Tertullian: Apology Part 4
CHAPTER 38
Ought not Christians, therefore, to receive not merely a somewhat milder
treatment, but to have a place among the law-tolerated societies, seeing
they are not chargeable with any such crimes as are commonly dreaded
from societies of the illicit class? For, unless I mistake the matter, the
prevention of such associations is based on a prudential regard to public
order, that the state may not be divided into parties, which would
naturally lead to disturbance in the electoral assemblies, the councils, the
curiae, the special conventions, even in the public shows by the hostile
collisions of rival parties; especially when now, in pursuit of gain, men
have begun to consider their violence an article to be bought and sold. But
as those in whom all ardor in the pursuit of glory and honor is dead, we
have no pressing inducement to take part in your public meetings; nor is
there aught more entirely foreign to us than affairs of state. We
acknowledge one all-embracing commonwealth — the world. We renounce
all your spectacles, as strongly as we renounce the matters originating
them, which we know were conceived of superstition, when we give up
the very things which are the basis of their representations. Among us
nothing is ever said, or seen, or heard, which has anything in common with
the madness of the circus, the immodesty of the theater, the atrocities of
the arena, the useless exercises of the wrestling-ground. Why do you take
offense at us because we differ from you in regard to your pleasures? If we
will not partake of your enjoyments, the loss is ours, if there be loss in the
case, not yours. We reject what pleases you. You, on the other hand, have
no taste for what is our delight. The Epicureans were allowed by you to
decide for themselves one true source of pleasure — I mean equanimity;
the Christian, on his part, has many such enjoyments — what harm in
that?
CHAPTER 39
I shall at once go on, then, to exhibit the peculiarities of the Christian
society, that, as I have refuted the evil charged against it, I may point out
its positive good. We are a body knit together as such by a common
religious profession, by unity of discipline, and by the bond of a common.
hope. We meet together as an assembly and congregation, that, offering up
prayer to God as with united force, we may wrestle with Him in our
supplications. This violence God delights in. We pray, too, for the
emperors, for their ministers and for all in authority, for the welfare of the
world, for the prevalence of peace, for the delay of the final
consummation. We assemble to read our sacred writings, if any peculiarity
of the times makes either forewarning or reminiscence needful. However it
be in that respect, with the sacred words we nourish our faith, we animate
our hope, we make our confidence more steadfast; and no less by
inculcations of God’s precepts we confirm good habits. In the same place
also exhortations are made, rebukes and sacred censures are administered.
For with a great gravity is the work of judging carried on among us, as
befits those who feel assured that they are in the sight of God; and you
have the most notable example of judgment to come when any one has
sinned so grievously as to require his severance from us in prayer, in the
congregation and in all sacred intercourse. The tried men of our elders
preside over us, obtaining that honor not by purchase, but by established
character. There is no buying and selling of any sort in the things of God.
Though we have our treasure-chest, it is not made up of purchase-money,
as of a religion that has its price. On the monthly day, if he likes, each
puts in a small donation; but only if it be his pleasure, and only if he be
able: for there is no compulsion; all is voluntary. These gifts are, as it
were, piety’s deposit fund. For they are not taken thence and spent on
feasts, and drinking-bouts, and eating-houses, but to support and bury
poor people, to supply the wants of boys and girls destitute of means and
parents, and of old persons confined now to the house; such, too, as have
suffered shipwreck; and if there happen to be any in the mines, or
banished to the islands, or shut up in the prisons, for nothing but their
fidelity to the cause of God’s Church, they become the nurslings of their
confession. But it is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to
put a brand upon us. See, they say, how they love one another, for
themselves are animated by mutual hatred; how they are ready even to die
for one another, for they themselves will sooner put to death. And they
are wroth with us, too, because we call each other brethren; for no other
reason, as I think, than because among themselves names of consanguinity
are assumed in mere pretense of affection. But we are your brethren as
well, by the law of our common mother nature, though you are hardly.
men, because brothers so unkind. At the same time, how much more
fittingly they are called and counted brothers who have been led to the
knowledge of God as their common Father, who have drunk in one spirit
of holiness, who from the same womb of a common ignorance have
agonized into the same light of truth! But on this very account, perhaps,
we are regarded as having less claim to be held true brothers, that no
tragedy makes a noise about our brotherhood, or that the family
possessions, which generally destroy brotherhood among you, create
fraternal bonds among us. One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to
share our earthly goods with one another. All things are common among us
but our wives. We give up our community where it is practiced alone by
others, who not only take possession of the wives of their friends, but
most tolerantly also accommodate their friends with theirs, following the
example, I believe, of those wise men of ancient times, the Greek Socrates
and the Roman Cato, who shared with their friends the wives whom they
had married, it seems for the sake of progeny both to themselves and to
others; whether in this acting against their partners’ wishes, I am not able
to say. Why should they have any care over their chastity, when their
husbands so readily bestowed it away? O noble example of Attic wisdom,
of Roman gravity — the philosopher and the censor playing pimps! What
wonder if that great love of Christians towards one another is desecrated
by you! For you abuse also our humble feasts, on the ground that they are
extravagant as well as infamously wicked. To us, it seems, applies the
saying of Diogenes: “The people of Megara feast as though they were
going to die on the morrow; they build as though they were never to die!”
