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ARNOBIUS

THE SEVEN BOOKS OF ARNOBIUS AGAINST THE HEATHEN, BOOKS I-III.

[Translated by Archdeacon Hamilton Bryce, LL.D., D.C.L. and Hugh Campbell,
M.A.]

(ADVERSUS GENTES.) BOOK I.

   I. SINCE I have found some who deem themselves very wise in their
opinions, acting as if they were inspired,(1) and announcing with all the
authority of an oracle,(2) that from the time when the Christian people
began to exist in the world the universe has gone to ruin, that the human
race has been visited with ills of many kinds, that even the very gods,
abandoning their accustomed charge, in virtue of which they were wont in
former days to regard with interest our affairs, have been driven from the
regions of earth,--I have resolved, so far as my capacity and my humble
power of language will allow, to oppose public prejudice, and to refute
calumnious accusations; lest, on the one hand, those persons should imagine
that they are declaring some weighty matter, when they are merely retailing
vulgar rumours;(3) and on the other, lest, if we refrain from such a
contest, they should suppose that they have gained a cause, lost by its own
inherent demerits, not abandoned by the silence of its advocates. For I
should not deny that that charge is a most serious one, and that we fully
deserve the hatred attaching to public enemies,(4) if it should appear that
to us are attributable causes by reason of which the universe has deviated
from its laws, the gods have been driven far away, and such swarms of
miseries have been inflicted on the generations of men.

   2. Let us therefore examine carefully the real significance of that
opinion, and what is the nature of the allegation; and laying aside all
desire for wrangling,(5) by which the calm view of subjects is wont to be
dimmed, and even intercepted, let us test, by fairly balancing the
considerations on both sides, whether that which is alleged be true. For it
will assuredly be proved by an array of convincing arguments, not that we
are discovered to be more impious, but that they themselves are convicted
of that charge who profess to be worshippers of the deities, and devotees
of an antiquated superstition. And, in the first place, we ask this of them
in friendly and calm language: Since the name of the Christian religion
began to be used on the earth, what phenomenon, unseen before,(6) unheard
of before, what event contrary to the laws established in the beginning,
has the so-called "Nature of Things" felt or suffered? Have these first
elements, from which it is agreed that all things were compacted, been
altered into elements of an opposite character? Has the fabric of this
machine and mass of the universe, by which we are all covered, and in which
we are held enclosed, relaxed in any part, or broken up? Has the revolution
of the globe, to which we are accustomed, departing from the rate of its
primal motion, begun either to move too slowly, or to be hurried onward in
headlong rotation? Have the stars begun to rise in the west, and the
setting of the constellations to take place in the east? Has the sun
himself, the chief of the heavenly bodies, with whose light all things are
clothed, and by whose heat all things are vivified, blazed forth with
increased vehemence? has he become less warm, and has he altered for the
worse into opposite conditions that well-regulated temperature by which he
is wont to act upon the earth? Has the moon ceased to shape herself anew,
and to change into former phases by the constant recurrence of fresh ones?
Has the cold of winter, has the heat of summer, has the moderate warmth of
spring and autumn, been modified by reason of the intermixture of ill-
assorted seasons? Has the winter begun to have long days? has the night
begun to recall the very tardy twilights of summer? Have the winds at all
exhausted their violence? Is the sky not collected(1) into clouds by reason
of the blasts having lost their force, and do the fields when moistened by
the showers not prosper? Does the earth refuse to receive the seed
committed to it, or will not the trees assume their foliage? Has the
flavour of excellent fruits altered, or has the vine changed in its juice?
Is foul blood pressed forth from the olive berries, and is oil no longer
supplied to the lamp, now extinguished? Have animals of the land and of the
sea no sexual desires, and do they not conceive young? Do they not guard,
according to their own habits and their own instinct, the offspring
generated in their wombs? In fine, do men themselves, whom an active energy
with its first impulses has scattered over habitable lands, not form
marriages with due rites? Do they not beget dear children? do they not
attend to public, to individual, and to family concerns? Do they not apply
their talents as each one pleases, to varied occupations, to different
kinds of learning? and do they not reap the fruit of diligent application?
Do those to whom it has been so allotted, not exercise kingly power or
military authority? Are men not every day advanced in posts of honour, in
offices of power? Do they not preside in the discussions of the law courts?
Do they not explain the code of law? do they not expound the principles of
equity? All other things with which the life of man is surrounded, in which
it consists, do not all men in their own tribes practise, according to the
established order of their country's manners?

   3. Since this is so, and since no strange influence has suddenly
manifested itself to break the continuous course of events by interrupting
their succession, what is the ground of the allegation, that a plague was
brought upon the earth after the Christian religion came into the world,
and after it revealed the mysteries of hidden truth? But pestilences, say
my opponents, and droughts, wars, famines, locusts, mice, and hailstones,
and other hurtful things, by which the property of men is assailed, the
gods bring upon us, incensed as they are by your wrong-doings and by your
transgressions. If it were not a mark of stupidity to linger on matters
which are already clear, and which require no defence, I should certainly
show, by unfolding the history of past ages, that those ills which you
speak of were not unknown, were not sudden in their visitation; and that
the plagues did not burst upon us, and the affairs of men begin to be
attacked by a variety of dangers, from the time that our sect(2) won the
honour(3) of this appellation. For if we are to blame, and if these plagues
have been devised against our sin, whence did antiquity know these names
for misfortunes? Whence did she give a designation to wars? By what
conception could she indicate pestilence and hailstorms, or how could she
introduce these terms among her words, by which speech was rendered plain?
For if these ills are entirely new, and if they derive their origin from
recent transgressions, how could it be that the ancients coined terms for
these things, which, on the one hand, they knew that they themselves had
never experienced, and which, on the other, they had not heard of as
occurring in the time of their ancestors? Scarcity of produce, say my
opponents, and short supplies of grain, press more heavily on us. For, I
would ask, were the former generations, even the most ancient, at any
period wholly free from such an inevitable calamity? Do not the very words
by which these ills are characterized bear evidence and proclaim loudly
that no mortal ever escaped from them with entire immunity? But if the
matter were difficult of belief, we might urge, on the testimony of
authors, how great nations, and what individual nations, and how often such
nations experienced dreadful famine, and perished by accumulated
devastation. Very many hailstorms fall upon and assail all things. For do
we not find it contained and deliberately stated in ancient literature,
that even showers of stones(4) often ruined entire districts? Violent rains
cause the crops to perish, and proclaim barrenness to countries:--were the
ancients, indeed, free from these ills, when we have known of(5) mighty
rivers even being dried up, and the mud of their channels parched? The
contagious influences of pestilence consume the human race:--ransack the
records of history written in various languages, and you will find that all
countries have often been desolated and deprived of their inhabitants.
Every kind of crop is consumed, and devoured by locusts and by mice :--go
through your own annals, and you will be taught by these plagues how often
former ages were visited by them, and how often they were brought to the
wretchedness of poverty. Cities shaken by powerful earthquakes totter to
their destruction:--what !did not bygone days witness cities with their
populations engulphed by huge rents of the earth?(1) or did they enjoy a
condition exempt from such disasters?

   4. When was the human race destroyed by a flood? was it not before us?
When was the world set on fire,(2) and reduced to coals and ashes? was it
not before us? When were the greatest cities engulphed in the billows of
the sea? was it not before us? When were wars waged with wild beasts, and
battles fought with lions?(3) was it not before us? When was ruin brought
on whole communities by poisonous serpents?(4) was it not before us? For,
inasmuch as you are wont to lay to our blame the cause of frequent wars,
the devastation of cities, the irruptions of the Germans and the Scythians,
allow me, with your leave, to say,--In your eagerness to calumniate us, you
do not perceive the real nature of that which is alleged.

   5. Did we bring it about, that ten thousand years ago a vast number of
men burst forth from the island which is called the Atlantis of Neptune,(5)
as Plato tells us, and utterly ruined and blotted out countless tribes? Did
this form a prejudice against us, that between the Assyrians and Bactrians,
under the leadership of Ninus and Zoroaster of old, a struggle was
maintained not only by the sword and by physical power, but also by
magicians, and by the mysterious learning of the Chaldeans? Is it to be
laid to the charge of our religion, that Helen was carried off under the
guidance and at the instigation of the gods, and that she became a direful
destiny to her own and to after times? Was it because of our name, that
that mad-cap Xerxes let the ocean in upon the land, and that he marched
over the sea on foot? Did we produce and stir into action the causes, by
reason of which one youth, starting from Macedonia, subjected the kingdoms
and peoples of the East to captivity and to bondage? Did we, forsooth, urge
the deities into frenzy, so that the Romans lately, like some swollen
torrent, overthrew all nations, and swept them beneath the flood? But if
there is no man who would dare to attribute to our times those things which
took place long ago, how can we be the causes of the present misfortunes,
when nothing new is occurring, but all things are old, and were unknown to
none of the ancients?

   6. Although you allege that those wars which you speak of were excited
through hatred of our religion, it would not be difficult to prove, that
after the name of Christ was heard in the world, not only were they not
increased, but they were even in great measure diminished by the
restraining of furious passions. For since we, a numerous band of men as we
are, have learned from His teaching and His laws that evil ought not to be
requited with evil,(6) that it is better to suffer wrong than to inflict
it, that we should rather shed our own blood than stain our hands and our
conscience with that of another, an ungrateful world is now for a long
period enjoying a benefit from Christ, inasmuch as by His means the rage of
savage ferocity has been softened, and has begun to withhold hostile hands
from the blood of a fellow-creature. But if all without exception, who feel
that they are men not in form of body but in power of reason, would lend an
ear for a little to His salutary and peaceful rules, and would not, in the
pride and arrogance of enlightenment, trust to their own senses rather than
to His admonitions, the whole world, having turned the use of steel into
more peaceful occupations, would now be living in the most placid
tranquillity, and would unite in blessed harmony, maintaining inviolate the
sanctity of treaties.

   7. But if, say my opponents, no damage is done to human affairs by you,
whence arise those evils by which wretched mortals are now oppressed and
overwhelmed? You ask of me a decided statement,(7) which is by no means
necessary to this cause. For no immediate and prepared discussion regarding
it has been undertaken by me, for the purpose of showing or proving from
what causes and for what reasons each event took place; but in order to
demonstrate that the reproaches of so grave a charge are far removed from
our door. And if I prove this, if by examples and(8) by powerful arguments
the truth of the matter is made clear, I care not whence these evils come,
or from what sources and first beginnings they flow.

   8. And yet, that I may not seem to have no opinion on subjects of this
kind, that I may not appear when asked to have nothing to offer, I may say,
What if the primal matter which has been diffused through the four elements
of the universe, contains the causes of all miseries inherent in its own
constitution? What if the movements of the heavenly bodies produce these
evils in certain signs, regions, seasons, and tracts, and impose upon
things placed under them the necessity of various dangers? What if, at
stated intervals, changes take place in the universe, and, as in the tides
of the sea, prosperity at one time flows, at another time ebbs, evils
alternating with it? What if those impurities of matter which we tread
trader our feet have this condition imposed upon them, that they give forth
the most noxious exhalations, by means of which this our atmosphere is
corrupted, and brings pestilence on our bodies, and weakens the human race?
What if--and this seems nearest the truth--whatever appears to us adverse,
is in reality not an evil to the world itself? And what if, measuring by
our own advantages all things which take place, we blame the results of
nature through ill-formed judgments? Plato, that sublime head and pillar of
philosophers, has declared in his writings, that those cruel floods and
those conflagrations of the I world are a purification of the earth; nor
did that wise man dread to call the overthrow of the human race, its
destruction, ruin, and death, a renewal of things, and to affirm that a
youthfulness, as it were, was secured by this renewed strength.(1)

   9. It rains not from heaven, my opponent says, and we are in distress
from some extraordinary deficiency of grain crops. What then, do you demand
that the elements should be the slaves of your wants? and that you may be
able to live more softly and more delicately, ought the compliant seasons
to minister to your convenience? What if, in this way, one who is intent on
voyaging complains, that now for a long time there are no winds, and that
the blasts of heaven have for ever lulled? Is it therefore to be said that
that peacefulness of the universe is pernicious, because it interferes with
the wishes of traders? What if one, accustomed to bask himself in the sun,
and thus to acquire dryness of body, similarly complains that by the clouds
the pleasure of serene weather is taken away? Should the clouds, therefore,
be said to hang over with an injurious veil, because idle lust is not
permitted to scorch itself in the burning heat, and to devise excuses for
drinking? All these events which are brought to pass, and which happen
under this mass of the universe, are not to be regarded as sent for our
petty advantages, but as consistent with the plans and arrangements of
Nature herself.

   10. And if anything happens which does not foster ourselves or our
affairs with joyous success, it is not to be set down forthwith as an evil,
and as a pernicious thing. The world rains or does not rain: for itself it
rains or does not rain; and, though you perhaps are ignorant of it, it
either diminishes excessive moisture by a burning drought, or by the
outpouring of rain moderates the dryness extending over a very long period.
It raises pestilences, diseases, famines, and other baneful forms of
plagues: how can you tell whether it does not thus remove that which is in
excess, and whether, through loss to themselves, it does not fix a limit to
things prone to luxuriance?

   11. Would you venture to say that, in this universe, this thing or the
other thing is an evil, whose origin and cause you are unable to explain
and to analyze?(2) And because it interferes with your lawful, perhaps even
your unlawful pleasures, would you say that it is pernicious and adverse?
What, then, because cold is disagreeable to your members, and is wont to
chill(3) the warmth of your blood, ought not winter on that account to
exist in the world? And because you are unable(4) to endure the hottest
rays of the sun, is summer to be removed from the year, and a different
course of nature to be instituted under different laws? Hellebore is poison
to men; should it therefore not grow? The wolf lies in wait by the
sheepfolds; is nature at all in fault, because she has produced a beast
most dangerous to sheep? The serpent by his bite takes away life; a
reproach, forsooth, to creation, because it has added to animals monsters
so cruel.

   12. It is rather presumptuous, when you are not your own master, even
when yon are the property of another, to dictate terms to those more
powerful; to wish that that should happen which you desire, not that which
you have found fixed in things by their original constitution. Wherefore,
if you wish that your complaints should have a basis, you must first inform
us whence you are, or who you are; whether the world was created and
fashioned for you, or whether you came into it as sojourners from other
regions. And since it is not in your power to say or to explain for what
purpose you live beneath this vault of heaven, cease to believe that
anything belongs to you; since those things which take place are not
brought about in favour of a part, but have regard to the interest of the
whole.

   13. Because of the Christians, my opponents say, the gods inflict upon
us all calamities, and ruin is brought on our crops by the heavenly
deities. I ask when you say these things, do you not see that you are
accusing us with bare-faced effrontery, with palpable and clearly proved
falsehoods? It is almost three hundred years(1)--something less or more--
since we Christians(2) began to exist, and to be taken account of in the
world. During all these years, have wars been incessant, has there been a
yearly failure of the crops, has there been no peace on earth, has there
been no season of cheapness and abundance of all things? For this must
first be proved by him who accuses us, that these calamities have been
endless and incessant, that men have never had a breathing time at all, and
that without any relaxation(3) they have undergone dangers of many forms.

   14. And yet do we not see that, in these years and seasons that have
intervened, victories innumerable have been gained from the conquered
enemy,--that the boundaries of the empire have been extended, and that
nations whose names we had not previously heard, have been brought under
our power,--that very often there have been the most plentiful yields of
grain, seasons of cheapness, and such abundance of commodities, that all
commerce was paralyzed, being prostrated by the standard of prices? For in
what manner could affairs be carried on, and how could the human race have
existed(4) even to this time, had not the productiveness of nature
continued to supply all things which use demanded?

   15. Sometimes, however, there were seasons of scarcity; yet they were
relieved by times of plenty. Again, certain wars were carried on contrary
to our wishes.(5) But they were afterwards compensated by victories and
successes. What shall we say, then?--that the gods at one time bore in mind
our acts of wrong-doing, at another time again forgot them? If, when there
is a famine, the gods are said to be enraged at us, it follows that in time
of plenty they are not wroth, and ill-to-be-appeased; and so the matter
comes to this, that they both lay aside and resume anger with sportive
whim, and always renew their wrath afresh by the recollection of the causes
of offence.I

   16. Yet one cannot discover by any rational process of reasoning, what
is the meaning of these statements. If the gods willed that the Alemanni(6)
and the Persians should be overcome because Christians dwelt among their
tribes, how did they grant victory to the Romans when Christians dwelt
among their peoples also? If they willed that mice and locusts should swarm
forth in prodigious numbers in Asia and in Syria because Christians dwelt
among their tribes too, why was there at the same time no such phenomenon
in Spain and in Gaul, although innumerable Christians lived in those
provinces also?(7) If among the Gaetuli and the Tinguitani(8) they sent
dryness anti aridity on the crops on account of this circumstance, why did
they in that very year give the most bountiful harvest to the Moors and to
the Nomads, when a similar religion had its abode in these regions as well?
If in any one state whatever they have caused many to die with hunger,
through disgust at our name, why have they in the same state made
wealthier, ay, very rich, by the high price of corn, not only men not of
our booty, but even Christians themselves? Accordingly, either all should
have had no blessing if we are the cause of the evils, for we are in all
nations; or when you see blessings mixed with misfortunes, cease to
attribute to us that which damages your interests, when we in no respect
interfere with your blessings and prosperity. For if I cause it to be ill
with you, why do I not prevent it from being well with you? If my name is
the cause of a great dearth, why am I powerless to prevent the greatest
productiveness? If I am said to bring the ill luck of a wound being
received in war, why, when the enemy are slain, am I not an evil augury;
and why am I not set forth against good hopes, through the ill luck of a
bad omen?

   17. And yet, O ye great worshippers and priests of the deities, why, as
you assert that those most holy gods are enraged at Christian communities,
do you not likewise perceive, do you not see what base feelings, what
unseemly frenzies, you attribute to your deities? For, to be angry, what
else is it than to be insane, to rave, to be urged to the lust of
vengeance, and to revel in the troubles of another's grief, through the
madness of a savage disposition? Your great gods, then, know, are subject
to and feel that which wild beasts, which monstrous brutes experience,
which the deadly plant natrix contains in its poisoned roots. That nature
which is superior to others, and which is based on the firm foundation of
unwavering virtue, experiences, as you allege, the instability which is in
man, the faults which are in the animals of earth. And what therefore
follows of necessity, but that from their eyes flashes dart, flames burst
forth, a panting breast emits a hurried breathing from their mouth, and by
reason of their burning words their parched lips become pale?

   18. But if this that you say is true,--if it has been tested and
thoroughly ascertained both that the gods boil with rage, and that an
impulse of this kind agitates the divinities with excitement, on the one
hand they are not immortal, and on the other they are not to be reckoned as
at all partaking of divinity. For wherever, as the philosophers hold, there
is any agitation, there of necessity passion must exist. Where passion is
situated, it is reasonable that mental excitement follow. Where there is
mental excitement, there grief and sorrow exist. Where grief and sorrow
exist, there is already room for weakening and decay; and if these two
harass them, extinction is at hand, viz. death, which ends all things, and
takes away life from every sentient being.

   19. Moreover, in this way you represent them as not only unstable and
excitable, but, what all agree is far removed from the character of deity,
as unfair in their dealings, as wrong-doers, and, in fine, as possessing
positively no amount of even moderate fairness. For what is a greater wrong
than to be angry with some, and to injure others, to complain of human
beings, and to ravage the harmless corn crops, to hate the Christian name,
and to ruin the worshippers of Christ with every kind of loss?

   20. (1)Do they on this account wreak their wrath on you too, in order
that, roused by your own private wounds, you may rise up for their
vengeance? It seems, then, that the gods seek the help of mortals; and were
they not protected by your strenuous advocacy, they are not able of
themselves to repel and to avenge(2) the insults offered them. Nay rather,
if it be true that they burn with anger, give them an opportunity of
defending themselves, and let them put forth and make trial of their innate
powers, to take vengeance for their offended dignity. By heat, by hurtful
cold, by noxious winds, by the most occult diseases, they can slay us, they
can consume(3) us, and they can drive us entirely from all intercourse with
men; or if it is impolitic to assail us by violence, let them give forth
some token of their indignation,(4) by which it may be clear to all that we
live under heaven subject to their strong displeasure.

   21. To you let them give good health, to us bad, ay, the very worst.
Let them water your farms with seasonable showers; from our little fields
let them drive away all those rains which are gentle. Let them see to it
that your sheep are multiplied by a numerous progeny; on our flocks let
them bring luckless barrenness. From your olive-trees and vineyards let
them bring the full harvest; but let them see to it that from not one shoot
of ours one drop be expressed. Finally, and as their worst, let them give
orders that in your mouth the products of the earth retain their natural
qualities; but, on the contrary that in ours the honey become bitter, the
flowing oil grow rancid, and that the wine when sipped, be in the very lips
suddenly changed into disappointing vinegar.

   22. And since facts themselves testify that this result never occurs,
and since it is plain that to us no less share of the bounties of life
accrues, and to you no greater, what inordinate desire is there to assert
that the gods are unfavourable, nay, inimical to the Christians, who, in
the greatest adversity, just as in prosperity, differ from you in no
respect? If you allow the truth to be told you, and that, too, without
reserve, these allegations are but words,--words, I say; nay, matters
believed on calumnious reports not proved by any certain evidence.

   23. But the true(5) gods, and those who are worthy to have and to wear
the dignity of this name, neither conceive anger nor indulge a grudge, nor
do they contrive by insidious devices what may be hurtful to another party.
For verily it is profane, and surpasses all acts of sacrilege, to believe
that that wise and most blessed nature is uplifted in mind if one
prostrates himself before it in humble adoration; and if this adoration be
not paid, that it deems itself despised, and regards itself as fallen from
the pinnacle of its glory. It is childish, weak, and petty, and scarcely
becoming for those whom the experience of learned men has for a long time
called demigods and heroes,(6) not to be versed in heavenly things, and,
divesting themselves of their own proper state, to be busied with the
coarser matter of earth.

   24. These are your ideas, these are your sentiments, impiously
conceived, and more impiously believed. Nay, rather, to speak out more
truly, the augurs, the dream interpreters, the soothsayers, the prophets,
and the priestlings, ever vain, have devised these fables; for they,
fearing that their own arts be brought to nought, and that they may extort
but scanty contributions from the devotees, now few and infrequent,
whenever they have found you to be willing(7) that their craft should come
into disrepute, cry aloud, The gods are neglected, and in the temples there
is now a very thin attendance. Former ceremonies are exposed to derision,
and the time-honoured rites of institutions once sacred have sunk before
the superstitions of new religions. Justly is the human race afflicted by
so many pressing calamities, justly is it racked by the hardships of so
many toils. And men--a senseless race--being unable, from their inborn
blindness, to see even that which is placed in open light, dare to assert
in their frenzy what you in your sane mind do not blush to believe.

   25. And lest any one should suppose that we, through distrust in our
reply, invest the gods with the gifts of serenity, that we assign to them
minds free from resentment, and far removed from all excitement, let us
allow, since it is pleasing to you, that they put forth their passion upon
us, that they thirst for our blood, and that now for a long time they are
eager to remove us from the generations of men. But if it is not
troublesome to you, if it is not offensive, if it is a matter of common
duty to discuss the points of this argument not on grounds of partiality,
but on those of truth, we demand to hear from you what is the explanation
of this, what the cause, why, on the one hand, the gods exercise cruelty on
us alone, and why, on the other, men barn against us with exasperation. You
follow, our opponents say, profane religious systems, and you practise
rites unheard of throughout the entire world. What do you, O men, endowed
with reason, dare to assert? What do you dare to prate of? What do you try
to bring forward in the recklessness of unguarded speech? To adore God as
the highest existence, as the Lord of all things that be, as occupying the
highest place among all exalted ones, to pray to Him with respectful
submission in our distresses, to cling to Him with all our senses, so to
speak, to love Him, to look up to Him with faith,--is this an execrable and
unhallowed religion,(1) full of impiety and of sacrilege, polluting by the
superstition of its own novelty ceremonies instituted of old?

   26. Is this, I pray, that daring and heinous iniquity on account of
which the mighty powers of heaven whet against us the stings of passionate
indignation, on account of which you yourselves, whenever the savage desire
has seized you, spoil us of our goods, drive us from the homes of our
fathers, inflict upon us capital punishment, torture, mangle, barn us, and
at the last expose us to wild beasts, and give us to be torn by monsters?
Whosoever condemns that in us, or considers that it should be laid against
us as a charge, is he deserving either to be called by the name of man,
though he seem so to himself? or is he to be believed a god, although he
declare himself to be so by the mouth of a thousand(2) prophets? Does
Trophonius,(3) or Jupiter of Dodona, pronounce us to be wicked? And will he
himself be called god, and be reckoned among the number of the deities, who
either fixes the charge of impiety on those who serve the King Supreme, or
is racked with envy because His majesty and His worship are preferred to
his own?

   Is Apollo whether called Delian or Clarian Didymean, Philesian, or
Pythian, to be reckoned divine, who either knows not the Supreme Ruler, or
who is not aware that He is entreated by us in daily prayers? And although
he knew not the secrets of our hearts, and though he did not discover what
we hold in our inmost thoughts, yet he might either know by his ear, or
might perceive by the very tone of voice which we use in prayer, that we
invoke God Supreme, and that we beg from Him what we require.

   27. This is not the place to examine all our traducers, who they are,
or whence they are, what is their power, what their knowledge, why they
tremble at the mention of Christ, why they regard his disciples as enemies
and as hateful persons; but with regard to ourselves to state expressly to
those who will exercise common reason, in terms applicable to all of us
alike,--We Christians are nothing else than worshippers of the Supreme King
and Head, under our Master, Christ. If you examine carefully, you will find
that nothing else is implied in that religion. This is the sum of all that
we do; this is the proposed end and limit of sacred duties. Before Him we
all prostrate ourselves, according to oar custom; Him we adore in joint
prayers; from Him we beg things just and honourable, and worthy of His ear.
Not that He needs our supplications, or loves to see the homage of so many
thousands laid at His feet. This is our benefit, and has a regard to our
advantage. For since we are prone to err, and to yield to various lusts and
appetites through the fault of our innate weakness, He allows Himself at
all times to be comprehended in our thoughts, that whilst we entreat Him
and strive to merit His bounties, we may receive a desire for purity, and
may free ourselves from every stain by the removal of all our
shortcomings.(4)

   28. What say ye, O interpreters of sacred and of divine law?(5) Are
they attached to a better cause who adore the Lares Grundules, the Aii
Locutii,(1) and the Limentini,(2) than we who worship God the Father of all
things, and demand of Him protection in danger and distress? They, too,
seem to you wary, wise, most sagacious, and not worthy of any blame, who
revere Fauni and Fatuae, and the genii of states,(3) who worship Pausi and
Bellonae:--we are pronounced dull, doltish, fatuous, stupid, and senseless,
who have given ourselves up to God, at whose nod and pleasure everything
which exists has its being, and remains immoveable by His eternal decree.
Do you put forth this opinion? Have you ordained this law? Do you publish
this decree, that he be crowned with the highest honours who shall worship
your slaves? that he merit the extreme penalty of the cross who shall offer
prayers to you yourselves, his masters? In the greatest states, and in the
most powerful nations, sacred rites are performed in the public name to
harlots, who in old days earned the wages of impurity, and prostituted
themselves to the lust of all;(4) and yet for this there are no swellings
of indignation on the part of the deities. Temples have been erected with
lofty roofs to cats, to beetles, and to heifers:(5)--the powers of the
deities thus insulted are silent; nor are they affected with any feeling of
envy because they see the sacred attributes of vile animals put in rivalry
with them. Are the deities inimical to us alone? To us are they most
unrelenting, because we worship their Author, by whom, if they do exist,
they began to be, and to have the essence of their power and their majesty,
from whom, having obtained their very divinity, so to speak, they feel that
they exist, and realize that they are reckoned among things that be, at
whose will and at whose behest they are able both to perish and be
dissolved, and not to be dissolved and not to perish?(6) For if we all
grant that there is only one great Being, whom in the long lapse of time
nought else precedes, it necessarily follows that after Him all things were
generated and put forth, and that they burst into an existence each of its
kind. But if this is unchallenged and sure, you(7) will be compelled as a
consequence to confess, on the one hand, that the deities are created,(8)
and on the other, that they derive the spring of their existence from the
great source of things. And if they are created and brought forth, they are
also doubtless liable to annihilation and to dangers; but yet they are
believed to be immortal, ever-existent, and subject to no extinction. This
is also a gift from God their Author, that they have been privileged to
remain the same through countless ages, though by nature they are fleeting,
and liable to dissolution.

