De idolatria

The principal crime of the human race, the supreme guilt of the world, the whole cause of the judgment, is idolatry. For although each sin holds its own species, although each is also assigned by its own name to judgment, yet it is reckoned under the crime of idolatry. Set aside the titles, examine the deeds: the idolater is likewise a murderer. You ask whom he has slain? If it makes anything to the ambition of the indictment, no stranger, nor enemy, but his own self. By what snares? By those of his own error. With what weapon? By the offence against God. With how many blows? With as many as there are idolatries. He who denies that the idolater has perished will deny that the idolater has committed murder. So too you may recognize adultery and fornication in the same man; for he who serves false gods is without doubt an adulterer against the truth, because every false thing is adultery. So too he is plunged in fornication. For who that is a fellow-worker with unclean spirits walks abroad unbefouled and unviolated? And accordingly the holy Scriptures use the term of fornication in their reproach of idolatry. The condition of fraud is this, I suppose: if a man should rob another, or deny to another what is owed; and surely fraud committed against a man bears the name of a most grievous crime. But idolatry commits fraud against God, denying to him his honours and conferring them upon others, so that to its fraud it joins insult as well. But if fraud, no less than fornication and adultery, brings death, then in these too idolatry is equally not acquitted of the charge of murder. After such crimes, so destructive, so devouring of salvation, the other sins also—disposed in some measure and separately—nonetheless represent their condition within idolatry. In it are also the lusts of the world. For what solemnity of idolatry is there without ambition of dress and adornment? In it are wantonness and drunkenness, since for the most part they are frequented for the sake of food and the belly and lust. In it is injustice. For what is more unjust than that which knows not the Father of justice? In it too is vanity, since its whole rationale is vain. In it is falsehood, since its whole substance is false. So it comes about that all things are found in idolatry, and idolatry in all things. But on the other hand, since all sins savour against God, and nothing that savours against God is not reckoned to the demons and unclean spirits to whom the idols are made over, without doubt whoever sins commits idolatry. For he does that which belongs to the proprietors of idols.

But let all the names of crimes withdraw into the properties of their own works, and let idolatry remain in that which it itself is. A name so hostile to God, a substance of crime so rich, is sufficient for itself—which puts forth so many branches, diffuses so many veins, that on this very subject the present material is taken up: in how many ways the breadth of idolatry must be guarded against by us, since in manifold fashion it subverts the servants of God, not only when unobserved, but even when winked at. Very many think that idolatry is to be interpreted simply in these ways only: if a man either burns incense, or sacrifices, or offers a feast-offering, or binds himself by some sacred rites or priesthoods—just as if a man should think that adultery is to be reckoned only in kisses and embraces and in the very meeting of the flesh, or murder to be accounted only in the shedding of blood and the snatching away of life. But how much more widely the Lord disposes these things, we are certain, since he marks out adultery even in concupiscence, if a man has cast his eye lustfully and has stirred his soul shamelessly; since he judges murder even in a word of cursing or reviling, and in every onset of anger, and in the neglect of love toward a brother—even as John teaches that he is a murderer who hates his brother. Otherwise both the devil's craft of malice and the Lord God's discipline, by which he fortifies us against the heights of the devil, would consist in a small thing, if we were judged only in those sins which even the nations have decreed should be punished. How shall our righteousness abound above the scribes and Pharisees, as the Lord has prescribed, unless we have discerned the abundance of its adversary, that is, of unrighteousness? But if idolatry is the head of unrighteousness, then it is first that we should be fore-armed against the abundance of idolatry, while we recognize it not only in its manifest forms.

For some while back, in earlier times, there was no idol. Before the craftsmen of this monster had boiled up, there were only temples and empty shrines, just as even today in certain places the traces of antiquity remain. Yet idolatry was being carried on, not under that name, but in that very work. For even today it can be carried on outside a temple and without an idol. But when the devil brought into the world the craftsmen of statues and images and of every kind of likeness, that rude business of human calamity received both its name and its growth from idols. From then on every art that in any way produces an idol became the head of idolatry. For it makes no difference whether a modeller shapes it, or a graver carves it out, or an embroiderer weaves it; nor does the material matter—whether the idol be formed of plaster, or of colours, or of stone, or of bronze, or of silver, or of thread. For since idolatry can be carried on even without an idol, surely, when an idol is present, it makes no difference of what kind it is, of what material, of what figure—lest anyone suppose that to be alone held an idol which is consecrated in human shape. For this an interpretation of the word is necessary. Eidos in Greek means "form"; from it, by diminution, eidolon was derived, which likewise has made for us the word "formling." Therefore every form or formling demands to be called an idol. Hence idolatry is all attendance and servitude about every idol. Hence too every craftsman of an idol is guilty of the same and the one crime, unless the people committed too little of idolatry who consecrated to themselves the likeness of a calf, and not of a man.

