De Regibus Apostaticis

II. ON APOSTATE KINGS. Since you deign to hold a familiar saying—that unless you believed wholeheartedly and unless these things you do concerning us were pleasing to God, you would already have been destroyed—I have wished to lay open the deeds of a few kings equal to you in apostasy and cruelty, so that that voice of yours might be silenced which says: unless the faith of Arius, that is, my faith, were catholic, unless it were pleasing to God that I persecute that faith which they wrote against us at Nicaea, I would surely never still flourish in the empire. I make no mention of those kings who were strangers to the knowledge of God; I treat only of those who are known to have reigned in Judea. In the Book of Judges we find Jerobaal, son of Josiah, chosen by God, and it was said to him: Go in your strength, and you will save Israel from the hand of Midian. Behold, do I not send you? And further: I will be with you, and you will strike Midian as one man. Of whom does Scripture speak of Midian as having a multitude like the sand of the sea? But when all that God promised to Gideon was fulfilled, when he saw himself raised from lowliness to highness, enriched from poverty, made king from a plebeian condition, what does he immediately do? Surely he says to the people: Each of you give me an earring from your spoils.

who, when he had received the weight of gold earrings to the amount of one thousand seven hundred shekels, besides the bracelets and necklaces and coverings and purple that were upon the kings of Midian, and besides the golden chains that were on the necks of the enemy camels—what does sacred Scripture say Gedeon did? And Gedeon made those things into an Ephod, and set it up in his city Ephrath; and the children of Israel fornicated there, and it became a scandal to Gedeon and his house. Did he perhaps delay for some days, and thus work this evil deed against God? Could he perhaps have remembered, when he had set out to do this, what God had said to him: "Go, I will be with you"? Where is that which, according to the command of God, he demolished Baal and cut down his groves and offered sacrifice to God? Where is that which he said to the messenger of God saying to him? "The Lord is with you, mighty in strength. In me, Lord, and if the Lord is with us, why have all these evils seized us? And where are his wonders, which our fathers related to us, saying: Did not God lead us out of Egypt? And now the Lord has spurned us and delivered us into the hand of Midian." Did he not recall, at the time when he attempted to act against God, that those evils had befallen them because of idolatry?

But when they had been rescued, so that they might live without fear of adversaries, from all those evils with which he said the entire people were heavily burdened, he immediately did a thing by which both he and the whole people alike would have been handed over into the hands of adversaries on account of idolatry. He had heard from God that all those evils had befallen them because they had served idols, having abandoned God; he remembered that the prophet had spoken, and yet on that day, when their enemies had done nothing before them, that king—in whose madness you deign to be similar—decreed that idols were to be served rather than God, who had granted him that victory. And the Scripture says: "The children of Israel did evil before the Lord God, and He handed them over into the hands of Midian for seven years, and the hand of Midian prevailed greatly over Israel. And Israel made for themselves, before the face of Midian, caves in the mountains and dens and tombs. And it happened that when Israel sowed, Midian and Amalek and the children of the East would come up and come upon him and commit outrages with them and lay waste the borders of the land, as far as Gaza, and they would leave to this Israel no sheep, nor calf, nor donkey for life. For they themselves and their beasts of burden would come up, and they would bring their tents and lead their camels and come like locusts in multitude, for there was no number, and they would come upon the land to lay it waste. And Israel was made poor before the face of Midian.

And the children of Israel cried out to the Lord, and it came to pass that because the children of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of Midian, the Lord sent a prophet to the children of Israel and said to them: Thus says the Lord God of Israel: I am the one who led you out of Egypt and brought you out of the house of servitude and removed you from the hand of the king of Egypt and from the hand of all who pursued you, and I cast them out from before you and gave you their land. And I said to you: I am the Lord your God, you will not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell, and you did not heed my voice. What does Hierobabel, who is also called Gedeon, do after this rebuke of the Lord? As soon as he sees his enemy brought to nothing, as soon as all those adversaries who are said to have been as numerous as the sand of the sea are slain, and not by a great number of Israelites, but by three hundred men, as soon as he sees all the foreign kings killed; he does that thing by which the children of Israel might sin against God; and yet he is found to have reigned in Israel for forty years even after such a great crime was committed.

Therefore, it should not be surprising if you, sacrilegious one, still live in the body, when you see that Gideon reigned for forty years after committing idolatry and held his kingdom; for the sacred Scripture speaks that the Israelites were at peace for forty years, and no adversaries were allowed against them at all, nor was any dominion over them held by foreigners, because they had cried out to God. Such good things did God do for your fellow-sacrilegious ones, showing that He is indeed all-powerful, yet that they were unworthy to obtain rest, who not even for a single day after receiving rest from such great perils chose to serve Him who had granted such great mercy. Though the Israelites were such, yet in His piety He spared them even after they committed idolatry, and He did not exact punishment immediately, but again at a time that pleased Him He did exact it; the guilt of idolatry could not go unpunished for them. So it will be for you, Constantius; He will present it to you, unless you provide for yourself in the meantime. If the Israelites, serving demons, abandoning God, having already become strangers to the knowledge of the power of God, yet as soon as it entered their hearts that He is the all-powerful God who had led their fathers out of the land of Egypt, were heard and freed from the hand of Midian and from all persecutors, what do you think we Christians can be snatched from your hands?

Do you deny—nor, as far as I know, are you perceptive enough—that we worship only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of all the prophets, apostles, and martyrs? Believe me, we have been heard and will be heard, so that you, with all your fragile sublimity, may lie beneath the heel of all His servants. But if there are some delays, so that He does not yet grant to His holy Church, with you Arians destroyed, full security of peace, the reason is this: that it is fitting, with you raging as an adversary, that all should come to be tested. You say: "If I had done evil, if I held a heresy, God would have already taken vengeance on me." You hear the sacred Scripture speaking: that the Lord even spared a foreigner for a long time, and yet afterward they reaped the rewards of their deeds. Samuel said to Saul: "The Lord sent me to anoint you king over Israel, and now hear the voice of the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord Almighty: 'Now I will avenge what Amalek did to you, O Israel, as he met you on the way when you came up from Egypt. And now go and strike Amalek and all that is his, and do not covet anything from them, but you shall exterminate him and anathematize him and all that is his, and you shall not spare him, and you shall kill all that is his, from man to woman and from infant to nursing child.'" And further: "And Saul came to the city of Amalek, and he approached and besieged Amalek at the torrent.

