4.

And again, after some other matters, he proceeds thus:--For Valerian was instigated to these acts by this man, and was thereby exposed to contumely and reproach, according to the word spoken by the Lord to Isaiah: "Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their own abominations in which their souls delighted; I also will choose their mockeries, ¹ and will recompense their sin." ² But this man ³ (Macrianus), being maddened with his passion for the empire, all unworthy of it as he was, and at the same time having no capacity for assuming the insignia of imperial government, ⁴ by reason of his crippled ⁵ body, ⁶ put forward his two sons as the bearers, so to speak, of their father's offences. For unmistakeably apparent in their case was the truth of that declaration made by God, when He said, "Visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." For he heaped his own wicked passions, for which he had failed in securing satisfaction, ⁷ upon the heads of his sons, and thus wiped off ⁸ upon them his own wickedness, and transferred to them, too, the hatred he himself had shown toward God.