God forbids an idol both to be made and to be worshipped. By how much it precedes—that there should be made what may be worshipped—by so much it is the prior thing, that it should not be made, if it is not lawful to be worshipped. For this cause, namely to root out the very material of idolatry, the divine law proclaims, "You shall not make an idol," and joining to it, "Nor the likeness of those things which are in heaven and which are in earth and which are in the sea," it has interdicted to the servants of God arts of this kind throughout the whole world. Enoch had gone before, foretelling that the demons and the spirits of the deserting angels would turn all the elements, all the census of the world—whatever is contained in heaven, in sea, in earth—into idolatry, so that they should be consecrated in the place of God against God. Therefore human error worships all things except the very Founder of all. Their images are idols, the consecration of the images is idolatry. Whatever idolatry commits, must of necessity be reckoned to the craftsman, whoever he be, of whatever idol. In fine, the same Enoch fore-condemns in his threatening both the worshippers and the fabricators of the idol together. And again: "I swear to you, sinners, that against the day of perdition of blood repentance is prepared. You who serve stones, and who make images of gold and silver and wood and stone and clay, and serve phantoms and demons and spirits in the shrines, and all errors not according to knowledge—you shall find no help from them." But Isaiah says, "You are witnesses, whether there be a God besides me. And there were not then those who fashion and carve—all vain, who do their own pleasures, which shall not profit them." And thereafter that whole pronouncement which detests both the craftsmen and the worshippers. Its conclusion is, "Know that their heart is ashes and earth, and no one can free his own soul." Where likewise David condemns the makers too: "Such become they," he says, "who make these things." And what shall I, a man of slender memory, suggest further? what shall I recall from the Scriptures? As if either the voice of the Holy Spirit were not sufficient, or it should be deliberated further whether the Lord has cursed and condemned, first of all, the very craftsmen of those things whose worshippers he curses and condemns.

Plainly we shall answer the more emphatically to the excuses of craftsmen of this kind, who ought never to be admitted into the house of God, if anyone knows that discipline. Now that voice which is wont to be objected, "I have nothing else by which to live," can be struck back more strictly: "Have you then to live? What have you to do with God, if you live by your own laws?" Then, because they dare to argue even from the Scriptures, that the apostle said, "As each was found, so let him persevere"—we may therefore all persevere in sins by that interpretation. For no one of us was found other than a sinner, since Christ descended for no other cause than to free sinners. Likewise they say the same apostle enjoined, according to his own example, that each should work with his own hands for his living. If this precept is defended on behalf of all hands, I believe that bath-thieves too live by their own hands, and that robbers themselves ply their living with their hands, and likewise that forgers work their evil letters surely not with their feet but with their hands, and that actors elaborate their living not with their hands alone but with all their members. Let the Church then lie open to all who are sustained by their hands and their own work, if there is no exception of the arts which God's discipline does not receive. But someone says, against the proposition of the forbidden likeness: "Why then did Moses in the wilderness make a likeness of a serpent out of bronze?" Apart stand figures which were prepared beforehand for some secret arrangement, not for the impairing of the law, but for the exemplifying of their own cause. Otherwise, if we interpret these things as adversaries of the law, do we not also—what even the Marcionites do—ascribe inconstancy to the Almighty, whom they in this manner destroy as mutable, since in one place he forbids, in another commands? But if anyone disguises the fact that that effigy of the bronze serpent, hung up after the manner, designated the figure of the Lord's cross, which was to free us from serpents, that is, from the angels of the devil, while it hung up the devil, that is, the serpent, slain through itself—or whatever other exposition of that figure has been revealed to the more worthy—provided the apostle affirms that all these things then happened to the people in figure, it is well that the same God who by the law forbade the making of a likeness, by an extraordinary precept forbade the likeness of a serpent. If you observe the same God, you have his law, "You shall not make a likeness." If you also regard the precept of the likeness afterwards made, do you too imitate Moses: make no likeness against the law, unless God has bidden you also.

If no law of God had forbidden idols to be made by us, if no voice of the Holy Spirit threatened the fabricators of idols no less than the worshippers, from our very sacrament we should interpret for ourselves that arts of this kind are adverse to the faith. For how have we renounced the devil and his angels, if we make them? What repudiation have we declared to those—I do not say with whom, but from whom—we live? What discord have we taken up against those to whom, for the sake of our maintenance, we are bound? Can you have denied with your tongue what you confess with your hand? destroy by word what you build by deed? proclaim one God, you who make so many? proclaim the true God, you who make false ones? "I make them," says someone, "but I do not worship them"—as though for some cause he dared not to worship, save that for which he ought also not to make them, namely, on account of the offence against God in either case. Nay, you worship them, you who make them so that they may be worshipped. And you worship not with the breath of some most vile reek, but with your own; nor at the cost of a beast's life, but of your own life. Upon them you immolate your talent; to them you pour out your sweat; for them you kindle your skill. You are more to them than a priest, since through you they have a priest; your diligence is their godhead. Do you deny that you worship what you make? But they do not deny it, to whom you slay this fatter and greater victim—your own salvation.

The whole day long the zeal of faith will plead to this purpose, groaning that a Christian should come from idols into the Church, should come from the adversary's workshop into the house of God, should raise up to God the Father hands that are mothers of idols, should adore with these hands which abroad are adored against God, should apply to the body of the Lord those hands which confer bodies upon demons. Nor is this enough. Let it be too little that they receive from other hands what they pollute, but they themselves also hand over to others what they have polluted. The craftsmen of idols are chosen into the ecclesiastical order. O wickedness! Once the Jews laid hands upon Christ; these men daily assail his body. O hands that should be cut off! Let it now be considered whether it was said by way of likeness: "If your hand offends you, cut it off." What hands more deserve to be cut off than those in which the body of the Lord is offended?

