駁尤利安（第4講） 第 1 章 第 2/5 段

for sin is the mother of humility, and humility the mother of conversion.

We, then, having been exalted when we were reasonable and moderate, and growing little by little, so as to advance, by the leading hand of God, to this present condition and multitude — when we grew fat, we kicked;

and when we were enlarged, we were straitened;

and the glory and power which we had gathered in persecutions and afflictions, this we destroyed once we began to prosper;

and what follows in this discourse will make it clear.

Now the reign, and life itself, reach their limit for the Caesar;

for I shall pass over in silence what happened in between, out of consideration for both the one who acted and the one who suffered;

out of reverence for the piety of both, I do not praise the rashness involved.

For since, being men, they had to err in something, this is that which perhaps one would not praise in either of them;

unless here too, by the very things through which we shall accuse the one, we shall acquit the other.

He straightway became heir of his brother's kingdom, but not of his piety;

and a little later he became heir also of him who had made him king — the one inheritance given willingly, the other extorted by the common end, when that man was overcome in a defeat evil and ruinous for the whole world.

What is this, O most divine and most Christ-loving of kings — for I am moved to reproach you as though you were present and listening, even though I know you to be far greater than our reproach, having been set in rank with God, having inherited that glory yonder, and having departed only so far as to exchange your kingdom —

what counsel was this that you devised — you who so far surpassed all others in understanding and shrewdness, not only the kings of your own day, but also those before — you who cleansed the barbarian world round about, and subdued the tyrants at home, some by words, some by arms, managing each of these as though hindered in no way by the other;

whose trophies won by arms and battle were great, but those won without bloodshed greater still and more illustrious;

to whom embassies and supplications came from every quarter;

to whom some things already submitted, and others were about to;

and everything hoped for was as good as already subdued;

you who were guided by the hand of God in every counsel and every deed;

in whom the understanding was admired more than the hand, and yet the hand even more than the understanding;

but more than the renown you won in both, your piety.

the nation that had swiftly shone forth over the whole world, the royal priesthood, which had grown together through much toil and many sweats — this, in so short and so brief a span of time, did you carry off and hand over to the world's own murderer? [36]

Perhaps, brothers, I seem to you to be committing some impiety and ingratitude in these words, in that I do not quickly follow the words of accusation with the words of truth;

and yet I have already made sufficient defense of him, even through the very things with which I have charged him, if you pay any attention to the accusation;

and here alone does the accusation carry within itself its own acquittal;

for in speaking of his goodness, I have thereby made plain his defense.

For who is there, even among those who knew him but moderately, who does not know that, for the sake of piety and his love toward us, and his desire that every good thing should come to us, he would not merely have disregarded that man, or the honor of an entire family line, or an addition to his kingdom — but that he would, without difficulty, have exchanged even the kingdom itself, and all that exists, and his very soul, than which nothing is more precious to anyone, for our security and salvation? [37]

For never did so ardent a passion for anything seize any man as seized him for the increase of the Christians, and for their advancing to the very height both of glory and of power;

and neither the subjugation of nations, nor the good order of the commonwealth, nor abundance of wealth, nor superfluity of glory, nor being called, and being, king of kings, nor whatever else by which the happiness of men is known —

nothing among all these things so gladdened him as this: that through him we should prosper, and through us he should prosper, and both before God and before men be held in good repute, and that our sovereignty should remain to us indissoluble for all time;

for besides other things he clearly knew this — thinking about these matters more loftily and more royally than most men do — that the fortunes of Rome had grown together with the fortunes of the Christians, and that Roman power had entered in together with the coming of Christ, a power which before that had never fully prevailed into a single monarchy;

and for this reason he seemed to me to cherish our affairs the more, and to deal well with them;

he indeed, even when he grieved us in anything, did so not out of contempt, nor out of insolence, nor by favoring certain others before us, but he grieved us only so that all might be one and think as one, and not be cut apart nor stand divided by schisms.

But, as I have said, guilelessness is unguarded, and clemency comes mingled with something unsound, and that which is itself free of wickedness is least apt to suspect wickedness in another;

for this reason the future went unrecognized, and the fabrication was not detected, and impiety crept in by little and little, and two kinds of goodness entered in together with one another: the one directed toward the pious race, the other toward the most impious and godless of all men.

