De non parcendo in deum delinquentibus

you see these things, you understand that they are of a kind which command you to be honored; but those which command you to do those things you pretend not to know—those which urge you to obey the lord bishops, those which press that you must show yourself to be one among all your fellow servants and not declare yourself superior to anyone, if you wish to be found a servant of God. "These things," says the blessed apostle to Titus, "speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority; let no one despise you." If you are a Christian, since you too are one of those for whom he said: "These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority; let no one despise you," you certainly ought to hear me rebuking you with all authority, not despise me. Then you will be a Christian, if you do not despise me exhorting you to persevere as a Christian; but if you do despise me, you are found no longer to be among Christians, because if you were a Christian, you would not have despised him whom God has appointed to instruct his people, and him to whom the apostle said: "These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority; let no one despise you." For what do I exhort you? Except that you not be a murderer, that you not persecute the house of God, that you cease to torture, proscribe, deport, imprison, jail, slaughter, variously destroy, kill those whom you see are Christians. That you finally cease to blaspheme the only Son of God, that you accept the apostolic faith which you call heretical.

This, of course, is our faith which at Nicaea the bishops set down against you and all heretics, that you may believe as we do and deign to reject the idolatry instituted through your master Arius, that you may proclaim yourself a Christian, not an Arian, that you may cease to hurl false accusations against the priests of God. This is my correction. This is my rebuke. The apostle tells me to reprove you with all authority, and you say: Lucifer does me an injury, and you do not say: a priest of God admonishes and exhorts me according to the precepts given to priests, so that I may be able to lead a life most acceptable to God. For as to your saying that we owe you obedience, know that we acknowledge ourselves debtors not to you alone, but to all who live in high station, in rendering due services. For the apostle says: admonish them to be subject to princes and magistrates, obedient, ready for every good work, to blaspheme no one, not to be quarrelsome, but modest, showing all gentleness toward all men. For we too were once foolish and unbelieving, erring, serving various desires and pleasures, acting in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another; but when the kindness and humanity of our savior God shone forth, not by works of righteousness which we performed, but according to his mercy he saved us through the laver of regeneration and renewal.

through the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us honorably through our Lord Jesus Christ, so that, justified by His grace, we may become heirs according to the hope of life. Therefore, he admonishes that we ought to be subject in good works, not in evil ones. If it is a good work to kill an absent person, to slay one who proclaims his innocence unheard, to destroy with you, setting aside all regard for mercy, one whom we know to be innocent; if it is a good work to deny the only Son of God, a work acceptable to God to abandon the apostolic faith and embrace heretical faith, then you would rightly say that I am acting against the admonitions of the holy Scriptures. I add this, that the Apostle made mention of those princes and magistrates who had not yet believed in the only Son of God, that they would have been provoked to belief by our humility, gentleness, long patience in adversity, and the greatest obedience in fitting matters. But if you, because you are emperor, pretending to be one of us, force us to abandon God and embrace idolatry, must we then acquiesce to you, lest the Apostle’s precepts seem to have been neglected? And yet you, who pretend to be a Christian, attempt to make Christians what you yourself are, that is, apostates; you, who are still foolish and unbelieving, persisting in your malice, in which the Apostle says we also were before knowledge, before receiving the sacred faith. In what would we have been moderate toward you, except to fulfill what was lawful?

or when you say, you blasphemous murderer: "Kill those who believe in the only Son of God, be with me persecutors of His house, with me deny Him, reject the apostolic faith, embrace my heresy, of which I have been a lover with all the strength of my heart," who is more wretched than you, that he does not shun you, does not flee recognizing you as a temple of demons urging these things? Because you hear and say this: "I suffer injury from that wretched man Lucifer, and indeed from the emperor," that blasphemous, defiled speech of yours does not follow: I hear what I deserve from Lucifer, a priest of the Lord. To the Galatians, the chosen vessel, he says: "I marvel that you are so quickly transferred, you who were called in grace, to another gospel which is not another, unless there are some who disturb you and wish to overturn the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should evangelize you beyond the gospel, let him be anathema. As we have said before, and now I say again: if anyone announces to you other than what you have received, let him be anathema." And do you think that anything else can be declared by me to you except that you are anathema, when I find you evangelizing otherwise than the blessed apostles handed down? Therefore, when you hear from me that I hold you anathema for evangelizing otherwise than the apostles evangelized, if you say I am injurious, you would know you are lying, if you are anything of a man bearing yourself, since you see that I say anathema to you for this reason, because the blessed apostle has already anathematized you.