There are also other species of very many arts which, though they do not touch the fabrication of idols, yet despatch with the same crime those things without which idols can do nothing. For it makes no difference whether you build up or adorn, if you have constructed a temple, an altar, or a shrine for an idol, if you have wrought a gold-leaf plate, or insignia, or even built its house. Work of this kind is greater, which confers not the effigy but the authority. If the necessity of maintenance is so far stretched, they have other species too which, without aberration from discipline—that is, without the fashioning of an idol—afford help of livelihood. The plasterer knows both to repair roofs and to lay on stucco-work and to coat a cistern and to spread cornices and to roughen on the walls many other ornaments besides images. The painter too knows it, and the marble-worker, and the bronze-worker, and whatever engraver—his own scope is surely much easier. For he who delineates a statue, how much more easily does he draw a side-board? He who carves a Mars out of lime-wood, how much more quickly does he put together a cabinet? No art is not either neighbour to another art or kin to it. Nothing is free of another. The veins of the arts are as many as the lusts of men. But there is a difference as to wages and the prices of one's hand. Accordingly there is a difference too as to labour. A smaller wage is recompensed by more frequent custom. How many walls demand images? How many temples and shrines are built for idols? But how many houses, and praetoria, and baths, and tenement-blocks? The slipper and the sandal are gilded daily; Mercury and Serapis not daily. Let this suffice for the gain of the crafts. More frequent than all superstition are luxury and ambition. Dishes and goblets ambition will demand more readily than superstition. Crowns too luxury rather than solemnity lays out. When therefore we exhort men to these kinds of crafts which do not touch the idol nor the things that belong to the idol, but which are often common to men as well as to idols—we ought to beware of this also: that nothing, with our knowledge, be demanded from anyone out of our hands for the service of idols. But if we should concede this, and not act by remedies so customary, I do not think we are free from the contagion of idolatry, we whose hands, not in ignorance, are caught in the service or in the honour and use of demons.

We observe among the arts also certain professions liable to idolatry. Of astrologers there is no need even to speak. But since one in these days has come forward defending for himself the continuance of that profession, I will use a few words. I do not allege that he honours idols, whose names he has inscribed upon heaven, to whom he has assigned all the power of God, so that for this reason men think God is not to be sought after, presuming that we are driven by the immutable arbitrament of the stars. One thing I set forth: that those are the angels who deserted God, lovers of women, betrayers also of this very curiosity, and on that account too condemned by God. O divine sentence, persistent even down to earth, to which even the ignorant render testimony! The astrologers are expelled, like their angels. The City and Italy are interdicted to astrologers, as heaven to their angels. The same penalty of banishment is for the disciples and the masters. "But the Magi and the astrologers came from the East." We know the partnership of magic and astrology between themselves. The interpreters of the stars, then, were the first to announce Christ's birth, the first to present gifts. By this name, I suppose, they bound Christ to themselves. What then? Shall therefore the religion of those Magi now also be a patron to astrologers? Forsooth, astrology today is of Christ, observing and proclaiming the star of Christ, not of Saturn and Mars and any other of the same order of the dead. But that science was conceded only up to the gospel, so that, Christ being brought forth, no one thereafter should interpret anyone's nativity from heaven. For that frankincense too, and the myrrh and the gold, they then offered to the infant Lord as a closing-off of secular sacrifice and glory, which Christ was about to take away. What therefore prompted those same Magi—without doubt by God's will—to go into their own country, but by another way, not by that by which they had come: namely, that they should not walk in their former sect; not lest Herod should pursue them, who did not even pursue them, being ignorant too that they had departed by another way, since he was ignorant even of the way by which they had come. And so we ought to understand "the right way" and discipline. Therefore the Magi were commanded thenceforth to walk otherwise. So too that other species of magic, which works by miracles, even rivalling Moses, drew on the patience of God as far as the gospel. For thence Simon Magus, now at last a believer—since he still thought somewhat of his juggling sect, namely, that among the miracles of his profession he might also peddle the Holy Spirit by the imposition of hands—was cursed by the apostles and cast out of the faith; and the other Magus, who was with Sergius Paulus—since he opposed the same apostles—was punished with the loss of his sight. This too, I believe, astrologers would have suffered, if any had fallen in with the apostles. Nevertheless, since magic is punished, of which astrology is a species, surely the species too is condemned in its genus. After the gospel you will nowhere find either sophists or Chaldeans or enchanters or diviners or magicians, except plainly as punished. "Where is the wise man? where the man of letters? where the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" You know nothing, astrologer, if you did not know that you were to be a Christian. If you knew it, you ought to have known this too: that you would have nothing to do with that profession. The very thing that pre-sings the climacterics of others would have instructed you concerning its own peril. You have no part nor lot in this account. He cannot hope for the kingdoms of heaven whose finger or rod abuses heaven.

But inquiry must be made also concerning schoolmasters, and likewise concerning the other professors of letters. Nay, it must not be doubted that they are akin to manifold idolatry. First, because it is necessary for them to proclaim the gods of the nations, to enunciate their names, genealogies, fables, and all their honourable adornments; then to observe the solemnities and festivals of those same gods, since by them they reckon up their revenues. What schoolmaster, even so, will frequent the Quinquatria without a tablet of the seven idols? The very first contribution of a new pupil he consecrates to the honour and name of Minerva, so that, although he be not pronounced, in word, to be profaned to some idol, partaking of idol-meat, he is shunned as an idolater. What is there of less defilement in it than the gain dedicated by the names and honours to an idol? As are the Minervalia to Minerva, so are the Saturnalia to Saturn, which it is necessary to celebrate even for the little slaves at the time of the Saturnalia. New-year's gifts too must be caught at, and the Septimontium, and the Bruma, and the keepsakes of dear kindred must all be exacted, the school must be crowned with flowers; the flamen's wives and the aediles sacrifice, the school is honoured with holidays appointed. The same is done on an idol's birthday; every pomp of the devil is frequented. Who will think these things befit a Christian, save he who shall think they befit even one who is not a master? We know it may be said: "If it is not lawful for God's servants to teach letters, neither will it be lawful to learn them; and how would anyone be trained meanwhile to human prudence, or to any sense or act, since literature is the instrument for all life? How do we repudiate secular studies, without which divine things are impossible?" Let us see, then, the necessity of literary erudition; let us look at it on one side, that it cannot be admitted, on the other, that it can be avoided. It is fitter for the faithful to learn letters than to teach them; for the rationale of learning and of teaching is diverse. If a believer teaches letters, while teaching he without doubt commends the praises of idols inserted in them; while he hands them on, he affirms them; while he commemorates, he gives testimony. He sets his seal upon the very gods by this name, whereas the law forbids, as we have said, that gods be pronounced and that this name be set in vain. Hence the first faith is built up for the devil from the very beginnings of erudition. Ask whether he commits idolatry who catechizes about idols. But when a believer learns these things, if he already understands what idolatry is, he neither receives nor admits them—much more if he does not yet understand. Or when he has begun to understand, he ought first to understand what he learned first, that is, concerning God and the faith. Accordingly he will reject those things and not receive them, and he will be as safe as one who knowingly receives poison from one ignorant of it, and does not drink it. To this man necessity is reckoned for excuse, because he cannot otherwise learn. But it is by so much easier not to teach letters than not to learn them, by how much also the faithful pupil will more easily not approach the other defilements of the schools, those of public and private solemnities, than the master will not frequent them.

