Oration to the Assembly of the Saints

Constantine Augustus to the assembly of the saints. The day of the passion is here, brighter than the light of day and of the sun, the prelude of the resurrection, a new joining together of bodies that once laboured, the anchor of the promise, and the path that leads to eternal life, O dearest teachers and all you other friends: a day far more blessed, called upon by the multitude of worshippers and by the very God of worship, by those who hymn him unceasingly with inspired words, through the inner senses of each and through spoken utterances.

But you, nature, mother of all, what such thing have you ever accomplished for the world? What work at all is yours, if he is the cause of all things and of your very being? For he adorned you, since life according to nature is the adornment of nature. For what is contrary to nature has prevailed not a little: that no one worships the God of all as he deserves, and that it is thought that all things have come together not by providence but at random, in disorder and confusion,

even though divine inspiration was announcing these things in detail through the prophets; whom, though one ought to obey them, impious injustice opposed with every device, hostile to the light of truth and embracing the obscurity of darkness, which is hard to refute. And this was not without violence and cruelty, especially because the judgment of those in power joined in the unforeseen impulse of the vulgar crowds, or rather led their untimely madness. Therefore such a life, strengthened over many generations, became the cause of the greatest evils for those of that time. [4] But when the coming of the Saviour suddenly shone forth, justice arose out of unjust deeds, and calm out of every kind of storm, and all that had been foretold through the prophets was fulfilled. Then, raised on high to his Father's hearth, having surrounded the world with the ornaments of modesty and self-control, he founded on earth the church, a sacred temple of virtue, everlasting and incorruptible, in which what is owed to God the most exalted Father and what befits himself are performed with piety.

What then did the senseless wickedness of the nations contrive after this?

It set about casting out the graces of Christ and laying waste the church established for the salvation of all, and it overturned its own superstition, so that again factions, wars, battles, a perverse provision for life, love of money (which is not naturally proper to wickedness either) might now charm with adorned hopes, now strike with fear. But let it lie on the ground, defeated by virtue, as is right, torn and rent by remorse. We must now speak of what belongs to the divine Word.

Hear, then, O church, pilot who has attained purity and virginity, nurse of tender and untaught age, who care for truth and care for love of humanity, from whose ever-flowing spring drips the saving drink. And you too, who worship God sincerely (and therefore he cares for you), listen in reverent silence, attending not to the phrasing so much as to the truth of what is said, and not to me the speaker, but to the piety of the dedication.

For what grace would there be in words if the disposition of the speaker were left unexamined? I dare great things, perhaps; but I blame my daring on the love for the divine that is born in me, for it overpowers even shame. Therefore I especially join to myself as helpers those who understand the divine mysteries, so that if any slip occurs in my words, you may follow along and correct it, not longing for perfect learning but accepting the faithfulness of the attempt. [3] May the greatest inspiration of the Father and of the beneficent Son be with me as I utter what it may itself express and attach to my mind. For if anyone, pursuing rhetoric or any other science without God, has supposed that he can perfect the work adequately, both he and his pursuit have been found incomplete. Yet those who have ever been blessed with divine inspiration must not shrink or delay. Therefore we too, declining a long postponement, attempt the fulfilment of our aim.

The Good, which all things desire, God who is beyond being, has no generation, and therefore no beginning; for he himself is the beginning of all things that come into being. And the one who has his origin from him is united to him again, the separation and the joining with him taking place not locally but intellectually; for the one begotten did not come into existence by any loss of the Father's inward parts, as do things from seeds, but by the ordering of providence, which devised a Saviour as overseer of the perceptible world and of what is in it. Therefore for all things contained by the world the cause of being and living comes from there; from there too come the soul and every sense and the organs through which the things signified by the senses are accomplished.

What then does the argument show? That there is one ruler of all things that exist, and that all things are subject to his sole lordship, the heavenly and the earthly, natural and organic bodies. For if the lordship over these, countless as they are, belonged not to one but to many, there would be lots and distributions of the elements, and ... would shake the harmonious concord of all things, as many administered differently the portion allotted to each,

and ... of the whole world remaining always in the same state and manner. And to whom would I first, or last, offer supplication? Whom would I serve especially, without being impious toward the rest? Or perhaps, when I needed something for life, I would thank the one who helped, and blame the one who opposed. To whom would I pray to learn the cause of my trouble and ask to obtain release?

Suppose oracles and responses answered us that this was not in their own power, and belonged to another god: what mercy then, what providence of God toward man? Unless perhaps one more kindly disposed came to the aid by force of one with whom he had no relation. And anger, faction and reproach would follow, since they would not mind their own business nor be content with what fell to them, out of greed; and in the end, the confusion of all things.

What then would follow? Clearly the faction of the heavenly powers would have destroyed what is under heaven and on earth: the order of the seasons and the changes of times would have vanished, and the change of the fruits that grow according to the seasons; and the day would have vanished, and the night's rest that succeeds it. But enough of this; let us return again to the irrefutable argument.

Everything that has a beginning also has an end; and a beginning in time is called generation; all things from generation are perishable, and time dims their form. How then could beings from perishable generation be immortal? Yet such an opinion has spread among the unreasoning crowds that marriages and begettings of children are believed to take place among the gods. But if those who are begotten are immortal, and they are always begotten, the race must overflow. And with increase upon increase, what heaven, what earth could hold so great a swarm of gods coming into being? And what could one say of men who join heavenly brothers and sisters in the union of marriage and accuse them of adulteries and licentiousness? Let us say boldly that their honours and the rewards given them by men are mingled with insults and lewdness.

For already someone versed in letters, having composed hymns in metre or without metre, or a sculptor, conceiving some form in his mind, fashions an artful plaything; and meanwhile, as if forgetfulness had fallen on him, he flatters his own creation, worshipping it as an immortal god, while admitting that he himself, the father and maker of the statue, is mortal.

And they themselves show the tombs and burial places of those incorruptible ones, and honour the departed with immortal honours, not knowing that what is truly blessed and incorruptible has no need of honour from perishable beings. For what is seen by the mind and grasped by thought needs no form to shape it. All these things are done in honour of the departed; for they were men, when they lived sharing in a body.

But why do I stain my tongue with polluted words, when I am about to hymn the true God? I wish first to rinse my mouth as from brine with a pure drink. The pure drink flows from the ever-flowing spring of the virtues of the God hymned by us; and it is my own task to hymn Christ throughout my life and with the thanksgiving owed him by us for many great benefits.

I say, then, that he established the foundations of this universe, and by his word, legislating, devised the plan of mankind; and at first he settled the newly created in a blessed place, full of flowers and laden with various fruits, and willed that at the beginning they should be ignorant of good and evil; but in the end he assigned them a dwelling on earth, the only one fitting for a rational creature; and then he commanded the race to increase, so that the whole, bounded by the circling of the ocean, might at some time be inhabited.

As the human race thus multiplied, arts useful to life were invented; and no less did the race of irrational animals multiply, an exceptional natural power being found in each kind: in tame animals gentleness and obedience to man; in wild ones strength and speed and a kind of natural foresight for escaping danger.

