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| He expostulates with Constantius.
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34. He expostulates with
Constantius.
Now when such enormities as these were again
perpetrated by the Arians, I surely was not wrong in complying with the
direction of Holy Scripture, which says, ‘Hide thyself for a
little moment, until the wrath of the Lord be overpast1385
.’ This was another reason for my
withdrawing myself, Augustus, most beloved of God; and I refused not,
either to depart into the desert, or, if need were, to be let down from
a wall in a basket1386
. I endured
everything, I even dwelt among wild beasts, that your favour might
return to me, waiting for an opportunity to offer to you this my
defence, confident as I am that they will be condemned, and your
goodness manifested unto me. O, Augustus, blessed and most beloved of
God, what would you have had me to do? to come to you while my
calumniators were inflamed with rage against me, and were seeking to
kill me; or, as it is written, to hide myself a little, that in the
mean time they might be condemned as heretics, and your goodness might
be manifested unto me? or would you have had me, Sire, to appear before
your magistrates, in order that though you had written merely in the
way of threatening, they not understanding your intention, but being
exasperated against me by the Arians, might kill me on the authority of
your letters, and on that ground ascribe the murder to you? It would
neither have been becoming in me to surrender, and give myself up that
my blood might be shed, nor in you, as a Christian King, to have the
murder of Christians, and those too Bishops, imputed unto you.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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