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CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

AN ADDRESS TO DEMETRIANUS.
Translated by the Rev. Ernest Wallis, Ph.D.

ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN, IN REPLY TO DEMETRIANUS THE PROCONSUL OF AFRICA, WHO
CONTENDED THAT THE WARS, AND FAMINE, AND PESTILENCE WITH WHICH THE WORLD
WAS THEN PLAGUED MUST BE IMPUTED TO THE CHRISTIANS BECAUSE THEY DID NOT
WORSHIP THE GODS; FAIRLY URGES (HAVING ARGUED THAT ALL THINGS ARE GRADUALLY
DETERIORATING WITH THE OLD AGE OF THE WORLD) THAT IT WAS RATHER THE
HEATHENS THEMSELVES WHO WERE THE CAUSE OF SUCH MISCHIEFS, BECAUSE THEY DID
NOT WORSHIP GOD, AND, MOREOVER, WERE DISTRESSING THE CHRISTIANS WITH UNJUST
PERSECUTIONS.(9)

   1. I had frequently, Demetrianus, treated with contempt your railing
and noisy clamour with sacrilegious mouth and impious words against the one
and true God, thinking it more modest and better, silently to scorn the
ignorance of a mistaken man, than by speaking to provoke the fury of a
senseless one. Neither did I do this without the authority of the divine
teaching,(1) since it is written, "Speak not in the ears of a fool, lest
when he hear thee he should despise the wisdom of thy words; "(2) and
again, "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like
unto him."(3) And we are, moreover, bidden to keep what is holy within our
own knowledge, and not expose it to be trodden down by swine and dogs,
since the Lord speaks, saying, "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs,
neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under
their feet, and turn again and rend you."(4) For when you used often to
come to me with the desire of contradicting rather than with the wish to
learn, and preferred impudently to insist on your own views, which you
shouted with noisy words, to patiently listening to mine, it seethed to me
foolish to contend with you; since it would he an easier and slighter thing
to restrain the angry waves of a turbulent sea with shouts, than to check
your madness by arguments. Assuredly it would be both a vain and
ineffectual labour to offer light to a blind man, discourse to a deaf one,
or wisdom to a brute; since neither can a brute apprehend, nor can a blind
man admit the light, nor can a deaf man hear.

   2. In consideration of this, I have frequently held my tongue, and
overcome an impatient man with patience; since I could neither teach an
unteachable man, nor check an impious one with religion, nor restrain a
frantic man with gentleness. But yet, when you say that very many are
complaining that to us it is ascribed that wars arise more frequently, that
plague, that famines rage, and that long droughts are suspending the
showers and rains, it is not fitting that I should be silent any longer,
lest my silence should begin to be attributed to mistrust rather than to
modesty; and while I am treating the false charges with contempt, I may
seem to be acknowledging the crime. I reply, therefore, as well to you,
Demetrianus, as to others whom perhaps you have stirred up, and many of
whom, by sowing hatred against us with malicious words. you have made your
own partisans, from the budding forth of your own root and origin, who,
however, I believe, will admit the reasonableness of my discourse; for he
who is moved to evil by the deception of a lie, will much more easily be
moved to good by the cogency of truth.

   3. You have said that all these things are caused by us, and that to us
ought to be attributed the misfortunes wherewith the world is now shaken
and distressed, because your gods are not worshipped by us. And in this
behalf, since you are ignorant of divine knowledge, and a stranger to the
truth, you must in the first place know this, that the world has now grown
old, and does not abide in that strength in which it formerly stood; nor
has it that vigour and force which it formerly possessed. This, even were
we silent, and if we alleged no proofs from the sacred Scriptures and from
the divine declarations, the world itself is now announcing, and, bearing
witness to its decline by the testimony of its failing estate.(5) In the
winter there is not such an abundance of showers for nourishing the seeds;
in the summer the sun has not so much  heat for cherishing the harvest; nor
in the spring season are the corn-fields so joyous; nor are the autumnal
seasons so fruitful in their leafy products. The layers of marble are dug
out in less quantity from the disembowelled and wearied mountains; the
diminished quantities of gold and silver suggest the early exhaustion of
the metals, and the impoverished veins are straitened and decreased day by
day; the husbandman is failing in the fields, the sailor at sea, the
soldier in the camp, innocence in the market, justice in the tribunal,
concord in friendships, skilfulness in the arts, discipline in morals.
Think you that the substantial character of a thing that is growing old
remains so robust as that wherewith it might previously flourish in its
youth while still new and vigorous? Whatever is tending downwards to decay,
with its end nearly approaching, must of necessity be weakened. Thus, the
sun at his setting darts his rays  with a less bright and fiery splendour;
thus, in her declining course, the moon wanes with exhausted horns; and the
tree, which before had been green and fertile, as its branches dry up,
becomes by and by misshapen in a barren old age; and the fountain which
once gushed forth liberally from its overflowing veins, as old age causes
it to fail, scarcely trickles with a sparing moisture. This is the sentence
passed on the world, this is God's law; that everything that has had a
beginning should perish, and things that have grown should become old, and
that strong things should become weak, and great things become small, and
that, when they have become weakened and diminished, they should come to an
end.