And he enjoined on men a kind of care for all the tame animals, and laid down a kind of contest against the wild ones. After this he established the race of birds, many in number and different in nature and habits, conspicuous for variety of colours and sharing an inborn musical harmony; and having distinguished everything else that the world embraces and holds together, and fixed for all these an appointed law of life, he adorned the most perfect completion of the whole.

But most people, being foolish, ascribe the ordering of all things to nature, and some of them to fate or chance. Reckoning the authority over these things to fate, they do not even understand that, when they name fate, they utter a name but show no action and no underlying substance. For what would fate be in itself, if nature produced all things? Or what could nature be thought to be, if the law of fate is inviolable? Indeed, to say that there is a law of fate shows that every law is the work of a lawgiver. So fate, if it is a law, would be God's invention: all things, then, are subject to God, and nothing is without a share in his power.

And we accept that fate is God's will and is so regarded; but how are justice and self-control and the other virtues according to fate? And from where come their opposites, injustice and licentiousness? For wickedness comes from nature, not fate, and virtue is the achievement of character and habits. As for the failures, or again the successes, of a good and upright choice, turning out now one way, now another, by chance or by fate, and all that is just and given to each as deserved: how is this according to fate?

Laws and exhortations, reproofs and punishments, and all that summons to virtue and draws away from wickedness: how is it said that they come not from justice, which is proper to God's providence, but from chance or the spontaneous? For according to the quality of men's life he also suspends what they deserve over them, plagues and factions, barrenness and fertility at times following, plainly and expressly all but crying aloud that all such things are fitted to our lives.

For that Being delights in justice and turns away from all impiety; it welcomes a modest mind and hates daring and the arrogance that is lifted above the creature. Though the proofs of these things are very clear and lie before our eyes, they shine out more plainly whenever, gathering ourselves together and, as it were, concentrating the mind, we reckon their cause within ourselves. Therefore I say we must live modestly and gently, not raising our minds above our nature, and always keeping in mind that God, the overseer of what is done, is present with us.

Further, we must test in this way whether what is said is true, that the ordering of all things came about by chance and the spontaneous. Must we then believe that the heavenly bodies and the stars, earth and sea, fire and winds, water and air, and the change of seasons, the seasons of summer and winter, all happened without reason and at random rather than being made?

For some, lacking sense, say that men devised most such things for their own need, nature supplying all goods ungrudgingly. Let us grant that this opinion has some reason concerning earthly and perishable things; but are the immortal and unchanging things also inventions of men? For of these and of all such things that are separated from our senses and grasped by mind alone, the begetter is not man, a material creature, but the intelligible and eternal being of God.

Moreover the principle of the ordering is a work of providence: that day shines out, lit by the sun; that night succeeds when it sets, and, having succeeded, is not left wholly dark because of the dance of the stars. And what could one say of the moon, filling out from its distance opposite the sun and waning through its nearness to it? Do these not show the inner reason and the sagacity of God?

And the fitness of the sun's flame that ripens the fruits, the breaths of winds that bring abundance, the refreshment of rains, and the harmony of all these, by which all things are governed reasonably and in good order, and the eternity of the ordering, as the planets return to the same place at the due and appointed times: is not all this a manifest command of God and a perfect service of the stars obeying the divine law?

Do the heights of mountains, the hollow depths of valleys and the levelness of spreading plains seem to exist without God's providence? Not only is the sight of them delightful, but their use too. And the measures and extents of water and land, sufficient both for farming and for bringing what is needed from abroad: how do they not plainly show God's exact and measured forethought? For the mountains hold water; the plain receives it, waters what is sufficient to refresh the land, and pushes out the rest into the sea; and the sea in turn hands it on to the ocean.

And do we still dare to say that all these things happen spontaneously and at random? We cannot show in what shape and form the spontaneous is characterized, since it has no substance, either intellectual or perceptible, but only the sound of an unsubstantial name buzzing about the ears.

For 'the spontaneous' is truly the exclamation of people who think at random and without reasoning, who do not grasp the reason of things, and through the weakness of their grasp suppose irrationally that the things whose reason they cannot give were ordered without reason. Yet there are some things whose true grasp lies deep in the truth, possessing a wonderful nature, such as the nature of hot springs. No one could readily give the cause of so great a fire; but it is marvellous that, surrounded on every side by cold water, it does not lose its inborn heat.

These things are rare, so that, as I persuade myself, the power of providence may become easily recognized among men, ordaining that two most opposite natures, heat and cold, filter out from one and the same root.

Many and countless things have been given to men by the higher power for comfort and enjoyment, above all the fruit of the olive and of the vine: the one serving for the refreshment and gladdening of the soul, the other suited, besides enjoyment, to the care of bodies. A wonder too is the continual and unceasing flow of rivers night and day, a symbol of ever-flowing and unceasing life; and the succession of nights has equal force.

Let all this be said by us to confirm that nothing came about irrationally or senselessly, but that God is reason and providence. He, commanding the usefulness of metals to relieve needs, stored up the nature of gold and bronze and the rest in fitting measure: those of which the need would be great and varied he commanded to be supplied abundantly; those for the delight of adornment and mere abundance, generously yet sparingly, between stinginess and liberality.

For if the same abundance had been granted to what is made for adornment, the miners, out of greed, despising what is useful for farming and building and the construction of ships, such as iron and bronze, would neglect to gather it; while the discovery of what serves luxury, gold and silver, they say is a greater labour than all the other metals, so that the intensity of the labour may be set against the intensity of desire.

How many other works of divine providence could one count, besides all that it has given us ungrudgingly, plainly urging human life to self-control and all the other virtues, and drawing it away from untimely greed! To trace the reason of all these is a task greater than human. For how could the mind of a perishable and weak creature attain to the truth exactly? How could it understand God's pure will from the beginning?

Therefore we must undertake what is possible and in keeping with our nature. For the plausibility of the inquiries carried on in dialogues leads most of us away from the truth of what exists, which has happened to many of the philosophers who babble about words and the investigation of the nature of things. For whenever the greatness of the matters overpowers their examination, they hide the truth by perverse methods; and so they come to hold opposite opinions and to fight one another's doctrines, while pretending to be wise.

From this came factions of the people and harsh judgments of rulers, who thought the ancestral custom was being corrupted; and often the destruction of those philosophers themselves followed. Socrates, puffed up by dialectic, making the worse arguments the better and playing at every turn with contentious arguments, was killed through the jealousy of his fellow countrymen and citizens. Pythagoras too, pretending to practise self-control above all, was caught lying even about his silence; for what had been declared long ago by the prophets there he, having visited Egypt, proclaimed to the Italians as revealed to him personally by God.

And Plato himself, gentlest of all others, the first to accustom men's minds to rise from the senses to the intelligible and what is always the same, and who taught them to look up to things on high, first set forth a God beyond being, rightly; and he subordinated to him also a second, and divided two beings by number, though the perfection of both is one, and the being of the second God has its existence from the first. For the first is the creator and governor of the universe, clearly transcending it; and the one after him, serving his commands, refers back to him the cause of the constitution of all things.

