Tertullian: Apology Part 3
CHAPTER 21
But having asserted that our religion is supported by the writings of the
Jews, the oldest which exist, though it is generally known, and we fully
admit that it dates from a comparatively recent period — no further back
indeed than the reign of Tiberius — a question may perhaps be raised on.
this ground about its standing, as if it were hiding something of its
presumption under shadow of an illustrious religion, one which has at any
rate undoubted allowance of the law, or because, apart from the question
of age, we neither accord with the Jews in their peculiarities in regard to
food, nor in their sacred days, nor even in their well-known bodily sign,
nor in the possession of a common name, which surely behooved to be the
case if we did homage to the same God as they. Then, too, the common
people have now some knowledge of Christ, and think of Him as but a
man, one indeed such as the Jews condemned, so that some may naturally
enough have taken up the idea that we are worshippers of a mere human
being. But we are neither ashamed of Christ — for we rejoice to be
counted His disciples, and in His name to suffer — nor do we differ from
the Jews concerning God. We must make, therefore, a remark or two as to
Christ’s divinity. In former times the Jews enjoyed much of God’s favor,
when the fathers of their race were noted for their righteousness and faith.
So it was that as a people they flourished greatly, and their kingdom
attained to a lofty eminence; and so highly blessed were they, that for their
instruction God spake to them in special revelations, pointing out to them
beforehand how they should merit His favor and avoid His displeasure.
But how deeply they have sinned, puffed up to their fall with a false trust
in their noble ancestors, turning from God’s way into a way of sheer
impiety, though they themselves should refuse to admit it, their present
national ruin would afford sufficient proof. Scattered abroad, a race of
wanderers, exiles from their own land and clime, they roam over the whole
world without either a human or a heavenly king, not possessing even the
stranger’s right to set so much as a simple footstep in their native country.
The sacred writers withal, in giving previous warning of these things, all
with equal clearness ever declared that, in the last days of the world, God
would, out of every nation, and people, and country, choose for Himself
more faithful worshippers, upon whom He would bestow His grace, and
that indeed in ampler measure, in keeping with the enlarged capacities of a
nobler dispensation. Accordingly, He appeared among us, whose coming
to renovate and illuminate man’s nature was pre-announced by God — I
mean Christ, that Son of God. And so the supreme Head and Master of
this grace and discipline, the Enlightener and Trainer of the human race,
God’s own Son, was announced among us, born — but not so born as to
make Him ashamed of the name of Son or of His paternal origin. It was not.
His lot to have as His father, by incest with a sister, or by violation of a
daughter or another’s wife, a God in the shape of serpent, or ox, or bird, or
lover, for his vile ends transmuting himself into the gold of Danaus. They
are your divinities upon whom these base deeds of Jupiter were done. But
the Son of God has no mother in any sense which involves impurity; she,
whom men suppose to be His mother in the ordinary way, had never
entered into the marriage bond. But, first, I shall discuss His essential
nature, and so the nature of His birth will be understood. We have already
asserted that God made the world, and all which it contains, by His Word,
and Reason, and Power. It is abundantly plain that your philosophers,
too, regard the Logos — that is, the Word and Reason — as the Creator of
the universe. For Zeno lays it down that he is the creator, having made all
things according to a determinate plan; that his name is Fate, and God, and
the soul of Jupiter, and the necessity of all things. Cleanthes ascribes all
this to spirit, which he maintains pervades the universe. And we, in like
manner, hold that the Word, and Reason, and Power, by which we have
said God made all, have spirit as their proper and essential substratum, in
which the Word has inbeing to give forth utterances, and reason abides to
dispose and arrange, and power is over all to execute. We have been taught
that He proceeds forth from God, and in that procession He is generated;
so that He is the Son of God, and is called God from unity of substance
with God. For God, too, is a Spirit. Even when the ray is shot from the
sun, it is still part of the parent mass; the sun will still be in the ray,
because it is a ray of the sun — there is no division of substance, but
merely an extension. Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as
light of light is kindled. The material matrix remains entire and unimpaired,
though you derive from it any number of shoots possessed of its qualities;
so, too, that which has come forth out of God is at once God and the Son
of God, and the two are one. In this way also, as He is Spirit of Spirit and
God of God, He is made a second in manner of existence — in position,
not in nature; and He did not withdraw from the original source, but went
forth. This ray of God, then, as it was always foretold in ancient times,
descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb, is in His birth
God and man united. The flesh formed by the Spirit is nourished, grows
up to manhood, speaks, teaches, works, and is the Christ. Receive
meanwhile this fable, if you choose to call it so — it is like some of your
own — while we go on to show how Christ’s claims are proved, and who.
the parties are with you by whom such fables have been set agoing to
overthrow the truth, which they resemble. The Jews, too, were well aware
that Christ was coming, as those to whom the prophets spake. Nay, even
now His advent is expected by them; nor is there any other contention
between them and us, than that they believe the advent has not yet
occurred. For two comings of Christ having been revealed to us: a first,
which has been fulfilled in the lowliness of a human lot; a second, which
impends over the world, now near its close, in all the majesty of Deity
unveiled; and, by misunderstanding the first, they have concluded that the
second — which, as matter of more manifest prediction, they set their
hopes on — is the only one. It was the merited punishment of their sin
not to understand the Lord’s first advent: for if they had, they would have
believed; and if they had believed, they would have obtained salvation.