4. You impute it to the Christians that everything is decaying as the
world grows old. What if old men should charge it on the Christians that
they grow less strong in their old age; that they no longer, as formerly,
have the same facilities, in the hearing of their ears, in the swiftness of
their feet, in the keenness of their eyes, in the vigour of their strength,
in the freshness of their organic powers, in the fulness of their limbs,
and that although once the life of men endured beyond the age of eight and
nine hundred years, it can now scarcely attain to its hundredth year? We
see grey hairs in boys--the hair fails before it begins to grow; and life
does not cease in old age, but it begins with old age. Thus, even at its
very commencement, birth hastens to its close;(1) thus, whatever is now
born degenerates with the old age of the world itself; so that no one ought
to wonder that everything begins to fail in the world, when the whole world
itself is already in process of failing, and in its end.

   5. Moreover, that wars continue frequently to prevail, that death and
famine accumulate anxiety, that health is shattered by raging diseases,
that the human race is wasted by the desolation of pestilence, know that
this was foretold; that evils should be multiplied in the last times, and
that misfortunes should be varied; and that as the day of judgment is now
drawing nigh, the censure of an indignant God should be more and more
aroused for the scourging of the human race. For these things happen not,
as your false complaining and ignorant inexperience of the truth asserts
and repeats, because your gods are not worshipped by us, but because God is
not worshipped by you. For since He is Lord and Ruler of the world, and all
things are carried on by His will and direction, nor can anything be done
save what He Himself has done or allowed to be done, certainly when those
things occur which show the anger of an offended God, they happen not on
account of us by whom God is worshipped, but they are called down by your
sins and deservings, by whom God is neither in any way sought nor feared,
because your vain superstitions are not forsaken, nor the true religion
known in such wise that He who is the one God over all might alone be
worshipped and petitioned.

   6. In fine, listen to Himself speaking; Himself with a divine voice at
once instructing and warning us: "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,"
says He, "and Him only shall thou serve."(2) And again, "Thou shalt have
none other gods but me."(3) And again, "Go not after other gods, to serve
them; and worship them not, and provoke not me to anger with the works of
your hands to destroy you."(14) Moreover, the prophet, filled with the Holy
Spirit, attests and denounces the anger of God, saying, "Thus saith the
Lord Almighty: Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man to
his own house, therefore the heavens shall be stayed from dew, and the
earth shall withhold her fruits: and I will bring a sword upon the earth,
and upon the corn, and upon the wine, and upon the oil, and upon men, and
upon cattle, and upon all the labours of their hands."(5) Moreover, another
prophet repeats, and says, "And I will cause it to rain upon one city, and
upon another city I will cause it not to rain. One piece shall be rained
upon, and the piece whereon I send no rain shall be withered. And two and
three cities shall be gathered into one city to drink water, and shall not
be satisfied; and ye are not converted unto me, saith the Lord."(6)