You call me insulting because I call you foolish; but how can I rightly be called insulting by you, when it is established that I speak the truth, namely that you are foolish? For if the Galatians are called foolish Galatians by the blessed Apostle, why do you think you ought not to be called by the name 'foolish'? For they, because they had obeyed false brothers, and because, heeding the suggestions of your fellow serpents, they had judged that they ought to keep the sabbath and that circumcision was to be observed, were called foolish; how much more are you worthily called foolish, who have become a denier of the only Son of God! Because I say to you: tear yourself away from the rabid dogs the Arians; grieve that by clinging to their evil council you yourself have become a dog, you call me contumacious; but perhaps you are ignorant that deniers of the only Son of God are called dogs, are called fat bulls, are called sons of iniquity, adulterous and harlot's seed, sons of perdition and iniquitous seed. If it escapes you that you are so called by God, hear through Isaiah Him speaking to your blasphemous Jews: "Come here, sons of iniquity, adulterous and harlot's seed; in whom have you delighted, and against whom have you opened your mouth, and against whom have you let loose your tongue? Are you not sons of perdition, iniquitous seed?" And in another place: "See that all are blinded, they have not known how to be wise, all mute dogs who could not bark, dreaming in their lair, loving to doze.

and wicked dogs, souls knowing no satiety, and they are worthless, knowing no understanding, they have followed all their own ways. Who are these to whom these things are said or on whose account they are spoken? Surely those whom in the twenty-first psalm the only Son of God accuses through the mouth of David, saying: "Many calves have surrounded me, fat bulls have besieged me. They have opened their mouth against me, like a seizing and roaring lion," and further on: "Many dogs have surrounded me, a council of the wicked has besieged my mouth, they have dug at my hands and feet." Therefore, when you note that those teachers of yours, guilty of sacrilege, are called calves, fat bulls, and dogs, you, one of the council of the wicked, cannot judge me insulting because I call you by the names with which your fellow-plague-stricken have been and are called; for you are no less in wickedness, you who dare to say: "There was a time when he was not, and he was made from nothing," so that you are not called by those names fitting for you. But if you do not wish to be called by these names, change your ways, correct your errors, as the most blessed Paul and the rest from that faithless people corrected theirs. Because I say to you: free yourself from the council of the wicked, I seem insulting to you. On account of what? Surely because I profess myself a Christian, because I have refused to abandon God and go after your idolatry. We are not the first to be called insulting and proud by you sacrilegious ones; for all those who resisted the deadly edicts of your fellow-tyrants were also called so.

And to pass over the rest in the conclusion of the speech, I turn again to King Antiochus alone. Did he judge those who resisted him to be insolent and proud, or not? Without doubt, because he considered them to have been insolent and proud, he persecuted those devoted to God with such cruelty even unto death. It remains, therefore, for you to see what Antiochus further did against those whom you have already known; and if you can rightly say that they were proud and insolent toward Antiochus, you can also say so of us. For we suffer from you the same things that they suffered from Antiochus; we are proclaiming for faith, for religion, just as they were proclaiming; we profess to serve the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, just as they confessed. The scripture says: The king sent an old Athenian who would compel the Jews to depart from their ancestral and divine laws, not to use them, to defile even the temple that was in Jerusalem and to name it the Temple of Jupiter Olympius and Margariein, according to those who inhabited the place, of Jupiter Hospitalis. But the worst and universally grievous of evils was the sedition. For because the temple was filled with the revelries of the Gentiles, with fornicating men with prostitutes and women approaching within the sacred roofs, moreover bringing in things that were not permitted; the altar also was full of unlawful things that were forbidden by the laws.

Neither were the sabbaths observed, nor were the solemn days kept by the patriarchs, and further: they were led by bitter necessity each month on the king's birthday; it was a pitiable sight; and when the rites of Liber were being celebrated, they were compelled to go around wearing ivy in honor of Liber. Moreover, a decree was issued to the neighboring Greek cities, with the Ptolemies suggesting that the same measure be enforced against the Jews, and that mercy be shown, but that those who refused to adopt Greek customs should be killed. So it came to pass that misery was seen. For two women were reported to have circumcised their sons; their infants were hung from their breasts, and after they had been led publicly through the city, they were thrown from the wall. Others, meanwhile, gathered in nearby watchtowers and secretly observed the seventh day. When this was reported, they were burned alive, because they feared to bring glorious aid to themselves on the solemn day. What do you think the worshipers of God ought to have done then? Ought they to have pleased God or Antiochus? If you think they ought not to have pleased Antiochus, then neither should we please you, because you, although in a different way, nevertheless desire to remove us from God and join us to the devil, just as he wished to do to them. The same cruelty is carried out by you; you are so savage and unjust toward those who resist your deadly edict.

It remains, therefore, as has often been said, for you to grieve that you have erred, and, recognizing that you are a murderer and a blasphemer, to present yourself, deserter of God, to the house; otherwise you will have only yourself to blame when you begin to see yourself in that place where all those fellow tyrants of yours now are.