He — what fault did he find with the Christians, what among our teachings could he not praise, what of the pagans' doctrines did he judge so transcendent and so hard to refute by argument, and what example did he even follow — that he made himself the most notorious of all through impiety, and in a strange, unheard-of manner rivaled the very man who had raised him up? Since indeed he could not surpass him in virtue and in the nobler things, he strove instead to be conspicuous by the opposite course — by an excess beyond measure in impiety, and by an ambition for what is worse.

Such, then, is the man's defense on behalf of the Christians, and toward the Christians — and one so just, at least to those who possess understanding.

But since there are some who, even should they acquit us of this charge, will not let go of another, but accuse him instead of folly — because he entrusted the empire to the man most hostile and most warlike toward him, and made strong the very one who had first been his enemy; Julian having laid the foundation of that enmity through the slaughter of his brother, while Constantius, for his part, added to it the strength of kingship —

it is necessary that I also briefly go through this matter, and show that his clemency was not altogether without reason, nor outside the bounds of royal magnanimity and foresight;

for indeed I should be ashamed if, having received such honor from him, and having believed that he so far excelled in piety, we should fail to plead on his behalf what is just;

which justice is owed by us — servants of the Word and of Truth — even to those who have done us no benefit at all;

and this I say after his departure from this life, when we have also escaped the appearance of flattery, and my speech is free from any base suspicion.

For who would not have hoped that, if nothing else, honors would make him gentler? And who would not have hoped that the trust reposed in him — a trust granted beyond all expectation — would make him more just? — both being just and royal judgments: the one, Gallus, being punished, the other, Julian, being advanced;

for he who honored the second with honors that no one — not even the very man who received them — would have hoped for, plainly did not punish the former either without just cause for anger;

and the one, the punishment, belonged to that man's rashness, the other, the honor, to the clemency of him who bestowed it.

And at the same time he possessed confidence — if I must speak the greater truth — not so much from that man's loyalty as from his own power;

by which confidence, it seems to me, Alexander the Great also, trusting in his own power, granted not only life to the defeated Porus — who had indeed contended so valiantly for his kingdom — but even his kingdom over the Indians once again;

since he meant to display his magnanimity in no other way than this: for Alexander deemed it a worse thing to be outdone in generosity than to be overcome in arms;

while it remained in his power, should Porus prove wicked, to subdue him yet again.

And his abundance of confidence was the very source of his clemency.

And yet why do I labor over this point, when it is quite possible to prevail even while conceding defeat? For if the one who trusted was at fault, how much more, by comparison, would the one who was trusted be blameworthy? And if failing to foresee his character is culpable, then where shall we place the wickedness itself? But wickedness is in truth a thing beyond all reckoning;

and there is no way by which one could make the wicked better;

since even he, from the very things by which he should justly have appeared more well-disposed, and by which any spark of wickedness he had ought to have been extinguished — from these very things was kindled instead into a greater hatred, and pondered how he might requite his benefactor with harm.

These things the Platos taught him, and the Chrysippuses, and the illustrious Peripatos and the venerable Stoa, and those who warble their clever subtleties in the throat;

these things the equality of geometry taught him, and the discourses on justice, and the precept that one ought to choose to suffer wrong rather than to do wrong;

these things the noble teachers taught him, the fellow-champions and lawgivers of his reign, whom he gathered to himself out of the crossroads and the gutters;

of whom he praised not their character, but rather admired their glib eloquence;

and perhaps not even that, but only their impiety — as a sufficient counselor, and teacher, of what should and should not be done.

And how is it not fitting to marvel at these men, who in word fashion cities that cannot be established in deed, who all but prostrate themselves before their own solemn tyrannies, and who, with brow raised in pride, rate a mere obol above the gods;

and some of them dogmatize that there is no God at all, others that God takes no providential care for things here below, but that everything is borne along at random and by chance, and others that all is led by the stars and the configurations of Necessity — powers themselves led, I know not by whom or whence;

while others suppose that everything tends toward pleasure, and that this is the very goal of human life? For them virtue is merely a fair-sounding name, nothing extends beyond the present life, and there is no future reckoning of what has been lived here that might restrain injustice.