And Saul said to the Kenite: "Go, withdraw from the midst, and withdraw from Amalek, and do not join yourself with him, because you showed mercy to the children of Israel when they came up from Egypt." And the Kenite withdrew from the midst of Amalek, and Saul struck Amalek from Havilah to Shur, which is opposite the face of Egypt. And Saul captured Agag, king of Amalek, alive, and killed all his people by the edge of the sword. You see how, albeit late, they suffered the consequence of their crime, and you say: "Unless I were acting rightly, I would never reign for long." We find even Saul himself, because he acted against the Lord's command, that he was rejected, and yet he reigned long after his rejection, after God said to Samuel: "I repent that I anointed Saul as king." And you say: "Unless I had been believing rightly, unless I were living as is pleasing to God, I would certainly never have ruled up to now." And so that you may thoroughly absorb these things which we say concerning Saul, hear what he did against the Lord's command: And Saul and all his people took Agag the king and the goods of the flocks and herds and food and vineyards and all good things, and they were unwilling to destroy all the goods, but they preserved every precious work and destroyed the superfluous. And the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying: "I repent that I made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not upheld my words.

And Samuel was grieved, and he cried out to God all night until dawn, and Samuel went to meet Israel. And further: And Samuel came to Saul, and behold, Saul was offering a holocaust to the Lord and the first fruits of the spoils which he had brought from Amalek. And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him: "Blessed are you to the Lord, I have done all that the Lord commanded." And Samuel said: "And what is the voice of this flock in my ears and the voice of the cattle which I hear?" And Saul said: "From Amalek I have brought those things which the people plundered, the best of the flock and cattle, to be sacrificed to the Lord your God the king; the rest I have destroyed and exterminated." And Samuel said to Saul: "Were you not the least in the sight of the leader of the scepters of the tribe of Israel, and did the Lord not anoint you king over Israel, and did the Lord not send you on the way and say to you: 'Go and destroy those who sin against me, Amalek, and you shall fight against them until you have consumed them'? And why did you not hear the voice of the Lord, but rushed to the spoils and did what is evil before the Lord?" And Saul said: "Because I heard the people, I went on the way which God sent me, and I brought Agag king of Amalek, and I destroyed Amalek. And the people took the spoils of the flock and the first of the herds which I destroyed, to sacrifice before the Lord our God at Gilgal." And Samuel said: "Does the Lord desire holocausts and sacrifices more than to hear the voice of the Lord?

And behold, obedience is better than sacrifice, and obedience better than the fat of rams. Since sin is an abomination, you have brought sorrows and groans upon yourself. For which you have made the word of the Lord of no account; the Lord will make you of no account, so that you may not reign. And Saul said to Samuel: I have sinned, because I transgressed the word of the Lord and your word, because I feared the people, and I listened to their voice. And now remove my sin, return with me, I will worship the Lord your God. And Samuel said to him: The Lord will tear your kingdom from Israel out of your hand today, and will give it to your neighbor better than you. And further: And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death, because Samuel grieved over Saul, and the Lord repented that he had made Saul king over Israel. And the Lord said to Samuel: How long do you grieve over Saul? Behold, I am driving him out so that he may not reign over Israel, and fill your horn with oil, and come, I will send you to Jesse in Bethlehem, because I have heard among the sons of Jesse one for me as king.

You will now be able to understand, Constantius, that even those rejected by the Lord, even those destined for eternal death, reign for a long time after committing a grave offense, since you see that after the glorious son of Jesse, David, was anointed king, Saul nevertheless reigned for a long time and even had the power to persecute him whom God had chosen for himself as prophet and king; the evil man persecuted the good, the unjust man the just, the man hateful to God persecuted the one whom God loved. Since these things are so, do not boast because after such a great crime you have lived thus far as Saul lived; but consider what kind of vengeance befell Saul and what could befall you as well, unless you take thought for yourself. For if the Lord was so indignant against him, first because he took plunder contrary to the prohibition, second because he persecuted his man David, how much more must the vengeance of his indignation proceed against you, against you whose crimes are so enormous that you have even incurred the guilt of sacrilege.

If, you say, I had acted wickedly, if I were a heretic as Lucifer says, God would already have taken the kingdom from me. Accept also that Solomon survived after committing idolatry, and deign to understand that you too are such as he was after idolatry. And the Lord raised up Satan against Solomon: Ader the Idumaean and Esrom the son of Anadeth in Bemathad, Adragas king of Saba his lord. And men gathered against him, and he was the prince of the gathering, and he seized the city of Damascus and sat in it and reigned in Damascus, and they were Satans to Solomon and to Israel all the days of Solomon. We have proved to you that Solomon also reigned for some years after idolatry, and indeed serving not God but the devil, whence he is noted to have cleaved to diabolical men; so also you cleave to your fellow-sacrilegers the Arians, who, although you are still in the body, although you remain in the kingdom, yet you are found to be such as Solomon was, after he abandoned God and followed idols. You wished us to cleave to such as Solomon made the Israelites cleave to. Where was that love of God, which is reported through the holy Scriptures to have been in Solomon, at that time when he deigned to follow idols, to abandon God? Whence this? Except that he had become altogether a man alien from sober understanding.

