363 CE Cyril Quake

English from King (1888)

Second Invective of the Fifth Oration
from King (1888)

3. He [Julian]^1a was daily growing more infuriated against us, as though raising up waves by other waves, he that went mad first against himself, that trampled upon things holy, and that did despite unto the Spirit of Grace: is it more proper to call him Jeroboam or Ahab, those most wicked of the Israelites; or Pharaoh the Egyptian, or Nebuchadnezzar the Assyrian; or combining all together shall we name him one and the same, since he shows himself to have united in himself the vices of them all----the apostasy of Jeroboam, the bloodthirstiness of Ahab, the hardness of heart of Pharaoh, the sacrilegious acts of Nebuchadnezzar, the impiety of all put together! For when he had exhausted every other resource, and despised every other form of tyranny in our regard as trifling and unworthy of him (since there never was a character so fertile in finding out and contriving mischief), at last he stirred up against us the nation of the Jews, making his accomplice in his machinations their well-known credulity, as well as that hatred for us which has smouldered in them from the very beginning; prophesying to them out of their own books and mysteries that now was the appointed time come for them to return into their own land, and to rebuild the Temple, and restore the reign of their hereditary institutions ---- thus hiding his true purpose under the mark of benevolence.

4. And when he had formed this plan, and made them believe it (for whatever suits one's wishes is a ready engine for deceiving people), they began to debate about rebuilding the Temple, and in large number and with great zeal set about the work. For the partisans of the other side report that not only did their women strip off all their personal ornaments and contribute it towards the work and operations, but even carried away the rubbish in the laps of their gowns, sparing neither the so precious clothes nor yet the tenderness of their own limbs, for they believed they were doing a pious action, and regarded everything of less moment than the work in hand. But they being driven against one another, as though by a furious blast^1b of wind, and sudden heaving of the earth, some rushed to one of the neighbouring sacred places to pray for mercy; others, as is wont to happen in such cases, made use of what came to hand to shelter themselves; others were carried away blindly by the panic, and struck against those who were running up to see what was the matter. There are some who say that neither did the sacred place [Greek word]² admit them, but that when they approached the folding doors that stood wide open, on coming up to them they found them closed in their faces by an unseen and invisible power^1c which works wonders of the sort for the confusion of the impious and the saving of the godly. But what all people nowadays report and believe is that when they were forcing their way and struggling about the entrance a flame issued forth from the sacred place [church] and stopped them, and some it burnt up and consumed so that a fate befell them similar to the disaster of the people of Sodom, or to the miracle about Nadab and Abiud, who offered incense and perished so strangely: whilst others it maimed in the principal parts of the body, and so left them for a living monument of God's threatening and wrath against sinners. Such then was this event; and let no one disbelieve, unless he doubts likewise the other mighty works of God! But what is yet more strange and more conspicuous, there stood in the heavens a light circumscribing a Cross, and that which before on earth was contemned by the ungodly both in figure and in name is now exhibited in heaven, and is made by God a trophy of His victory over the impious, a trophy more lofty than any other!

5. What will those gentlemen say of these events----they who are wise, as this world goes, and make a fine show of their own cause, smoothing down their flowing beard and trailing before our eyes that elegant philosophic mantle! Reply to me for thyself, thou writer of long discourses, that dost compose incredible stories and gapest up at the skies, telling lies about things celestial, and weaving out of the movements of the stars, people's nativities and predictions of the future! Tell me of those stars of thine, the Ariadne's Crown, the Berenice's Hair, the lascivious Swan, the violent Bull! or, if thou pleasest, tell me of thine Ophiuchus, or of thy Capricorn, or of thy Lion, or all the rest that thou hast discovered for a bad end and made them into gods in constellations! Where dost thou find this cycle in thy science, where the Star that of old moved towards Bethlehem out of the East, that leader and introducer of thy own Wise Men! I, too, have something to tell from the heavens: that Star declared the presence of Christ: this Crown is that of the victory of Christ!

6. Thus much is taken from things celestial and sympathizing with our fortunes, in accordance with the mighty harmony and disposition of the universe. What follows let the Psalm finish for me: "Because Thou hast cast down cities," namely, those ancient ones for the very same acts of impiety, in the middle of the very same offences against us; some thereof overwhelmed by the floods, others swallowed up by earthquake; so that one is pretty nearly able to apply the remainder: "The memorial of them hath perished with a sound and a destruction noised abroad." For such has been their fall, and such their ruin, also of those their neighbours who | took the most delight in their impiety, so that a very long time were necessary to them for their restoration, even if anyone should have the boldness to undertake it.

7. Was it then only earth and heaven, and did not air likewise give a sign on that occasion, and was hallowed with the badges of the Passion ? Let those who were spectators and partakers of that prodigy exhibit their gar- ments, which to the present time are stamped with the brandmarks of the Cross ! For at the very moment that anyone, either of our own brethren or of the outsiders, was telling the event or hearing it told by others, he be- held the miracle happening in his own case or to his neighbour, being all spotted with stars, or beholding the other so marked upon his clothes in a manner more variegated than could be done by any artificial work of the loom or elaborate painting. What is the result of this ? Such great consternation at the spectacle that nearly all, as by one signal and with one voice, invoked the God of the Christians, and propitiated Him with many praises and supplications : whilst many, without further delay, but at the moment of the occurrence, ran up to our priests, and besought them earnestly that they might be made members of the Church, being sanctified by the holy baptism, for they had been saved by means of their fright.

Footnotes

1a. It is to be remarked that the preacher never once mentions Julian by name. Was this meant for an expression of contempt?

1b. [Greek word]. Gregory knows nothing of the "metuendi flammarum globi," with which Ammian adorns the story. It is plain from this account, written but a few months after the occurrence, that a sudden storm of wind sufficed to frighten the superstitious Jews, who saw in it a sign of the displeasure of Heaven with the work they were about.

2. This must be Helena's Church: Gregory terms the Temple new_j.

1c. The keepers of the church, who naturally shut the doors in the face of a mad crowd of Jews running towards it (for only one purpose as they would imagine), and then proceeded to disperse those attempting to force an entrance by the usual expedient of throwing fire upon them through the windows. Ammian confounds the fire thrown from the Christian church with "flames spontaneously issuing out of the ruins" of the ancient Temple, which completely alters the case. He also states that Julian was rebuilding the Temple at his own cost, whereas it appears from Gregory he left it entirely to the fanaticism of the Jews, doubtless (i.e., the moneyed part of them), very glad of a sign from Heaven to stop so expensive a project. But to give Ammian's words,

Templum instaurare sumptibus cogitabat immodicis: negotiumque maturandum Alypio dederat Antiochensi, qui olim Britannias curaverat propraefectis. Cum itaque rei idem fortiter instaret Alypius, juvaretque provincial rector, metuendi globi flammarum prope fundamenta crebris assultibus erumpentes, fecere locum exustis aliquantis operantibus inaccessum, hoc que modo, elemento destinatius repellente, cessavit inceptum, - xxiii. 1, A.D. 363.

The story had got embellished with these terrible globes of flame, in the interval of twenty years between the event and the time of Ammian's writing. The pious Gregory was much too fond of miracles to have omitted so splendid a manifestation had the report of it been contemporary.

Fifth Oration Against the Pagans by Gregory of Nazianzusa