駁尤利安（第4講） 第 1 章 第 3/5 段

He now dares to move even against the great standard which processes together with the cross, and leads the army raised on high—that sign called, among the Romans, 'the release from toils,' and reigning, one might say, over all the rest of the standards;

as many standards as glory in the images of emperors, and in outspread fabrics dyed and inscribed in various ways, and as many as, with the fearsome gaping jaws of dragons—inflated as they sway on the tips of spears, and fanned through their coils, spangled with woven scales—present a sight at once most delightful and most terrifying to the eyes.

And as things nearby had gone according to his intent, and he supposed himself to have gained the upper hand over the danger immediately at hand, he then made trial of what followed.

O most foolish, most impious, and most untutored in great matters!

You—against so great an inheritance, and the world-embracing fruitfulness that has spread through all the ends of the earth by the meanness of speech and the folly—as you yourselves would call it—of the preaching, which conquered the wise, silenced demons, and outstripped time, being itself at once ancient and new, just as you tell wondrous tales of one of your gods—

the one [aspect] to the few, the other to the many;

and the one dispensed in shadowy outline, the other in the perfecting of the mystery, each in its own appointed season? You—against the great inheritance of Christ? (You—who are you, and how great, and whence?)—that great inheritance which shall not cease, not even should some rage more furiously than you, but shall ever advance and be exalted the more—

for I believe both the predictions and the things now seen.

the inheritance which, as God, He made, and as man He inherited;

which the Law prefigured, and grace fulfilled, and Christ inaugurated;

which the prophets built together, and the apostles bound fast, and the evangelists brought to completion? [§68]

an insurrection—against the Martyr, not merely against martyrs? A persecutor after Herod, and a traitor after Judas?—except that you did not, like that man, show your repentance by the noose—

and a Christ-slayer after Pilate, and a hater of God after the Jews? [§69]

Were you not ashamed of the sacrificial deaths endured for Christ's sake? Did you not fear those great contenders—that John, that Peter, Paul, James, Stephen, Luke, Andrew, Thecla, and all who, both after them and before them, risked their lives foremost for the truth?—who eagerly contended against fire, and sword, and beasts, and tyrants, and amid present sufferings and threatened ones alike, stood as though incorporeal within bodies not their own? For what reason? That they might not betray piety, not even to the extent of a single word.

Theirs are the great honours and festal gatherings;

by them demons are driven out, and diseases are healed;

theirs are the manifestations, and theirs the predictions;

even their bodies alone are equal in power to holy living souls, whether touched or honoured;

even mere drops of their blood, and small tokens of their suffering, work equally with their whole bodies.

These things you do not revere, but dishonour—

you who admire the pyre of Heracles, [kindled] from misfortune and from wrongs concerning women;

and the butchery of Pelops—that 'hospitable,' or rather 'god-loving,' feast—from which the Pelopidae bear their distinguishing mark from the shoulder, made of ivory;

and the castrations of the Phrygians, who are enchanted by the flute, and then, after the flute, are outraged and mutilated;

and the tortures and mystic burnings in the rites of Mithras—'just,' [as you would call them];

and the murder of strangers among the Taurians, and the sacrifice, on the way to Troy, of the royal maiden;

and the blood of Menoeceus, [shed] on behalf of Thebes, and later that of the daughters of Scedasus at Leuctra;

you who praise the Laconian youths, flayed with whips, and the blood upon the altar delighting a chaste and virgin goddess;

you who extol the hemlock of Socrates, and the [broken] leg of Epictetus, and the pounding-sack of Anaxarchus—men whose philosophy was compelled rather than chosen;

and the leap of Cleombrotus of Ambracia, philosophized into being by the discourse 'On the Soul';

and the Pythagorean steadfastness concerning beans, and the contempt of death shown by Theano—or I know not which other among those initiated into, or who philosophized upon, his [Pythagoras's] doctrines.

But you—if not those ancients, then at least admire the present ones, O most philosophic and most noble of men, as you regard those Epaminondases and Scipios in their endurance—

you who march on foot alongside the army, and choose makeshift rations, and praise generalship performed with one's own hands.