If, under the head of origins, we consider the rest of the sins—first, "covetousness, the root of all evils," by which certain men, entangled, have suffered shipwreck concerning the faith (although idolatry too is called by the same apostle "covetousness"); then falsehood, the minister of covetousness (I say nothing of perjury, since it is not even lawful to swear)—is trade fit for a servant of God? But if covetousness departs, what is the cause of acquiring? With the cause of acquiring ceasing, there will be no necessity of trading. Grant now that there is some honest gain, secure as to the observance of covetousness and falsehood—I think that it offends into the crime of idolatry, which pertains to the very soul and spirit of idols, which fattens every demon. Surely—is not that the principal idolatry? Let them look to it, if the same merchandise—frankincense, I mean, and the other foreign wares—a sacrifice for the idols, is of use also to men for medicinal pigments, and to us besides for the consolations of burial. Certainly, when the pomps, the priesthoods, the sacrifices of idols are furnished out of dangers, out of losses, out of inconveniences, out of plans, out of journeyings or tradings—what else are you shown to be than a procurer of idols? Let no one contend that in this way controversy can be made of all tradings. The graver sins, each in proportion to the magnitude of the peril, extend the diligence of observance, so that we should depart not only from these but also from those things through which they are done. For though it be done by others, it makes no difference, if through me. In nothing ought I to be necessary to another, when he does what is not lawful for me. From this, that I am forbidden to do, I ought to understand that I must take care that it be not done through me. In short, in another cause of no lighter guilt I observe this very fore-judgment. For because fornication is interdicted to me, I afford to others neither labour nor connivance toward that thing. For because I have segregated my very flesh from the brothels, I acknowledge that I can practise neither pandering nor that kind of place for another's cause. So too the interdict of murder shows me that even a trainer of gladiators is to be kept from the Church: nor will he not himself do that which he supplies to be done by another. Behold a still nearer fore-judgment. If a contractor of public victims should approach the faith, will you permit him to remain in that business? Or if, being already faithful, he has undertaken to do this, will you think him to be retained in the Church? Not, I think, unless one shall also wink at the incense-seller. Forsooth, the procuring of blood comes to some, the procuring of odours to others. If, before idols existed in the world, idolatry was transacted, as yet formless, by these wares; if even now the work of idolatry is for the most part perpetrated without an idol by the burnings of odours—then the incense-seller is of even greater service, and that toward the demons. For more easily is there idolatry without an idol than without the incense-seller's merchandise. Let us thoroughly question the conscience of faith itself. With what countenance will a Christian incense-seller, if he pass through the temples, with what countenance will he spit upon and blow upon the smoking altars, for which he himself has provided? With what constancy will he exorcise those foster-children of his, to whom he affords his own house for a store-room? Indeed, if he should cast out a demon, let him not be pleased with himself as to his faith. For he has not cast out an enemy. He ought easily to have obtained that of one whom he daily feeds. No art, therefore, no profession, no trade which administers anything either to the constructing or to the forming of idols, can be free from the title of idolatry; unless indeed we interpret idolatry altogether otherwise than as the service of idols to be worshipped.

We flatter ourselves vainly concerning the necessities of human maintenance, if after the faith has been sealed we say, "I have nothing by which to live." For here now I will answer more fully to that abrupt proposition. It is said too late. For deliberation should have been made beforehand, after the likeness of that most provident builder who first reckons up the cost of the work with his own resources, lest, when he has begun, being afterwards exhausted, he should blush. But even now you have the Lord's spoken examples taking away from you every excuse. For what do you say? "I shall be in want." But the Lord calls the needy blessed. "I shall not have food." But, "Be not anxious," he says, "about food"; and for clothing we have the lilies for an example. "I had need of substance." But all things are to be sold and divided among the needy. "But I must provide for my children and posterity." No one putting his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the work. "But I was under a contract." No one can serve two masters. If you wish to be the Lord's disciple, you must needs take up your cross and follow the Lord—that is, your straits and your torments, or your body alone, which is in the manner of a cross. Parents, spouses, children must be left for God's sake. Do you hesitate about arts and tradings and professions even for the sake of children and parents? It was even then demonstrated to us that both pledges and crafts and businesses must be forsaken for the Lord's sake, when James and John, called by the Lord, forsake both father and ship; when Matthew is raised up from the toll-booth; when even to bury a father was too slow for faith. None of those whom the Lord chose said, "I have nothing by which to live." Faith fears not hunger. It knows that hunger too is to be despised by it, for God's sake, no less than every kind of death. It has learned not to regard life—how much more, livelihood? How few have fulfilled these things! But the things that are difficult with men are easy with God. Yet, if we are to flatter ourselves with the gentleness and clemency of God, let us not so far indulge necessities as to come to the affinities of idolatry; but let us shun its every breath, as a pestilence, even from afar—not only in those matters which we have premised, but in the whole series of human superstition, whether it be enslaved to its own gods, or to the dead, or to kings, as pertaining to the same unclean spirits—now through sacrifices and priesthoods, now through spectacles and the like, now through festal days.