But one sees more readily the mote in another’s eye than the beam in his
own. Why, the very air is soured with the eructations of so many tribes,
and curiae, and decuriae. The Salii cannot have their feast without going
into debt; you must get the accountants to tell you what the tenths of
Hercules and the sacrificial banquets cost; the choicest cook is appointed
for the Apaturia, the Dionysia, the Attic mysteries; the smoke from the
banquet of Serapis will call out the firemen. Yet about the modest
supper-room of the Christians alone a great ado is made. Our feast
explains itself by its name The Greeks call it agapè, i.e., affection.
Whatever it costs, our outlay in the name of piety is gain, since with the
good things of the feast we benefit the needy; not as it is with you, do
parasites aspire to the glory of satisfying their licentious propensities,.
selling themselves for a belly-feast to all disgraceful treatment, — but as it
is with God himself, a peculiar respect is shown to the lowly. If the object
of our feast be good, in the light of that consider its further regulations. As
it is an act of religious service, it permits no vileness or immodesty. The
participants, before reclining, taste first of prayer to God. As much is
eaten as satisfies the cravings of hunger; as much is drunk as befits the
chaste. They say it is enough, as those who remember that even during the
night they have to worship God; they talk as those who know that the
Lord is one of their auditors. After manual ablution, and the bringing in of
lights, each is asked to stand forth and sing, as he can, a hymn to God,
either one from the holy Scriptures or one of his own composing, — a
proof of the measure of our drinking. As the feast commenced with
prayer, so with prayer it is closed. We go from it, not like troops of
mischief-doers, nor bands of vagabonds, nor to break out into licentious
acts, but to have as much care of our modesty and chastity as if we had
been at a school of virtue rather than a banquet. Give the congregation of
the Christians its due, and hold it unlawful, if it is like assemblies of the
illicit sort: by all means let it be condemned, if any complaint can be
validly laid against it, such as lies against secret factions. But who has ever
suffered harm from our assemblies? We are in our congregations just what
we are when separated from each other; we are as a community what we
are individuals; we injure nobody, we trouble nobody. When the upright,
when the virtuous meet together, when the pious, when the pure assemble
in congregation, you ought not to call that a faction, but a curia — [i.e., the
court of God.]
CHAPTER 40
On the contrary, they deserve the name of faction who conspire to bring
odium on good men and virtuous, who cry out against innocent blood,
offering as the justification of their enmity the baseless plea, that they
think the Christians the cause of every public disaster, of every affliction
with which the people are visited. If the Tiber rises as high as the city
walls, if the Nile does not send its waters up over the fields, if the heavens
give no rain, if there is an earthquake, if there is famine or pestilence,
straightway the cry is, “Away with the Christians to the lion!” What!.
shall you give such multitudes to a single beast? Pray, tell me how many
calamities befell the world and particular cities before Tiberius reigned —
before the coming, that is, of Christ? We read of the islands of Hiera, and
Anaphe, and Delos, and Rhodes, and Cos, with many thousands of human
beings, having been swallowed up. Plato informs us that a region larger
than Asia or Africa was seized by the Atlantic Ocean. An earthquake, too,
drank up the Corinthian sea; and the force of the waves cut off a part of
Lucania, whence it obtained the name of Sicily. These things surely could
not have taken place without the inhabitants suffering by them. But where
— I do not say were Christians, those despisers of your gods — but
where were your gods themselves in those days, when the flood poured its
destroying waters over all the world, or, as Plato thought, merely the level
portion of it? For that they are of later date than that calamity, the very
cities in which they were born and died, nay, which they found, bear
ample testimony; for the cities could have no existence at this day unless
as belonging to postdiluvian times. Palestine had not yet received from
Egypt its Jewish swarm (of emigrants), nor had the race from which
Christians sprung yet settled down there, when its neighbors Sodom and
Gomorra were consumed by fire from heaven. The country yet smells of
that conflagration; and if there are apples there upon the trees, it is only a
promise to the eye they give — you but touch them, and they turn to
ashes. Nor had Tuscia and Campania to complain of Christians in the days
when fire from heaven overwhelmed Vulsinii, and Pompeii was destroyed
by fire from its own mountain. No one yet worshipped the true God at
Rome, when Hannibal at Cannae counted the Roman slain by the pecks of
Roman rings. Your gods were all objects of adoration, universally
acknowledged, when the Senones closely besieged the very Capitol. And it
is in keeping with all this, that if adversity has at any time befallen cities,
the temples and the walls have equally shared in the disaster, so that it is
clear to demonstration the thing was not the doing of the gods, seeing it
also overtook themselves. The truth is, the human race has always
deserved ill at God’s hand. First of all, as undutiful to Him, because when
it knew Him in part, it not only did not seek after Him, but even invented
other gods of its own to worship; and further, because, as the result of
their willing ignorance of the Teacher of righteousness, the Judge and
Avenger of sin, all vices and crimes grew and flourished. But had men
sought, they would have come to know the glorious object of their seeking;.