   7. Behold, the Lord is angry and wrathful, and threatens, because you
turn not unto Him. And you wonder or complain in this your obstinacy and
contempt, if the rain comes down with unusual scarcity; and the earth falls
into neglect with dusty corruption; if the barren glebe hardly brings forth
a few jejune and pallid blades of grass; if the destroying hail weakens the
vines; if the overwhelming whirlwind roots out the olive; if drought
stanches the fountain; a pestilent breeze corrupts the air; the weakness of
disease wastes away man; although all these things come as the consequence
of the sins that provoke them, and God is more deeply indignant when such
and so great evils avail nothing! For that these things occur either for
the discipline of the obstinate or for the punishment of the evil, the same
God declares in the Holy Scriptures, saying, "In vain have [ smitten your
children; they have not received correction."(7) And the prophet devoted
and dedicated to God answers to these words in the same strain, and says,
"Thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; Thou hast scourged
them, but they have refused to receive correction."(8) Lo, stripes are
inflicted from God, and there is no fear of God. Lo, blows and scourgings
from above are not wanting, and there is no trembling, no fear. What if
even no such rebuke as that interfered in human affairs? How much greater
still would be the audacity in men, if it were secure in the impunity of
their crimes!

   8. You complain that the fountains are now less plentiful to you, and
the breezes less salubrious, and the frequent showers and the fertile earth
afford you less ready assistance; that the elements no longer subserve your
uses and your pleasures as of old. But do you serve God, by whom all things
are ordained to your service; do you wait upon Him by whose good pleasure
all things wait upon you?(1) From your slave you yourself require service;
and though a man, you compel your fellow-man to submit, and to be obedient
to you; and although you share the same lot in respect of being born, the
same condition in respect of dying; although you have like bodily substance
and a common order of souls, and although you come into this world of ours
and depart from it after a time with equal rights,(2) and by the same law;
yet, unless you are served by him according to your pleasure, unless you
are obeyed by him in conformity to your will, you, as an imperious and
excessive exactor of his service, flog and scourge him: you afflict and
torture him with hunger, with thirst and nakedness, and even frequently
with the sword and with imprisonment. And, wretch that you are, do you not
acknowledge the Lord your God while you yourself are thus exercising
lordship?(3)

   9. And therefore with reason in these plagues that occur, there are not
wanting God's stripes and scourges; and since they are of no avail in this
matter, and do not convert individuals to God by such terror of
destructions, there remains after all the eternal dungeon, and the
continual fire, and the everlasting punishment; nor shall the groaning of
the suppliants be heard there, because here the terror of the angry God was
not heard, crying by His prophet, and saying, "Hear the word of the Lord,
ye children of Israel: for the judgment of the 'Lord is against the
inhabitants of the earth; because there is neither mercy, nor truth, nor
knowledge of God upon the earth. But cursing, and lying, and killing, and
stealing, and committing adultery, is broken out over the land, they mingle
blood with blood. Therefore shall the land mourn, with every one that
dwelleth therein, with the beasts of the field, with things that creep on
the earth, and with the fowls of heaven; and the fishes of the sea shall
languish, so that no man shall judge, no man shall rebuke."(4) God says He
is wrathful and angry, because there is no acknowledgment of God in the
earth, and God is neither known nor feared. The sins of lying, of lust, of
fraud, of cruelty, of impiety, of anger, God rebukes and finds fault with,
and no one is converted to innocency. Lo, those things are happening which
were before foretold by the words of God; nor is any one admonished by the
belief of things present to take thought for what is to come. Amongst those
very misfortunes wherein the soul, closely bound and shut up, can scarcely
breathe, there is still found opportunity for men to be evil, and in such
great dangers to judge not so much of themselves as of others. You are
indignant that God is angry, as if by an evil life you were deserving  any
good, as if all things of that kind which happen were not infinitely less
and of smaller account than your sins.

