Section 310
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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 279 pronounced for the public good, or even reasonable ;* but that prophetic malediction which says, Wo to those that prophesy according to their own hearts, and do not see to the public good f for neither did he perceive that Providence that regulates the whole ; and neither did he expect that judgment of him that is before all, and through all, and over all. Hence, he became an enemy to his universal church. But he also estranged and strip ped himself of the mercy of God, and thus fled as far as possible from his salvation. In this, indeed, he really expressed the pe culiarity of his name."f Again, he says: " Valerian, indeed, was thus urged by this man to these measures, whilst he exposed himself to insults and reproaches, according to what Isaias has said: 'And these have chosen their own ways, and their own abominations, which their soul hath desired. And I will choose their derisions, and will repay them their sins.' But the latter (viz. Macrianus,) anxious without any merit to have the govern ment, and yet unable to assume the imperial garb, with his feeble body, appointed his two sons to take upon them, as it were, their father's crimes. For the declaration of God respecting such, proved its truth, when he said, 'visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generations of them that hate me.' For heaping his own wicked passions, in the gratification of which he did not succeed, upon the heads of his children, he swept off upon them his own wickedness and hatred of God." And such is the account which Dionysius has given of Valerian. Dionysius here puns upon the honourable title and office that Macrianus had borne, as the emperor's faithful minister, ur> x*5oxoi»xoy«v, but to which his subse quent conduct did not correspond. The pun is lost in a translation. j-Macrianus, derived from the Greek A*«xf>°s long, or .wax?**- at a distance; an other witty allusion. 26*