They themselves read how it is written of them that they are deprived of
wisdom and understanding — of the use of eyes and ears. As, then, under
the force of their pre-judgment, they had convinced themselves from His
lowly guise that Christ was no more than man, it followed from that, as a
necessary consequence, that they should hold Him a magician from the
powers which He displayed, — expelling devils from men by a word,
restoring vision to the blind, cleansing the leprous, reinvigorating the
paralytic, summoning the dead to life again, making the very elements of
nature obey Him, stilling the storms and walking on the sea; proving that
He was the Logos of God, that primordial first-begotten Word,
accompanied by power and reason, and based on Spirit, — that He who
was now doing all things by His word, and He who had done that of old,
were one and the same. But the Jews were so exasperated by His teaching,
by which their rulers and chiefs were convicted of the truth, chiefly
because so many turned aside to Him, that at last they brought Him before
Pontius Pilate, at that time Roman governor of Syria; and, by the violence
of their outcries against Him, extorted a sentence giving Him up to them to
be crucified. He Himself had predicted this; which, however, would have
signified little had not the prophets of old done it as well. And yet, nailed
upon the cross, He exhibited many notable signs, by which His death was
distinguished from all others. At His own free-will, He with a word
dismissed from Him His spirit, anticipating the executioner’s work. In the
same hour, too, the light of day was withdrawn, when the sun at the very
time was in his meridian blaze. Those who were not aware that this had.
been predicted about Christ, no doubt thought it an eclipse. You
yourselves have the account of the world-portent still in your archives.
Then, when His body was taken down from the cross and placed in a
sepulcher, the Jews in their eager watchfulness surrounded it with a large
military guard, lest, as He had predicted His resurrection from the dead on
the third day, His disciples might remove by stealth His body, and deceive
even the incredulous. But, lo, on the third day there a was a sudden shock
of earthquake, and the stone which sealed the sepulcher was rolled away,
and the guard fled off in terror: without a single disciple near, the grave
was found empty of all but the clothes of the buried One. But
nevertheless, the leaders of the Jews, whom it nearly concerned both to
spread abroad a lie, and keep back a people tributary and submissive to
them from the faith, gave it out that the body of Christ had been stolen by
His followers. For the Lord, you see, did not go forth into the public gaze,
lest the wicked should be delivered from their error; that faith also,
destined to a great reward, might hold its ground in difficulty. But He
spent forty days with some of His disciples down in Galilee, a region of
Judaea, instructing them in the doctrines they were to teach to others.
Thereafter, having given them commission to preach the gospel through
the world, He was encompassed with a cloud and taken up to heaven, — a
fact more certain far than the assertions of your Proculi concerning
Romulus. All these things Pilate did to Christ; and now in fact a Christian
in his own convictions, he sent word of Him to the reigning Caesar, who
was at the time Tiberius. Yes, and the Caesars too would have believed on
Christ, if either the Caesars had not been necessary for the world, or if
Christians could have been Caesars. His disciples also, spreading over the
world, did as their Divine Master bade them; and after suffering greatly
themselves from the persecutions of the Jews, and with no unwilling heart,
as having faith undoubting in the truth, at last by Nero’s cruel sword
sowed the seed of Christian blood at Rome. Yes, and we shall prove that
even your own gods are effective witnesses for Christ. It is a great matter
if, to give you faith in Christians, I can bring forward the authority of the
very beings on account of whom you refuse them credit. Thus far we have
carried out the plan we laid down. We have set forth this origin of our sect
and name, with this account of the Founder of Christianity. Let no one
henceforth charge us with infamous wickedness; let no one think that it is
otherwise than we have represented, for none may give a false account of.
his religion. For in the very fact that he says he worships another god than
he really does, he is guilty of denying the object of his worship, and
transferring his worship and homage to another; and, in the transference,
he ceases to worship the God he has repudiated. We say, and before all
men we say, and torn and bleeding under your tortures, we cry out, “We
worship God through Christ.” Count Christ a man, if you please; by Him
and in Him God would be known and be adored. If the Jews object, we
answer that Moses, who was but a man, taught them their religion; against
the Greeks we urge that Orpheus at Pieria, Musaeus at Athens, Melampus
at Argos, Trophonius in Boeotia, imposed religious rites; turning to
yourselves, who exercise sway over the nations, it was the man Numa
Pompilius who laid on the Romans a heavy load of costly superstitions.
Surely Christ, then, had a right to reveal Deity, which was in fact His own
essential possession, not with the object of bringing boors and savages by
the dread of multitudinous gods, whose favor must be won into some
civilization, as was the case with Numa; but as one who aimed to enlighten
men already civilized, and under illusions from their very culture, that they
might come to the knowledge of the truth. Search, then, and see if that
divinity of Christ be true. If it be of such a nature that the acceptance of it
transforms a man, and makes him truly good, there is implied in that the
duty of renouncing what is opposed to it as false; especially and on every
ground that which, hiding itself under the names and images of dead, labors
to convince men of its divinity by certain signs, and miracles, and oracles.
CHAPTER 22
And we affirm indeed the existence of certain spiritual essences; nor is
their name unfamiliar. The philosophers acknowledge there are demons;
Socrates himself waiting on a demon’s will. Why not? since it is said an
evil spirit attached itself specially to him even from his childhood —
turning his mind no doubt from what was good. The poets are all
acquainted with demons too; even the ignorant common people make
frequent use of them in cursing. In fact, they call upon Satan, the
demon-chief, in their execrations, as though from some instinctive
soul-knowledge of him. Plato also admits the existence of angels. The
dealers in magic, no less, come forward as witnesses to the existence of.
both kinds of spirits. We are instructed, moreover, by our sacred books
how from certain angels, who fell of their own flee-will, there sprang a
more wicked demon-brood, condemned of God along with the authors of
their race, and that chief we have referred to. It will for the present be
enough, however, that some account is given of their work. Their great
business is the ruin of mankind. So, from the very first, spiritual
wickedness sought our destruction. They inflict, accordingly, upon our
bodies diseases and other grievous calamities, while by violent assaults
they hurry the soul into sudden and extraordinary excesses. Their
marvelous subtleness and tenuity give them access to both parts of our
nature. As spiritual, they can do no harm; for, invisible and intangible, we
are not cognizant of their action save by its effects, as when some
inexplicable, unseen poison in the breeze blights the apples and the grain
while in the flower, or kills them in the bud, or destroys them when they
have reached maturity; as though by the tainted atmosphere in some
unknown way spreading abroad its pestilential exhalations. So, too, by an
influence equally obscure, demons and angels breathe into the soul, and
rouse up its corruptions with furious passions and vile excesses; or with
cruel lusts accompanied by various errors, of which the worst is that by
which these deities are commended to the favor of deceived and deluded
human beings, that they may get their proper food of flesh-fumes and
blood when that is offered up to idol-images. What is daintier food to the
spirit of evil, than turning men’s minds away from the true God by the
illusions of a false divination? And here I explain how these illusions are
managed. Every spirit is possessed of wings. This is a common property
of both angels and demons. So they are everywhere in a single moment; the
whole world is as one place to them; all that is done over the whole extent
of it, it is as easy for them to know as to report. Their swiftness of motion
is taken for divinity, because their nature is unknown. Thus they would
have themselves thought sometimes the authors of the things which they
announce; and sometimes, no doubt, the bad things are their doing, never
the good. The purposes of God, too, they took up of old from the lips of
the prophets, even as they spoke them; and they gather them still from
their works, when they hear them read aloud. Thus getting, too, from this
source some intimations of the future, they set themselves up as rivals of
the true God, while they steal His divinations. But the skill with which
their responses are shaped to meet events, your Croesi and Pyrrhi know.