   29. And would that it were allowed me to deliver this argument with the
whole world formed, as it were, into one assembly, and to be placed in the
hearing of all the human race! Are we therefore charged before you with an
impious religion? and because we approach the Head and Pillar(9) of the
universe with worshipful service, are we to be considered--to use the terms
employed by you in reproaching us--as persons to be shunned, and as godless
ones? And who would more properly bear the odium of these names than he who
either knows, or inquires after, or believes any other god rather than this
of ours? To Him do we not owe this first, that we exist, that we are said
to be men, that, being either sent forth from Him, or having fallen from
Him, we are confined in the darkness of this body?(10) Does it not come
from Him that we walk, that we breathe and live? and by the very power of
living, does He not cause us to exist and to move with the activity of
animated being? From this do not causes emanate, through which our health
is sustained by the bountiful supply of various pleasures? Whose is that
world in which you live? or who hath authorized you to retain its produce
and its possession? Who hath given that common light, enabling us to see
distinctly all things lying beneath it, to handle them, and to examine
them? Who has ordained that the fires of the sun should exist for the
growth of things, lest elements pregnant with life should be numbed by
settling down in the torpor of inactivity? When yon believe that the sun is
a deity, do you not ask who is his founder, who has fashioned him? Since
the moon is a goddess in your estimation, do you in like manner care to
know who is her author and framer?

   30. Does it not occur to you to reflect and to examine in whose domain
you live? on whose property you are? whose is that earth which you
till?(11) whose is that air which you inhale, and return again in
breathing? whose fountains do you abundantly enjoy? whose water? who has
regulated the blasts of the wind? who has contrived the watery clouds? who
has discriminated the productive powers of seeds by special
characteristics? Does Apollo give you rain? Does Mercury send yon water
from heaven? Has Aesculapius, Hercules, or Diana devised the plan of
showers and of storms? And how can this be, when you give forth that they
were born on earth, and that at a fixed period they received vital
perceptions? For if the world preceded them in the long lapse of time, and
if before they were born nature already experienced rains and storms, those
who were born later have no right of rain-giving, nor can they mix
themselves up with those methods which they found to be in operation here,
and to be derived from a greater Author.

   31. O greatest, O Supreme Creator of things invisible! O Thou who art
Thyself unseen, and who art incomprehensible! Thou art worthy, Thou art
verily worthy--if only mortal tongue may speak of Thee--that all breathing
and intelligent nature should never cease to feel and to return thanks;
that it should throughout the whole of life fall on bended knee, and offer
supplication with never-ceasing prayers. For Thou art the first cause; in
Thee created things exist, and Thou art the space in which rest the
foundations of all things, whatever they be. Thou art illimitable,
unbegotten, immortal, enduring for aye, God Thyself alone, whom no bodily
shape may represent, no outline delineate; of virtues inexpressible, of
greatness indefinable; unrestricted as to locality, movement, and
condition, concerning whom nothing can be clearly expressed by the
significance of man's words. That Thou mayest he understood, we must be
silent; and that erring conjecture may track Thee through the shady cloud,
no word must be uttered. Grant pardon, O King Supreme, to those who
persecute Thy servants; and in virtue of Thy benign nature, forgive those
who fly from the worship of Thy name and the observance of Thy religion. It
is not to be wondered at if Thou art unknown; it is a cause of greater
astonishment if Thou art clearly comprehended.(1)

   But perchance some one dares--for this remains for frantic madness to
do--to be uncertain, and to express doubt whether that God exists or not;
whether He is believed in on the proved truth of reliable evidence, or on
the imaginings of empty rumour. For of those who have given themselves to
philosophizing, we have heard that some(2) deny the existence of any divine
power, that others(3) inquire daily whether there be or not; that others(4)
construct the whole fabric of the universe by chance accidents and by
random collision, and fashion it by the concourse of atoms of different
shapes; with whom we by no means intend to enter at this time on a
discussion of such perverse convictions.(5) For those who think wisely say,
that to argue against things palpably foolish, is a mark of greater folly.

   32. Our discussion deals with those who, acknowledging that there is a
divine race of beings, doubt about those of greater rank and power, whilst
they admit that there are deities inferior and more humble. What then? Do
we strive and toil to obtain such results by arguments? Far hence be such
madness; and, as the phrase is, let the folly, say I, be averted from us.
For it is as dangerous to attempt to prove by arguments that God is the
highest being, as it is to wish to discover by reasoning of this kind that
He exists. It is a matter of indifference whether you deny that He exists,
or affirm it and admit it; since equally culpable are both the assertion of
such a thing, and the denial of an unbelieving opponent.

   33. Is there any human being who has not entered on the first day of
his life with an idea of that Great Head? In whom has it not been implanted
by nature, on whom has it not been impressed, aye, stamped almost in his
mother's womb even, in whom is there not a native instinct, that He is King
and Lord, the ruler of all things that be? In fine, if the dumb animals
even could stammer forth their thoughts, if they were able to use our
languages; nay, if trees, if the clods of the earth, if stones animated by
vital perceptions were able to produce vocal sounds, and to utter
articulate speech, would they not in that case, with nature as their guide
and teacher, in the faith of uncorrupted innocence, both feel that there is
a God, and proclaim that He alone is Lord of all?

   34. But in vain, says one, do you assail us with a groundless and
calumnious charge, as if we deny that there is a deity of a higher kind,
since Jupiter is by us both called and esteemed the best and the greatest;
and since we have dedicated to him the most sacred abodes, and have raised
huge Capitols. You are endeavouring to connect together things which are
dissimilar, and to force them into one class, thereby introducing
confusion. For by the unanimous judgment of all, and by the common consent
of the human race, the omnipotent God is regarded as having never been
born, as having never been brought forth to new light, and as not having
begun to exist at any time or century. For He Himself is the source of all
things, the Father of ages and of seasons. For they do not exist of
themselves, but from His everlasting perpetuity they move on in unbroken
and ever endless flow. Yet Jupiter indeed, as you allege, has both father
and mother, grandfathers, grandmothers, and brothers: now lately conceived
in the womb of his mother, being completely formed and perfected in ten
months, he burst with vital sensations into light unknown to him before.
If, then, this is so, how can Jupiter be God supreme, when it is evident
that He is everlasting, and the former is represented by you as having had
a natal day, and as having uttered a mournful cry, through terror at the
strange scene?

   35. But suppose they be one, as you wish, and not different in any
power of deity and in majesty, do you therefore persecute us with
undeserved hatred? Why do you shudder at the mention of our name as of the
worst omen, if we too worship the deity whom you worship? or why do you
contend that the gods are friendly to you, but inimical, aye, most hostile
to us, though our relations to them are the same? For if one religion is
common to us and to you, the anger of the gods is stayed;(1) but if they
are hostile to us alone it is plain that both you and they have no
knowledge of God. And that that God is not Jove, is evident by the very
wrath of the deities.

   36. But, says my opponent, the deities are not inimical to you, because
you worship the omnipotent God; but because you both allege that one born
as men are, and put to death on the cross, which is a disgraceful
punishment even for worthless men, was God, and because you believe that He
still lives, and because you worship Him in daily supplications. If it is
agreeable to you, my friends, state clearly what deities those are who
believe that the worship of Christ by us has a tendency to injure them? Is
it Janus, the founder of the Janiculum, and Saturn, the author of the
Saturnian state? Is it Fauna Fatua,(2) the wife of Faunus, who is called
the Good Goddess, but who is better and more deserving of praise in the
drinking of wine? Is it those gods Indigetes who swim in the river, and
live in the channels of the Numicius, in company with frogs and little
fishes? Is it Aesculapius and father Bacchus, the former born of Coronis,
and the other dashed by lightning from his mother's womb? Is it Mercury,
son of Maia, and what is more divine, Maia the beautiful? Is it the bow-
bearing deities Diana and Apollo, who were companions of their mother's
wanderings, and who were scarcely safe in floating islands? Is it Venus,
daughter of Dione, paramour of a man of Trojan family, and the prostituter
of her secret charms? Is it Ceres, born in Sicilian territory, and
Proserpine, surprised while gathering flowers? Is it the Theban or the
Phoenician Hercules,--the latter buried in Spanish territory, the other
burned by fire on Mount OEta? Is it the brothers Castor and Pollux, sons of
Tyndareus,--the one accustomed to tame horses, the other an excellent
boxer, and unconquerable with the untanned gauntlet? Is it the Titans anti
the Bocchores of the Moors, and the Syrian(3) deities, the offspring of
eggs? Is it Apis, born in the Peloponnese, and in Egypt called Serapis? Is
it Isis, tanned by Ethiopian suns, lamenting her lost son and husband torn
limb from limb? Passing on, we omit the royal offspring of Ops, which your
writers have in their books set forth for your instruction, telling you
both who they are, and of what character. Do these, then, hear with
offended ears that Christ is worshipped, and that He is accepted by us and
regarded as a divine person? And being forgetful of the grade and state in
which they recently were, are they unwilling to share with another that
which has been granted to themselves? Is this the justice of the heavenly
deities? Is this the righteous judgment of the gods? Is not this a kind of
malice and of greed? is it not a species of base envy, to wish their own
fortunes only to rise,--those of others to be lowered, and to be trodden
down in despised lowliness?

   37. We worship one who was born a man. What then? do you worship no one
who was born a man? Do you not worship one and another, aye, deities
innumerable? Nay, have you not taken from the number of mortals all those
whom you now have in your temples; and have you not set them in heaven, and
among the constellations? For if, perchance, it has escaped you that they
once partook of human destiny, and of the state common to all men, search
the most ancient literature, and range through the writings of those who,
living nearest to the days of antiquity, set forth all things with
undisguised truth and without flattery: you will learn in detail from what
fathers, from what mothers they were each sprung, in what district they
were born, of what tribe; what they made, what they did, what they endured,
how they employed themselves, what fortunes they experienced of an adverse
or of a favourable kind in discharging their functions. But if, while you
know that they were born in the womb, and that they lived on the produce of
the earth, you nevertheless upbraid us with the worship of one born like
ourselves, you act with great injustice, in regarding that as worthy of
condemnation in us which you yourselves habitually do; or what you allow to
be lawful for you, you are unwilling to be in like manner lawful for
others.

   38. But in the meantime let us grant, in sub-mission to your ideas,
that Christ was one of us--similar in mind, soul, body, weakness, and
condition; is He not worthy to be called and to be esteemed God by us, in
consideration of His bounties, so numerous as they are? For if you have
placed in the assembly(1) of the gods Liber, because he discovered the use
of wine; Ceres, because she discovered the use of bread; Aesculapius,
because he discovered the use of herbs; Minerva, because she produced the
olive; Triptolemus, because he invented the plough; Hercules, because he
overpowered and restrained wild beasts and robbers, and water-serpents of
many heads,--with how great distinctions is He to be honoured by us, who,
by instilling His truth into our hearts, has freed us from great errors;
who, when we were straying everywhere, as if blind and without a guide,
withdrew us from precipitous and devious paths, and set our feet on more
smooth places; who has pointed out what is especially profitable and
salutary for the human race; who has shown us what God is,(2) who He is,
how great and how good; who has permitted and taught us to conceive and to
understand, as far as our limited capacity can, His profound and
inexpressible depths; who, in in His great kindness, has caused it to be
known by what founder, by what Creator, this world was established and
made; who has explained the nature of its origin(3) and essential
substance, never before imagined in the conceptions of any; whence
generative warmth is added to the rays of the sun; why the moon, always
uninjured(4) in her motions, is believed to alternate her light and her
obscurity from intelligent causes;(5) what is the origin of animals, what
rules regulate seeds; who designed man himself, who fashioned him, or from
what kind of material did He compact the very build of bodies; what the
perceptions are; what the soul, and whether it flew to us of its own
accord, or whether it was generated and brought into existence with our
bodies themselves; whether it sojourns with us, partaking of death, or
whether it is gifted with an endless immortality; what condition awaits us
when we shall have separated from our bodies relaxed in death; whether we
shall retain our perceptions,(6) or have no recollection of our former
sensations or of past memories;(7) who has restrained(8) our arrogance, and
has caused our necks, uplifted with pride, to acknowledge the measure of
their weakness; who hath shown that we are creatures imperfectly formed,
that we trust in vain expectations, that we understand nothing thoroughly,
that we know nothing, and that we do not see those things which are placed
before our eyes; who has guided us from false superstitions to the true
religion,--a blessing which exceeds and transcends all His other gifts; who
has raised our thoughts to heaven from brutish statues formed of the vilest
clay, and has caused us to hold converse in thanksgiving and prayer with
the Lord of the universe.

   39. But lately, O blindness, I worshipped images produced from the
furnace, gods made on anvils and by hammers, the bones of elephants,
paintings, wreaths on aged trees;(9) whenever I espied an anointed stone
and one bedaubed with olive oil, as if some power resided in it I
worshipped it, I addressed myself to it and begged blessings from a
senseless stock.(10) And these very gods of whose existence I had convinced
myself, I treated with gross insults, when I believed them to be wood,
stone, and bones, or imagined that they dwelt in the substance of such
objects. Now, having been led into the paths of truth by so great a
teacher, I know what all these things are, I entertain honourable thoughts
concerning those which are worthy, I offer no insult to any divine name;
and what is due to each, whether inferior" or superior, I assign with
clearly-defined gradations, and on distinct authority. Is Christ, then, not
to be regarded by us as God? and is He, who in other respects may be deemed
the very greatest, not to be honoured with divine worship, from whom we
have already received while alive so great gifts, and from whom, when the
day comes, we expect greater ones?

   40. But He died nailed to the cross. What is that to the argument? For
neither does the kind and disgrace of the death change His words or deeds,
nor will the weight of His teaching appear less; because He freed Himself
from the shackles of the body, not by a natural separation, but departed by
reason of violence offered to Him. Pythagoras of Samos was burned to death
in a temple, under an unjust suspicion of aiming at sovereign power. Did
his doctrines lose their peculiar influence, because he breathed forth his
life not willingly, but in consequence of a savage assault? In like manner
Socrates, condemned by the decision of his fellow-citizens, suffered
capital punishment: have his discussions on morals, on virtues, and on
duties been rendered vain, because he was unjustly hurried from life?
Others without number, conspicuous by their renown, their merit, and their
public character, have experienced the most cruel forums of death, as
Aquilius, Trebonius, and Regulus: were they on that account adjudged base
after death, because they perished not by the common law of the fates, but
after being mangled and tortured in the most cruel kind of death? No
innocent person foully slain is ever disgraced thereby; nor is he stained
by the mark of any baseness, who suffers severe punishment, not from his
own deserts, but by reason of the savage nature of his persecutor.(1)

   41. And yet, O ye who laugh because we worship one who died an
ignominious death, do not ye too, by consecrating shrines to him, honour
father Liber, who was torn limb from limb by the Titans? Have you not,
after his punishment and his death by lightning, named Aesculapius, the
discoverer of medicines, as the guardian and protector of health, of
strength, and of safety? Do you not invoke the great Hercules himself by
offerings, by victims, and by kindled frankincense, whom you yourselves
allege to have been burned alive after his punishment,(2) and to have been
consumed on the fatal pyres? Do you not, with the unanimous approbation of
the Gauls, invoke as a propitious(3) and as a holy god, in the temples of
the Great Mother,(4) that Phrygian Atys(5) who was mangled and deprived of
his virility? Father Romulus himself, who was torn in pieces by the hands
of a hundred senators, do you not call Quirinus Martius, and do you not
honour him with priests and with gorgeous couches,(6) and do you not
worship him in most spacious temples; and in addition to all this, do you
not affirm that he has ascended into heaven? Either, therefore, you too are
to be laughed at, who regard as gods men slain by the most cruel tortures;
or if there is a sure ground for your thinking that you should do so, allow
us too to feel assured for what causes and on what grounds we do this.

   42. You worship, says my opponent, one who was born a mere human being.
Even if that were true, as has been already said in former passages, yet,
in consideration of the many liberal gifts which He has bestowed on us, He
ought to be called and be addressed as God. But since He is God in reality
and without any shadow of doubt, do you think that we will deny that He is
worshipped by us with all the fervour we are capable of, and assumed as the
guardian of our body? Is that Christ of yours a god, then? some raving,
wrathful, and excited man will say. A god, we will reply, and the god of
the inner powers;(7) and--what may still further torture unbelievers with
the most bitter pains--He was sent to us by the King Supreme for a purpose
of the very highest moment. My opponent, becoming more mad and more
frantic, will perhaps ask whether the matter can be proved, as we allege.
There is no greater proof than the credibility of the acts done by Him,
than the unwonted excellence of the virtues He exhibited, than the conquest
and the abrogation of all those deadly ordinances which peoples and tribes
saw executed in the light of day,(8) with no objecting voice; and even they
whose ancient laws or whose country's laws He shows to be full of vanity
and of the most senseless superstition, (even they) dare not allege these
things to be false.

   43. My opponent will perhaps meet me with many other slanderous and
childish charges which are commonly urged. Jesus was a Magian;(1) He
effected all these things by secret arts. From the shrines of the Egyptians
He stole the names of angels of might,(2) and the religious system of a
remote country. Why, O witlings, do you speak of things which you have not
examined, and which are unknown to you, prating with the garrulity of a
rash tongue? Were, then, those things which were done, the freaks of
demons, and the tricks of magical arts? Can you specify and point out to me
any one of all those magicians who have ever existed in past ages, that did
anything similar, in the thousandth degree, to Christ? Who has done this
without any power of incantations, without the juice of herbs and of
grasses, without any anxious watching of sacrifices, of libations, or of
seasons? For we do not press it, and inquire what they profess to do, nor
in what kind of acts all their learning and experience are wont to be
comprised. For who is not aware that these men either study to know
beforehand things impending, which, whether they will or not, come of
necessity as they have been ordained? or to inflict a deadly and wasting
disease on whom they choose; or to sever the affections of relatives; or to
open without keys places which are locked; or to seal the month in silence;
or in the chariot race to weaken, urge on, or retard horses; or to inspire
in wives, and in the children of strangers, whether they be males or
females, the flames and mad desires of illicit love?(3) Or if they seem to
attempt anything useful, to be able to do it not by their own power, but by
the might of those deities whom they invoke.

   44. And yet it is agreed on that Christ performed all those miracles
which He wrought without any aid from external things, without the
observance of any ceremonial, without any definite mode of procedure, but
solely by the inherent might of His authority; and as was the proper duty
of the true God, as was consistent with His nature, as was worthy of Him,
in the generosity of His bounteous power He bestowed nothing hurtful or
injurious, but only that which is helpful, beneficial, and full of
blessings good(4) for men.

   45. What do you say again, oh you(5)--? Is He then a man, is He one of
us, at whose command, at whose voice, raised in the utterance of audible
and intelligible words,(6) infirmities, diseases, fevers, and other
ailments of the body fled away? Was He one of us, whose presence, whose
very sight, that race of demons which took possession of men was unable to
bear, and terrified by the strange power, fled away? Was He one of us, to
whose order the foul leprosy, at once checked, was obedient, and left
sameness of colour to bodies formerly spotted? Was He one of us, at whose
light touch the issues of blood were stanched, and stopped their excessive
flow?(7) Was He one of us, whose hands the waters of the lethargic dropsy
fled from, and that searching(8) fluid avoided; and did the swelling body,
assuming a healthy dryness, find relief? Was He one of us, who bade the
lame run? Was it His work, too, that the maimed stretched forth their
hands, and the joints relaxed the rigidity(9) acquired even at birth; that
the paralytic rose to their feet, and persons now carried home their beds
who a little before were borne on the shoulders of others; the blind were
restored to sight, and men born without eyes now looked on the heaven and
the day?

   46. Was He one of us, I say, who by one act of intervention at once
healed a hundred or more afflicted with various infirmities and diseases;
at whose word only the raging and maddened seas were still, the whirlwinds
and tempests were lulled; who walked over the deepest pools with unwet
foot; who trod the ridges of the deep, the very waves being astonished, and
nature coining under bondage; who with live loaves satisfied five thousand
of His followers: and who, lest it might appear to the unbelieving and bard
of heart to be an illusion, filled twelve capacious baskets with the
fragments that remained? Was He one of us, who ordered the breath that had
departed to return to the body, persons buried to come forth from the tomb,
and after three days to be loosed from the swathings of the undertaker? Was
He one of us, who saw clearly in the hearts of the silent what each was
pondering,(10) what each had in his secret thoughts? Was He one of us, who,
when He uttered a single word, was thought by nations far removed from one
another and of different speech to be using well-known sounds, and the
peculiar language of each?(11) Was He one of us, who, when He was teaching
His followers the duties of a religion that could not be gainsaid, suddenly
filled the whole world, and showed how great He was and who He was, by
unveiling the boundlessness of His authority? Was He one of us, who, after
His body had been laid in the tomb, manifested Himself in open day to
countless numbers of men; who spoke to them, and listened to them; who
taught them, reproved and admonished them; who, lest they should imagine
that they were deceived by unsubstantial fancies, showed Himself once, a
second time, aye frequently, in familiar conversation; who appears even now
to righteous men of unpolluted mind who love Him, not in airy dreams, but
in a form of pure simplicity;(1) whose name, when heard, puts to flight
evil spirits, imposes silence on soothsayers, prevents men from consulting
the augurs, causes the efforts of arrogant magicians to be frustrated, not
by the dread of His name, as you allege, but by the free exercise of a
greater power?

   47. These facts set forth in sanctuary we have put forward, not on the
supposition that the greatness of the agent was to be seen in these virtues
alone.(2) For however great these things be, how excessively petty and
trifling will they be found to be, if it shall be revealed from what realms
He has come, of what God He is the minister! But with regard to the acts
which were done by Him, they were performed, indeed, not that He might
boast Himself into empty ostentation, bat that hardened and unbelieving men
might he assured that what was professed was not deceptive, and that they
might now learn to imagine, from the beneficence of His works, what a true
god was. At the same time we wish this also to be known,(3) when, as was
said, an enumeration of His acts has been given in summary, that Christ was
able to do not only those things which He did, but that He could even
overcome  the decrees of fate. For if, as is evident, and  as is agreed by
all, infirmities and bodily sufferings, if deafness, deformity, and
dumbness, if shrivelling of the sinews and the loss of sight happen to us,
and are brought on us by the decrees of fate and if Christ alone has
corrected this, has restored and cared man, it is clearer than the sun
himself that He was more powerful than the fates are when He has loosened
and overpowered those things which were bound with everlasting knots, and
fixed by unalterable necessity.

   48. But, says some one, you in vain claim so much for Christ, when we
now know, and have in past times known, of other gods both giving remedies
to many who were sick, and healing the diseases and the infirmities of many
men. I do not inquire, I do not demand, what god did so, or at what time;
whom he relieved, or what shattered frame he restored to sound health: this
only I long to hear, whether, without the addition of any substance--that
is, of any medical application--he ordered diseases to fly away from men at
a touch; whether he commanded and compelled the cause of ill health to be
eradicated, and the bodies of the weak to return to their natural strength.
For it is known that Christ, either by applying His hand to the parts
affected, or by the command of His voice only, opened the ears of the deaf,
drove away blindness from the eyes, gave speech to the dumb, loosened the
rigidity of the joints, gave the power of walking to the shrivelled,--was
wont to heal by a word and by an order, leprosies, agues, dropsies, and all
other kinds of ailments, which some fell power(4) has willed that the
bodies of men should endure. What act like these have all these gods done,
by whom you allege that help has been brought to the sick and the
imperilled? for if they have at any time ordered, as is reported, either
that medicine or a special diet be given to some,(5) or that a draught be
drunk off, or that the juices of plants and of blades be placed(6) on that
which causes uneasiness or have ordered that persons should walk, remain at
rest, or abstain from something hurtful,--and that this is no great matter,
and deserves no great admiration, is evident, if you will attentively
examine it--a similar mode of treatment is followed by physicians also, a
creature earth-born and not relying on true science, but founding on a
system of conjecture, and wavering in estimating probabilities. Now there
is no special merit in removing by remedies those ailments which affect
men: the healing qualities belong to the drugs--not virtues inherent in him
who applies them; and though it is praiseworthy to know by what medicine or
by what method it may be suitable for persons to be treated, there is room
for this credit being assigned to man, but not to the deity. For it is, at
least, no discredit that he(7) should have improved the health of man by
things taken from without: it is a disgrace to a god that he is not able to
effect it of himself, but that he gives soundness and safety only by the
aid of external objects.

   49. And since you compare Christ and the other deities as to the
blessings of health bestowed, how many thousands of infirm persons do you
wish to be shown to you by us; how many persons affected with wasting
diseases, whom no appliances whatever restored, although they went as
suppliants through all the temples, although they prostrated themselves
before the gods, and swept the very thresholds with their lips--though, as
long as life remained, they wearied with prayers, and importuned with most
piteous vows Aesculapius himself, the health-giver, as they call him? Do we
not know that some died of their ailments? that others grew old by the
torturing pain of their diseases? that others began to live a more
abandoned life after they had wasted their days(1) and nights in incessant
prayers, and in expectation of mercy?(2) Of what avail is it, then, to
point to one or another who may have been healed, when so many thousands
have been left unaided, and the shrines are full of all the wretched and
the unfortunate? Unless, perchance, you say that the gods help the good,
but that the miseries of the wicked are overlooked. And yet Christ assisted
the good and the bad alike; nor was there any one rejected by Him, who in
adversity sought help against violence and the ills of fortune. For this is
the mark of a true god and of kingly power, to deny his bounty to none, and
not to consider who merits it or who does not; since natural infirmity and
not the choice of his desire, or of his sober judgment, makes a sinner. To
say, moreover, that aid is given by the gods to the deserving when in
distress, is to leave undecided and render doubtful what you assert: so
that both he who has been made whole may seem to have been preserved by
chance, and he who is not may appear to have been unable to banish
infirmity, not because of his demerit, but by reason of a heaven-sent
weakness.(3)

   50. Moreover, by His own power He not only performed those miraculous
deeds which have been detailed by us in summary, and not as the importance
of the matter demanded; but, what was more sublime, He has permitted many
others to attempt them, and to perform them by the use of His name. For
when He foresaw that you were to be the detractors of His deeds and of His
divine work, ill order that no lurking suspicion might remain of His having
lavished these gifts and bounties by magic arts, from the immense multitude
of people, which with admiring wonder strove to gain His favour, He chose
fishermen, artisans, rustics, and unskilled persons of a similar kind, that
they being sent through various nations should perform all those miracles
without any deceit and without any material aids. By a word He assuaged the
racking pains of the aching members; and by a word they checked the
writhings of maddening sufferings. By one command He drove demons from the
body, and restored their senses to the lifeless; they, too, by no different
command, restored to health and to soundness of mind those labouring under
the inflictions of these demons.(4) By the application of His hand He
removed the marks of leprosy; they, too, restored to the body its natural
skin by a touch not dissimilar. He ordered the dropsical and swollen flesh
to recover its natural dryness; and His servants in the same manner stayed
the wandering waters, and ordered them to glide through their own channels,
avoiding injury to the frame. Sores of immense size, refusing to admit of
healing, He restrained from further feeding on the flesh, by the
interposition of one word; and they in like manner, by restricting its
ravages, compelled the obstinate and merciless cancer to confine itself to
a scar. To the lame He gave the power of walking, to the dark eyes sight,
the dead He recalled to life; and not less surely did they, too, relax the
tightened nerves, fill the eyes with light already lost, and order the dead
to return from the tombs, reversing the ceremonies of the funeral rites.
Nor was anything calling forth the bewildered admiration of all done by
Him, which He did not freely allow, to be performed by those humble and
rustic men, and which He did not put in their power.

