(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all discovered errors.)

Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing intially
before a vowel; 3. = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi =
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute =
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe,
when necessary.


ATHENAGORAS OF ATHENS

A PLEA[1] FOR THE CHRISTIANS

[TRANSLATED BY THE REV. B. P. PRATTEN.]

   To the Emperors Marcus Aurelius Anoninus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus,
conquerors of Armenia and Sarmatia, and more than all, philosophers.

CHAP. I.--INJUSTICE SHOWN TOWARDS THE CHRISTIANS.

   In your empire, greatest of sovereigns, different nations have
different customs and laws; and no one is hindered by law or fear of
punishment from following his ancestral usages, however ridiculous these
may be. A citizen of Ilium calls Hector a god, and pays divine honours to
Helen, taking her for Adrasteia. The Lacedaemonian venerates Agamemnon as
Zeus, and Phylonoe the daughter of Tyndarus; and the man of Tenedos
worships Tennes.[2] The Athenian sacrifices to Erechtheus as Poseidon. The
Athenians also perform religious rites and celebrate mysteries in honour of
Agraulus and Pandrosus, women who were deemed guilty of impiety for opening
the box. In short, among every nation and people, men offer whatever
sacrifices and celebrate whatever mysteries they please. The Egyptians
reckon among their gods even cats, and crocodiles, and serpents, and asps,
and dogs. And to all these both you and the laws give permission so to act,
deeming, on the one hand, that to believe in no god at all is impious and
wicked, and on the other, that it is necessary for each man to worship the
gods he prefers, in order that through fear of the deity, men may be kept
from wrong-doing. But why--for do not, like the multitude, be led astray by
hearsay--why is a mere name odious to you?[3] Names are not deserving of
hatred: it is the unjust act that calls for penalty and punishment. And
accordingly, with admiration of your mildness and gentleness, and your
peaceful and benevolent disposition towards every man, individuals live in
the possession of equal rights; and the cities, according to their rank,
share in equal honour; and the whole empire, under your intelligent sway,
enjoys profound peace. But for us who are called Christians[4] you have not
in like manner cared; but although we commit no wrong--nay, as will appear
in the sequel of this discourse, are of all men most piously and
righteously disposed towards the Deity and towards your government--you
allow us to be harassed, plundered, and persecuted, the multitude making
war upon us for our name alone. We venture, therefore, to lay a statement
of our case before you--and you will team from this discourse that we
suffer unjustly, and contrary to all law and reason--and we beseech you to
bestow some consideration upon us also, that we may cease at length to be
slaughtered at the instigation of false accusers. For the fine imposed by
our persecutors does not aim merely at our property, nor their insults at
our reputation, nor the damage they do us at any other of our greater
interests. These we hold in contempt, though to the generality they appear
matters of great importance; for we have learned, not only not to return
blow for blow, nor to go to law with those who plunder and rob us, but to
those who smite us on one side of the face to offer the other side also,
and to those who take away our coat to give likewise our cloak. But, when
we have surrendered our property, they plot against our very bodies and
souls,[5] pouring upon us wholesale charges of crimes of which we are
guiltless even in thought, but which belong to these idle praters
themselves, and to the whole tribe of those who are like them.

CHAP. II.--CLAIM TO BE TREATED AS OTHERS ARE WHEN ACCUSED.

   If, indeed, any one can convict us of a crime, be it small or great, we
do not ask to be excused from punishment, but are prepared to undergo the
sharpest and most merciless inflictions. But if the accusation relates
merely to our name--and it is undeniable, that up to the present time the
stories told about us rest on nothing better than the common
undiscriminating popular talk, nor has any Christian[1] been convicted of
crime--it will devolve on you, illustrious and benevolent and most learned
sovereigns, to remove by law this despiteful treatment, so that, as
throughout the world both individuals and cities partake of your
beneficence, we also may feel grateful to you, exulting that we are no
longer the victims of false accusation. For it does not comport with your
justice, that others when charged with crimes should not be punished till
they are convicted, but that in our case the name we bear should have more
force than the evidence adduced on the trial, when the judges, instead of
inquiring whether the person arraigned have committed any crime, vent their
insults on the name, as if that were itself a crime.[2] But no name in and
by itself is reckoned either good or bad; names appear bad or good
according as the actions underlying them are bad or good. You, however,
have yourselves a dear knowledge of this, since you are well instructed in
philosophy and all learning. For this reason, too, those who are brought
before you for trial, though they may be arraigned on the gravest charges,
have no fear, because they know that you will inquire respecting their
previous life, and not be influenced by names if they mean nothing, nor by
the charges contained in the indictments if they should be false: they
accept with equal satisfaction, as regards its fairness, the sentence
whether of condemnation or acquittal. What, therefore, is conceded as the
common right of all, we claim for ourselves, that we shall not be hated and
punished because we are called Christians (for what has the name[2] to do
with our being bad men?), but be tried on any charges which may be brought
against us, and either be released on our disproving them, or punished if
convicted of crime--not for the name (for no Christian is a bad man unless
he falsely profess our doctrines), but for the wrong which has been done.
It is thus that we see the philosophers judged. None of them before trial
is deemed by the judge either good or bad on account of his science or art,
but if found guilty of wickedness he is punished, without thereby affixing
any stigma on philosophy (for he is a bad man for not cultivating
philosophy in a lawful manner, but science is blameless), while if he
refutes the false charges he is acquitted. Let this equal justice, then, be
done to us. Let the life of the accused persons be investigated, but let
the name stand free from all imputation. I must at the outset of my defence
entreat you, illustrious emperors, to listen to me impartially: not to be
carried away by the common irrational talk and prejudge the case, but to
apply your desire of knowledge and love of truth to the examination of our
doctrine also. Thus, while you on your part will not err through ignorance,
we also, by disproving the charges arising out of the undiscerning rumour
of the multitude, shall cease to be assailed.

CHAP. III.--CHARGES BROUGHT AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS.

   Three things are alleged against us: atheism, Thyestean feasts,[3]
OEdipodean intercourse. But if these charges are true, spare no class:
proceed at once against our crimes; destroy us root and branch, with our
wives and children, if any Christian[4] is found to live like the brutes.
And yet even the brutes do not touch the flesh of their own kind; and they
pair by a law of nature, and only at the regular season, not from simple
wantonness; they also recognise those from whom they receive benefits. If
any one, therefore, is more savage than the brutes, what punishment that he
can endure shall be deemed adequate to such offences? But, if these things
are only idle tales and empty slanders, originating in the fact that virtue
is opposed by its very nature to vice, and that contraries war against one
another by a divine law (and you are yourselves witnesses that no such
iniquities are committed by us, for you forbid informations to be laid
against us), it remains for you to make inquiry concerning our life, our
opinions, our loyalty and obedience to you and your house and government,
and thus at length to grant to us the same rights (we ask nothing more) as
to those who persecute us. For we shall then conquer them, unhesitatingly
surrendering, as we now do, our very lives for the truth's sake.

CHAP. IV.--THE CHRISTIANS ARE NOT ATHEISTS, BUT ACKNOWLEDGE ONE ONLY GOD.

   As regards, first of all, the allegation that we are atheists--for I
will meet the charges one by one, that we may not be ridiculed for having
no answer to give to those who make them--with reason did the Athenians
adjudge Diagoras guilty of atheism, in that he not only divulged the Orphic
doctrine, and published the mysteries of Eleusis and of the Cabiri, and
chopped up the wooden statue of Hercules to boil his turnips, but openly
declared that there was no God at all. But to us, who distinguish God from
matter,[1] and teach that matter is one thing and God another, and that
they are separated by a wide interval (for that the Deity is uncreated and
eternal, to be beheld by the understanding and reason alone, while matter
is created and perishable), is it not absurd to apply the name of atheism?
If our sentiments were like those of Diagoras, while we have such
incentives to piety--in the established order, the universal harmony, the
magnitude, the colour, the form, the arrangement of the world--with reason
might our reputation for impiety, as well as the cause of our being thus
harassed, be charged on ourselves. But, since our doctrine acknowledges one
God, the Maker of this universe, who is Himself uncreated (for that which
is does not come to be, but that which is not) but has made all things by
the Logos which is from Him, we are treated unreasonably in both respects,
in that we are both defamed and persecuted.

CHAP. V.--TESTIMONY OF THE POETS TO THE UNITY OF GOD.[2]

   Poets and philosophers have not been voted atheists for inquiring
concerning God. Euripides, speaking of those who, according to popular
preconception, are ignorantly called gods, says doubtingly:--

   "If Zeus indeed does reign in heaven above,
   He ought not on the righteous ills to send."[3]

But speaking of Him who is apprehended by the understanding as matter of
certain knowledge, he gives his opinion decidedly, and with intelligence,
thus:--

   "Seest thou on high him who, with humid arms,
   Clasps both the boundless ether and the earth?
   Him reckon Zeus, and him regard as God."[4]

For, as to these so-called gods, he neither saw any real existences, to
which a name is usually assigned, underlying them ("Zeus," for instance:
"who Zeus is I know not, but by report"), nor that any names were given to
realities which actually do exist (for of what use are names to those who
have no real existences underlying them?); but Him he did see by means of
His works, considering with an eye to things unseen the things which are
manifest in air, in ether, on earth. Him therefore, from whom proceed all
created things, and by whose Spirit they are governed, he concluded to be
God; and Sophocles agrees with him, when he says:--

   "There is one God, in truth there is but one,
   Who made the heavens, and the broad earth beneath."[5]

[Euripides is speaking] of the nature of God, which fills His works with
beauty, and teaching both where God must be, and that He must be One.

CHAP. VI.--OPINIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS AS TO THE ONE GOD.

