Chapter III.

Nor should I think it needful to discuss whether God pursues a worthy course in forbidding His own name and honour to be given over to a lie, or does so in not consenting that such as He has plucked from the maze of false religion should return again to Egypt, or does so in not suffering to depart from Him them whom He has chosen for Himself. Thus that, too, will not require to be treated by us, whether He has wished to be kept the rule which He has chosen to appoint, and whether He justly avenges the abandonment of the rule which He has wished to be kept; since He would have appointed it to no purpose if He had not wished it kept, and would have to no purpose wished it kept if He had been unwilling to uphold it.  My next step, indeed, is to put to the test these appointments of God in opposition to false religions, the completely vanquished as well as also the punished, since on these will depend the entire argument for martyrdoms. Moses was apart with God on the mountain, when the people, not brooking his absence, which was so needful, seek to make gods for themselves, which, for his own part, he will prefer to destroy.31    Ex. xxxii. Aaron is importuned, and commands that the earrings of their women be brought together, that they may be thrown into the fire. For the people were about to lose, as a judgment upon themselves, the true ornaments for the ears, the words of God. The wise fire makes for them the molten likeness of a calf, reproaching them with having the heart where they have their treasure also,—in Egypt, to wit, which clothed with sacredness, among the other animals, a certain ox likewise.  Therefore the slaughter of three thousand by their nearest relatives, because they had displeased their so very near relative God, solemnly marked both the commencement and the deserts of the trespass. Israel having, as we are told in Numbers,32    Num. xxv. 1. turned aside at Sethim, the people go to the daughters of Moab to gratify their lust: they are allured to the idols, so that they committed whoredom with the spirit also: finally, they eat of their defiled sacrifices; then they both worship the gods of the nation, and are admitted to the rites of Beelphegor. For this lapse, too, into idolatry, sister to adultery, it took the slaughter of twenty-three thousand by the swords of their countrymen to appease the divine anger.  After the death of Joshua the son of Nave they forsake the God of their fathers, and serve idols, Baalim and Ashtaroth;33    Judg. ii. 8–13. and the Lord in anger delivered them up to the hands of spoilers, and they continued to be spoiled by them, and to be sold to their adversaries, and could not at all stand before their enemies.  Whithersoever they went forth, His hand was upon them for evil, and they were greatly distressed. And after this God sets judges (critas), the same as our censors, over them. But not even these did they continue steadfastly to obey. So soon as one of the judges died, they proceeded to transgress more than their fathers had done by going after the gods of others, and serving and worshipping them. Therefore the Lord was angry. “Since, indeed,” He says, “this nation have transgressed my covenant which I established with their fathers, and have not hearkened to my voice, I also will give no heed to remove from before them a man of the nations which Joshua left at his death.”34    Judg. ii. 20, 21. And thus, throughout almost all the annals of the judges and of the kings who succeeded them, while the strength of the surrounding nations was preserved, He meted wrath out to Israel by war and captivity and a foreign yoke, as often as they turned aside from Him, especially to idolatry.

CAPUT III.

Nec putem disceptandum, an digne Deus prohibeat nomen et honorem suum mendacio addici, an digne quos ab errore superstitionis avulserit, rursus in Aegyptum regredi nolit; an digne a se non patitur 0128C absistere quos sibi allegit. Itaque nec illud exspectabit retractari a nobis, an observari voluerit disciplinam quam voluit instituere, et an merito ulciscatur desertam, quam voluit observatam: quando frustra instituisset, si observari eam noluisset; et frustra observari voluisset, si vindicare noluisset. Sequitur enim ut has definitiones Dei adversus superstitiones, tam evictas quam etiam vindicatas probem, quoniam ex his tota martyriorum ratio constabit. Aberat apud Deum in monte Moyses, cum populus tam necessariam absentiam ejus impatiens, deos sibi producere quaerit, quos potius ipse perdiderit. 0129A Urgetur Aaron, et jubet inaures foeminarum suarum in ignem conferri. Amissuri enim erant in judicium sibi vera ornamenta aurium, Dei voces. Sapiens ignis effigiem vituli defundit illis , suggillans illic cor habentes, ubi et thesaurum, apud Aegyptum scilicet inter caetera animalia bovis etiam cujusdam consecratricem; itaque tria millia hominum a parentibus proximis caesa, quia tam proximum parentem Deum offenderant, transgressionis et primordia et merita dedicaverunt. In Arithmis (Num. XXV), cum divertisset Israel apud Sethim, abeunt libidinatum ad filias Moab, invitantur ad idola, ut et spiritu fornicarentur; edunt denique de pollutis eorum: dehinc et adorant deos gentis, et Beelphegor initiantur. Ob hanc quoque idololatriam, moechiae sororem, 0129B viginti tria millia domesticis obtruncata gladiis divinae irae litaverunt. Defuncto Jesu Nave (Jud. II), derelinquunt Deum patrum suorum, et serviunt idolis Baalim et Astartis; et iratus Dominus tradidit eos in manibus diripientium; et diripiebantur ab illis, et venundabantur inimicis, nec poterant omnino subsistere a facie inimicorum suorum; quocumque processerant, manus erat super illos in mala, et compressati sunt valde. Post quae instituit super illos Deus Critas, quos censores intelligimus, sed nec istis obaudire perseverarunt: ut quis Critarum obierat, illi ad delinquendum supra quam patres eorum, abeundo post deos alienorum et serviendo et adorando eos . Itaque Dominus iratus: Quoniam quidem, ait, transgressa est gens ista pactum meum, quod disposui 0129C patribus eorum, et non audierunt vocem meam, et ego non advertam ad auferendum virum a facie eorum ex nationibus quas relinquit decedens Jesu. Atque ita per omnes pene annales critarum et deinceps regum, reservatis gentium circumcolarum viribus, bello et captivitate et jugo allophylorum iram dispensavit Israel, quotienscumque ab illo maxime in idololatriam exorbitaverunt.