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Against Vigilantius

5.

Madman, who in the world ever adored the martyrs? who ever thought man was God? Did not ¹ Paul and Barnabas, when the people of Lycaonia thought them to be Jupiter and Mercury, and would have offered sacrifices to them, rend their clothes and declare they were men? Not that they were not better than Jupiter and Mercury, who were but men long ago dead, but because, under the mistaken ideas of the Gentiles, the honour due to God was being paid to them. And we read the same respecting Peter, who, when Cornelius wished to adore him, raised him by the hand, and said, ²“Stand up, for I also am a man.” And have you the audacity to speak of “the mysterious something or other which you P. 419 carry about in a little vessel and worship?” I want to know what it is that you call “something or other.” Tell us more clearly (that there may be no restraint on your blasphemy) what you mean by the phrase “a bit of powder wrapped up in a costly cloth in a tiny vessel.” It is nothing less than the relics of the martyrs which he is vexed to see covered with a costly veil, and not bound up with rags or hair-cloth, or thrown on the midden, so that Vigilantius alone in his drunken slumber may be worshipped. Are we, therefore guilty of sacrilege when we enter the basilicas of the Apostles? Was the Emperor Constantius I. guilty of sacrilege when he transferred the sacred relics of Andrew, Luke, and Timothy to Constantinople? In their presence the demons cry out, and the devils who dwell in Vigilantius confess that they feel the influence of the saints. And at the present day is the Emperor Arcadius guilty of sacrilege, who after so long a time has conveyed the bones of the blessed Samuel from Judea to Thrace? Are all the bishops to be considered not only sacrilegious, but silly into the bargain, because they carried that most worthless thing, dust and ashes, wrapped in silk in golden vessel? Are the people of all the Churches fools, because they went to meet the sacred relics, and welcomed them with as much joy as if they beheld a living prophet in the midst of them, so that there was one great swarm of people from Palestine to Chalcedon with one voice re-echoing the praises of Christ? They were forsooth, adoring Samuel and not Christ, whose Levite and prophet Samuel was. You show mistrust because you think only of the dead body, and therefore blaspheme. Read the Gospel— ³“The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob: He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” If then they are alive, they are not, to use your expression, kept in honourable confinement.

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Contra Vigilantium liber unus

5.

Reliquiae Apostolorum, et Samuelis.—Quis enim, o insanum caput, aliquando martyres adoravit? quis hominem putavit Deum? nonne Paulus et Barnabas (Act. XIV) cum a Lycaonibus Jupiter et Mercurius putarentur, et eis vellent hostias immolare, sciderunt vestimenta sua, et se homines esse dixerunt? Non quod meliores non essent olim mortuis hominibus Jove atque Mercurio: sed quod sub gentilitatis errore, honor eis Deo debitus deferretur. Quod et de Petro legimus, qui Cornelium se adorare cupientem manu sublevavit, et dixit: Surge: nam et ego homo sum. (Ibid. X, 26). Et audes dicere: "Illud nescio quid quod in modico vasculo transferendo colis?" Quid est illud, nescio quid, scire desidero. "Expone manifestius, ut tota libertate blasphemes, pulvisculum nescio quod [Ms., B. inquit in, etc.] in modico vasculo pretioso linteamine circumdatum." Dolet martyrum reliquias pretioso operiri velamine: et non vel pannis, vel cilicio colligari, vel projici in sterquilinium; ut solus Vigilantius ebrius et dormiens adoretur. Ergo sacrilegi sumus, quando Apostolorum basilicas ingredimur? Sacrilegus fuit Constantius Imperator I, qui sanctas reliquias Andreae, Lucae, et Timothei transtulit Constantinopolim, apud quas daemones rugiunt, et inhabitatores Vigilantii illorum se sentire praesentiam confitentur? Sacrilegus dicendus est, et nunc Augustus Arcadius, qui ossa beati Samuelis longo post tempore de Judaea transtulit in Thraciam? Omnes episcopi non solum sacrilegi; sed et fatui judicandi, qui rem vilissimam et cineres dissolutos in serico et vase aureo portaverunt? Stulti omnium Ecclesiarum populi, qui occurerrunt sanctis reliquiis: et tanta laetitia, quasi praesentem, viventemque prophetam cernerent, susceperunt: unde Palaestina usque Chalcedonem jungerentur populorum examina: et in Christi laudes una voce resonarent? Videlicet adorabant Samuelem, et non Christum, cujus Samuel et levita et prophetes fuit. Mortuum suspicaris, et idcirco blasphemas. Lege Evangelium: Deus Abraham, Deus Isaac, Deus Jacob: non est Deus mortuorum, sed vivorum (Matth. XII). Si ergo vivunt, honesto juxta te carcere non clauduntur.