   Philolaus, too, when he says that all things are included in God as in
a stronghold, teaches that He is one, and that He is superior to matter.
Lysis and Opsimus[6] thus define God: the one says that He is an ineffable
number, the other that He is the excess of the greatest number beyond that
which comes nearest to it. So that since ten is the greatest number
according to the Pythagoreans, being the Tetractys,[7] and containing all
the arithmetic and harmonic principles, and the Nine stands next to it, God
is a unit--that is, one. For the greatest number exceeds the next least by
one. Then there are Plato and Aristotle--not that I am about to go through
all that the philosophers have said about God, as if I wished to exhibit a
complete summary of their opinions; for I know that, as you excel all men
in intelligence and in the power of your rule, in the same proportion do
you surpass them all in an accurate acquaintance with all learning,
cultivating as you do each several branch with more success than even those
who have devoted themselves exclusively to any one. But, inasmuch as it is
impossible to demonstrate without the citation of names that we are not
alone in confining the notion of God to unity, I have ventured on an
enumeration of opinions. Plato, then, says, "To find out the Maker and
Father of this universe is difficult; and, when found, it is impossible to
declare Him to all,"[8] conceiving of one uncreated and eternal God. And if
he recognises others as well, such as the sun, moon, and stars, yet he
recognises them as created: "gods, offspring of gods, of whom I am the
Maker, and the Father of works which are indissoluble apart from my will;
but whatever is compounded can be dissolved."[1] If, therefore, Plato is
not an atheist for conceiving of one uncreated God, the Framer of the
universe, neither are we atheists who acknowledge and firmly hold that He
is God who has framed all things by the Logos, and holds them in being by
His Spirit. Aristotle, again, and his followers, recognising the existence
of one whom they regard as a sort of compound living creature
(<greek>zwon</greek>), speak of God as consisting of soul and body,
thinking His body to be the etherial space and the planetary stars and the
sphere of the fixed stars, moving in circles; but His soul, the reason
which presides over the motion of the body, itself not subject to motion,
but becoming the cause of motion to the other. The Stoics also, although by
the appellations they employ to suit the changes of matter, which they say
is permeated by the Spirit of God, they multiply the Deity in name, yet in
reality they consider God to be one.[2] For, if God is an artistic fire
advancing methodically to the production of the several things in the
world, embracing in Himself all the seminal principles by which each thing
is produced in accordance with fate, and if His Spirit pervades the whole
world, then God is one according to them, being named Zeus in respect of
the fervid part (to` ze'on) of matter, and Hera in respect of the air (ho
ah'r), and called by other names in respect of that particular part of
matter which He pervades.

CHAP. VII.--SUPERIORITY OF THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE RESPECTING GOD.

   Since, therefore, the unity of the Deity is confessed by almost all,
even against their will, when they come to treat of the first principles of
the universe, and we in our turn likewise assert that He who arranged this
universe is God,--why is it that they can say and write with impunity what
they please concerning the Deity, but that against us a law lies in force,
though we are able to demonstrate what we apprehend and justly believe,
namely that there is one God, with proofs and reason accordant with truth?
For poets and philosophers, as to other subjects so also to this, have
applied themselves in the way of conjecture, moved, by reason of their
affinity with the afflatus from God,[3] each one by his own soul, to try
whether he could find out and apprehend the truth; but they have not been
found competent fully to apprehend it, because they thought fit to learn,
not from God concerning God, but each one from himself; hence they came
each to his own conclusion respecting God, and matter, and forms, and the
world. But we have for witnesses of the things we apprehend and believe,
prophets, men who have pronounced concerning God and the things of God,
guided by the Spirit of God. And you too will admit, excelling all others
as you do in intelligence and in piety towards the true God
(<greek>to</greek> <greek>ontws</greek> <greek>qeion</greek>), that it
would be irrational for us to cease to believe in the Spirit from God, who
moved the mouths of the prophets like musical instruments, and to give heed
to mere human opinions.

CHAP. VIII.--ABSURDITIES OF POLYTHEISM.

   As regards, then, the doctrine that there was from the beginning one
God, the Maker of this universe, consider it in this wise, that you may be
acquainted with the argumentative grounds also of our faith. If there were
from the beginning two or more gods, they were either in one and the same
place, or each of them separately in his own. In one and the same place
they could not be. For, if they are gods, they are not alike; but because
they are uncreated they are unlike:-- for created things are like their
patterns; but the uncreated are unlike, being neither produced from any
one, nor formed after the pattern of any one. Hand and eye and foot are
parts of one body, making up together one man: is God in this sense one?[4]
And indeed Socrates was compounded and divided into parts, just because he
was created and perishable; but God is uncreated, and, impassible, and
indivisible--does not, therefore, consist of parts. But if, on the
contrary, each of them exists separately, since He that made the world is
above the things created, and about the things He has made and set in
order, where can the other or the rest be? For if the world, being made
spherical, is confined within the circles of heaven, and the Creator of the
world is above the things created, managing that[5] by His providential
care of these, what place is there for the second god, or for the other
gods? For he is not in the world, because it belongs to the other; nor
about the world, for God the Maker of the world is above it. But if he is
neither in the world nor about the world (for all that surrounds it is
occupied by this one[1]), where is he? Is he above the world and [the
first] God? In another world, or about another? But if he is in another or
about another, then he is not about us, for he does not govern the world;
nor is his power great, for he exists in a circumscribed space. But if he
is neither in another world (for all things are filled by the other), nor
about another (for all things are occupied by the other), he clearly does
not exist at all, for there is no place in which he can be. Or what does he
do, Seeing there is another to whom the world belongs, and he is above the
Maker of the world, and yet is neither in the world nor about the world? Is
there, then, some other place where he can stand? But God, and what belongs
to God, are above him. And what, too, shall be the place, seeing that the
other fills the regions which are above the world? Perhaps he exerts a
providential care? [By no means.] And yet, unless he does so, he has done
nothing. If, then, he neither does anything nor exercises providential
care, and if there is not another place in which he is, then this Being of
whom we speak is the one God from the beginning, and the sole Maker of the
world.

CHAP. IX.--THE TESTIMONY OF THE PROPHETS.

   If we satisfied ourselves with advancing such considerations as these,
our doctrines might by some be looked upon as human. But, since the voices
of the prophets confirm our arguments--for I think that you also, with your
great zeal for knowledge, and your great attainments in learning, cannot be
ignorant of the writings either of Moses or of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the
other prophets, who, lifted in ecstasy above the natural operations of
their minds by the impulses of the Divine Spirit, uttered the things with
which they were inspired, the Spirit making use of them as a flute-
player[2] breathes into a flute;--what, then, do these men say? The LORD is
our God; no other can be compared with Him."[3] And again: "I am God, the
first and the last, and besides Me there is no God."[4] In like manner:
"Before Me there was no other God, and after Me there shall be none; I am
God, and there is none besides Me."[5] And as to His greatness: "Heaven is
My throne, and the earth is the footstool of My feet: what house win ye
build for Me, or what is the place of My rest?"[6] But I leave it to you,
when you meet with the books themselves, to examine carefully the
prophecies contained in them, that you may on fitting grounds defend us
from the abuse cast upon us.

CHAP. X.--THE CHRISTIANS WORSHIP THE FATHER, SON, AND HOLY GHOST.

   That we are not atheists, therefore, seeing that we acknowledge one
God, uncreated, eternal, invisible, impassible, incomprehensible,
illimitable, who is apprehended by the understanding only and the reason,
who is encompassed by light, and beauty, and spirit, and power ineffable,
by whom the universe has been created through His Logos, and set in order,
and is kept in being--I have sufficiently demonstrated. [I say "His
Logos"], for we acknowledge also a Son of God. Nor let any one think it
ridiculous that God should have a Son. For though the poets, in their
fictions, represent the gods as no better than men, our mode of thinking is
not the same as theirs, concerning either God the Father or the Son. But
the Son of God is the Logos of the Father, in idea and in operation; for
after the pattern of Him and by Him[7] were all things made, the Father and
the Son being one. And, the Son being in the Father and the Father in the
Son, in oneness and power of spirit, the understanding and reason (nou^s
kai` lo'gos) of the Father is the Son of God. But if, in your surpassing
intelligence,[8] it occurs to you to inquire what is meant by the Son, I
will state briefly that He is the first product of the Father, not as
having been brought into existence (for from the beginning, God, who is the
eternal mind [nou^s], had the Logos in Himself, being from eternity
instinct with Logos [logiko's]; but inasmuch as He came forth to be the
idea and energizing power of all material things, which lay like a nature
without attributes, and an inactive earth, the grosser particles being
mixed up with the lighter. The prophetic Spirit also agrees with our
statements. "The Lord," it says, "made me, the beginning of His ways to His
works."[9] The Holy Spirit Himself also, which operates in the prophets, we
assert to be an effluence of God, flowing from Him, and returning back
again like a beam of the sun. Who, then, would not be astonished to hear
men who speak of God the Father, and of God the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit,[10] and who declare both their power in union and their distinction
in order, called atheists? Nor is our teaching in what relates to the
divine nature confined to these points; but we recognise also a multitude
of angels and ministers,[11] whom God the Maker and Framer of the world
distributed and appointed to their several posts by His Logos, to occupy
themselves about the elements, and the heavens, and the world, and the
things in it, and the goodly ordering of them all.

CHAP. XI.--THE MORAL TEACHING OF THE CHRISTIANS REPELS THE CHARGE BROUGHT
AGAINST THEM.