   10. You who judge others, be for once also a judge of yourself; look
into the hiding-places of your own conscience; nay, since now there is not
even any shame in your sins and you are  wicked, as if it were rather the
very wickedness itself that pleased you, do you, who are seen clearly and
nakedly by all other men, yourself also look upon yourself. For either you
are swollen with pride, or greedy with avarice, or cruel with anger, or
prodigal with gambling, or flushed with intemperance, or envious with
jealousy, or unchaste with lust, or violent with cruelty; and do you wonder
that God's anger increases in punishing the human race, when the sin that
is punished is daily increasing? You complain that the enemy rises up, as
if, though an enemy were wanting, there could be peace for yon even among
the very togas of peace. You complain that the enemy rises up, as if, even
although external arms and dangers from barbarians were repressed, the
weapons of domestic assault from the calumnies and wrongs of powerful
citizens, would not be more ferocious and more harshly wielded within. You
complain of barrenness and famine, as if drought made a greater famine than
rapacity, as if the fierceness of want did not increase more terribly from
grasping at the increase of the year's produce, and the accumulation of
their price. You complain that the heaven is shut up from showers, although
in the same way the barns are shut up on earth. You complain that now less
is produced, as if what had already been produced were given to the
indigent. You reproach plague and disease, while by plague itself and
disease the crimes of individuals are either detected or increased, while
mercy is not manifested to the weak, and avarice and rapine are waiting
open-mouthed for the dead. The same men are timid in the duties of
affection, but rash in quest of implores gains; shunning the deaths of the
dying, and craving the spoils of the dead, so that it may appear as if the
wretched are probably forsaken in their sickness for this cause, that they
may not, by being cured, escape: for he who enters so eagerly upon the
estate of the dying, probably desired the sick man to perish.

   11. So great a terror of destruction cannot  give the teaching of
innocency; and in the midst of a people dying with constant havoc, nobody
considers that he himself is mortal. Everywhere there is scattering, there
is seizure, there is taking possession; no dissimulation about spoiling,
and no delay. (1) As if it were all lawful, as if it were all becoming, as
if he who does not rob were suffering loss and wasting his own property,
thus every one hastens to the rapine. Among thieves there is at any rate
some modesty in their crimes. They love pathless ravines and deserted
solitudes; and they do wrong in such a way, that still the crime of the
wrong-doers is veiled by darkness and night. Avarice, however, rages
openly, and, safe by its very boldness, exposes the weapons of its headlong
craving in the light of the market-place. Thence cheats, thence poisoners,
thence assassins in the midst of the city, are as eager for wickedness as
they are wicked with impunity. The crime is committed by the guilty, and
the guiltless who can avenge it is not found. There is no fear from accuser
or judge: the wicked obtain impunity, while modest men are silent;
accomplices are afraid, and those who are to judge are for sale. And
therefore by the mouth of the prophet the truth of the matter is put forth
with the divine spirit and instinct: it is shown in a certain and obvious
way that God can prevent adverse things, but that the evil deserts of
sinners prevent His bringing  aid. "Is the Lord's hand," says he, "not
strong to save you; or has He made heavy His ear, that He cannot hear you?
But your sins separate  between you and God; and because of your sins He
hath hid His face from you, that He may not  have mercy." (2) Therefore let
your sins and of-fences be reckoned up; let the wounds of your conscience
be considered; and let each one  cease complaining about God, or about us,
if he   should perceive that himself deserves what he suffers.

   12. Look what that very matter is of which  is chiefly our discourse --
that you molest us, although innocent; that, in contempt of God, you attack
and oppress God's servants. It is little, in your account, that your life
is stained  with a variety of gross vices, with the iniquity of  deadly
crimes, with the summary of all bloody rapines; that true religion is
overturned by false superstitions; that God is neither sought at all,   nor
feared at all; but over and above this, you weary (3) God's servants, and
those who are dedicated to His majesty and His name, with unjust
persecutions. It is not enough that you yourself do not worship God, but,
over and above, you persecute those who do worship, with a sacrilegious
hostility. You neither worship God, nor do you at all permit Him to be
worshipped; and while others who venerate not only those foolish idols and
images made by man's hands, but even portents and monsters besides, are
pleasing to you, it is only the worshipper of God who is displeasing to
you. The ashes of victims and the piles of cattle everywhere smoke in your
temples, and God's altars are either nowhere or are hidden. Crocodiles, and
apes, and stones, and serpents are worshipped by you; and God alone in the
earth is not worshipped. or if worshipped, not with impunity. You deprive
the innocent, the just, the dear to God, of their home; you spoil them of
their estate, you load them with chains, you shut them up in prison, you
punish them with the sword, with the wild beasts, with the flames. Nor,
indeed, are you content with a brief endurance of our sufferings, and with
a simple and swift exhaustion of pains. You set on foot tedious tortures,
by tearing our bodies; you multiply numerous punishments, by lacerating our
vitals; nor can your brutality and fierceness be content with ordinary
tortures; your ingenious cruelty devises new sufferings.