   51. What say ye, O minds incredulous, stubborn, hardened? Did that
great Jupiter Capitolinus of yours give to any human being power of this
kind? Did he endow with this right any priest of a curia, the Pontifex
Maximus, nay, even the Dialis, in whose name he is revealed as the god of
life?(5) I shall not say, did he impart power to raise the dead, to give
light to the blind, restore the normal condition of their members to the
weakened and the paralyzed, but did he even enable any one to check a
pustule, a hang-nail, a pimple, either by the word of his mouth or the
touch of his hand? Was this, then, a power natural to man, or could such a
right be granted, could such a licence be given by the mouth of one reared
on the vulgar produce of earth; and was it not a divine and sacred gift? or
if the matter admits of any hyperbole, was it not more than divine and
sacred? For if you do that which you are able to do, and what is compatible
with your strength and your ability, there is no ground for the expression
of astonishment; for you will have done that which you were able, and which
your power was bound to accomplish, in order that there should be a perfect
correspondence(1) between the deed and the doer. To be able to transfer to
a man your own power, share with the frailest being the ability to perform
that which you alone are able to do, is a proof of power supreme over all,
and holding in subjection the causes of all things, and the natural laws of
methods and of means.

   52. Come, then, let some Magian Zoroaster(2) arrive from a remote part
of the globe, crossing over the fiery zone,(3) if we believe Hermippus as
an authority. Let these join him too--that Bactrian, whose deeds Ctesias
sets forth in the first book of his History; the Armenian, grandson of
Hosthanes;(4) and Pamphilus, the intimate friend of Cyrus; Apollonius,
Damigero, and Dardanus; Velus, Julianus, and Baebulus; and if there be any
other one who is supposed to have especial powers and reputation in such
magic arts. Let them grant to one of the people to adapt the mouths of the
dumb for the purposes of speech, to unseal the ears of the deaf, to give
the natural powers of the eye to those born without sight, and to restore
feeling and life to bodies long cold in death. Or if that is too difficult,
and if they cannot impart to others the power to do such acts, let
themselves perform them, and with their own rites. Whatever noxious herbs
the earth brings forth from its bosom, whatever powers those muttered words
and accompanying spells contain--these let them add, we envy them not;
those let them collect, we forbid them not. We wish to make trial and to
discover whether they can effect, with the aid of their gods, what has
often been accomplished by unlearned Christians with a word only.

53. Cease in your ignorance to receive such great deeds with abusive
language, which will in no wise injure him who did them, but which will
bring danger to yourselves--danger, I say, by no means small, but one
dealing with matters of great,(5) aye, even the greatest importance, since
beyond a doubt the soul is a precious thing, and nothing can be found
dearer to a man than himself. There was nothing magical, as you suppose,
nothing human, delusive, or crafty in Christ; no deceit lurked in Him,(6)
although you smile in derision, as your wont is, and though you split with
roars of laughter. He was God on high, God in His inmost nature, God from
unknown realms, and was sent by the Ruler of all as a Saviour God; whom
neither the sun himself, nor any stars, if they have powers of perception,
not the rulers and princes of the world, nor, in fine, the great gods, or
those who, reigning themselves so, terrify the whole human race, were able
to know or to guess whence and who He was--and naturally so. But(7) when,
freed from the body, which He carried about as but a very small part of
Himself, He allowed Himself to be seen, and let it be known how great He
was, all the elements of the universe bewildered by the strange events were
thrown into confusion. An earthquake shook the world, the sea was heaved up
from its depths, the heaven was shrouded in darkness, the sun's fiery blaze
was checked, and his heat became moderate;(8) for what else could occur
when He was discovered to be God who heretofore was reckoned one of us?

   54. But you do not believe these things; yet those who witnessed their
occurrence, and who saw them done before their eyes--the very best vouchers
and the most trustworthy authorities--both believed them themselves, and
transmitted them to us who follow them, to be believed with no scanty
measure of confidence. Who are these? you perhaps ask. Tribes, peoples,
nations, and that incredulous human race; but(9) if the matter were not
plain, and, as the saying is, clearer than day itself, they would never
grant their assent with so ready belief to events of such a kind. But shall
we say that the men of that time were untrustworthy, false, stupid, and
brutish to such a degree that they pretended to have seen what they never
had seen, and that they put forth under false evidence, or alleged with
childish asseveration things which never took place, and that when they
were able to live in harmony and to maintain friendly relations with you,
they wantonly incurred hatred, and were held in execration?

   55. But if this record of events is false, as you say, how comes it
that in so short a time the whole world has been filled with such a
religion? or how could nations dwelling widely apart, and separated by
climate and by the convexities of heaven,(1) unite in one conclusion? They
have been prevailed upon, say my opponents, by mere assertions, been led
into vain hopes; and in their reckless madness have chosen to incur
voluntarily the risks of death, although they had hitherto seen nothing of
such a kind as could by its wonderful and strange character induce them to
adopt this manner of worship. Nay, because they saw all these things to be
done by Christ Himself and by His apostles, who being sent throughout the
whole world carried with them the blessings of the Father, which they
dispensed in benefiting(2) as well the minds as the bodies of men; overcome
by the force of the very truth itself they both devoted themselves to God,
and reckoned it as but a small sacrifice to surrender their bodies to you
and to give their flesh to be mangled.

   56. But our writers, we shall be told, have put forth these statements
with false effrontery; they have extolled(3) small matters to an inordinate
degree, and have magnified trivial affairs with most pretentious
boastfulness. And(4) would that all things could have been reduced to
writing,--both those which were done by Himself, and those which were
accomplished by His apostles with equal authority and power. Such an
assemblage of miracles, however, would make you more incredulous; and
perhaps you might be able to discover a passage from which(5) it would seem
very probable, both that additions were made to facts, and that falsehoods
were inserted in writings and commentaries. But in nations which were
unknown to the writers, and which themselves knew not the use of letters,
all that was done could not have been embraced in the records or even have
reached the ears of all men; or, if any were committed to written and
connected narrative, some insertions and additions would have been made by
the malevolence of the demons and of men like to them, whose care and study
it is to obstruct(6) the progress of this truth: there would have been some
changes and mutilations of words and of syllables, at once to mar the faith
of the cautious and to impair the moral effect of the deeds. But it will
never avail them that it be gathered from written testimony only who and
what Christ was; for His cause has been put on such a basis, that if what
we say be admitted to be true, He is by the confession of all proved to
have been God.

   57. You do not believe our writings, and we do not believe yours. We
devise falsehoods concerning Christ, you say; and you put forth baseless
and false statements concerning your gods: for no god has descended from
heaven, or in his own person and life has sketched out your system, or in a
similar way thrown discredit on our system and our ceremonies. These were
written by men; those, too, were written by men--set forth in human speech;
and whatever you seek to say concerning our writers, remember that about
yours, too, you will find these things said with equal force. What is
contained in your writings you wish to be treated as true; those things,
also, which are attested in our books, you must of necessity confess to be
true. You accuse our system of falsehood; we, too, accuse yours of
falsehood. But ours is more ancient, say you, therefore most credible and
trustworthy; as if, indeed, antiquity were not the most fertile source of
errors, and did not herself put forth those things which in discreditable
fables have attached the utmost infamy to the gods. For could not
falsehoods have been both spoken and believed ten thousand years ago, or is
it not most probable that that which is near to our own time should be more
credible than that which is separated by a long term of years? For these of
ours are brought forward on the faith of witnesses, those of yours on the
ground of opinions; and it is much more natural that there should be less
invention in matters of recent occurrence, than in those far removed in the
darkness of antiquity.

   58. But they were written by unlearned and ignorant ripen, and should
not therefore be readily believed. See that this be not rather a stronger
reason for believing that they have not been adulterated by any false
statements, but were put forth by men of simple mind, who knew not how to
trick out their tales with meretricious ornaments. But the language is mean
and vulgar. For truth never seeks deceitful polish, nor in that which is
well ascertained and certain does it allow itself to be led away into
excessive prolixity. Syllogisms, enthymemes, definitions, and all those
ornaments by which men seek to establish their statements, aid those
groping for the truth, but do not clearly mark its great features. But he
who really knows the subject under discussion, neither defines, nor
deduces, nor seeks the other tricks of words by which an audience is wont
to be taken in, and to be beguiled into a forced assent to a proposition.

   59. Your narratives, my opponent says, are overrun with barbarisms and
solecisms, and disfigured by monstrous blunders. A censure, truly, which
shows a childish and petty spirit; for if we allow that it is reasonable,
let us cease to use certain kinds of fruit because they grow with prickles
on them, and other growths useless for food, which on the one hand cannot
support us, and yet do not on the other hinder us from enjoying that which
specially excels, and which nature has designed to be most wholesome for
us. For how, I pray you, does it interfere with or retard the comprehension
of a statement, whether anything be pronounced smoothly(1) or with uncouth
roughness? whether that have the grave accent which ought to have the
acute, or that have the acute which ought to have the grave? Or how is the
truth of a statement diminished, if an error is made in number or case, in
preposition, participle, or conjunction? Let that pomposity of style and
strictly regulated diction be reserved for public assemblies, for lawsuits,
for the forum and the courts of justice, and by all means be handed over to
those who, striving after the soothing influences of pleasant sensations,
bestow all their care upon splendour of language. But when we are
discussing matters far removed from mere display, we should consider what
is said, not with what charm it is said nor how it tickles the ears, but
what benefits it confers on the hearers, especially since we know that some
even who devoted themselves to philosophy, not only disregarded refinement
of style, but also purposely adopted a vulgar meanness when they might have
spoken with greater elegance and richness, lest forsooth they might impair
the stern gravity of speech and revel rather in the pretentious show of the
Sophists. For indeed it evidences a worthless heart to seek enjoyment in
matters of importance; and when you have to deal with those who are sick
and diseased, to pour into their ears dulcet sounds, not to apply a remedy
to their wounds. Yet, if you consider the true state of the case, no
language is naturally perfect, and in like manner none is faulty. For what
natural reason is there, or what law written in the constitution of the
world, that paries should be called hic,(2) and sella hoec?--since neither
have they sex distinguished by male and female, nor can the most learned
man tell me what hic and hoec are, or why one of them denotes the male sex
while the other is applied to the female. These conventionalities are
man's, and certainly are not indispensable to all persons for the use of
forming their language; for paries might perhaps have been called hoec, and
sella hic, without any fault being found, if it had been agreed upon at
first that they should be so called, and if this practice had been
maintained by following generations in their daily conversation. And yet, O
you who charge our writings with disgraceful blemishes, have you not these
solecisms in those most perfect arid wonderful books of yours? Does not one
of you make the plur of uter, utria? another utres?(3) Do you not also say
coelus and coelum, filus and filum, crocus and crocum, fretus and fretum?
Also hoc pane and hic panis, hic sanguis and hoc sanguen? Are not
candelabrum and jugulum in like manner written jugulus and candelaber? For
if each noun cannot have more than one gender, and if the same word cannot
be of this gender and of that, for one gender cannot pass into the other,
he commits as great a blunder who utters masculine genders under the laws
of feminines, as he who applies masculine articles to feminine genders. And
yet we see you using masculines as feminines, and feminines as masculines,
and those which yon call neuter both in this way and in that, without any
distinction. Either. therefore, it is no blunder to employ them
indifferently, and in that case it is vain for you to say that our works
are disfigured with monstrous solecisms; or if the way in which each ought
to be employed is unalterably fixed, you also are involved in similar
errors, although you have on your side all the Epicadi, Caesellii, Verrii,
Scauri, and Nisi.

   60. But, say my opponents, if Christ was God, why did He appear in
human shape, and why was He cut off by death after the manner of men? Could
that power which is invisible, and which has no bodily substance, have come
upon earth and adapted itself to the world and mixed in human society,
otherwise than by taking to itself some covering of a more solid substance,
which might bear the gaze of the eyes, and on which the look of the least
observant might fix itself? For what mortal is there who could have seen
Him, who could have distinguished Him, if He had decreed to come upon the
earth such as He is in His own primitive nature, and such as He has chosen
to be in His own proper character and divinity? He took upon Him,
therefore, the form of man; and under the guise of our race He imprisoned
His power, so that He could be seen and carefully regarded, might speak and
teach, and without encroaching on the sovereignty and government of the
King Supreme, might carry out all those objects for the accomplishment of
which He had come into the world.

   61. What, then, says my opponent, could not the Supreme Ruler have
brought about those things which He had ordained to be done in the world,
without feigning Himself a man? If it were necessary to do as you say, He
perhaps would have done so; because it was not necessary, He acted
otherwise. The reasons why He chose to do it in this way, and did not
choose to do it in that, are unknown, being involved in so great obscurity,
and comprehensible by scarcely any; but these you might perhaps have
understood if you were not already prepared not to understand, and were not
shaping your course to brave unbelief, before that was explained to you
which you sought to know and to hear.

   62. But, you will say, He was cut off by death as men are. Not Christ
Himself; for it is impossible either that death should befall what is
divine, or that that should waste away and disappear in death which is one
in its substance, and not compounded, nor formed by bringing together any
parts. Who, then, you ask, was seen hanging on the cross? Who dead? The
human form,(1) I reply, which He had put on,(2) and which He bore about
with Him. It is a tale passing belief, you say, and wrapt in dark
obscurity; if yo will, it is not dark, and is established by a very close
analogy.(3) If the Sibyl, when she was uttering and pouring forth her
prophecies and oracular responses, was filled, as you say, with Apollo's
power, had been cut down and slain by impious robbers,(4) would Apollo be
said to have been slain in her? If Bacis,(5) if Helenus, Marcius,(6) and
other soothsayers, had been in like manner robbed of life and light when
raving as inspired, would any one say that those who, speaking by their
mouths, declared to inquirers what should be done,(7) had perished
according to the conditions of human life? The death of which you speak was
that of the human body which He had assumed,(8) not His own--of that which
was borne, not of the bearer; and not even this death would He(9) have
stooped to suffer, were it not that a matter of such importance was to be
dealt with, and the inscrutable plan of fate(10) brought to light in hidden
mysteries.

   63. What are these hidden and unseen mysteries, you will say, which
neither men can know, nor those even who are called gods of the world can
in any wise reach by fancy and conjecture; which none can discover,(11)
except those whom Christ Himself has thought fit to bestow the blessing of
so great knowledge upon, and to lead into the secret recesses of the inner
treasury of wisdom? Do you then see that if He had determined that none
should do Him violence, He should have striven to the utmost to keep off
from Him His enemies, even by directing His power against them?(12) Could
not He, then, who had restored their sight to the blind, make His enemies
blind if it were necessary? Was it hard or troublesome for Him to make them
weak, who had given strength to the feeble? Did He who bade(13) the lame
walk, not know how to take from them all power to move their limbs,(14) by
making their sinews stiff?(15) Would it have been difficult for Him who
drew the dead from their tombs to inflict death on whom He would? But
because reason required that those things which had been resolved on should
be done here also in the world itself, and in no other fashion than was
done, He, with gentleness passing understanding and belief, regarding as
but childish trifles the wrongs which men did Him, submitted to the
violence of savage and most hardened robbers;(16) nor did He think it worth
while to take account of what their daring had aimed at, if He only showed
to His disciples what they were in duty bound to look for from Him. For
when many things about the perils of souls, many evils about their ...; on
the other hand, the Introducer,(17) the Master and Teacher directed His
laws and ordinances, that they might find their end in fitting duties;(1)
did He not destroy the arrogance of the proud? Did He not quench the fires
of lust? Did He not check the craving of greed? Did He not wrest the
weapons from their hands, and rend from them all the sources(2) of every
form of corruption? To conclude, was He not Himself gentle, peaceful,
easily approached, friendly when addressed?(3) Did He not, grieving at
men's miseries, pitying with His unexampled benevolence all in any wise
afflicted with troubles and bodily ills,(4) bring them back and restore
them to soundness?

   64. What, then, constrains you, what excites you to revile, to rail at,
to hate implacably Him whom no man(5) can accuse of any crime?(6) Tyrants
and your kings, who, putting away all fear of the gods, plunder and pillage
the treasuries of temples; who by proscription, banishment,(7) and
slaughter, strip the state of its nobles? who, with licentious violence,
undermine and wrest away the chastity of matrons and maidens,--these men
you name indigites and divi; and you worship with couches, altars, temples,
and other service, and by celebrating their games and birthdays, those whom
it was fitting that you should assail with keenest(8) hatred. And all
those, too, who by writing books assail in many forms with biting
reproaches public manners; who censure, brand, and tear in pieces your
luxurious habits and lives; who carry down to posterity evil reports of
their own times(9) in their enduring writings; who seek to persuade men
that the rights of marriage should be held in common;(10) who lie with
boys, beautiful, lustful, naked; who declare that you are beasts, runaways,
exiles, and mad and frantic slaves of the most worthless character,--all
these with wonder and applause you exalt to the stars of heaven, you place
in the shrines of your libraries, you present with chariots and statues,
and as much as in you lies, gift with a kind of immortality, as it were, by
the witness which immortal titles bear to them. Christ alone you would tear
in pieces,(11) you would rend asunder, if you could do so to a god; nay,
Him alone you would, were it allowed, gnaw with bloody months, and break
His bones in pieces, and devour Him like beasts of the field. For what that
He has done, tell, I pray you, for what crime?(12) What has He done to turn
aside the course of justice, and rouse you to hatred made fierce by
maddening torments? Is it because He declared that He was sent by the only
true King to be your soul's guardian. and to bring to you the immortality
which you believe that you already possess, relying on the assertions of a
few men? But even if you were assured that He spoke falsely, that He even
held out hopes without the slightest foundation, not even in this case do I
see any reason that you should hate and condemn Him with bitter reproaches.
Nay, if yon were kind and gentle in spirit, you ought to esteem Him even
for this alone, that He promised to you things which you might well wish
and hope for; that He was the bearer of good news; that His message was
such as to trouble no one's mind, nay, rather to fill all with less anxious
expectation.(13)

   65. Oh ungrateful and impious age, prepared(14) for its own destruction
by its extraordinary obstinacy! If there had come to you a physician from
lands far distant and unknown to you before, offering some medicine to keep
off from you altogether every kind of disease and sickness, would you not
all eagerly hasten to him? Would you not with every kind of flattery and
honour receive him into your houses, and treat him kindly? Would you not
wish that that kind of medicine should be quite sure, and should be
genuine, which promised that even to the utmost limits of life you should
be free from such countless bodily distresses? And though it were a
doubtful matter, you would yet entrust yourselves to him; nor would you
hesitate to drink the unknown draught, indited by the hope of health set
before you and by the love of safety.(15) Christ shone out and appeared to
tell us news of the utmost importance, bringing an omen of prosperity, and
a message of safety to those who believe. What, I pray you, means(1) this
cruelty, what such barbarity, nay rather, to speak more truly, scornful(2)
pride, not only to harass the messenger and bearer of so great a gift with
taunting words; but even to assail Him with fierce hostility, and with all
the weapons which can be showered upon Him, and with all modes of
destruction? Are His words displeasing, and are you offended when you hear
them? Count them as but a soothsayer's empty tales. Does He speak very
stupidly, and promise foolish gifts? Laugh with scorn as wise men, and
leave Him in His folly(3) to be tossed about among His errors. What means
this fierceness, to repeat what has been said more than once; what a
passion, so murderous? to declare implacable hostility towards one who has
done nothing to deserve it at your hands; to wish, if it were allowed you,
to tear Him limb from limb, who not only did no man any harm, but with
uniform kindness(4) told His enemies what salvation was being brought to
them from God Supreme, what must be done that they might escape destruction
and obtain an immortality which they knew not of? And when the strange and
unheard-of things which were held out staggered the minds of those who
heard Him, and made them hesitate to believe, though master of every power
and destroyer of death itself He suffered His human form to be slain, that
from the result(5) they might know that the hopes were safe which they had
long entertained about the soul's salvation, and that in no other way could
they avoid the danger of death.

BOOK II.(1)

   1. Here, if any means could be found, I should wish to converse thus
with all those who hate the name of Christ, turning aside for a little from
the defence primarily set up:--If you think it no dishonour to answer when
asked a question, explain to us and say what is the cause, what the reason,
that you pursue Christ with so bitter hostility? or what offences you
remember which He did, that at the mention of His name you are roused to
bursts of mad and savage fury?(2) Did He ever, in claiming for Himself
power as king, fill the whole world with bands of the fiercest soldiers;
and of nations at peace from the beginning, did He destroy and put an end
to some, and compel others to submit to His  yoke and serve Him? Did He
ever, excited by grasping(3) avarice, claim as His own by right all that
wealth to have abundance of which men strive eagerly? Did He ever,
transported with lustful passions, break down by force the barriers of
purity, or stealthily lie in wait for other men's wives? Did He ever,
puffed up with haughty arrogance, inflict at random injuries and insults,
without any distinction of persons? (B) And He was not worthy that you
should listen to and believe Him, yet He should not have been despised by
you even on this account, that He showed to you things concerning your
salvation, that He prepared for you a path(4) to heaven, and the
immortality for which you long; although(5) He neither extended the light
of life to all, nor delivered all from the danger which threatens them
through their ignorance.(1)

   2. But indeed, same one will say, He deserved our hatred because He has
driven religion(2) from the world, because He has kept men back from
seeking to honour the gods.(3) Is He then denounced as the destroyer of
religion and promoter of impiety, who brought true religion into the world,
who opened the gates of piety to men blind and verily living in impiety,
and pointed out to whom they should bow themselves? Or is there any truer
religion--one more serviceable,(4) powerful, and right--than to have
learned to know the supreme God, to know how to pray to God Supreme, who
alone is the source and fountain of all good, the creator,(5) founder, and
framer of all that endures, by whom all things on earth and all in heaven
are quickened, and filled with the stir of life, and without whom there
would assuredly be nothing to bear any name, and have any substance? But
perhaps you doubt whether there is that ruler of whom we speak, and rather
incline to believe in the existence of Apollo, Diana, Mercury, Mars, Give a
true judgment;(6)  and, looking round on all these things which we see, any
one will rather doubt whether all the other gods exist, than hesitate with
regard to the God whom we all know by nature, whether when we cry out, O
God, or when we make God the witness of wicked deeds,(7) and raise our face
to heaven as though He saw us.

   3. But He did not permit men to make supplication to the lesser gods.
Do you, then, know who are, or where are the lesser gods? Has mistrust of
them, or the way in which they were mentioned, ever touched you, so that
you are justly indignant that their worship has been done away with and
deprived of all honour?(8) But if haughtiness of mind and arrogance,(9) as
it is called by the Greeks, did not stand in your way and hinder you, you
might long ago have been able to understand what He forbade to be done, or
wherefore; within what limits He would have true religion lie;(10) what
danger arose to you from that which you thought obedience? or from what
evils you would escape if you broke away from your dangerous delusion.

   4. But all these things will be more clearly and distinctly noticed
when we have proceeded further. For we shall show that Christ did not teach
the nations impiety, but delivered ignorant and wretched then from those
who most wickedly wronged them.(11) We do not believe, you say, that what
He says is true. What, then? Have you no doubt as to the things which(12)
you say are not true, while, as they are only at hand, and not yet
disclosed(13) they can by no means be disproved? But He, too, does not
prove what He promises. It is so; for, as I said, there can be no proof of
things still in the future. Since, then, the nature of the future is such
that it cannot be grasped and comprehended by any anticipation,(14) is it
not more rational,(15) of two things uncertain and hanging in doubtful
suspense, rather to believe that which carries with it some hopes, than
that which brings none at all? For in the one case there is no danger, if
that which is said to be at hand should prove vain and groundless; in the
other there is the greatest loss, even(16) the loss of salvation, if, when
the time has come, it be shown that there was nothing false in what was
declared.(17)

   5. What say you, O ignorant ones, for whom we might well weep and be
sad?(18) Are you so void of fear that these things may be true which are
despised by you and turned to ridicule? and do you not consider with
yourselves at least, in your secret thoughts, lest that which to-day with
perverse obstinacy you refuse to believe, time may too late show to be
true,(1) and ceaseless remorse punish you? Do not even these proofs at
least give you faith to believe,(2) viz., that already, in so short and
brief a time, the oaths of this vast army have spread abroad over all the
earth? that already there is no nation so rude and fierce that it has not,
changed by His love, subdued its fierceness, and with tranquillity hitherto
unknown, become mild m disposition?(3) that men endowed with so great
abilities, orators, critics, rhetoricians, lawyers, and physicians, those,
too, who pry into the mysteries of philosophy, seek to learn these things,
despising those in which but now they trusted? that slaves choose to be
tortured by their masters as they please, wives to be divorced, children to
be disinherited by their parents, rather than be unfaithful to Christ and
cast off the oaths of the warfare of salvation? that although so terrible
punishments have been denounced by you against those who follow the
precepts of this religion, it(4) increases even more, and a great host
strives more boldly against all threats and the terrors which would keep it
back, and is roused to zealous faith by the very attempt to hinder it? Do
you indeed believe that these things happen idly and at random? that these
feelings are adopted on being met with by chance?(5) Is not this, then,
sacred and divine? Or do you believe that, without God's grace, their minds
are so changed, that although murderous hooks and other tortures without
number threaten, as we said, those who shall believe, they receive the
grounds of faith with which they have become acquainted,(6) as if carried
away (A) by some charm, and by an eager longing for all the virtues,(7) and
prefer the friendship of Christ to all that is in the world?(8)

   6. But perhaps those seem to you weak-minded and silly, who even now
are uniting all over the world, and joining together to assent with that
readiness of belief at which you mock.(9) What then? Do you alone,
imbued(10) with the true power of wisdom and understanding, see something
wholly different(11) and profound? Do you alone perceive that all these
things are trifles? you alone, that those things are mere words and
childish absurdities which we declare are about to come to us from the
supreme Ruler? Whence, pray, has so much wisdom been given to you? whence
so much subtlety and wit? Or from what scientific training have you been
able to gain so much wisdom, to derive so much foresight? Because you are
skilled in declining verbs and nouns by cases and tenses, and(12) in
avoiding barbarous words and expressions; because you have learned either
to express yourselves in(13) harmonious, and orderly, and fitly-disposed
language, or to know when it is rude and unpolished;(14) because you have
stamped on your memory the Fornix of Lucilius,(15) and Marsyas of
Pomponius; because you know what the issues to be proposed in lawsuits are,
how many kinds of cases there are, how many ways of pleading, what the
genus is, what the species, by what methods an opposite is distinguished
from a contrary,--do you therefore think that you know what is false, what
true, what can or cannot be done, what is the nature of the lowest and
highest? Have the well-known words never rung in(16) your ears, that the
wisdom of man is foolishness with God?

   7. In the first place, you yourselves, too,(17) see clearly that, if
you ever discuss obscure subjects, and seek to lay bare the mysteries of
nature, on the one hand you do not know the very things which you speak of,
which you affirm, which you uphold very often with especial zeal, and that
each one defends with obstinate resistance his own suppositions as though
they were proved and ascertained truths. For how can we of ourselves know
whether we(1) perceive the truth, even if all ages be employed in seeking
out knowledge--we whom some envious power(2) brought forth, and formed so
ignorant and proud, that, although we know nothing at all, we yet deceive
ourselves, and are uplifted by pride and arrogance so as to suppose
ourselves possessed of knowledge? For, to pass by divine things, and those
plunged in natural obscurity, can any man explain that which in the
Phaedrus(3) the well-known Socrates cannot comprehend--what man is, or
whence he is, uncertain, changeable, deceitful, manifold, of many kinds?
for what purposes he was produced? by whose ingenuity he was devised? what
he does in the world? (C) why he undergoes such countless ills? whether the
earth gave life to him as to worms and mice, being affected with decay
through the action of some moisture;(4) or whether he received(5) these
outlines of body, and this cast of face, from the hand of some maker and
framer? Can he, I say, know these things, which lie open to all, and are
recognisable by(6) the senses common to all,--by what causes we are plunged
into sleep, by what we awake? in what ways dreams are produced, in what
they are seen? nay rather--as to which Plato in the Theoetetus(7) is in
doubt--whether we are ever awake, or whether that very state which is
called waking is part of an unbroken slumber? and what we seem to do when
we say that we see a dream? whether we see by means of rays of light
proceeding towards the object,(8) or images of the objects fly to and
alight on the pupils of our eyes? whether the flavour is in the things
tasted, or arises from their touching the palate? from what causes hairs
lay aside their natural darkness, and do not become gray all at once, but
by adding little by little? why it is that all fluids, on mingling, form
one whole; that oil, on the contrary, does not suffer the others to be
poured into it,(9) but is ever brought together clearly into its own
impenetrable(10) substance? finally, why the soul also, which is said by
you to be immortal and divine,(11) is sick in men who are sick, senseless
in children, worn out in doting, silly,(12) and crazy old age? Now the
weakness and wretched ignorance of these theories is greater on this
account, that while it may happen that we at times say something which is
true,(13) we cannot be sure even of this very thing, whether we have spoken
the truth at all.