   If I go minutely into the particulars of our doctrine, let it not
surprise you. It is that you may not be carried away by the popular and
irrational opinion, but may have the truth clearly before you. For
presenting the opinions themselves to which we adhere, as being not human
but uttered and taught by God, we shall be able to persuade you not to
think of us as atheists. What, then, are those teachings in which we are
brought up? "I say unto you, Love your enemies; bless them that curse you;
pray for them that persecute you; that ye may be the sons of your Father
who is in heaven, who causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and
sends rain on the just and the unjust."[1] Allow me here to lift up my
voice boldly in loud and audible outcry, pleading as I do before
philosophic princes. For who of those that reduce syllogisms, and clear up
ambiguities, and explain etymologies,[2] or of those who teach homonyms and
synonyms, and predicaments and axioms, and what is the subject and what the
predicate, and who promise their disciples by these and such like
instructions to make them happy: who of them have so purged their souls as,
instead of hating their enemies, to love them; and, instead of speaking ill
of those who have reviled them (to abstain from which is of itself an
evidence of no mean forbearance), to bless them; and to pray for those who
plot against their lives? On the contrary, they never cease with evil
intent to search out skilfully the secrets of their art,[3] and are ever
bent on working some ill, making the art of words and not the exhibition of
deeds their business and profession. But among us you will find uneducated
persons, and artisans, and old women, who, if they are unable in words to
prove the benefit of our doctrine, yet by their deeds exhibit the benefit
arising from their persuasion of its truth: they do not rehearse speeches,
but exhibit good works; when struck, they do not strike again; when robbed,
they do not go to law; they give to those that ask of them, and love their
neighbours as themselves.

CHAP. XII.--CONSEQUENT ABSURDITY OF THE CHARGE OF ATHEISM.

   Should we, then, unless we believed that a God presides over the human
race, thus purge ourselves from evil? Most certainly not. But, because we
are persuaded that we shall give an account of everything in the present
life to God, who made us and the world, we adopt a temperate and benovolent
and generally despised method of life, believing that we shall suffer no
such great evil here, even should our lives be taken from us, compared with
what we shall there receive for our meek and benevolent and moderate life
from the great Judge. Plato indeed has said that Minos and Rhadamanthus
will judge and punish the wicked; but we say that, even if a man be Minos
or Rhadamanthus himself, or their father, even he will not escape the
judgment of God. Are, then, those who consider life. to be comprised in
this, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," and who regard death as
a deep sleep and forgetfulness ("sleep and death, twin-brothers"[4]), to be
accounted pious; while men who reckon the present life of very small worth
indeed, and who are conducted to the future life by this one thing alone,
that they know God and His Logos, what is the oneness of the Son with the
Father, what the communion of the Father with the Son, what is the Spirit,
what is the unity of these three, the Spirit, the Son, the Father, and
their distinction in unity; and who know that the life for which we look is
far better than can be described in words, provided we arrive at it pure
from all wrong-doing; who, moreover, carry our benevolence to such an
extent, that we not only love our friends ("for if ye love them," He says,
"that love you, and lend to them that lend to you, what reward will ye
have?"[5]),--shall we, I say, when such is our character, and when we live
such a life as this, that we may escape condemnation at last, not be
accounted pious? These, however, are only small matters taken from great,
and a few things from many, that we may not further trespass on your
patience; for those who test honey and whey, judge by a small quantity
whether the whole is good.

CHAP. XIII.--WHY THE CHRISTIANS DO NOT OFFER SACRIFICES.

   But, as most of those who charge us with atheism, and that because they
have not even the dreamiest conception of what God is, and are doltish and
utterly unacquainted with natural and divine things, and such as measure
piety by the rule of sacrifices, charges us with not acknowledging the same
gods as the cities, be pleased to attend to the following considerations, O
emperors, on both points. And first, as to our not sacrificing: the Framer
and Father of this universe does not need blood, nor the odour of burnt-
offerings, nor the fragrance of flowers and incense,[1] forasmuch as He is
Himself perfect fragrance, needing nothing either within or without; but
the noblest sacrifice[2] to Him is for us to know who stretched out and
vaulted the heavens, and fixed the earth in its place like a centre, who
gathered the water into seas and divided the light from the darkness, who
adorned the sky with stars and made the earth to bring forth seed of every
kind, who made animals and fashioned man. When, holding God to be this
Framer of all things, who preserves them in being and superintends them all
by knowledge and administrative skill, we "lift up holy hands" to Him, what
need has He further of a hecatomb?

   "For they, when mortals have transgress'd or fail'd
   To do aright, by sacrifice and pray'r,
   Libations and burnt-offerings, may be soothed."[3]

   And what have I to do with holocausts, which God does not stand in need
of?--though indeed it does behove us to offer a bloodless sacrifice and
"the service of our reason."[4]

CHAP. XIV.--INCONSISTENCY OF THOSE WHO ACCUSE THE CHRISTIANS.

   Then, as to the other complaint, that we do not pray to and believe in
the same gods as the cities, it is an exceedingly silly one. Why, the very
men who charge us with atheism for not admitting the same gods as they
acknowledge, are not agreed among themselves concerning the gods. The
Athenians have set up as gods Celeus and Metanira: the Lacedaemonians
Menelaus; and they offer sacrifices and hold festivals to him, while the
men of Ilium cannot endure the very sound of his name, and pay their
adoration to Hector. The Ceans worship Aristaeus, considering him to be the
same as Zeus and Apollo; the Thasians Theagenes, a man who committed murder
at the Olympic games; the Samians Lysander, notwithstanding all the
slaughters and all the crimes perpetrated by him; Alcman and Hesiod Medea,
and the Cilicians Niobe; the Sicilians Philip the son of Butacides; the
Amathusians Onesilus; the Carthaginians Hamilcar. Time would fail me to
enumerate the whole. When, therefore, they differ among themselves
concerning their gods, why do they bring the charge against us of not
agreeing with them? Then look at the practices prevailing among the
Egyptians: are they not perfectly ridiculous? For in the temples at their
solemn festivals they beat their breasts as for the dead, and sacrifice to
the same beings as gods; and no wonder, when they look upon the brutes as
gods, and shave themselves when they die, and bury them in temples, and
make public lamentation. If, then, we are guilty of impiety because we do
not practise a piety corresponding with theirs, then all cities and all
nations are guilty of impiety, for they do not all acknowledge the same
gods.

CHAP. XV.--THE CHRISTIANS DISTINGUISH GOD FROM MATTER.

   But grant that they acknowledge the same. What then? Because the
multitude, who cannot distinguish between matter and God, or see how great
is the interval which lies between them, pray to idols made of matter, are
we therefore, who do distinguish and separate the uncreated and the
created, that which is and that which is not, that which is apprehended by
the understanding and that which is perceived by the senses, and who give
the fitting name to each of them,--are we to come and worship images? If,
indeed, matter and God are the same, two names for one thing, then
certainly, in not regarding stocks and stones, gold and silver, as gods, we
are guilty of impiety. But if they are at the greatest possible remove from
one another--as far asunder as the artist and the materials of his art--why
are we called to account? For as is the potter and the clay (matter being
the clay, and the artist the potter), so is God, the Framer of the world,
and matter, which is subservient to Him for the purposes of His art.[5] But
as the clay cannot become vessels of itself without art, so neither did
matter, which is capable of taking all forms, receive, apart from God the
Framer, distinction and shape and order. And as we do not hold the pottery
of more worth than him who made it, nor the vessels or glass and gold than
him who wrought them; but if there is anything about them elegant in art we
praise the artificer, and it is he who reaps the glory of the vessels: even
so with matter and God --the glory and honour of the orderly arrangement of
the world belongs of right not to matter, but to God, the Framer of matter.
So that, if we were to regard the various forms of matter as gods, we
should seem to be without any sense of the true God, because we should be
putting the things which are dissoluble and perishable on a level with that
which is eternal.

CHAP. XVI.--THE CHRISTIANS DO NOT WORSHIP THE UNIVERSE.

   Beautiful without doubt is the world, excelling,[1] as well in its
magnitude as in the arrangement of its parts, both those in the oblique
circle and those about the north, and also in its spherical form.[2] Yet it
is not this, but its Artificer, that we must worship. For when any of your
subjects come to you, they do not neglect to pay their homage to you, their
rulers and lords, from whom they will obtain whatever they need, and
address themselves to the magnificence of your palace; but, if they chance
to come upon the royal residence, they bestow a passing glance of
admiration on its beautiful structure: but it is to you yourselves that
they show honour, as being "all in all." You sovereigns, indeed, rear and
adorn your palaces for yourselves; but the world was not created because
God needed it; for God is Himself everything to Himself,--light
unapproachable, a perfect world, spirit, power, reason. If, therefore, the
world is an instrument in tune, and moving in well-measured time, I adore
the Being who gave its harmony, and strikes its notes, and sings the
accordant strain, and not the instrument. For at the musical contests the
adjudicators do not pass by the lute-players and crown the lutes. Whether,
then, as Plato says, the world be a product of divine art, I admire its
beauty, and adore the Artificer; or whether it be His essence and body, as
the Peripatetics affirm, we do not neglect to adore God, who is the cause
of the motion of the body, and descend "to the poor and weak elements,"
adoring in the impassible[3] air (as they term it), passible matter; or, if
any one apprehends the several parts of the world to be powers of God, we
do not approach and do homage to the powers, but their Maker and Lord. I do
not ask of matter what it has not to give, nor passing God by do I pay
homage to the elements, which can do nothing more than what they were
bidden; for, although they are beautiful to look upon, by reason of the art
of their Framer, yet they still have the nature of matter. And to this view
Plato also bears testimony; "for," says he, "that which is called heaven
and earth has received many blessings from the Father, but yet partakes of
body; hence it cannot possibly be free from' change."[4] If, therefore,
while I admire the heavens and the elements in respect of their art, I do
not worship them as gods, knowing that the law of dissolution is upon them,
how can I call those objects gods of which I know the makers to be men?
Attend, I beg, to a few words on this subject.

