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Oration XXXIII.
I. Where are they who reproach us with our poverty, and boast themselves of their own riches who define the Church by numbers, and scorn the little
II. Would you like me to utter to you the words of God to Israel, stiff-necked and hardened? “O my people what have I done unto thee, or wherein hav
III. What tumultuous mob have I led against you? What soldiers have I armed? What general boiling with rage, and more savage than his employers, an
IV. What wild beasts have we let loose upon the bodies of Saints,—like some who have prostituted human nature,—on one single accusation, that of not
V. And to speak of older things, for they too belong to the same fraternity whose hands living or dead have I cut off—to bring a lying accusation ag
VI. Now since your antecedents are such, I should be glad if you too will tell me of my crimes, that I may either amend my life or be put to shame.
VII. Why do you not also mention the convenience of the site, and what I may call the contest between land and sea as to which owns the City, and whi
VIII. Do you also find fault with the raggedness of my dress, and the want of elegance in the disposition of my face? for these are the points upon w
IX. But I am so old fashioned and such a philosopher as to believe that one heaven is common to all and that so is the revolution of the sun and the
X. I was deceived too by the Ramah of Samuel, that little fatherland of the great man which was no dishonour to the Prophet, for it drew its honour
XI. But perhaps some one who is very circumscribed and carnally minded will say, “But our herald is a stranger and a foreigner.” What of the Apostle
XII. My friend, every one that is of high mind has one Country, the Heavenly Jerusalem, in which we store up our Citizenship. All have one family—if
XIII. It is thus then and for these reasons that I, who am small and of a country without repute, have come upon you, and that not of my own accord,
XIV. And if I am doing wrong in this, that when tyrannized over I endure it, forgive me this wrong I have borne to be tyrannized over by others too
XV. Moreover this also I reckoned and still reckon with myself and do you see if it is not quite correct. I have often discussed it with you before
XVI. These I call by name (for they are not nameless like the stars which are numbered and have names), and they follow me, for I rear them up beside
XVII. These words let everyone who threatens me to-day concede to me the rest let whoever will claim. The Father will not endure to be deprived of
Against The Arians, and Concerning Himself.
Delivered at Constantinople about the middle of the year 380.
ΛΟΓΟΣ ΛΓʹ.Πρὸς Ἀρειανοὺς, καὶ εἰς ἑαυτόν.