It is indeed the mark of a noble and philosophic soul not to dishonour even the virtue of one's enemies, and to give greater weight to the nobility of foes than to the wickedness and softness of one's own closest kin—

—[that which] routs the phalanxes, will likewise silence your impiety, be well assured, even should you be exalted for a little while and act out the drama of impiety together with your demons. [§72]

How were not even these things fearful to you, O you who are exceedingly bold and death-defying, if ever anyone was? How were they not to be revered? These things indeed are already far more honourable than the insatiable greed of Solon, that wise man and lawgiver, which Croesus exposed by means of Lydian gold;

and than the love of beauty of Socrates—

for I am ashamed to say 'pederasty,' even though it be dignified by fine-sounding notions;

and than Plato's Sicilian gluttony/greed, on account of which he was even sold [into slavery], and was ransomed by none of his own disciples, nor by any pagan at all;

and than the gluttony for delicacies of Xenocrates;

and than the philosophy of Epicurus, which defines no good beyond pleasure.

For indeed it is truly 'philosophic' to let one's estate go to sheep-pasture, and comparable to the philosophers among us.

But he parades his frank speech in his edict, like one who is not so much a philosopher as a lover of glory.

Great is he who, when the ship was tossed by the storm and everything was being thrown overboard, gave thanks to Fortune for reducing him to nothing but his philosopher's cloak!

Great is Antisthenes, because, having had his face battered by one of the insolent and reckless, he inscribed on his forehead alone, as though fashioning a statue, the name of the one who struck him—perhaps so as to accuse him the more vehemently!

You also praise someone not long before our time, because he stood the whole day and prayed to the sun—

perhaps having watched it draw nearer to the horizon, so that he might also conclude his prayer, ending it together with the setting sun;

and the standing at Potidaea, in the wintry season, when he laboured all night long in contemplation, so that, because of his ecstasy, he did not even perceive the cold;

or also Homer's eagerness for learning concerning the Arcadian riddle, and Aristotle's philosophizing and persistent watching over the shifting tides of the Euripus—causes from which, it is said, both of them died;

and the well of Cleanthes, and the strap of Anaxagoras, and the melancholy of Heraclitus.

How many do these things, and for how long? But do you not marvel at the thousands and tens of thousands among us?

men who practice this philosophy, and things even more admirable than these, throughout their whole life and, one might say, throughout the whole inhabited world, men and women alike, vying with one another in courage, and only here forgetting their own nature, wherein one must be made a kinsman of God through purity and steadfast endurance;

not only the lowborn, who from the beginning were accustomed to toil because of their humble condition, but also those who were once exceedingly exalted and illustrious in wealth, in lineage, and in power, who now make a novel practice of enduring hardship in imitation of Christ;

of whom, even if eloquence be lacking (since piety is not reckoned to consist in speech, and the fruit of wisdom from the mouth is slight, as it seemed also to one of the poets among you), yet reasonableness counts for more, and so does instruction learned in deeds themselves—

But nevertheless, disregarding all this, and looking to this one thing alone—how he might fittingly gratify the demons who had so often overthrown him—before establishing any other public matter, he turns against the Christians.

And these were the two objects of his zeal: the Galileans—as he himself insultingly called us—and the Persians, who stubbornly persisted in the war;

but our affair so far exceeded the other in magnitude and urgency that the campaign against the Persians was reckoned by him as mere trifling and child's play.

And this he does not openly proclaim, yet neither does he conceal it;

so great, rather, was the excess of his madness, that he never ceased confessing it, always and to everyone.

But now, when the word of salvation had already been poured out and had gained especial dominion among us, to attempt to displace and unsettle the affairs of the Christians was nothing other than to shake the very empire of the Romans, and to endanger the whole commonwealth, and to suffer at our own hands what not even our enemies could have prayed worse against us—against this new and wonderful philosophy and kingdom, through which we are blessed, and through which we have returned to that golden race and commonwealth of old, one free from faction and unassailable.

Or was it the courier-post being tolerably managed, and relief from taxes, and the election of officials, and the punishment of theft, and all the other things belonging to that fleeting, momentary happiness and outward show, that was going to confer great benefit on the commonwealth, so that our ears needed to resound with the praise of such things?