   13. What is this insatiable madness for blood-shedding, what this
interminable lust of cruelty? Rather make your election of one of two
alternatives. To be a Christian is either a crime, or it is not. If it be a
crime, why do you not  put the man that confesses it to death? If it  be
not a crime, why do you persecute an innocent man? For I ought to be put to
the torture if I denied it. If in fear of your punishment I should conceal,
by a deceitful falsehood, what I had previously been, and the fact that i
had not worshipped your gods, then I might deserve to be tormented, then I
ought to be compelled to confession of my crime by the power of suffering,
as in other examinations the guilty, who deny that they are guilty of the
crime of which they are accused, are tortured in order that the confession
of the reality of the crime, which the tell-tale voice refuses to make, may
be wrung out by the bodily suffering. But now, when of my own free will I
confess, and cry out, and with words frequent and repeated to the same
effect bear witness that I am a Christian, why do you apply tortures to one
who avows it, and who destroys your gods, not in hidden and secret places,
but openly, and publicly, and in the very market-place, in the hearing of
your magistrates and governors; so that, although it was a slight thing
which you blamed in me before, that which you ought rather to hate and
punish has increased, that by declaring myself a Christian in a frequented
place, and with the people standing around, I am confounding both you and
your gods by an open and public announcement?

   14. Why do you turn your attention to the weakness of our body? why do
you strive with the feebleness of this earthly flesh? Contend rather with
the strength of the mind, break down the power of the soul, destroy our
faith, conquer if you can by discussion, overcome by reason; or, if your
gods have any deity and power, let them themselves rise to their own
vindication, let them defend themselves by their own majesty. But what can
they advantage their worshippers, if they cannot avenge themselves on those
who worship them not? For if he who avenges is of more account than he who
is avenged, then you are greater than your gods. And if you are greater
than those whom you worship, you ought not to worship them, but rather to
be worshipped and feared by them as their lord. Your championship defends
them when injured, just as your protection guards them when shut up from
perishing. You should be ashamed to worship those whom you yourself defend;
you should be ashamed to hope for protection from those whom you yourself
protect.

   15. Oh, would you but hear and see them when they are adjured by us,
and tortured with spiritual scourges, and are ejected from the possessed
bodies with tortures of words, (1) when howling and groaning at the voice
of man and the power of God, feeling the stripes and blows, they confess
the judgment to come! Come and acknowledge that what we say is true; and
since you say that you thus worship gods, believe even those whom you
worship. Or if you will even believe yourself, he--i.e., the demon--who has
now possessed your breast, who has now darkened your mind with the night of
ignorance, shall speak concerning yourself in your hearing. You will see
that we are entreated by those whom you entreat, that we are feared by
those whom you fear, whom you adore. You will see that under our hands they
stand bound, and tremble as captives, whom you took up to and venerate as
lords: assuredly even thus you might be confounded in those errors of
yours, when you see and hear your gods, at once upon our interrogation
betraying what they are, and even in your presence unable to conceal those
deceits and trickeries of theirs.

   16. What, then, is that sluggishness of mind; yea, what blind and
stupid madness of fools, to be unwilling to come out of darkness into
light, and to be unwilling, when bound in the toils of eternal death, to
receive the hope of immortality, and not to fear God when He threatens and
says, "He that sacrifices unto any gods, but unto the Lord only, shall be
rooted out?" (2) And again: "They worshipped them whom their fingers made;
and the mean man hath bowed down, and the great man hath humbled himself,
and I will not forgive them." (3) Why do you humble and bend yourself to
false gods? Why do you bow your body captive before foolish images and
creations of earth? God made you upright; and while other animals are
downlooking, and are depressed in posture bending towards the earth, yours
is a lofty attitude; and your countenance is raised upwards to heaven, and
to God. Look thither, lift your eyes thitherward, seek God in the highest,
that you may be free from things below; lift your heart to a dependence on
high and heavenly things. Why do you prostrate yourself into the ruin of
death with the serpent whom you worship? Why do you fall into the
destruction of the devil, by his means and in his company? Keep the lofty
estate in which you were born. Continue such as you were made by God. To
the posture of your countenance and of your body, conform your soul. That
you may be able to know God, first know yourself. Forsake the idols which
human error has invented. Be turned to God, whom if you implore He will aid
you. Believe in Christ, whom (4) the Father has sent to quicken and restore
us. Cease to hurt the servants of God and of Christ with your persecutions,
since when they are injured the divine vengeance defends them.