By the exact account, then, there would be one God who takes care of all things and provides for them, having ordered all things by his Word; and the Word himself, being God, is also the Son of God. For what other name could one give him, besides the title of Son, without committing the gravest error? For the Father of all would rightly be thought also the Father of his own Word.

Up to this point, then, Plato was sound; but in what follows he is found to miss the truth, introducing a multitude of gods and giving each of them forms. This became the cause of greater error among unreasoning men, who did not look to the providence of the highest God, but worshipped their images transformed into the shapes of men and other animals. So it has come about that a nature and learning of the greatest kind, worthy of great praise, mixed with such failings, is not pure and unalloyed.

But he himself seems to me to correct his error by taking himself up, where he plainly affirms that God breathed into us his own word, clearly showing the spirit of God to be a rational soul; and he divides all things into two kinds, intelligible and perceptible, the one ..., the other composed of the joining of a body; and the one grasped by mind, the other opined by opinion with sensation. So that the one, sharing in the Holy Spirit, being uncompounded and indissoluble, is eternal and has obtained everlasting life; while the perceptible, being wholly dissolved by the same principle by which it was put together, has no share in everlasting life.

And in what follows he teaches admirably that those who have lived well, that is, the souls of holy and good men, after their departure from the body, are consecrated in the most beautiful regions of heaven. And usefully for life too: for who, persuaded by him and expecting this happiness, would not practise the best life, justice and self-control, and turn away from vice? And consistently with this he added that the souls of the wicked wander, borne along like shipwrecks by the streams of Acheron and Pyriphlegethon.

There are, however, some so injured in mind that, when they meet these very teachings, they neither turn nor fear, but despise and mock them as though hearing invented myths; they praise the varied eloquence, but turn away from the solidity of the doctrine; they believe the myths of the poets, and slander all Greece and all the barbarian world with stale and false reports.

For the poets say that sons of God, men, judge souls after death, singing of judgments and courts and setting overseers over the departed. The same poets tell of battles of demons and of certain laws of war, spread abroad their fates, and declare some of them bitter by nature, others indifferent to the care of men, and others difficult. They also bring them on lamenting the slaughter of their own children, as though unable to help not only strangers but even their dearest ones; and they bring them on as subject to human passions, singing of wars and wounds, joys and lamentations.

And they are worthy of belief when they speak. For if they pursue poetry by divine inspiration, one ought to believe and obey them about what they say in their inspiration; and they speak of the sufferings of gods and demons. Then the sufferings of these certainly lay hold of the truth. But someone will say that poets may lie; for to charm the souls of the hearers is proper to poetry, while truth is when what is said is not otherwise than as it is said.

Let it be proper to poetry sometimes to rob the truth; but those who tell falsehoods do not lie in vain: either they do it for gain and profit, or, conscious of some evil deed, they cover it up because of the danger impending from the laws. For it was possible, I think, for those who tell of the higher nature to tell no lie contrary to the truth and commit no impiety.

So if anyone is unworthy of a good life and conscious of having lived his life wrongly and disorderly, if he changes and looks to the divine with the eye of the soul, purified and made a stranger to his former most evil way of life, and receives healing from God, he will live for all eternity. And for this he ought to thank God, who saved him and saves all. They would be saved more easily if they received the healing of the soul with pure faith and did not waver, like those who now entrust themselves to the remedies and now run away, but bore steadfastly and nobly the medicine of justice and self-control and the rest. We, at any rate, strive as far as we can to fill those uninitiated in such words with good hope, calling on God as our helper in the undertaking. For it is no small task to turn the minds of our subjects, if they are good, toward godliness, and if they are bad and ungrateful, to bring them over to the opposite, making them useful instead of useless. Rejoicing in these very pursuits, and thinking it the work of a good man to hymn the Saviour, I put away all that the worse condition of my fortune laid on me without reason by the accident of ignorance, counting repentance the greatest salvation. I would have prayed that this revelation had been given me long ago, since blessed is he who from youth has been established and has rejoiced in the knowledge of divine things and the beauty of virtue. But let this be said with moderation; for even if good men do not become wise from their first youth, nor, as they say, from their swaddling clothes, still one should be content if they obtain wisdom in the prime of life.

As for us, no education from men has ever helped us; all the gifts that are esteemed in character and conduct among those of good sense are from God. And I have, as it were, held before me against every poison that the evil one devises no small shield, the knowledge of what pleases God; choosing from it what is useful for the present speech, I will hymn the Father of all.

And you yourself, O Christ, Saviour of all, come and help the zeal of my dedication, and adorn the speech about your virtue, guiding the manner of my solemn words. And let no one expect to hear any elegance of ornamented names and phrases; for I know well that loose oratory made for pleasure displeases the sensible, when speakers care more for applause than for sober discourse.

Some senseless and impious men say that our Christ was justly punished, and that the cause of life for the living was himself deprived of life ... That those who have once dared to be impious, and neither fear nor hide their wickedness, should say this is no wonder; but it passes all folly that they seem to have persuaded themselves that the incorruptible God was overpowered by a man, or that cruelty prevailed over love for humanity; and they do not consider that magnanimity and forbearance are neither turned aside by insult nor moved by abuse from their natural firmness, but always ..., breaking the savagery of those who attack by the mind of reason and magnanimity.

For God's love for humanity had resolved to wipe out injustice and to exalt good order and justice. Therefore, gathering together the wisest of men, he established a most beautiful and beneficial teaching, so that the good and blessed might emulate his own providence over the affairs of the world. What greater good could one name than this: that God awards righteousness and makes like himself those worthy of his instruction, so that, goodness being shared among all, happiness may come to men for all eternity?

This is the venerable victory, this the true power, this the greatest work and fitting chastening of all peoples. For all these we give you the prizes of victory with praises, O Saviour of all. But you, wicked and shameful blasphemy, lifted up by lies, rumours and slanders, you deceive the young and persuade youths and men of youthful character, leading them away from the worship of the true God and setting up fashioned images for them to pray to and worship, so that, deceived, they may await the reward of their folly.

For they accuse Christ, the cause of all good things, God and Son of God. Is not this God worshipped as he deserves, possessing every kind of power and surpassing all goodness? From this the praise is greater and the wonder extraordinary, that he did not use the greatness of his power to avenge the outrage, but pardoned men of foolish mind, thinking folly and sin proper to men, while he himself, remaining in his own purpose, diminished nothing of his natural love for humanity. Go then, you impious (for it is allowed you, because of your unpunished sin), to the slaughter of victims, to feasts and festivals and drunkenness, pretending to worship but practising pleasures and licentiousness, making a show of offering sacrifices but serving your own pleasures. For you know nothing good, not even the first command of the great God, who ordained for the human race and charged his Son to govern their life, so that those who lived rightly and soberly might, by the Son's judgment, obtain a second life, blessed and happy.

I, then, have set out God's teaching about human life. not in ignorance, like the many, nor by guesswork. [Whence, then,] a Son, and what kind of birth, if God is one alone and foreign to all mixture? Birth must be understood as twofold: the one by bringing forth, which is the familiar one, and the other from an eternal cause, whose reason the providence of God beholds, and of men whoever is his friend; for a wise man will know the cause of the ordering of the universe. Since nothing is without a cause, the cause of things that exist must necessarily pre-exist them. Since, then, the world and the things in it exist, and their preservation exists, the Saviour of all must necessarily pre-exist; so that Christ is the cause of preservation, and the preservation of things that exist is the effect, just as the Father is the cause of the Son, and the Son the effect.