and knowledge would have produced obedience, and obedience would have
found a gracious instead of an angry God. They ought then to see that the
very same God is angry with them now as in ancient times, before
Christians were so much as spoken of. It was His blessings they enjoyed
— created before they made any of their deities: and why can they not
take it in, that their evils come from the Being whose goodness they have
failed to recognize? They suffer at the hands of Him to whom they have
been ungrateful. And, for all that is said, if we compare the calamities of
former times, they fall on us more lightly now, since God gave Christians
to the world; for from that time virtue put some restraint on the world’s
wickedness, and men began to pray for the averting of God’s wrath. In a
word, when the summer clouds give no rain, and the season is matter of
anxiety, you indeed — full of feasting day by day, and ever eager for the
banquet, baths and taverns and brothels always busy — offer up to
Jupiter your rain-sacrifices; you enjoin on the people barefoot
processions; you seek heaven at the Capitol; you look up to the
temple-ceilings for the longed-for clouds — God and heaven not in all your
thoughts. We, dried up with fastings, and our passions bound tightly up,
holding back as long as possible from all the ordinary enjoyments of life,
rolling in sackcloth and ashes, assail heaven with our importunities —
touch God’s heart — and when we have extorted divine compassion, why,
Jupiter gets all the honor!
CHAPTER 41
You, therefore, are the sources of trouble in human affairs; on you lies the
blame of public adversities, since you are ever attracting them — you by
whom God is despised and images are worshipped. It should surely seem
the more natural thing to believe that it is the neglected One who is angry,
and not they to whom all homage is paid; or most unjustly they act, if, on
account of the Christians, they send trouble on their own devotees, whom
they are bound to keep clear of the punishments of Christians. But this,
you say, hits your God as well, since He permits His worshippers to
suffer on account of those who dishonor Him. But admit first of all His
providential arrangings, and you will not make this retort. For He who
once for all appointed an eternal judgment at the world’s close, does not.
precipitate the separation, which is essential to judgment, before the end.
Meanwhile He deals with all sorts of men alike, so that all together share
His favors and reproofs. His will is, that outcasts and elect should have
adversities and prosperities in common, that we should have all the same
experience of His goodness and severity. Having learned these things from
His own lips, we love His goodness, we fear His wrath, while both by you
are treated with contempt; and hence the sufferings of life, so far as it is
our lot to be overtaken by them, are in our case gracious admonitions,
while in yours they are divine punishments. We indeed are not the least
put about: for, first, only one thing in this life greatly concerns us, and that
is, to get quickly out of it; and next, if any adversity befalls us, it is laid to
the door of your transgressions. Nay, though we are likewise involved in
troubles because of our close connection with you, we are rather glad of it,
because we recognize in it divine foretellings, which, in fact, go to confirm
the confidence and faith of our hope. But if all the evils you endure are
inflicted on you by the gods you worship out of spite to us, why do you
continue to pay homage to beings so ungrateful, and unjust; who, instead
of being angry with you, should rather have been aiding and abetting you
by persecuting Christians — keeping you clear of their sufferings?
CHAPTER 42
But we are called to account as harm-doers on another ground, and are
accused of being useless in the affairs of life. How in all the world can that
be the case with people who are living among you, eating the same food,
wearing the same attire, having the same habits, under the same necessities
of existence? We are not Indian Brahmins or Gymnosophists, who dwell
in woods and exile themselves from ordinary human life. We do not forget
the debt of gratitude we owe to God, our Lord and Creator; we reject no
creature of His hands, though certainly we exercise restraint upon
ourselves, lest of any gift of His we make an immoderate or sinful use. So
we sojourn with you in the world, abjuring neither forum, nor shambles,
nor bath, nor booth, nor workshop, nor inn, nor weekly market, nor any
other places of commerce. We sail with you, and fight with you, and till
the ground with you; and in like manner we unite with you in your
traffickings — even in the various arts we make public property of our.
works for your benefit. How it is we seem useless in your ordinary
business, living with you and by you as we do, I am not able to
understand. But if I do not frequent your religious ceremonies, I am still on
the sacred day a man. I do not at the Saturnalia bathe myself at dawn, that
I may not lose both day and night; yet I bathe at a decent and healthful
hour, which preserves me both in heat and blood. I can be rigid and pallid
like you after ablution when I am dead. I do not recline in public at the
feast of Bacchus, after the manner of the beast-fighters at their final
banquet. Yet of your resources I partake, wherever I may chance to eat. I
do not buy a crown for my head. What matters it to you how I use them,
if nevertheless the flowers are purchased? I think it more agreeable to have
them free and loose, waving all about. Even if they are woven into a
crown, we smell the crown with our nostrils: let those look to it who scent
the perfume with their hair. We do not go to your spectacles; yet the
articles that are sold there, if I need them, I will obtain more readily at their
proper places. We certainly buy no frankincense. If the Arabias complain
of this, let the Sabaeans be well assured that their more precious and
costly merchandise is expended as largely in the burying of Christians as in
the fumigating of the gods. At any rate, you say, the temple revenues are
every day falling off: how few now throw in a contribution! In truth, we
are not able to give alms both to your human and your heavenly
mendicants; nor do we think that we are required to give any but to those
who ask for it. Let Jupiter then hold out his hand and get, for our
compassion spends more in the streets than yours does in the temples.