CHAP. XVII.--THE NAMES OF THE GODS AND THEIR IMAGES ARE BUT OF RECENT DATE.

   An apologist must adduce more precise arguments than I have yet given,
both concering the names of the gods, to show that they are of recent
origin, and concerning their images, to show that they are, so to say, but
of yesterday. You yourselves, however, are thoroughly acquainted with these
matters, since you are versed in all departments of knowledge, and are
beyond all other men familiar with the ancients. I assert, then, that it
was Orpheus, and Homer, and Hesiod who s gave both genealogies and names to
those whom they call gods. Such, too, is the testimony of Herodotus.[6] "My
opinion," he says, "is that Hesiod and Homer preceded me by four hundred
years, and no more; and it was they who framed a theogony for the Greeks,
and gave the gods their names, and assigned them their several honours and
functions, and described their forms." Representations of the gods, again,
were not in use at all, so long as statuary, and painting, and sculpture
were unknown; nor did they become common until Saurias the Samian, and
Crato the Sicyonian, and Cleanthes the Corinthian, and the Corinthian
damsel[7] appeared, when drawing in outline was invented by Saurias, who
sketched a horse in the sun, and painting by Crato, who painted in oil on a
whitened tablet the outlines of a man and woman; and the art of making
figures in relief (koroplathikh') was invented by the damsel,[7] who, being
in love with a person, traced his shadow on a wall as he lay asleep, and
her father, being delighted with the exactness of the resemblance (he was a
potter), carved out the sketch and filled it up with clay: this figure is
still preserved at Corinth. After these, Daedalus and Theodorus the
Milesian further invented sculpture and statuary. You perceive, then, that
the time since representations of form and the making of images began is so
short, that we can name the artist of each particular god. The image of
Artemis at Ephesus, for example, and that of Athena (or rather of Athela,
for so is she named by those who speak more in the style of the mysteries;
for thus was the ancient image made of the olive-tree called), and the
sitting figure of the same goddess, were made by Endoeus, a pupil of
Daedalus; the Pythian god was the work of Theodorus and Telecles; and the
Delian god and Artemis are due to the art of Tectaeus and Angelio; Hera in
Samos and in Argos came from the hands of Smilis, and the other statues[1]
were by Phidias; Aphrodite the courtezan in Cnidus is the production of
Praxiteles; Asclepius in Epidaurus is the work of Phidias. In a word, of
not one of these statues can it be said that it was not made by man. If,
then, these are gods, why did they not exist from the beginning? Why, in
sooth, are they younger than those who made them? Why, in sooth, in order
to their coming into existence, did they need the aid of men and art? They
are nothing but earth, and stones, and matter, and curious art.[2]

CHAP. XVIII.--THE GODS THEMSELVES HAVE BEEN CREATED, AS THE POETS CONFESS.

   But, since it is affirmed by some that, although these are only images,
yet there exist gods in honour of whom they are made; and that the
supplications and sacrifices presented to the images are to be referred to
the gods, and are in fact made to the gods;[3] and that there is not any
other way of coming to them, for

                    "'Tis hard for man
   To meet in presence visible a God;"[4]

and whereas, in proof that such is the fact, they adduce the eneregies
possessed by certain images, let us examine into the power attached to
their names. And I would beseech you, greatest of emperors, before I enter
on this discussion, to be indulgent to me while I bring forward true
considerations; for it is not my design to show the fallacy of idols, but,
by disproving the calumnies vented against us, to offer a reason for the
course of life we follow. May you, by considering yourselves, be able to
discover the heavenly kingdom also! For as all things are subservient to
you, father and son,[5] who have received the kingdom from above (for "the
king's soul is in the hand of God,"[6] saith the prophetic Spirit), so to
the one God and the Logos proceeding from. Him, the Son, apprehended by us
as inseparable from Him, all things are in like manner subjected. This then
especially I beg you carefully to consider. The gods, as they affirm, were
not from the beginning, but every one of them has come into existence just
like ourselves. And in this opinion they all agree. Homer speaks of

                    "Old Oceanus,
   The sire of gods, and Tethys;"[7]

and Orpheus (who, moreover, was the first to invent their names, and
recounted their births, and narrated the exploits of each, and is believed
by them to treat with greater truth than others of divine things, whom
Homer himself follows in most matters, especially in reference to the
gods)--he, too, has fixed their first origin to be from water:--

   "Oceanus, the origin of all."

For, according to him, water was the beginning of all things, and from
water mud was formed, and from both was produced an animal, a dragon with
the head of a lion growing to it, and between the two heads there was the
face of a god, named Heracles and Kronos. This Heracles generated an egg of
enormous size, which, on becoming full, was, by the powerful friction of
its generator, burst into two, the part at the top receiving the form of
heaven (ourano's), and the lower part that of earth (gh^). The goddess Ge,
moreover, came forth with a body; and Ouranos, by his union with Ge, begat
females, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos; and males, the hundred-handed
Cottys, Gyges, Briareus, and the Cyclopes Brontes, and Steropes, and Argos,
whom also he bound and hurled down to Tartarus, having learnt that he was
to be ejected from his government by his children; whereupon Ge, being
enraged, brought forth the Titans.[8]

   "The godlike Gala bore to Ouranos
   Sons who are by the name of Titans known,
   Because they vengeance[9] took on Ouranos,
   Majestic, glitt'ring with his starry crown."[10]

CHAP. XIX.--THE PHILOSOPHERS AGREE WITH THE POETS RESPECTING THE GODS.

   Such was the beginning of the existence both of their gods and of the
universe. Now what are we to make of this? For each of those things to
which divinity is ascribed is conceived of as having existed from the
first. For, if they have come into being, having previously had no
existence, as those say who treat of the gods, they do not exist. For, a
thing is either uncreated and eternal, or created and perishable. Nor do I
think one thing and the philosophers another. "What is that which always
is, and has no origin; or what is that which has been originated, yet never
is?"[11] Discoursing of the intelligible and the sensible, Plato teaches
that that which always is, the intelligible, is unoriginated, but that
which is not, the sensible, is originated, beginning to be and ceasing to
exist. In like manner, the Stoics also say that all things will be burnt up
and will again exist, the world receiving another beginning. But if,
although there is, according to them, a twofold cause, one active and
governing, namely providence, the other passive and changeable, namely
matter, it is nevertheless impossible for the world, even though under the
care of Providence, to remain in the same state, because it is created--how
can the constitution of these gods remain, who are not self-existent,[1]
but have been originated? And in what are the gods superior to matter,
since they derive their constitution from water? But not even water,
according to them, is the beginning of all things. From simple and
homogeneous elements what could be constituted? Moreover, matter requires
an artificer, and the artificer requires matter. For how could figures be
made without matter or an artificer? Neither, again, is it reasonable that
matter should be older than God; for the efficient cause must of necessity
exist before the things that are made.

CHAP. XX.--ABSURD REPRESENTATIONS OF THE GODS.

   If the absurdity of their theology were confined to saying that the
gods were created, and owed their constitution to water, since I have
demonstrated that nothing is made which is not also liable to dissolution,
I might proceed to the remaining charges. But, on the one hand, they  have
described their bodily forms: speaking of Hercules, for instance, as a god
in the shape of a dragon coiled up; of others as hundred-handed; of the
daughter of Zeus, whom he begat of his mother Rhea; or of Demeter, as
having two eyes in the natural order, and two in her forehead, and the face
of an animal on the back part of her neck, and as having also horns, so
that Rhea, frightened at her monster of a child, fled from her, and did not
give her the breast (<greek>qhlh</greek>), whence mystically she is called
Athela, but commonly Phersephone and Kore, though she is not the same as
Athena,(2) who is called Kore from the pupil of the eye;--and, on the other
hand, they have described their admirable[3] achievements, as they deem
them: how Kronos, for instance, mutilated his father, and hurled him down
from his chariot, and how he murdered his children, and swallowed the males
of them; and how Zeus bound his father, and cast him down to Tartarus, as
did Ouranos also to his sons, and fought with the Titans for the
government; and how he persecuted his mother Rhea when she refused to wed
him, and, she becoming a she-dragon, and he himself being changed into a
dragon, bound her with what is called the Herculean knot, and accomplished
his purpose, of which fact the rod of Hermes is a symbol; and again, how he
violated his daughter Phersephone, in this case also assuming the form of a
dragon, and became the father of Dionysus. In face of narrations like
these, I must say at least this much, What that is becoming or useful is
there in such a history, that we must believe Kronos, Zeus, Kore, and the
rest, to be gods? Is it the descriptions of their bodies? Why, what man of
judgment and reflection will believe that a viper was begotten by a god
(thus Orpheus:--

   "But from the sacred womb Phanes begat
   Another offspring, horrible and fierce,
   In sight a frightful viper, on whose head
   Were hairs: its face was comely; but the rest,
   From the neck downwards, bore the aspect dire
   Of a dread dragon"[4]);

or who will admit that Phanes himself, being a first-born god (for he it
was that was produced from the egg), has the body or shape of a dragon, or
was swallowed by Zeus, that Zeus might be too large to be contained? For if
they differ in no respect from the lowest brutes (since it is evident that
the Deity must differ from the things of earth and those that are derived
from matter), they are not gods. How, then, I ask, can we approach them as
suppliants, when their origin resembles that of cattle, and they themselves
have the form of brutes, and are ugly to behold?