For either none of the wise men among them ever perceived these things, but was covered over — as the saying goes — in deep mire and in the lightless gloom of error and ignorance, his mind never purified even enough to glimpse the rays of truth, but wallowing about the things below and about sense-perception, unable to conceive of anything higher than the demons, or to be raised up in a manner worthy of his Maker;

or, if someone did see a little, using reason — not God — as his guide, he was swept away by the more plausible error, the one that draws the many more strongly on account of its nearness to the senses.

In defending himself against this charge, Julian, it seems to me, was grieved not so much for his brother's sake — whom indeed he knew to be an enemy on account of his religion — as by his own inability to bear the Christians' increase, and, raging against piety, sought to make bold against the established order, and to seek license for his own madness;

for philosophy and kingship must, as their argument runs, come together into one;

not so that the cities might cease from their evils, but so that they might be filled with them.

And the first act of his self-will and madness was to bind upon himself, and to honor himself with, the great title — a title which chance does not bestow as plunder, but which either time grants as the prize of virtue, or the vote of an emperor, or, as in ancient times, the judgment of the senate confers — nor did he make the true emperor the arbiter of the measure of his own honor;

and secondly (for, having already dared such things, he knew that madness had become for himself a necessity), what was he now contemplating? To what extremity of impiety and audacity did he proceed? O that frenzied soul!

He marches out against him, and rises up from the West;

under the pretext, indeed, that he would defend himself concerning the diadem;

for he still seemed to be concealing his own madness;

but the truth was that he meant to transfer all power to himself, and to be admired through his very ingratitude;

and indeed he was not disappointed in his hope.

Let those not marvel in scandal at the words of God, by which all things are governed, who do not know their unfathomable depth, and who do not yield to the Craftsman of that governance — one assuredly wiser than we — who guides what belongs to him wherever and however he wills;

but assuredly toward what is better, and toward healing — even if those under treatment find it distressing;

by which words that man too was indeed not incited into wickedness;

for the Divine is altogether blameless of evils, being good by nature, and the blame belongs to him who chose the ways of wickedness;

yet indeed he was not restrained from his impulse;

but with great speed, having traversed both his own territory and a stretch of the barbarian shore, and having seized his passage more by stealth than by force, he comes near to the imperial residence;

as those who share his sentiments would have it: raised up to this expedition by foreknowledge, with demons promising him the future by their motions, and presiding over a change in worldly affairs;

but as the account of those who speak the truth would have it: he arrived according to an appointed time — but one far more secret and far deeper than the demons could know — hastening toward a death of which he himself was the very author, having concealed, by some inward device, the true nature of his undertaking;

so that what came to pass was not foreknowledge, but mere knowledge, and a work of wickedness, not a benefaction of demons;

for just how accurate such demons are in these matters, the Persian campaign made plainly clear.

So let those who attribute his speed to the demons cease from doing so;

unless indeed we are also to attribute the very evil itself to them.

If, then, the emperor's death had not forestalled the tyrant's onslaught, and the unseen war had not proved mightier than the visible hand, perhaps the accursed man, in his very haste, would have come to know ruin against himself;

and before being brought to his senses out of his madness's rashness by the Persians' calamity, he would have paid the penalty within the borders of the Romans, against whom he had wickedly dared such things;

for indeed, while he was still advancing, and — as he supposed — unrecognized, he was surrounded by an army of that most noble emperor, an army that had already cut off even his flight in advance, as became clear from what happened afterward;

for indeed, even for one who already held the power, to master that situation proved no small undertaking;

but as it was, while Constantius was seething with wrath against both the man's madness and his impiety together, and holding that 'wisest' one caught fast within his snares — O the wickedness that is ours! —

he ends his life in the very midst of the journey, having offered abundant justification, both to God and to men, on behalf of his own clemency, and having shown to the Christians, through his very zeal, his own ardor on behalf of piety.

