Burning of the Synagogue at Callinicum

Ambrose, bishop, to the most charitable prince and blessed emperor, Theodosius the Augustus. [ . . . ]

A report was made by the military count of the East that a synagogue had been burned and that this was done at the instigation of the bishop. You commanded that the others should be punished and the synagogue be rebuilt by the bishop himself. I am not saying that the bishop’s account should have been waited for, because priests like to calm disturbances and are anxious for peace, except when even they are moved by some offense against God or insult to the church. Let us suppose that that bishop was too eager in the matter of burning the synagogue and too timid at the judgment seat; are you not afraid, O emperor, that he might comply with your sentence and fail in his faith?

Are you not also afraid that—which will happen—he will oppose your count with a refusal? He would then be obliged to make him either an apostate or a martyr, either of which is alien to the times and equivalent to persecution, whether he is compelled to apostatize or to give up his life as a martyr. You see the direction in which the issue of the matter inclines. If you think the bishop acted rightly, guard against making a martyr of a right man. If you think he vacillated, avoid causing the fall of one who is weak. For he who has caused the weak to fall has a heavy responsibility.

Having thus stated the two sides of the matter, suppose that said bishop says that he himself kindled the fire, collected the crowd, and gathered the people together, in order not to lose a chance at martyrdom and to put forward a stronger athlete instead of a weak one. O happy lie, which earns acquittal for others and grace for himself! This, O emperor, is what I, too, have requested: that you would rather take vengeance on me and, if you consider this a crime, would attribute it to me. Why order judgment against one who is absent? You have the guilty man present, you hear his confession. I declare that I set fire to the synagogue, or at least that I ordered those who did it, so that there might not be a place where Christ was denied. If anyone objects that I did not set the synagogue on fire here, I answer, it began to be burned by the judgment of God, and my work came to an end. And if anyone asks for the real truth, I was lax because I did not expect that it would be punished. Why should I do something that would go both unavenged and unrewarded? These words hurt modesty but recall grace, lest an offense against God most High be committed.

But let it be granted that no one will cite the bishop for the performance of this task, for I have asked this of Your Clemency, and although I have not yet read that this edict is revoked, let us assume that it is revoked anyway. What if others more timid offer to restore the synagogue at their cost; or that the count, having found this previously determined, himself orders it to be rebuilt out of the funds of Christians? You, O emperor, will have an apostate count; will you entrust the victorious standards to him? Will you entrust the labarum [a standard bearing the sign of the cross], consecrated as it is by the name of Christ, to one who restores the synagogue who knows not Christ? Order the labarum to be carried into the synagogue, and let us see if they do not resist.

Should a place be made for the unbelief of the Jews out of the spoils of the church, and should the patrimony, which has been gained for Christians by the favor of Christ, be transferred to the treasuries of unbelievers? We read of old temples that were built for idols from the plunder of Cimbri and the spoils of other enemies. Should the Jews write this inscription on the front of their synagogue: “The temple of impiety, erected from the plunder of Christians”?

But perhaps the cause of discipline moves you, O emperor. Which, then, is of greater importance: the show of discipline or the cause of religion? It is necessary that judgment should yield to religion.

Have you not heard, O emperor, that when Julian had commanded that the Temple of Jerusalem be restored, those who were clearing the rubbish were consumed by fire? Will you not beware lest this happen again now? For you ought not to have commanded what Julian commanded.

But what is your motive? Is it because a public building of whatever kind has been burned, or is it because it was a synagogue? If you are moved by the burning of a building of no importance (for what could there be in so average a town?), do you not remember, O emperor, how many prefects’ houses have been burnt in Rome, and yet no one inflicted punishment for it? And in truth, if any emperor had wanted to severely punish the deed, he would have injured the cause of the person who had suffered so great a loss. Which, then, is more appropriate: that a fire in some part of the buildings of Callinicum, or of the city of Rome, should be punished, if indeed it were right at all? In Constantinople recently, the house of the bishop was burned, and Your Clemency’s son interceded with his father, praying that you would not avenge the insult offered to him, that is, to the son of the emperor, and the burning of the episcopal house. Do you not consider, O emperor, that if you were to order this deed to be punished, he would again intervene against the punishment? That favor, however, was appropriately obtained by the son from the father, for it was worthy of him to forgive the injury done to himself first. That was a good division in the distribution of favor, the son being entreated for his own loss and the father for that of the son. Here there is nothing for you to keep back for your son. Take heed, then, lest you disparage anything from God.