   8. And since you have been wont to laugh at our faith, and with droll
jests to pull to pieces our readiness of belief too, say, O wits, soaked
and filled with wisdom's pure drought, is there in life any kind of
business demanding diligence and activity, which the doers(14) undertake,
engage in, and essay, without believing that it can be done? Do you travel
about, do you sail on the sea without believing that you will return home
when your business is done? Do you break up the earth with the plough, and
fill it with different kinds of seeds without believing that you will
gather in the fruit with the changes of the seasons? Do you unite with
partners in marriage,(15) without believing that it will be pure, and a
union serviceable to the husband? Do you beget children without believing
that they will pass(16) safely through the different stages of life to the
goal of age? Do you commit your sick bodies to the hands of physicians,
without believing that diseases can be relieved by their severity being
lessened? Do you wage wars with your enemies, without believing that you
will carry off the victory by success in battles?(17) Do you worship and
serve the gods without believing that they are, and that they listen
graciously to your prayers?

   9. What, have you seen with your eyes, and handled(18) with your hands,
those things which you write yourselves, which you read from time to time
on subjects placed beyond human knowledge? Does not each one trust this
author or that? That which any one has persuaded himself is said with truth
by another, does he not defend with a kind of assent, as it were, like that
of faith? Does not he who says that fire(1) or water is the origin of all
things, pin his faith to Thales or Heraclitus? he who places the cause of
all in numbers, to Pythagoras of Samos, and to Archytas? he who divides the
soul, and sets up bodiless forms, to Plato, the disciple of Socrates? he
who adds a fifth element(2) to the primary causes, to Aristotle, the father
of the Peripatetics? he who threatens the world with destruction by fire,
and says that when the time comes it will be set on fire, to Panaetius,
Chrysippus, Zeno? he who is always fashioning worlds from atoms,(3) and
destroying them, to Epicurus, Democritus, Metrodorus? he who says that
nothing is comprehended by man, and that all things are wrapt in dark
obscurity,(4) to Archesilas,(5) to Carneades?--to some teacher, in fine, of
the old and later Academy?

   10. Finally, do not even the leaders and founders of the schools(6)
already mentioned, say those very things(7) which they do say through
belief in their own ideas? For, did Heraclitus see things produced by the
changes of fires? Thales, by the condensing of water?(8) Did Pythagoras see
them spring from number?(9) Did Plato see the bodiless forms? Democritus,
the meeting together of the atoms? Or do those who assert that nothing at
all can be comprehended by man, know whether what they say is true, so as
to (10) understand that the very proposition which they lay down is a
declaration of truth?(11) Since, then, you have discovered and learned
nothing, and are led by credulity to assert all those things which you
write, and comprise in thousands of books; what kind of judgment, pray, is
this, so unjust that you mock at faith in us, while you see that you have
it in common with our readiness of belief?(12) But you say you believe wise
men, well versed in all kinds of learning!--those, forsooth, who know
nothing, and agree in nothing which they say; who join battle with their
opponents on behalf of their own opinions, and are always contending
fiercely with obstinate hostility; who, overthrowing, refuting, and
bringing to nought the one the other's doctrines, have made all things
doubtful, and have shown from their very want of agreement that nothing can
he known.

   11. But, supposing that these things do not at all hinder or prevent
your being bound to believe and hearken to them in great measure;(13) and
what reason is there either that you should have more liberty in this
respect, or that we should have less? You believe Plato,(14) Cronius,(15)
Numenius, or any one you please; we believe and confide in Christ.(16) How
unreasonable it is, that when we both abide(17) by teachers, and have one
and the same thing, belief, in common, you should wish it to be granted to
you to receive what is so(18) said by them, but should be unwilling to hear
and see what is brought forward by Christ! And yet, if we chose to compare
cause with cause, we are better able to point out what we have followed in
Christ, than you to point out what you have followed in the philosophers.
And we, indeed, have followed in him these things--those glorious works and
most potent virtues which he manifested and displayed in diverse miracles,
by which any one might be led to fed the necessity of believing, and might
decide with confidence that they were not such as might be regarded as
man's, but such as showed some divine and unknown power. What virtues did
you follow in the philosophers, that it was more reasonable for you to
believe them than for us to believe Christ? Was any one of them ever able
by one word, or by a single command, I will not say to restrain, to
check(1) the madness of the sea or the fury of the storm; to restore their
sight to the blind, or give it to men blind from their birth; to call the
dead back to life; to put an end to the sufferings of years; but--and this
is much easier(2)--to heal by one rebuke a boil, a scab, or a thorn fixed
in the skin? Not that we deny either that they are worthy of praise for the
soundness of their morals, or that they are skilled in all kinds of studies
and learning; for we know that they both speak in the most elegant
language, and that their words flow in polished periods; that they reason
in syllogisms with the utmost acuteness; that they arrange their inferences
in due order;(3) that they express, divide, distinguish principles by
definitions; that they say many things about the different kinds of
numbers, many things about music; that by their maxims and precepts(4) they
settle the problems of geometry also. But what has that to do with the
case? Do enthymemes, syllogisms, and other such things, assure us that
these men know what is true? or are they therefore such that credence
should necessarily be given to them with regard to very obscure subjects? A
comparison of persons must be decided, not by vigour of eloquence, but by
the excellence of the works which they have done. He must not(5)  be called
a good teacher who has expressed  himself clearly,(6) but he who
accompanies his promises with the guarantee of divine works.

   12. You bring forward arguments against us, and speculative
quibblings,(7) which--may I say this without displeasing Him--if Christ
Himself were to use in the gatherings of the nations, who would assent? who
would listen? who would say that He decided(8) anything clearly? or who,
though he were rash and utterly(9) credulous, would follow Him when pouring
forth vain and baseless statements? His virtues hare been made manifest to
you, and that unheard-of power over things, whether that which was openly
exercised by Him or that which was used(10) over the whole world by those
who proclaimed Him: it has subdued the fires of passion, and caused races,
and peoples, and nations most diverse in character to hasten with one
accord to accept the same faith. For the deeds can be reckoned up and
numbered which have been done in India,(11) among the Seres, Persians, and
Medes; in Arabia, Egypt, in Asia, Syria; among the Galatians, Parthians,
Phrygians; in Achaia, Macedonia, Epirus; in all islands and provinces on
which the rising and setting sun shines; in Rome herself, finally, the
mistress of the world, in which, although men are(12) busied with the
practices introduced by king(13) Numa, and the superstitious observances of
antiquity, they have nevertheless hastened to give up their fathers' mode
of life,(14) and attach themselves to Christian truth. For they had seen
the chariot(15) of Simon Magus, and his fiery car, blown into pieces by the
mouth of Peter, and vanish when Christ was named. They had seen him, I say,
trusting in false gods, and abandoned by them in their terror, borne down
headlong by his own weight, lie prostrate with his legs broken; and then,
when he had been carried to Brunda,(16) worn out with anguish and shame,
again cast himself down from the roof of a very lofty house. But all these
deeds you neither know nor have wished to know, nor  did you ever consider
that they were of the utmost importance to you; and while you trust your
own judgments, and term that wisdom which is overweening conceit, you have
given to deceivers--to those guilty ones, I say, whose interest it is that
the Christian name be degraded--an opportunity of raising clouds of
darkness, and concealing truths of so much importance; of robbing you of
faith, and putting scorn in its place, in order that, as they already feel
that an end such as they deserve threatens them, they might excite in you
also a feeling through which you should run into danger, and be deprived of
the divine mercy.

   13. Meantime, however, O you who wonder and are astonished at the
doctrines of the learned, and of philosophy, do you not then think it most
unjust to scoff, to jeer at us as though we say foolish and senseless
things, when you too are found to say either these or just such things
which you laugh at when said and uttered by us? Nor do I address those who,
scattered through various bypaths of the schools, have formed this and that
insignificant party through diversity of opinion. You, you I address, who
zealously follow Mercury,(1) Plato, and Pythagoras, and the rest of you who
are of one mind, and walk in unity in the same paths of doctrine. Do you
dare to laugh at us because we(2) revere and worship the Creator and
Lord(3) of the universe, and because we commit and entrust our hopes to
Him? What does your Plato say in the Theotetus, to mention him especially?
Does he not exhort the soul to flee froth the earth, and, as much as in it
lies, to be continually engaged in thought and meditation about Him?(4) Do
you dare to laugh at us, because we say that there will be a resurrection
of the dead? And this indeed we confess that wee say, but maintain that it
is understood by you otherwise than we hold it. What says the same Plato in
the Politicus? Does he not say that, when the world has begun  to rise out
of the west and tend towards the east,(5) men will again burst forth from
the bosom of the earth, aged, grey-haired, bowed down with  years; and that
when the remoter(6) years begin  to draw near, they will gradually sink
down(7) to  the cradles of their infancy, through the same steps by which
they now grow to manhood?(8) Do you dare to laugh at us because we see to
the salvation of our souls?--that is, ourselves care for ourselves: for
what are we men, but souls shut up in bodies?--You, indeed, do not take
every pains for their safety,(9) in that you do not refrain from all vice
and passion; about this you are anxious, that you may cleave to your bodies
as though inseparably bound to them.(10)--What mean those mystic rites,(11)
in which you beseech some unknown powers to be favourable to you, and not
put any hindrance in your way to impede you when returning to your native
seats?

   14. Do you dare to laugh at us when we speak of hell,(12) and fires(13)
which cannot be quenched, into which we have learned that souls are cast by
their foes and enemies? What, does not your Plato also, in the book which
he wrote on the immortality of the soul, name the rivers Acheron, Styx,(14)
Cocytus, and Pyriphlegethon, and assert that in them souls are rolled
along, engulphed, and burned up? But though a man of no little wisdom,(15)
and of accurate judgment and discernment, he essays a problem which cannot
be solved; so that, while he says that the soul is immortal, everlasting,
and without bodily substance, he vet says that they are punished, and makes
them suffer pain.(16) But what man does not see that that which is
immortal, which is simple,(17) cannot be subject to any pain; that that, on
the contrary, cannot be immortal which does suffer pain? And yet his
opinion is not very far from the truth. For although the gentle and kindly
disposed man thought it inhuman cruelty to condemn souls to death, he yet
not unreasonably(18) supposed that they are cast into rivers blazing with
masses of flame, and loathsome from their foul abysses. For they are cast
in, and being annihilated, pass away vainly in(19) everlasting destruction.
For theirs is an intermediate(20) state, as has been learned from Christ's
teaching; and they are such that they may on the one hand perish if they
have not known God, and on the other be delivered from death if they have
given heed to His threats(1) and proffered favours. And to make manifest(2)
what is unknown, this is man's real death, this which leaves nothing
behind. For that which is seen by the eyes is only a separation of soul
from body, not the last end--annihilation:(3) this, I say, is man's real
death, when souls which know not God shall(4) be consumed in long-
protracted torment with raging fire, into which certain fiercely cruel
beings shall(4) cast them, who were unknown(5) before Christ, and brought
to light only by His wisdom.

   15. Wherefore there is no reason that that(6) should mislead us, should
hold out vain hopes to us, which is said by some men till now unheard
of,(7) and carried away by an extravagant opinion of themselves, that souls
are immortal, next in point of rank to the God and ruler of the world,
descended from that parent and sire, divine, wise, learned, and not within
reach of the body by contact.(8) Now, because this is true and certain, and
because we have been produced by Him  who is perfect without flaw, we live
unblameably, I suppose, and therefore without blame; are good, just, and
upright, in nothing depraved; no passion overpowers, no lust degrades us;
we  maintain vigorousy the unremitting practice of all the virtues. And
because all our souls have one origin, we therefore think exactly alike; we
do not differ in manners, we do not differ in beliefs; we all know God; and
there are not as many opinions as there are men in the world, nor are these
divided in infinite variety.(9)

   16. But, the say, while we are moving swiftly down towards our mortal
bodies,(10) causes pursue us from the world's circles,(11) through the
working of which we become bad, ay, most wicked; burn with lust and anger,
spend our life in shameful deeds, and are given over to the lust of all by
the prostitution of our bodies for hire. And how can the material unite
with the immaterial? or how can that which God has made, be led by weaker
causes to degrade itself through the practice of vice? Will you lay aside
your habitual arrogance,(12) O men, who claim God as your Father, and
maintain that you are immortal, just as He is? Will you inquire, examine,
search what you are yourselves, whose you are, of what parentage you are
supposed to be, what you do in the world, in what way you are born, how you
leap to life? Will you, laying aside all partiality, consider in the
silence of your thoughts that we are creatures either quite like the rest,
or separated by no great difference? For what is there to show that we do
not resemble them? or what excellence is in us, such that we scorn to be
ranked as creatures? Their bodies are built up on bones, and bound closely
together by sinews; and our bodies are in like manner built up on bones,
and bound closely together by sinews. They inspire the air through
nostrils, and in breathing expire it again; and we in like manner drew in
the air, and breathed it out with frequent respirations. They have been
arranged in classes, female and male; we, too, have been fashioned by our
Creator into the same sexes.(13) Their young are born from the womb, and
are begotten through union of the sexes; and we are born from sexual
embraces, and are brought forth and sent into life from our mothers' wombs.
They are supported by eating and drinking, and get rid of the filth which
remains by the lower parts; and we are supported by eating and drinking,
and that which nature refuses we deal with in the same way. Their care is
to ward off death-bringing famine, and of necessity to be on the watch for
food. What else is our aim in the business of life, which presses so much
upon us,(14) but to seek the means by which the danger of starvation may be
avoided, and carking anxiety put away? They are exposed to disease and
hunger, and at last lose their strength by reason of age. What, then? are
we not exposed to these evils, and are we not in like manner weakened by
noxious diseases, destroyed by wasting age? But if that, too, which is said
in the more hidden mysteries is true, that the souls of wicked men, on
leaving their human bodies, pass into cattle and other creatures,(15) it is
even more clearly shown that we are allied to them, and not separated by
any great interval, since it is on the same ground that both we and they
are said to be living creatures, and to act as such.

   17. But we have reason, one will say, and excel the whole race of dumb
animals in understanding. I might believe that this was quite true, if all
men lived rationally and wisely, never swerved aside from their duty,
abstained from what is forbidden, and withheld themselves from baseness,
and if no one through folly and the blindness of ignorance demanded what is
injurious and dangerous to himself. I should wish, however, to know what
this reason is, through which we are more excellent than all the tribes of
animals. Is it because we have made for ourselves houses, by which we can
avoid the cold of winter and heat of summer? What! do not the other animals
show forethought in this respect? Do we not see some build nests as
dwellings for themselves in the most convenient situations; others shelter
and secure themselves in rocks and lofty crags; others burrow in the
ground, and prepare for themselves strongholds and lairs in the pits which
they have dug out? But if nature, which gave them life, had chosen to give
to them also hands to help them, they too would, without doubt, raise lofty
buildings and strike out new works of art.(1) Yet, even in those things
which they make with beaks and claws, we see that there are many
appearances of reason and wisdom which we men are unable to copy, however
much we ponder them, although we have hands to serve us dexterously in
every kind of work.

   18. They have not learned, I will be told, to make clothing, seats,
ships, and ploughs, nor, in fine, the other furniture which family life
requires. These are not the gifts of science, but the suggestions of most
pressing necessity; nor did the arts descend with men's souls from the
inmost heavens, but here on earth have they all been painfully sought out
and brought to light,(2) and gradually acquired in process of time by
careful thought. But if the soul(3) had in itself the knowledge which it is
fitting that a race should have indeed which is divine and immortal, all
men would from the first know everything; nor would there be an age
unacquainted with any art, or not furnished with practical knowledge. But
now a life of want and in need of many things, noticing some things happen
accidentally to its advantage, while it imitates, experiments, and tries,
while it fails, remoulds, changes, from continual failure has procured for
itself(4) and wrought out some slight acquaintance with the arts, and
brought to one issue the advances of many ages.

   19. But if men either knew themselves thoroughly, or had the slightest
knowledge of God,(5) they would never claim as their own a divine and
immortal nature; nor would they think themselves something great because
they have made for themselves gridirons, basins, and bowls,(6) because they
have made under-shirts, outer-shirts, cloaks, plaids, robes of state,
knives, cuirasses and swords, mattocks, hatchets, ploughs. Never, I say,
carried away by pride and arrogance, would they believe themselves to be
deities of the first rank, and fellows of the highest in his exaltation,(7)
because they(8) had devised the arts of grammar, music, oratory, and
geometry. For we do not see what is so wonderful in these arts, that
because of their discovery the soul should be believed to be above the sun
as well as all the stars, to surpass both in grandeur and essence the whole
universe, of which these are parts. For what else do these assert that they
can either declare or teach, than that we may learn to know the rules and
differences of nouns, the intervals in the sounds of different tones, that
we may speak persuasively in lawsuits, that we may measure the confines of
the earth? Now, if the soul had brought these arts with it from the
celestial regions, and it were impossible not to know them, all men would
long before this be busied with them over all the earth, nor would any race
of men be found which would not be equally and similarly instructed in them
all. But now how few musicians, logicians, and geometricians are there in
the world! how few orators, poets, critics! From which it is clear, as has
been said pretty frequently, that these things were discovered under the
pressure of time and circumstances, and that the soul did not fly  hither
divinely(9) taught, because neither are all learned, nor can all learn;
and(10) there are very many among them somewhat deficient in shrewdness,
and stupid, and they are constrained to apply themselves to learning only
by fear of stripes. But if it were a fact that the things which we learn
are but reminiscences(11)--as has been maintained in the systems of the
ancients--as we start from the same truth, we should all have learned
alike, and remember alike--not have diverse, very numerous, and
inconsistent opinions. Now, however, seeing that we each assert different
things, it is clear and manifest that we have brought nothing from heaven,
but become acquainted with what has arisen here, and maintain what has
taken firm root in our thoughts.

   20. And, that we may show you more clearly and distinctly what is the
worth of man, whom you believe to be very like the higher power, conceive
this idea; and because it can be done if we come into direct contact with
it, let us conceive it just as if we came into contact. Let us then imagine
a place dug out in the earth, fit for dwelling in, formed into a chamber,
enclosed by a roof and walls, not cold in winter, not too warm in summer,
but so regulated and equable that we suffer neither cold(1) nor the violent
heat of summer. To this let there not come any sound or cry whatever,(2) of
bird, of beast, of storm, of man--of any noise, in fine, or of the
thunder's(3) terrible crash. Let us next devise a way in which it may be
lighted not by the introduction of fire, nor by the sight of the sun, but
let there be some counterfeit(4) to imitate sunlight, darkness being
interposed.(5) Let there not be one door, nor a direct entrance, but let it
be approached by tortuous windings, and let it never be thrown open unless
when it is absolutely necessary.

   21. Now, as we have prepared a place for our idea, let us next receive
some one born to dwell there, where there is nothing but an empty void,(6)-
-one of the race of Plato, namely, or Pythagoras, or some one of those who
are regarded as of superhuman wit, or have been  declared most wise by the
oracles of the gods.  And when this has been done, he must then be
nourished and brought up on suitable food. Let  us therefore provide a
nurse also, who shall come to him always naked, ever silent, uttering not a
word, and shall not open her mouth and lips to speak at all, but after
suckling him, anti doing what else is necessary, shall leave him fast
asleep, and remain day and night before the closed doors; for it is usually
necessary that the nurse's care should be near at hand, and that she should
watch his varying motions. But when the child begins to need to be
supported by more substantial food, let it be borne in by the same nurse,
still undressed, and maintaining the same unbroken silence. Let the food,
too, which is carried in be always precisely the same, with no difference
in the material, and without being re-cooked by means of different
flavours; but let it be either pottage of millet, or bread of spelt, or, in
imitation of the ancients, chestnuts roasted in the hot ashes, or berries
plucked from forest trees. Let him moreover, never learn to drink wine, and
let nothing else be used to quench his thirst than  pure cold water from
the spring, and that if possible raised to his lips in the hollow of his
hands. For habit, growing into second nature, will become familiar from
custom; nor will his desire extend(7) further, not knowing that there is
any thing more to be sought after.

   22. To what, then, you ask, do these things tend? We have brought them
forward in order that--as it has been believed that the souls of men are
divine, and therefore immortal, and that they come to their human bodies
with all knowledge--we may make trial from this child, whom we have
supposed to be brought up in this way, whether this is credible, or has
been rashly believed and taken for granted, in consequence of  deceitful
anticipation. Let us suppose, then, that be grows up, reared in a secluded,
lonely spot, spending as many, years as you choose,  twenty or thirty,--
nay, let him be brought into  the assemblies of men when he has lived
through forty years; and if it is true that he is a part of the divine
essence, and(8) lives here sprung from the fountains of life, before he
makes acquaint-ante with anything, or is made familiar with human speech,
let him be questioned and answer who  he is, or from what father in  what
regions he was born, how or in what way brought up; with what work or
business he has been engaged during the former part of his life. Will he
not, then, stand speechless, with less wit and sense than any beast, block,
stone? Will he not, when brought into contact with(9) strange and
previously unknown things, be above all ignorant of himself? If you ask,
will he be able to say what the sun is, the earth, seas, stars, clouds,
mist, showers. thunder, snow. hail? Will he be able to know what trees are,
herbs, or grasses, a bull, a horse, or ram, a camel, elephant, or kite?
(10)

   23. If you give a grape to him when hungry, a must-cake, an onion, a
thistle,(11) a cucumber, a fig, will he know that his hunger can be
appeased by all these, or of what kind each should be to be fit for
eating?(12) If you made a very great fire, or surrounded him with venomous
creatures, will he not go through the midst of flames, vipers,
tarantulae,(1) without knowing that they are dangerous, and ignorant even
of fear? But again, if you set before him garments and furniture, both for
city and country life, will he indeed be able to distinguish(2) for what
each is fitted? to discharge what service they are adapted? Will he declare
for what purposes of dress the stragula(3) was made, the coif,(4) zone,(5)
fillet, cushion, handkerchief, cloak, veil, napkin, furs,(6) shoe, sandal,
boot? What, if you go on to ask what a wheel is, or a sledge,(7) a
winnowing-fan, jar, tub, an oil-mill, ploughshare, or sieve, a mill-stone,
plough-tail, or light hoe; a carved seat, a needle, a strigil, a layer, an
open seat, a ladle, a platter, a candlestick, a goblet, a broom, a cup, a
bag; a lyre, pipe, silver, brass, gold,(8) a book, a rod, a roll,(9) and
the rest of the equipment by which the life of man is surrounded and
maintained? Will he not in such circumstances, as we said, like an ox(10)
or an ass, a pig, or any beast more senseless, look(11) at these indeed,
observing their various shapes, but(12) not knowing what they all are, and
ignorant of the purpose for which they are kept? If he were in any way
compelled to utter a sound, would he not with gaping mouth shout something
indistinctly, as the dumb usually do?

   24. Why, O Plato, do you in the Meno(13) put to a young slave certain
questions relating to the doctrines of number, and strive to prove by his
answers that what we learn we do not learn, but that we merely call back to
memory those things which we knew in former times? Now, if he answers you
correctly,--for it would not be becoming that we should refuse credit to
what you say,--he is led to do so not by his real knowledge,(14) but by his
intelligence; and it results from his having some acquaintance with
numbers, through using them every day, that when questioned he follows your
meaning, and that the very process of multiplication always prompts him.
But if you are really assured that the souls of men are immortal and
endowed with knowledge when they fly hither, cease to question that youth
whom you see to be ignorant(15) and accustomed to the ways of men;(16) call
to you that man of forty years, and ask of him, not anything out of the way
or obscure about triangles, about squares, not what a cube is, or a second
power,(17) the ratio of nine to eight, or finally, of four to three; but
ask him that with which all are acquainted--what twice two are, or twice
three. We wish to see, we wish to know, what answer he gives when
questioned--whether he solves the desired problem. In such a case will he
perceive, although his ears are open, whether you are saying anything, or
asking anything, or requiring some answer from him? and will he not stand
like a stock, or the Marpesian rock,(18) as the saying is, dumb and
speechless, not understanding or knowing even this--whether you are talking
with him or with another, conversing with another or with him;(19) whether
that is intelligible speech which you utter, or merely a cry having no
meaning, but drawn out and protracted to no purpose?

   25. What say you, O men, who assign to yourselves too much of an
excellence not your own? Is this the learned soul which you describe,
immortal, perfect, divine, holding the fourth place under God tim Lord of
the universe, and under the kindred spirits,(20) and proceeding from the
fountains of life?(21) This is that precious bring man, endowed(22) with
the loftiest powers of reason, who is said to be a microcosm, and to be
made and formed after the fashion of the whole universe, superior, as has
been seen, to no brute, more senseless than stock or stone; for he is
unacquainted with men, and always lives, loiters idly in the still deserts
although he were rich,(23) lived years without number, and never escaped
from the bonds of the body. But when he goes to school, you say, and is
instructed by the teaching of masters, he is made wise, learned, and lays
aside the ignorance which till now clung to him. And an ass, and an ox as
well, if compelled by constant practice, learn to plough and grind; a
horse, to submit to the yoke, and obey the reins in running;(1) a camel, to
kneel down when being either loaded or unloaded; a dove, when set free, to
fly back to its master's house; a dog, on finding game, to check and
repress its barking; a parrot, too, to articulate words; and a crow to
utter names.

   26. But when I hear the soul spoken of as something extraordinary, as
akin and very nigh to God, and as coming hither knowing all about past
times, I would have it teach, not learn; and not go back to the rudiments,
as the saying is, after being advanced in knowledge, but hold fast the
truths it has learned when it enters its earthly body.(2) For unless it
were so, how could it be discerned whether the soul recalls to memory or
learns for the first time that which it hears; seeing that it is much
easier to believe that it learns what it is unacquainted with, than that it
has forgot what it knew but a little before, and that its power of
recalling former things is lost through the interposition of the body? And
what becomes of the doctrine that souls, being bodiless, do not have
substance? For that which is not connected with(3) any bodily form is not
hampered by the opposition of another, nor can anything be led(4) to
destroy that which cannot be touched by what is set against it. For as a
proportion established in bodies remains unaffected and secure, though it
be lost to sight in a thousand cases; so must souls, if they are not
material, as is asserted, retain their knowledge(5) of the past, however
thoroughly they may have been enclosed in bodies.(6) Moreover, the same
reasoning not only shows that they are not incorporeal, but deprives them
of all(7) immortality even, and refers them to the limits within which life
is usually closed. For whatever is led by some inducement to change and
alter itself, so that it cannot retain its natural state, must of necessity
be considered essentially passive. But that which is liable and exposed to
suffering, is declared to be corruptible by that very capacity of
suffering.

   27. So then, if souls lose all their knowledge on being lettered with
the body, they must experience something of such a nature that it makes
them become blindly forgetful.(8) For they cannot, without becoming subject
to anything whatever, either lay aside their knowledge while they maintain
their natural state, or without change in themselves pass into a different
state. Nay, we rather think that what is one, immortal, simple, in whatever
it may be, must always retain its own nature, and that it neither should
nor could be subject to anything, if indeed it purposes to endure and abide
within the limits of true immortality. For all suffering is a passage for
death and destruction, a way leading to the grave, and bringing an end of
life which may not be escaped from; and if souls are liable to it, and
yield to its influence and assaults, they indeed have life given to them
only for present use, not as a secured possession,(9) although some come to
other conclusions, and put faith in their own arguments with regard to so
important a matter.