I do not want you to congratulate yourself because, although you are a blasphemer and a destroyer of God’s religion, you still have the kingdom and are arrogant after your sacrilege, when we find that even Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, who practiced idolatry, lived in the kingdom for twenty years. For sacred Scripture says of him: “And King Solomon slept with his fathers in the city of David; and his son Rehoboam reigned in his place in Jerusalem, and he was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty years in Jerusalem.” And further on: “And he did evil before the Lord and did not walk in the way of his father David.” Therefore, just as Solomon, from the time he deigned to enslave himself to idols, and his son Rehoboam, who was always serving idols, since they did not walk in the paths of David, nevertheless lived in the kingdom and both, while reigning, reached the last day of their lives, how do you marvel at yourself, why, after committing a crime, while living in that wickedness, you, a king, are arrogant, because neither the kingdom nor life is taken from you by God?

when you see that even Jeroboam attempted to overturn the Lord’s religion utterly, as you do, and yet he survived for very many years, and indeed remained in that crime, as it is written: “And there was a man from Mount Ephraim, a servant of Solomon, and his name was Jeroboam, and the name of his mother was Sariram, a harlot woman,” and in another place: “And it happened that when all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned from Egypt, they sent and called him into the synagogue and made him king over Israel,” and further on: “And Jeroboam said in his heart: ‘Now the kingdom of David will return. If this people go up to offer sacrifice in the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, the heart of the people will turn to their lord Rehoboam, king of Judah.’ Then therefore Jeroboam thought and went away. And he made two golden calves and said to the people: ‘Let it suffice for you to have gone up to Jerusalem. Behold, these are your gods, Israel, who brought you back from the land of Egypt.’ And he placed one in Bethel and one he gave in Dan. And this word became a sin, and the people went before the face of one calf as far as Dan. And they made houses on the high place, and he made priests from some part of the people who were not from the sons of Levi. And Jeroboam made a feast in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, according to the feast day of Judah, and he went up into the sanctuary which he made in Bethel, to sacrifice before the calves which he made, and he established in Bethel priests of the high places which he made.

and he went up into the sanctuary which he had made on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, on the feast day which he had devised from his own heart, and he made a feast day for the sons of Israel. Therefore, do not boast that, while you are bearing idolatry, you nevertheless live possessing the glory of the kingdom, when you see that this Jeroboam made golden calves, turned the people of Israel to idolatry, and yet was not only not immediately destroyed when he had sinned, but was even permitted to live long. Could not God have removed those same idolatrous kings? But it has been shown how ungrateful you are to God, you who, although you are so greatly exalted, nevertheless not only forget the one who exalts you, but even persecute him in his ways, desiring to remove his religion from the midst. That this is so, you may learn from the deed of that king Jeroboam, who, although he was the son of a handmaid, although he remembered that he was born of a harlot, although he received the kingdom of his master Solomon to the disgrace of that same Solomon, why, abandoning God, he turned himself to idols, when, I say, Jeroboam knew that the kingdom had been given to him by God because his master Solomon had followed idols, nevertheless, counting all these things as nothing, he thought to make idols, and to be enslaved with all the people who served God to them rather than to the living God, who had made him, the son of a harlot woman, to possess the kingdom of his master Solomon. Therefore, do not wonder that for you...

that he might spare those who sin against him ungratefully, but I urge you to see this: that, though late, if you persist in this wickedness of yours, you will receive what all your predecessors in sacrilege have received. We exhort you to deign to rescue yourself from such great evils. And you have examples besides—you are not the first to do this. We also see that this Jeroboam considered the Lord's warning as nothing. "And it happened," it says, "in that time, and Jeroboam went out from Jerusalem, and Achias the Silonite prophet met him on the way, and Achias was covered with a new garment, and both were in the field. And Achias took hold of his new garment which he had on himself and tore it into twelve rents and said to Jeroboam: 'Take for yourself ten rents, for thus says the Lord God of Israel: Behold, I tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon, and I will give you ten scepters; and two scepters will be for him because of my servant David and because of the city Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, for whom Solomon abandoned me and made Astarte, the unclean idol of the Sidonians, and Camos, the idol of Moab and their king, and the religion of the sons of Ammon, and did not go in my ways, to do what is right before me, as David his father did. And I will not take the whole kingdom from his hand in the days of his life because of my servant David whom I have chosen, for I will act against him throughout all the days of his life.'

and I will receive the kingdom from the hand of his son, and I will give you ten scepters, but to his son I will give two scepters, so that my servant David may be set before me all days in the city of Jerusalem, which I have chosen for myself, that I might place my name there. And I will receive you, and you will reign over what your soul desires, and you will be king in Israel. And it will be, if you keep all that I have commanded you and walk in my ways and do what is right in my sight and keep my precepts and my commandments as my servant David did, then I will be with you and I will build you a faithful house, as I built for David. When a man born of a harlot, a man who remembered himself born of servile lineage, heard these things from God, was he, after all that the Lord had promised was fulfilled, obeyed by those who had promised so much to themselves? And did he not, as soon as he saw himself exalted, begin to act against him? Did he not immediately, as God was abandoned by all his worshippers, set to work through Jeroboam?

It is said to you by us, that unless you correct yourself, unless you begin to be in ways pleasing to God, you will perish by a new example; and you remain in your iniquity, you persevere in your sacrilege. It is not new, since for that King Jeroboam God through his man caused those things already spoken to be conveyed, and when his son was detained with a great infirmity, he sent to the servant of God and heard the future, and yet when he saw even the evil promises that had been made to him being fulfilled, he acted more and more against God, he wished to destroy the house of God. And there was a man, it says, from Shiloh, and his name was Ahijah, and he was sixty years old, and the word of the Lord was with him. And Jeroboam said to his wife: arise and take in your hand for the man of God loaves and cakes for his sons and grapes and a jar of honey. And the woman arose and did as her husband told her. And Ahijah was a very old man, and his eyes were dimmed for seeing. And the woman arose from Beriah and went. And it happened, when she had entered the city to Ahijah the Shilonite, Ahijah said to his servant: go out now to meet Anna, the wife of Jeroboam, and you will say to her: enter and do not stand, for thus says the Lord: I send hardship upon you. And Anna entered to the man of God, and Ahijah said to her: why have you brought to me loaves and grapes and cakes and a jar of honey?