too well. On the other hand, it was in that way we have explained, the
Pythian was able to declare that they were cooking a tortoise with the
flesh of a lamb; in a moment he had been to Lydia. From dwelling in the
air, and their nearness to the stars, and their commerce with the clouds,
they have means of knowing the preparatory processes going on in these
upper regions, and thus can give promise of the rains which they already
feel. Very kind too, no doubt, they are in regard to the healing of diseases.
For, first of all, they make you ill; then, to get a miracle out of it, they
command the application of remedies either altogether new, or contrary to
those in use, and straightway withdrawing hurtful influence, they are
supposed to have wrought a cure. What need, then, to speak of their other
artifices, or yet further of the deceptive power which they have as spirits:
of these Castor apparitions, of water carried by a sieve, and a ship drawn
along by a girdle, and a beard reddened by a touch, all done with the one
object of showing that men should believe in the deity of stones, and not
seek after the only true God?
CHAPTER 23
Moreover, if sorcerers call forth ghosts, and even make what seem the
souls of the dead to appear; if they put boys to death, in order to get a
response from the oracle; if, with their juggling illusions, they make a
pretense of doing various miracles; if they put dreams into people’s minds
by the power of the angels and demons whose aid they have invited, by
whose influence, too, goats and tables are made to divine, — how much
more likely is this power of evil to be zealous in doing with all its might,
of its own inclination, and for its own objects, what it does to serve the
ends of others! Or if both angels and demons do just what your gods do,
where in that case is the pre-eminence of deity, which we must surely
think to be above all in might? Will it not then be more reasonable to hold
that these spirits make themselves gods, giving as they do the very proofs
which raise your gods to godhead, than that the gods are the equals of
angels and demons? You make a distinction of places, I suppose, regarding
as gods in their temple those whose divinity you do not recognize
elsewhere; counting the madness which leads one man to leap from the
sacred houses, to be something different from that which leads another to.
leap from an adjoining house; looking on one who cuts his arms and secret
parts as under a different furor from another who cuts his throat. The
result of the frenzy is the same, and the manner of instigation is one. But
thus far we have been dealing only in words: we now proceed to a proof of
facts, in which we shall show that under different names you have real
identity. Let a person be brought before your tribunals, who is plainly
under demoniacal possession. The wicked spirit, bidden to speak by a
follower of Christ, will as readily make the truthful confession that he is a
demon, as elsewhere he has falsely asserted that he is a god. Or, if you
will, let there be produced one of the god-possessed, as they are
supposed, who, inhaling at the altar, conceive divinity from the fumes,
who are delivered of it by retching, who vent it forth in agonies of gasping.
Let that same Virgin Caelestis herself the rain-promiser, let Aesculapius
discoverer of medicines, ready to prolong the life of Socordius, and
Tenatius, and Asclepiodotus, now in the last extremity, if they would not
confess, in their fear of lying to a Christian, that they were demons, then
and there shed the blood of that most impudent follower of Christ. What
clearer than a work like that? what more trustworthy than such a proof?
The simplicity of truth is thus set forth; its own worth sustains it; no
ground remains for the least suspicion. Do you say that it is done by
magic, or some trick of that sort? You will not say anything of the sort, if
you have been allowed the use of your ears and eyes. For what argument
can you bring against a thing that is exhibited to the eye in its naked
reality? If, on the one hand, they are really gods, why do they pretend to
be demons? Is it from fear of us? In that case your divinity is put in
subjection to Christians; and you surely can never ascribe deity to that
which is under authority of man, nay (if it adds aught to the disgrace) of
its very enemies. If, on the other hand, they are demons or angels, why,
inconsistently with this, do they presume to set themselves forth as acting
the part of gods? For as beings who put themselves out as gods would
never willingly call themselves demons, if they were gods indeed, that they
might not thereby in fact abdicate their dignity; so those whom you know
to be no more than demons, would not dare to act as gods, if those whose
names they take and use were really divine. For they would not dare to
treat with disrespect the higher majesty of beings, whose displeasure they
would feel was to be dreaded. So this divinity of yours is no divinity; for
if it were, it would not be pretended to by demons, and it would not be.
denied by gods. But since on both sides there is a concurrent
acknowledgment that they are not gods, gather from this that there is but a
single race — I mean the race of demons, the real race in both cases. Let
your search, then, now be after gods; for those whom you had imagined to
be so you find to be spirits of evil. The truth is, as we have thus not only
shown from our own gods that neither themselves nor any others have
claims to deity, you may see at once who is really God, and whether that
is He and He alone whom we Christians own; as also whether you are to
believe in Him, and worship Him, after the manner of our Christian faith
and discipline. But at once they will say, Who is this Christ with his
fables? is he an ordinary man? is he a sorcerer? was his body stolen by his
disciples from its tomb? is he now in the realms below? or is he not rather
up in the heavens, thence about to come again, making the whole world
shake, filling the earth with dread alarms, making all but Christians wail —
as the Power of God, and the Spirit of God, as the Word, the Reason, the
Wisdom, and the Son of God? Mock as you like, but get the demons if
you can to join you in your mocking; let them deny that Christ is coming
to judge every human soul which has existed from the world’s beginning,
clothing it again with the body it laid aside at death; let them declare it,
say, before your tribunal, that this work has been allotted to Minos and
Rhadamanthus, as Plato and the poets agree; let them put away from them
at least the mark of ignominy and condemnation. They disclaim being
unclean spirits, which yet we must hold as indubitably proved by their
relish for the blood and fumes and fetid carcasses of sacrificial animals, and
even by the vile language of their ministers. Let them deny that, for their
wickedness condemned already, they are kept for that very judgment-day,
with all their worshippers and their works. Why, all the authority and
power we have over them is from our naming the name of Christ, and
recalling to their memory the woes with which God threatens them at the
hands of Christ as Judge, and which they expect one day to overtake them.