CHAP. XXI.--IMPURE LOVES ASCRIBED TO THE GODS.

   But should it be said that they only had fleshly forms, and possess
blood and seed, and the affections of anger and sexual desire, even then we
must regard such assertions as nonsensical and ridiculous; for there is
neither anger, nor desire and appetite, nor procreative seed, in gods. Let
them, then, have fleshly forms, but let them be superior to wrath and
anger, that Athena may not be seen

   "Burning with rage and inly wroth with Jove;"[5]

nor Hera appear thus:--

                 "Juno's breast
   Could not contain her rage."[6]

And let them be superior to grief:--

   "A woful sight mine eyes behold: a man
   I love in flight around the walls! My heart
   For Hector grieves."[1]

For I call even men rude and stupid who give way to anger and grief. But
when the "father of men and gods" mourns for his son,--

   "Woe, woe! that fate decrees my best belov'd
   Sarpedon, by Patroclus' hand to fall;"[2]

and is not able while he mourns to rescue him from his peril:--

"The son of Jove, yet Jove preserv'd him not;"[3]

who would not blame the folly of those who, with tales like these, are
lovers of the gods, or rather, live without any god? Let them have fleshly
forms, but let not Aphrodite be wounded by Diomedes in her body: --

   "The haughty son of Tydeus, Diomed,
   Hath wounded me;"[4]

or by Ares in her soul:--

   "Me, awkward me, she scorns; and yields her charms
   To that fair lecher, the strong god of arms."[5]

   "The weapon pierced the flesh."[6]

He who was terrible in battle, the ally of Zeus against the Titans, is
shown to be weaker than Diomedes:--

   "He raged, as Mars, when brandishing his spear."[7]

Hush! Homer, a god never rages. But you describe the god to me as blood-
stained, and the bane of mortals:--

   "Mars, Mars, the bane of mortals, stained with blood;"[8]

and you tell of his adultery and his bonds:--

   "Then, nothing loth, th' enamour'd fair he led,
   And sunk transported on the conscious bed.
   Down rushed the toils."[9]

Do they not pour forth impious stuff of this sort in abundance concerning
the gods? Ouranos is mutilated; Kronos is bound, and thrust down to
Tartarus; the Titans revolt; Styx dies in battle: yea, they even represent
them as mortal; they are in love with one another; they are in love with
human beings:--

   "AEneas, amid Ida's jutting peaks,
   Immortal Venus to Anchises bore."[10]

Are they not in love? Do they not suffer? Nay, verily, they are gods, and
desire cannot touch them! Even though a god assume flesh in pursuance of a
divine purpose," he is therefore the slave of desire.

   "For never yet did such a flood of love,
   For goddess or for mortal, fill my soul;
   Not for Ixion's beauteous wife, who bore
   Pirithous, sage in council as the gods;
   Nor the neat-footed maiden Danae,
   Acrisius' daughter, her who Perseus bore,
   Th' observ'd of all; nor noble Phoenix child;
   .  .  .  .  .  .  nor for Semele;
   Nor for Alcmena fair;  .  .  .
   No, nor for Ceres, golden-tressed queen;
   Nor for Latona bright; nor for thyself."[12]

He is created, he is perishable, with no trace of a god in him. Nay, they
are even the hired servants of men:--
   "Admetus' halls, in which I have endured
   To praise the menial table, though a god."[13]

And they tend cattle:--

   "And coming to this laud, I cattle fed,
   For him that was my host, and kept this house."[14]

Admetus, therefore, was superior to the god. 0 prophet and wise one, and
who canst foresee for others the things that shall be, thou didst not
divine the slaughter of thy beloved, but didst even kill him with thine own
hand, dear as he was:--

   "And I believed Apollo's mouth divine
   Was full of truth, as well as prophet's art.

(AEschylus is reproaching Apollo for being a false prophet:)--

   "The very one who slugs while at the feast,
   The one who said these things, alas! is he
   Who slew my son."[15]

CHAP. XXII.--PRETENDED SYMBOLICAL EXPLANATIONS.

   But perhaps these things are poetic vagary, and there is some natural
explanation of them, such as this by Empedocles:--

   "Let Jove be fire, and Juno source of life,
   With Pluto and Nestis, who bathes with tears
   The human founts."

If, then, Zeus is fire, and Hera the earth, and Aidoneus the air, and
Nestis water, and these are elements--fire, water, air--none of them is a
god, neither Zeus, nor Hera, nor Aidoneus; for from matter separated into
parts by God is their constitution and origin:--

   "Fire, water, earth, and the air's gentle height,
   And harmony with these."

   Here are things which without harmony cannot abide; which would be
brought to ruin by strife: how then can any one say that they are gods?
Friendship, according to Empedocles, has an aptitude to govern, things that
are compounded are governed, and that which is apt to govern has the
dominion; so that if we make the power of the governed and the governing
one and the same, we shall be, unawares to ourselves putting perishable and
fluctuating and changeable matter on an equality with the uncreated, and
eternal, and ever self-accordant God. Zeus is, according to the Stoics, the
fervid part of nature; Hera is the air (ah'r)--the very name, if it be
joined to itself, signifying this;[1] Poseidon is what is drunk (water,
po'sis). But these things are by different persons explained of natural
objects in different ways. Some call Zeus twofold masculine-feminine air;
others the season which brings about mild weather, on which account it was
that he alone escaped from Kronos. But to the Stoics it may be said, If you
acknowledge one God, the supreme and uncreated and eternal One, and as many
compound bodies as there are changes of matter, and say that the Spirit of
God, which pervades matter, obtains according to its variations a diversity
of names the forms of matter will become the body of God; but when the
elements are destroyed in the conflagration, the names will necessarily
perish along with the forms, the Spirit of God alone remaining. Who, then,
can believe that those bodies, of which the variation according to matter
is allied to corruption, are gods? But to those who say that Kronos is
time, and Rhea the earth, and that she becomes pregnant by Kronos, and
brings forth, whence she is regarded as the mother of all; and that he
begets and devours his offspring; and that the mutilation is the
intercourse of the male with the female, which cuts off the seed and casts
it into the womb, and generates a human being, who has in himself the
sexual desire, which is Aphrodite; and that the madness of Kronos is the
turn of season, which destroys animate and inanimate things; and that the
bonds and Tartarus are time, which is changed by seasons and disappears;--
to such persons we say, If Kronos is time, he changes; if a season, he
turns about; if darkness, or frost, or the moist part of nature, none of
these is abiding; but the Deity is immortal, and immoveable, and
unalterable: so that neither is Kronos nor his image God. As regards Zeus
again: If he is air, born of Kronos, of which the male part is called Zeus
and the female Hera (whence both sister and wife), he is subject to change;
if a season, he turns about: but the Deity neither changes nor shifts
about. But why should I trespass on your patience by saying more, when you
know so well what has been said by each of those who have resolved these
things into nature, or what various writers have thought concerning nature,
or what they say concerning Athena, whom they affirm to be the wisdom
(phro'nhsis) pervading all things; and concerning Isis, whom they call the
birth of all time (phu'sis aiw^nos), from whom all have sprung, and by whom
all exist; or concerning Osiris, on whose murder by Typhon his brother Isis
with her son Orus sought after his limbs, and finding them honoured them
with a sepulchre, which sepulchre is to this day called the tomb of Osiris?
For whilst they wander up and down about the forms of matter, they miss to
find the God who can only be beheld by the reason, while they deify the
elements and their several parts, applying different names to them at
different times: calling the sowing of the corn, for instance, Osiris
(hence they say, that in the mysteries, on the finding of the members of
his body, or the fruits, Isis is thus addressed: We have found, we wish
thee joy), the fruit of the vine Dionysus, the vine itself Semele, the heat
of the sun the thunderbolt. And yet, in fact, they who refer the fables to
actual gods, do anything rather than add to their divine character; for
they do not perceive, that by the very defence they make for the gods, they
confirm the things which are alleged concerning them. What have Europa, and
the bull, and the swan, and Leda, to do with the earth and air, that the
abominable intercourse of Zeus with them should be taken for the
intercourse of the earth and air? But missing to discover the greatness of
God, and not being able to rise on high with their reason (for they have no
affinity for the heavenly place), they pine away among the forms of matter,
and rooted to the earth, deify the changes of the elements: just as if any
one should put the ship he sailed in the place of the steersman. But as the
ship, although equipped with everything, is of no use if it have not a
steersman, so neither are the elements, though arranged in perfect order,
of any service apart from the providence of God. For the ship will not sail
of itself; and the elements without their Framer will not move.

CHAP. XXIII.--OPINIONS OF THALES AND PLATO.