Thus says the Lord: Behold, you will go from me, and when you enter the gate of the city of Arira, your maidens will come out to meet you and will say to you: The boy is dead. For thus says the Lord: Behold, I destroy this Jeroboam who urinates against the wall; and his dead of Jeroboam will be in the city, and dogs will eat them, and his dead will be in the field, and the birds of the air will eat them. It is not, I say, new, if you persist in this obstinacy, when you know that this Jeroboam was not deterred by all these things; for immediately, as it had been said by the man of God, as soon as the woman entered the city, their son died; and yet Jeroboam did not see what God was about to present to him because he had abandoned him and had caused the people to perish with him, nor did he fear from the death of his son that other things might befall him, but he grew old in his cunning; for Jeroboam had been made so senseless, from the time he had departed from him who had entrusted the kingdom to him, that when he had said: Go to the man of God and learn whether our son is about to die, and had learned through the man of God that not only was their son about to die, but also that dangers threatened his entire kingdom, he nevertheless, as he had once decided, preferred to serve the devil. He sends to inquire of the man of God about the future, and he spurns the man of God to whom he sends and makes calves in contempt of His majesty and makes the people worship them with him.

He did these things, and yet he was not immediately destroyed, but long survived in his kingdom. And you say: If I had been a heretic, if, as Lucifer, Pancratius, and Hilarius say, I were attacking the religion of God, vengeance would already have been taken upon me. Hear now what happened to this man, King Jeroboam, and yet how he was not even then converted to God, but rather, persisting in his crime, died in his wickedness, failed in his sacrilege. And Jeroboam made a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, according to the feast of Judah, and went up to the sacrifice which he made at Bethel, to sacrifice to the calves which he made, and appointed priests of the high places which he made, and went up to the sanctuary which he made on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, on the feast which he devised from his own heart, and made a feast for the children of Israel and went up to the sanctuary to sacrifice. And behold, a man of God from Judah came in the word of the Lord to Bethel, and Jeroboam was standing upon his altar to sacrifice; and the prophet cried out to the altar in the word of the Lord, saying: O sanctuary, sanctuary, thus says the Lord: Behold, a son will be born in the house of David, and Josiah will be his name, and he will sacrifice upon you the priests of the high places who sacrifice upon you, and he will burn the bones of men upon you. And on that day he will give the sign which the Lord has spoken: Behold, the sanctuary will be broken apart and the fat which is in it will be poured out.

And it came to pass, when he heard the words of the man of God invoking upon the altar which was in Bethel, and he stretched out his hand toward the altar, saying: "Seize him." And the hand of the king which he stretched out against him became withered, and he could not draw it back to himself. And the sacrifice was broken, and its fat was poured out from the sanctuary according to the portent which the man of God had spoken in the word of the Lord. And the king answered and said to the man of God: "Pray to the face of the Lord your God, that my hand may return to me." And the man of God prayed to the face of the Lord, and the king's hand returned to him, and it became as it was before. When he saw the portents which had been uttered by the mouth of the man of God and the impious arm stretched forth to slay the man of God suddenly made withered from fear, and immediately also made whole through the prayer of the worshiper of God, did he then destroy the idolatry which he himself had established? Did he then at last remove from the midst the feast day which he himself had devised from his own heart? Not at all; but he is found to have met his day of death in that same obstinacy of his presumption. Therefore we shall not be able to wonder if, which God avert from you, you should determine to meet your day of death in your heresy, since even by signs and portents your earlier fellow-sacrilegers could not be recalled to worshiping God alone. For holy scripture says of Jeroboam: "And after this Jeroboam did not turn back from his wickedness, but returned and made priests of the high places from among the people.

For whoever wished would raise his hand, and he became a priest in the high places. And this word became a sin for the house of Jeroboam, and for its destruction and extermination from the face of the earth. Lest these things also be said of you, I beg you, rescue yourself from the accursed assembly of the Arians; I beg you, be a Christian as you were before, from being an Arian; and do not be angry with us that we equate your deeds with those of Jeroboam; but rather I implore you to see that all these instructions are to be called admonitions rather than reproaches, which I offer for the sake of your well-being. For you are compared by us to Jeroboam in our times, because you have attempted to turn all men away from God, just as he attempted to make the people of Israel apostate from the worship of God. I do not yet wish you to promise yourself any hope from this, because although you are acting wickedly, you nevertheless reign, since you see that Jeroboam also reigned long in his wickedness, and also the son of Solomon, who likewise practiced idolatry and died in the same wickedness, and likewise his son Abiud, concerning whom I find it written: "And he went in the sins of his father, which he committed in his sight, and his heart was not complete with his Lord God, as the heart of his father David was," and yet, while they served idols, they remained in the kingdom and died in that dignity, and handed down the authority of the kingdom to their sons. Do not, therefore, even take pride in this, that your father handed down the kingdom to you, saying: "Unless my father had done well to join the Arians, we, his sons, would not reign.

I do not want you to say: if I were a heretic, I would never rule so long, God would never permit me still to be in the kingdom, when you see that Baasha son of Ahijah reigned twenty-four years over Israel, about whom you have found written in the third book of Kings: and he did evil before the Lord and went in the way of Jeroboam son of Nebat; and in his sins, just as he sinned in Israel. That king Baasha ought certainly to have feared lest he be struck down like Jeroboam, if he had departed from the ways of the Lord. But you who turn away from God are such that, when it has pleased you to take up the office of idolatry to the injury of God, you cannot be terrified even by the example of those who have already been judged, so as to turn back to God. It is also written about King Jehoram: and he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and he did evil more than all who were before him, and he went in every way of Jeroboam son of Nebat in his sins; and yet this man, who is said to have sinned more than all the kings who were before him, was not immediately extinguished when he abandoned God, nor was he afflicted by any serious illness, so that he who is described as having sinned more gravely might be seen to have been destroyed by a more severe punishment. You see, Constantius, even if it happens that you live in the highest happiness in this temporal life, nevertheless you ought to fear more, because you are reserved for God’s judgment; and even those who are immediately extinguished, upon whom some divine punishment is inflicted here, are always tormented after their descent.