There is, then, no adequate cause for such a commotion, to so severely punish the people for the burning of a building, even less so because it is the burning of a synagogue, a home of unbelief, a house of impiety, a receptacle of folly, which God Himself has condemned. For thus we read, where the Lord our God speaks through the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah: Therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your ancestors, just what I did to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my sight, just as I cast out all your kinsfolk, all the offspring of Ephraim. As for you, do not pray for this people, do not raise a cry or prayer on their behalf, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah? (Jeremiah 7:14–17, NRSV). God forbids intercession to be made for those.

And certainly, if I were pleading according to the law of nations, I could tell how many of the church’s basilicas the Jews burned in the time of the emperor Julian: two at Damascus, one of which has barely been repaired, and this at the cost of the church, not of the synagogue. The other basilica is still a rough mass of shapeless ruins. Basilicas were burnt at Gaza, Ashkelon, Berytus [Beirut], and in almost every place in those parts, and no one demanded punishment. And at Alexandria, a basilica was burnt by heathens and Jews, surpassing all the rest. The church was not avenged; shall the synagogue be so? [ . . . ]

But it is related that the judge was ordered to recognize the matter, and that it was written that he should not have reported the deed but should have punished it, and that the money chests that had been taken away should be demanded. I will omit other matters. The buildings of our churches were burned by the Jews, and nothing was restored. Nothing was asked back, nothing demanded. But what could the synagogue have possessed in a far-distant town, when the whole of what there is there is not much; there is nothing of value, and no abundance? And what then could the scheming Jews lose in the fire? These are ploys of the Jews who wish to malign us—that because of their complaints an extraordinary military inquiry may be ordered and a soldier sent who will, perhaps, say what one once said here, O emperor, before your accession: “How will Christ be able to help us who fight for the Jews against Christ, who are sent to avenge the Jews? They have destroyed their own armies and wish to destroy ours.”

Further, what calumnies will they not spread, who by false witness made calumnies even against Christ? What calumnies will men who are liars not tell, even about things belonging to God? Whom will they not say to have been the instigators of that treachery? Whom will they not attack, even of those whom they do not recognize, that they may gaze upon the numberless ranks of Christians in chains, that they may see the necks of the faithful people bowed in captivity, that the servants of God may be concealed in darkness, may be beheaded, given over to the fire, delivered to the mines, that their sufferings may not quickly pass away?

Will you give this triumph over the church of God to the Jews? This trophy over Christ’s people, this exultation, O emperor, to the unbelievers? This rejoicing to the synagogue, this sorrow to the church? The people of the Jews will set this solemnity among their feast days and will doubtless number it among those on which they triumphed over either the Amorites or the Canaanites, or were delivered from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, or of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. They will add this solemnity, in memory of their having triumphed over the people of Christ.

And although they deny that they themselves are bound by Roman law, and repudiate those laws as criminal, yet now they think that they ought to be avenged, as it were, by Roman law. Where were those laws when they themselves set fire to the roofs of the sacred basilicas? If Julian did not avenge the church because he was an apostate, will you, O emperor, avenge the injury done to the synagogue, because you are a Christian? [ . . . ]

And yet how great a thing it is, O emperor, that you should not think it necessary to inquire or to punish a matter that up to this day no one has inquired into and no one has ever inflicted punishment for. It is a serious matter to endanger your salvation for the Jews. When Gideon had slain the sacred calf, the heathen said, “The gods themselves will avenge the injury done to them” [see Judges 6:25–32]. Who is to avenge the synagogue? Christ, whom they slew, whom they denied? Will God the Father avenge those who do not receive the Father, since they have not received the Son?

Adapted from the translation ofH. Romestin.