   You may say, however, since you excel all men in understanding, How
comes it to pass, then, that some of the idols manifest power, if those to
whom we erect the statues are not gods? For it is not likely that images
destitute of life and motion can of themselves do anything without a mover.
That in various places, cities, and nations, certain effects are brought
about in the name of idols, we are far from denying. None the more,
however, if some have received benefit, and others, on the contrary,
suffered harm, shall we deem those to be gods who have produced the effects
in either case. But I have made careful inquiry, both why it is that you
think the idols to have this power, and who they are that, usurping their
names, produce the effects. It is necessary for me, however, in attempting
to show who they are that produce the effects ascribed to the idols, and
that they are not gods, to have recourse to some witnesses from among the
philosophers. First Thales, as those Who have accurately examined his
opinions report, divides[superior beings] into God, demons, and heroes. God
he recognises as the Intelligence (nou^s) of the world; by demons he
understands beings possessed of Soul (psuchikai'); and by heroes the
separated souls of men, the good being the good souls, and the bad the
worthless. Plato again, while withholding his assent on other points, also
divides[superior beings] into the uncreated God and those produced by' the
uncreated One for the adornment of heaven, the planets, and the fixed
stars, and into demons; concerning which demons, while he does not think
fit to speak himself, he thinks that those ought to be listened to who have
spoken about them. "To speak concerning the other demons, and to know their
origin, is beyond our powers; but we ought to believe those who have before
spoken, the descendants of gods, as they say--and surely they must be well
acquainted with their own ancestors: it is impossible, therefore, to
disbelieve the sons of gods, even though they speak without probable or
convincing proofs; but as they profess to tell of their own family affairs,
we are bound, in pursuance of custom, to believe them. In this way, then,
let us hold and speak as they do concerning the origin of the gods
themselves. Of Ge and Ouranos were born Oceanus and Tethys; and of these
Phorcus, Kronos, and Rhea, and the rest; and of Kronos and Rhea, Zeus,
Hera, and all the others, who, we know, are all called their brothers;
besides other descendants again of these."[1] Did, then, he who had
contemplated the eternal Intelligence and God who is apprehended by reason,
and declared His attributes--His real existence, the simplicity of His
nature, the good that flows forth from Him that is truth, and discoursed of
primal power, and how "all things are about the King of all, and all things
exist for His sake, and He is the cause of all;" and about two and three,
that He is "the second moving about the seconds, and the third about the
thirds;"[2]--did this man think, that to learn the truth concerning those
who are said to have been produced from sensible things, namely earth and
heaven, was a task transcending his powers? It is not to be believed for a
moment. But because he thought it impossible to believe that gods beget and
are brought forth, since everything that begins to be is followed by an
end, and (for this is much more difficult) to change the views of the
multitude, who receive the fables without examination, on this account it
was that he declared it to be beyond his powers to know and to speak
concerning the origin of the other demons, since he was unable either to
admit or teach that gods were begotten. And as regards that saying of his,
"The great sovereign in heaven, Zeus, driving a winged car, advances first,
ordering and managing all things, and there follow him a host of gods and
demons,"[3] this does not refer to the Zeus who is said to have sprung from
Kronos; for here the name is given to the Maker of the universe. This is
shown by Plato himself: not being able to designate Him by another title
that should be suitable, he availed himself of the popular name, not as
peculiar to God, but for distinctness, because it is not possible to
discourse of God to all men as fully as one might; and he adds at the same
time the epithet "Great," so as to distinguish the heavenly from the
earthly, the uncreated from the created, who is younger than heaven and
earth, and younger than the Cretans, who stole him away, that he might not
be killed by his father.

CHAP. XXIV.--CONCERNING THE ANGELS AND GIANTS.

   What need is there, in speaking to you who have searched into every
department of knowledge, to mention the poets, or to examine opinions of
another kind? Let it suffice to say thus much. If the poets and
philosophers did not acknowledge that there is one God, and concerning
these gods were not of opinion, some that they are demons, others that they
are matter, and others that they once were men,there might be some show of
reason for our being harassed as we are, since we employ language which
makes a distinction between God and matter, and the natures of the two.
For, as we acknowledge a God, and a Son his Logos, and a Holy Spirit,
united in essence,the Father, the Son, the Spirit, because the Son is the
Intelligence, Reason, Wisdom of the Father, and the Spirit an effluence, as
light from fire; so also do we apprehend the existence of other powers,
which exercise dominion about matter, and by means of it, and one in
particular, which is hostile to God: not that anything is really opposed to
God, like strife to friendship, according to Empedocles, and night to day,
according to the appearing and disappearing of the stars (for even if
anything had placed itself in opposition to God, it would have ceased to
exist, its structure being destroyed by-the power and might of God), but
that to the good that is in God, which belongs of necessity to Him, and co-
exists with Him, as colour with body, without which it has no existence
(not as being part of it, but as an attendant property co-existing with it,
united and blended, just as it is natural for fire to be yellow and the
ether dark blue),--to the good that is in God, I say, the spirit which is
about matter,[1] who was created by God; just as the other angels were
created by Him, and entrusted with the control of matter and the forms of
matter, is opposed. For this is the office of the angels,--to exercise
providence for God over the things created and ordered by Him; so that God
may have the universal and general providence of the whole, while the
particular parts are provided for by the angels appointed over them.[2]
Just as with men, who have freedom of choice as to both virtue and vice
(for you would not either honour the good or punish the bad, unless vice
and virtue were in their own power; and some are diligent in the matters
entrusted to them by you, and others faithless), so is it among the angels.
Some, free agents, you will observe, such as they were created by God,
continued in those things for which God had made and over which He had
ordained them; but some outraged both the constitution of their nature and
the government entrusted to them: namely, this ruler of matter and its
various forms, and others of those who were placed about this first
firmament (you know that we say nothing without witnesses, but state the
things which have been declared by the prophets); these fell into impure
love of virgins, and were subjugated by the flesh, and he became negligent
and wicked in the management of the things entrusted to him. Of these
lovers of virgins, therefore, were begotten those who are called giants.[3]
And if something has been said by the poets, too, about the giants, be not
surprised at this: worldly Wisdom and divine differ as much from each other
as truth and plausibility: the one is of heaven and the other of earth; and
indeed, according to the prince of matter,--

"We know we oft speak lies that look like troths."[4]

CHAP. XXV.--THE POETS AND PHILOSOPHERS HAVE DENIED A DIVINE PROVIDENCE.

   These angels, then, who have fallen from heaven, and haunt the air and
the earth, and are no longer able to rise to heavenly things, and the souls
of the giants, which are the demons who wander about the world, perform
actions similar, the one (that is, the demons) to the natures they have
received, the other (that is, the angels) to the appetites they have
indulged. But the prince of matter, as may be seen merely from what
transpires, exercises a control and management contrary to the good that is
in God:--

   "Ofttimes this anxious thought has crossed my mind,
   Whether 'tis chance or deity that rules
   The small affairs of men; and, spite of hope
   As well as justice, drives to exile some
   Stripped of all means of life, while others still
   Continue to enjoy prosperity."[5]

Prosperity and adversity, contrary to hope and justice, made it impossible
for Euripides to say to whom belongs the administration of earthly affairs,
which is of such a kind that one might say of it:--

   "How then, while seeing these things, can we say
   There is a race of gods, or yield to laws?"[6]

The same thing led Aristotle to say that the things below the heaven are
not under the care of Providence, although the eternal providence of God
concerns itself equally with us below,-

   "The earth, let willingness move her or not,
   Must herbs produce, and thus sustain my flocks,"[7]--

and addresses itself to the deserving individually, according to truth and
not according to opinion; and all other things, according to the general
constitution of nature, are provided for by the law of reason. But because
the demoniac movements and operations proceeding from the adverse spirit
produce these disorderly sallies, and moreover move men, some in one way
and some in another, as individuals and as nations, separately and in
common, in accordance with the tendency of matter on the one hand, and of
the affinity for divine things on the other, from within and from without,-
-some who are of no mean reputation have therefore thought that this
universe is constituted without any definite order, and is driven hither
and thither by an irrational chance. But they do not understand, that of
those things which belong to the constitution of the whole world there is
nothing out of order or neglected, but that each one of them has been
produced by reason, and that, therefore, they do not transgress the order
prescribed to them; and that man himself, too, so far as He that made him
is concerned, is well ordered, both by his original nature, which has one
common character for all, and by the constitution of his body, which does
not transgress the law imposed upon it, and by the termination of his life,
which remains equal and common to all alike;[1] but that, according to the
character peculiar to himself and the operation of the ruling prince and of
the demons his followers, he is impelled and moved in this direction or in
that, notwithstanding that all possess in common the same original
constitution of mind.[2]

CHAP. XXVI.--THE DEMONS ALLURE MEN TO THE  WORSHIP OF IMAGES,

   They who draw men to idols, then, are the aforesaid demons, who are
eager for the blood of the sacrifices, and lick them; but the gods that
please the multitude, and whose names are given to the images, were men, as
may be learned from their history. And that it is the demons who act under
their names, is proved by the nature of their operations. For some
castrate, as Rhea; others wound and slaughter, as Artemis; the Tauric
goddess puts all strangers to death. I pass over those who lacerate with
knives and scourges of bones, and shall not attempt to describe all the
kinds of demons; for it is not the part of a god to incite to things
against nature.

   "But when the demon plots against a man,
    He first inflicts some hurt upon his mind."[3]

But God, being perfectly good, is eternally doing good. That, moreover,
those who exert the power are not the same as those to whom the statues are
erected, very strong evidence is afforded by Troas and Parium. The one has
statues of Neryllinus, a man of our own times; and Parium of Alexander and
Proteus: both the sepulchre and the statue of Alexander are still in the
forum. The other statues of Neryllinus, then, are a public ornament, if
indeed a city can be adorned by such objects as these; but one of them is
supposed to utter oracles and to heal the sick, and on this account the
people of the Troad offer sacrifices to this statue, and overlay it with
gold, and hang chaplets upon it. But of the statues of Alexander and
Proteus (the latter, you are aware, threw himself into the fire near
Olympia), that of Proteus is likewise said to utter oracles; and to that of
Alexander--

   "Wretched Paris, though in form so fair,
   Thou slave of woman"[4]--

sacrifices are offered and festivals are held at the public cost, as to a
god who can hear. Is it, then, Neryllinus, and Proteus, and Alexander who
exert these energies in connection with the statues, or is it the nature of
the matter itself? But the matter is brass. And what can brass do of
itself, which may be made again into a different form, as Amasis treated
the footpan,[5] as told by Herodotus? And Neryllinus, and Proteus, and
Alexander, what good are they to the sick? For what the image is said now
to effect, it effected when Neryllinus was alive and sick.