But peoples in sedition, and cities, and races torn asunder, and households divided, and marriages sundered—all of which was likely to follow upon that evil, and indeed did follow it exceedingly—was this most conducive to his good repute, or to the safety of the commonwealth? And yet who is so ready for impiety, or so removed from reckoning the common good, as to agree to this? For just as in bodies, when one or two members are in a weaker condition, the rest bear it without difficulty, and the good of health is preserved by the greater part—by which, perhaps, even those weaker members might in time be restored to a better state;

but when the greater part is in sedition and embittered, there is no device by which the whole does not fare ill, and such a condition is already manifestly a danger;

so too among the governed, it happens that individual infirmities are hidden by the commonwealth when the latter is in a stronger condition overall;

but when the majority are in an unsound state, the danger extends to the whole.

This, it seems to me, even another person would perceive—even one of those who at the present time hate us most bitterly—seeing so great an increase of the Christians.

But wickedness had darkened his reasoning;

and because of this he weaves his persecution alike against small and great.

That, indeed, was an exceedingly boyish and frivolous act, worthy not merely of no emperor, but not even of any man of even moderately sound mind: that, supposing our disposition would follow the change of a name, or at least hoping to shame us as though we were being charged with something most disgraceful, he immediately introduced an innovation in our appellation, naming us 'Galileans' instead of 'Christians,' and enacting a law that we be so called;

thereby showing by his very deed that the name of Christ is the greatest source of glory and the most honorable of all—precisely from the fact that he devised to deprive us of it;

or else, truly fearing the power of that appellation, just as the demons do, and therefore passing over to another name, one neither customary nor familiar.

But we, for our part, will not disturb their names in return;

for indeed there is nothing more ridiculous to which we could change them—the phalloi, and the ithyphalloi, and the black-buttocked ones, and the buttockless ones, and the goat-footed one, and the venerable Pan, that single god born of all her suitors, who took his very name from that outrage, just as was fitting.

Therefore we shall begrudge them neither their realities nor their names;

but let them enjoy their own folly, and let them adorn themselves with what is most shameful;

and if they wish, we will even grant them 'Bouthoinas' [the Ox-Feaster] and 'Triesperos' [the Thrice-Nightly One], so that we may gratify them all the more—

him who was both begotten in such fashion, and who himself begot magnificently, and who made a thirteenth labor for himself—in a single night, the fifty daughters of Thestius—so that from these he might be named a god;

since, if we wished to introduce such innovations, there are also many names drawn from his own deeds—names at once more shameful and more fitting to apply against him,

names appropriate to the demons: to call him 'Idolianos' [Idol-Julian], and 'Pisaios,' and 'Adonaios,' and 'Kausitauros' [Bull-Burner]—which indeed some of our own witty people have already named him, since the matter is quite easy—and however many other names true history allows one to counterfeit, or to fashion, out of the truth? §78

him who, for our sake—for us who dishonored his image, and were carried off toward the dust, and were ignorant of the great mystery of that union—not only descended into the form of a servant, but also ascended the cross, and gathered up my sin, doomed to die with him;

him who, on being called a Samaritan, and—what is far worse—charged with having a demon, was neither ashamed, nor reproached those who insulted him;

for whom it would have been easy to repel the wicked, both with angelic hosts, and by a word alone;

yet very gently and mildly he sent away those who insulted him, and let fall a tear on behalf of those who were crucifying him—and are we to suppose that we would be pained at being called by such names, or ashamed, or that on this account we would abandon our zeal for what is good, and would set greater store by these insults than by our souls and bodies, which we know how to despise for the sake of the truth? But this, as I said, is more laughable than grievous, and we consign it to the comic stage;

for we could surely never outdo those on that stage who readily exchange such mock blows to the cheek in jest, both mocking and being mocked in turn.

But that other matter is by now exceedingly wicked and malicious: that, being unable to persuade openly, and ashamed to use tyrannical force, he hid the fox beneath the lion's skin—or if you will, hid the most unjust of men (how else might I properly put it?) beneath the mask of Minos—and so used compulsion in a manner made to appear reasonable.