you, yet if you were snatched away while living in the utmost happiness, consider how vengeance would proceed against you, who are found in such great wickedness. Do not therefore claim any happiness for yourself from this, that although you deny the only Son of God, although you persecute his family, your spirit still remains in that murderous body, when you consider that even the son of Asa reigned among the Jews for thirty-five years, though he was sacrilegious like you; concerning whom you have read it written: he went in the ways of his father Asa, and did not depart from them, to do what was right in the sight of the Lord, but they did not abstain from the high places and they sacrificed on the high places and burned incense. Behold, even here a king is described as having slept in peace. Since, therefore, he practiced idolatry for thirty-five years, do not claim this for your own glory and say: for this reason I am not struck by any blow, for this reason I am not yet destroyed, but I still live possessing the kingdom of the Roman Empire, because I am a true believer; because the faith of Arius is correct; because I have done well to remove bishops and to appoint others such as Arius desired. Do not, I say, boast about this, that although you do these things, you still pride yourself, when you see that this king held the kingdom for thirty-five years and was taken away in peace. If, therefore, it was possible for them, because they were taken away in this manner, for the crime of idolatry to go unpunished, it will also be possible for you, Constantius. Turn yourself, therefore, to

the Lord, lest you be found to be like Ahab, of whom I find it written: “And Ahab did evil in the sight of the Lord, and he did evil more than all who were before him. And it was not enough for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also took as wife Jezebel, daughter of Basan and Hela, king of the Sidonians. And he went and served Baal and worshipped him, and set up a shrine of Baal in the house of his own religion, which he built in Samaria; and Ahab made a grove, to cause provocation, to provoke God and destroy his own soul, and he did evil more than all the kings of Israel who were before him.” Do not yet allow yourself to remain among the Arians, but make the crossing to us Christians, to whom all heresies are as Baal is. Thus you are now heretics to us, as those who sacrificed to idols were to the worshippers of God in those times; through this heresy of yours, believe me, you are in our times what Ahab was.

Do not, therefore, please yourself that God has not immediately requited you, when you see that this Ahab and his wife Jezebel, who even killed the prophets of the Lord, who are found to have been involved in such great wickedness that they permitted no man confessing the God of Israel to remain in the land of Israel, were spared for a very long time. Do not gaze upon this, that, while you are doing evil, you nevertheless take pride in your crimes; but rather, I beseech you, see this: that, unless you convert, just as the rewards of their works were rendered to them, albeit late, so too can they be presented to you. Do not say: I have long been in the kingdom, I am powerful, for I hold good faith, for I act rightly in persecuting those who believe, as that faith described at Nicaea maintains itself. Do not say these things, I say, but I pray you, see this: that you are so arrogant after your many funereal deeds that either, hearing us, the priests of God, you will convert yourself to God, or certainly you will receive the due rewards of your deeds at that time when you will not be able to say that you erred unknowingly. That these things are so, note, admonished by the example of Ahab, the killer of the prophets of the Lord and the worshiper of all demons.

Understand that this man, so criminal, was preserved so long in the kingdom after such great crimes precisely so that he might finally convert if he wished. Not only are the merits of his evil deeds not brought back against him, but he is even helped in his difficulties, without doubt so that he might realize that he was not avenged by Baal and the other demons, whom the pagans call gods, but by the God of Israel, whose prophet he saw speaking with him and declaring to him how God would reduce the enemies of the Israelites to nothing. For Ader's son, the king, had besieged Samaria together with thirty-two other kings, boasting so much as if he held the Israelites as nothing, that he alone would overcome the entire multitude of Israelites. God made this foreigner nothing before Israel. For which king did God prevail? Indeed, for Ahab, the one who had abandoned him, who had made Israel serve Baal and all the demons, and whom he therefore assisted, namely so that he might believe that the God whose people Israel was is the sole God, and no other besides him, who had prevailed for him, so that Ahab might see that it would have been right for him finally to correct his errors. As soon as the enemy began to build a siege against the city of the Israelites, and behold, says sacred scripture, one prophet approached the king of Israel and said: "Thus says the Lord: 'Did you hear that great sound? Behold, today I will deliver him into your hands, and you will know that I am the Lord.'

And the king said: "In what?" And the prophet said: "In the sons of the princes of the regions." And the king said: "Who will commit the battle?" And the prophet said: "You." And further: "And the sons of the princes of the region went out from the city, and the army that followed them, and each one struck down whom he found beside himself, and the Syrians fled, and Israel pursued." How do you say, Constantius: "If I were not serving God well, if I were not rightly believing, the Roman Empire would never have been seen placed in my power, nor would I have lived so long in the kingdom?" When you see that to Ahab, king of Israel, living according to the customs of the Gentiles and turning the people of God away from God, just as you also turn them away, it was said by Him against whom he was sinning, whose precepts he was teaching for nothing: "I deliver him into your hands, so that you may know that I am God." Therefore, if He snatched him from the son of Iader, king of Syria, so also He snatched and snatches you from all who desire to destroy you, for this purpose certainly, that you may be able to recognize that He is the God of the patriarchs and martyrs, for this purpose that you may be able to infer that victory was not granted to you for the merits of your faith and life, when you are in all things similar to King Ahab, but that mercy was shown to you contrary to your merits by Him whom you have abandoned, just as it was shown to Ahab. For if you say that you conquer your adversaries because you are rightly believing, Ahab, a worshiper of idols and a killer of the holy prophets, could have said the same. Therefore, are you not reserved for this, that you might correct your errors?

As soon as you seized Italy, you attempted to overturn her church; you said that God the Father is not true—denying the only Son of God the Father, affirming that he is not the true Son. You also asserted that the Holy Spirit Paraclete was created from nothing; you tried to maintain that the only Son of God existed at a time when he did not exist. You gave all your strength to removing apostolic and evangelical tradition from the midst, as far as you could; by your authority you caused bishops ordained by the judgment of God to be deposed, and you arranged for heretics to be appointed in their places, who could preach your heresy. You fought against the church in Alexandria with military force; you banished very many bishops into exile, into the mines, you cast them into prison, and you even killed a certain number of all the worshippers of God. When you have done these things, you still say: "If I were not acting rightly and believing soundly, God would never allow me to reign so long," as if for that reason God was patient with Ahab and your other fellow idolaters, because they were holding the right path. You therefore, because God is patient with your sins in his untiring mercy, just as he was with King Ahab, think that you are not sinning, but that you are being spared on account of your merits—you who imitate Ahab even in this, that you love those who counsel you to evil, but destroy those who, for the sake of your salvation, speak what is true.