But of sacrifices and of priesthoods what shall I say? And concerning spectacles and pleasures of this kind we have already filled a volume of our own. In this place it behoves to treat again of festal days and other extraordinary solemnities, which we sometimes subscribe to our own wantonness, sometimes to our own timidity, against the faith and the common discipline. On this point indeed I will first take my stand: whether a servant of God ought to communicate with the nations themselves in things of this kind, whether in dress, or in food, or in any other manner of their gladness. "To rejoice with the rejoicing and to mourn with the mourning" was said by the apostle of the brethren, exhorting to unanimity. But as for these things, "there is no communion of light with darkness," of life and death; else we rend that which is written, "The world shall rejoice, but you shall mourn." If we rejoice with the world, it is to be feared lest we mourn too with the world. But let us mourn while the world rejoices, and we shall afterwards rejoice when the world mourns. So too Eleazar, having obtained refreshment in hell in the bosom of Abraham, while on the contrary the rich man was set in the torment of fire—they recompense the alternate turns of evils and goods by an emulous retribution. There are certain days of gifts, which with some discharge the title of honour, with others the debt of payment. "Now then," you say, "I shall receive my own, or repay another's." If men have consecrated this custom to themselves out of superstition, why do you, a stranger to all their vanity, share in idol-meat solemnities, as though it were prescribed to you too concerning a day, that you should not, apart from the observance of the day, pay or receive what you owe to a man or is owed to you by a man? Give the form by which you would have men deal with you. For why should you even lurk hidden, when by another's ignorance you contaminate your own conscience? If you are not unknown to be a Christian, you are tempted and act against another's conscience as though not a Christian; but if you are also disguised, you are made over, having been tempted. Certainly, whether this way or that, you are guilty of confusion before God. "But whoever shall be ashamed of me before men, I also will be ashamed of him," he says, "before my Father who is in heaven."

But indeed very many have now brought their mind to think that it must be allowed, if ever, to do what the heathen do, lest the Name be blasphemed. Now blasphemy, which is in every way to be shunned by us, is this, I think: if any of us should lead a heathen to just blasphemy, either by fraud or injury or insult, or by any other matter of worthy complaint, in which the Name is deservedly struck at, so that the Lord too is deservedly angered. But if of every blasphemy it was said, "On your account my Name is blasphemed," we all perish, since the whole circus assails the Name by wicked acclamations with no desert of ours. Let us cease, and it will not be blasphemed. Nay, while we exist, let it be blasphemed—in the observance, not in the aberration of discipline; while we are approved, not while we are reproved. O blasphemy akin to martyrdom, which then bears witness that I am a Christian, when on that very account it detests me! It is a blessing of the Name—the cursing of a discipline kept. "If I wished to please men," he says, "I should not be the servant of Christ." But the same elsewhere bids, "Let us take care to please all. As I," he says, "please all in all things." Forsooth, was it by celebrating the Saturnalia and the Kalends of January that he pleased men? or by modesty and patience? by gravity, by humanity, by integrity? Accordingly, when he says, "I am made all things to all men, that I may gain all," is he an idolater to idolaters? a heathen to the heathen? a worldling to worldlings? But although he does not forbid us to converse with idolaters and adulterers and the other criminal—saying, "Else you would go out of the world"—he does not for that loosen those reins of intercourse, so that, because it is necessary both to live together and to mingle with sinners, we should therefore be able also to sin together. Where there is the intercourse of life, which the apostle concedes, there to sin, which no one permits. It is lawful to live with the heathen; to die with them it is not lawful. Let us live with all; let us rejoice together out of the communion of nature, not of superstition. We are equal in soul, not in discipline; co-possessors of the world, not of error. But if we have no right of communion in things of this kind with strangers, how much more wicked is it to frequent these things among brethren? Who can endure or defend this? The Holy Spirit reproaches the Jews with their festal days. "Your sabbaths," he says, "and new moons and ceremonies my soul hates." Among us, to whom sabbaths are foreign, and new moons and the feasts once beloved of God, the Saturnalia and the Kalends of January and the Bruma and the Matronalia are frequented; gifts go to and fro, new-year's presents, games resound, banquets clatter. O the better faith of the nations to their own sect, which claims for itself no solemnity of the Christians! Not the Lord's day, not Pentecost—even if they had known them—would they have shared with us; for they would fear lest they should seem Christians. We are not afraid lest we be pronounced heathen! If anything is to be indulged to the flesh, you have it—I will not say your own days only, but more besides. For to the heathen each festal day is yearly once; to you, every eighth day. Pick out the several solemnities of the nations and set them out in order: they will not be able to fill up a Pentecost.