And here a certain tear steals over me, mingled with joy, on account of what follows in my discourse;

and it is like a battle of river and sea, a mingling and a contention, as they stand opposed to one another, and yet flow together;

the tear arises from what has preceded;

not only for the Christians' sake, and for the outrage that befell them — an outrage that fell upon them from the Evil One, yet was permitted by God for reasons known to him, and perhaps on account of our own arrogance, which stood in need of purging;

but also for that man's very soul, and for those who were swept away with him into the same destruction.

For some lament their final wounds, and the torments that followed thereafter;

to whom this life alone is thought to exist, and who do not reach in thought to what lies beyond, nor think that there is any reckoning or repayment for what has been done in this life;

but they live the life of irrational creatures, always living for the day and for the present, measuring happiness by this one thing — ease in this life — and, by its opposite, measuring misery for those who meet with adversity;

But I am moved to lament them even more than the torments that await hereafter, and the punishment reserved for the wicked.

And I have not yet spoken of the greatest thing — the very casting out from God — how great a punishment this is for them.

How shall I not weep for the wretched man? How shall I not lament, more than for the persecuted themselves, those who ran over to join them? And how shall I not lament, more than for those who deserted to wickedness, the man who swept them away? Rather — for the former, to suffer for Christ's sake is nothing dreadful, but indeed the most blessed thing of all, not only because of what awaits them there, but also because of the good repute and frank speech which they won for themselves here through the very dangers they faced;

but for the latter it is but a prelude to the punishments stored up and threatened, which indeed they have already begun to suffer;

and it would have been better for them to have been punished longer here than to be reserved for the tribunals of judgment there.

These things, then, I say on account of the law which forbids rejoicing over the fall of an enemy, and requires compassion from those who stand firm;

but I must now turn my discourse back to him again.

What is this monstrous contentiousness in evil? What is this passion for impiety? What is this headlong race toward destruction? Whence comes so Christ-hating a disciple of Christ — one who conversed so long with the words of truth, and both spoke some and heard others of the things that lead to salvation? For scarcely had he inherited the throne when he began flaunting his impiety with open boldness — as though ashamed of ever having been a Christian, or bearing a grudge against Christians on that very account, with whom he had once shared that name.

And the first of his audacious deeds — as those who pride themselves on his secret mysteries tell it (into what words am I compelled to descend!) — was this: with unholy blood he washes off his baptismal bath, setting against our rite of perfection the consummation of his own pollution, like a sow wallowing in the mire, according to the proverb;

and he purifies his hands, cleansing them from the unbloody sacrifice by which we commune with Christ, both in his sufferings and in his divinity;

and he fills the palace with slaughtered victims and sacrifices, employing evil counselors for an evil rule.

But since I have mentioned sacrificial victims, and the man's superstitious dread of such things — or, to use a more fitting term, his evil-spirit-wrought misfortune — I do not know whether to commit to writing the widely-repeated marvel, or to disbelieve those who report it.

For I myself waver in judgment, and do not know to which side to incline, since matters that might justly be believed are intermingled with things unworthy of belief;

for that some sign should attend so great an innovation of evil and impiety is not incredible, but is indeed something that has already happened many times at the greatest turning points of history;

but that it should have happened in precisely this manner is, to me at any rate, greatly worthy of wonder — and to all who wish and believe that pure things should be revealed in a pure way.

Now what is reported is this: that as he was sacrificing, the entrails revealed the sign of the cross, crowned with a wreath — a thing which struck the others present with horror and dread, and with a perception of our power;

as though — so it was claimed — we were being circumscribed and hemmed in;

for thus the entrails chanced to form both the cross and the circle.

This, then, is my wonder to relate.

and if it is false, may the winds carry it away;

but if it is true, then once again Balaam prophesies, and Samuel is summoned — or seems to be — through the ventriloquist, and demons confess Jesus against their will; and it is through opposite means, that the truth might be believed all the more, that it is shown.

perhaps it was being providentially arranged through these very means that even he should be restrained from his impiety;

for the Divine knows how to devise many strange and unexpected paths of salvation, inclining ever toward loving-kindness;

and what is reported by the greater number is also not unreasonable to believe.

