Thus the martyrs either can do nothing, if the Gospel can be dissolved; or, if the Gospel cannot be dissolved, then those who are made martyrs by the Gospel cannot act against the Gospel. Let no one, most beloved brethren, let no one defame the dignity of the martyrs, let no one destroy their glories and crowns. The strength of incorrupt faith remains unharmed; nor can he say or do anything against Christ whose every hope and faith and virtue and glory is in Christ. They cannot be the authors of anything being done by the bishops against the command of God, who themselves kept the commands of God.
Is anyone greater than God, or more clement than the divine goodness—who would either wish what God has allowed to be undone, or, as though He had less power to protect His Church, suppose that we can be saved by his own aid? Unless perhaps these things were done while God was ignorant, or all these things came to pass without His permitting them—let the divine Scripture teach the unteachable and admonish the forgetful, which speaks and says: 'Who gave Jacob for a spoil and Israel to those who plundered him? Was it not God, against whom they sinned, and would not walk in His ways nor hear His law? And He brought upon them the wrath of His anger.' And elsewhere it testifies and says: 'Is not the hand of God strong enough to save, or has He made His ear heavy that it should not hear?
But your sins separate between you and God, and because of your sins He turns away His face from you that He may not have mercy.' Let us reckon our offenses; pondering the deeds of our life and the secrets of our mind, let us weigh the deserts of our conscience. Let it return into our heart that we have not walked in the ways of the Lord, that we have cast away the law of God, that we have never been willing to keep His precepts and saving admonitions. What good can you think of him, what fear can you believe was in him, what faith—whom not even dread could correct, whom persecution itself did not reform? His neck remains high and stiff, and it has not been bent even because it fell; his swelling and proud spirit has not been broken even because it was vanquished.
Lying low, he threatens those who stand and are whole; wounded, he threatens; and because he does not at once receive the body of the Lord with defiled hands or drink the blood of the Lord with a polluted mouth, the sacrilegious man is angry at the priests. And—O your excessive madness, frenzied man!—you are angry at him who strives to turn away the wrath of God from you; you threaten him who entreats the Lord's mercy on your behalf, who feels your wound which you yourself do not feel, who pours out tears for you which perhaps you yourself do not pour. You still burden and heap up your crime; and while you yourself are implacable toward the prelates and priests of God, do you think that the Lord can be appeased toward you? Receive rather and admit the things we say. Why do deaf ears not hear the saving precepts which we admonish?
Why do blind eyes not see the way of penitence which we set before them? Why does the shut-up and estranged mind not perceive the life-giving remedies which we both learn and teach from the heavenly Scriptures? Or if to certain unbelievers there is less faith in things to come, let them at least be terrified by things present. Behold, what punishments do we behold of those who have denied, whose sad deaths do we bewail! Nor can they here be without penalty, although the day of punishment has not yet come. Some are meanwhile chastised, that the rest may be set straight. The torments of a few are examples to all. One of those who of his own accord ascended the Capitol to deny, after he had denied Christ, was struck dumb.
The punishment began there where the crime also began, so that he could no longer even ask, who had not the words for the prayer of mercy. Another woman, set in the baths—for this was lacking to her crime and to her woes, that she should straightway go to the baths who had lost the grace of the life-giving laver—but there, seized by an unclean spirit, the unclean woman tore with her teeth her tongue, which had been either impiously fed or impiously spoken. After the wicked food was taken, the fury of her mouth was armed unto her own destruction. She herself proved to be her own executioner, nor could she long survive afterward; tortured with pain of belly and bowels, she expired. Receive, with myself present and a witness, what came to pass.
Some parents, fleeing perchance, while in their alarm they took too little counsel, left a little daughter under the care of a nurse. The nurse carried the abandoned child to the magistrates. There, before the idol where the people thronged, since because of her age she could not yet eat flesh, they gave her bread mingled with wine—which itself, however, was left over from the immolation of those who were perishing. The mother afterward received back her daughter. But the girl could no more tell and disclose the crime committed than she had earlier been able to understand or to ward it off. Through ignorance, therefore, it came about by stealth that, while we were sacrificing, the mother brought her in with her.