   28. And yet, that we may not be as ignorant when we leave you as
before, let us hear from you(10) how you say that the soul, on being
enwrapt in an earthly body, has no recollection of the past; while, after
being actually placed in the body itself, and rendered almost senseless by
union with it, it holds tenaciously and faithfully the things which many
years before, eighty if you choose to say so, or even more, it either did,
or suffered, or said, or heard. For if, through being hampered by the body,
it does not remember those things which it knew long  ago, and before it
came into this world,(11) there is more reason that it should forget those
things which it has done from time to time since being shut up in the body,
than those which it did before entering it,(12) while not yet connected
with men. For the same body which(13) deprives of memory the soul which
enters it,(14) should cause what is done within itself also to be wholly
forgotten; for one cause cannot bring about two results, and these opposed
to each other, so as to make some things to be forgotten, and allow others
to be remembered by him who did them. But if souls, as you call them, are
prevented and hindered by their fleshly members from recalling their former
knowledge,(15) how do they remember what has been arranged(16) in these
very bodies, and know that they are spirits, and have no bodily substance,
being exalted by their condition as immortal beings?(1) how do they know
what rank they hold in the universe, in what order they have been set apart
from other beings? how they have come to these, the lowest parts of the
universe? what properties they acquired, and from what circles,(2) in
gliding along towards these regions? How, I say, do they know that they
were very learned, and have lost their knowledge by the hindrance which
their bodies afford them? For of this very thing also they should have been
ignorant, whether their union with the body had brought any stain upon
them; for to know what you were, and what to-day you are not, is no sign
that you have lost your memory,(3) but a proof and evidence that it is
quite sound.(4)

   29. Now, since it is so, cease, I pray you, cease to rate trifling and
unimportant things at immense values. Cease to place man in the upper
ranks, since he is of the lowest; and in the highest orders, seeing that
his person only is taken account of,(5) that he is needy, poverty-stricken
in his house and dwelling,(6) and was never entitled to be declared of
illustrious descent. For while, as just men and upholders of righteousness,
you should have subdued pride and arrogance, by the evils(7) of which we
are all uplifted and puffed up with empty vanity; you not only hold that
these evils arise naturally, but--and this is much worse--you have also
added causes by which vice should increase, and wickedness remain
incorrigible. For what man is there, although of a disposition which ever
shuns what is of bad repute and shameful, who, when he hears it said by
very wise men that the soul is immortal, and not subject to the decrees of
the fates,(8) would not throw himself headlong into all kinds of vice, and
fearlessly(9) engage in and set about unlawful things? who would not, in
short, gratify his desires in all things demanded by his unbridled lust,
strengthened even further by its security and freedom from punishment?(10)
For what will hinder him from doing so? The fear of a power above and
divine judgment? And how shall he be overcome by any fear or dread who has
been persuaded that he is immortal, just as the supreme God Himself, and
that no sentence can be pronounced upon him by God, seeing that there is
the same immortality in both, and that the one immortal being cannot be
troubled by the other, which is only its equal?(11)

   30. But will he not be terrified by(12) the punishments in Hades, of
which we have heard, assuming also, as they do, many forms of torture? And
who(13) will be so senseless and ignorant of consequences,(14) as to
believe that to imperishable spirits either the darkness of Tartarus, or
rivers of fire, or marshes with miry abysses, or wheels sent whirling
through the air,(15) can in any wise do harm? For that which is beyond
reach, and not subject to the laws of destruction, though it be surrounded
by all the flames of the raging streams, be rolled in the mire, overwhelmed
by the fall of overhanging rocks and by the overthrow of huge mountains,
must remain safe and untouched without suffering any deadly harm.

   Moreover, that conviction not only leads on to wickedness, from the
very freedom to sin which it suggests, but even takes away the ground of
philosophy itself, and asserts that it is vain to undertake its study,
because of the difficulty of the work, which leads to no result. For if it
is true that souls know no end, and are ever(16) advancing with all
generations, what danger is there in giving themselves up to the pleasures
of sense--despising and neglecting the virtues by regard to which life is
more stinted in its pleasures, and becomes less attractive--and in letting
loose their boundless lust to range eagerly and unchecked through(17) all
kinds of debauchery? Is it the danger of being worn out by such pleasures,
and corrupted by vicious effeminacy? And how can that be corrupted which is
immortal, which always exists, and is subject to no suffering? Is it the
danger of being polluted by foul and base deeds? And how can that be
defiled which has no corporeal substance; or where can corruption seat
itself, where there is no place on which the mark of this very corruption
should fasten?

   But again, if souls draw near to the gates of death,(18) as is laid
down in the doctrine of Epicurus, in this case, too, there is no sufficient
reason why philosophy should be sought out, even if it is true that by
it(1) souls are cleansed and made pure from all uncleanness.(2) For if they
all(3) die, and even in the body(4) the feeling characteristic of life
perishes, and is lost;(5) it is not only a very great mistake, but shows
stupid blindness, to curb innate desires, to restrict your mode of life
within narrow limits, not yield to your inclinations, and do what our
passions have demanded and urged, since no rewards await you for so great
toil when the day of death comes, and you shall be freed from the bonds of
the body.

   31. A certain neutral character, then, and undecided and doubtful
nature of the soul, has made room for philosophy, and found out a reason
for its being sought after: while, that is, that fellow(6) is full of dread
because of evil deeds of which he is guilty; another conceives great hopes
if he shall do no evil, and pass his life in obedience to(7) duty and
justice. Thence it is that among learned men, and men endowed with
excellent abilities, there is strife as to the nature of the soul, and some
say that it is subject to death, and cannot take upon itself the divine
substance; while others maintain that it is immortal, and cannot sink under
the power of death.(8) But this is brought about by the law  of the soul's
neutral character:(9) because, on the one hand, arguments present
themselves to the one party by which it is found that the soul(10) is
capable of suffering, and perishable; and, on the other hand, are not
wanting to their opponents, by which it is shown that the soul is divine
and immortal.

   32. Since these things are so, and we have been taught by the greatest
teacher that souls are set not far from the gaping(11) jaws of death; that
they can, nevertheless, have their lives prolonged by the favour and
kindness of the Supreme Ruler if only they try and study to know Him,--for
the knowledge of Him is a kind of vital leaven(12) and cement to bind
together that which would otherwise fly apart,--let them,(13) then, laying
aside their savage and barbarous nature, return to gentler ways, that they
may be able to be ready for that which shall be given.(14) What reason is
there that we should be considered by you brutish, as it were, and stupid,
if we have yielded and given ourselves up to God our deliverer, because of
these fears? We often seek out remedies for wounds and the poisoned bites
of serpents, and defend ourselves by means of thin plates(15) sold by
Psylli(16) or Marsi, and other hucksters(17) and impostors; and that we may
not be inconvenienced by cold or intense heat,(18) we provide with anxious
and careful diligence coverings in(19) houses and clothing.

   33. Seeing that the fear of death, that is, the ruin of our souls,
menaces(20) us, in what are we not acting, as we all are wont, from a sense
of what will be to our advantage,(21) in that we hold Him fast who assures
us that He will be our deliverer from such danger, embrace Him, and entrust
our souls to His care,(22) if only that(23) interchange is right? You rest
the salvation of your souls on yourselves, and are assured that by your
own exertions alone(24) you become gods; but we, on the contrary hold out
no hope to ourselves  from our own weakness, for we see that our nature has
no strength, and is overcome by its own passions in every strife for
anything.(25) You think that, as soon as you pass away, freed from the
bonds of your fleshly members, you will find wings(26) with which you may
rise to heaven and soar to the stars. We shun such presumption. and do not
think(27) that it is in our power to reach the abodes(28) above, since we
have no certainty as to this even, whether we deserve to receive life and
be freed from the law of death. You suppose that without the aid of
others(1) you will  return to the master's palace as if to your own home,
no one hindering you; but we, on the contrary, neither have any expectation
that this can be unless by the will of the Lord of all, nor think that so
much power and licence are given to any man.

   34. Since this is the case, what, pray, is so unfair as that we should
be looked on by you as silly in that readiness of belief at which you
scoff, while we see that you both have like beliefs, and entertain the same
hopes? If we are thought deserving of ridicule because we hold out to
ourselves such a hope, the same ridicule awaits you too, who claim for
yourselves the hope of immortality. If you hold and follow a rational
course, grant to us also a share in it. If Plato in the Phaedrus,(2) or
another of this band of philosophers, had promised these joys to us--that
is, a way to escape death, or were able to provide it and bring us to the
end which he had promised,(3) it would have been fitting that we should
seek to honour him from whom we look for so great a gift and favour. Now,
since Christ has not only promised it, but also shown by His virtues, which
were so great, that it can be made good, what strange thing do we do, and
on what grounds are we charged with folly, if we bow down and worship His
name(4) and majesty from whom we expect to receive both these blessings,
that we may at once escape a death of suffering, and be enriched with
eternal life?(5)

   35. But, say my opponents, if souls are mortal and(6) of neutral
character, how can they from their neutral properties become immortal? If
we should say that we do not know this, and only believe it because said
by(7) One mightier than we, when will our readiness of belief seem
mistaken if we believe(8) that to the almighty  King nothing is hard,
nothing difficult, and that(9) what is impossible to us is possible to Him
and at His command?(10) For is there  anything which may withstand His
will, or does it not follow(11) of necessity that what He has willed must
be done? Are we to infer from our distinctions what either can or cannot be
done; and are we not to consider that our reason is as mortal as we
ourselves are, and is of no importance with the Supreme? And yet, O ye who
do not believe that the soul is of a neutral character, and that it is held
on the line midway between life and death, are not all whatever whom fancy
supposes to exist, gods, angels, daemons, or whatever else is their name,
themselves too of a neutral character, and liable to change(12) in the
uncertainty of their future?(13) For if we all agree that there is one
Father of all, who alone is immortal and unbegotten, and if nothing at all
is found before Him which could be named,(14) it follows as a consequence
that all these whom the imagination of men believes to be gods, have been
either begotten by Him or produced at His bidding. Are they(15) produced
and begotten? they are also later in order and time: if later in order and
time, they must have an origin, and beginning of birth and life; but that
which has an entrance into and beginning of life in its first stages, it of
necessity follows, should have an end also.

   36. But the gods are said to be immortal. Not by nature, then, but by
the good-will and favour of God their Father. In the same way, then, in
which the boon(16) of immortality is God's gift to these who were assuredly
produced,(17) will He deign to confer eternal life upon souls also,
although fell death seems able to cut them off anti blot them out of
existence in utter annihilation.(18) The divine Plato, many of whose
thoughts are worthy of God, and not such as the vulgar hold, in that
discussion and treatise entitled the Timaus, says that the gods and the
world are corruptible by nature, and in no wise beyond the reach of death,
but that their being is ever maintained(19) by the will of God, their King
and Prince;(20) for that that even which has been duly clasped and bound
together by the surest bands is preserved only by God's goodness; and that
by no other than(1) by Him who bound their elements together can they both
be dissolved if necessary, and have the command given which preserves their
being.(2) If this is the case, then, and it is not fitting to think or
believe otherwise, why do you wonder that we speak of the soul as neutral
in its character, when Plato says that it is so even with the deities,(3)
but that their life is kept up by God's(4) grace, without break or end? For
if by chance you knew it not, and because of its novelty it was unknown to
you before, now, though late, receive and learn from Him who knows and has
made it known, Christ, that souls are not the children of the Supreme
Ruler, and did not begin to be self-conscious, and to be spoken of in their
own special character after being created by Him;(5) but that some other is
their parent, far enough removed from the chief in rank and power, of His
court, however, and distinguished by His high and exalted birthright.

   37. But if souls were, as is said, the Lord's children, and begotten
by(6) the Supreme Power, nothing would have been wanting to make them
perfect, as they would have been born with the most perfect excellence:
they would all have had one mind, and been of one accord; they would always
dwell in the royal palace; and would not, passing by the seats of bliss in
which they had learned and kept in mind the noblest teachings, rashly seek
these regions of earth, that(7) they might live enclosed in gloomy bodies
amid phlegm and blood, among these bags of filth and most disgusting(8)
vessels of urine. But, an opponent will say, it was necessary that these
parts too should be peopled, and therefore Almighty God sent souls hither
to form some colonies, as it were. And of what use are men to the world,
and on account of what are they necessary,(9) so that they may not be
believed to have been destined to live here and be the tenants of an
earthly body for no purpose? They have a share, my opponent says, in
perfecting the completeness of this immense mass, and without their
addition this whole universe is incomplete and imperfect. What then? If
there were not men, would the world cease to discharge its functions? would
the stars not go through their changes? would there not be summers and
winters? would the blasts of the winds be lulled? and from the clouds
gathered and hanging overhead would not the showers come down upon the
earth to temper droughts? But now(10) all things must go on in their own
courses, and not give up following the arrangement established by nature,
even if there should be no name of man heard in the world, and this earth
should be still with the silence of an unpeopled desert. How then is it
alleged that it was necessary that an inhabitant should be given to these
regions, since it is clear that by man comes nothing to aid in perfecting
the world, and that all his exertions regard his private convenience
always, and never cease to aim at his own advantage?

   38. For, to begin with what is important, what advantage is it to the
world that the mightiest kings are here? What, that there are tyrants,
lords, and other innumerable and very illustrious powers? What, that there
are generals of the greatest experience in war, skilled in taking cities;
soldiers steady and utterly invincible in battles of cavalry, or in
fighting hand to hand on foot? What, that there are orators, grammarians,
poets, writers, logicians, musicians, ballet-dancers, mimics, actors,
singers, trumpeters,  flute and reed players? What, that there are runners,
boxers, charioteers, vaulters,(11) walkers on stilts, rope-dancers,
jugglers? What, that there are dealers in salt fish, salters, fishmongers,
perfumers, goldsmiths, bird-catchers, weavers of winnowing fans and baskets
of rushes? What, that there are fullers, workers in wool, embroiderers,
cooks, confectioners, dealers in mules, pimps, butchers, harlots? What,
that there are other kinds of dealers? What do the other kinds of
professors and arts, for the enumeration of which all life would be too
short, contribute to the plan and constitution(12) of the world, that we
should believe(13) that it could not have been founded without men, and
would not attain its completeness without the addition of(14) a wretched
and useless being's exertion?(15)

   39. But perhaps, some one will urge, the Ruler of the world sent hither
souls sprung from Himself for this purpose--a very rash thing for a man to
say(1)--that they which had been divine(2) with Him, not coming into
contact with the body and earthly limits,(3) should be buried in the germs
of men, spring from the womb, burst into and keep up the silliest wailings,
draw the breasts in sucking, besmear and bedaub themselves with their own
filth, then be hushed by the swaying(4) of the frightened nurse and by the
sound of rattles.(5) Did He send souls hither for this reason, that they
which had been but now sincere and of blameless virtue should learn as(6)
men to feign, to dissemble, to lie, to cheat,(7) to deceive, to entrap with
a flatterer's abjectness; to conceal one thing in the heart,(8) express
another in the countenance; to ensnare, to beguile(9) the ignorant with
crafty devices, to seek out poisons by means of numberless arts suggested
by bad feelings, and to be fashioned(10) with deceitful changeableness to
suit circumstances? Was it for this He sent souls, that, living till then
in calm and undisturbed tranquillity, they might find in(11) their bodies
causes by which to become fierce and savage, cherish hatred and enmity,
make war upon each other, subdue and overthrow states; load themselves
with, and give themselves up to the yoke of slavery; and finally, be put
the one in the other's power, having changed the condition(12) in which
they were born? Was it for this He sent souls, that, being made unmindful
of the truth, and forgetful of what God was, they should make supplication
to images which cannot move; address as superhuman deities pieces of wood,
brass, and stones; ask aid of them(13) with the blood of slain animals;
make no mention of Himself: nay more, that some of them should doubt their
own existence, or deny altogether that anything exists? Was it for this He
sent souls, that they which in their own abodes had been of one mind,
equals in intellect and knowledge, after that they put on mortal forms,
should be divided by differences of opinion; should have different views as
to what is just, useful, and right; should contend about the objects of
desire and aversion; should define the highest good and greatest evil
differently; that, in seeking to know the truth of things, they should be
hindered by their obscurity; and, as if bereft of eyesight, should see
nothing clearly,(14) and, wandering from the truth,(15) should be led
through uncertain bypaths of fancy?

   40. Was it for this He sent souls hither, that while the other
creatures are fed by what springs up spontaneously, and is produced without
being  sown, and do not seek for themselves the protection or covering of
houses or garments, they  should be under the sad necessity(16) of building
houses for themselves at very great expense and with never-ending toils,
preparing coverings for their limbs, making different kinds of furniture
for the wants(17) of daily life, borrowing help for(18)  their weakness
from the dumb creatures; using violence to the earth that it might not give
forth its own herbs, but might send up the fruits required; and when they
had put forth all their strength(19) in subduing the earth, should be
compelled to lose the hope with which they had laboured(20) through blight,
hail, drought; and at last forced by(21) hunger to throw themselves on
human bodies; and when set free, to be parted from their human forms by a
wasting sickness? Was it for this that they which, while they abode with
Him, had never had any longing for property, should have become exceedingly
covetous, and with insatiable craving be inflamed to an eager desire of
possessing; that they should dig up lofty mountains, and turn the unknown
bowels of the earth into materials, and to purposes of a different kind;
should force their way to remote nations at the risk of life, and, in
exchanging goods always catch at a high price for what they sell, and a low
one(22) for what they buy, take interest at greedy and excessive rates, and
add to the number of their sleepless nights spent in reckoning up
thousands(23) wrung from the life-blood of wretched men; should be ever
extending the limits of their possessions, and, though they were to make
whole provinces one estate, should weary the forum with suits for one tree,
for one furrow; should hate rancorously their friends and brethren?

   41. Was it for this He sent souls, that they which shortly before had
been gentle and ignorant of what it is to be moved by fierce passions,
should build for themselves markets and amphitheatres, places of blood and
open wickedness, in the one of which they should see men devoured and torn
in pieces by wild beasts, and themselves slay others for no demerit but to
please and gratify the spectators,(1) and should spend those very days on
which such wicked deeds were done in general enjoyment, and keep holiday
with festive gaiety; while in the other, again, they should tear asunder
the flesh of wretched animals, some snatch one part, others another, as
dogs and vultures do, should grind them with their teeth, and give to their
utterly insatiable(2) maw, and that, surrounded by(3) faces so fierce and
savage, those should bewail their lot whom the straits of poverty withheld
from such repasts;(4) that their life should be(5) happy and prosperous
while such barbarous doings defiled their mouths and face? Was it for this
He sent souls, that, forgetting their importance and dignity as divine,
they should acquire gems, precious stones, pearls, at the expense of their
purity; should entwine their necks with these, pierce the tips of their
ears, bind(6) their foreheads with fillets, seek for cosmetics(7) to deck
their bodies,(8) darken their eyes with henna; nor, though in the forms of
men, blush to curl their hair with crisping-pins, to make the skin of the
body smooth, to walk with bare knees, and with every other kind of
wantonness, both to lay aside the strength of their manhood, and to grow in
effeminacy to a woman's habits and luxury?      42. Was it for this He sent
souls, that some  should infest the highways and roads,(9) others ensnare
the unwary, forge(10) false wills, prepare poisoned draughts; that they
should break open houses by night, tamper with slaves, steal and drive
away, not act uprightly, and betray their trust perfidiously; that they
should strike out delicate dainties for the palate; that in cooking fowls
they should know how to catch the fat as it drips; that they should make
cracknels and sausages,(11) force-meats, tit-bits, Lucanian sausages, with
these(12) a sow's udder and iced(13) puddings? Was it for this He sent
souls, that beings(14) of a sacred and august race should here practise
singing and piping; that they should swell out their cheeks in blowing the
flute; that they should take the lead in singing impure songs, and raising
the loud din of the castanets,(15) by which another crowd of souls should
be led in their wantonness to abandon themselves to clumsy motions, to
dance and sing, form rings of dancers, and finally, raising their haunches
and hips, float along with a tremulous motion of the loins?

   Was it for this He sent souls, that in men they should become impure,
in women harlots, players on the triangle(16) and psaltery; that they
should prostitute their bodies for hire, should abandon themselves to the
lust of all,(17) ready in the brothels, to be met with in the stews,(18)
ready to submit to anything, prepared to do violence to their mouth
even?(19)

   43. What say you, O offspring and descendants of the Supreme Deity? Did
these souls, then, wise, and sprung from the first causes, become
acquainted with such forms of baseness, crime, and bad feeling? and were
they ordered to dwell here,(20) and be clothed with the garment of the
human body, in order that they might engage in, might practise these evil
deeds, and that very frequently? And is there a man with any sense of
reason who thinks that the world was established because of them, and not
rather that it was set up as a seat and home, in which every kind of
wickedness should be committed daily, all evil deeds be done, plots,
impostures, frauds, covetousness, robberies, violence, impiety, all that is
presumptuous, indecent, base, disgraceful,(1) and all the other evil deeds
which men devise over all the earth with guilty purpose, and contrive for
each other's ruin?

   44. But, you say, they came of their own accord not sent(2) by their
lord. And (3) where was the Almighty Creator, where the authority of His
royal and exalted place,(4) to prevent their departure, and not suffer them
to fall into dangerous pleasures? For if He knew that by change of place
they would become base--and, as the arranger of all things,(5) He must have
known-or that anything would reach them from without which would make them
forget their greatness and moral dignity,--a thousand times would I beg of
Him to pardon my words,--the cause of all is no other than Himself, since
He allowed them to have freedom to wander(6) who He foresaw would not abide
by their state of innocence; and thus it is brought about that it does not
matter whether they came of their own accord, or obeyed His command, since
in not preventing what should have been prevented, by His inaction He made
the guilt His own, and permitted it before it was done by neglecting to
withhold them from action.

   45. But let this monstrous and impious fancy be put(7) far from us,
that Almighty God, the creator and framer, the author(8) of things great
and invisible, should be believed to have begotten souls so fickle, with no
seriousness, firmness, and steadiness, prone to vice, inclining to all
kinds  of sins; and while He knew that they were such and of this
character, to have bid(9) them enter into bodies, imprisoned in which,(10)
they should live exposed to the storms and tempests of fortune every day,
and now do mean things, now submit to lewd treatment; that they might
perish by shipwreck, accidents, destructive conflagrations; that poverty
might oppress some, beggary, others; that some might be torn in pieces by
wild beasts, others perish by the venom of flies;(11) that some might limp
in walking, others lose their sight, others be stiff with cramped(12)
joints;  in fine, that they should be exposed to all the diseases which the
wretched and pitiable human  race endures with agony caused by(13)
different sufferings; then that, forgetting that they have one origin, one
father and head, they should shake to their foundations and violate the
rights of kinship, should overthrow their cities, lay  waste their lands as
enemies, enslave the free, do violence to maidens and to other men's wives,
hate each other, envy the joys and good fortune of others; and further, all
malign, carp at, and tear each other to pieces with fiercely biting  teeth.

   46. But, to say the same things again and again,(14) let this belief,
so monstrous and impious, be put far from us, that. God, who preserves(15)
all things, the origin of the virtues and chief in(16) benevolence, and, to
exalt Him with human praise, most wise, just, making all things perfect,
and that permanently,(17) either made anything which was imperfect and not
quite correct,(18) or was the cause of misery or danger to any being, or
arranged, commanded, and enjoined the very acts in which man's life is
passed and employed to flow from His arrangement. These things are unworthy
of(19) Him, and weaken the force of His greatness; and so far from His
being believed to be their author, whoever imagines that man is sprung from
Him is guilty of blasphemous impiety, man, a being miserable and wretched,
who is sorry that he exists, hates and laments his state, and understands
that he was produced for no other reason than lest evils should not have
something(20) through which to spread themselves, and that there might
always be wretched ones by whose agonies some unseen and cruel power,(21)
adverse to men, should be gratified.

   47. But, you say, if God is not the parent and father of souls, by what
sire have they been begotten, and how have they been produced? If you wish
to hear unvarnished statements not spun out with vain ostentation of words,
we, too,(22) admit that we are ignorant of this, do not know it;(1) and we
hold that, to know so great a  matter, is not only beyond the reach of our
weakness and frailty, but beyond that also of all the powers which are in
the world, and which have usurped the place of deities in men's belief. But
are we bound to show whose they are, because we deny that they are God's?
That by no means(2) follows necessarily; for if we were to deny that flies,
beetles, and bugs, dormice, weevils, and moths,(3) are made by the Almighty
King, we should not be required in consequence to say who made and formed
them; for without incurring any censure, we may not know who, indeed, gave
them being, and yet assert that not by the Supreme(4) Deity were creatures
produced so useless, so needless, so purposeless,(5) nay more,, at times
even hurtful, and causing unavoidable injuries.

   48. Here, too, in like manner, when we deny  that souls are the
offspring of God Supreme, it does not necessarily follow that we are bound
to declare from what parent they have sprung, and  by what causes they have
been produced. For who prevents us from being either ignorant of the source
from which they issued and came, or  aware that they are not God's
descendants? By what method, you say, in what way? Because it is most true
and certain(6) that, as has been pretty frequently said, nothing is
effected, made, determined by the Supreme, except that which  it is right
and fitting should be done; except that which is complete and entire, and
wholly perfect in its(7) integrity. But further, we see that  men, that is,
these very souls--for what are men but souls bound to bodies?--themselves
show by perversely falling into(8) vice, times without number, that they
belong to no patrician race, but have sprung from insignificant families.
For we see some harsh, vicious, presumptuous, rash, reckless, blinded,
false, dissemblers, liars, proud, overbearing, covetous, greedy, lustful,
fickle, weak, and unable to observe their own precepts; but they would
assuredly not be so, if their original goodness defended(9) them, and they
traced their honourable descent from the head of the universe.

   49. But, you will say, there are good men also in the world,--wise,
upright, of faultless and purest morals. We raise no question as to whether
there ever were any such, in whom this very integrity which is spoken of
was in nothing imperfect. Even if they are very honourable men, and have
been worthy of praise, have reached the utmost height of perfection, and
their life has never wavered and sunk into sin, yet we would have you tell
us how many there are, or have been, that we may judge from their number
whether a comparison(10) has been made which is just and evenly
balanced.(11) One, two, three, four, ten, twenty, a hundred, yet are they
at least limited in number, and it may be within the reach of names.(12)
But it is fitting that the human race should be rated and weighed, not by a
very few good men, but by all the rest as well. For the part is in the
whole, not the whole in a part; and that which is the whole should draw to
it its parts, not the whole be brought to its parts. For what if you were
to say that a man, robbed of the use of all his limbs, and shrieking in
bitter agony,(13) was quite well, because in(14) one little nail he
suffered no pain? or that the earth is made of gold, because in one hillock
there are a few small grains from which, when dissolved, gold is produced,
and wonder excited at it when formed into a lump?(15) The whole mass shows
the nature of an element, not particles fine as air; nor does the sea
become forthwith sweet, if you cast or throw into it a few drops of less
bitter water, for that small quantity is swallowed up in its immense mass;
and it must be esteemed, not merely of little importance, but even of none,
because, being scattered throughout all, it is lost and cut off in the
immensity of the vast body of water.

   50. You say that there are good men in the human race; and perhaps, if
we compare them with the very wicked, we may be led(16) to believe that
there are. Who are they, pray? Tell us. The philosophers, I suppose,
who(17) assert that they alone are most wise, and who have been uplifted
with pride from the meaning attached to this name,(18)--those, forsooth,
who are striving with their passions every day, and struggling to drive
out, to expel deeply-rooted passions from their minds by the persistent(19)
opposition of their better qualities; who, that it may be impossible for
them to be led into wickedness at the suggestion of some opportunity, shun
riches and inheritances, that they may remove(1) from themselves occasions
of stumbling; but in doing this, and being solicitous about it, they show
very clearly that their souls are, through their weakness, ready and prone
to fall into vice. In  our opinion, however, that which is good naturally,
does not require to be either corrected or i reproved;(2) nay more, it
should not know what  evil is, if the nature of each kind would abide in
its own integrity, for neither can two contraries be implanted in each
other, nor can equality be contained in inequality, nor sweetness in
bitterness. He, then, who struggles to amend the inborn depravity of his
inclinations, shows most clearly that he is imperfect,(3) blameable,
although he may strive with all zeal and stedfastness.