That he pre-exists has, I think, been sufficiently shown. But how did he come down to men and to earth? The purpose of the descent, as the prophets foretold, is care for all things; for the creator must care for his works. And since he was about to draw near to a worldly body and to spend time on earth, as need required this, he devised for himself a novel birth: conception without marriage, the childbirth of pure virginity, a girl the mother of God, a temporal beginning of an eternal nature, an intelligible ... and the rest of the vision; a radiant dove, flying from Noah's ark, alighted on the virgin's bosom.

And what followed is consistent with this: after the marriage that was intangible, purer than all chastity and stronger than continence itself, the wisdom of God from his swaddling clothes, and the Jordan, provider of the washing, reverencing him with modesty;

and besides this the royal anointing, of one soul with the understanding of all, a teaching and a marvellous power that accomplished things and healed the incurable, a swift and unhindered fulfilment of human prayers, and in a word the whole life lived for men; a teaching that taught not prudence but wisdom, its disciples learning not the so-called civic virtues but those that lead on the paths to the intelligible world, labouring at the contemplation of the kind that is always the same, and practising the thought of the greatest Father.

His benefits were not small: sight in place of blindness, vigour in place of paralysis, and in place of death restoration to life again. I pass over the abundant provision of necessities in the desert, and the plentiful supply, lasting a long time, for great multitudes from a few loaves.

This thanksgiving we render to you as far as we can, O Christ, God and Saviour, greatest providence of the great Father, who save us from evils and teach the most blessed teaching. For I say these things not as praise but as thanksgiving.

For what man could hymn you worthily? Of you it is said that you brought into being from what was not the things that are, that you kindled light for them, and ordered the disorderly confusion of the elements with order and measure. And the excellence of your love for humanity lies in making those of men who are well disposed by nature emulators of a divine and blessed life, and in considering how, having become merchants of truly good things, they might share their wisdom and good fortune with more, and themselves gain the eternal fruit of virtue, freed from licentiousness and sharing in love for humanity, keeping pity before their eyes and defending faith, embracing modesty and every virtue, which the former life had cast out of human ways; which was once the cause, or rather the necessity, of the descent of the Saviour, who exercises providence for all. For no worthy physician of so many evils and of the injustice that prevailed in that life could have been found.

So providence, reaching down to things here, set in order most easily all that was disordered through insolence and licentiousness. Nor was this done in secret. For he knew that some men behold his power with prudence and mind, while others, likened in nature to irrational animals, rely rather on the senses. Therefore openly, so that no one, good or bad, might doubt, he brought before their eyes the happy and wonderful healing, restoring life a second time to those who had ended their life, and commanding those deprived of their senses to perceive soundly again. And to make the sea firm and to command calm out of a storm, and finally, having undertaken wonderful works and called men from unbelief to strong faith, to fly up into heaven: whose work is this but God's and of the most exalted power?

Nor was the time near the passion without those wonderful sights, when night, covering the daylight, made the sun disappear. For fear seized the peoples everywhere that the end of all things had come, and that chaos, like that before the ordering of the world, would prevail again. The cause of so great an evil was sought, and whether men had committed some offence against the divine; until he, with gentle magnanimity disregarding the outrage of the impious, restored the whole heaven, adorning it with the dance of the stars. So the face of the world, which had been gloomy, was restored again to its own brightness.

But someone who loves to blaspheme will say that, being God, he could have made men's choice better and gentler. What better method, what more effective undertaking for the chastening of the wicked, than his own address? Did he not, present and seen, teach the orderly life? If, then, the command of God when present achieved nothing, what would it have profited when absent and unheard?

What then was the obstacle to the most blessed teaching? The perversity of men. For when we take with anger what is commanded rightly and fittingly, then the sobriety of the mind is darkened. Why was it dear to them to neglect the commands and to offer unwilling ears to the law laid down? For if they had not neglected them, they would have had a worthy reward for their hearing, not only at once but in the life thereafter, which is truly life. For the reward of obeying God is the incorruptible and everlasting life, which those can lay claim to who know God and make their own life worthy of emulation and, as it were, an eternal example to those who choose to live in rivalry.

For this reason, then, the teaching was handed down to the wise, so that whatever they command may be carefully kept by those who hear, with a pure soul, and the keeping of God's command may be true and firm. For from it, from pure faith and sincere devotion to God, springs fearlessness in the face of death; it withstands worldly storms, fortified with the invincible ... of divine virtue for martyrdom. Having conquered the greatest fears by magnanimity, it is counted worthy of a crown from him to whom it nobly bore witness.

And it does not boast; for it knows, I think, that this too was given by God, to endure and to fulfil the divine commands eagerly. This life is followed by lasting remembrance and eternal glory, most fittingly, if the martyr's life is found sober and mindful of the commands, and his end full of magnanimity and nobility. After this come hymns and psalms and praises, and praise to the overseer of all.

And such a sacrifice of thanksgiving is offered for these men, pure of blood and pure of all violence; nor is the smell of incense desired, nor a pyre, but only pure light, enough to give illumination to those who pray; and the feasts of many are held most soberly, for mercy and the refreshment of those in need and the help of those who have fallen. If anyone thinks these things burdensome, he does not think according to the divine and blessed teaching.

Some even make bold to blame God: why did he not wish to fashion one and the same nature for all things, but commanded them to be produced different and mostly opposite in nature? From this comes the difference of our characters and choices. For it would perhaps have been better, both for obeying God's commands, for grasping him exactly, and for each man's faith being made firm, that all men should be of the same character; and the deed was possible, since God is God. Those who say this seem to blame the ordering of the universe, not to accept the succession of night, but to wish daylight to last always, though rest is necessary; to be indignant at the boundaries of ocean and land; to blame the earth for giving so much for the use of earthly creatures; and to accuse the sea for providing every kind of voyage to sailors; and in short to think that all should be of one form, and not to think forests and mountains should appear at all, and altogether to abolish all the various products of nature together with their names. These things are plainly stale; but to think that all men should be of the same character is quite ridiculous, not considering that the ordering of the world is not the same as that of worldly things, nor are natural things of the same substance as moral things, nor are the sufferings of the body the same as the passions of the soul. God fashioned the whole world from different elements. Since the bodily powers are different, different and manifold things were necessarily provided for the use of the world, since many and countless things by nature ... and many are accomplished by sea and air. But man he made a rational creature and gave him knowledge of evil and good, so that he might flee the one and pursue the other; and having given him fitness for such wisdom, he left him free and entrusted to him the judgment of shaping his own life, and this equally to all men. From where, then, the difference of characters? When, I think, we neglect the good given us by providence, and, yielding to anger or desire, choose the worse instead of the better. For anger provokes not a little, and desire forces, and they throw the foolish headlong when they get the better of reason. But when reason prevails, the whole life is moderate and worthy of praise. It is made firm when, like a good charioteer, it pulls the reins of the disorderly and frenzied pair; from this comes faith, and piety toward God, justice and self-control, and the happiness of every virtue. These and such achievements of souls lead them to the holy judge, not to be judged nor brought to the examination of sins, but to the honours which he himself promised to those who have lived best. But the impure, glutted with bodily pleasures, the punishment, leading them to the end and carrying out God's just sentence, thrusts by force, lamenting, to the fitting penalty. There an unquenchable and unceasing fire awaits them, and a sheer and overhung pit. Impious too is the thought of those who hate the difference among things and want all things to be of one and the same worth. It seems unjust to the impious, then, that the honourable should be preferred to the inferior, and that the immortal nature should surpass the perishable and earthly creatures in blessedness by as much as it is more venerable and divine. And the human race is not without a share of the divine goodness, yet not of all simply or at random, but of those only who have traced out the divine nature and chosen the chief pursuit of life, the knowledge of divine things.

