Valerian Turned by Macrianus

Gallus and those with him held power for not quite two whole years and were then removed, and Valerian, together with his son Gallienus, succeeded to the government. [a] What Dionysius in turn relates about him can be learned from his letter to Hermammon, in which he tells it this way: “And to John likewise it is revealed: ‘For there was given to him,’ he says, ‘a mouth speaking great things and blasphemy, and there was given to him authority, and forty-two months.’ [b] One may wonder at both things in Valerian, and especially consider how his first conduct was, how mild and friendly he was toward the men of God. None of the emperors before him was so well disposed and favorable toward them, not even those said to have been openly Christians, as he plainly was at first, welcoming them with the greatest intimacy and friendship. His whole household was filled with God-fearing people and was a church of God. [c] But the teacher and synagogue-chief of the magicians from Egypt persuaded him to get rid of them. He urged him to kill and persecute those pure and holy men as enemies who stood in the way of the foul and loathsome incantations. (For there are and there have been men able, just by being present and being seen, merely by breathing and speaking, to scatter the plots of the accursed demons.) He also prompted him to carry out impure rites, accursed sorceries and sacrifices that bring no favorable omens: to slaughter wretched children, to sacrifice the offspring of unhappy fathers, to cut open the entrails of newborn babies, and to cut up and chop to pieces the handiwork of God, as if they would prosper by these things.” [d]

And to this he adds the following: “Fine thank-offerings, then, Macrianus brought the demons for the empire he hoped for. Earlier he was said to be in charge of the emperor’s general accounts, yet he had no thought that was reasonable or general. Instead he fell under the prophetic curse that says, [g] ‘Woe to those who prophesy from their own heart and do not see what is general.’ For he did not understand the general providence, nor did he suspect the judgment of him who is before all, through all and over all. So he became an enemy of God’s universal Church, alienated and estranged himself from God’s mercy, and fled as far as he could from his own salvation, proving his own name true.” [i]

And again, after other things, he says: “For Valerian, led on to these things by this man, was given over to outrages and reproaches, as was said to Isaiah: ‘These too have chosen their own ways and their abominations, which their soul desired; and I will choose their mockeries and will repay them their sins.’ [k] But this man, mad for the empire beyond his worth and unable to put on the royal robes because of his crippled body, put forward his two sons, who took on their father’s sins. For the prediction God spoke is plainly seen in them: ‘Repaying the sins of fathers on children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.’ [m] For he heaped his own evil cravings, in which he had failed, on the heads of his sons, and wiped off onto them his own wickedness and hatred of God.” [o]

That is what Dionysius says about Valerian.