But indeed the girl, mingled among the saints, impatient of our prayer and supplication, now was shaken with weeping, now tossed about wavering with agitation of mind; and as though under the compulsion of a torturer, by such signs as she could, the soul, still untaught in those tender years, confessed the consciousness of the deed. But when, the solemnities being fulfilled, the deacon began to offer the cup to those present, and, as the others received it, her turn came, the little one, by the prompting of the divine majesty, turned away her face, pressed her mouth shut with hardening lips, refused the cup. The deacon nevertheless persisted, and, though she resisted, poured in some of the sacrament of the cup. Then followed a choking and a vomiting.
In a body and mouth that were violated the Eucharist could not remain; the drink that had been sanctified in the Lord's blood burst forth from the polluted bowels. So great is the power of the Lord, so great His majesty: the secrets of darkness were laid bare under His light, and not even the hidden crimes escaped the priest of God. This concerning an infant who because of her age did not yet have the power to speak of another's crime committed about her. But indeed that woman who, advanced in age and established in maturer years, secretly crept in among those who were sacrificing—taking to herself not food but a sword, and admitting as it were certain deadly poisons within her throat and breast—afterward began to be choked and shut in, with her soul boiling up; and, suffering the affliction no longer of persecution but of her own offense, throbbing and trembling she collapsed.
The crime of a dissembled conscience was not long unpunished nor hidden. She who had deceived man felt God to be her avenger. And when a certain woman tried with unclean hands to open her chest, in which was the holy thing of the Lord, she was deterred by a fire rising from it from daring to touch it. And another man who, himself also defiled, dared secretly to receive a part with the rest from the sacrifice celebrated by the priest, could not eat or handle the holy thing of the Lord, but found himself carrying ashes in his open hands. By the testimony of one it was shown that the Lord departs when He is denied, and that what is received profits not unto salvation the man who does not deserve it, when the saving grace, the holy thing fleeing away, is turned into ashes.
How many daily are filled with unclean spirits, how many are shaken even to insanity of mind with the frenzy of madness! There is no need to go through the ends of individuals, since throughout the manifold ruins of the world the punishment of offenses is as varied as the multitude of offenders is numerous. Let each one consider not what another has suffered, but what he himself deserves to suffer; nor let him believe that he has escaped, if for the present the penalty has deferred him, since he ought rather to fear, whom the wrath of God the Judge has reserved for itself. Nor let those flatter themselves, that they may do penance the less, who, although they have not defiled their hands with unspeakable sacrifices, have nevertheless stained their conscience with certificates. That too is the profession of one who denies; it is the attestation of a Christian who has disavowed what he was.
He said that he had done whatever another committed by doing it; and although it is written: 'You cannot serve two masters,' he served a worldly master, obeyed his edict, gave heed more to human command than to God. Let him see whether with less either disgrace or crime among men he published what he committed: yet he will not be able to flee and avoid God the Judge, since the Holy Spirit says in the Psalms: 'Your eyes saw my imperfection, and in your book shall all be written'; and again: 'Man sees in the face, God in the heart'; and the Lord Himself also forewarns and forearms, saying: 'And all the churches shall know that I am the searcher of the reins and of the heart.'
He sees through hidden and secret things and considers what is concealed; nor can anyone escape the eyes of God, who says: 'I am a God at hand, and not a God afar off. If a man be hidden in hiding places, shall I then not see him?' He sees the hearts and breasts of each one, and, about to judge not only concerning our deeds but also concerning our words and our thoughts, He beholds the minds and wills of all, conceived even now in the very hiding places of the still-closed breast.
Finally, how much greater in faith and better in fear are those who, though bound by no crime of sacrifice or certificate, yet because they have even thought of this, confess this very thing before the priests of God in sorrow and in plainness of heart, making the open avowal of their conscience, laying bare the burden of their soul, and seeking a saving remedy even for small and slight wounds, knowing that it is written: 'God is not mocked.' God cannot be mocked or circumvented, nor deluded by any deceiving cunning. Indeed he sins the more who, thinking of God after the manner of men, believes that he can escape the punishment of his crime if he has not openly committed it. Christ says in his precepts: 'Whoever is ashamed of me, the Son of man shall be ashamed of him.'