Fearing Christ in God, and God in Christ, they become subject to the
servants of God and Christ. So at our touch and breathing, overwhelmed
by the thought and realization of those judgment fires, they leave at our
command the bodies they have entered, unwilling, and distressed, and
before your very eyes put to an open shame. You believe them when they
lie; give credit to them, then, when they speak the truth about themselves.
No one plays the liar to bring disgrace upon his own head, but for the sake.
of honor rather. You give a readier confidence to people making
confessions against themselves, than denials in their own behalf. It has not
been an unusual thing, accordingly, for those testimonies of your deities to
convert men to Christianity; for in giving full belief to them, we are led to
believe in Christ. Yes, your very gods kindle up faith in our Scriptures,
they build up the confidence of our hope. You do homage, as I know, to
them also with the blood of Christians. On no account, then, would they
lose those who are so useful and dutiful to them, anxious even to hold you
fast, lest some day or other as Christians you might put them to the rout,
— if under the power of a follower of Christ, who desires to prove to you
the Truth, it were at all possible for them to lie.
CHAPTER 24
This whole confession of these beings, in which they declare that they are
not gods, and in which they tell you that there is no God but one, the God
whom we adore, is quite sufficient to clear us from the crime of treason,
chiefly against the Roman religion. For if it is certain the gods have no
existence, there is no religion in the case. If there is no religion, because
there are no gods, we are assuredly not guilty of any offense against
religion. Instead of that, the charge recoils on your own head: worshipping
a lie, you are really guilty of the crime you charge on us, not merely by
refusing the true religion of the true God, but by going the further length of
persecuting it. But now, granting that these objects of your worship are
really gods, is it not generally held that there is one higher and more
potent, as it were the world’s chief ruler, endowed with absolute power
and majesty? For the common way is to apportion deity, giving an
imperial and supreme domination to one, while its offices are put into the
hands of many, as Plato describes great Jupiter in the
heavens, surrounded by an array at once of deities and demons. It
behooves us, therefore, to show equal respect to the procurators, prefects,
and governors of the divine empire. And yet how great a crime does he
commit, who, with the object of gaining higher favor with the Caesar,
transfers his endeavors and his hopes to another, and does not confess that
the appellation of God as of Emperor belongs only to the Supreme Head,
when it is held a capital offense among us to call, or hear called, by the.
highest title any other than Caesar himself! Let one man worship God,
another Jupiter; let one lift suppliant hands to the heavens, another to the
altar of Fides; let one — if you choose to take this view of it — count in
prayer the clouds, and another the ceiling panels; let one consecrate his
own life to his God, and another that of a goat. For see that you do not
give a further ground for the charge of irreligion, by taking away religious
liberty, and forbidding free choice of deity, so that I may no longer
worship according to my inclination, but am compelled to worship against
it. Not even a human being would care to have unwilling homage rendered
him; and so the very Egyptians have been permitted the legal use of their
ridiculous superstition, liberty to make gods of birds and beasts, nay, to
condemn to death anyone who kills a god of their sort. Every province
even, and every city, has its god. Syria has Astarte, Arabia has Dusares,
the Norici have Belenus, Africa has its Caelestis, Mauritania has its own
princes. I have spoken, I think, of Roman provinces, and yet I have not
said their gods are Roman; for they are not worshipped at Rome any more
than others who are ranked as deities over Italy itself by municipal
consecration, such as Delventinus of Casinum, Visidianus of Narnia,
Ancharia of Asculum, Nortia of Volsinii, Valentia of Ocriculum, Hostia of
Satrium, Father Curis of Falisci, in honor of whom, too, Juno got her
surname. In, fact, we alone are prevented having a religion of our own. We
give offense to the Romans, we are excluded from the rights and privileges
of Romans, because we do not worship the gods of Rome. It is well that
there is a God of all, whose we all are, whether we will or no. But with
you liberty is given to worship any god but the true God, as though He
were not rather the God all should worship, to whom all belong.
CHAPTER 25
I think I have offered sufficient proof upon the question of false and true
divinity, having shown that the proof rests not merely on debate and
argument, but on the witness of the very beings whom you believe are
gods, so that the point needs no further handling. However, having been
led thus naturally to speak of the Romans, I shall not avoid the
controversy which is invited by the groundless assertion of those who
maintain that, as a reward of their singular homage to religion, the Romans.
have been raised to such heights of power as to have become masters of
the world; and that so certainly divine are the beings they worship, that
those prosper beyond all others, who beyond all others honor them. This,
forsooth, is the wages the gods have paid the Romans for their devotion.