The other matters, then, I shall leave to those willing to record and write them in full, since my discourse presses onward;

but I think many will be eager to record the—shall I call it tragedy, or comedy?—of that time, those to whom it will seem a part of piety to assail with words that accursed man;

so that so momentous a matter, one least deserving to be forgotten, may also be handed down to those who come after;

but I myself, instead of relating everything, will tell one or two things by way of example, for the sake of those who greatly admire his deeds, so that those who deem it fitting to praise this man may know that not even blame adequate to him can be found.

There is an imperial law—I do not know whether it holds also among all peoples wherever there is monarchic rule, but among the Romans it is certainly among the things most zealously observed—that those who reign be honored with public images.

For crowns and diadems do not suffice, nor the bloom of the purple robe, nor the counted spear-bearers, nor the multitude of subjects, to consolidate their sovereignty;

but they need also obeisance, by which they may seem the more venerable—

not only that obeisance paid to them in person, but also that paid to their images in sculpture and in color, so that the reverence shown them might be more insatiable and more complete.

Different emperors delight to have different things inscribed alongside these images;

some, the more illustrious cities bearing gifts; others, victories crowning them above the head;

others, officials doing obeisance, and honored with the insignia of their offices;

others, the slaying of beasts and feats of marksmanship;

others, the manifold postures of barbarians defeated, cast down beneath their feet, or being slain.

For they love not only the realities of those things in which they take great pride, but also the mere semblances of them.

But what does he contrive? And what snare does he set for the more steadfast among the Christians? Like those who mix poison into food, he mixes impiety with the customary honors paid to emperors, and brings together into one the laws of the Romans and the worship of idols.

He set forth for the peoples and cities, and especially for the governors of the provinces, images other than the customary pictures -- so that there was altogether no way to escape some evil;

but either one must join in the worship of idols along with the honor paid to the emperors, or by fleeing this, insult the emperors—since the obeisance required was a mixed one.

This deceit, and this snare of impiety so sophistically devised, few among the more cautious and more discerning escaped—and these paid the penalty for their prudence;

under the pretext of having transgressed the law against the honor of the emperor, but in truth having faced danger on behalf of the true King and of piety.

But many of the more simple and guileless were ensnared;

for whom, perhaps, there may also be pardon for their ignorance, having been swept by craft into impiety.

This, then, was such a thing as alone would have sufficed to brand the emperor's true purpose;

for we do not suppose that the same things are fitting for emperors as for private persons—

since neither do the two share the same worth.

To a private person, indeed, we might concede the doing of something even by craft;

for to him for whom open compulsion is not possible, resourceful cunning is pardonable;

but for an emperor—since to be mastered by mere force is already exceedingly shameful—it is, I think, even more shameful and more unbecoming to steal his undertakings and his aims by craft.

But there is another matter, of the same intent and purpose, yet in degree far worse and more impious, since the evil extends to more people—this I will add to what has been said.

Again, the stage-scene of servility;

again, the drama of impiety:

that his inhumanity was drugged with a certain show of benevolence, and that the soldiers' thoughtless unreasoning, together with the insatiable greed with which they mostly conduct their lives, was baited with money.

He, then, sat presiding in state, splendidly holding festival against piety, and greatly priding himself on his contrivances—

a very Melampus, I think, or a Proteus, being and becoming all things, and readily transforming himself in his shapes;

but what manner of things surrounded him, and how worthy of lamentation to those of sound mind—not only to those present at that time, but also to those who now receive that spectacle by report? §83

Gold was set out, frankincense was set out, the fire close at hand, the officers giving the command nearby—

And the scheme was plausible: that this practice should seem to be a matter of imperial largesse — the older and more honored kind.

Then what? One had to burn incense over the fire, and receive from the emperor the wage of destruction — so small a price for so great a matter: whole souls, and impiety toward God.

An entire army was purchasable by a single contrivance.

And those who had subdued the whole world fell by a little fire and gold, and through a little sacrificial smoke — most of them not even aware of their own slaughter.

For this was the most grievous thing.

One would come forward expecting to profit, and after the gain no longer possessed even himself.