He went down into one of those inner sanctuaries, inaccessible and dreadful to most people (would that it had rather been the road that leads down to Hades, before he had advanced to such evils!), accompanied by one worthy of many such sanctuaries himself — the man wise in such arts, or rather, the sophist;

for this too is, for them, a kind of divination — to hold converse, amid a certain darkness, with the demons of the underworld concerning things to come;

whether it be because they take greater delight in darkness, since they are themselves darkness, and craftsmen of the darkness of evil;

or whether it be because they shun contact with the pious upon the earth, and are weakened by such encounters;

But as our 'worthy hero' advanced, terrors assailed him — ever more numerous and more dreadful: strange unaccustomed sounds, they say, and noisome odors, and phantoms gleaming with fire, and I know not what other nonsense and folly. Struck by the unexpected — for indeed he was a late learner in such things — he takes refuge in the cross, that old remedy, and with it signs himself against his fears, making the very one he persecutes his helper;

The seal prevailed; the demons were routed; the fears were dispelled.

What then? The evil catches its breath and grows bold again; once more there is an onset, and the same fears, and again the seal, and the demons fall quiet;

and the mystagogue standing close by twists the truth to his own purpose;

'We were treated with abhorrence,' he says, 'we were not frightened.'

for this is what he says, and by saying it he persuades, and by persuading he leads his disciple to the pit of destruction;

for wickedness is ever more ready to follow evil than to be checked by what is better.

Now what he said, then, or did,

or was deceived into, when he came up again from those depths — let those who perform and are initiated into such rites know;

but he comes up, at any rate, possessed by demons both in soul and in deed, betraying by the very madness in his eyes those whom he had served;

unless indeed he had already been filled with demons from that day on which he first set such wicked purposes before himself;

but on that occasion it became even more conspicuous.

so that he should not have gone down in vain, and might indeed partake of the demons — that condition which they call 'enthusiasm', solemnly dressing up the names of things.

Now since his travail was growing strong, and persecution was about to break forth, he devised a certain scheme — whether out of the cunning malice of a clever man and the impiety of one extraordinary in wickedness, or whether he was taught it by those who were training him for this very purpose.

He reasoned that to take up war openly, and to preside in person, with his own hand, over the work of impiety, would be, besides being exceedingly rash and ill-considered, also entirely most contrary to his purpose;

for, he reasoned, we would become all the more obstinate if compelled by force, and would set our zeal for piety against his tyranny;

for noble spirits are apt to grow all the more defiant against whatever prevails by force,

and, like a flame fanned by the wind, blaze up all the more, the more violently they are blown upon.

And this he learned not from reasoning alone, but he could also know it from the previous persecutions, which made Christianity more honored, rather than weaker, all the sooner — strengthening souls unto piety, and, like hot iron in water, tempering them through dangers.

But if he should wage war with cunning art, tingeing his violence with persuasion, or, as one wraps bait around bronze, should wrap an appearance of mildness around his tyranny, then his undertaking would become for him at once both cunning and effective.

For, besides everything else, he also grudged the contestants the honor of martyrdom;

and for this reason he contrives it so that he himself both uses force and yet does not seem to, and that we both suffer and yet do not receive the honor of those who suffer for Christ's sake.

In the first place — if he supposed that it could remain hidden on whose behalf these dangers were endured, and that he could conceal the truth by his sophistries — he was wrong; for by however much he schemed to diminish these honors, by just so much did he make them greater and more illustrious.

Let such games be played, among the pagans, by Empedocles, and Aristeas, and certain Empedotimuses, and Trophoniuses, and the whole tribe of such unfortunate men;

of whom the one, having deified himself, as he supposed, by leaping into the craters of Sicily, and having dispatched himself from among us to a better lot, was exposed by his own beloved sandal, cast up by the fire;

and thus he was shown, after being a man, to be no god, but a vainglorious man — unphilosophical even in death, and lacking even ordinary common sense;

and the others, who hid themselves away in certain sanctuaries out of that same malady of self-love, and were then exposed, gained no more honor from their trickery than they suffered disgrace from being found out.