The progress of the empire is to be ascribed to Sterculus, the Mutunus,
and Larentina! For I can hardly think that foreign gods would have been
disposed to show more favor to an alien race than to their own, and given
their own fatherland, in which they had their birth, grew up to manhood,
became illustrious, and at last were buried, over to invaders from another
shore! As for Cybele, if she set her affections on the city of Rome as
sprung of the Trojan stock saved from the arms of Greece, she herself
forsooth being of the same race, — if she foresaw her transference to the
avenging people by whom Greece the conqueror of Phrygia was to be
subdued, let her look to it (in regard of her native country’s conquest by
Greece). Why, too, even in these days the Mater Magna has given a
notable proof of her greatness which she has conferred as a boon upon the
city; when, after the loss to the State of Marcus Aurelius at Sirmium, on
the sixteenth before the Kalends of April, that most sacred high priest of
hers was offering, a week after, impure libations of blood drawn from his
own arms, and issuing his commands that the ordinary prayers should be
made for the safety of the emperor already dead. O tardy messengers! O
sleepy dispatches! through whose fault Cybele had not an earlier
knowledge of the imperial decease, that the Christians might have no
occasion to ridicule a goddess so unworthy. Jupiter, again, would surely
never have permitted his own Crete to fall at once before the Roman
Fasces, forgetful of that Idean cave and the Corybantian cymbals, and the
sweet odor of her who nursed him there. Would he not have exalted his
own tomb above the entire Capitol, that the land which covered the ashes
of Jove might rather be the mistress of the world? Would Juno have
desired the destruction of the Punic city, beloved even to the neglect of
Samos, and that by a nation of Aeneadae? As to that I know, “Here were
her arms, here was her chariot, this kingdom, if the Fates permit, the
goddess tends and cherishes to be mistress of the nations.” Jove’s hapless
wife and sister had no power to prevail against the Fates! “Jupiter himself
is sustained by fate.” And yet the Romans have never done such homage
to the Fates, which gave them Carthage against the purpose and the will of
Juno, as to the abandoned harlot Larentina. It is undoubted that not a few.
of your gods have reigned on earth as kings. If, then, they now possess the
power of bestowing empire, when they were kings themselves, from
whence had they received their kingly honors? Whom did Jupiter and
Saturn worship? A Sterculus, I suppose. But did the Romans, along with
the native-born inhabitants, afterwards adore also some who were never
kings? In that case, however, they were under the reign of others, who did
not yet bow down to them, as not yet raised to godhead. It belongs to
others, then, to make gift of kingdoms, since there were kings before these
gods had their names on the roll of divinities. But how utterly foolish it is
to attribute the greatness of the Roman name to religious merits, since it
was after Rome became an empire, or call it still a kingdom, that the
religion she professes made its chief progress! Is it the case now? Has its
religion been the source of the prosperity of Rome? Though Numa set
agoing an eagerness after superstitious observances, yet religion among the
Romans was not yet a matter of images or temples. It was frugal in its
ways, its rites were simple, and there were no capitols struggling to the
heavens; but the altars were offhand ones of turf, and the sacred vessels
were yet of Samian earthen-ware, and from these the odors rose, and no
likeness of God was to be seen. For at that time the skill of the Greeks and
Tuscans in image-making had not yet overrun the city with the products
of their art. The Romans, therefore, were not distinguished for their
devotion to the gods before they attained to greatness; and so their
greatness was not the result of their religion. Indeed, how could religion
make a people great who have owed their greatness to their irreligion? For,
if I am not mistaken, kingdoms and empires are acquired by wars, and are
extended by victories. More than that, you cannot have wars and victories
without the taking, and often the destruction, of cities. That is a thing in
which the gods have their share of calamity. Houses and temples suffer
alike; there is indiscriminate slaughter of priests and citizens; the hand of
rapine is laid equally upon sacred and on common treasure. Thus the
sacrileges of the Romans are as numerous as their trophies. They boast as
many triumphs over the gods as over the nations; as many spoils of battle
they have still, as there remain images of captive deities. And the poor
gods submit to be adored by their enemies, and they ordain illimitable
empire to those whose injuries rather than their simulated homage should
have had retribution at their hands. But divinities unconscious are with
impunity dishonored, just as in vain they are adored. You certainly never.
can believe that devotion to religion has evidently advanced to greatness a
people who, as we have put it, have either grown by injuring religion, or
have injured religion by their growth. Those, too, whose kingdoms have
become part of the one great whole of the Roman empire, were not
without religion when their kingdoms were taken from them.
CHAPTER 26
Examine then, and see if He be not the dispenser of kingdoms, who is Lord
at once of the world which is ruled, and of man himself who rules; if He
have not ordained the changes of dynasties, with their appointed seasons,
who was before all time, and made the world a body of times; if the rise
and the fall of states are not the work of Him, under whose sovereignty
the human race once existed without states at all. How do you allow
yourselves to fall into such error? Why, the Rome of rural simplicity is
older than some of her gods; she reigned before her proud, vast Capitol
was built. The Babylonians exercised dominion, too, before the days of the
Pontiffs; and the Medes before the Quindecemvirs; and the Egyptians
before the Salii; and the Assyrians before the Luperci; and the Amazons
before the Vestal Virgins. And to add another point: if the religions of
Rome give empire, ancient Judaea would never have been a kingdom,
despising as it did one and all these idol deities; Judaea, whose God you
Romans once honored with victims, and its temple with gifts, and its
people with treaties; and which would never have been beneath your
scepter but for that last and crowning offense against God, in rejecting and
crucifying Christ
CHAPTER 27
Enough has been said in these remarks to confute the charge of treason
against your religion; for we cannot be held to do harm to that which has
no existence. When we are called therefore to sacrifice, we resolutely
refuse, relying on the knowledge we possess, by which we are well
assured of the real objects to whom these services are offered, under
profaning of images and the deification of human names. Some, indeed,.
think it a piece of insanity that, when it is in our power to offer sacrifice at
once, and go away unharmed, holding as ever our convictions we prefer an
obstinate persistence in our confession to our safety. You advise us,
forsooth, to take unjust advantage of you; but we know whence such
suggestions come, who is at the bottom of it all, and how every effort is
made, now by cunning suasion, and now by merciless persecution, to
overthrow our constancy. No other than that spirit, half devil and half
angel, who, hating us because of his own separation from God, and stirred
with envy for the favor God has shown us, turns your minds against us by
an occult influence, molding and instigating them to all that perversity in
judgment, and that unrighteous cruelty, which we have mentioned at the
beginning of our work, when entering on this discussion. For, though the
whole power of demons and kindred spirits is subject to us, yet still, as
ill-disposed slaves sometimes conjoin contumacy with fear, and delight to
injure those of whom they at the same time stand in awe, so is it here. For
fear also inspires hatred. Besides, in their desperate condition, as already
under condemnation, it gives them some comfort, while punishment
delays, to have the usufruct of their malignant dispositions. And yet,
when hands are laid on them, they are subdued at once, and submit to their
lot; and those whom at a distance they oppose, in close quarters they
supplicate for mercy. So when, like insurrectionary workhouses, or
prisons, or mines, or any such penal slaveries, they break forth against us
their masters, they know all the while that they are not a match for us, and
just on that account, indeed, rush the more recklessly to destruction. We
resist them, unwillingly, as though they were equals, and contend against
them by persevering in that which they assail; and our triumph over them
is never more complete than when we are condemned for resolute
adherence to our faith.