   17. For this reason it is that none of us, when he is apprehended,
makes resistance, nor avenges himself against your unrighteous violence,
although our people are numerous and plentiful. Our certainty of a
vengeance to follow makes us patient. The innocent give place to the
guilty; the harmless acquiesce in punishments and tortures, sure and
confident that whatsoever we suffer will not remain unavenged, and that in
proportion to the greatness of the injustice of I our persecution so will
be the justice and the severity of the vengeance exacted for those
persecutions. Nor does the wickedness of the impious ever rise up against
the name we bear, without immediate vengeance from above attending it. To
say nothing of the memories of ancient times, and not to recur with wordy
commemoration to frequently repeated vengeance on behalf of God's
worshippers, the instance of a recent matter is sufficient to prove that
our defence, so speedily, and in its speed so powerfully, followed of late
in the ruins of things, (5) in the destruction of wealth, in the waste of
soldiers, and the diminution of forts. Nor let any one think that this
occurred by chance, or think that it was fortuitous, since long ago
Scripture has laid down, and said. "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith
the Lord." (1) And again the Holy Spirit forewarns, and says, "Say not
thou, I will avenge myself of mine enemy, but wait on the Lord, that He may
be thy help." (2) Whence it is plain and manifest, that not by our means,
but for our sakes, all those things are happening which come down from the
anger of God.

   18. Nor let anybody think that Christians are not avenged by those
things that are happening,  for the reason that they also themselves seem
to be affected by their visitation. A man feels the punishment of worldly
adversity, when all his joy and glory are in the world. He grieves and
groans if it is ill with him in this life, with whom it cannot be well
after this life, all the fruit of whose life is received here, all whose
consolation is ended here, whose fading and brief life here reckons some
sweetness and pleasure, but when it has departed hence, there remains for
him only punishment added to sorrow. But they have no suffering from the
assault of present evils who have confidence in future good things. In
fact, we are never prostrated by adversity, nor are we broken down, nor do
we grieve or murmur in any external misfortune or weakness of body: living
by the Spirit rather than by the flesh, we overcome bodily weakness by
mental strength. By those very things which torment and weary us, we know
and trust that we are proved and strengthened. (3)

   19. Do you think that we suffer adversity equally with yourselves, when
you see that the same adverse things are not borne equally by us and by
you? Among you there is always a clamorous and complaining impatience; with
us   there is a strong and religious patience, always  quiet and always
grateful to God. Nor does it claim for itself anything joyous or prosperous
in this world, but, meek and gentle and stable  against all the gusts of
this tossing world, it  waits for the time of the divine promise; for as
long as this body endures, it must needs have a common lot with others, and
its bodily condition must be common. Nor is it given to any of the human
race to be separated one from another, except by withdrawal from this
present life. In the meantime, we are all, good and evil, contained in one
household. Whatever happens  within the house, we suffer with equal fate,
until, when the end of the temporal life shall be attained, we shall be
distributed among the homes either of eternal death or immortality. Thus,
therefore, we are not on the same level, and equal with you, because,
placed in this present world and in this flesh, we incur equally with you
the annoyances of the world and of the flesh; for since in the sense of
pain is all punishment, it is manifest that he is not a sharer of your
punishment who, you see, does not suffer pain equally with yourselves. (4)