Just as those four hundred false prophets spoke to Ahab of all the good things that could befall him, while on the contrary the prophet Micah spoke the word of God, that all evils would befall him, and he loved those false prophets more than the true prophet of the Lord, so also you love your fellow heretics the Arians, you obey their words, you execrate all of us priests of the Lord, first of all because we confess the Son of God to be the true Son of God, secondly because we do not flatter you, because we assert and say that you are in danger, unless you turn to God, that you will come to eternal punishment. And so that you may believe that men have always been hated by apostate men, but loved by enemies of the religion of God, that is, worshippers of the devil, hear whom Ahab loved and whom he hated. And Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, said to the king of Israel: ask the Lord now today. And the king of Israel summoned all the prophets, about four hundred men, and King Ahab said to them: shall I go to Ramoth-Gilead for battle, or shall I desist? And they said: go up. And further: and Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel: is there no prophet of the Lord here, and shall we ask the Lord? And King Ahab of Israel said to King Jehoshaphat: there is one through whom we may ask the Lord, but I hate him, because he does not speak well of me.

Likewise, after the Lord's prophet Micah had told him not to go up, because if he went up he would not return, the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, king of Judah: "Did I not tell you that this man prophesies not good things for me, but rather evil?" Those things seemed evil and were displeasing to him whom the devil had already seized; the evil things spoken by the servant of God were judged good, and those good things spoken by the servants of the devil were judged good. Nor is it therefore surprising that Ahab listened to those whom the devil made him listen to, namely his own slaves, and that he would not listen to those whom God showed to be his own servants, both by their endurance of sufferings and by their steadfastness of assertion. The false prophets, enriched and honored, were dismissed by the king, but Micah, the Lord's prophet, was shut up in prison, and it was said: "Let him eat the bread of sorrow until I return"; and yet, according to the servant of God's word, he never returned. And so you also act, Constantius; you love those who drag you with them to eternal death, who lead your soul to utter ruin, and you deign to hate those who desire you to become a friend of God. Do not boast to yourself that, although you do such great things, you still possess this fragile life, flourishing with the glory of kingship, when the sacred writings tell that Jeroboam, son of Joash, reigned over Israel for forty-one years in Samaria, and indeed, having abandoned God, serving idols, and indeed not departing from the wickedness of Ahab, king of Israel, and the sacrifices of Jeroboam.

Evil, you say, if I had done, God would have already removed me from the kingdom," as if the son of Amasiah, for the reason that he did not desist from vanities, was indeed filled with leprosy, but nevertheless reigned for fifty-two years in Jerusalem. But you are more powerful than King Uzziah, because you do not have the elephantiasis which can consume all your limbs, but that which can deeply stain the soul. Grieve with us and shed tears for yourself; see how this visible elephantiasis stains the body, how the poison of leprosy consumes the limbs. Understand that the Arian heresy, your elephantiasis, stains all your inner self; note that it makes your inner man just as this disease does those whom you see infected with elephantiasis. Do not say: "Unless I were acting well, I would never have ruled for so long, I would never have been allowed to live until now," when you see Manasseh, the son of King Hezekiah, king of Judah, having taken up the kingdom at sixteen years of age and having reigned for fifty-seven years; when you hear what is written about him, you will surely find yourself to be his imitator, and you will not begin to wonder that, although you are an evildoer, you are still spared, seeing Manasseh, whom you do not surpass in cruelty and sacrilege, who, while doing such things, held the kingdom for fifty-seven years. And it says in Scripture: "Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David, and Manasseh his son reigned in his stead.

When he was sixteen years old, Manasseh began to reign, and he reigned fifty-seven years in Jerusalem, and the name of his mother was Ebsibas. And he did what is evil before the sight of the Lord according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord cast out from before the face of the children of Israel. And he built high places which Hezekiah, his father, had destroyed, and he built a sanctuary of Baal and made groves as Ahab, king of Israel, had done, and he worshipped the whole host of heaven and served them. And he built a sanctuary in the two houses of the house of the Lord and led his sons through fire and practiced augury and made many pythons and diviners, so that he might do what is evil in the eyes of his own soul, to provoke the Lord God. And he made carved images of the groves which he placed in the house, concerning which the Lord said to David and to his son Solomon: "In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen, and among all the tribes of Israel, I shall place my name forever, and I shall not set foot in Israel to move from the land which I have given, but if they hear me in all things which I have commanded them, and according to the law which my servant Moses commanded them." And they did not hear. And because Manasseh strongly spurned them and Manasseh led them astray, so that they did what is evil beyond all the nations whom the Lord removed from before the face of Israel.

And the Lord spoke through the hand of his servants the prophets, concerning what Manasseh, king of Judah, did: he made idols, according to all that the Amorite who was before him had done, and he caused Judah to sin with his idols. Because of this, the Lord God of Israel says this: Behold, I bring evils upon Jerusalem and upon Judah; all who hear these things, both their ears will tingle. And I will extend over Jerusalem the measure of Samaria and the weight of the house of Ahab, and I will destroy Jerusalem as a boxwood is destroyed from a doorpost before his face. And I will deliver them into the hands of their enemies, and they will be for plunder and burning to all their enemies, because they have been cast off from behind me, and they were behind me and were provoking me, from the day their fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day. And the rest of the words of Manasseh and all that he did, how he caused Israel to sin—are these not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah, and how he shed the blood of the innocent very much, until he filled Jerusalem to the brim, besides the sin which he caused Judah to commit, to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord God? And Manasseh slept with his fathers, and his son reigned in his place, when he was twenty-two years old, Amos.