To compare things born with things eternal is truly the most complete madness. For the latter have neither beginning nor end, while the former, since they have been born and come into being and received the beginning of being and living at some time, necessarily have an end too. How could things that came into being be made equal to the one who commanded them to be born? For if these were like him, the command to be born could not properly be thought his. Not even the heavenly things could be compared with him, just as the perceptible world cannot be compared with the intelligible, nor images with their patterns.

And how is the confusion of all things not ridiculous, when the honour of the divine is hidden by comparing it with men and even with beasts? And how is the desire for a power to rival God's power not the mark of mad men who have turned away from the sober and virtuous life? For if we lay claim at all to the divine happiness, we must spend our life according to God's command. So, in immortal and ageless mansions, superior to all fate, we shall pass our life, having lived according to the law laid down by God.

For the only human power to rival God's power is sincere and guileless worship of God and turning to him, contemplation and learning of what pleases the higher, and not to bend down to the earth but, as far as one can, to raise the mind to what is upright and lofty; for from this pursuit, he says, comes victory instead of many good things. So the cause of the difference among things, both in worth and in variation of ability, has this reason; the sensible are persuaded by it and give thanks exceedingly, while the ungrateful fools receive the punishment their arrogance deserves.

And indeed the Son of God summons all to virtue, making himself the teacher of the Father's precepts to those of good sense; unless we deceive ourselves in wretched ignorance that for our benefit, that is, for the blessedness of men, he went about the earth, and calling to himself the best men of that time, taught them a teaching beneficial for life, [though aware] of the envy from the opposing nature, which loves to entice and deceive the inexperienced.

So he visited the sick, relieved the infirm of the evils that beset them, consoled those who had come to the extreme of poverty and want, praised moderation joined with reason and prudence, and commanded them to bear nobly and patiently every outrage and every contempt, teaching that the Father's watchfulness is such that those who bear what befalls them with magnanimity always conquer. For he affirmed that this is a supremely excellent strength: firmness of mind with philosophy, which is the knowledge of the true and the good; accustoming those who are rich with justice to share what they have with the poorer by kindly distribution, forbidding domination in every way, and showing that, as he came to the lowly, so he will leave lowly those who give freely (the clause is obscure in the Greek); and that for the human race the beginning of life is from want and nakedness, and the end likewise ends in want and nakedness, saying that virtue alone is worthy of all care. He commanded, then, that it be honoured, since the salvation of the soul is set at the helm of the best virtue, and that piety, self-control and gentleness be practised above all; for this is the method set against every storm of our life. Then, having instructed the souls of his disciples with these and many similar precepts, so that they might pursue the most beneficial practice not only through spoken precepts but also in deed, he led them, going before them, on a long and uninhabited journey through waterless and scorched sand. He led them also through the waves of a raging sea, made savage by winds; and the waves, bearing firmly, held up the footsteps of God and of the righteous men walking,

and having tested the faith of the peoples who obeyed him by such and so great a trial, he made them not only despisers of terrors and fears but also most genuine disciples of hope in him. And once he restrained with words one of his companions who had given way too much to anger; for that man was trying to defend himself with a sword against a swordsman who attacked him, as though the Saviour's help were not present to him. He commanded him to stay quiet and put away the sword, rebuking him as one who had despaired of refuge in him, and laying down plainly that everyone who begins with unjust hands, or who attempts to wrong the one who began it, and uses the sword, will perish by violence.

This is truly the heavenly wisdom: to choose to suffer wrong rather than to do wrong, and, when necessity arises, to be ready to suffer evil rather than to do it. For since doing wrong is the greatest evil, not the one wronged but the one who does wrong is encompassed by the greatest punishment. But for one obedient to God it was possible neither to do wrong nor to suffer it, trusting in the protection of God, who is always present and helping, so that none of those obedient to him is harmed. How could he have counselled himself best, or why, refusing God's help, did he think he must help himself? There was a fight between two, and the victory doubtful; and no one of sound mind prefers the doubtful to the certain. How could one doubt God's presence and help who had experienced so many dangers and had always been easily rescued from terrors by God's nod alone, who had walked through the sea, made smooth by the Saviour's command and offering a firm road to the peoples crossing it? For this, I think, is the plain foundation of faith and the ground of confidence, when we relate that these marvellous and incredible things were done and accomplished at the command of the one who provides. From this too comes not repenting of faith when one meets the trial of evils, and keeping one's hope in God unchanged; for when this habit is formed in the soul, God is established in the mind; and he is unconquerable, so the soul too, having the unconquerable in its own mind, will not be overcome by the evils that beset it. We have learned this by experience from the victory of God, who, exercising providence for all and outraged by the injustice of the impious, suffering no harm from the passion, bound on the greatest prizes and an eternal crown over wickedness, bringing to completion the purpose of his providence and his love for the righteous, and crushing the cruelty of the unjust and impious.

His passion had already been foretold by the prophets; foretold too his bodily birth; the time of his embodiment had been announced; and the cause of his incarnation was plain: that the offspring growing out of injustice and licentiousness, which defiled just deeds and ways, might be destroyed, and the whole inhabited world might share in prudence and self-control, the law laid down by the Saviour having prevailed in almost all souls, godliness being strengthened and superstition wiped out, through which not only slaughters of irrational animals but also sacrifices of human victims and accursed defilements of altars had been devised, as people, according to the laws of the Egyptians and Assyrians, slaughtered righteous souls to bronze or moulded images.

Accordingly Memphis and Babylon reaped the fruit fitting such worship, made desolate and left uninhabited with their ancestral gods. And I say this not from hearsay, but having been present myself and inquired, and having become an eyewitness of the pitiable fate of the cities. Memphis is desolate, where Moses, at God's command, broke the arrogance of Pharaoh, then most powerful, and destroyed his army, victorious over many great nations and strongly armed, not with showers of arrows nor volleys of javelins, but by holy prayer alone and gentle supplication.

No one would ever have been, or would be, more blessed than that people, if they had not of their own will renounced the Holy Spirit from their souls. And what could one say worthily of Moses? He brought a disorderly people into order, adorned their souls with persuasion and modesty, won freedom for them instead of captivity, made them cheerful instead of gloomy, and led their souls on so far that, through the great change to the opposite and the good fortune of their successes, the mind of the men became rather boastful. He so surpassed in wisdom those before him that even those praised by the nations as wise men and philosophers became emulators of his wisdom.

