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

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


ST. AUGUSTINE

THE HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS, BOOK I

[Translated by the Rev. S. D. F. Salmond, D.D.
Edited, with Notes, by the Rev. M. B. Riddle, D.D.]

BOOK I.

THE TREATISE OPENS WITH A SHORT STATEMENT ON THE SUBJECT OF THE AUTHORITY
OF THE EVANGELISTS, THEIR NUMBER, THEIR ORDER, AND THE DIFFERENT PLANS OF
THEIR NARRATIVES. AUGUSTINE THEN PREPARES FOR THE DISCUSSION OF THE
QUESTIONS RELATING TO THEIR HARMONY, BY JOINING ISSUE IN THIS BOOK WITH
THOSE WHO RAISE A DIFFICULTY IN THE CIRCUMSTANCE THAT CHRIST HAS LEFT NO
WRITING OF HIS OWN, OR WHO FALSELY ALLEGE THAT CERTAIN BOOKS WERE COMPOSED
BY HIM ON THE ARTS OF MAGIC. HE ALSO MEETS THE OBJECTIONS OF THOSE WHO, IN
OPPOSITION TO THE EVANGELICAL TEACHING, ASSERT THAT THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST
AT ONCE ASCRIBED MORE TO THEIR MASTER THAN HE REALLY WAS, WHEN THEY
AFFIRMED THAT HE WAS GOD, AND INCULCATED WHAT THEY HAD NOT BEEN INSTRUCTED
IN BY HIM, WHEN THEY INTERDICTED THE WORSHIP OF THE GODS. AGAINST THESE
ANTAGONISTS HE VINDICATES THE TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES, BY APPEALING TO THE
UTTERANCES OF THE PROPHETS, AND BY SHOWING THAT THE GOD OF ISRAEL WAS TO BE
THE SOLE OBJECT OF WORSHIP, WHO ALSO, ALTHOUGH HE WAS THE ONLY DEITY TO
WHOM ACCEPTANCE WAS DENIED IN FORMER TIMES BY THE ROMANS, AND THAT FOR THE
VERY REASON THAT HE PROHIBITED THEM FROM WORSHIPPING OTHER GODS ALONG WITH
HIMSELF, HAS NOW IN THE END MADE THE EMPIRE OF ROME SUBJECT TO HIS NAME,
AND AMONG ALL NATIONS HAS BROKEN THEIR IDOLS IN PIECES THROUGH THE
PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL, AS HE HAD PROMISED BY HIS PROPHETS THAT THE EVENT
SHOULD BE.

CHAP. I.--ON THE AUTHORITY OF THE GOSPELS.

1. IN the entire number of those divine records which are contained in the
sacred writings, the gospel deservedly stands pre-eminent. For what the law
and the prophets aforetime announced as destined to come to pass, is
exhibited in the gospel in its realization(1) and fulfilment. The first
preachers of this gospel were the apostles, who beheld our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ in person when He was yet present in the flesh. And not only
did these(2) men keep in remembrance the words heard from His lips, and the
deeds wrought by Him beneath their eyes; but they were also careful, when
the duty of preaching the gospel was laid upon them, to make mankind
acquainted with those divine and memorable occurrences which took place at
a period antecedent to the formation of their own connection with Him in
the way of discipleship, which belonged also to the time of His nativity,
His infancy, or His youth, and with regard to which they were able to
institute exact inquiry and to obtain information, either at His own hand
or at the hands of His parents or other parties, on the ground of the most
reliable intimations and the most trustworthy testimonies. Certain of them
also--namely, Matthew and John--gave to the world, in their respective
books, a written account of all those matters which it seemed needful to
commit to writing concerning Him.

2. And to preclude the supposition that, in what concerns the apprehension
and proclamation of the gospel, it is a matter of any consequence whether
the enunciation comes by men who were actual followers of this same Lord
here when He manifested Himself in the flesh and had the company of His
disciples attendant on Him, or by persons who with due credit received
facts with which they became acquainted in a trustworthy manner through the
instrumentality of these former, divine providence, through the agency of
the Holy Spirit, has taken care that certain of those also who were nothing
more than followers of the first apostles should have authority given them
not only to preach the gospel, but also to compose an account of it in
writing. I refer to Mark and Luke. All those other individuals, however,
who have attempted or dared to offer a written record of the acts of the
Lord or of the apostles, failed to commend themselves in their own times as
men of the character which would induce the Church to yield them its
confidence, and to admit their compositions to the canonical authority of
the Holy Books. And this was the case not merely because they were persons
who could make no rightful claim to have credit given them in their
narrations, but also because in a deceitful manner they introduced into
their writings certain matters which are condemned at once by the catholic
and apostolic rule of faith, and by sound doctrine.(1)

CHAP. II.--ON THE ORDER OF THE EVANGELISTS, AND THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH
THEY WROTE.