CHAP. XXVII.--ARTIFICES OF THE DEMONS.

   What then? In the first place, the irrational and fantastic movements
of the soul about opinions produce a diversity of images (ei'dwla) from
time to time: some they derive from matter, and some they fashion and bring
forth for themselves; and this happens to a soul especially when it par
takes of the material spirit[6] and becomes mingled with it, looking not at
heavenly things and their Maker, but downwards to earthly things, wholly at
the earth, as being now mere flesh and blood, and no longer pure spirit.[7]
These irrational and fantastic movements of the soul, then, give birth to
empty visions in the mind, by which it becomes madly set on idols. When,
too, a tender and susceptible soul, which has no knowledge or experience of
sounder doctrines, and is unaccustomed to contemplate truth, and to
consider thoughtfully the Father and Maker of all things, gets impressed
with false opinions respecting itself, then the demons who hover about
matter, greedy of sacrificial odours and the blood of victims, and ever
ready to lead men into error, avail themselves of these delusive movements
of the souls of the multitude; and, taking possession of their thoughts,
cause to flow into the mind empty visions as if coming from the idols and
the statues; and when, too, a soul of itself, as being immortal,[8] moves
comformably to reason, either predicting the future or healing the present,
the demons claim the glory for themselves.

CHAP. XXVIII.--THE HEATHEN GODS WERE SIMPLY MEN.

   But it is perhaps necessary, in accordance with what has already been
adduced, to say a little about their names. Herodotus, then, and Alexander
the son of Philip, in his letter to his mother (and each of them is said to
have conversed with the priests at Heliopolis, and Memphis, and Thebes),
affirm that they learnt from them that the gods had been men. Herodotus
speaks thus: "Of such a nature were, they said, the beings represented by
these images, they were very far indeed from being gods. However, in the
times anterior to them it was otherwise; then Egypt had gods for its
rulers, who dwelt upon the earth with men, one being always supreme above
the rest. The last of these was Horus the son of Osiris, called by the
Greeks Apollo. He deposed Typhon, and ruled over Egypt as its last god-
king. Osiris is named Dionysus (Bacchus) by the Greeks."[1] "Almost all the
names of the gods came into Greece from Egypt."[2] Apollo was the son of
Dionysus and Isis, as He rodotus likewise affirms: "According to the
Egyptians, Apollo and Diana are the children of Bacchus and Isis; while
Latona is their nurse and their preserver."[3] These beings of heavenly
origin they had for their first kings: partly from ignorance of the true
worship of the Deity, partly from gratitude for their government, they
esteemed them as gods together with their wives. "The male kine, if clean,
and the male calves are used for sacrifice by the Egyptians universally;
but the females, they are not allowed to sacrifice, since they are sacred
to Isis. The statue of this goddess has the form of a woman but with horns
like a cow, resembling those of the Greek representations of Io."[4] And
who can be more deserving of credit in making these statements, than those
who in family succession son from father, received not only the priesthood,
but also the history? For it is not likely that the priests, who make if
their business to commend the idols to men's reverence, would assert
falsely that they were men. If Herodotus alone had said that the Egyptians
spoke in their histories of the gods as of men, when he says, "What they
told me concerning their religion it is not my intention to repeat, except
only the names of their deities, things of very trifling importance,"[5] it
would behove us not to credit even Herodotus as being a fabulist. But as
Alexander and Hermes surnamed Trismegistus, who shares with them in the
attribute of eternity, and innumerable others, not to name them
individually,[declare the same], no room is left even for doubt that they,
being kings, were esteemed gods. That they were men, the most learned of
the Egyptians also testify, who, while saying that ether, earth, sun, moon,
are gods, regard the rest as mortal men, and the temples as their
sepulchres. Apollodorus, too, asserts the same thing in his treatise
concerning the gods. But Herodotus calls even their sufferings mysteries.
"The ceremonies at the feast of Isis in the city of Busiris have been
already spoken of. It is there that the whole multitude, both of men and
women, many thousands in number, beat them selves at the close of the
sacrifice in honour of a god whose name a religious scruple forbids me to
mention."[6] If they are gods, they are also immortal; but if people are
beaten for them, and their sufferings are mysteries, they are men, as
Herodotus himself says: "Here, too, in this same precinct of Minerva at
Sais, is the burial-place of one whom I think it not right to mention in
such a connection. It stands behind the temple against the back wall, which
it entirely covers. There are also some large stone obelisks in the
enclosure, and there is a lake near them, adorned with an edging of stone.
In form it is circular, and in size, as it seemed to me, about equal to the
lake at Delos called the Hoop. On this lake it is that the Egyptians
represent by night his sufferings whose name I refrain from mentioning, and
this representation they call their mysteries."[7] And not only is the
sepulchre of Osiris shown, but also his embalming: "When a body is brought
to them, they show the bearer various models of corpses made in wood, and
painted so as to resemble nature. The most perfect is said to be after the
manner of him whom I do not think it religious to name in connection with
such a matter."[8]

CHAP. XXIX.--PROOF OF THE SAME FROM THE POETS.

   But among the Greeks, also, those who are eminent in poetry and history
say the same thing. Thus of Heracles:--

   "That lawless wretch, that man of brutal strength,
    Deaf to Heaven's voice, the social rite transgressed."[9]

Such being his nature, deservedly did he go mad, and deservedly did he
light the funeral pile and burn himself to death. Of Asklepius, Hesiod
says:--

   "The mighty father both of gods and men
   Was filled with wrath, and from Olympus' top
   With flaming thunderbolt cast down and slew
   Latona's well-lov'd son--such was his ire."[10]

And Pindar:--

   "But even wisdom is ensnared by gain.
   The brilliant bribe of gold seen in the hand
   Ev'n him[11] perverted: therefore Kronos' son
   With both hands quickly stopp'd his vital breath,
   And by a bolt of fire ensured his doom."[12]

   Either, therefore, they were gods and did not hanker after gold--

  "O gold, the fairest prize to mortal men,
   Which neither mother equals in delight,
   Nor children dear"[13]--

for the Deity is in want of nought, and is superior to carnal desire, nor
did they die; or, having been born men, they were wicked by reason of
ignorance, and overcome by love of money. What more need I say, or refer to
Castor, or Pollux, or Amphiaraus, who, having been born, so to speak, only
the other day, men of men, are looked upon as gods, when they imagine even
Ino after her madness and its consequent sufferings to have become a
goddess?

   "Sea-rovers will her name Leucothea."[1]

And her son:--

   "August Palaemon, sailors will invoke."

CHAP. XXX.--REASONS WHY DIVINITY HAS BEEN ASCRIBED TO MEN.

   For if detestable and god-hated men had the reputation of being gods,
and the daughter of Derceto, Semiramis, a lascivious and blood-stained
woman, was esteemed a Syria goddess; and if, on account of Derceto, the
Syrians worship doves and Semiramis (for, a thing impossible, a woman was
changed into a dove: the story is in Ctesias), what wonder if some should
be called gods by their people on the ground of their rule and sovereignty
(the Sibyl, of whom Plato also makes mention, says:--

   "It was the generation then the tenth,
   Of men endow'd with speech, since forth the flood
   Had burst upon the men of former times,
   And Kronos, Japetus, and Titan reigned,
   Whom men, of Ouranos and Gaia
   Proclaimed the noblest sons, and named them so,[2]
   Because of men endowed with gift of speech
   They were the first");[3]

and others for their strength, as Heracles and Perseus; and others for
their art, as Asclepius? Those, therefore, to whom either the subjects gave
honour or the rulers themselves[assumed it], obtained the name, some from
fear, others from revenge. Thus Antinous, through the benevolence of your
ancestors towards their subjects, came to be regarded as a god. But those
who came after adopted the worship without examination.

   "The Cretans always lie; for they, O king,
   Have built a tomb to thee who art not dead."[4]

Though you believe, O Callimachus, in the nativity of Zeus, you do not
believe in his sepulchre; and whilst you think to obscure the truth, you in
fact proclaim him dead, even to those who are ignorant; and if you see the
cave, you call to mind the childbirth of Rhea; but when you see the coffin,
you throw a shadow over his death, not considering that the unbegotten God
alone is eternal. For either the tales told by the multitude and the poets
about the gods are unworthy of credit, and the reverence shown them is
superfluous (for those do not exist, the tales concerning whom are untrue);
or if the births, the amours, the murders, the thefts, the castrations, the
thunderbolts, are true, they no longer exist, having ceased to be since
they were born, having previously had no being. And on what principle must
we believe some things and disbelieve others, when the poets have written
their stories in order to gain greater veneration for them? For surely
those through whom they have got to be considered gods, and who have
striven to represent their deeds as worthy of reverence, cannot have
invented their sufferings. That, therefore, we are not atheists,
acknowledging as we do God the Maker of this universe and His Logos, has
been proved according to my ability, if not according to the importance of
the subject.

CHAP. XXXI.--CONFUTATION OF THE OTHER CHARGES BROUGHT AGAINST THE
CHRISTIANS.