But your other taxes will acknowledge a debt of gratitude to Christians; for
in the faithfulness which keeps us from fraud upon a brother, we make
conscience of paying all their dues: so that, by ascertaining how much is
lost by fraud and falsehood in the census declarations — the calculation
may easily be made — it would be seen that the ground of complaint in
one department of revenue is compensated by the advantage which others
derive.
CHAPTER 43
I will confess, however, without hesitation, that there are some who in a
sense may complain of Christians that they are a sterile race: as, for.
instance, pimps, and panders, and bath-suppliers; assassins, and
poisoners, and sorcerers; soothsayers, too, diviners, and astrologers. But it
is a noble fruit of Christians, that they have no fruits for such as these.
And yet, whatever loss your interests suffer from the religion we profess,
the protection you have from us makes amply up for it. What value do
you set on persons, I do not here urge who deliver you from demons, I do
not urge who for your sakes present prayers before the throne of the true
God, for perhaps you have no belief in that — but from whom you can
have nothing to fear?
CHAPTER 44
Yes, and no one considers what the loss is to the common weal, — a loss
as great as it is real, no one estimates the injury entailed upon the state,
when, men of virtue as we are, we are put to death in such numbers; when
so many of the truly good suffer the last penalty. And here we call your
own acts to witness, you who are daily presiding at the trials of prisoners,
and passing sentence upon crimes. Well, in your long lists of those accused
of many and various atrocities, has any assassin, any cutpurse, any man
guilty of sacrilege, or seduction, or stealing bathers’ clothes, his name
entered as being a Christian too? Or when Christians are brought before
you on the mere ground of their name, is there ever found among them an
ill-doer of the sort? It is always with your folk the prison is steaming, the
mines are sighing, the wild beasts are fed: it is from you the exhibitors of
gladiatorial shows always get their herds of criminals to feed up for the
occasion. You find no Christian there, except simply as being such; or if
one is there as something else, a Christian he is no longer.
CHAPTER 45
We, then, alone are without crime. Is there ought wonderful in that, if it be
a very necessity with us? For a necessity indeed it is. Taught of God
himself what goodness is, we have both a perfect knowledge of it as
revealed to us by a perfect Master; and faithfully we do His will, as
enjoined on us by a Judge we dare not despise. But your ideas of virtue.
you have got from mere human opinion; on human authority, too, its
obligation rests: hence your system of practical morality is deficient, both
in the fullness and authority requisite to produce a life of real virtue.
Man’s wisdom to point out what is good, is no greater than his authority
to exact the keeping of it; the one is as easily deceived as the other is
despised. And so, which is the ampler rule, to say, “Thou shalt not kill,”
or to teach, “Be not even angry?” Which is more perfect, to forbid
adultery, or to restrain from even a single lustful look? Which indicates the
higher intelligence, interdicting evil-doing, or evil-speaking? Which is more
thorough, not allowing an injury, or not even suffering an injury done to
you to be repaid? Though withal you know that these very laws also of
yours, which seem to lead to virtue, have been borrowed from the law of
God as the ancient model. Of the age of Moses we have already spoken.
But what is the real authority of human laws, when it is in man’s power
both to evade them, by generally managing to hide himself out of sight in
his crimes, and to despise them sometimes, if inclination or necessity leads
him to offend? Think of these things, too, in the light of the brevity of any
punishment you can inflict — never to last longer than till death. On this
ground Epicurus makes light of all suffering and pain, maintaining that if it
is small, it is contemptible; and if it is great, it is not long-continued. No
doubt about it, we, who receive our awards under the judgment of an
all-seeing God, and who look forward to eternal punishment from Him for
sin, — we alone make real effort to attain a blameless life, under the
influence of our ampler knowledge, the impossibility of concealment, and
the greatness of the threatened torment, not merely long-enduring but
everlasting, fearing Him, whom he too should fear who the fearing judges,
— even God, I mean, and not the proconsul.
CHAPTER 46
We have sufficiently met, as I think, the accusation of the various crimes
on the ground of which these fierce demands are made for Christian blood.
We have made a full exhibition of our case; and we have shown you how
we are able to prove that our statement is correct, from the
trustworthiness, I mean, and antiquity of our sacred writings, and from the
confession likewise of the powers of spiritual wickedness themselves..
Who will venture to undertake our refutation; not with skill of words, but,
as we have managed our demonstration, on the basis of reality? But while
the truth we hold is made clear to all, unbelief meanwhile, at the very time
it is convinced of the worth of Christianity, which has now become well
known for its benefits as well as from the intercourse of life, takes up the
notion that it is not really a thing divine, but rather a kind of philosophy.