"But let your works shine," he says. But now our shops and door-posts shine. You will now find more doorways of heathen without lamps and laurels than of Christians. As to this species too, what is the view? If it is an honour to an idol, without doubt the honour of an idol is idolatry. If it is for a man's sake, let us consider that all idolatry is for a man's sake. Let us consider that all idolatry is the worship of men, since it is agreed, even among their own, that the very gods of the nations were formerly men. And so it makes no difference whether that superstition be rendered to the men of an earlier or of this age. Idolatry was condemned not on account of the persons who are objected, but on account of those offices which pertain to demons. "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." Well that he added, "and the things that are God's to God." What then are Caesar's? Namely, those things about which consultation was then raised—whether tribute should be paid to Caesar or not. Therefore the Lord asked too that a coin should be shown him, and inquired about the image, whose it was; and when he had heard that it was Caesar's, "Render," he said, "the things that are Caesar's to Caesar, and the things that are God's to God"—that is, the image of Caesar to Caesar, which is on the coin, and the image of God to God, which is in man; so that you render to Caesar indeed money, to God yourself. Otherwise, what will be God's, if all things are Caesar's? "Then," you say, "is it an honour to God, lamps before the doors and laurel on the door-posts?" Not indeed because it is an honour to God, but because it is to him who is honoured in God's stead by offices of this kind—as far as is in the open, the operation that is in secret reaching to demons being saved. For we ought to be certain, in case it escapes any through ignorance of secular literature, that even the gods of doors among the Romans—Cardea, named from hinges, and Forculus from doors, and Limentinus from the threshold, and Janus himself from the door—and surely we know that, although the names be empty and feigned, yet, when they are brought into superstition, they snatch to themselves the demons and every unclean spirit by the bond of consecration. Otherwise the demons have no name singly, but they find a name there where they also find a pledge. Even among the Greeks we read of Apollo Thyraeos and the Antelian demons, presidents of doors. Therefore the Holy Spirit, foreseeing this from the beginning, foresang through the most ancient prophet Enoch that even doors would come into superstition. For we see other doors too adored in the baths. But if there are those who are adored in doors, to them too the lamps and the laurels will belong. To an idol you will have done whatever you do to a door. In this place I call to witness even by the authority of God, because it is not even safe to suppress whatever has been shown to one surely for the cause of all. I know a brother severely chastised through a vision on that same night, because his slaves had suddenly crowned his gate when public rejoicings were announced. And yet he himself had neither crowned it nor commanded it; for he had gone forth before, and on returning had reproved the deed. So greatly are we estimated before God in things of this kind, even as to the discipline of our household. Therefore, as concerns the honours of kings or emperors, we have prescription enough: that we ought to be in all obedience, according to the apostle's precept, subject to magistrates and princes and powers—but within the limits of discipline, so far as we are kept separate from idolatry. For on this account also that example of the three brethren went before, who, otherwise obedient toward King Nebuchadnezzar, most constantly refused the honour of his image, proving that to be idolatry whatever is exalted beyond the measure of human honour after the likeness of divine sublimity. So too Daniel, in all else supported by Darius, was in office so long as he was free from peril to discipline. For, that he might not undergo this, he feared the king's lions no more than they the king's fires. Let them then daily kindle lamps, who have no light; let them affix to their door-posts laurels presently to be burnt, over whom fires hang; for them are fitting both the testimonies of darkness and the auspices of penalties. You are the light of the world, and the tree ever green. If you have renounced temples, make not your gate a temple. I have said too little: if you have renounced brothels, put not upon your house the face of a new brothel.

But concerning the offices of private and common solemnities—such as those of the pure toga, of betrothals, of nuptials, of the giving of names—I should not think there is any peril to be observed from the breath of idolatry which intervenes. For the causes are to be considered for which the office is rendered. These I think to be clean in themselves, since neither manly dress nor the ring nor the marital conjunction descends from the honour of any idol. In fine, I find no dress cursed by God, save a woman's upon a man. "For cursed," he says, "is everyone who is clothed in women's garb." But the toga is even of manly appellation. Nuptials, too, God no more forbids to be celebrated than a name to be imposed. But to these sacrifices are attached. If I am invited, and there be no title of sacrifice in the office, the discharge of my service is as free as it pleases. Would that it were as free indeed for itself, that we might not even see what it is impious for us to do. But since the evil one has so encompassed the world with idolatry, it will be lawful to be present at certain things which keep us officious to a man, not to an idol. Plainly, invited to a priesthood and to a sacrifice, I will not go—for that is the proper office of an idol—but neither by counsel nor by expense nor by any other service will I be employed in such a thing. If, being invited for the sacrifice's sake, I should attend, I shall be a partaker of idolatry; if another cause joins me to the one sacrificing, I shall be only a spectator of the sacrifice.

But what shall faithful servants or freedmen do, and likewise officials, attending on their sacrificing masters or patrons or governors? Why, if a man hands the wine to one sacrificing, nay, if by some word too he assists a necessary sacrifice, he will be held a minister of idolatry. Mindful of this rule, we can render office even to magistrates and powers, after the example of the patriarchs and the rest of the elders, who attended on idolatrous kings up to the end of idolatry. Hence very lately a dispute has arisen, whether a servant of God may take the administration of any dignity or power, if he can keep himself, either by some favour or by some shrewdness, untouched by every species of idolatry—according as both Joseph and Daniel, clean from idolatry, administered both dignity and power in the ornament and purple of the prefecture of all Egypt or Babylonia. Let us grant, then, that one can succeed to some office, so as to walk in any honour in the bare name of honour only, and neither sacrifice, nor lend his authority to sacrifices, nor let out victims, nor delegate the care of temples, nor procure their revenues, nor exhibit spectacles at his own or the public cost, nor preside over their exhibiting, nor pronounce or proclaim anything solemn, nor even swear; and as for what belongs to power, neither judge concerning anyone's life or honour—for you might bear it as to money—nor condemn nor fore-condemn, bind no one, shut up or torture no one—if it is credible that this can be done.