   But they have further also made up stories against us of impious
feasts[5] and forbidden intercourse between the sexes, both that they may
appear to themselves to have rational grounds of hatred, and because they
think either by fear to lead us away from our way of life, or to render the
rulers harsh and inexorable by the magnitude of the charges they bring. But
they lose their labour with those who know that from of old it has been the
custom, and not in our time only, for vice to make war on virtue. Thus
Pythagoras, with three hundred others, was burnt to death; Heraclitus and
Democritus were banished, the one from the city of the Ephesians, the other
from Abdera, because he was charged with being mad; and the Athenians
condemned Socrates to death. But as they were none the worse in respect of
virtue because of the opinion of the multitude, so neither does the
undiscriminating calumny of some persons cast any shade upon us as regards
rectitude of life, for with God we stand in good repute. Nevertheless, I
will meet these charges also, although I am well assured that by what has
been already said I have cleared myself to you. For as you excel all men in
intelligence, you know that those whose life is directed towards God as its
rule, so that each one among us may be blameless and irreproachable before
Him, will not entertain even the thought of the slightest sin. For if we
believed that we should live only the present life, then we might be
suspected of sinning, through being enslaved to flesh and blood, or
overmastered by gain or carnal desire; but since we know that God is
witness to what we think and what we say both by night and by day, and that
He, being Himself light, sees all things in our heart, we are persuaded
that when we are removed from the present life we shall live another life,
better than the present one, and heavenly, not earthly (since we shall
abide near God, and with God, free from all change or suffering in the
soul, not as flesh, even though we shall have flesh,[1] but as heavenly
spirit), or, falling with the rest, a worse one and in fire; for God has
not made us as sheep or beasts of burden, a mere by-work, and that we
should perish and be annihilated. On these grounds it is not likely that we
should wish to do evil, or deliver ourselves over to the great Judge to be
punished.

CHAP. XXXII.--ELEVATED MORALITY OF THE CHRISTIANS.

   It is, however, nothing wonderful that they should get up tales about
us such as they tell of their own gods, of the incidents of whose lives
they make mysteries. But it behoved them, if they meant to condemn
shameless and promiscuous intercourse, to hate either Zeus, who begat
children of his mother Rhea and his daughter Kore, and took his own sister
to wife, or Orpheus, the inventor of these tales, which made Zeus more
unholy and detestable than Thyestes himself; for the latter defiled his
daughter in pursuance of an oracle, and when he wanted to obtain the
kingdom and avenge himself. But we are so far from practising promiscuous
intercourse, that it is not lawful among us to indulge even a lustful look.
"For," saith He, "he that looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath
committed adultery already in his heart."[2] Those, then, who are forbidden
to look at anything more than that for which God formed the eyes, which
were intended to be a light to us, and to whom a wanton look is adultery,
the eyes being made for other purposes, and who are to be called to account
for their very thoughts, how can any one doubt that such persons practise
self-control? For our account lies not with human laws, which a bad man can
evade (at the outset I proved to you, sovereign lords, that our doctrine is
from the teaching of God), but we have a law which makes the measure of
rectitude to consist in dealing with our neighbour as ourselves.[3] On this
account, too, according to age, we recognise some as sons and daughters,
others we regard as brothers and sisters,[4] and to the more advanced in
life we give the honour due to fathers and mothers. On behalf of those,
then, to whom we apply the names of brothers and sisters, and other
designations of relationship, we exercise the greatest care that their
bodies should remain undefiled and uncorrupted; for the Logos[5] again says
to us, "If any one kiss a second time because it has given him pleasure,[he
sins];" adding, "Therefore the kiss, or rather the salutation, should be
given with the greatest care, since, if there be mixed with it the least
defilement of thought, it excludes us from eternal life."[6]

CHAP. XXXIII.--CHASTITY OF THE CHRISTIANS WITH RESPECT TO MARRIAGE.

   Therefore, having the hope of eternal life, we despise the things of
this life, even to the pleasures of the soul, each of us reckoning her his
wife whom he has married according to the laws laid down by us, and that
only for the purpose of having children. For as the husbandman throwing the
seed into the ground awaits the harvest, not sowing more upon it, so to us
the procreation of children is the measure of our indulgence in appetite.
Nay, you would find many among us, both men and women, growing old
unmarried, in hope of living in closer communion with God.[7] But if the
remaining in virginity and in the state of an eunuch brings nearer to God,
while the indulgence of carnal thought and desire leads away from Him, in
those cases in which we shun the thoughts, much more do we reject the
deeds. For we bestow our attention; not on the study of words, but on the
exhibition and teaching of actions,--that a person should either remain as
he was born, or be content with one marriage; for a second marriage is only
a specious adultery.[8] "For whosoever puts away his wife," says He, "and
marries another, commits adultery;"[1] not permitting a man to send her
away whose virginity he has brought to an end, nor to marry again. For he
who deprives himself of his first wife, even though she be dead, is a
cloaked adulterer,[2] resisting the hand of God, because in the beginning
God made one man and one woman, and dissolving the strictest union of flesh
with flesh, formed for the intercourse of the race.

CHAP. XXXIV.--THE VAST DIFFERENCE IN MORALS BETWEEN THE CHRISTIANS AND
THEIR ACCUSERS.

   But though such is our character (Oh! why should I speak of things
unfit to be uttered?), the things said of us are an example of the proverb,
"The harlot reproves the chaste." For those who have set up a market for
fornication and established infamous resorts for the young for every kind
of vile pleasure,--who do not abstain even from males, males with males
committing shocking abominations, outraging all the noblest and comeliest
bodies in all sorts of ways, so dishonouring the fair workmanship of God
(for beauty on earth is not self-made, but sent hither by the hand and will
of God),--these men, I say, revile us for the very things which they are
conscious of themselves, and ascribe to their own gods, boasting of them as
noble deeds, and worthy of the gods. These adulterers and paederasts defame
the eunuchs and the once-married (while they themselves live like
fishes;[3] for these gulp down whatever fails in their way, and the
stronger chases the weaker: and, in fact, this is to feed upon human flesh,
to do violence in contravention of the very laws which you and your
ancestors, with due care for all that is fair and right, have enacted), so
that not even the governors of the provinces sent by you suffice for the
hearing of the complaints against those, to whom it even is not lawful,
when they are struck, not to offer themselves for more blows, nor when
defamed not to bless: for it is not enough to be just (and justice is to
return like for like), but it is incumbent on us to be good and patient of
evil.

CHAP. XXXV.--THE CHRISTIANS CONDEMN AND DETEST ALL CRUELTY.

   What man of sound mind, therefore, will affirm, while such is our
character, that we are murderers? For we cannot eat human flesh till we
have killed some one. The former charge, therefore, being false, if any one
should ask them in regard to the second, whether they have seen what they
assert, not one of them would be so barefaced as to say that he had. And
yet we have slaves, some more and some fewer, by whom we could not help
being seen; but even of these, not one has been found to invent even such
things against us. For when they know that we cannot endure even to see a
man put to death, though justly; who of them can accuse us of murder or
cannibalism? Who does not reckon among the things of greatest interest the
contests of gladiators and wild beasts, especially those which are given by
you? But we, deeming that to see a man put to death is much the same as
killing him, have abjured such spectacles.[4] How, then, when we do not
even look on, lest we should contract guilt and pollution, can we put
people to death? And when we say that those women who use drugs to bring on
abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God s for the
abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong
to the same person to regard the very foetus in the womb as a created
being, and therefore an object of God's care, and when it has passed into
life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose
them are chargeable with child-murder, and on the other hand, when it has
been reared to destroy it. But we are in all things always alike and the
same, submitting ourselves to reason, and not ruling over it.

CHAP. XXXVI.--BEARING OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION ON THE PRACTICES
OF THE CHRISTIANS.

   Who, then, that believes in a resurrection, would make himself into a
tomb for bodies that will rise again? For it is not the part of the same
persons to believe that our bodies will rise again, and to eat them as if
they would not; and to think that the earth will give back the bodies held
by it, but that those which a man has entombed in himself will not be
demanded back. On the contrary, it is reasonable to suppose, that those who
think they shall have no account to give of the present life, ill or well
spent, and that there is no resurrection, but calculate on the soul
perishing with the body, and being as it were quenched in it, will refrain
from no deed of daring; but as for those who are persuaded that nothing
will escape the scrutiny of God, but that even the body which has
ministered to the irrational impulses of the soul, and to its desires, will
be punished along with it, it is not likely that they will commit even the
smallest sin. But if to any one it appears sheer nonsense that the body
which has mouldered away, and been dissolved, and reduced to nothing,
should be reconstructed, we certainly cannot with any reason be accused of
wickedness with reference to those that believe not, but only of folly; for
with the opinions by which we deceive ourselves we injure no one else. But
that it is not our belief alone that bodies will rise again, but that many
philosophers also hold the same view, it is out of place to show just now,
lest we should be thought to introduce topics irrelevant to the matter in
hand, either by speaking of the intelligible and the sensible, and the
nature of these respectively, or by contending that the incorporeal is
older than the corporeal, and that the intelligible precedes the sensible,
although we become acquainted with the latter earliest, since the corporeal
is formed from the incorporeal, by the combination with it of the
intelligible, and that the sensible is formed from the intelligible; for
nothing hinders, according to Pythagoras and Plato, that when the
dissolution of bodies takes place, they should, from the very same elements
of which they were constructed at first, be constructed again.[1] But let
us defer the discourse concerning the resurrection.[2]

CHAP. XXXII.--ENTREATY TO BE FAIRLY JUDGED.

   And now do you, who are entirely in everything, by nature and by
education, upright, and moderate, and benevolent, and worthy of your rule,
now that I have disposed of the several accusations, and proved that we are
pious, and gentle, and temperate in spirit, bend your royal head in
approval. For who are more deserving to obtain the things they ask, than
those who, like us, pray for your government, that you may, as is most
equitable, receive the kingdom, son from father, and that your empire may
receive increase and addition, all men becoming subject to your sway? And
this is also for our advantage, that we may lead a peaceable and quiet
life, and may ourselves readily perform all that is commanded us.[3]


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland beginning in
1867. (ANF 2, Roberts and Donaldson.) The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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