For Pythagoras, imitating his wisdom, became so celebrated for self-control that he made his own continence a pattern even for the most self-controlled Plato. And Daniel, who prophesied the future, worker of the most exalted magnanimity, outstanding in the beauty of his character and his whole life: how great and how harsh a hardship he overcame from the tyrant then ruling in Assyria!

His name was Nebuchadnezzar, whose whole line was wiped out and that venerable and vast power passed to the Persians. For the tyrant's wealth was famous, and is still now, and his untimely care for an improper worship, the abundance of metals of every kind for making gods, the sky-high heights of temples, and the laws of worship drawn up, horrible and cruel. Daniel, despising all these through his undefiled piety toward the true God, foretold that the tyrant's untimely zeal would be the cause of some great evil. But he did not persuade the tyrant; for abundant wealth is an obstacle to right thinking. At last the ruler revealed the savagery of his mind, commanding the righteous man to be torn by wild beasts.

Noble too was the brothers' agreement in witnessing; those who emulated them afterwards won surpassing glory for faith in the Saviour, unharmed by fire and furnace and the terrors set to devour them, repelling with the pure contact of their bodies the fire enclosed in the furnace. And Daniel, after the overthrow of the Assyrian kingdom, destroyed by thunderbolts, passed by divine providence to Cambyses, king of the Persians. Envy was there too, and besides envy, the deadly plots of the magi, and successions of great and many dangers; saved easily from all of them by the help of Christ's providence, he excelled in the proof of every virtue.

For the magi, as the man prayed three times a day and accomplished great and extraordinary virtues by memorable works, slandered out of envy the very success of his prayers; and representing so great a power of his as very dangerous, they persuaded the ruler that he, who had been publicly the cause of so many good things to the Persians, should be condemned to be a feast for wild lions. Daniel was shut up, condemned not to destruction but to eternal glory; and placed among the beasts he found the beasts gentler and tamer than those who had shut him in; for prayer, aided by the virtue of good order and self-control, made all those raging by nature tame.

When this became known to Cambyses (for it was impossible that achievements of so great and so divine a power be overshadowed), he was utterly amazed at the wonder of what was reported, and repented of having been easily persuaded by the slanders of the magi. Nevertheless he dared to become a spectator of that sight, and to see the man hymning Christ with both hands raised, and the lions lying submissive and, as it were, worshipping the man's footsteps; and at once he condemned the magi who had persuaded him to the same penalty, and shut them up in the lions' court; and the beasts, which a little before had fawned on him, attacked the magi and destroyed them all according to their nature.

It occurs to me also to recall some testimonies from foreigners to the deity of Christ. For from these clearly even the mind of those who blaspheme him knows him to be God and Son of God, if indeed they believe their own words.

The Erythraean Sibyl, then, who says she lived in the sixth generation after the flood, was a priestess of Apollo, wearing a diadem equal to that of the god she served, tending the tripod around which the serpent coiled, and giving oracles to those who consulted her, her parents in their folly having given her over to such a service, from which shameful passions arise and nothing venerable, just as is told of Daphne.

She, then, having once entered the shrine of untimely superstition and become truly filled with divine inspiration, foretold in verses the things to come concerning God, plainly showing by the order of the first letters, which is called an acrostic, the story of the descent of Jesus. [The acrostic reads in Greek: 'Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour, Cross.'] "The earth shall sweat, when the sign of judgment comes; there shall come from heaven the King who is to reign for the ages, present to judge all flesh and the whole world. And mortals, faithful and faithless, shall see God most high with the saints at the end of time; he judges the souls of men in the flesh at his tribunal. When the whole world becomes a waste and a thicket of thorns, and mortals cast away their idols and all their wealth, the fire will burn up earth, heaven and sea, and, tracking them out, will break the gates of the prison of Hades.

"All the flesh of the dead shall then come to the light of freedom; the fire shall test the holy and the lawless for ever; whatever anyone did secretly, he shall then tell it all; for God will open dark hearts with his lights. There shall be lamentation from all, and gnashing of teeth. The brightness of the sun shall fail, and the dances of the stars; he will roll up heaven, and the moon's light will perish. He will raise up the ravines and destroy the heights of the hills; no grievous height shall appear any more among men; mountains shall be equal to plains, and every sea shall no longer yield to voyaging; for the earth, scorched by the thunderbolt, and the rivers with their springs, roaring, shall fail. The trumpet shall send from heaven a sound of much lamentation, howling in the midst the wretchedness and woes of the world. Then the earth, gaping, shall show the chaos of Tartarus, and all kings shall come to the judgment seat of God. A river of fire and brimstone shall flow from heaven. Then there shall be a sign for all mortals, clear to see: the wood among the faithful, the longed-for horn; the life of pious men, and a stumbling-block of the world; enlightening the called with water in twelve springs. An iron rod shepherding shall prevail. This is our God, now set forth in acrostics, Saviour, immortal King, who suffered for our sake."

And it was clearly given to the virgin by God to proclaim these things beforehand. I, for my part, judge her blessed, whom the Saviour chose as prophetess of his providence toward us.

But most people do not believe, even though they admit that the Erythraean Sibyl was a prophetess; they suspect that someone of our religion, not without a share in the poetic muse, made these verses, and that they are forged and said to be the Sibyl's oracles, having maxims beneficial for life that cut off the great licence of pleasures and lead to a sober and orderly life.

But the truth is plain, since the diligence of our men has computed the dates more exactly, so that no one may suppose that the poem was made after Christ's descent and judgment, and that the verses are falsely given out as foretold long ago by the Sibyl.

For it is agreed that Cicero met with the poem, translated it into the language of the Romans and included it among his own writings; that he was killed when Antony prevailed; that Augustus in turn overcame Antony, and reigned fifty-six years. Tiberius succeeded him, in whose time the presence of the Saviour shone forth, the mystery of the most holy worship prevailed, and the new succession of the people was established, about which I think the most excellent of the poets of Italy speaks:

"Then from there a new multitude of men appeared." And again in another place of the Bucolics: "Sicilian Muses, let us hymn a great report." What could be plainer than this? For he adds: "The voice of the Cumaean oracle has come to its fulfilment," hinting clearly at the Cumaean Sibyl.

And he was not content with this, but went further, as though need demanded his testimony. What does he say again? "Again, then, a sacred line of ages rises for us; the virgin comes again, bringing a lovely king."

Who, then, would be the virgin who returns? Is it not she who became full of and pregnant with the divine Spirit? And what prevents the girl pregnant with the divine Spirit from being always a virgin and remaining one? She will return a second time when God too comes a second time and relieves the world. And the poet adds:

"And the child newly born, O light-bearing moon, who brings a golden race in place of the iron, worship. For under his rule all mortal wounds are healed, and the groans of sinners are laid to rest."