But now we must treat of the mere platform and trappings of honour. There is a proper dress for each man, as much for daily use as for honour and dignity. Therefore that purple and the gold ornament of the neck were among the Egyptians and Babylonians badges of dignity in the same manner as now the bordered robes, or the embroidered ones, or the palm-broidered, and the golden crowns of provincial priests—but not on the same condition. For they were conferred only in the name of honour upon those who deserved the familiarity of kings. Whence too the king's intimates were called "purpled" from the purple, just as among us "candidates" from the white toga; but not so that that platform should be bound also to priesthoods or to any offices of idols. For if it were so, surely men of such great holiness and constancy would at once have refused the defiled dress, and it would at once have appeared that Daniel had not served idols, that he worshipped neither Bel nor the dragon—which appeared much later. The simple purple, then, was not yet of dignity, but the badge of free birth among the barbarians. For just as both Joseph, who had been a slave, and Daniel, who through captivity had changed his state, attained to the city of Babylon and to Egypt by the dress of barbarian free birth, so among us too the faithful, if it be necessary, may grant both to boys the bordered toga and the boyish robe, the badges of birth, not of power; of race, not of honour; of rank, not of superstition. But the purple, or the other badges of dignities and powers, dedicated from the beginning to a dignity and powers wherein idolatry is inserted, have the stain of their own profanation, since moreover the very idols too are clothed with the bordered and embroidered robes and the broad stripe; the fasces too and the rods are borne before them, and rightly. For the demons are the magistrates of this world; they bear the insignia of one and the same college, the fasces and the purples. What then will you gain, if you use the platform indeed, but do not administer its works? No one can seem clean among the unclean. If you put on a tunic defiled in itself, perhaps it may not be defiled by you, but you cannot through it be clean. And now, you who argue from Joseph and Daniel, know that the old and the new are not always to be compared, the rude and the polished, the begun and the unfolded, the servile and the free. For those men were even by condition slaves; but you, the slave of no one, inasmuch as you are of Christ alone, who has freed you even from the captivity of the world, ought to act after the Lord's pattern. That Lord walked in humility and obscurity, uncertain of a dwelling—for "the Son of man," he says, "has not where to lay his head"; unadorned in dress, for else he would not have said, "Behold, they who are clothed in soft raiment are in the houses of kings"; inglorious, finally, in countenance and aspect, as Isaiah too had foretold. If he exercised the right of power not even over his own, on whom he discharged the function of a lowly ministry; if, finally, conscious of his own kingdom, he fled from being made a king, he most fully gave a pattern to his own, by directing them away from every height and platform both of dignity and of power. For who would have used these more than the Son of God? What and how great fasces would have gone before him, what purple would have bloomed from his shoulders, what gold would have radiated from his head, had he not judged the glory of the world to be foreign both to himself and to his own? Therefore what he would not have, he rejected; what he rejected, he condemned; what he condemned, he reckoned in the pomp of the devil. For he would not have condemned them, save as not his own; but they could not be another's save the devil's, which are not God's. You, if you have abjured the pomp of the devil, whatever of it you touch, know that to be idolatry. Or let this admonish you, that all the powers and dignities of this world are not only foreign, but even hostile to God, in that through them punishments have been decreed against God's servants, through them too the penalties prepared for the impious are unheeded. But both your birth and your substance are troublesome to you against idolatry. Remedies for avoiding it cannot be wanting; and even if they should be wanting, there remains that one whereby you are made the more blessed—a magistrate, not on earth, but in heaven.

It may seem to be defined in this chapter also concerning military service, which is between dignity and power. But now the question is about this: whether a believer may turn to military service, and whether military service may be admitted to the faith—even the common soldier's, or any lower rank, for which there is no necessity of sacrifices or of capital judgments. There is no agreement between the divine sacrament and the human, the standard of Christ and the standard of the devil, the camp of light and the camp of darkness; one soul cannot be owed to two, to God and to Caesar. And yet Moses bore a rod, and Aaron a buckle, and John is girded with a leather belt, and Joshua the son of Nun leads a line of march, and the people warred—if it please you to trifle. But how will he war, nay, how even in peace will he serve as a soldier, without a sword, which the Lord has taken away? For although soldiers had come to John and received the form of observance, although even a centurion had believed, the Lord afterwards, in disarming Peter, ungirded every soldier. No dress is lawful among us which is assigned to an unlawful act.

But since the conduct of the divine discipline is imperilled not only by deeds but also by words—for as it is written, "Behold the man and his deeds," so too, "Out of your mouth you shall be justified"—we ought to remember that the inroad of idolatry must be guarded against even in words also, whether from the vice of custom or of timidity. The law forbids the gods of the nations to be named—not indeed that we should not pronounce their names, which intercourse wrings from us to utter. For this for the most part must be said: "You have your man in the temple of Aesculapius," and, "I dwell in the street of Isis," and, "He has been made a priest of Jupiter," and many other things in this manner, since names of this kind are imposed even on men. For I do not honour Saturn if I so call a man by his name; I honour him as little as I honour Marcus, if I call him Marcus. But it says, "Make not mention of the name of other gods, nor let it be heard out of your mouth." This he enjoined, that we should not call them gods. For also in the first part of the law, "You shall not take," he says, "the name of the Lord your God in vain"—that is, of an idol. He therefore fell into idolatry who honoured an idol with the name of God. But if "gods" must be said, something must be added by which it may appear that I do not call them gods. For Scripture too names "gods," but adds "their own" or "of the nations"; as David, when he had named "gods," where he says, "But the gods of the nations are demons." But this is rather built up for me toward what follows. For the rest, it is a vice of custom to say Mehercule, Medius Fidius—with the ignorance of certain persons coming in, who are ignorant that it is an oath by Hercules. Further, what will it be to swear by those by whom you have abjured, but a prevarication of faith with idolatry? For who does not honour those by whom he swears?