   51. But you laugh at our reply, because, while we deny that souls are
of royal descent, we do not, on the other hand, say in turn from what
causes and beginnings they have sprung. But what kind of crime is it either
to be ignorant of anything, or to confess quite openly that you do not know
that of which you are ignorant? or whether does he rather seem to you most
deserving of ridicule who assumes to himself no knowledge of some dark
subject; or he who thinks that he(4) knows most clearly that which
transcends human knowledge, and which has been involved in dark obscurity?
If the nature of everything were thoroughly considered, you too are in a
position like that which you censure in our case. For you do not say
anything which has been ascertained and set most clearly in the light of
truth, because you say that souls descend from the Supreme Ruler Himself,
and enter into the forms of men. For you conjecture, do not perceives this;
surmise, do not actually know it; for if to know is to retain in the mind
that which you have yourself seen or known, not one of those things which
you affirm can you say that you have ever seen--that is, that souls descend
from the abodes and regions above. You are therefore making use of
conjecture, not trusting clear information. But what is conjecture, except
a doubtful imagining of things, and directing of the mind upon nothing
accessible? He, then, who conjectures, does not comprehend,(5) nor does he
walk in the(6) light of knowledge. But if this is true and certain in the
opinion of proper and very wise judges, your conjectures, too, in which you
trust, must be regarded as showing your ignorance.

   52. And yet, lest you should suppose that none but yourselves can make
use of conjectures and surmises, we too are able to bring them forward as
well,(7) as your question is appropriate to either side.(8) Whence, you
say, are men; and what or whence are the souls of these men? Whence, we
will ask, are elephants, bulls, stags, mules,(9) asses? Whence lions,
horses, dogs, wolves, panthers; and what or whence are the souls of these
creatures? For it is not credible that from that Platonic cup,(10) which
Timaeus prepares and mixes, either their souls came, or that the
locust,(11) mouse, shrew, cockroach, frog, centipede, should be believed to
have been quickened and to live, because(12) they have a cause and origin
of birth in(13) the elements themselves, if there are in these secret and
very little known means(14) for producing the creatures which live in each
of them. For we see that some of the wise say that the earth is mother of
men, that others join with it water,(15) that others add to these breath of
air, but that some say that the sun is their framer, and that, having been
quickened by his rays, they are filled with the stir of life.(16) What if
it is not these, and is something else another cause another method,
another power, in fine, unheard of and unknown to us by name, which may
have fashioned the human race, and connected it with things as
established;(17) may it not be that men sprang up in this way, and that the
cause of their birth does not go back to the Supreme God? For what reason
do we suppose that the great Plato had--a man reverent and scrupulous in
his wisdom--when he withdrew the fashioning of man from the highest God,
and transferred it to some lesser deities. and when he would not have the
souls of men formed(18) of that pure mixture of which he had made the soul
of the universe, except that he thought the forming of man unworthy of God,
and the fashioning of a feeble being not beseeming His greatness and
excellence?

   53. Since this, then, is the case, we do nothing out of place or
foolish in believing that the souls of men are of a neutral character,
inasmuch as they have been produced by secondary beings,(1) made subject to
the law of death, and are of little strength, and that perishable; and that
they are gifted with immortality, if(2) they rest their hope of so great a
gift on God Supreme, who alone has power to grant such blessings, by
putting away corruption. But this, you say, we are stupid in believing.
What is that to you? In so believing, we act most absurdly, sillily. In
what do we injure you, or what wrong do we do or inflict upon you, if we
trust that Almighty God will take care of us when we leave(3) our bodies,
and from the jaws of hell, as is said, deliver us?

   54. Can, then, anything be made, some one will say, without God's will?
We(4) must consider carefully, and examine with no little pains, test,
while we think that we are honouring God(5) by such a question, we fall
into the opposite sin, doing despite to His supreme majesty. In what way,
you ask, on what ground? Because, if all things are brought about by His
will, and nothing in the world can either succeed or fail contrary to His
pleasure, it follows of necessity that it should be understood that(6) all
evils, too, arise by His will. But if, on the contrary, we chose to say
that He is privy to and produces no evil, not referring to Him the causes
of very wicked deeds, the worst things will begin to seem to be done either
against His will, or, a monstrous thing to say, while He knows it not, but
is ignorant and unaware of them. But, again, if we choose to say that there
are no evils, as we find some have believed and held, all races will cry
out against us and all nations together, showing us their sufferings, and
the various kinds of dangers with which the human race is every moment(7)
distressed and afflicted. Then they will ask of us, Why, if there are no
evils, do you refrain from certain deeds and actions? Why do you not do all
that eager lust has required or demanded? Why, finally, do you establish
punishments by terrible laws for the guilty? For what more monstrous(8) act
of folly can be found than to assert that there are no evils, and at the
same time to kill and condemn the erring as though they were evil?(9)

   55. But when, overcome, we agree that there are these things,(10) and
expressly allow that all human affairs are full of them, they will next
ask, Why, then, the Almighty God does not take away these evils, but
suffers them to exist and to go on without ceasing through all the
ages?(11) If we have learned of God the Supreme Ruler, and have resolved
not to wander in a maze of impious and mad conjectures, we must answer that
we do not know these things, and have never sought and striven to know
things which could be grasped by no powers which we have, and that we, even
thinking it(12) preferable, rather remain in ignorance and want of
knowledge than say that without God nothing is made, so that it should be
understood that by His will(13) He is at once both the source of evil(14)
and the occasion of countless miseries. Whence then, you will say, are all
these evils? From the elements, say the wise, and from their dissimilarity;
but how it is possible that things which have not feeling and judgment
should be held to be wicked or criminal; or that he should not rather be
wicked and criminal, who, to bring about some result, took what was
afterwards to become very bad and hurtful,(15)--is for them to consider,
who make the assertion. What, then, do we say? whence? There is no
necessity that we should answer, for whether we are able to say whence evil
springs, or our power fails us, and we are unable, in either case it is a
small matter in our opinion; nor do we hold it of much importance either to
know or to be ignorant of it, being content to have laid down but one
thing,--that nothing proceeds from God Supreme which is hurtful and
pernicious. This we are assured of, this we know, on this one truth of
knowledge and science we take our stand,--that nothing is made by Him
except that which is for the well-being of all, which is agreeable, which
is very full of love and joy and gladness, which has unbounded and
imperishable pleasures, which every one may ask in all his prayers to
befall him, and think that otherwise(1) life is pernicious and fatal.

   56. As for all the other things which are usually dwelt upon in
inquiries and discussions--from what parents they have sprung, or by whom
they are produced--we neither strive to know,(2) nor care to inquire or
examine: we leave all things to their own causes, and do not consider that
they have been connected and associated with that which we desire should
befall us.(3) For what is there which men of ability do not dare to
overthrow, to destroy,(4) from love of contradiction, although that which
they attempt to invalidate is unobjectionable(5) and manifest, and
evidently bears the stamp of truth? Or what, again, can they not maintain
with plausible arguments, although it may be very manifestly untrue,
although it may be a plain and evident falsehood?  For when a man has
persuaded himself that there is or is not something, he likes to affirm
what he thinks, and to show greater subtlety  than others, especially if
the subject discussed is out of the ordinary track, and by nature abstruse
and obscure.(6) Some of the wise think that the world was not created, and
will never perish;(7) some that it is immortal, although they say that it
was created and made;(8) while a third party have chosen to say that it
both was created and made, and will perish as other things must.(9) And
while of these three opinions one only must be true, they nevertheless all
find arguments by which at once to uphold their own doctrines, and
undermine and overthrow the dogmas of others. Some teach and declare that
this same world is composed of four elements, others of two,(10) a third
party of one; some say that it is composed of none of  these, and that
atoms are that from which it is formed,(11) and its primary origin. And
since of these opinions only one is true, but(12) not one of them certain,
here too, in like manner, arguments present themselves to all with which
they may both establish the truth of what they say, and show that there are
some things false(13) in the others' opinions. So, too, some utterly deny
the existence of the gods; others say that they are lost in doubt as to
whether they exist anywhere; others, however, say that they do exist, but
do not trouble themselves about human things; nay others maintain that they
both take part in the affairs of men, and guide the course of earthly
events.(14)

   57. While, then, this is the case, and it cannot but be that only one
of all these opinions is true, they all nevertheless make use of arguments
in striving with each other,--and not one of them is without something
plausible to say, whether in affirming his own views, or objecting to the
opinions of others. In exactly the same way is the condition of souls
discussed. For I this one thinks that they both are immortal, and  survive
the end of our earthly life; that one believes that they do not survive,
but perish with  the bodies themselves: the opinion of another, however, is
that they suffer nothing immediately, but that, after the form of man has
been laid aside, they are allowed to live a little longer,(15) and then
come under the power of death. And while all these opinions cannot be alike
true, yet all who hold them so support their case by  strong and very
weighty arguments, that you cannot find out anything which seems false to
you, although on every side you see that things are being said altogether
at variance with each other, and inconsistent from their opposition to each
other;(16) which assuredly would not happen, if man s curiosity could reach
any certainty, or if  that which seemed to one to have been really
discovered, was attested by the approval of all the others. It is therefore
wholly(1) vain, a useless task, to bring forward something as though you
knew it, or to wish to assert that you know that which, although it should
be true, you see can be refuted; or to receive that as true which it may be
is not, and is brought forward as if by men raving. And it is rightly so,
for we do not weigh and guess at(2) divine things by divine, but by human
methods; and just as we think that anything should have been made, so we
assert that it must be.

   58. What, then, are we alone ignorant? do we alone not know who is the
creator, who the former of souls, what cause fashioned man, whence ills
have broken forth, or why the Supreme Ruler allows them both to exist and
be perpetrated, and does not drive them from the world? have you, indeed,
ascertained and learned any of these things with certainty? If you chose to
lay aside audacious(3) conjectures, can you unfold and disclose whether
this world m which we dwell(4) was created or founded at some time? if it
was founded and made, by what kind of work, pray, or for what purpose? Can
you bring forward and disclose the reason why it does not remain fixed and
immoveable, but is ever being carried round in a circular motion? whether
it revolves of its own will and choice, or is turned by the influence of
some power? what the place, too, and space is in which it is set and
revolves, boundless, bounded, hollow, or(5) solid? whether it is supported
by an axis resting on sockets at its extremities, or rather itself sustains
by its own power, and by the spirit within it upholds itself? Can you, if
asked, make it clear, and show most skilfully,(6) what opens out the snow
into feathery flakes? what was the reason and cause that day did not, in
dawning, arise in the west, and veil its light in the east? how the sun,
too, by one and the same influence,(7) produces results so different, nay,
even so opposite? what the moon is, what the stars? why, on the one hand,
it does not remain of the same shape, or why it was right and necessary
that these particles of fire should be set all over the world? why some(8)
of them are small, others large and greater,--these have a dim light, those
a more vivid and shining brightness?

   59. If that which it has pleased us to know is within reach, and if
such knowledge is open to all, declare to us,(9) and say how and by what
means showers of rain are produced, so that water is held suspended in the
regions above and in mid-air, although by nature it is apt to glide away,
and so ready to flow and run downwards. Explain, I say, and tell what it is
which sends the hail whirling through the air, which makes the rain fall
drop by drop, which has spread out rain and feathery flakes of snow and
sheets of lightning;(10) whence the wind rises, and what it is; why the
changes of the seasons were established, when it might have been ordained
that there should be only one, and one kind of climate, so that there
should be nothing wanting to the world's completeness. What is the cause,
what the reason, that the waters of the sea are salt;(11) or that, of those
on land, some are sweet, others bitter or cold? From what kind of material
have the inner parts of men's bodies been formed and built up into
firmness? From what have their bones been made solid? what made the
intestines and veins shaped like pipes, and easily passed through? Why,
when it would be better to give us light by several eyes, to guard against
the risk of blindness, are we restricted to two? For what purpose have so
infinite and  innumerable kinds of monsters and serpents been I either
formed or brought forth? what purpose do owls serve in the world,--falcons,
hawks? what other birds(12) and winged creatures? what the different kinds
of ants and worms springing up to be a bane and pest in various ways? what
fleas, obtrusive flies, spiders, shrew, and other mice, leeches, water-
spinners? what thorns, briers, wild-oats, tares? what the seeds of herbs or
shrubs, either sweet to the nostrils, or disagreeable in smell? Nay more,
if you think that anything can be known or comprehended, say what wheat
is,--spelt, barley, millet, the chick-pea, bean, lentil, melon, cumin,
scallion, leek, onion? For even if they are useful to you, and are ranked
among the different kinds of food, it is not a  light or easy thing to know
what each is,--why they have been formed with such shapes; whether there
was any necessity that they should not have had other tastes, smells, and
colours than those which each has, or whether they could have taken others
also; further, what these very things are,--taste, I mean,(13) and the
rest; and from what relations they derive their differences of quality.
From the elements, you say, and from the first beginnings of things. Are
the elements, then, bitter or sweet? have they any odour or(1) stench, that
we should believe that, from their uniting, qualities were implanted in
their products by which sweetness is produced, or something prepared
offensive to the senses?

   60. Seeing, then, that the origin, the cause, the reason of so many and
so important things, escapes you yourselves also, and that you can neither
say nor explain what has been made, nor why and wherefore it should not
have been otherwise, do you assail and attack our timidity, who confess
that we do not know that which cannot be known, and who do not care to seek
out and inquire into those things which it is quite clear cannot be
understood, although human conjecture should extend and spread itself
through a thousand hearts? And therefore Christ the divine,--although you
are unwilling to allow it,--Christ the divine, I repeat, for this must be
said often, that the ears of unbelievers may burst and be rent asunder,
speaking in the form of man by command of the Supreme God, because He knew
that men are naturally(2) blind, and cannot grasp the truth at all, or
regard as sure and certain what they might have persuaded themselves as to
things set before their eyes, and do not hesitate, for the sake of their(3)
conjectures, to raise and bring up questions that cause much strife,--bade
us abandon and disregard all these things of which you speak, and not waste
our thoughts upon things which have been removed far from our knowledge,
but, as much as possible, seek the Lord of the universe with the whole mind
and spirit; be raised above these subjects, and give over to Him our
hearts, as yet hesitating whither to turn;(4) be ever mindful of Him; and
although no imagination can set Him forth as He is,(5) yet form some faint
conception of Him. For Christ said that, of all who are comprehended in the
vague notion of what is sacred and divine,(6) He alone is beyond the reach
of doubt, alone true, and one about whom only a raving and reckless madman
can be in doubt; to know whom is enough, although you have learned nothing
besides; and if by knowledge you have indeed been related to(7) God, the
head of the world, you have gained the true and most important knowledge.

   61. What business of yours is it, He(8) says, to examine, to inquire
who made man; what is the origin of souls; who devised the causes of ills;
whether the sun is larger than the earth, or measures only a foot in
breadth:(9) whether the moon shines with borrowed light, or from her own
brightness,--things which there is neither profit in knowing, nor loss in
not knowing? Leave these things to God, and allow Him to know what is,
wherefore, or whence; whether it must have been or not; whether something
always existed,(10) or whether it was produced at the first; whether it
should be annihilated or preserved, consumed, destroyed, or restored in
fresh vigour. Your reason is not permitted to involve you in such
questions, and to be busied to no purpose about things so much out of
reach. Your interests are in jeopardy,--the salvation, I mean,(11) of your
souls; and unless you give yourselves to seek to know the Supreme God, a
cruel death awaits you when freed from the bonds of body, not bringing
sudden annihilation, but destroying by the bitterness of its grievous and
long-protracted punishment.

   62. And be not deceived or deluded with vain hopes by that which is
said by some ignorant and most presumptuous pretenders,(12) that they are
born of God, and are not subject to the decrees of fate; that His palace
lies open to them if they lead a life of temperance, and that after death
as men, they are restored without hindrance, as if to their father's abode;
nor by that which the Magi(13) assert, that they have intercessory prayers,
won over by which some powers make the way easy to those who are striving
to mount to heaven; nor by that which Etruria holds out in the Acherontic
books,(14) that souls become divine, and are freed from the law(15) of
death, if the blood of certain animals is offered to certain deities. These
are empty delusions, and excite vain desires. None but the Almighty God can
preserve souls; nor is there any one besides who can give them length of
days, and grant to them also a spirit which shall never die,(16) except He
who alone is immortal and everlasting, and restricted by no limit of time.
For since all the gods, whether those who are real, or those who are merely
said to be from hearsay and conjecture, are immortal and everlasting by His
good-will and free gift, how can it be that others(1) are able to give that
which they themselves have,(2) while they have it as the gift of another,
bestowed by a greater power? Let Etruria sacrifice what victims it may, let
the wise deny themselves all the pleasures of life,(3) let the Magi soften
and soothe all lesser powers, yet, unless souls have received from the Lord
of all things that which reason demands, and does so by His command, it(4)
will hereafter deeply repent having made itself a laughing-stock,(5) when
it begins to feel the approach(6) of death.

   63. But if, my opponents say, Christ was sent by God for this end, that
He might deliver unhappy souls from ruin and destruction, of what crime
were former ages guilty which were cut off in their mortal state before He
came? Can you, then, know what has become of these souls(7) of men who
lived long ago?(8) whether they, too, have not been aided, provided, and
cared for in some way? Can you, I say, know that which could have been
learned through Christ's teaching; whether the ages are unlimited in number
or not since the human race began to be on the  earth; when souls were
first bound to bodies; who contrived that binding,(9) nay, rather, who
formed man himself; whither the souls of men  who lived before us have
gone; in what parts or regions of the world they were; whether they were
corruptible or not; whether they could have encountered the danger of
death, if Christ had not come forward as their preserver at their time of
need? Lay aside these cares, and abandon questions to which you can find no
answer.(10) The Lord's compassion has been shown to them, too, and the
divine kindness(11) has been extended to(12) all alike; they have been
preserved, have been delivered, and have laid aside the lot and. condition
of mortality. Of what kind, my opponents ask, what, when? If you were free
from presumption, arrogance, and conceit, you might have learned long ago
from this teacher.

   64. But, my opponents ask, if Christ came as the Saviour of men, as(13)
you say, why(14) does He not, with uniform benevolence, free all without
exception? I reply, does not He free all alike who invites all alike? or
does He thrust back or  repel any one from the kindness of the Supreme who
gives to all alike the power of coming to Him,--to men of high rank, to the
meanest slaves, to women, to boys? To all, He says, the  fountain of life
is open,(15) and no one is hindered or kept back from drinking.(16) If you
are so fastidious as to spurn the kindly(17) offered gift, nay, more, if
your wisdom is so great that you term those things which are offered by
Christ ridiculous and absurd, why should He keep on inviting (18) you,
while His only duty is to make the enjoyment of His bounty depend upon your
own free choice?(19) God, Plato says, does not cause any one to choose his
lot in life;(20) nor can another's choice be rightly attributed to any one,
since freedom of choice was put in His power who  made it. Must you be even
implored to deign to accept the gift of salvation from God; and must God's
gracious mercy be poured into your bosom while you reject it with disdain,
and flee very far from it? Do you choose to take what is offered, and turn
it to your own advantage? You  will in that case have consulted your own
interests. Do you reject with disdain, lightly esteem, and despise it? You
will in this case have robbed yourself of the benefit of the gift.(21) God
compels no one, terrifies no one with overpowering fear. For our salvation
is not necessary to Him, so that He would gain anything or suffer any loss,
if He either made us divine,(22) or allowed us to be annihilated and
destroyed by corruption.

   65. Nay, my opponent says, if God is powerful, merciful, willing to
save us, let Him change our dispositions, and compel us to trust in His
promises. This, then, is violence, not kindness nor the bounty of the
Supreme God, but a childish and vain(1) strife in seeking to get the
mastery. For what is so unjust as to force men who are reluctant and
unwilling, to reverse their inclinations; to impress forcibly on their
minds what they are unwilling to receive, and shrink from; to injure before
benefiting, and to bring to another way of thinking and feeling, by taking
away the former? You who wish yourself to be changed,(2) and to suffer
violence, that you may do and may be compelled to take to yourself that
which you do not wish, why do you refuse of your own accord to select that
which you wish to do, when changed and transformed? I am unwilling, He
says, and have no wish. What, then, do you blame God as though He failed
you? do you wish Him to bring you help,(3) whose gifts and bounties you not
only reject and shun, but term empty(4) words, and assail with jocose
witticisms? Unless, then, my opponent says, I shall be a Christian, I
cannot hope for salvation. It is just as you yourself say. For, to bring
salvation and impart to souls what should be bestowed and must be added,
Christ alone has had given into His charge and entrusted(5) to Him by God
the Father, the remote and more secret causes being so disposed. For, as
with you, certain gods have fixed offices, privileges, powers, and you do
not ask from any of them what is not in his power and permitted to him, so
it is the right of(6) Christ alone to give salvation to souls, and assign
them everlasting life. For if you believe that father Bacchus can give a
good vintage, but cannot give relief from sickness; if you believe that
Ceres can give good crops, Aesculapius health, Neptune one thing, Juno(7)
another, that Fortune, Mercury, Vulcan, are each the giver of a fixed and
particular thing,--this, too, you must needs receive from us,(8) that souls
can receive from no one life and salvation, except from Him to whom the
Supreme Ruler gave this charge and duty. The Almighty Master of the world
has determined that this should be the way of salvation,--this the door, so
to say, of life; by Him(9) alone is there access  to the light: nor may men
either creep in or enter elsewhere, all other ways being shut up and
secured by an impenetrable barrier.

   66. So, then, even if you are pure, and have been cleansed from every
stain of vice, have won over and charmed(10) those powers not to shut the
ways against you and bar your passage when returning to heaven, by no
efforts will you be able to reach the prize of immortality, unless by
Christ's gift you have perceived what constitutes this very immortality,
and have been allowed to enter on the true life. For as to that with which
you have been in the habit of taunting us, that our religion is new,(11)
and arose a few days ago, almost, and that you could not abandon the
ancient faith which you had inherited from your fathers, and pass over to
barbarous and foreign rites, this is urged wholly without reason. For what
if in this way we chose to blame the preceding, even the most ancient ages,
because when they discovered how to raise crops,(12) they despised acorns,
and rejected with scorn the wild strawberry; because they ceased to be
covered with the bark of trees and clad in the hides of wild beasts, after
that garments of cloth were devised, more useful and convenient in wearing;
or because, when houses were built, and more comfortable dwellings erected,
they did not cling to their ancient huts, and did not prefer to remain
nuder rocks and caves like the beasts of the field? It is a disposition
possessed by all, and impressed on us almost from our cradles even, to
prefer good things to bad, useful to useless things, and to pursue and seek
that with more pleasure which has been generally regarded(13) as more than
usually precious, and to set on that our hopes for prosperity and
favourable circumstances.

   67. Therefore, when you urge against us that we turn away from the
religion(14) of past ages, it is fitting that you should examine why it is
done, not what is crone, and not set before you what we have left, but
observe especially what we have followed. For if it is a fault or crime to
change an opinion, and pass from ancient customs to new conditions and
desires, this accusation holds against you too, who have so often changed
your habits and mode of life, who have gone over to other customs and
ceremonies, so that you are condemned by(15) past ages as well as we. Do
you indeed have the people distributed into five(16) classes, as your
ancestors once had? Do you ever elect magistrates by vote of the people? Do
you know what military, urban, and common(1) comitia are? Do you watch the
sky, or put an end to public business because evil omens are announced?
When you are preparing for war,(2) do you hang out a flag from the citadel,
or practise the forms of the Fetiales, solemnly(3) demanding the return of
what has been carried off? or, when encountering the dangers of war, do you
begin to hope also, because of favourable omens from the points of the
spears?(4) In entering on office, do you still observe the laws fixing the
proper times? with regard to gifts and presents to advocates, do you
observe the Cincian and the sumptuary laws in restricting your expenses? Do
you maintain fires, ever burning, in gloomy sanctuaries?(5) Do you
consecrate tables by putting on them salt-cellars and images of the gods?
When you marry, do you spread the couch with a toga, and invoke the genii
of husbands? do you arrange the hair of brides with the hasta caelibaris?
do you bear the maidens' garments to the temple of Fortuna Virginalis? Do
your matrons work in the halls of your houses, showing their industry
openly do they refrain from drinking wine? are their friends and relations
allowed to kiss them, in order to show that they are sober and temperate?

   68. On the Alban hill, it was not allowed in ancient times to sacrifice
any but snow-white bulls: have you not changed that custom and religious
observance, and has it not been enacted by decree of the senate, that
reddish ones may be offered? While during the reigns of Romulus and
Pompilius the inner parts, having been quite thoroughly cooked and
softened, were burnt up in sacrificing to the gods, did you not begin,
under king Tullius,(6) to hold them out half-raw and slightly  warm, paying
no regard to the former usage? While before the arrival of Hercules in
Italy supplication was made to father Dis and Saturn with the heads of men
by Apollo's advice; have you not, in like manner, changed this custom too,
by means of cunning deceit and ambiguous names?(7) Since, then, yourselves
also have followed at one time these customs, at another different laws,
and have repudiated and rejected many things on either perceiving your
mistakes or seeing something better, what have we done contrary to common
sense and the discretion all men have, if we have chosen what is greater
and more certain, and have not suffered ourselves to be held back by
unreasoning respect for impostures?

   69. But our name is new, we are told, and the religion which we follow
arose but a few days ago. Granting for the present that what you urge
against us is not untrue, what is there, I would ask, among the affairs of
men that is either done by bodily exertion and manual labour, or attained
by the mind's learning and knowledge, which did not begin at some time, and
pass into general use and practice since then? Medicine,(8) philosophy,
music, and all the other arts by which social life has been built up and
refined,--were these born with men, and did they not rather begin to be
pursued, understood, and practised lately, nay, rather, but a short time
since? Before the Etruscan Tages saw the(9) light, did any one know or
trouble himself to know and learn what meaning there was in the fall of
thunderbolts, or in the veins of the victims sacrificed?(10) When did the
motion of the stars or the art of calculating nativities begin to be known?
Was it not after Theutis(11) the Egyptian; or after Atlas, as some say, the
bearer, supporter, stay, and prop of the skies?

   70. But why do I speak of these trivial things? The immortal gods
themselves, whose temples  you now enter with reverence, whose deity you
suppliantly adore, did they not at certain times, as is handed down by your
writings and traditions, begin to be, to be known and to be invoked by
names and titles which were given to them? For if it is true that Jupiter
with his brothers was born of Saturn and his wife, before Ops was married
and bore children Jupiter had not existed both the Supreme and the
Stygian,(12) no, nor the lord of the sea, nor Juno, nay more, no one
inhabited the heavenly seats except the two parents; but from their union
the other gods were conceived and born, and breathed the breath of life.
So, then, at a certain time the god Jupiter began to be, at a certain time
to merit worship anti sacrifices, at a certain time to be set above his
brothers in power.(13) But, again, if Liber, Venus, Diana, Mercury, Apollo,
Hercules, the Muses, the Tyndarian brothers,(14) and Vulcan the lord of
fire, were begotten by father Jupiter, and born of a parent sprung from
Saturn, before that Memory, Alcmena, Maia, Juno, Latona, Leda, Dione, and
Semele also bore children to Diespiter; these deities, too, were nowhere in
the world, nor in any part of the universe, but by Jupiter's embraces they
were begotten and born, and began to have some sense of their own
existence. So then, these, too, began to be at a certain time, and to be
summoned among the gods to the sacred rites. This we say, in like manner,
of Minerva. For if, as you assert, she burst forth from Jupiter's head
ungenerated,(1) before Jupiter was begotten, and received in his mother's
womb the shape and outline of his body,(2) it is quite certain that Minerva
did not exist, and was not reckoned among things or as existing at all; but
from Jove's head she was born, and began to have a real existence. She
therefore has an origin at the first, and began to be called a goddess at a
certain time, to be set up in temples, and to be consecrated by the
inviolable obligations of religion. Now as this is the case, when you talk
of the novelty of our religion, does your own not come into your thoughts,
and do you not take care to examine when your gods sprung up,--what
origins, what causes they have, or from what stocks they have burst forth
and sprung? But how shameful how shameless it is to censure that in another
which you see that you do yourself,--to take occasion to revile and accuse
others for things which can be retorted upon you in turn!

