped.” And he, filled with fury and with the senate's prayers, seizes the prophets from the east by the public post. To satisfy them, or rather the Jews, he sacrifices these first, and so goes out against the churches. At their martyrdom a tenth part of the city falls, and there perish seven thousand men in full.

But on the fourth day the Lord takes them up into the air, whom those had forbidden to be buried where they lay; and they are raised from the ground, made immortal out of death, and their enemies look up at them going through the air. Not even so are they terrified, but rather grow crueler within toward the people of Christ, cursing them with all their hatred. For the Most High hardened their wicked hearts, as he had once hardened Pharaoh's ears. So this harsh and wicked king, Nero the fugitive, orders the Christian people driven from the city itself, and takes two Caesars to himself as partners, with whom to persecute this people with dreadful fury. They send edicts through all the judges everywhere, to make this race of men be without the name of Christ. They command, too, that incense be set before the images, and, so that no one may hide, that all go out in garlands. In this history, if a believer has refused to go, happy will he be; but if not, he becomes one of the crowd. There will be no day of peace then, nor offering to Christ, but blood flows everywhere, which I am too overcome to describe; for tears overcome me, my hand fails, hearts tremble, though it is fitting for martyrs to bear so many deaths; over sea, over lands, through islands and hiding places they search long, and lead off the accursed as victims.

These things Nero will then do for three whole years, and with half a year he completes the appointed times; for his crime a deadly vengeance will come, so that the city and that people will be given up with him, and the empire taken away, which was filled with wickedness, which long wore everyone down with evil taxes. Then, at this Nero's downfall, there will arise a king from the east with four nations from there, and he summons very many nations to himself against the city, to bring him help, though he himself is very strong, and he will fill the sea with ships, with many thousands, and whoever meets him will be slain with the sword; and first he takes Tyre and Sidon captive, subdued, for at this the neighboring nations faint with terror. Here plague, here wars, here famine, here grim tidings are mingled together, so that minds are thrown into confusion. Meanwhile a trumpet suddenly sounds a blast from heaven, whose sound in every place troubles the heart. Then a fiery four-horse chariot will be seen among the stars, and a running torch, to announce fire to the nations. Then the whole river Euphrates is dried up, so that a way may be prepared for the king with those nations. Persians, Medes, Chaldeans and Babylonians will come together, merciless and swift, who know no pity for anyone.

So when this one, rising up, begins to come from there, Nero and the senate are thrown into confusion at the sight close by. And those three Caesars will go out to resist him: he slays them and gives them to the birds for food. Their armies must needs worship the victor, and returning with him to the city with changed minds, they plunder the temples, and whatever is within the city they sack, and slaughter men with vast bloodshed; at last they strip it bare, setting it on fire, so that no trace of it appears any more. At its destruction the hearts of the mighty melt, nor do they, brutish, grasp in what time they are. She indeed rejoiced, but the whole earth groaned; yet at last a fitting retribution comes upon her. She mourns forever, who boasted herself eternal, whose tyrants are now judged by the Most High. The time stands ripe for the end, with Rome smoking, and the reward will come, apportioned according to the merits of places. From there the victor goes on into the land of Judea, he whom the Jews themselves had watched conquer Rome. He does many signs, so that they may believe him, since the wicked one is sent to lead them astray; yet a voice sent from heaven by the Most High rebukes him. The man from Persia says that he is immortal.

For us Nero became the Antichrist, that one for the Jews; these two are always the prophets at the very end. Nero is the destruction of the city, that one of the whole earth; of him I offer a few things, which I have read in hidden books. Meanwhile, too late, he displeases the Jews too, and they murmur together that they have been deceived by fraud. They cry out together to heaven with weeping voices, that the true God may help them from on high. Then God almighty, to bring to an end all that I have told, will bring forth a people hidden for a long time. They are Jews, shut in by a river beyond Persia, whom God willed to remain there until the end. Captivity brought them there to dwell; of the twelve tribes, nine and a half remain there. There is no lying there, nor any hatred; therefore no son dies before his parents; nor do they lament or mourn the dead in our fashion, since they await the resurrection to come. They eat no living thing as food, but only vegetables, so that no blood is shed. Full of righteousness, they live with undefiled bodies, and fate exerts no impious power over them. No fevers come upon them, no cruel chills, since they obey all the precepts of the pure law;