We understand that these things are said both openly and at the same time hiddenly through allegories, the deity of Christ being brought before the eyes of those who examine the force of the verses more deeply,

and, so that no one of the rulers in the royal city might be able to accuse the poet of writing against the ancestral laws and casting out what had long been held by the forefathers about the gods, he veils the truth. For he knew, I think, the blessed rite named after the Saviour; but to avoid the savagery of cruelty, he led the minds of his hearers to their own habits, and says that altars must be set up and temples built and sacrifices offered to the newborn child. Consistently he added the rest for those who understand. For he says:

"He shall receive the life of the incorruptible God, and shall see heroes gathered with him" (that is, the righteous), "and he himself shall appear to his fatherland and to the blessed who long for him, steering the reins of the world with his father's virtues. And for you, child, the earth first brings forth gifts, barley and galingale, together with acanthus."

A wonderful man, adorned with all learning, who knew exactly the cruelty of the times then present: "For you," he says, "the flourishing goats, heavy with udders, of their own accord yield a sweet stream of milk; nor is it right to fear grim lions for the flocks." Speaking the truth; for faith will not fear the rulers of the royal court. "Your swaddling clothes produce a fragrant herb; the nature of the venomous serpent perishes, the deadly ... perishes, and Assyrian balsam blooms in the vales."

Nothing truer than this, or more fitting to the Saviour's virtue, could one say. For the very swaddling clothes of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, bestowed fragrant flowers on the new offspring. And the serpent perishes, and the venom of that serpent which first deceived the first-formed, leading their minds away from their natural self-control to the enjoyment of pleasures, so that they might know the destruction hanging over them.

For before the Saviour's descent it broke the souls of men, which, through ignorance of the immortality of the righteous, rested on no good hope. But when he suffered, and the body he had put on was separated for a time from the communion of the Holy Spirit, the possibility of the resurrection was revealed to men, and whatever mud of human wrongdoings was left was all washed away by holy washings. Then indeed he urges his followers to take courage, and bade them hope for the like from his own venerable and glorious resurrection.

Justly, then, the whole nature of venomous creatures came to an end; death too came to an end, and the resurrection was sealed; the race of the Assyrians also perished, which had been the occasion of faith in God; and saying that it springs up freely and everywhere, he addresses the blameless multitude of worshippers. For as from one root a multitude of branches, flourishing with fragrant flowers, watered by a measured dew, sprouts forth.

For those who are educated, O most wise poet Maro, all that follows is also consistent: "And at once you will learn the virtues of heroes and the works of your greatest father, all adorned with surpassing valour." By the praises of heroes he means the works of righteous men; by the virtues of the father he means the ordering of the world and its making for eternal duration; and perhaps also the laws which the God-loving church uses in pursuing a life of justice and self-control.

Wonderful too is the gradual advance of the life between good and evil toward the higher, refusing the suddenness of an abrupt change: "First the threshing floors were led with yellow ears" (that is, the fruit of the divine law was brought into use), "and on red brambles the cluster hanging grew" (which did not exist in the lawless life), "and from the hard flanks of the pine flowed a stream of honey,"

describing the folly of the men of that time and their hardened character; and perhaps also teaching that those who practise toil for God will receive a sweet fruit of their endurance. "Yet a few traces of former ruin remain: to rush upon the sea, to shut cities around with walls, and to break the furrow of the field with the pulling of oxen. There will be another Tiphys, and a Thessalian Argo exulting in heroic men, and Achilles will again make trial of the war of Trojans and Danaans." Well done, most wise poet! For you used poetic licence within due bounds. It was not your purpose to prophesy, since you were not a prophet; and some danger, I think, also hindered you, impending over those who refuted what the forefathers believed.

Fortified, then, and safely, as far as possible, setting the truth before those able to understand, blaming towers and war, which truly are still found even now in human life, he portrays the Saviour as Achilles setting out for the Trojan war, and Troy as the whole inhabited world. For he made war directly against the opposing evil power, sent by his own providence and by the command of the greatest Father.

What then does the poet say after this? "But when the hour of manhood and its fruit has come" (that is, when, having grown to manhood, he roots out what besets human life and adorns the whole earth with peace), "it will not be right for sinful sailors to wander, since all things will grow together from the earth in rich measure, itself unsown and unploughed; nor, I think, will the vine still long for the swift sickle. Nor will man need a fleece of wool, but the ram of himself will shine with Tyrian dyes, changing his rough wool for purple scarlet. But come, receive the honoured sceptre of royal rule from the right hand of your loud-thundering father, beholding the well-fixed foundations of the vast world, the joy of earth and heaven and sea, and the shaggy heart of boundless age rejoicing. Would that the sweet strength of old age might grant me to sing your virtue, as far as my power reaches! The divine singer of the Thracians would not amaze me, nor Linus, nor Pan himself, whom the Arcadian land bore; even Pan himself will not hold out for the victory." "Behold," he says, "the joy of the vast world and of all the elements."

One of those who do not think rightly might suppose that these things are said about the birth of a man. But when a human child is born, what reason has the earth to be unsown and unploughed, and the vine not to long for the edge of the sickle or other care? How could this be understood as said of a human birth? For nature is the servant of God's command, not the worker of a human order. And the joy of the elements marks the descent of God, not the conception of some man; and the poet's prayer that the end of his life be lengthened is a sign of calling on the divine; for we are accustomed to ask life and safety from God, not from man.

So the Erythraean Sibyl says to God: "Why, Master, do you lay on me the compulsion of prophecy, and do not rather lift me from the earth and keep me until the most blessed day of your coming?" And Maro, besides what has been said, adds this: "Begin, little child, to know your noble mother by her smile; for she carried you many months. And your parents did not smile on you as on a mortal, nor did you touch the marriage bed, nor know a festive banquet."

For how could his parents have smiled on him? His Father is God, a power without quality and without shape, encompassing other things, not of a human body. And who does not know that the Holy Spirit has no experience of the marriage bed? What desire, what release is there in the disposition of the Good, which all things desire? What has wisdom at all in common with pleasure? But let these things be left to be said by those who pursue a human and crowd-pleasing learning, but have no experience of divine learning; for they boast for display and reputation, while the others prepare their souls to be pure of every evil deed and word.

I call on you, O godliness, as ally for what is said, you who are a pure law, the most desired hope of all good things, teacher of holiness, unadulterated promise of immortality: you, piety and love for humanity, I worship; to your healings we who have been healed owe eternal thanks. But the crowd that has no experience of your help, through its inborn hatred of you, turns away also from God, and does not know at all the cause of living and being, that it and the other impious depend on what is due to the higher. For the whole world and all that is in the world is his possession.

I, for my part, ascribe to your favour the good fortune of myself and of all that is mine. The outcome of all my prayers bears witness: deeds of valour, victories, trophies over enemies. The great city knows it too and praises it with acclamation; and the people of the dearest city wishes it too, even if, deceived by slippery hopes, it chose a protector unworthy of itself, who was at once caught, fittingly and deservedly for what he had dared, which it is not right to recall, especially for me, who am speaking to you and taking every care how I may address you with pure and auspicious words.