   71. But our rites are(3) new; yours are ancient, and of excessive
antiquity, we are told. And what help does that give you, or how does it
damage our cause and argument? The belief(4) which we hold is new; some day
even it, too, will become old: yours is old; but when it arose, it was new
and unheard of. The credibility of a religion, however, must not be
determined by its age, but by its divinity; and you should consider not
when, but what you began to worship. Four hundred years ago, my opponent
says, your religion did not exist. And two thousand years ago, I reply,
your gods did not exist. By what reckoning, you ask, or by what
calculations, can that be inferred? They are not difficult, not intricate,
but can be seen by any one who will take them in hand even, as the saying
is. Who begot Jupiter and his brothers? Saturn with Ops, as you relate,
sprung from Coelus and Hecate. Who begot Picus, the father of Faunus and
grandfather of Latinus? Saturn, as you again hand down by your books and
teachers? Therefore, if this is the case, Picus and Jupiter are in
consequence united by the bond  of kinship, inasmuch as they are sprung
from one  stock and race. It is clear, then, that what we say is true. How
many steps are there in coming down(5) from Jupiter and Picus to Latinus?
Three, as the line of succession shows. Will you suppose Faunus, Latinus,
and Picus to have each lived a hundred and twenty years, for beyond this it
is  that man's life cannot be pro  longed? The estimation is well grounded
and clear. There are, then, three hundred and sixty years garter these?(6)
It is just as the calculation shows. Whose father-in-law was Latinus?
Aeneas'. Whose father was he?(7) He was father of the  founder of the town
Alba. How many years did kings reign in Alba? Four hundred and  twenty
almost. Of what age is the city Rome shown to be in the annals? It reckons
ten(8) hundred and fifty years, or not much less. So, then, from Jupiter,
who is the brother of Picus and father of the other and lesser gods, down
to the  present time, there are nearly, or to add a little to the time,
altogether, two thousand years. Now since this cannot be contradicted, not
only is the  religion to which you adhere shown to have  sprung up lately;
but it is also shown that the gods themselves, to whom you heap up bulls
and other victims at the risk of bringing on disease, are young and little
children, who should still be fed with their mothers' milk.(9)

   72. But your religion precedes ours by many years, and is therefore,
you say, truer, because it has been supported by the authority of
antiquity. And of what avail is it that it should precede ours as many
years as you please, since it began at a certain time? or what(10) are two
thousand years, compared with so many thousands of ages? And yet, lest we
should seem to betray our cause by so long neglect, say, if it does not
annoy you, does the Almighty and Supreme God seem to you to be something
new; and do those who adore and worship Him seem to you to support and
introduce an unheard-of, unknown, and upstart religion? Is there anything
older than Him? or can anything be found preceding Him in being,(11) time,
name? Is not He alone uncreated, immortal, and everlasting? Who is the
head(12) and fountain of things? is not He? To whom does eternity owe its
name? is it not to Him? Is it not because He is everlasting, that the ages
go on without end? This is beyond doubt, and true: the religion which we
follow is not new, then, but we have been late in learning what we should
follow and revere, or where we should both fix our hope of salvation, and
employ the aid given to save us. For He had not yet shone forth who was to
point out the way to those wandering  from it, and give the light of
knowledge to those who were lying in the deepest darkness, and dispel the
blindness of their ignorance.

   73. But are we alone in this position?(1) What! have you not introduced
into the number of your gods the Egyptian deities named Serapis and Isis,
since the consulship of Piso and Gabinius?(2) What! did you not begin both
to know and be acquainted with, and to worship with remarkable honours, the
Phrygian mother--who, it is said, was first set up as a goddess by Midas or
Dardanus--when Hannibal, the Carthaginian, was plundering Italy and aiming
at the empire of the world?(3) Are not the sacred rites of mother Ceres,
which were adopted but a little while ago, called Graeca because they were
unknown to you, their name bearing witness to their novelty? Is it not
said(4) in the writings of the learned, that the rituals of Numa Pompilius
do not contain the name of Apollo? Now it is clear and manifest from this,
that he, too, was unknown to you. but that at some time afterwards he began
to be known also. If any one, therefore, should ask yon why you have so
lately begun to worship those deities whom we mentioned just now, it is
certain that you will reply, either because we were till lately not aware
that they were gods, or because we have now been warned by the seers, or
because, in very trying circumstances, we have been preserved by their
favour and help. But if you think that this is well said  by you, you must
consider that, on our part, a similar reply has been made. Our religion has
sprung up just now; for now He has arrived who was sent to declare it to
us, to bring us to its truth; to show what God is; to summon us from mere
conjectures, to His worship.

   74. And why, my, opponent says, did God, the Ruler and Lord of the
universe, determine that a Saviour, Christ, should be sent to you from the
heights of heaven a few hours ago, as it is said? We ask you too, on the
other hand, what cause,  what reason is there that the seasons sometimes do
not recur at their own months, but that winter, summer, and autumn come too
late? why, after the crops have been dried up and the corn(5) has perished,
showers sometimes fall which should have dropped on them while yet
uninjured, and made provision for the wants of the time? Nay, this we
rather ask, why, if it were fitting that Hercules should be born,
Aesculapius, Mercury, Liber, and some others, that they might be both added
to the assemblies of the gods, and might do men some service,--why they
were produced so late by Jupiter, that only later ages should know them,
while the past ages(6) of those who went before knew them not? You will say
that there was some reason. There was then some reason here also that the
Saviour of our race came not lately, but to-day. What, then, you ask, is
the reason? We do not deny that we do not know. For it is not within the
power of any one to see the mind of God, or the way in which He has
arranged His plans.(7) Man, a blind creature, and not knowing himself even,
can(8) in no way learn what should happen, when, or what its nature is: the
Father Himself, the Governor and Lord of all, alone knows. Nor, if I have
been unable to disclose to you the causes why something is done in this way
or that, does it straightway follow, that what has been done becomes not
done, and that a thing becomes incredible, which has been shown to be
beyond doubt by such(9) virtues and(10) powers.

   75. You may object and rejoin, Why was the Saviour sent forth so late?
In unbounded, eternal ages, we reply, nothing whatever should be spoken of
as late. For where there is no end and no beginning, nothing is too
soon,(11) nothing too late. For time is perceived from its beginnings anti
endings, which an unbroken line and endless(12) succession of ages cannot
have. For what if the things themselves to which it was necessary to bring
help, required that as a fitting time? For what if the condition of
antiquity was different from that of later times? What if it was necessary
to give help to the men of old in one way, to provide for their descendants
in another? Do ye not hear your own writings read, telling that there were
once men who were demi-gods, heroes with immense and huge bodies? Do you
not read that infants on their mothers' breasts shrieked like.
Stentors,(13) whose bones, when dug up in different parts of the earth,
have made the discoverers almost doubt that they were the remains of human
limbs? So, then, it may be that Almighty God, the only God, sent forth
Christ then indeed, after that the human race, becoming feebler, weaker,
began to be such as we are. If that which has been done now could have been
done thousands of years ago, the Supreme Ruler would have done it; or if it
had been proper, that what has been done now should be accomplished as many
thousands after this, nothing compelled God to anticipate the necessary
lapse(1) of time. His plans(2) are executed in fixed ways; and that which
has been once decided on, can in no wise be changed again.(3)

   76. Inasmuch then, you say, as you serve the Almighty God, and trust
that He cares for your safety and salvation, why does He suffer you to be
exposed to such storms of persecution, and to undergo all kinds of
punishments and tortures? Let us, too, ask in reply, why, seeing that you
worship so great and so innumerable gods, and build temples to them,
fashion images of gold, sacrifice herds of animals, and all heap up(4)
boxfuls of incense on the already loaded altars, why you live subject to so
many dangers and storms of calamity, with which many fatal misfortunes vex
you every day? Why, I say, do your gods neglect to avert from you so many
kinds of disease and sickness, shipwrecks, downfalls, conflagrations,
pestilences, barrenness, loss of children, and confiscation of goods,
discords, wars, enmities, captures of cities, and the slavery of those who
are robbed of their rights of free birth?(5) But, my opponent says, in such
mischances we, too, are in no wise helped by God. The cause is plain and
manifest. For no hope has been held out to us with respect to this life,
nor has any help been promised or(6) aid decreed us for what belongs to the
husk of this flesh,--nay, more, we have been taught to esteem and value
lightly all the threats of fortune, whatever they be; and if ever any very
grievous calamity has assailed us, to count as pleasant in that
misfortune(7) the end which must follow, and not to  fear or flee from it,
that we may be the more easily released from the bonds of the body, and
escape from our darkness and(8) blindness.

   77. Therefore that bitterness of persecution of which you speak is our
deliverance and not persecution, and our ill-treatment will not bring evil
upon us, but will lead us to the light of liberty. As if some senseless and
stupid fellow were to think that he never punished a man who had been put
into prison(9) with severity and cruelty, unless he were to rage against
the very prison, break its stones in pieces, and burn its roof, its  wall,
its doors; and strip, overthrow, and dash to the ground its other parts,
not knowing that thus he was giving light to him whom he seemed to be
injuring, and was taking from him the accursed darkness: in like manner,
you too, by the  flames, banishments, tortures, and monsters with which you
tear in pieces and rend asunder our bodies, do not rob us of life, but
relieve us of our skins, not knowing that, as far as you assault and  seek
to rage against these our shadows and forms, so far you free us from
pressing and heavy chains, and cutting our bonds, make us fly up to the
light.

   78. Wherefore, O men, refrain from obstructing what you hope for by
vain questions; nor should you, if anything is otherwise than you think,
trust your own opinions rather than that which should be reverenced.(10)
The times, full of dangers, urge us, and fatal penalties threaten us; let
us flee for safety to God our Saviour, without demanding the reason of the
offered gift. When that at stake is our souls' salvation and our own
interests, something must be done even without reason, as Arrhianus
approves of Epictetus having said.(11) We doubt, we hesitate, and suspect
the credibility of what is said; let us commit ourselves to God, and let
not our incredulity prevail more with us than the greatness of His name and
power, lest, while we are seeking out arguments for ourselves, through
which that may seem false which we do not wish and deny to be true, the
last day steal upon us, and we be found in the jaws of our enemy, death.

BOOK III.

   1. All these charges, then, which might truly be better termed abuse,
have been long answered with sufficient fulness and accuracy by men of
distinction in this respect, and worthy to have learned the truth; and not
one point of any inquiry has been passed over, without being determined in
a thousand ways, and on the strongest grounds. We need not, therefore,
linger further on this part of the case. For neither is the Christian
religion unable to stand though it found no advocates, nor will it be
therefore proved true if it found many to agree with it, and gained weight
through its adherents.(1) Its own strength is sufficient for it, and it
rests on the foundations of its own truth, without losing its power, though
there were none to defend it, nay, though all voices assailed and opposed
it, and united with common rancour to destroy all faith(2) in it.

   2. Let us now return to the order from which we were a little ago
compelled to diverge, that our defence may not, through its being too long
broken off, be said to have given our detractors cause to triumph in the
establishing of their charge. For they propose these questions: If you are
in earnest about religion, why do you not serve and worship the other gods
with us, or share your sacred rites with your fellows, and put the
ceremonies of the different religions on an equality? We may say for the
present: In essaying to approach the divine, the Supreme Deity(3) suffices
us,--the Deity, I say, who is supreme, the Creator and Lord of the
universe, who orders and rules all things: in Him we serve all that
requires our service; in Him we worship all that should be adored,--
venerate(4) that which demands the homage of our reverence. For as we lay
hold of the source of the divine itself from which the very divinity of all
gods whatever is derived,(5) we think it an idle task to approach each
personally, since we neither know who they are, nor the names by which they
are called; and are further unable to learn, and discover, and establish
their number.

   3. And as in the kingdoms of earth we are in no wise constrained
expressly to do reverence to those who form the royal family as well as to
the sovereigns, but whatever honour belongs to them is found to be
tacitly(6) implied in the homage offered to the kings themselves; in just
the same way, these gods, whoever they be, for whose existence you vouch,
if they are a royal race, and spring from the Supreme Ruler, even though we
do not expressly do them reverence, yet feel that they are honoured in
common with their Lord, and share in the reverence shown to Him. Now it
must be remembered that we have made this statement, on the hypothesis only
that it is clear and undeniable, that besides the Ruler and Lord Himself,
there are still other beings,(7) who, when arranged and disposed in order,
form, as it were, a kind of plebeian mass. But do not seek to point out to
us pictures instead of gods in your temples, and the images which you set
up, for you too know, but are unwilling and refuse to admit, that these are
formed of most worthless clay, and are childish figures made by mechanics.
And when we converse with you on religion, we ask you to prove this, that
there are other gods than the one Supreme Deity in nature, power, name, not
as we see them manifested in images, but in such a substance as it might
fittingly be supposed that perfection of so great dignity should reside.

   4. But we do not purpose delaying further on this part of the subject,
lest we seem desirous to stir up most violent strife, and engage in
agitating contests.

   Let there be, as you affirm, that crowd of deities, let there be
numberless families of gods; we assent, agree, and do not examine too
closely, nor in any part of the subject do we assail the doubtful and
uncertain positions you hold. This, however, we demand, and ask you to tell
us, whence you have discovered, or how you have learned, whether there are
these gods,(8) whom you believe to be in heaven and serve, or some others
unknown by reputation and name? For it may be that beings exist whom you do
not believe to do so; and that those of whose existence you feel assured,
are found nowhere in the universe. For you have at no time been borne aloft
to the stars of heaven, at no time have seen the face and countenance of
each; and then established here the worship of the same gods, whom you
remembered to be there, as having been known and seen by you. But this,
too, we again would learn from you, whether they have received these names
by which you call them, or assumed them themselves on the days of
purification.(1) If these are divine and celestial names, who reported them
to you? But if, on the other hand, these names have been applied to them by
you, how could you give names to those whom you never saw, and whose
character or circumstances you in no wise(2) knew?

   5. But let it be assumed that there are these gods, as you wish and
believe, and are persuaded; let them be called also by those names by which
the common people suppose that those meaner gods(3) are known.(4) Whence,
however, have you learned who make up the list of gods under these
names?(5) have any ever become familiar and known to others with whose
names you were not acquainted?(6) For it cannot be easily known whether
their numerous body is settled and fixed in number; or whether their
multitude cannot be summed up and limited by the numbers of any
computation. For let us suppose that you do reverence to a thousand, or
rather five thousand gods; but in the universe it may perhaps be that there
are a hundred thousand; there may be even more than this,--nay, as we said
a little before, it may not be possible to compute the number of the gods,
or limit them by a definite number. Either, then, you are yourselves
impious who serve a few gods, but disregard the duties which you owe to the
rest;(7) or if you claim that your ignorance of the rest should be
pardoned, you will procure for us also a similar pardon, if in just the
same way(8) we refuse to worship those of whose existence we are wholly
ignorant.

   6. And yet let no one think that we are perversely determined not to
submit to(9) the other deities, whoever they are! For we lift up pious
minds, and stretch forth our hands in prayer,(10) and do not refuse to draw
near whithersoever you may have summoned us; if only we learn who those
divine beings are whom you press upon us, and with whom it may be right to
share the reverence which we show to the king and prince who is over all.
It is Saturn, my opponent says, and Janus, Minerva, Juno, Apollo, Venus,
Triptolemus, Hercules, Aesculapius, and all the others, to whom the
reverence of antiquity dedicated magnificent temples in almost every city.
You might, perhaps, have been able to attract us to the worship of these
deities you mention, had you not been yourselves the first, with foul and
unseemly fancies, to devise such tales about them as not merely to stain
their honour, but, by the natures assigned to them, to prove that they did
not exist at all. For, in the first place, we cannot be led to believe
this,--that that immortal and supreme nature has been divided by sexes, and
that there are some male, others female. But this point, indeed, has been
long ago fully treated of by men of ardent genius, both in Latin and Greek;
and Tullius, the most eloquent among the Romans, without dreading the
vexatiousness of a charge of impiety, has above all, with greater
piety,(11) declared--boldly, firmly, and frankly--what he thought of such a
fancy; and if you would proceed to receive from him opinions written with
true discernment, instead of merely brilliant sentences, this case would
have been concluded; nor would it require at our weak hands(12) a second
pleading,(13) as it is termed.

   7. But why should I say that men seek from him subtleties of expression
and splendour of diction, when I know that there are many who avoid and
flee from his books on this subject, and will not hear his opinions
read,(14) overthrowing their prejudices; and when I hear others muttering
angrily, and saying that the senate should decree the destruction(15) of
these writings by which the Christian religion is maintained, and the
weight of antiquity overborne? But, indeed, if you are convinced that
anything you say regarding your gods is beyond doubt, point out Cicero's
error, refute, rebut his rash and impious words,(16) and show that they are
so. For when you would carry off writings, and suppress a book given forth
to the public, you are not defending the gods, but dreading the evidence of
the truth.

   8. And yet, that no thoughtless person may raise a false accusation
against us, as though we believed God whom we worship to be male,--for this
reason, that is, that when we speak of Him we use a masculine word,--let
him understand that it is not sex which is expressed, but  His name, and
its meaning according to custom, and the way in which we are in the habit
of using words.(1) For the Deity is not male, but His name is of the
masculine gender: but in your ceremonies you cannot say the same; for in
your prayers you have been wont to say  whether thou art god or goddess,(2)
and this uncertain description shows, even by their opposition,  that you
attribute sex to the gods. We cannot, then, be prevailed on to believe that
the divine is embodied; for bodies must needs be distinguished by
difference of sex, if they are male and female. For who, however mean his
capacity,(3) does not know that the sexes of different gender have been
ordained and formed by the Creator of the creatures of earth, only that, by
intercourse and union of bodies, that which is fleeting and transient may
endure being ever renewed and maintained?(4)

   9. What, then, shall we say? That gods beget and are begotten?(5) and
that therefore they have received organs of generation, that they might be
able to raise up offspring, and that, as each new race springs up, a
substitution, regularly occurring,(6) should make up for all which had been
swept away by the preceding age? If, then, it is so,--that is, if the gods
above beget other gads, and are subject to these conditions of sex,(7) and
are immortal, and are not worn out, by the chills of age,--it follows, as a
consequence, that the world(8) should be full of gods, and that countless
heavens could not contain their multitude, inasmuch as they are both
themselves ever begetting, and the countless multitude of their
descendants, always being increased, is augumented by means of their
offspring; or if, as is fitting, the gods are not degraded by being
subjected to sexual impulses,(9) what cause or reason will be pointed out
for their being distinguished by those members by which the sexes are wont
to recognise each other at the suggestion of their own desires? For it is
not likely that they have these members without a purpose, or that nature
had wished in them to make sport of its own improvidence,(10) in providing
them with members for which there would be no use. For as the hands, feet,
eyes, and other members which form our body,(11) have been arranged for
certain uses, each for its own end, so we may well(12) believe that these
members have been provided to discharge their office; or it must be
confessed that there is something without a purpose in the bodies of the
gods, which has been made uselessly and in vain.

   10. What say you, ye holy and pure guardians of religion? Have the
gods, then, sexes; and are they disfigured by those parts, the very mention
of whose names by modest lips is disgraceful? What, then, now remains, but
to believe that they, as unclean beasts, are transported with violent
passions, rush with maddened desires into mutual embraces, and at last,
with shattered and ruined bodies, are enfeebled by their sensuality? And
since some things are peculiar to the female sex, we must believe that the
goddesses, too, submit to these conditions at the proper time, conceive and
become pregnant with loathing, miscarry, carry the full time, and sometimes
are prematurely delivered. O divinity, pure, holy, free from and unstained
by any dishonourable blot! The mind longs(13) and burns to see, in the
great halls and palaces of heaven, gods and goddesses, with bodies
uncovered and bare, the full-breasted Ceres nursing Iacchus,(14) as the
muse of Lucretius sings, the Hellespontian Priapus bearing about among the
goddesses, virgin and matron, those parts(15) ever prepared for encounter.
It longs, I say, to see goddesses pregnant, goddesses with child, and, as
they daily increase in size, faltering in their steps, through the
irksomeness of the burden they bear about with them; others, after long
delay, bringing to birth, and seeking the midwife's aid; others, shrieking
as they are attacked by keen pangs and grievous pains, tormented,(16) and,
under all these influences, imploring the aid of Juno Lucina. Is it not
much better to abuse, revile, and otherwise insult the gods, than, with
pious pretence, unworthily to entertain such monstrous beliefs about them?

   11. And you dare to charge us with offending the gods, although, on
examination, it is found that the ground of offence is most clearly in
ourselves, and that it is not occasioned by the insult which you think(1)
we offer them. For if the gods are, as you say, moved by anger, and burn
with rage in their minds, why should we not suppose that they take it
amiss, even in the highest degree, that you attribute to them sexes, as
dogs and swine have been created, and that, since this is your belief, they
are so represented, and openly exposed in a disgraceful manner? This, then,
being the case, you are the cause of all troubles--you lead the gods, you
rouse them to harass the earth with every ill, and every day to devise all
kinds of fresh misfortunes, that so they may avenge themselves, being
irritated at suffering so many wrongs and insults from you. By your insults
and affronts, I say, partly in the vile stories, partly in the shameful
beliefs which your theologians, your poets, you yourselves too, celebrate
in disgraceful ceremonies, you will find that the affairs of men have been
ruined, and that the gods have thrown away the helm, if indeed it is by
their care that the fortunes of men are guided and arranged. For with us,
indeed, they have no reason to be angry, whom they see and perceive neither
to mock, as it is said, nor worship them, and to think,(2) to believe much
more worthily than you with regard to the dignity of their name.

   12. Thus far of sex. Now let us come to the appearance and shapes by
which yon believe that the gods above have been represented, with which,
indeed, you fashion, and set them up in their most splendid abodes, your
temples. And let no one here bring up against us Jewish fables and those of
the sect of the Sadducees,(3) as though we, too, attribute to the Deity
forms;(4) for this is supposed to be taught in their writings, and asserted
as if with assurance and authority. For these stories either do not concern
us, and have nothing at all in common with us, or if they are shared in by
us, as you believe, you must seek out teachers of greater wisdom, through
whom you may be able to learn how best to overcome the dark and recondite
sayings of those writings. Our opinion on the subject is as follows:--that
the whole divine nature, since it neither came into existence at any time,
nor will ever come to an end of life, is devoid of bodily features, and
does not have anything like the forms with which the termination of the
several members usually. completes the union of parts.(5) For whatever is
of this character, we think mortal and perishable; nor do we believe that
that can endure for ever which an inevitable end shuts in, though the
boundaries enclosing it be the remotest.

   13. But it is not enough that you limit the gods by forms:--you even
confine them to the human figure, and with even less decency enclose them
in earthly bodies. What shall we say then? that the gods have a head
modelled with perfect symmetry,(6) bound fast by sinews to the back and
breast, and that, to allow the necessary bending of the neck, it is
supported by combinations of vertebrae, and by an osseous foundation? But
if we believe this to be true, it follows that they have ears also, pierced
by crooked windings; rolling eyeballs, overshadowed by the edges of the
eyebrows; a nose, placed as a channel,(7) through which waste fluids and a
current of air might easily pass; teeth to masticate food, of three kinds,
and adapted to three services; hands to do their work, moving easily by
means of joints, fingers, and flexible elbows; feet to support their
bodies, regulate their steps, and prompt the first motions in walking. But
if the gods hear these things which are seen, it is fitting that they
should bear those also which the skin conceals under the framework of the
ribs, and the membranes enclosing the viscera; windpipes, stomachs,
spleens, lungs, bladders, livers, the long-entwined intestines, and the
veins of purple blood, joined with the air-passages,(8) coursing through
the whole viscera.

   14. Are, then, the divine bodies free from these deformities? and since
they do not eat the food of men, are we to believe that, like children,
they are toothless, and, having no internal parts, as if they were inflated
bladders, are without strength, owing to the hollowness of their swollen
bodies? Further, if this is the case, you must see whether the gods are all
alike, or are marked by a difference in the contour of their forms. For if
each and all have one and the same likeness of shape, there is nothing
ridiculous in believing that they err, and are deceived in recognising each
other.(9) But if, on the other hand, they are distinguished by their
countenances, we should, consequently, understand that these differences
have been implanted for no other reason than that they might individually
be able to recognise themselves by the peculiarites of the different marks.
We should therefore say that some have big heads, prominent brows, broad
brows, thick lips; that others of them have long chins, moles, and high
noses; that these have dilated nostrils, those are snub-nosed; some chubby
from a swelling of their jaws or growth of their cheeks, dwarfed, tall, of
middle size, lean, sleek, fat; some with crisped and curled hair, others
shaven, with bald and smooth heads. Now your workshops show and point out
that our opinions are not false, inasmuch as, when you form and fashion
gods, you represent some with long hair, others smooth and bare, as old, as
youths, as boys, swarthy, grey-eyed, yellow, half-naked, bare; or, that
cold may not annoy them, covered with flowing garments thrown over them.

   15. Does any man at all possessed of judgment, believe that hairs and
down grow on the bodies of the gods? that among them age is distinguished?
and that they go about clad in dresses and garments of various shapes, and
shield themselves from heat and cold? But if any one believes that, he must
receive this also as true, that some gods are fullers, some barbers; the
former to cleanse the sacred garments, the latter to thin their locks when
matted with a thick growth of hair. Is not this really degrading, most
impious, and insulting, to attribute to the gods the features of a frail
and perishing animal? to furnish them with those members which no modest
person would dare to recount, and describe, or represent in his own
imagination, without shuddering at the excessive indecency? Is this the
contempt you entertain,--this the proud wisdom with which you spurn us as
ignorant, and think that all knowledge of religion is yours? You mock the
mysteries of the Egyptians, because they ingrafted the forms of dumb
animals upon their divine causes, and because they worship these very
images with much incense, and whatever else is used in such rites: you
yourselves adore images of men, as though they were powerful gods, and are
not ashamed to give to these the countenance of an earthly creature, to
blame others for their mistaken folly, and to be detected in a similarly
vicious error.

   16. But you will, perhaps, say that the gods have indeed other forms,
and that you have given the appearance of men to them merely by  way of
honour, and for form's sake(1) which is much more insulting than to have
fallen into any  error through ignorance. For if you confessed that you had
ascribed to the divine forms that  which you had supposed and believed,
your error, originating in prejudice, would not be so blameable. But now,
when you believe one thing and fashion another, you both dishonour those to
whom yon ascribe that which you confess does not belong to them, and show
your impiety in adoring that which you fashion, not that which you think
really is, and which is in very truth. If asses, dogs, pigs,(2) had any
human wisdom and skill in contrivance, and wished to do us honour also by
some kind of worship, and to show respect by dedicating statues to us, with
what rage would they inflame us, what a tempest of passion would they
excite, if they determined that our images should bear and assume the
fashion of their own bodies? How would they, I repeat, fill us with rage,
and rouse our passions, if the founder of Rome, Romulus, were to be set up
with an ass's face, the revered Pompilius with that of a dog, if under the
image of a pig were written Cato's or Marcus Cicero's name? So, then, do
you think that your stupidity is not laughed at by your deities, if they
laugh at all? or, since you believe that they may be enraged, do you think
that they are not roused, maddened to fury, and that they do not wish to be
revenged for so great wrongs and insults, and to hurl on you the
punishments usually dictated by chagrin, and devised by bitter hatred? How
much better it had been to give to them the forms of elephants, panthers,
or tigers, bulls, and horses! For what is there beautiful in man,--what, I
pray you, worthy of admiration, or comely,--unless that which, some poet(3)
has maintained, he possesses in common with the ape?

   17. But, they say, if you are not satisfied with our opinion, do you
point out, tell us yourselves, what is the Deity's form. If you wish to
hear the truth, either the Deity has no form; or if He is embodied in one,
we indeed know not what it is. Moreover, we think it no disgrace to be
ignorant of that which we never saw; nor are we therefore prevented from
disproving the opinions of others, because on this we have no opinion of
our own to bring forward. For as, if the earth be said to be of glass,
silver, iron, or gathered together and made from brittle clay, we cannot
hesitate to maintain that this is untrue, although we do not know of what
it is made; so, when the form of God is discussed, we show that it is not
what you maintain, even if we are still able to explain what it is.