which we too shall follow, living purely; only death was there, and toil, for all else was deaf to them. So this people, which is now laid up outside, when the river is dried up will return to the land of Judea; with them God too will come to fulfil his promises, and along the whole way they exult, with God present. All things grow green before them, all things rejoice, creation itself is glad to receive the saints: in every place springs rise up, ready for them, where the people of the Most High march with heavenly terror. Clouds give them shade, so that they are not troubled by the sun, and, lest they grow weary, the mountains themselves lie down beneath them; for an angel of the Most High will be sent before them, to give them peaceful leadership on the way. They march lightly, without toil, as they go, and like lions lay waste everything where they pass. Nor will any nation be able to resist them if it makes war, since God himself is with them. They conquer nations, they bring cities down too, by God's leave they empty all the colonies, and they grow rich with gold and silver by plunder, and so together they sing hymns to his honor.

Soon they hasten to the holy city of their fathers, for that terrible tyrant will take fright and flee to the kings of the North with a great stir, from where he gathers a people to stand, as it were, fighting against them. But when the rebels hasten against the army of God, they are laid low on the ground by the angels when battle is joined; and the adulterer is seized, and his false prophet, and they are cast alive into the lake, under fiery punishment. And their chief men, commanders or envoys, are reduced, wicked men, to the place of slaves of the saints. Meanwhile the saints enter the holy colony, to take hold of God's promises, rejoicing without end. They pray to God for the dead, that they may rise, as he himself promised long ago concerning the first resurrection. Then God will begin to be angry with his enemies, since the appointed day has come for the wicked. And when he begins to judge the world by fire, the fire passes by the pious and falls upon the impious. Scarcely a few remain to report such deeds, and those who are kept back escape, to serve the righteous. After the persecution of the saints and so many deaths, the hateful, burning day is about to come. Behold, the hoarse trumpet sounds in heaven, but resounding everywhere, which terrifies the whole world as it falls in ruin.

The sun flees unawares; suddenly there is the likeness of night, and God cries out: “How long did you think I would bear it?” At his signal, plague will rush through the whole sky, and with the crash of thunder the onrush of fire comes down. Then bolt upon bolt is hurled from the stars; the fiery storm rages, kept back for so many years; the deadly disaster roars, the earth trembles, roused, nor does the whole human race see where to turn. The stars of heaven fall, the stars are judged with us: the dwellers in heaven are troubled, while the world goes to ruin. There will be no help then, and the cry will be vain; no ship will take a man in, no hiding place; nor do those help them whom before they worshiped as great: each one bustles for himself, but it will profit him nothing; it will profit only those who have been marked by Christ; for them there will be dew, but for the rest deadly punishment. A part of the unbelievers is kept, gently scorched, so that their race may lament itself again at the last. Wherever men turn, the fiery force seethes; the very air of the world, once pleasant, is burned. How can I tell the crashes of heaven falling with thunderbolts, when all the wrath gathered over so many years is poured out? Here fire, here thunder, here whirlwinds, so many evils seethe, and the sky is snatched into shadow by the sudden force of death.

In part the trembling earth loosens all its foundations, in part the thunders burst the solid walls; and walls are scattered like dust in the air; stones fly, the roofs of houses are stripped by the winds. Countries are laid waste, every city is laid low, … gives a kiss to the footprint. So many crashes, such roarings, and such ruins — who will be able to bear them, or escape such shipwrecks? What will the wretched mother do then for her sweet little one? Or if the father pities his son, what will it profit him? Woe to the deserters of the Lord, woe to the wicked who are without Christ, of whom both those who rejoice and those who weep piously are judged! All nature, besides, will lament with bellowing, until the heavenly fury at last ceases, fulfilled. Then in seven months the earth will be cleansed by fire, and he who was humble is seen coming from heaven. With him will descend the angels of eternal brightness; the tombs will burst, the bodies of the righteous will rise; the clouds snatch them up and carry them to meet Christ in the air; the living saints receive the Lord. He raises those too, that they may see his glory, who fixed him to the cross; but he will return them again to the depths. Woe to those wretches! The witness was killed by them. … … These things we do not sing out of envy, but see them as fixed. While the righteous rejoice, those are burned in hell; David said of them: “Lord, repay them their iniquities!” And if they do not believe, they will go away into the shadow of death. He could surely have prayed for good things for his people; why did he rather wish: “Let them go down alive below”? The others of the saints who will be alive at the coming of Christ,