I shall say something perhaps not unseemly or unfitting. Once, O godliness, an implacable war, surpassing in madness and cruelty, was proclaimed by tyrants against you and all your most holy churches; and there were some in Rome who rejoiced at such great public evils, and a field was even prepared for the battle. But you came forward and gave yourself up, relying on faith in God; and the cruelty of impious mortals, spreading like fire without ceasing, attached to you a wonderful and ever-celebrated glory; for awe seized those who watched,

seeing the executioners themselves and those who racked the bodies of the godly growing weary and faltering before the terrors, the bonds slackened, the tortures themselves weakened and the burnings applied dimmed, while the followers of God remained unbending in their firmness under pain and did not flinch for a moment in their boldness.

What profit did you gain by daring these things, most impious man? What is the cause of the derangement of your mind? You will say: the honour of the gods. Which gods? Or what notion do you take of the worth of the divine nature? Do you think the gods are wrathful like you? Even if they were such, you ought to have been amazed at their choice, not to obey shameless commands demanding unjustly the slaughter of righteous men.

You will say perhaps: because of what the forefathers held, and the opinion of men. I grant it. For what is believed is like what is done, of one and the same folly. You thought perhaps that there is some exceptional power in the human-shaped things made by carpenters and craftsmen; so you tended them with every care, that they might never be soiled, the greatest and most exceptional gods needing human care.

Compare our religion with yours. Is there not here genuine concord and lasting love for humanity; rebuke of a fault that brings admonition, not destruction; care not of cruelty but of salvation; sincere faith, first toward God and then toward the natural fellowship of men; mercy on those whom fortune has warred against; a simple life, not covering wickedness with varied cunning; and the knowledge of the true God and of his sole rule?

This is truly godliness, this the sincere and wholly undefiled religion, this the sensible life, by which those who pursue it travel as by a venerable highway to everlasting life. For no one at all who has entered on such a life, keeping his soul pure of the body, dies; rather he fulfils the service assigned him by God. For he who has confessed God does not become the plaything of outrage or anger, but, bearing necessity nobly, has the trial of endurance as provision for God's favour.

For there is no doubt that the divine welcomes human virtue. It would be most absurd that men, when they receive benefits, whether from those who hold the same authority or even from inferiors, should gratefully lay up and return the benefits that their benefactors happened to show them, while the One who is above all, the ruler of all and the Good itself, should neglect repayment. He accompanies our whole life and is present whenever we do some good; he receives our courage and justice and benefits us at once, but postpones the completion of the reward to the completion of our life. For the whole vote on life is reckoned at the time when the body is left by the soul, and the soul itself, pure and undefiled, draws near to the pure and undefiled divine. This, then, is the justice of God, and this the examination of the righteous: when trial of faith and continence has been made during life, and these are well, the reward of eternal life follows, while the fitting punishment overtakes the wicked.

And now I ask you, Decius, who once trampled on the labours of the righteous, who hated the church, who inflicted punishment on those who lived holily: what are you doing now after this life? In what and how grievous circumstances are you held? The time between your life and your death showed your good fortune, when, falling with your whole army in the Scythian plains, you brought the famous power of the Romans into contempt before the Getae.

And you, Valerian, who showed the same bloodthirstiness toward the subjects of God, revealed the holy judgment: captured and led away a prisoner in chains with your very purple and the rest of the royal adornment, and finally, ordered by Sapor, king of the Persians, to be flayed and preserved, you set up an eternal trophy of your own misfortune.

And you, Aurelian, firebrand of all wrongs, how conspicuously, as you rushed madly through Thrace, you were cut down in the middle of the highway and filled the ruts of the road with your impious blood!

Diocletian, after the bloodshed of the persecution, condemned himself, and without being noticed renounced the rule as useless and confessed the harm of his folly by confinement in a single despised dwelling.

What good did it do him to undertake war against our God? That, I think, he might spend the rest of his life in fear of the thunderbolt. Nicomedia speaks of it, and those who saw it are not silent, of whom I myself happen to be one. For I saw when, abject in spirit and fearing every sight and every sound, he lamented that his own folly had been the cause of the evils around him, since he had called down upon himself the divine help given to the righteous. Indeed his palace and his house were ravaged, as lightning spread and heavenly flame consumed them. And the outcome of these things had been foretold by men of sense; for they did not keep silent nor hide their lament at what was undeservedly done, but spoke openly and publicly to one another:

"What madness is this? How great the arrogance of power, that men dare to war against God, to wish to outrage the purest and most just religion, and to devise the destruction of so great a people of righteous men when no offence existed before; and this when there was prosperity in private and public, all affairs going well, and concord among the rulers remaining firm! There will be a reckoning for this, there will be vengeance for the blood unjustly shed, and perhaps the same calamity will overtake both the guilty and the innocent. For the divine is justly indignant at the wicked." And they said this, reasoning not unreasonably; for they saw a very great and excessive cruelty. When everything that cruelty can devise had been used up, impiety went on to shameful punishments. For the emperor mentioned before condemned pure virgins and chaste women to the outrage of licentiousness, inviting the young to pleasures by shameful decrees; in which the self-control of the common people proved stronger than the tyrant's licentiousness. For no one gave himself to the unholy enjoyment, and the emperor's decree could not overthrow the people's self-control. O best guardian of the laws, O teacher of self-control for all his subjects, O the army's care for their own fellow citizens! They wounded the breasts of their own people, they who had never seen the backs of enemies in battle.

At last divine providence pursued the vengeance for the unholy deeds, though not without public harm. So many slaughters took place that, had they been against barbarians, they would have sufficed for eternal peace. For the whole army of the emperor mentioned, subjected to the authority of a useless man who had seized the Roman rule by force, was consumed in many wars of every kind, when God's providence freed the great city.

What clearer and plainer proof of God's judgment could be brought forward? The world itself cries out, and the procession of the stars appears brighter and clearer, rejoicing, I think, at the fitting vengeance for the unholy deeds; and the very times that succeeded that savage and inhuman life are thought to rejoice in their own good fortune and show God's kindness toward men. And the cries to God of those who were oppressed and longed for their native freedom, and the praises of thanksgiving to God after deliverance from evils, when freedom and just contracts had been restored to them: how do they not in every way show the providence of God and his love toward men?

And when they praise my service, which had its beginning from God's inspiration, do they not affirm thereby that God is the cause of my valour? Most of all; for it is proper to God to command the best things, and to men to obey God. And I think that the most beautiful and best service is when one prepares beforehand, before the undertaking, the safety of what is to be done.

And all men know that the most holy worship of these hands is owed to God with pure and most sincere faith, and that, together with the hands, by prayers and supplications everything accomplished for the common good has succeeded, with as much benefit in private and public as each would have prayed for himself and his dearest. They have seen the battles and beheld the war, God's providence awarding the victory to the people, and they saw God helping our prayers. For righteous prayer is an invincible thing, and no one who supplicates holily fails of his aim; nor is there any room left for failure, except where faith falters. For God is always present and gracious, accepting the goodness of men. So it is human to stumble sometimes, but God is not the cause of human stumbles. All, then, who pursue piety ought to confess their thanks to the Saviour of all for our own salvation and the good fortune of public affairs, and with holy prayers and repeated supplications to make Christ gracious to us, so that he may keep his benefits. For he is the invincible ally and protector of the righteous, and the same is the best judge, leader to immortality, giver of eternal life.