CHAPTER 28
But as it was easily seen to be unjust to compel freemen against their will
to offer sacrifice (for even in other acts of religious service a willing mind is
required), it should be counted quite absurd for one man to compel another
to do honor to the gods, when he ought ever voluntarily, and in the sense
of his own need, to seek their favor, lest in the liberty which is his right he.
should be ready to say, “I want none of Jupiter’s favors; pray who art
thou? Let Janus meet me with angry looks, with whichever of his faces he
likes; what have you to do with me?” You have been led, no doubt, by
these same evil spirits to compel us to offer sacrifice for the well-being of
the emperor; and you are under a necessity of using force, just as we are
under an obligation to face the dangers of it. This brings us, then, to the
second ground of accusation, that we are guilty of treason against a
majesty more august; for you do homage with a greater dread and an
intenser reverence to Caesar, than Olympian Jove himself. And if you
knew it, upon sufficient grounds. For is not any living man better than a
dead one, whoever he be? But this is not done by you on any other ground
than regard to a power whose presence you vividly realize; so that also in
this you are convicted of impiety to your gods, inasmuch as you show a
greater reverence to a human sovereignty than you do to them. Then, too,
among you, people far more readily swear a false oath in the name of all
the gods, than in the name of the single genius of Caesar.
CHAPTER 29
Let it be made clear, then, first of all, if those to whom sacrifice is offered
are really able to protect either emperor or anybody else, and so adjudge
us guilty of treason, if angels and demons, spirits of most wicked nature,
do any good, if the lost save, if the condemned give liberty, if the dead (I
refer to what you know well enough) defend the living. For surely the first
thing they would look to would be the protection of their statues, and
images, and temples, which rather owe their safety, I think, to the watch
kept by Caesar’s guards. Nay, I think the very materials of which these
are made come from Caesar’s mines, and there is not a temple but depends
on Caesar’s will. Yes, and many gods have felt the displeasure of the
Caesar. It makes for my argument if they are also partakers of his favor,
when he bestows on them some gift or privilege. How shall they who are
thus in Caesar’s power, who belong entirely to him, have Caesar’s
protection in their hands, so that you can imagine them able to give to
Caesar what they more readily get from him? This, then, is the ground on
which we are charged with treason against the imperial majesty, to wit,
that we do not put.
the emperors under their own possessions; that we do not offer a mere
mock service on their behalf, as not believing their safety rests in leaden
hands. But you are impious in a high degree who look for it where it is not,
who seek it from those who have it not to give, passing by Him who has it
entirely in His power. Besides this, you persecute those who know where
to seek for it, and who, knowing where to seek for it, are able as well to
secure it.
CHAPTER 30
For we offer prayer for the safety of our princes to the eternal, the true,
the living God, whose favor, beyond all others, they must themselves
desire. They know from whom they have obtained their power; they
know, as they are men, from whom they have received life itself; they are
convinced that He is God alone, on whose power alone they are entirely
dependent, to whom they are second, after whom they occupy the highest
places, before and above all the gods. Why not, since they are above all
living men, and the living, as living, are superior to the dead? They reflect
upon the extent of their power, and so they come to understand the
highest; they acknowledge that they have all their might from Him against
whom their might is nought. Let the emperor make war on heaven; let him
lead heaven captive in his triumph; let him put guards on heaven; let him
impose taxes on heaven! He cannot. Just because he is less than heaven, he
is great. For he himself is His to whom heaven and every creature
appertains. He gets his scepter where he first got his humanity; his power
where he got the breath of life. Thither we lift our eyes, with hands
outstretched, because free from sin; with head uncovered, for we have
nothing whereof to be ashamed; finally, without a monitor, because it is
from the heart we supplicate. Without ceasing, for all our emperors we
offer prayer. We pray for life prolonged; for security to the empire; for
protection to the imperial house; for brave armies, a faithful senate, a
virtuous people, the world at rest, whatever, as man or Caesar, an emperor
would wish. These things I cannot ask from any but the God from whom I
know I shall obtain them, both because He alone bestows them and
because I have claims upon Him for their gift, as being a servant of His,
rendering homage to Him alone, persecuted for His doctrine, offering to.
Him, at His own requirement, that costly and noble sacrifice of prayer
dispatched from the chaste body, an unstained soul, a sanctified spirit, not
the few grains of incense a farthing buys — tears of an Arabian tree, —
not a few drops of wine, — not the blood of some worthless ox to which
death is a relief, and, in addition to other offensive things, a polluted
conscience, so that one wonders, when your victims are examined by these
vile priests, why the examination is not rather of the sacrificers than the
sacrifices. With our hands thus stretched out and up to God, rend us with
your iron claws, hang us up on crosses, wrap us in flames, take our heads
from us with the sword, let loose the wild beasts on us, — the very
attitude of a Christian praying is one of preparation for all punishment.
Let this, good rulers, be your work: wring from us the soul, beseeching
God on the emperor’s behalf. Upon the truth of God, and devotion to His
name, put the brand of crime.