   18. What, then, some one will say, does the Deity not hear? does He not
speak? does He not see what is put before Him? has He not sight? He may in
His own, but not in our way. But in so great a matter we cannot know the
truth at all, or reach it by speculations; for these are, it is clear, in
our case, baseless, deceitful, and like vain dreams. For if we said that He
sees in the same way as ourselves, it follows that it should be understood
that He has eyelids placed as coverings on the pupils of the eyes, that He
closes them, winks, sees by rays or images, or, as is the case in all eyes,
can see nothing at all without the presence of other light. So we must in
like manner say of hearing, and form of speech, and utterance of words. If
He nears by means of ears, these, too, we must say, He has, penetrated by
winding paths, through which the sound may steal, bearing the meaning of
the discourse; or if His words are poured forth from a mouth, that He has
lips and teeth, by the contact and various movement of which His tongue
utters sounds distinctly, and forms His voice to words.

   19. If you are willing to hear our conclusions, then learn that we are
so far from attributing bodily shape to the Deity, that we fear to ascribe
to so great a being even mental graces, and the very excellences by which a
few have been allowed with difficulty to distinguish themselves. For who
will say that God is brave, firm, good, wise? who will say that He has
integrity, is temperate, even that He has knowledge, understanding,
forethought? that He directs towards fixed moral ends the actions on which
He determines? These things are good in man; and being opposed to vices,
have deserved the great reputation which they have gained. But who is so
foolish, so senseless, as to say that God is great by merely human
excellences? or that He is above all in the greatness of His name, because
He is not disgraced by vice? Whatever you say, whatever in unspoken thought
you imagine concerning God, passes and is corrupted into a human sense, and
does not carry its own meaning, because it is spoken in the words which we
use, and which are suited only to human affairs. There is but one thing man
can be assured of regarding God's nature, to know and perceive that nothing
can be revealed in human language concerning God.

   20. This, then, this matter of forms and sexes, is the first affront
which you, noble advocates in sooth, and pious writers, offer to your
deities. But what is the next, that you represent to us(1) the gods, some
as artificers, some physicians, others working in wool, as sailors,(2)
players on the harp and flute, hunters, shepherds, and, as there was
nothing more, rustics? And that god, he says, is a musician, and this other
can divine; for the other gods cannot,(3) and do not know how to foretell
what will come to pass, owing to their want of skill and ignorance of the
future. One is instructed in obstetric arts, another trained up in the
science of medicine. Is each, then, powerful in his own department; and can
they give no assistance, if their aid is asked, in what belongs to another?
This one is eloquent in speech, and ready in linking words together; for
the others are stupid, and can say nothing skilfully, if they must speak.

   21. And, I ask, what reason is there, what unavoidable necessity, what
occasion for the gods knowing and being acquainted with these handicrafts
as though they were worthless mechanics? For, are songs sung and music
played in heaven, that the nine sisters may gracefully combine and
harmonize pauses and rhythms of tones? Are there on the mountains(4) of the
stars, forests, woods, groves, that(5) Diana may be esteemed very mighty in
hunting expeditions? Are the gods ignorant of the immediate future; and do
they live and pass the time according to the lots assigned them by fate,
that the inspired son of Latona may explain and declare what the morrow or
the next hour bears to each? Is he himself inspired by another god, and is
he urged and roused by the power of a greater divinity, so that he may be
rightly said and esteemed to be divinely inspired? Are the gods liable to
be seized by diseases; and is there anything by which they may be wounded
and hurt, so that, when there is occasion, he(6) of Epidaurus may come to
their assistance? Do they labour, do they bring forth, that Juno may
soothe, and Lucina abridge the terrible pangs of childbirth? Do they engage
in agriculture, or are they concerned with the duties of war, that Vulcan,
the lord of fire, may form for them swords, or forge their rustic
implements? Do they need to be covered with garments, that the Tritonian(7)
maid may, with nice skill,(8) spin, weave cloth for them, and make(9) them
tunics to suit the season, either triple-twilled, or of silken fabric? Do
they make accusations and refute them, that the descendant(10) of Atlas may
carry off the prize for eloquence, attained by assiduous practice?

   22. You err, my opponent says, and are deceived; for the gods are not
themselves artificers, but suggest these arts to ingenious men, and teach
mortals what they should know, that their mode of life may be more
civilized. But he who gives any instruction to the ignorant and unwilling,
and strives to make him intelligently expert in some kind of work, must
himself first know that which he sets the other to practise. For no one can
be capable of teaching a science without knowing the rules of that which he
teaches, and having grasped its method most thoroughly. The gods are, then,
the first artificers; whether because they inform the minds of men with
knowledge, as you say yourselves, or because, being immortal and
unbegotten, they surpass the whole race of earth by their length of
life.(1) This, then, is the question; there being no occasion for these
arts among the gods, neither their necessities nor nature requiring in them
any ingenuity or mechanical skill, why you should say that they are
skilled,(2) one in one craft, another in another, and that individuals are
pre-eminently expert(3) in particular departments in which they are
distinguished by acquaintance with the several branches of science?

   23. But you will, perhaps, say that the gods are not artificers, but
that they preside over these arts, and have their oversight; nay, that
under their care all things have been placed, which we manage and conduct,
and that their providence sees to the happy and fortunate issue of these.
Now this would certainly appear to be said justly, and with some
probability, if all we engage in, all we do, or all we attempt in human
affairs, sped as we wished and purposed. But since every day the reverse is
the case, and the results of actions do not correspond to the purpose of
the will, it is trifling to say that we have, set as guardians over as,
gods invented by our superstitious fancy, not grasped with assured
certainty. Portunus(4) gives to the sailor perfect safety in traversing the
seas; but why has the raging sea cast up so many cruelly-shattered wrecks?
Consus suggests to our minds courses safe and serviceable; and why does an
unexpected change perpetually issue in results other than were looked  for?
Pales and Inuus(5) are set as guardians over the flocks and herds; why do
they, with hurtful laziness,(6) not take care to avert from the herds in
their summer pastures, cruel, infectious, and destructive diseases? The
harlot Flora,(7) venerated in lewd sports, sees well to it that the fields
blossom; and why are buds and tender plants daily nipt and destroyed by
most hurtful frost? Juno presides over childbirth, and aids travailing
mothers; and why are a thousand mothers every day cut off in murderous
throes? Fire is under Vulcan's care, and its source is placed under his
control; and why does he, very often, suffer temples and parts of cities to
fall into ashes devoured by flames? The soothsayers receive the knowledge
of their art from the Pythian god; and why does he so often give and afford
answers equivocal, doubtful, steeped in darkness and obscurity? Aesculapius
presides over the duties and arts of medicine; and why cannot men in more
kinds of disease and sickness be restored to health and soundness of body?
while, on the contrary, they become worse under the hands of the physician.
Mercury is occupied with(8) combats, and presides over boxing and wrestling
matches; and why does he not make all invincible who are in his charge?
why, when appointed to one office, does he enable some to win the victory,
while he suffers others to be ridiculed for their disgraceful weakness?

   24. No one, says my opponent, makes supplication to the tutelar
deities, and they therefore withhold their usual favours and help. Cannot
the gods, then, do good, except they receive incense and consecrated
offerings?(9) and do they quit and renounce their posts, unless they see
their altars anointed with the blood of cattle? And vet I thought but now
that the kindness of the gods was of their own free will, and that the
unlooked-for gifts of benevolence flowed unsought from them. Is, then, the
King of the universe solicited by any libation or sacrifice to grant to the
races of men all the comforts of life? Does the Deity not impart the sun's
fertilizing warmth, and the season of night, the winds, the rains, the
fruits, to all alike,--the good and the bad, the unjust and the just,(10)
the free-born and the slave, the poor and the rich? For this belongs to the
true and mighty God, to show kindness, unasked, to that which is weary and
feeble, and always encompassed by misery, of many kinds. For to grant your
prayers on the offering of sacrifices, is not to bring help to those who
ask it, but to sell the riches of their beneficence. We men trifle, and are
foolish in so great a matter; anti, forgetting what(11) God is, and the
majesty of His name, associate with the tutelar deities whatever meanness
or baseness our morbid credulity can invent.

   25. Unxia, my opponent says, presides over the anointing of door-posts;
Cinxia over the loosening of the zone; the most venerable Victa(12) and
Potua attend to eating and drinking. O rare and admirable interpretation of
the divine powers! would gods not have names(1) if brides did not besmear
their husbands' door-posts with greasy ointment; were it not that husbands,
when now eagerly drawing near, unbind the maiden-girdle; if men did not eat
and drink? Moreover, not satisfied to have subjected and involved the gods
in cares so unseemly, you also ascribe to them dispositions fierce, cruel,
savage, ever rejoicing in the ills and destruction of mankind.god-

   26. We shall not here mention Laverna, goddess of thieves, the
Bellonae, Discordiae, Furiae thieves, the Bellonae, Discordiae Furiae;  and
we pass by in utter silence the unpropitious deities whom you have set up.
We shall bring forward Mars himself, and the fair mother of the Desires; to
one of whom you commit wars, to the other love and passionate desire. My
opponent says that Mars has power over wars; whether to quell those which
are raging, or to revive them when interrupted, and kindle them in time of
peace? For if he clams the madness of war, why do wars rage every day? but
if he is their author, we shall then say that the god, to satisfy his own
inclination, involves the whole world in strife; sows the seeds of discord
and variance between far-distant peoples; gathers so many thousand men from
different quarters, and speedily heaps up the field with dead bodies; makes
the streams flow with blood, sweeps away the most firmly-founded empires,
lays cities in the dust, robs the free of their liberty, and makes them
slaves; rejoices in civil strife, in the bloody death of brothers who die
in conflict, and, in fine, in the dire, murderous contest of children with
their fathers.

   27. Now we may apply this very argument to Venus in exactly the same
way. For if, as you maintain and believe, she fills men's minds with
lustful thoughts, it must be held in consequence that any disgrace and
misdeed arising from such madness should be ascribed to the instigation of
Venus. Is it, then, under compulsion of the goddess that even the noble too
often betray their own reputation into the hands of worthless harlots; that
the firm bonds of marriage are broken;  that near relations burn with
incestuous lust; that mothers have their passions madly kindled towards
their children; that fathers turn to themselves their daughters' desires;
that old men, bringing shame upon their grey hairs, sigh with the ardour of
youth for the gratification of filthy desires; that wise and brave(2) men,
losing in effeminacy the strength of their manhood, disregard the biddings
of constancy; that the noose is twisted about their necks; that blazing
pyres are ascended;(3) and that in different places men, leaping
voluntarily, cast themselves headlong over very high and huge
precipices?(4)

   28. Can any man, who has accepted the first principles even of reason,
be found to mar or dishonour the unchanging nature of Deity with morals so
vile? to credit the gods with natures such as human kindness has often
charmed away and moderated in the beasts of the field? How,(5) I ask, can
it be said that the gods are far removed from any feeling of passion? that
they are gentle, lovers of peace, mild? that in the completeness of their
excellence they reach(6) the i height of perfection, and the highest wisdom
also? or, why should we pray them to avert from us misfortunes and
calamities, if we find that they are themselves the authors of all the ills
by which we are daily harassed? Call us impious as much as you please,
contemners of religion, or atheists, you will never make us believe in gods
of love and war, that there are gods to sow strife, and to disturb the mind
by the stings of the furies. For either they are gods in very truth, and do
not do what you have related; or if(7) they do the things which you say,
they are doubtless no gods at all.

   29. We might, however, even yet be able to receive from you these
thoughts, most full of wicked falsehoods, if it were not that you
yourselves, in bringing forward many things about the gods so inconsistent
and mutually destructive, compel us to withhold our minds from assenting.
For when you strive individually to excel each other in reputation for more
recondite knowledge, you both overthrow the very gods in whom you believe,
and replace them by others who have clearly no existence; and different men
give different opinions on the same subjects,(8) and you write that those
whom general consent has ever received as single persons are infinite in
number. Let us, too, begin duty, then, with father Janus, whom certain of
you have declared to be the world, others the year, some the sun. But if we
are to believe that this is true, it follows as a consequence, that it
should be understood that there never was any Janus, who, they say, being
sprung from Coelus and Hecate, reigned first in Italy, founded the town
Janiculum, was the father of Forts,(9) the son-in-law of Vulturnus, the
husband of Juturna; and thus you erase the name of the god to whom in all
prayers you give the first place, and whom you believe to procure for you a
hearing from the gods. But, again, if Janus be the year, neither thus can
he be a god. For who does not know that the year is a fixed space(1) of
time, and that there is nothing divine in that which is formed(2) by the
duration of months and lapse of days? Now this very argument may, in like
manner, be applied to Saturn. For if time is meant under this title, as the
expounders of Grecian ideas think, so that that is regarded as Kronos,(3)
which is chronos,(4) there is no such deity as Saturn. For who is so
senseless as to say that time is a god, when it is but a certain space
measured off(5) in the unending succession of eternity? And thus will be
removed from the rank of the immortals that deity too, whom the men of old
declared, and handed down to their posterity, to be born of father Coelus,
the progenitor of the dii magni, the planter of the vine, the bearer of the
pruning-knife.(6)

   30. But what shall we say of Jove himself, whom the wise have
repeatedly asserted to be the sun, driving a winged chariot, followed by a
crowd of deities;(7) some, the ether, blazing with mighty flames, and
wasting fire which cannot be extinguished? Now if this is clear and
certain, there is, then, according to you, no Jupiter at all; who, born of
Saturn his father and Ops his mother, is reported to have been concealed in
the Cretan territory, that he might escape his father's rage. But now, does
not a similar mode of thought remove Juno from the list of gods? For if she
is the air, as you have been wont to jest and say, repeating in reversed
order the syllables of the Greek name,(8) there will be found no sister and
spouse of almighty Jupiter, no Fluonia,(9) no Pomona, no Ossipagina, no
Februtis, Populonia, Cinxia, Caprotina; and thus the invention of that
name, spread abroad with a frequent but vain(10) belief, will be found to
be wholly(11) useless.

   31. Aristotle, a man of most powerful intellect, and distinguished for
learning, as Granius tells, shows by plausible arguments that Minerva is
the moon, and proves it by the authority of learned men. Others have said
that this very goddess is the depth of ether, and utmost height; some have
maintained that she is memory, whence her name even, Minerva, has arisen,
as if she were some goddess of memory. But if this is credited, it follows
that there is no daughter of Mens, no daughter of Victory, no discoverer of
the Olive, born from the head of Jupiter, no goddess skilled in the
knowledge of  the arts, and in different branches of learning. Neptune,
they say, has received his name and title because he covers the earth with
water. If, then, by the use of this name is meant the outspread water,
there is no god Neptune at all; and thus is put away, and removed from us,
the full brother of Pluto and Jupiter, armed with the iron trident, lord of
the fish, great and small, king of the depths of the sea, and shaker of the
trembling earth.(12)

   32. Mercury, also, has been named as though he were a kind of go-
between; and because conversation passes between two speakers, and is
exchanged by them, that which is expressed by this name has been
produced.(13) If this, then, is the case, Mercury is not the name of a god,
but of speech and words exchanged by two persons; and in this way is
blotted out and annihilated the noted Cyllenian bearer of the caduceus,
born on the cold mountain top,(14) contriver of words and names, the god
who presides over markets, and over the exchange of goods and commercial
intercourse. Some of you have said that the earth is the Great Mother,(15)
because it provides all things living with food; others declare that the
same earth is Ceres, because it brings forth crops of useful fruits;(16)
while some maintain that it is Vesta, because it alone in the universe is
at rest, its other members being, by their constitution, ever in motion.
Now if this is propounded and maintained on sure grounds, in like manner,
on your interpretation, three deities have no existence: neither Ceres nor
Vesta are to be reckoned in the number(17) of the gods; nor, in fine, can
the mother of the gods herself, whom Nigidius thinks to have been married
to Saturn, be rightly declared a goddess, if indeed these are all names of
the one earth, and it alone is signified by these titles.

   33. We here leave Vulcan unnoticed, to avoid prolixity; whom you all
declare to be fire, with one consenting voice. We pass by Venus, named
because lust assails all, and Proserpina, named because plants steal
gradually forth into the light,--where, again, you do away with three
deities; if indeed the first is the name of an element, and does not
signify a living power; the second, of a desire common to all living
creatures; while the third refers to seeds rising above ground, and the
upward movements(18) of growing crops. What! when you maintain that
Bacchus, Apollo, the Sun, are one deity, increased in number by the use of
three names, is not the number of the gods lessened, and their vaunted
reputation overthrown, by your opinions? For if it is true that the sun is
also Bacchus and Apollo, there can consequently be in the universe no
Apollo or Bacchus; and thus, by yourselves, the son of Semele and the
Pythian god are blotted out and set aside,--one the giver of drunken
merriment, the other the destroyer of Sminthian mice.

   34. Some of your learned men(1)--men, too, who do not chatter merely
because their humour leads them--maintain that Diana, Ceres, Luna, are but
one deity in triple union;(2) and that there are not three distinct
persons, as there are three different names; that in all these Luna is
invoked, and that the others are a series of surnames added to her name.
But if this is sure, if this is certain, and the facts of the case show it
to be so, again is Ceres but an empty name, and Diana: and thus the
discussion is brought to this issue, that you lead and advise us to believe
that she whom you maintain to be the discoverer of the earth's fruits has
no existence, and Apollo is robbed of his sister, whom once the horned
hunter(3) gazed upon as she washed her limbs from impurity in a pool, and
paid the penalty of his curiosity.

   35. Men worthy to be remembered in the study of philosophy, who have
been raised by your praises to its highest place, declare, with commendable
earnestness, as their conclusion, that the whole mass of the world, by
whose folds we all are encompassed, covered, and upheld, is one animal(4)
possessed of wisdom and reason; yet if this is a true, sure, and certain
opinion,(5) they also will forthwith cease to be gods whom you set up a
little ago in its parts without change of name.(6) For as one man cannot,
while his body remains entire, be divided into many men; nor can many men,
while they continue to be distinct and separate from each other,(7) be
fused into one sentient individual: so, if the world is a single animal,
and moves from the impulse of one mind, neither can it be dispersed in
several deities; nor, if the gods are parts of it, can they be brought
together and changed into one living creature, with unity of feeling
throughout all its parts. The moon, the sun, the earth, the ether, the
stars, are members and parts of the world; but if they are parts and
members, they are certainly not themselves(8) living creatures; for in no
thing can parts be the very thing which the whole is, or think and feel for
themselves, for this cannot be effected by their own actions, without the
whole creature's joining in; and this being established and settled, the
whole matter comes back to this, that neither Sol, nor Luna, nor AEther,
Tellus, and the rest, are gods. For they are parts of the world, not the
proper names of deities; and thus it is brought about that, by your
disturbing and confusing all divine things, the world is set up as the sole
god in the universe, while all the rest are cast aside, and that as having
been set up vainly, uselessly, and without any reality.

   36. If we sought to subvert the belief in your gods in so many ways, by
so many arguments, no one would doubt that, mad with rage and fury, you
would demand for us the stake, the  beasts, and swords, with the other
kinds of torture by which you usually appease your thirst in its intense
craving for our blood. But while you yourselves put away almost the whole
race of deities with a pretence of cleverness and wisdom, you do not
hesitate to assert that, because  of us, men suffer ill at the hands of the
gods;(9)  although, indeed, if it is true that they anywhere exist, and
burn with anger and(10) rage, there can be no better reason for their
showing anger against you,(11) than that you deny their existence, anti say
that they are not found in any part of the universe.

   37. We are told by Mnaseas that the Muses are the daughters of Tellus
and Coelus; others declare that they are Jove's by his wife Memory, or
Mens; some relate that they were virgins, others that they were matrons.
For now we wish to touch briefly on the points where you are shown, from
the difference of your opinions, to make different statements about the
same thing. Ephorus, then, says that they are three(12) in number; Mnaseas,
whom we mentioned, that they are four;(13) Myrtilus(14) brings forward
seven; Crates asserts that there are eight; finally Hesiod, enriching
heaven and the stars with gods, comes forward with nine names.(15)

   If we are not mistaken, such want of agreement marks those who are
wholly ignorant of the truth, and does not spring from the real state of
the case. For if their number were clearly known, the voice of all would be
the same, and the agreement of all would tend to and find issue in the same
conclusion.(1)

   38. How, then, can you give to religion its whole power, when you fill
into error about the gods themselves? or summon us to their solemn worship,
while you give us no definite information how to conceive of the deities
themselves? For, to take no notice of the other(2) authors, either the
first(3) makes away with and destroys six divine Muses, if they are
certainly nine; or the last(4) adds six who have no existence to the three
who alone really are; so that it cannot be known or understood what should
be added, what taken away; and in the performance of religious rites we are
in danger(5) of either worshipping that which does not exist, or passing
that by which, it may be, does exist. Piso believes that the Novensiles are
nine gods, set up among the Sabines at Trebia.(6) Granius thinks that they
are the Muses, agreeing with AElius; Varro teaches that they are nine,(7)
because, in doing anything, that number is always reputed most powerful and
greatest; Cornificius,(8) that they watch over the renewing of things,(9)
because, by their care, all things are afresh renewed in strength, and
endure; Manilius, that they are the nine gods to whom alone Jupiter gave
power to wield his thunder.(10) Cincius declares them to be deities brought
from abroad, named from their very newness, because the Romans were in the
habit of sometimes individually introducing into their families the
rites(11) of conquered cities, while some they publicly consecrated; and
lest, from their great number, or in ignorance, any god should be passed
by, all alike were briefly and compendiously invoked under one name--
Novensiles.

   39. There are some, besides, who assert that those who from being men
became gods, are denoted by this name,--as Hercules, Romulus, AEculapius,
Liber, AEneas. These are all, as is clear, different opinions; and it
cannot be, in the nature of things, that those who differ in opinion can be
regarded as teachers of one truth. For if Piso's opinion is true, AElius
and Granius say what is false; if what they say is certain, Varro, with all
his skill,(12) is mistaken, who substitutes things most frivolous and vain
for those which really exist. If they are named Novensiles because their
number is nine,(13) Cornificius is shown to stumble, who, giving them might
and power not their own, makes them the divine overseers of renovation.(14)
But if Cornificius is right in his belief, Cincius is found to be not wise,
who connects with the power of the dii Novensiles the gods of conquered
cities. But if they are those whom Cincius asserts them to be, Manilius
will be found to speak falsely, who comprehends those who wield another's
thunder under this  name.(15) But if that which Manilius holds is true  and
certain, they are utterly mistaken who suppose that those raised to divine
honours, and deified mortals, are thus named because of the novelty of
their rank. But if the Novensiles are those who have deserved to be raised
to the stars after passing through the life of men,(16) there are no dii
Novensiles at all. For as slaves, soldiers, masters, are not names of
persons comprehended under them,(17) but of officers, ranks, and duties,
so, when we say that Novensiles is the name(18) of gods who by their
virtues have become(19) gods from being men, it is clear and evident that
no individual persons are marked out particularly, but that newness itself
is named by the title Novensiles.

   40. Nigidius taught that the dii Penates were Neptune and Apollo, who
once, on fixed terms, girt Ilium(20) with walls. He himself again, in his
sixteenth book, following Etruscan teaching, shows that there are four
kinds of Penates; and that one of these pertains to Jupiter, another to
Neptune, the third to the shades below, the fourth  to mortal men, making
some unintelligible assertion. Caesius himself, also, following this
teaching, thinks that they are Fortune, and Ceres, the genius Jovialis,(21)
and Pales, but not the female deity commonly received,(22) but some male
attendant and steward of Jupiter. Varro thinks that they are the gods of
whom we speak who are within, and in the inmost recesses of heaven, and
that neither their number nor names are known. The Etruscans say that these
are the Consentes and Complices,(23) and name them because they rise and
fall together, six of them being male, and as many female, with unknown
names and pitiless dispositions,(1) but they are considered the counsellors
and princes of Jove supreme. There were some, too, who said that Jupiter,
Juno, and Minerva were the dii Penates, without whom we cannot live and be
wise, and by whom we are ruled within in reason, passion, and thought. As
you see, even here, too, nothing is said harmoniously, nothing is settled
with the consent of all, nor is there anything reliable on which the mind
can take its stand, drawing by conjecture very near to the truth. For their
opinions are so doubtful, and one supposition so discredited(2) by another,
that there is either no truth in them all, or if it is uttered by any, it
is not recognised amid so many different statements.

   41. We can, if it is thought proper, speak briefly of the Lares also,
whom the mass think to be the gods of streets and ways, because the Greeks
name streets lauroe. In different parts of his writings, Nigidius speaks of
them now as the guardians of houses and dwellings; now as the Curetes, who
are said to have once concealed, by the clashing of cymbals,(3) the
infantile cries of Jupiter; now the five Digiti Samothracii, who, the
Greeks tell us, were named Idoei Dactyli. Varro, with like hesitation, says
at one time that they are the Manes,(4) and therefore the mother of the
Lares was named Mania; at another time, again, he maintains that they are
gods of the air, and are termed heroes; at another, following the opinion
of the ancients, he says that the Lares are ghosts, as it were a kind of
tutelary demon, spirits of dead(5) men.

   42. It is a vast and endless task to examine each kind separately, and
make it evident even from your religious books that you neither hold nor
believe that there is any god concerning whom you have not(6) brought
forward doubtful and inconsistent statements, expressing a thousand
different beliefs. But, to be brief, and avoid prolixity,(7) it is enough
to have said what has been said; it is, further, too troublesome to gather
together many things into one mass, since it is made manifest and evident
in different ways that you waver, and say nothing with certainty of these
things which you assert. But you will perhaps say, Even if we have no
personal knowledge of the Lares, Novensiles, Penates, still the very
agreement of our authors proves their existence, and that such a race(8)
takes rank among the celestial gods. And how can it be known whether there
is any god, if what he is shall be wholly unknown?(9) or how can it avail
even to ask for benefits, if it is not settled and determined who should be
invoked at each inquiry?(10) For every one who seeks to obtain an answer
from any deity, should of necessity know to whom he makes supplication, on
whom he calls, from whom he asks help for the affairs and occasions of
human life; especially as you yourselves declare that all the gods do not
have all power, and(11) that the wrath and anger of each are appeased by
different rites.

   43. For if this deity(12) requires a black, that(13) a white skin; if
sacrifice must be made to this one with veiled, to that with uncovered
head;(14) this one is consulted about marriages,(15) the other relieves
distresses,--may it not be of some importance whether the one or the other
is Novensills, since ignorance of the facts and confusion of persons
displeases the gods, and leads necessarily to the contraction of guilt? For
suppose that I myself, to avoid some inconvenience and peril, make
supplication to any one of these deities, saying, Be present, be near,
divine Penates, thou Apollo, and thou, O Neptune, and in your divine
clemency turn away all these evils, by which I am annoyed,(16) troubled,
and tormented: will there be any hope that I shall receive help from them,
if Ceres, Pales, Fortune, or the genius Jovialis,(17) not Neptune and
Apollo, shall be the dii Penates? Or if I invoked the Curetes instead of
the Lares, whom some of your writers maintain to he the Digiti Samothracii,
how shall I enjoy their help and favour, when I have not given them their
own names, and have given to the others names not their own? Thus does our
interest demand that we should rightly know the gods, and not hesitate or
doubt about the power, the name of each; lest,(1) if they be invoked with
rites and titles not their own, they have at once their ears stopped
against our prayers, and hold us involved in guilt which may not be
forgiven.

   44. Wherefore, if you are assured that in the lofty palaces of heaven
there dwells, there is, that multitude of deities whom you specify, you
should make your stand on one proposition,(2) and not, divided by different
and inconsistent opinions, destroy belief in the very things which you seek
to establish. If there is a Janus, let Janus be; if a Bacchus, let Bacchus
be; if a Summanus,(3) let Summanus be: for this is to confide, this to
hold, to be settled in the knowledge of something ascertained, not to say
after the manner of the blind and erring, The Novensiles are the Muses, in
truth they are the Trebian gods, nay, their number is nine, or rather, they
are the protectors of cities which have been overthrown; and bring so
important matters into this danger, that while you remove some, and put
others in their place, it may well be doubted of them all if they anywhere
exist.


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 6, 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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