What do you say to these things, Constantius? I believe you will now cease to say: if I were not acting rightly, I would not have reigned for so long a time, when you see that this other Manasseh, acting in such a way, reigned for fifty-seven years; and because we have said that you are another Manasseh, behold that you have all his deeds. He set up idolatry in the house of God; you did the same in the temple and houses of the Lord. He made idols to be worshipped, usurped what was called the Lord's, so that afterwards it could be called the idols'; all these things you also did, because you introduced the Arian heresy into the church and established that your blasphemy should be received as the catholic faith, but you commanded that the faith written at Nicaea, which we know to be apostolic and evangelical, should be rejected. Just as you have now desired these things to be done, so Manasseh commanded that all idols should be served, and that one should withdraw from God. Therefore it will not be a matter for wonder if you have claimed for yourself the buildings in which we are accustomed to gather the people of God, and have declared yourself, an idolater, to be a catholic, when you see that Manasseh also did that which you have now done. Thus, finally, the Lord will spare you, who follow the path of Manasseh, just as he spared him, and for as long as he spared him, so that it is written that he slept with his fathers and was buried in Jerusalem, and his son received the kingdom in his place. Do you read that he perished in war or was weighed down by some illness? Not at all. But what do you think?

I believe, given that prudence of yours, you say that all those things went unpunished for King Manasseh. You are such that you think thus about Manasseh, because, since he reigned for fifty-seven years and handed over the kingdom to his son and himself passed away in peace, such great crimes could have gone unpunished for him. Do not take pity on yourself so that you turn yourself to God, do not correct your nefarious acts, and you will find yourself tormented with Manasseh, whom you seem to surpass in this, that he only shed the blood of the righteous within the boundaries of Jerusalem, whereas you have shed and are shedding it throughout the whole Roman Empire. But, you say, he burned or consecrated his sons before the statues of his gods; and if you had had sons, you would without doubt have made them embrace the Arian blasphemy. Or do you not know that, just as then those who burned their sons pleased the devil, since they had the same mind of abandoning the creator and serving the creature, so now the devil demands nothing from you except that you deny the only son of God? This is the most acceptable sacrifice to him, that you believe as Arius believed; it is more to him in our times that you deny the son of God than if you wished to be burned in the fires in honor of all the demons. For he sees that the worship of all idols is despised, that it was a vain invention; now he desires, through you his servants the heretics, to deceive us, the servants of God. How, you ask, to deceive? Just as he has already deceived you, so he wishes to deceive us.

Since you are an Arian, you pretend to be a Christian only until you can wound the unarmed with the poison of your heresy, so that afterwards they may be not Christians, which we are, but what you are, Arians. This is the fattening of your offices, which is exhibited through you to demons. For who but the devil and his sons can say of the only Son of God: He is a son and is not a true son; He is God and is not a true God? Therefore, when you say, "I am a Christian, but I do not believe that God has a true son, I do not believe in one power of the Father and the Son," when you call the Son a creature, made from nothing, when you say there was a time when He was not, you sacrifice better to the devil than Manasseh then did, when he consecrated his sons either through fire to all demons or when he burned them. I grieve for you, Emperor, that, although you are of such great folly and although you do such great evils, you yet deign to say: "If I were not doing well, I would not still be in the kingdom; God would have already destroyed me." Do you not see that this Manasseh is to be compared to you in sacrilege and in cruelty, because he held the kingdom in Judea for fifty-seven years, as I have often said? This is the one who certainly made the people abandon God and serve idols, this is the one who certainly placed images in the temple of the Lord and in the houses of God, who made the house of God, the sanctuary of His majesty, a sanctuary of idols.

Thus also does God endure you, thus does He bear with you until He may test His own household, crown the worthy, and punish the unworthy—along with you, unless you correct yourself—with eternal penalty. Moreover, believe that He could, then as now, extinguish both Manasseh and you in a single atom of the eyes, but He refrains, not because He cannot, but because it is fitting that His worshippers be crowned, remaining unmoved against your cruelty, and that you, enemies of His clemency, if you resolve to persist as you are, be condemned to everlasting punishment. You say: "If I were not acting rightly, I would never still be ruling." Those who not only refuse to correct you in your error but also drive you to perdition do this. No wonder; for it is written that both you and they will be such: "The sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, and he who does iniquity is blessed. The sinner has provoked the Lord; according to the multitude of his wrath, He will not inquire; God is not before his eyes; his ways are polluted at all times; his judgments are removed from his face." Therefore, when you say: "We do well to remove those bishops who confess to holding the faith written at Nicaea and to appoint those who confess as Arius confessed," and they say: "Rightly, of course, you are that sinner who is unjustly praised for the desires of your soul; and you are the iniquitous one who, though abandoned by God for your blasphemies, yet with your flatterers, whatever wrong you commit is not reproved, but rather it is said that you act rightly.

When you say, “I did well to send a soldier to Alexandria to remove Athanasius,” and they very rightly say, “To whom will you be compared, if not to the one who is marked by the Holy Spirit through the psalmist, because, although he does wicked things, although he is most evil and abominable, yet he desires to be praised?” You say, “If I were not acting rightly, God would not have spared me thus far.” And I find this said to God: “For this reason, because you chastise in part those who have gone astray, and you address those who sin with admonition, so that, having abandoned evil, they may believe in you, O Lord. And those ancient inhabitants of your land, whom you hated because they did works hateful to you through potions and unjust rites, and were merciless murderers of their own children, you wished to destroy through the hands of our ancestors, so that the land which is dearest to you of all might receive a worthy pilgrimage of the sons of God. But even these you spared as men, and you sent the vanguard of the army, wasps, to exterminate them in part. Were you powerless to attack, to subject the impious to the just, or to destroy them all at once by savage beasts or by a harsh word? But, judging in part, you gave place for repentance, not ignorant that their race is wicked and their malice natural, and that their thought could not be changed forever; for they were a seed cursed from the beginning, and, fearing no one, you gave pardon to their sins. For who will say to you, ‘What have you done?’ Or who will stand against your judgment?

Similarly, you are given a reprieve, Constantius, so that you may do penance and not perish by the example of those who, though known to God that they would not perform penance, that they would not turn themselves back to God, for that reason (although the evil was present from the beginning, yet He spared them and did not punish them immediately when they sinned). Do not therefore say: "If I were not acting rightly, God would surely never have spared me," when you see that a place for penance has long been granted to your wicked deeds, so that they might finally see the causes of their evil deeds and have made sufficient amends to God for their transgression. You will therefore be, if you do not turn back to God, one of that accursed race, of which it is said to God: "You know, though ignorant, that their nation is wicked and their natural malice, and that their thought could not be changed forever; for they were a seed cursed from the beginning." How glorious, then, will you see yourself to be, when you begin to be among such men, when you see yourself judged among them, when, found among them, you are sent into the inextinguishable flames? You will certainly be first of all and greater even there in those punishments; for no one can be found equal to you in wickedness, except the devil alone, so that someone might be able to see you as better in those punishments.