He would do obeisance to the emperor's right hand, and in worshipping his very murderer, did not know it.

But for those who did know, there was no advantage either, once they had been overtaken by the evil, and regarded their first folly as an unbreakable law.

I will mix into these things a story more pitiable than what has been told.

It is said, indeed, that some of those who had been ensnared through ignorance — after this had happened to them and they had withdrawn homeward — shared a table with their messmates.

Then, as the drinking proceeded to the customary toast of cold water, as though nothing terrible had befallen them, they looked upward and, over the cup that bore the cold draught, invoked the name of Christ together with the sign of the cross.

And when one of their messmates was astonished, and said:

"You half-dead men — what is this strange thing I hear?" And when he replied, "Because you offered incense over the fire," and explained that this was in fact the denial of Christ, at once they leapt up from the feast, like men gone mad and out of their senses, boiling with zeal and fury, running through the marketplace, crying out and saying:

"We are Christians — Christians in our very souls!"

"Let every man hear it, and before all, God, by whom we both live and shall die."

"We have not lied against you, O Christ our Savior;"

"we have not denied the blessed confession."

"If the hand indeed stumbled, yet the mind did not follow it."

"We were outwitted by the emperor's cunning; we have not become victims wounded by gold."

"We strip off impiety; we are cleansed by blood."

Then, running up to the emperor, and hurling the gold at him with youthful boldness, they cried:

"We have not received gifts, O king," they cried, "but have been condemned to death;"

"we were not called to honor, but sentenced to dishonor."

"Sacrifice us to Christ, whose subjects alone we are!"

"Turn us into ashes in place of those other ashes."

"Cut off the hands which we wickedly stretched out;"

"the feet with which we wickedly ran."

"Honor others with the gold — those who will not repent of having taken it;"

"but for us, Christ suffices, whom we have in place of all things."

Thus they spoke, and at the same time exhorted the others to recognize the deceit, to sober up from their drunkenness, and to make their defense to Christ through their own blood;

at which the emperor, growing angry, avoided killing them openly, lest he make martyrs of those who were, so far as their own intent was concerned, already martyrs; but by consigning them to exile, he took his revenge in this way — and thereby, without meaning to, conferred upon them the greatest benefaction: that of standing far removed from his own pollutions and contrivances.

Although he was indeed so disposed in his impulses, and had exercised his malice upon many occasions,

nevertheless — for the man's mind had no firmness, and belonged not so much to his own reasoning as to the impulse of the demon — he did not preserve his purpose to the end, nor did he keep secret the hidden design of his wickedness;

but just as the fire of Etna is said to lie hidden in the depths of Etna, welling up from below and forcibly held in check — whether this be something else, or the breath of a punished giant — for a time it merely echoes fearfully, and belches forth smoke from its summit as a portent of the coming evil;

but if it should happen to increase and become unrestrainable, boiling forth from its own bosom, borne upward and pouring out over the craters, it destroys some part even of the land lying beneath, with an incredible and terrible stream of fire;

so too one can find that man: for a while mastering himself and his sophistic creed, and through deceit disposing of our affairs badly;

but wherever the intemperance of his wrath overflowed, he was unable even to conceal his malice, but employed open persecution against our divine and pious order.

For to pass over the decrees against the holy houses, publicly posted and privately enforced; the plundering of votive offerings and funds — from impiety no less than from avarice; the seizure of sacred vessels, outraged by profane hands; those who were dragged away and tortured on their account, priests and their flocks alike; the blood-drenched pillars encircled and bound by these men's hands, while the victims were being flayed with scourges; and the archers who ran riot through cities and countryside, more savage and more fervent than the one who commanded them, as though to prove themselves the equals of Persians, Scythians, and the other barbarians —

not to mention these things — who does not know of the inhumanity of the Alexandrians? Who, in addition to many other outrages which they wantonly committed against us, making immoderate use of the occasion (being a populace turbulent and frenzied by nature), are said also to have added this to their impieties: that they filled our sacred house with a double measure of blood — both that of sacrifices and that of human beings.