But for Christians it is sweeter to suffer for piety, even should they escape the notice of everyone, than it is for others to enjoy good repute together with impiety;

for our concern to please men is a small matter to us;

but our whole desire is for the honor that comes from God;

or rather, even beyond that — for those who are truly lovers of wisdom and lovers of God love their kinship with the good for the sake of the good itself, not for the honors laid up on that account;

for this — to act for a reward and for the sake of recompense — is only the second rank among the praiseworthy;

just as it is the third rank to flee from wickedness out of fear of punishment.

Such, then, is our position, and thus it stands;

and it is easy to demonstrate this from many examples, to those who wish to see it.

But he, supposing that he would thereby deprive Christians of great honor (for most people judge others' feelings by their own), makes this his chief pursuit above all else — the stripping away of that renown.

And he does not even, like the other persecutors, magnanimously enroll himself for his impiety in the open;

nor, though he cannot think in a kingly manner concerning us, does he even think in a wholly tyrannical manner — so that his impiety might at least be grand: to coerce the people of the whole world, and to play the tyrant over a doctrine that surpasses all doctrines;

but rather, in a manner altogether slavish and base, he does mischief to piety, importing into his persecution of us all the twists and duplicities of his scheming reasonings;

Accordingly, since the means of gaining mastery is divided into these two — persuasion and force — the more inhuman of these he let loose upon the peoples and the cities, whose senseless fury is the less reprehensible, owing to their lack of reason and their unreflecting impulse toward every extreme;

And this not by a public edict, but by not checking the impulses [of the mob], thereby setting forth mere wanting as an unwritten law.

But the gentler and more royal course—so he would have it—he ascribes to himself: that of persuasion.

Yet he did not preserve this altogether.

For it was not in his nature—any more than it is in a leopard's to shed its spots, or an Ethiopian's his blackness, or fire's its burning, or the evil one's his hatred of mankind, being a murderer from the beginning—nor in that man's, to lay aside the wickedness from which he set out against us.

But just as the chameleon, it is said, easily becomes anything at all, and takes on every colour except one—whiteness (for I pass over Proteus, the mythical Egyptian sophist)—so too that man was, and became, all things to the Christians, except gentleness; and his 'love of mankind' was to us exceedingly inhuman, and his persuasiveness violent, and his benevolence but an excuse for savagery—

so that he might plausibly seem to be using force, only because he had failed at persuasion.

And this is clear from the fact that persuasion, in his case, was brief, while violence followed immediately after, in far greater measure.

so that, as in a hunt, we might be caught either by snares or by pursuit, and at least one of the two methods would altogether subdue us.

Having thus divided his strategy, he next devises this second stratagem—safe, if utterly impious—beginning his wickedness, as is the custom of all persecutors, from those nearest to him, the hand about his own person.

For indeed it is not possible to lay hands on those outside, unless these have first been won over, just as it is not possible to lead an army against enemies while it is in rebellion against its own general.

And for this reason he remodels the palace household, having first removed some by death, and thrust others aside—

not merely as being loyal to the great emperor, but as being more loyal still to the Greater One, and thus unprofitable to him on both counts—

And he wins over the soldiery, partly by himself, partly through those in office—supposing the latter method the more easily trusted—the one part overcome by honours, the other swept along by simplicity, and knowing but a single law: the will of the emperor.

Or rather, no small part of the soldiery—as much of it as he found rotten and diseased, enslaved to circumstance both then and before—

of which part was already enslaved, and part he hoped [soon to be].

For indeed the persecutor working through him did not seize the whole, nor did he grant him so much power against us—

but there remained more than seven thousand who did not bend the knee to Baal, nor worship the golden image, nor were wounded by the serpents—by gazing instead upon that serpent which was lifted up, and was itself abolished by the sufferings of Christ.

many among those in power and high station, who were the more likely to be overcome, both by fear and by hope of advancement;

and many of the lowly, known only by number, against whom, when he made his assault, he was repulsed—like some siege-engine that lands no fatal blow against a noble wall.

Yet what escaped him vexed him no more than what he did capture emboldened him, raging as he was like a mad dog;

and mere wishing made him regard what he had hoped for as already accomplished.