Do you dare to say: "If I were not living well, if my works were not righteous, if my faith—that is, the Arian faith—were not catholic, if I had not acted rightly in removing those bishops who preach the faith described by the three hundred and more at Nicaea, I would never reign for long, I would never shine so brightly in the kingdom that, albeit for a short time, I alone would have ruled within the Roman boundary"? So it is, as you say. Why does the most just worshiper of God, Job, say to those who assail his righteousness with false allegations? "Hear me, for the pains of my wound compel me to speak: Why do the impious live, and their houses are not destroyed, and fear is far from them? Their cow has never aborted, always carried her womb; they themselves remain like sheep forever, and their children, having taken up an instrument, play with delight, so that they spend their lives in good things," while the Lord says: "Depart from me, O wicked ones; I do not wish to know their ways, for the lamp of the impious will be extinguished, and they will groan in sorrow in their life. They will be like chaff, which is snatched by the wind, or like dust, which is whirled by the storm; but let the eyes of those see death." Since I know that the Lord has said these things about them, know that none of you can restrain me from speaking. Why does the most glorious Job say this?

unless he knew that very many indeed act wickedly and yet are not immediately punished, but are reserved for this: that they either correct themselves or certainly after death feel the penalties of their sins, feel what it meant not to have sought God, not to have served him while there was opportunity, by believing in him alone and serving him to merit him. Now, I believe, convinced by the testimony of such a man, you cease to say that you acted justly in removing the Lord’s priests and ordaining even men of the Arian faith and ordering the faith of the Arian dogma to be preached, that you proscribed and deported and applied tortures and killed those believing in the only Son of God; you will cease, I say, to say that you live and flourish in the kingdom because of those deeds and are still doing them, when you hear the just man Job saying, whom God declared served him without complaint, whom he proclaimed his true worshiper, that although very many act impiously, yet they live in this life as pleasantly as possible. Deign still to receive what he says below about you impious ones, and learn how, while you act wickedly, you are for the time being spared, and present yourself to God through penance. I did not know that such darkness would come before my face. Why then, Lord, could I not hide for one hour; but the impious cross into foreign territories, and they have seized flocks of sheep with their shepherds and afflicted the orphans’ cattle and taken the widow’s ox as a pledge.

they cut down the grain in a field not their own before the proper time, and they compelled men to work in their vineyards without pay. And they despoiled many and took bread from the hungry, and they besieged many throats, and they did not understand the way of righteousness. Let their portion be cursed on earth. For what hope is there for impious men, or what access can they have before the Lord? But even if they grow strong, they will come to destitution, and those who remain from them will die an evil death, and no one will pity their widows, and if they amass gold or silver like mud, all these things the just will possess. Therefore, Emperor, do not deign to flatter yourself unjustly, because you are such as we have asserted, and you think that you, a murderer and a sacrilegious man, live so long in this life because your deeds are acceptable to God. Your deeds are like those of the men against whom the Holy Spirit inveighs through the mouth of Isaiah, saying: Thus says the Lord who freed you, the Holy One of Israel: I am God; I showed you the way in which you should walk; and if you had heeded my commandments, your peace would have been like a river and your justice like the waves of the sea, and your seed and the children of your womb would have been like the sand of the sea.

But, you say, these things were said to the Jews—indeed, to those whose imitator you have made yourself. And now, as has been said repeatedly, change your evil ways, believe as the holy Church believes, and in all things He will be propitious to you. For He Himself says: "Return to Me with your whole heart, and at the same time with fasting and weeping and lamentation, and rend your hearts, not your garments." Return with your whole heart to God, acquiesce in these salutary remedies for perceiving the understanding of your crime, open the eyes of your heart, groan with your whole heart, gathering that you have sinned so grievously; then He who says, "When you have turned and groaned, then you will be safe and will know where you were," will have mercy on you. Remember that the prophet, dedicated to God, said: "I do not desire the death of the dying, says the Lord, so much as that he should return and live." Do not now suppose that, because your works are evil, you think you act well, why you have not immediately received the penalties for your deeds, but consider that it is written that the Lord is patient, so that you may repent. Do not say: "I have sinned, and what sad thing has happened to me?" For the Most High is a patient avenger. Hear also the blessed Paul inviting you to God, opening to you for placating Him, that He is patient for this reason and the merits of your works are not immediately presented, because He wishes you finally to emerge from evils through penitence, through true satisfaction. Do you despise the endurance of His goodness and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to penitence?

But you, according to your hardness and your impenitent heart, are storing up for yourself wrath on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God, who will render to each according to his work. Return, Constantius, to God; against the brigandage of your inner enemy, take up the arms of penance; flee the pernicious praise of flatterers, who were not worthy to say to you what they have within themselves; remember that the Lord said through the mouth of Isaiah: "Those who call you happy lead you into error and disturb the path of your feet." Believe in the only Son of God, receive pardon for your crimes; repeat what the Psalmist says: "Who will confess to you in the underworld?" and again: "Will dust make confession to you?" Return to God, groan over your crimes; hear the voice of the Lord speaking through Jeremiah: "Does not he who falls rise again, or he who turns away turn back?" You fell on the day you denied the Son of God; you will rise in the hour you have confessed. Since the enemy's wound has settled in you, entrust yourself to be treated by medicine; apply the remedy to yourself. You wounded yourself by saying: "He is not the true Son of God"; you will heal yourself again if you say as we say and believe that He is the true Son of God. "Return," says Joel, "to the Lord your God, for He is merciful, and pious, and patient, and of great compassion, and who turns aside the sentence against the malice that has been inflicted.

If you should consider this promised indulgence for your dead to be rejected, you will desire to obtain it there, where you will receive nothing but the torments of punishments.