CHAPTER 31
But we merely, you say, flatter the emperor, and feign these prayers of
ours to escape persecution. Thank you for your mistake, for you give us
the opportunity of proving our allegations. Do you, then, who think that
we care nothing for the welfare of Caesar, look into God’s revelations,
examine our sacred books, which we do not keep in hiding, and which
many accidents put into the hands of those who are not of us. Learn from
them that a large benevolence is enjoined upon us, even so far as to
supplicate God for our enemies, and to beseech blessings on our
persecutors. Who, then, are greater enemies and persecutors of Christians,
than the very parties with treason against whom we are charged? Nay,
even in terms, and most clearly, the Scripture says, “Pray for kings, and
rulers, and powers, that all may be peace with you.” For when there is
disturbance in the empire, if the commotion is felt by its other members,
surely we too, though we are not thought to be given to disorder, are to be
found in some place or other which the calamity affects..
CHAPTER 32
There is also another and a greater necessity for our offering prayer in
behalf of the emperors, nay, for the complete stability of the empire, and
for Roman interests in general. For we know that a mighty shock
impending over the whole earth — in fact, the very end of all things
threatening dreadful woes —is only retarded by the continued existence of
the Roman empire. We have no desire, then, to be overtaken by these dire
events; and in praying that their coming may be delayed, we are lending
our aid to Rome’s duration. More than this, though we decline to swear by
the genii of the Caesars, we swear by their safety, which is worth far more
than all your genii, Are you ignorant that these genii are called
“Daemones,” and thence the diminutive name “Daemonia” is applied to
them? We respect in the emperors the ordinance of God, who has set them
over the nations. We know that there is that in them which God has
willed; and to what God has willed we desire all safety, and we count an
oath by it a great oath. But as for demons, that is, your genii, we have been
in the habit of exorcising them, not of swearing by them, and thereby
conferring on them divine honor.
CHAPTER 33
But why dwell longer on the reverence and sacred respect of Christians to
the emperor, whom we cannot but look up to as called by our Lord to his
office? So that on valid grounds I might say Caesar is more ours than
yours, for our God has appointed him. Therefore, as having this propriety
in him, I do more than you for his welfare, not merely because I ask it of
Him who can give it, or because I ask it as one who deserves to get it, but
also because, in keeping the majesty of Caesar within due limits, and
putting it under the Most High, and making it less than divine, I commend
him the more to the favor of Deity, to whom I make him alone inferior.
But I place him in subjection to one I regard as more glorious than himself.
Never will I call the emperor God, and that either because it is not in me to
be guilty of falsehood; or that I dare not turn him into ridicule; or that not
even himself will desire to have that high name applied to him. If he is but
a man, it is his interest as man to give God His higher place. Let him think.
it enough to bear the name of emperor. That, too, is a great name of God’s
giving. To call him God, is to rob him of his title. If he is not a man,
emperor he cannot be. Even when, amid the honors of a triumph, he sits
on that lofty chariot, he is reminded that he is only human. A voice at his
back keeps whispering in his ear, “Look behind thee; remember thou art
but a man.” And it only adds to his exultation, that he shines with a glory
so surpassing as to require an admonitory reference to his condition. It
adds to his greatness that he needs such a reminiscence, lest he should
think himself divine.
CHAPTER 34
Augustus, the founder of the empire, would not even have the title Lord;
for that, too, is a name of Deity. For my part, I am willing to give the
emperor this designation, but in the common acceptation of the word, and
when I am not forced to call him Lord as in God’s place. But my relation
to him is one of freedom; for I have but one true Lord, the God
omnipotent and eternal, who is Lord of the emperor as well. How can he,
who is truly father of his country, be its Lord? The name of piety is more
grateful than the name of power; so the heads of families are called fathers
rather than lords. Far less should the emperor have the name of God. We
can only profess our belief that he is that by the most unworthy, nay, a
fatal flattery; it is just as if, having an emperor, you call another by the
name, in which case will you not give great and unappeasable offense to
him who actually reigns? — an offense he, too, needs to fear on whom you
have bestowed the title. Give all reverence to God, if you wish Him to be
propitious to the emperor. Give up all worship of, and belief in, any other
being as divine. Cease also to give the sacred name to him who has need of
God himself. If such adulation is not ashamed of its lie, in addressing a
man as divine, let it have some dread at least of the evil omen which it
bears. It is the invocation of a curse, to give Caesar the name of God before
his apotheosis..
CHAPTER 35
This is the reason, then, why Christians are counted public enemies: that
they pay no vain, nor false, nor foolish honors to the emperor; that, as
men believing in the true religion, they prefer to celebrate their festal days
with a good conscience, instead of with the common wantonness. It is,
forsooth, a notable homage to bring fires and couches out before the
public, to have feasting from street to street, to turn the city into one great
tavern, to make mud with wine, to run in troops to acts of violence, to
deeds of shamelessness to lust allurements! What! is public joy manifested
by public disgrace? Do things unseemly at other times beseem the festal
days of princes? Do they who observe the rules of virtue out of reverence
for Caesar, for his sake turn aside from them? Shall piety be a license to
immoral deeds, and shall religion be regarded as affording the occasion for
all riotous extravagance? Poor we, worthy of all condemnation! For why
do we keep the votive days and high rejoicings in honor of the Caesars
with chastity, sobriety, and virtue? Why, on the day of gladness, do we
neither cover our door-posts with laurels, nor intrude upon the day with
lamps? It is a proper thing, at the call of a public festivity, to dress your
house up like some new brothel. However, in the matter of this homage to
a lesser majesty, in reference to which we are accused of a lower sacrilege,
because we do not celebrate along with you the holidays of the Caesars in
a manner forbidden alike by modesty, decency, and purity, — in truth
they have been established rather as affording opportunities for
licentiousness than from any worthy motive; — in this matter I am
anxious to point out how faithful and true you are, lest perchance here also
those who will not have us counted Romans, but enemies of Rome’s chief
rulers, be found themselves worse than we wicked Christians! I appeal to
the inhabitants of Rome themselves, to the native population of the seven
hills: does that Roman vernacular of theirs ever spare a Caesar? The Tiber
and the wild beasts’ schools bear witness. Say now if nature had covered
our hearts with a transparent substance through which the light could
pass, whose hearts, all graven over, would not betray the scene of another
and another Caesar presiding at the distribution of a largess? And this at
the very time they are shouting, “May Jupiter take years from us, and
with them lengthen like to you,” — words as foreign to the lips of a.