And does he think himself a Christian who is either ashamed or afraid to be a Christian? How can he be with Christ who either blushes or fears to belong to Christ? Plainly he will have sinned less in not having looked upon the idols, nor profaned the holiness of his faith under the eyes of a surrounding and insulting crowd, nor defiled his hands with deadly sacrifices, nor stained his mouth with accursed foods. This avails him so far as to make his guilt the less, not to make his conscience innocent. He can more easily attain pardon for his crime, yet he is not free from crime: nor let him cease to perform penance and to entreat the mercy of the Lord, lest what seems to be less in the quality of the offense be heaped up by a neglected satisfaction.
Let each one confess his sin, I beseech you, brethren, while he who has sinned is still in this world, while his confession can be admitted, while the satisfaction and remission made through the priests is acceptable before the Lord. Let us turn to the Lord with our whole mind, and expressing penance for our crime with true sorrows, let us entreat the mercy of God. Let the soul prostrate itself before him, let sorrow make satisfaction to him, let all hope lean upon him. He himself tells us how we ought to pray. 'Turn to me,' he says, 'with all your heart, and at the same time with fasting and with weeping and with mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments.' Let us return to the Lord with our whole heart; let us appease his wrath and offense with fasting, weeping, and mourning, as he himself admonishes.
Do we suppose that he laments with his whole heart, that he entreats the Lord with fastings, weepings, and mournings, who from the very first day of his crime daily frequents the baths, who fed on overflowing feasts and bloated with fuller fattening belches up his surfeit the next day, and does not share his food and drink with the need of the poor? How does he who comes forth cheerful and merry bewail his death? And though it is written: 'You shall not mar the figure of your beard,' he plucks his beard and adorns his face? And does he now strive to please anyone, who displeases God?
Or does she groan and lament, who has leisure to put on the adornment of costly raiment and to give no thought to the garment of Christ which she has lost; to receive precious ornaments and wrought necklaces, and not to bewail the loss of her divine and heavenly adornment? Though you put on foreign garments and silken robes, you are naked: though you deck yourself with gold and pearls and gems, without the comeliness of Christ you are unsightly. And you who dye your hair, cease now even amid your sorrows; and you who paint the outlines of your eyes with a trace of black powder, now at least wash your eyes with tears.
If you had lost some dear one of yours by the death of this mortal life, you would groan in grief and weep; with face unkempt, garments changed, hair neglected, countenance clouded, and visage cast down, you would show the signs of your mourning. Wretched soul, you have lost your own soul; spiritually dead, you have begun to survive here and yourself, while still walking, to carry your own corpse: and do you not bitterly lament, do you not unceasingly groan, do you not hide yourself either out of shame for your crime or by the continuance of lamentation? Behold, there are still worse wounds of sinning, behold greater offenses: to have sinned and not make satisfaction, to have transgressed and not bewail one's transgressions. Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, illustrious and noble youths, did not cease to make their confession to God even amid the flames and the burning fires of the seething furnace.
Though well conscious of their own integrity, and having often deserved well of the Lord by the obedience of their faith and fear, yet they did not cease to keep humility and to make satisfaction to God even amid the very glorious martyrdoms of their virtues. The divine Scripture speaks: 'Standing,' it says, 'Azarias prayed, and he opened his mouth and made confession to God together with his companions in the midst of the fire.' Daniel also, after the manifold grace of his faith and innocence, after the favor of the Lord shown toward him often repeated for his virtues and praises, still strives to deserve well of God by fastings, rolling in sackcloth and ashes, making confession in sorrow and saying:
'O Lord God, great and strong and to be feared, who keep covenant and mercy for those who love you and keep your commandments: we have sinned, we have committed iniquity, we have been ungodly, we have transgressed and forsaken your precepts and your judgments; we have not hearkened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings and all the nations and over all the earth. To you, O Lord, to you belongs righteousness, but to us confusion.' These things the meek, the simple, the innocent did to deserve well of the majesty of God: and now those who have denied the Lord refuse to make satisfaction to the Lord and to pray!
I beseech you, brethren, acquiesce in these saving remedies, obey these better counsels, join your tears to our tears, couple your groans with our groaning. We ask you that we may be able to ask the Lord for you; we first turn upon you those very prayers by which we pray God to have mercy for you. Perform full penance, prove the sorrow of a grieving and lamenting soul! Nor let the heedless error or the empty stupor of certain ones move you, who, though held in so grave a crime, are smitten with blindness of mind, so that they neither understand their offenses nor bewail them. This is the greater stroke of an angry God, as it is written: 'And God gave them a spirit of compunction,' and again:
'They did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And therefore God sends them the working of error, that they should believe a lie, that all may be judged who did not believe the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness.' Unjustly pleasing themselves and demented by the alienation of a stricken mind, they despise the precepts of the Lord, neglect the remedy of their wound, and refuse to do penance. Improvident before the crime was committed, obstinate after the crime, neither steadfast first nor afterward suppliant: when they ought to have stood, they lay down; when they ought to lie down and prostrate themselves before God, they imagine they are standing.