These are the very things, it says, the philosophers counsel and profess —
innocence, justice, patience, sobriety, chastity. Why, then, are we not
permitted an equal liberty and impunity for our doctrines as they have,
with whom, in respect of what we teach, we are compared? or why are not
they, as so like us, not pressed to the same offices, for declining which our
lives are imperiled? For who compels a philosopher to sacrifice or take an
oath, or put out useless lamps at midday? Nay, they openly overthrow
your gods, and in their writings they attack your superstitions; and you
applaud them for it. Many of them even, with your countenance, bark out
against your rulers, and are rewarded with statues and salaries, instead of
being given to the wild beasts. And very right it should be so. For they are
called philosophers, not Christians. This name of philosopher has no
power to put demons to the rout. Why are they not able to do that too?
since philosophers count demons inferior to gods. Socrates used to say,
“If the demon grant permission.” Yet he, too, though in denying the
existence of your divinities he had a glimpse of the truth, at his dying
ordered a cock to be sacrificed to Aesculapius, I believe in honor of his
father, for Apollo pronounced Socrates the wisest of men. Thoughtless
Apollo! testifying to the wisdom of the man who denied the existence of
his race. In proportion to the enmity the truth awakens, you give offense
by faithfully standing by it; but the man who corrupts and makes a mere
pretense of it precisely on this ground gains favor with its persecutors.
The truth which philosophers, these mockers and corrupters of it, with
hostile ends merely affect to hold, and in doing so deprave, caring for
nought but glory, Christians both intensely and intimately long for and
maintain in its integrity, as those who have a real concern about their
salvation. So that we are like each other neither in our knowledge nor our
ways, as you imagine. For what certain information did Thales, the first of
natural philosophers, give in reply to the inquiry of Croesus regarding
Deity, the delay for further thought so often proving in vain? There is not
a Christian workman but finds out God, and manifests Him, and hence.
assigns to Him all those attributes which go to constitute a divine being,
though Plato affirms that it is far from easy to discover the Maker of the
universe; and when He is found, it is difficult to make Him known to all.
But if we challenge you to comparison in the virtue of chastity, I turn to a
part of the sentence passed by the Athenians against Socrates, who was
pronounced a corrupter of youth. The Christian confines himself to the
female sex. I have read also how the harlot Phryne kindled in Diogenes the
fires of lust, and how a certain Speusippus, of Plato’s school, perished in
the adulterous act. The Christian husband has nothing to do with any but
his own wife. Democritus, in putting out his eyes, because he could not
look on women without lusting after them, and was pained if his passion
was not satisfied, owns plainly, by the punishment he inflicts, his
incontinence. But a Christian with grace-healed eyes is sightless in this
matter; he is mentally blind against the assaults of passion. If I maintain
our superior modesty of behavior, there at once occurs to me Diogenes
with filth-covered feet trampling on the proud couches of Plato, under the
influence of another pride: the Christian does not even play the proud man
to the pauper. If sobriety of spirit be the virtue in debate, why, there are
Pythagoras at Thurii, and Zeno at Priene, ambitious of the supreme
power: the Christian does not aspire to the aedileship. If equanimity be
the contention, you have Lycurgus choosing death by self-starvation,
because the Lacons had made some emendation of his laws: the Christian,
even when he is condemned, gives thanks. If the comparison be made in
regard to trustworthiness, Anaxagoras denied the deposit of his enemies:
the Christian is noted for his fidelity even among those who are not of his
religion. If the matter of sincerity is to be brought to trial, Aristotle basely
thrust his friend Hermias from his place: the Christian does no harm even
to his foe. With equal baseness does Aristotle play the sycophant to
Alexander, instead of exercising to keep him in the right way, and Plato
allows himself to be bought by Dionysius for his belly’s sake. Aristippus
in the purple, with all his great show of gravity, gives way to extravagance;
and Hippias is put to death laying plots against the state: no Christian
ever attempted such a thing in behalf of his brethren, even when
persecution was scattering them abroad with every atrocity. But it will be
said that some of us, too, depart from the rules of our discipline. In that
case, however, we count them no longer Christians; but the philosophers
who do such things retain still the name and the honor of wisdom. So,.
then, where is there any likeness between the Christian and the
philosopher? between the disciple of Greece and of heaven? between the
man whose object is fame, and whose object is life? between the talker and
the doer? between the man who builds up and the man who pulls down?
between the friend and the foe of error? between one who corrupts the
truth, and one who restores and teaches it? between its chief and its
custodian?
CHAPTER 47
Unless I am utterly mistaken, there is nothing so old as the truth; and the
already proved antiquity of the divine writings is so far of use to me, that
it leads men more easily to take it in that they are the treasure-source
whence all later wisdom has been taken. And were it not necessary to keep
my work to a moderate size, I might launch forth also into the proof of
this. What poet or sophist has not drunk at the fountain of the prophets?
Thence, accordingly, the philosophers watered their and minds, so that it
is the things they have from us which bring us into comparison with them.