Christian as it is out of keeping with his character to desire a change of
emperor. But this is the rabble, you say; yet, as the rabble, they still are
Romans, and none more frequently than they demand the death of
Christians. Of course, then, the other classes, as befits their higher rank,
are religiously faithful. No breath of treason is there ever in the senate, in
the equestrian order, in the camp, in the palace. Whence, then, came a
Cassius, a Niger, an Albinus? Whence they who beset the Caesar between
the two laurel groves? Whence they who practiced wrestling, that they
might acquire skill to strangle him? Whence they who in full armor broke
into the palace, more audacious than all your Tigerii and Parthenii. If I
mistake not, they were Romans; that is, they were not Christians. Yet all
of them, on the very eve of their traitorous outbreak, offered sacrifices for
the safety of the emperor, and swore by his genius, one thing in
profession, and another in the heart; and no doubt they were in the habit
of calling Christians enemies of the state. Yes, and persons who are now
daily brought to light as confederates or approvers of these crimes and
treasons, the still remnant gleanings after a vintage of traitors, with what
verdant and branching laurels they clad their door-posts, with what lofty
and brilliant lamps they smoked their porches, with what most exquisite
and gaudy couches they divided the Forum among themselves; not that
they might celebrate public rejoicings, but that they might get a foretaste
of their own votive seasons in partaking of the festivities of another, and
inaugurate the model and image of their hope, changing in their minds the
emperor’s name. The same homage is paid, dutifully too, by those who
consult astrologers, and soothsayers, and augurs, and magicians, about the
life of the Caesars, — arts which, as made known by the angels who
sinned, and forbidden by God, Christians do not even make use of in their
own affairs. But who has any occasion to inquire about the life of the
emperor, if he have not some wish or thought against it, or some hopes
and expectations after it? For consultations of this sort have not the same
motive in the case of friends as in the case of sovereigns. The anxiety of a
kinsman is something very different from that of a subject..
CHAPTER 36
If it is the fact that men bearing the name of Romans are found to be
enemies of Rome, why are we, on the ground that we are regarded as
enemies, denied the name of Romans? We may be at once Romans and foes
of Rome, when men passing for Romans are discovered to be enemies of
their country. So the affection, and fealty, and reverence, due to the
emperors do not consist in such tokens of homage as these, which even
hostility may be zealous in performing, chiefly as a cloak to its purposes;
but in those ways which Deity as certainly enjoins on us, as they are held
to be necessary in the case of all men as well as emperors. Deeds of true
heart-goodness are not due by us to emperors alone. We never do good
with respect of persons; for in our own interest we conduct ourselves as
those who take no payment either of praise or premium from man, but
from God, who both requires and remunerates an impartial benevolence.
We are the same to emperors as to our ordinary neighbors. For we are
equally forbidden to wish ill, to do ill, to speak ill, to think ill of all men.
The thing we must not do to an emperor, we must not do to any one else:
what we would not do to anybody, a fortiori, perhaps we should not do
to him whom God has been pleased so highly to exalt.
CHAPTER 37
If we are enjoined, then, to love our enemies, as I have remarked above,
whom have we to hate? If injured, we are forbidden to retaliate, lest we
become as bad ourselves: who can suffer injury at our hands? In regard to
this, recall your own experiences. How often you inflict gross cruelties on
Christians, partly because it is your own inclination, and partly in
obedience to the laws! How often, too, the hostile mob, paying no regard
to you, takes the law into its own hand, and assails us with stones and
flames! With the very frenzy of the Bacchanals, they do not even spare
the Christian dead, but tear them, now sadly changed, no longer entire,
from the rest of the tomb, from the asylum we might say of death, cutting
them in pieces, rending them asunder. Yet, banded together as we are, ever
so ready to sacrifice our lives, what single case of revenge for injury are
you able to point to, though, if it were held right among us to repay evil.
by evil, a single night with a torch or two could achieve an ample
vengeance? But away with the idea of a sect divine avenging itself by
human fires, or shrinking from the sufferings in which it is tried. If we
desired, indeed, to act the part of open enemies, not merely of secret
avengers, would there be any lacking in strength, whether of numbers or
resources? The Moors, the Marcomanni, the Parthians themselves, or any
single people, however great, inhabiting a distinct territory, and confined
within its own boundaries, surpasses, forsooth, in numbers, one spread
over all the world! We are but of yesterday, and we have filled every place
among you — cities, islands, fortresses, towns, market-places, the very
camp, tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum, — we have left nothing to
you but the temples of your gods. For what wars should we not be fit, not
eager, even with unequal forces, we who so willingly yield ourselves to the
sword, if in our religion it were not counted better to be slain than to slay?
Without arms even, and raising no insurrectionary banner, but simply in
enmity to you, we could carry on the contest with you by an ill-willed
severance alone. For if such multitudes of men were to break away from
you, and betake themselves to some remote corner of the world, why, the
very loss of so many citizens, whatever sort they were, would cover the
empire with shame; nay, in the very forsaking, vengeance would be
inflicted. Why, you would be horror-struck at the solitude in which you
would find yourselves, at such an all-prevailing silence, and that stupor as
of a dead world. You would have to seek subjects to govern. You would
have more enemies than citizens remaining. For now it is the immense
number of Christians which makes your enemies so few, — almost all the
inhabitants of your various cities being followers of Christ. Yet you
choose to call us enemies of the human race, rather than of human error.
Nay, who would deliver you from those secret foes, ever busy both
destroying your souls and ruining your health? Who would save you, I
mean, from the attacks of those spirits of evil, which without reward or
hire we exorcise? This alone would be revenge enough for us, that you
were henceforth left free to the possession of unclean spirits. But instead
of taking into account what is due to us for the important protection we
afford you, and though we are not merely no trouble to you, but in fact
necessary to your well-being, you prefer to hold us enemies, as indeed we
are, yet not of man, but rather of his error..