But it is a matter of timidity, when another binds you by his gods, by an oath or by some attestation, and you, that you may not be understood, keep silence. For by keeping silence equally you confirm their majesty, for whose sake you will seem to have been bound. What does it matter whether you confirm the gods of the nations by saying "gods" or by hearing it? whether you swear by idols, or, adjured by another, acquiesce? Why should we not recognize the wiles of Satan, who, what he cannot accomplish by our mouth, contrives to accomplish by the mouth of his own, bringing in idolatry to us through the ears? Certainly, whoever he be, he binds you either by a friendly or a hostile encounter. If hostile, you are already called to the fight, and you know that you must contend; if friendly, how much more safely will you transfer your pledge to the Lord, that you may dissolve the obligation of him through whom the evil one sought to attach you to the honour of idols, that is, to idolatry. All endurance of this kind is idolatry. You honour those to whom, when they have been imposed, you have rendered compliance. I know a certain man—whom may the Lord pardon—when it had been said to him in public, in a lawsuit, "May Jupiter be angry with you," who answered, "Nay, with you." What otherwise would a heathen have done, who believed Jupiter a god? Even if he had not retorted the curse through the same Jupiter, nor through any like Jupiter, he had confirmed Jupiter a god, by whom he showed that he had unworthily borne the curse, in cursing back. For why should you be indignant through one whom you know to be nothing? For if you rage, you already confirm that he is something, and there will be a profession of your fear that is idolatry: how much more, when you curse back through that same Jupiter, do you do honour to Jupiter, by the very means by which he too did, who provoked you? But a believer in such a case ought to laugh, not to rage—nay rather, according to the precept, not even to curse back through God, but plainly to bless through God, that you may both destroy idols and proclaim God and fulfil the discipline.

Equally, one initiated into Christ will not endure to be blessed by the gods of the nations, so as not always to reject the unclean blessing, and, turning it to himself unto God, to cleanse it. To be blessed by the gods of the nations is to be cursed by God. If I have given alms, or bestowed some benefit, and the man imprecates upon me his gods or the genius of the colony as propitious, then my offering or service will be an honour to idols, by which he requites the favour of the blessing. But why should he not know that I have done it for God's sake, that both God may rather be glorified and the demons may not be honoured in that which I did for God's sake? If God sees that I have done it for his own sake, he sees equally that I was unwilling to show I had done it for his sake, and I have in a manner made his precept idol-meat. Many say, "No one ought to publish himself"; but I think neither to deny himself. For he denies, whoever in any cause disguises himself and is held for a heathen; and surely all denial is idolatry, just as all idolatry is denial, whether in deeds or in words.

But there is a certain species of this kind, in deed and in word, twice-sharpened and harmful on both sides, although it flatters you as though it were free on both—since the deed is not seen, because the word is not held fast. Men borrowing money from the heathen under pledged securities give bond on oath, and deny themselves; they would have it known, forsooth, in time of persecution, both the place of the tribunal and the person of the governor. Christ prescribes that there should be no swearing. "I wrote," says one, "but I said nothing. It is the tongue, not the letter, that kills." Here I call to witness nature and conscience: nature, because the hand can write nothing—even if the tongue, in dictating, ceases motionless and quiet—which the soul has not dictated; although the soul has dictated even to the tongue itself, whether something conceived of itself or handed on by another. Now, lest it be said, "Another dictated it," here I appeal to conscience, whether the soul does not take up what another dictated, and, whether with the tongue accompanying or remaining at rest, transmit it to the hand. And well that the Lord said that sin is committed in the mind and conscience. "If," he says, "concupiscence or malice has ascended into the heart of a man," he is held as for the deed. You have therefore given bond for what has plainly ascended into your heart—which you can neither contend that you were ignorant of, nor that you were unwilling. For when you gave bond, you knew; when you knew, you surely willed; you have acted as much by deed as by thought, nor can you exclude the greater crime by the lighter, so as to say that it is plainly made false, by giving bond for what you do not do. "Yet I have not denied, because I have not sworn." Since, even if you had done no such thing, you would so be said to forswear yourself, if you have consented to have done it. A silent voice in the pen is not without force, nor a mute sound in letters. Indeed Zacharias, punished by a temporary deprivation of voice, conferring with his mind, passes over his idle tongue; when with his own hands he dictates from his heart and pronounces his son's name without his mouth: he speaks in the pen, he is heard in the wax—a hand clearer than every sound, a letter more vocal than every mouth. Ask whether he spoke who was found to have spoken. Let us pray the Lord that no necessity of a contract of this kind may beset us round, and, if it so befall, that he may give to the brethren means of working, or to ourselves constancy to break off all necessity, lest those denying letters, the proxies of our mouth, be produced against us in the day of judgment, sealed with the seals—no longer of advocates, but of angels.

Among these rocks and bays, among these shoals and straits of idolatry, faith—her sails set by the Spirit of God—voyages on, safe if cautious, secure if intent. But for those who are shaken out, the deep is unswimmable; for those dashed on, the shipwreck is inextricable; for those swallowed up, the gulf in idolatry is one from which there is no coming up for breath. Whatever its waves are, they choke; every one of its whirlpools sucks down to hell. Let no one say, "Who shall be so safely fore-armed? One would have to go out of the world!"—as though it were not as much worth while to go out, as to stand in the world an idolater. Nothing can be easier than caution against idolatry, if the fear of it be at the head. Whatever necessity is less than the peril compared with so great a thing. For this cause the Holy Spirit, when the apostles then consulted, relaxed for us the bond and yoke, that we might be free to shun idolatry. This will be our law, the more fully to be administered the more it is unburdened—the proper law of Christians, by which we are recognized and tested by the heathen. This must be set before those approaching to the faith, and inculcated upon those entering into the faith—that those approaching may deliberate, that those observing may persevere, that those not observing may renounce themselves. For we shall see, according to the type of the ark, whether both the raven and the kite and the wolf and the dog and the serpent shall be in the Church. Certainly the idolater is not held within the type of the ark. No animal is figured into an idolater. What was not in the ark, let it not be in the Church.