Did the world take note? Who does not know of the madness of the Arethusians, until then unknown, but from that time onward exceedingly notorious? For it is not right conduct alone that makes men renowned, but wickedness too, when it surpasses the reputation of the wicked.

For some are said — for one must relate one thing out of many, a thing worthy of horror even to the godless — to have brought forth into public view chaste and other-worldly virgins, all but untouched even by the eyes of men, and to have stripped them of their clothing, that they might first outrage them by the mere sight of them, and then, having cut and torn them apart (O how shall I bear, O Christ, your long-suffering at that time!), some feasted wickedly with their very own teeth, and, worthy of their own ill-starred madness, gorged themselves on the raw livers, and after that meal partook of another, the ordinary and customary kind;

while others, scattering swine's fodder upon the still-quivering entrails, and letting loose the more ravenous of the swine, produced that spectacle whereby one could see flesh being devoured together with barley, and torn apart — a monstrous mingled fare, seen and heard of then for the first time;

which only the deviser of these things was fit to use to feed his own demons;

and indeed he fed them well, from that blood and from the wound which he himself received in his entrails —

even if these wretched men are insensible to such things, and, through their impiety, no longer even possess the capacity to think.

As for the affair of the admirable Mark and the Arethusians — who is so far removed from our civilized world as not to know it, so that the one who recounts it should not have to hasten to catch up with the story already known? This man, in the time of Constantius the Great, by the authority then granted to Christians, tore down a demon's dwelling, and turned many pagans from their pagan error to the salvation of the Christian faith, no less by the brilliance of his life than by the power of his teaching; he had for a long time been an object of wrath to the Arethusians — or rather, to the demon-loving among the Arethusians.

But when circumstances turned against the Christians, and the affairs of the pagans began to inflame, he did not escape the tyranny of that hour.

For mobs are wont, even if for the present they hold their wrath in check — like fire lurking in timber, or a stream forcibly restrained — should they seize their opportunity, to burst into flame and break forth.

Seeing then the populace stirred against him, contemplating and threatening nothing moderate, he at first resolved on flight — not so much out of cowardice as in obedience to the command that bids one flee from city to city, and give way before persecutors;

for it is necessary, being Christians, not to look only to one's own interest, even if one be exceedingly brave and steadfast, but also to spare one's persecutors, so that, as far as it depends on them, they add nothing of the enemies' share to the danger.

But when he perceived that many were being dragged off and led away on his account, and that many were running for their lives because of the savagery of the persecutors, he could not bear, secure in his own safety, to look on while others were endangered;

and for this reason he resolved upon a most excellent and most philosophic plan:

he returned from his flight, and offered himself, giving himself over to the populace to deal with him as they wished, and set himself in array against the hardship of that hour.

Here, what terror was absent? What worse thing was not devised? — with one man contributing this, another that, toward the composition of a single evil, and those pressing upon him not even respecting the philosophic dignity of the man, if nothing else about him;

and indeed, for this very reason they grew even more indignant, because they took the man's presence to be an act of contempt for them rather than courage in the face of danger.

An old priest was led through the middle of the city, a willing contestant, venerable in age, and still more venerable in his manner of life — venerable to all, except his persecutors and tyrants;

and he was dragged about by every age and station — not by this one but not that one, but

by all alike: men, women, the young, the old, those who administered civic affairs, and those of high rank.

And it was reckoned by all a mark of piety to do that man as much harm as possible, and to overcome an old contestant who was contending single-handedly against the whole city;

he was dragged through the broad streets, thrust down through sewers;

he was dragged by his hair — there was indeed no part of his body untouched — outrage being mingled with the abuse, at the hands of those who "fittingly" inflicted these torments in the name of Mithras;

he was tossed aloft from boy to boy, his noble body received and pierced with their writing-styluses, as they made a plaything of the tragedy;

his shins were crushed with presses, down to the very bone;

his ears were sawn through with cords — and with the toughest and thinnest of these;

raised aloft in a basket, drenched in honey and fish-sauce, he was torn by wasps and bees at midday, while the sun blazed with its fiery heat;

and while the sun melted his flesh, it made the feasting upon that blessed flesh — for I would not call it wretched — all the more fervent.