For this reason, I imagine, philosophy was banished by certain states — I
mean by the Thebans, by the Spartans also, and the Argives — its
disciples sought to imitate our doctrines; and ambitious, as I have said, of
glory and eloquence alone, if they fell upon anything in the collection of
sacred Scriptures which displeased them, in their own peculiar style of
research, they perverted it to serve their purpose: for they had no
adequate faith in their divinity to keep them from changing them, nor had
they any sufficient understanding of them, either, as being still at the time
under veil — even obscure to the Jews themselves, whose peculiar
possession they seemed to be. For so, too, if the truth was distinguished
by its simplicity, the more on that account the fastidiousness of man, too
proud to believe, set to altering it; so that even what they found certain
they made uncertain by their admixtures. Finding a simple revelation of
God, they proceeded to dispute about Him, not as He had revealed to
them, but turned aside to debate about His properties, His nature, His
abode. Some assert Him to be incorporeal; others maintain He has a body,
— the Platonists teaching the one doctrine, and the Stoics the other. Some
think that He is composed of atoms, others of numbers: such are the.
different views of Epicurus and Pythagoras. One thinks He is made of fire;
so it appeared to Heraclitus. The Platonists, again, hold that He
administers the affairs of the world; the Epicureans, on the contrary, that
He is idle and inactive, and, so to speak, a nobody in human things. Then
the Stoics represent Him as placed outside the world, and whirling round
this huge mass from without like a potter; while the Platonists place Him
within the world, as a pilot is in the ship he steers. So, in like manner, they
differ in their views about the world itself, whether it is created or
uncreated, whether it is destined to pass away or to remain for ever. So
again it is debated concerning the nature of the soul, which some contend is
divine and eternal, while others hold that it is dissoluble. According to each
one’s fancy, He has introduced either something new, or refashioned the
old. Nor need we wonder if the speculations of philosophers have
perverted the older Scriptures. Some of their brood, with their opinions,
have even adulterated our new-given Christian revelation, and corrupted it
into a system of philosophic doctrines, and from the one path have struck
off many and inexplicable by-roads. And I have alluded to this, lest any
one becoming acquainted with the variety of parties among us, this might
seem to him to put us on a level with the philosophers, and he might
condemn the truth from the different ways in which it is defended. But we
at once put in a plea in bar against these tainters of our purity, asserting
that this is the rule of truth which comes down from Christ by
transmission through His companions, to whom we shall prove that those
devisors of different doctrines are all posterior. Everything opposed to the
truth has been got up from the truth itself, the spirits of error carrying on
this system of opposition. By them all corruptions of wholesome
discipline have been secretly instigated; by them, too, certain fables have
been introduced, that, by their resemblance to the truth, they might impair
its credibility, or vindicate their own higher claims to faith; so that people
might think Christians unworthy of credit because the poets or
philosophers are so, or might regard the poets and philosophers as
worthier of confidence from their not being followers of Christ.
Accordingly, we get ourselves laughed at for proclaiming that God will one
day judge the world. For, like us, the poets and philosophers set up a
judgment-seat in the realms below. And if we threaten Gehenna, which is a
reservoir of secret fire under the earth for purposes of punishment, we
have in the same way derision heaped on us. For so, too, they have their.
Pyriphlegethon, a river of flame in the regions of the dead. And if we
speak of Paradise, the place of heavenly bliss appointed to receive the
spirits of the saints, severed from the knowledge of this world by that
fiery zone as by a sort of enclosure, the Elysian plains have taken
possession of their faith. Whence is it, I pray you have all this, so like us,
in the poets and philosophers? The reason simply is, that they have been
taken from our religion. But if they are taken from our sacred things, as
being of earlier date, then ours are the truer, and have higher claims upon
belief, since even their imitations find faith among you. If they maintain
their sacred mysteries to have sprung from their own minds, in that case
ours will be reflections of what are later than themselves, which by the
nature of things is impossible, for never does the shadow precede the body
which casts it, or the image the reality.
CHAPTER 48
Come now, if some philosopher affirms, as Laberius holds, following an
opinion of Pythagoras, that a man may have his origin from a mule, a
serpent from a woman, and with skill of speech twists every argument to
prove his view, will he not gain acceptance for and work in some the
conviction that, on account of this, they should even abstain from eating
animal food? May any one have the persuasion that he should so abstain,
lest by chance in his beef he eats of some ancestor of his? But if a
Christian promises the return of a man from a man, and the very actual
Gaius from Gaius, the cry of the people will be to have him stoned; they
will not even so much as grant him a hearing. If there is any ground for the
moving to and fro of human souls into different bodies, why may they not
return into the very substance they have left, seeing this is to be restored,
to be that which had been? They are no longer the very things they had
been; for they could not be what they were not, without first ceasing to be
what they had been. If we were inclined to give all rein upon this point,
discussing into what various beasts one and another might probably be
changed, we would need at our leisure to take up many points. But this we
would do chiefly in our own defense, as setting forth what is greatly
worthier of belief, that a man will come back from a man — any given
person from any given person, still retaining his humanity; so that the.
soul, with its qualities unchanged, may be restored to the same condition,
though not to the same outward framework. Assuredly, as the reason why
restoration takes place at all is the appointed judgment, every man must
needs come forth the very same who had once existed, that he may receive
at God’s hands a judgment, whether of good desert or the opposite. And
therefore the body too will appear; for the soul is not capable of suffering
without the solid substance (that is, the flesh; and for this reason, also)
that it is not right that souls should have all the wrath of God to bear: they
did not sin without the body, within which all was done by them. But
how, you say, can a substance which has been dissolved be made to
reappear again? Consider thyself, O man, and thou wilt believe in it!