   20. There flourishes with us the strength of hope and the firmness of
faith. Among these very ruins of a decaying world our soul is lifted up,
and our courage unshaken: our patience is never anything but joyous; and
the mind is always secure of its God, even as the Holy Spirit speaks
through the prophet, and exhorts us, strengthening with a heavenly word the
firmness of our hope and faith. "The fig-tree," says He, "shall not bear
fruit, and there shall be no blossom in the vines. The labour of the olive
shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat. The flock shall be cut off
from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls. But I will rejoice
in the Lord, and I will joy in the God of my salvation." (5) He says that
the man of God and the worshipper of God, depending on the truth of his
hope, and Corroded on the stedfastness of his faith, is not moved by the
attacks of this world and this life. Although the vine should fail, and the
olive deceive, and the field parched with grass dying with drought should
wither, what is this to Christians? what to God's servants whom paradise is
inviting, whom all the grace and all the abundance of the kingdom of heaven
is waiting for? They always exult in the Lord, and rejoice and are glad in
their God; and the evils and adversities of the world they bravely suffer,
because they are looking forward to gifts and prosperities to come: for we
who have put off our earthly birth, and are now created and regenerated by
the Spirit, and no longer live to the world but to God, shall not receive
God's gifts and promises until we arrive at the presence of God. And yet we
always ask for the repulse of enemies, and for obtaining showers, and
either for the removal or the moderating of adversity; and we pour forth
our prayers, and, propitiating and appeasing God, we entreat constantly and
urgently, day and night, for your peace and salvation.

   21. Let no one, however, flatter himself, because there is for the
present to us and to the profane, to God's worshippers and to God's
opponents, (6) by reason of the equality of the flesh and body, a common
condition of worldly troubles, in such a way as to think from this, that
all those things which happen are not drawn down by you; since by the
announcement of God Himself, and by prophetic testimony, it has previously
been foretold that upon the unjust should come the wrath of God, and that
persecutions which humanly would hurt us should not be wanting; but,
moreover, that vengeance, which should defend with heavenly defence those
who were hurt, should attend them.

   22. And how great, too, are those things which in the meantime are
happening in that respect on our behalf! Something is given for an example,
that the anger of an avenging God may be known. But the day of judgment is
still future which the Holy Scripture denounces, saying, "Howl ye, for the
day of the Lord is at hand, and destruction from God shall come; for, lo,
the day of the Lord cometh, cruel with wrath and anger, to lay the earth
desolate, and to destroy the sinners out of it." (1) And again: "Behold,
the day of the Lord cometh, burning as an oven; and all the aliens and all
that do wickedly shall be as stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn
them up, saith the Lord." (2) The Lord prophesies that the aliens shall be
burnt up and consumed; that is, aliens from the divine race, and the
profane, those who are not spiritually new-born, nor made children of God.
For that those only can escape who have been new-born and signed with the
sign of Christ, God says in another place, when, sending forth His angels
to the destruction of the world and the death of the human race, He
threatens more terribly in the last time, saying, "Go ye, and smite, and
let not your eye spare. Have no pity upon old or young, and slay the
virgins and the little ones and the women, that they may be utterly
destroyed. But touch not any man upon whom is written the mark." (3)
Moreover, what this mark is, and in what part of the body it is placed, God
sets forth in another place, saying, "Go through the midst of Jerusalem,
and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all
the abominations that be done in the midst thereof." (4) And that the sign
pertains to the passion and blood of Christ, and that whoever is found in
this sign is kept safe and unharmed, is also proved by God's testimony,
saying, "And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses in which
ye shall be; and I will see the blood, and will protect you, and the plague
of diminution shall not be upon you when I smite the land of Egypt." (5)
What previously preceded by a figure in the slain lamb is fulfilled in
Christ, the truth which followed afterwards. As, then, when Egypt was
smitten, the Jewish people could not escape except by the blood and the
sign of the lamb;   so also, when the world shall begin to be desolated and
smitten, whoever is found in the blood   and the sign of Christ alone shall
escape. (6)

   23. Look, therefore, (7) while there is time, to the true and eternal
salvation; and since now the end of the world is at hand, turn your minds
to God, in the fear of God; nor let that powerless and vain dominion in the
world over the just and meek delight you, since in the field, even among
the cultivated and fruitful corn, the tares and the darnel have dominion.
Nor say ye that ill fortunes happen because your gods are not worshipped by
us; but know that this is the judgment of God's anger, that He who is not
acknowledged on account of His benefits may at least be acknowledged
through His judgments. Seek the Lord even late; for long ago, God,
forewarning by His prophet, exhorts and says, "Seek ye the Lord, and your
soul shall live." (8) Know God even late; for Christ at His coming
admonishes and teaches this, saying, "This is life eternal, that they might
know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." (9)
Believe Him who deceives not at all. Believe Him who foretold that all
these things should come to pass. Believe Him who will  give to all that
believe the reward of eternal life.  Believe Him who will call down on them
that believe not, eternal punishments in the fires of Gehenna.