They have taken peace for themselves of their own accord, no one granting it; seduced by a false promise and joined with apostates and the faithless, they take up error in place of truth; they count valid the communion of those who are not in communion; they believe men against God, who against men did not believe God. Flee such men as much as you can; with wholesome caution avoid clinging to their pernicious contacts. Their speech creeps like a cancer, their converse leaps across like a contagion, their harmful and venomous persuasion slays worse than persecution itself. There penance remains which may make satisfaction; but those who take away penance for a crime close the way of satisfaction.
Thus it comes to pass that, while by the rashness of certain ones a false salvation is either promised or believed, the hope of true salvation is taken away. But you, brethren, whose fear of the Lord is forward, and whose mind, though set amid ruin, is mindful of its evil, examine your sins in penitence and sorrow, acknowledge the most grievous crime of your conscience, open the eyes of your heart to the understanding of your offense, neither despairing of the Lord's mercy nor yet claiming pardon already. As much as God is indulgent and good in the tenderness of a father, so much is he to be feared in the majesty of a judge. As greatly as we have sinned, so greatly let us bewail it. To a deep wound let careful and long medicine not be lacking; let the penance be not less than the crime.
Do you suppose that God can be quickly appeased, whom you have denied with faithless words, to whom you preferred your patrimony, whose temple you have violated with a sacrilegious contagion? Do you think he easily has mercy on you, whom you have said was not yours? You must pray more earnestly and entreat, pass the day in mourning, spend nights in vigils and weepings, occupy all your time in tearful lamentations, lie stretched upon the ground clinging to ashes, roll in sackcloth and filth; after the garment of Christ has been lost, to wish for no garment now; after the food of the devil, to prefer fasting; to apply yourself to righteous works by which sins are purged, and frequently to persist in almsgiving by which souls are freed from death.
What the adversary was carrying off, let Christ receive; nor ought that patrimony now to be held or loved by which one was both deceived and overcome. The thing must be shunned as an enemy, fled as a robber, feared by its possessors as a sword and a poison. To this alone will what remains have profited: that thereby the crime and guilt may be redeemed. Let the work be done without hesitation and lavishly; let the whole estate be expended on the remedy of the wound; let the Lord, who is to judge concerning us, be lent our riches and means. Thus under the apostles faith flourished; thus the first people of believers kept the commandments of Christ: they were ready, they were liberal. They gave the whole to be distributed by the apostles, and yet were not redeeming such offenses.
If anyone makes his prayer with his whole heart, if he groans with the true lamentations and tears of penance, if he bends the Lord toward pardon of his offense by righteous and continual works, he can have mercy on such, who also offered his own mercy, saying: 'When you turn and groan, then you shall be saved and shall know where you have been,' and again: 'I do not will the death of the dying, says the Lord, so much as that he should return and live.' And the prophet Joel declares the tenderness of the Lord, the Lord himself admonishing: 'Turn,' he says, 'to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and kind and patient and of great compassion, and one who may bend his sentence against the malice inflicted.' He can grant indulgence, he can bend his sentence.
To the penitent, the laboring, the praying, he can mercifully grant pardon; he can reckon to one's account whatever the martyrs have asked and the priests have done for such. Or if anyone moves him more by his own satisfactions, if by just supplication he has appeased his wrath, the offense of his indignation, he both gives again the arms by which the conquered may be armed, and repairs and strengthens the powers by which faith, restored, may be invigorated. The soldier will renew his contest, will resume the battle line, will provoke the enemy, and indeed, made stronger for the fight through his sorrow.
He who has thus made satisfaction to God, who by the penance of his deed, who by shame for his offense has conceived more both of virtue and of faith from the very sorrow of his fall, being heard and helped by the Lord, will make joyful the Church which he had lately grieved, and will deserve now not only the pardon of God but also a crown.