Reflect on what you were before you came into existence. Nothing. For if
you had been anything, you would have remembered it. You, then, who
were nothing before you existed, reduced to nothing also when you cease
to be, why may you not come into being again out of nothing, at the will
of the same Creator whose will created you out of nothing at the first?
Will it be anything new in your case? You who were not, were made; when
you cease to be again, you shall be made. Explain, if you can, your original
creation, and then demand to know how you shall be re-created. Indeed, it
will be still easier surely to make you what you were once, when the very
same creative power made you without difficulty what you never were
before. There will be doubts, perhaps, as to the power of God, of Him
who hung in its place this huge body of our world, made out of what had
never existed, as from a death of emptiness and inanity, animated by the
Spirit who quickens all living things, its very self the unmistakable type of
the resurrection, that it might be to you a witness — nay, the exact image
of the resurrection. Light, every day extinguished, shines out again; and,
with like alternation, darkness succeeds light’s outgoing. The defunct stars
re-live; the seasons, as soon as they are finished, renew their course; the
fruits are brought to maturity, and then are reproduced. The seeds do not
spring up with abundant produce, save as they rot and dissolve away; —
all things are preserved by perishing, all things are refashioned out of
death. Thou, man of nature so exalted, if thou understandest thyself,
taught even by the Pythian words, Lord of all these things that die and
rise, — shalt thou die to perish evermore? Wherever your dissolution shall
have taken place, whatever material agent has destroyed you, or
swallowed you up, or swept you away, or reduced you to nothingness, it.
shall again restore you. Even nothingness is His who is Lord of all. You
ask, Shall we then be always dying, and rising up from death? If so the
Lord of all things had appointed, you would have to submit, though
unwillingly, to the law of your creation. But, in fact, He has no other
purpose than that of which He has informed us. The Reason which made
the universe out of diverse elements, so that all things might be composed
of opposite substances in unity — of void and solid, of animate and
inanimate, of comprehensible and incomprehensible, of light and darkness,
of life itself and death — has also disposed time into order, by fixing and
distinguishing its mode, according to which this first portion of it, which
we inhabit from the beginning of the world, flows down by a temporal
course to a close; but the portion which succeeds, and to which we look
forward continues forever. When, therefore, the boundary and limit, that
millennial interspace, has been passed, when even the outward fashion of
the world itself — which has been spread like a veil over the eternal
economy, equally a thing of time — passes away, then the whole human
race shall be raised again, to have its dues meted out according as it has
merited in the period of good or evil, and thereafter to have these paid out
through the immeasurable ages of eternity. Therefore after this there is
neither death nor repeated resurrections, but we shall be the same that we
are now, and still unchanged — the servants of God, ever with God,
clothed upon with the proper substance of eternity; but the profane, and
all who are not true worshippers of God, in like manner shall be consigned
to the punishment of everlasting fire — that fire which, from its very
nature indeed, directly ministers to their incorruptibility. The
philosophers are familiar as well as we with the distinction between a
common and a secret fire. Thus that which is in common use is far
different from that which we see in divine judgments, whether striking as
thunderbolts from heaven, or bursting up out of the earth through
mountain-tops; for it does not consume what it scorches, but while it
burns it repairs. So the mountains continue ever burning; and a person
struck by lighting is even now kept safe from any destroying flame. A
notable proof this of the fire eternal! a notable example of the endless
judgment which still supplies punishment with fuel! The mountains burn,
and last. How will it be with the wicked and the enemies of God?.
CHAPTER 49
These are what are called presumptuous speculations in our case alone; in
the philosophers and poets they are regarded as sublime speculations and
illustrious discoveries. They are men of wisdom, we are fools. They are
worthy of all honor, we are folk to have the finger pointed at; nay, besides
that, we are even to have punishments inflicted on us. But let things which
are the defense of virtue, if you will, have no foundation, and give them
duly the name of fancies, yet still they are necessary; let them be absurd if
you will, yet they are of use: they make all who believe them better men
and women, under the fear of never-ending punishment and the hope of
never-ending bliss. It is not, then, wise to brand as false, nor to regard as
absurd, things the truth of which it is expedient to presume. On no ground
is it right positively to condemn as bad what beyond all doubt is
profitable. Thus, in fact, you are guilty of the very presumption of which
you accuse us, in condemning what is useful. It is equally out of the
question to regard them as nonsensical; at any rate, if they are false and
foolish, they hurt nobody. For they are just (in that case) like many other
things on which you inflict no penalties — foolish and fabulous things, I
mean, which, as quite innocuous, are never charged as crimes or punished.