   24. What will then be the glory of faith? what the punishment of
faithlessness? When   the day of judgment shall come, what joy of
believers, what sorrow of unbelievers; that they  should have been
unwilling to believe here, and now that they should be unable to return
that they might believe! An ever-burning Gehenna will burn up the
condemned, and a punishment devouring with living flames; nor will there be
any source whence at any time they may have either respite or end to their
torments. Souls with their bodies will be reserved in infinite tortures for
suffering. Thus the man will be for ever seen by us who here gazed upon us
for a season; and the short joy of those cruel eyes in   the persecutions
that they made for us will be  compensated by a perpetual spectacle,
according to the truth of Holy Scripture, which says, "Their worm shall not
die, and their fire shall not be quenched; and they shall be for a vision
to all flesh." (10) Anti again: "Then shall the  righteous men stand in
great constancy before the face of those who have afflicted them, and have
taken away their labours. When they see it, they shall be troubled with
horrible fear, and shall be amazed at the suddenness of their unexpected
salvation; and they, repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit, shall
say within themselves, These are they whom we had some time in derision,
and a proverb of reproach; we fools counted their life madness, and their
end to be without honour. How are they numbered among the children of God,
and their lot is among the saints! Therefore have we erred from the way of
truth, and the light of righteousness hath not shined upon us, and the sun
rose not on us. We wearied ourselves in the way of wickedness and
destruction; we have gone through deserts where there lay no way; but we
have not known the way of the Lord. What hath pride profited us, or what
good hath the boasting of riches done us? All those things are passed away
like a shadow." (1) The pain of punishment will then be without the fruit
of penitence; weeping will be useless, and prayer ineffectual. Too late
they will believe in eternal punishment who would not believe in eternal
life.

   25. Provide, therefore, while you may, for  your safety and your life.
We offer you the wholesome help of our mind and advice. And because we may
not hate, and we please God more by rendering no return for wrong, we
exhort you while you have the power, while there yet remains to you
something of life, to make satisfaction to God, and to emerge from the
abyss of darkling superstition (2) into the bright light of true religion.
We do not envy your comforts, nor do we conceal the divine benefits. We
repay kindness for your hatred; and for the torments and penalties which
are inflicted on us, we point out to you the ways of  salvation. Believe
and live, and do ye who persecute us in tithe rejoice with us for eternity.
When you have once departed thither, there is no longer any place for
repentance, and no possibility of making satisfaction. Here life is either
lost or saved; here eternal safety is provided for by the worship of God
and the fruits of faith. Nor let any one be restrained either by his sins
or by his years from coming to obtain salvation. To him who still remains
in this world no repentance is too late. The approach to God's mercy is
open, and the access is easy to those who seek and apprehend the truth. Do
you entreat for your sins, although it be in the very end of life, and at
the setting of the sun of time; and implore God, who is the one and true
God, in confession and faith of acknowledgment of Him, and pardon is
granted to the man who confesses, and saving mercy is given from the divine
goodness to the believer, and a passage is opened to immortality even in
death itself. This grace Christ bestows; this gift of His mercy He confers
upon us, by overcoming death in the trophy of the cross, by redeeming the
believer with the price of His blood, by reconciling man to God the Father,
by quickening our mortal nature with a heavenly regeneration. If it be
possible, let us all follow Him; let us be registered in His sacrament and
sign. He opens to us the way of life; He brings us back to paradise; He
leads us on to the kingdom of heaven. Made by Him the children of God, with
Him we shall ever live; with Him we shall always rejoice, restored by His
own blood. We Christians shall be glorious together with Christ, blessed of
God the Father, always rejoicing with perpetual pleasures in the sight of
God, and ever giving thanks to God. For none can be other than always glad
and grateful, who, having been once subject to death, has been made secure
in the possession of immortality. (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 5, 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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