But in a thing of the kind, if this be so indeed, we should be adjudged to
ridicule, not to swords, and flames, and crosses, and wild beasts, in which
iniquitous cruelty not only the blinded populace exults and insults over us,
but in which some of you too glory, not scrupling to gain the popular
favor by your injustice. As though all you can do to us did not depend
upon our pleasure. It is assuredly a matter of my own inclination, being a
Christian. Your condemnation, then, will only reach me in that case, if I
wish to be condemned; but when all you can do to me, you can do only at
my will, all you can do is dependent on my will, and is not in your power.
The joy of the people in our trouble is therefore utterly reasonless. For it
is our joy they appropriate to themselves, since we would far rather be
condemned than apostatize from God; on the contrary, our haters should
be sorry rather than rejoice, as we have obtained the very thing of our own
choice..
CHAPTER 50
In that case, you say, why do you complain of our persecutions? You
ought rather to be grateful to us for giving you the sufferings you want.
Well, it is quite true that it is our desire to suffer, but it is in the way that
the soldier longs for war. No one indeed suffers willingly, since suffering
necessarily implies fear and danger. Yet the man who objected to the
conflict, both fights with all his strength, and when victorious, he rejoices
in the battle, because he reaps from it glory and spoil. It is our battle to be
summoned to your tribunals that there, under fear of execution, we may
battle for the truth. But the day is won when the object of the struggle is
gained. This victory of ours gives us the glory of pleasing God, and the
spoil of life eternal. But we are overcome. Yes, when we have obtained our
wishes. Therefore we conquer in dying; we go forth victorious at the very
time we are subdued. Call us, if you like, Sarmenticii and Semaxii, because,
bound to a half-axle stake, we are burned in a circle-heap of fagots. This is
the attitude in which we conquer, it is our victory-robe, it is for us a sort
of triumphal, car. Naturally enough, therefore, we do not please the
vanquished; on account of this, indeed, we are counted a desperate,
reckless race. But the very desperation and recklessness you object to in
us, among yourselves lift high the standard of virtue in the cause of glory
and of fame. Mucius of his own will left his right hand on the altar: what
sublimity of mind! Empedocles gave his whole body at Catana to the fires
of Aetna: what mental resolution! A certain foundress of Carthage gave
herself away in second marriage to the funeral pile: what a noble witness
of her chastity! Regulus, not wishing that his one life should count for the
lives of many enemies, endured these crosses over all his frame: how brave
a man — even in captivity a conqueror! Anaxarchus, when he was being
beaten to death by a barley-pounder, cried out, “Beat on, beat on at the
case of Anaxarchus; no stroke falls on Anaxarchus himself.” O
magnanimity of the philosopher, who even in such an end had jokes upon
his lips! I omit all reference to those who with their own sword, or with
any other milder form of death, have bargained for glory. Nay, see how
even torture contests are crowned by you. The Athenian courtesan, having
wearied out the executioner, at last bit off her tongue and spat it in the face
of the raging tyrant, that she might at the same time spit away her power.
of speech, nor be longer able to confess her fellow-conspirators, if even
overcome, that might be her inclination. Zeno the Eleatic, when he was
asked by Dionysius what good philosophy did, on answering that it gave
contempt of death, was all unquailing, given over to the tyrant’s scourge,
and sealed his opinion even to the death. We all know how the Spartan
lash, applied with the utmost cruelty under the very eyes of friends
encouraging, confers on those who bear it honor proportionate to the
blood which the young men shed. O glory legitimate, because it is human,
for whose sake it is counted neither reckless foolhardiness, nor desperate
obstinacy, to despise death itself and all sorts of savage treatment; for
whose sake you may for your native place, for the empire, for friendship,
endure all you are forbidden to do for God! And you cast statues in honor
of persons such as these, and you put inscriptions upon images, and cut
out epitaphs on tombs, that their names may never perish. In so far you
can by your monuments, you yourselves afford a sort of resurrection to
the dead. Yet he who expects the true resurrection from God, is insane, if
for God he suffers! But go zealously on, good presidents, you will stand
higher with the people if you sacrifice the Christians at their wish, kill us,
torture us, condemn us, grind us to dust; your injustice is the proof that
we are innocent. Therefore God suffers that we thus suffer; for but very
lately, in condemning a Christian woman to the leno rather than to the leo
you made confession that a taint on our purity is considered among us
something more terrible than any punishment and any death. Nor does
your cruelty, however exquisite, avail you; it is rather a temptation to us.
The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the
blood of Christians is seed. Many of your writers exhort to the courageous
bearing of pain and death, as Cicero in the Tusculans, as Seneca in his
Chances, as Diogenes, Pyrrhus, Callinicus; and yet their words do not find
so many disciples as Christians do, teachers not by words, but by their
deeds. That very obstinacy you rail against is the preceptress. For who
that contemplates it, is not excited to inquire what is at the bottom of it?
who, after inquiry, does not embrace our doctrines? and when he has
embraced them, desires not to suffer that he may become partaker of the
fullness of God’s grace, that he may obtain from God complete
forgiveness, by giving in exchange his blood? For that secures the
remission of all offenses. On this account it is that we return thanks on the
very spot for your sentences. As the divine and human are ever opposed.
to each other, when we are condemned by you, we are acquitted by the
Highest.