3. Now, those four evangelists whose names have gained the most remarkable
circulation(2) over the whole world, and whose number has been fixed as
four,--it may be for the simple reason that there are four divisions of
that world through the universal length of which they, by their number as
by a kind of mystical sign, indicated the advancing extension of the Church
of Christ,--are believed to have written in the order which follows: first
Matthew, then Mark, thirdly Luke, lastly John. Hence, too, [it would appear
that] these had one order determined among them with regard to the matters
of their personal knowledge and their preaching [of the gospel], but a
different order in reference to the task of giving the written narrative.
As far, indeed, as concerns the acquisition of their own knowledge and the
charge of preaching, those unquestionably came first in order who were
actually followers of the Lord when He was present in the flesh, and who
heard Him speak and saw Him act; and [with a commission received] from His
lips they were despatched to preach the gospel. But as respects the task of
composing that record of the gospel which is to be accepted as ordained by
divine authority, there were (only) two, belonging to the number of those
whom the Lord chose before the passover, that obtained places,--namely, the
first place and the last. For the first place in order was held by Matthew,
and the last by John. And thus the remaining two, who did not belong to the
number referred to, but who at the same time had become followers of the
Christ who spoke in these others, were supported on either side by the
same, like sons who were to be embraced, and who in this way were set in
the midst between these twain.

4. Of these four, it is true, only Matthew is reckoned to have written in
the Hebrew language; the others in Greek. And however they may appear to
have kept each of them a certain order of narration proper to himself, this
certainly is not to be taken as if each individual writer chose to write in
ignorance of what his predecessor had done, or left out as matters about
which there was no information things which another nevertheless is
discovered to have recorded. But the fact is, that just as they received
each of them the gift of inspiration, they abstained from adding to their
several labours any superfluous conjoint compositions. For Matthew is
understood to have taken it in hand to construct the record of the
incarnation of the Lord according to the royal lineage, and to give an
account of most part of His deeds and words as they stood in relation to
this present life of men. Mark follows him closely, and looks like his
attendant and epitomizer.(3) For in his narrative he gives nothing in
concert with John apart from the others: by himself separately, he has
little to record; in conjunction with Luke, as distinguished from the rest,
he has still less; but in concord with Matthew, he has a very large number
of passages. Much, too, he narrates in words almost numerically and
identically the same as those used by Matthew, where the agreement is
either with that evangelist alone, or with him in connection with the rest.
On the other hand, Luke appears to have occupied himself rather with the
priestly lineage and character(4) of the Lord. For although in his own way
he carries the descent back to David, what he has followed is not the royal
pedigree, but the line of those who were not kings. That genealogy, too, he
has brought to a point in Nathan the son of David,(5) which person likewise
was no king. It is not thus, however, with Matthew. For in tracing the
lineage along through Solomon the king,(6) he has pursued with strict
regularity the succession of the other kings; and in enumerating these, he
has also conserved that mystical number of which we shall speak hereafter.

CHAP. III.--OF THE FACE THAT MATTHEW, TOGETHER WITH MARK, HAD SPECIALLY IN
VIEW THE KINGLY CHARACTER OF CHRIST, WHEREAS LUKE DEALT WITH THE PRIESTLY.

5. For the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the one true King and the one true
Priest, the former to rule us, and the latter to make expiation for us, has
shown us how His own figure bore these two parts together, which were only
separately commended [to notice] among the Fathers.(1) This becomes
apparent if (for example) we look to that inscription which was affixed to
His cross, "King of the Jews:" in connection also with which, and by a
secret instinct, Pilate replied, "What I have written, I have written."(2)
For it had been said aforetime in the Psalms, "Destroy not the writing of
the title."(3) The same becomes evident, so far as the part of priest is
concerned, if we have regard to what He has taught us concerning offering
and receiving. For thus it is that He sent us beforehand a prophecy(4)
respecting Himself, which runs thus, "Thou art a priest for ever, after the
order of Melchisedek."(5) And in many other testimonies of the divine
Scriptures, Christ appears both as King and as Priest. Hence, also, even
David himself, whose son He is, not without good reason, more frequently
declared to be than he is said to be Abraham's son, and whom Matthew and
Luke have both alike held by,--the one viewing him as the person from whom,
through Solomon, His lineage can be traced down, and the other taking him
for the person to whom, through Nathan, His genealogy can be carried up,--
did represent the part of a priest, although he was patently a king, when
he ate the shew-bread. For it was not lawful for any one to eat that, save
the priests only.(6) To this it must be added that Luke is the only one who
mentions how Mary was discovered by the angel, and how she was related to
Elisabeth,(7) who was the wife of Zacharias the priest. And of this
Zacharias the same evangelist has recorded the fact, that the woman whom he
had for wife was one of the daughters of Aaron, which is to say she
belonged to the tribe of the priests.(8)

6. Whereas, then, Matthew had in view the kingly character, and Luke the
priestly, they have at the same time both set forth pre-eminently the
humanity of Christ: for it was according to His humanity that Christ was
made both King and Priest. To Him, too, God gave the throne of His father
David, in order that of His kingdom there should be none end.(9) And this
was done with the purpose that there might be a mediator between God and
men, the man Christ Jesus,(10) to make intercession for us. Luke, on the
other hand, had no one connected with him to act as his summarist in the
way that Mark was attached to Matthew. And it may be that this is not
without a certain solemn significance.(11) For it is the right of kings not
to miss the obedient following of attendants; and hence the evangelist, who
had taken it in hand to give an account of the kingly character of Christ,
had a person attached to him as his associate who was in some fashion to
follow in his steps. But inasmuch as it was the priest's wont to enter all
alone into the holy of holies, in accordance with that principle, Luke,
whose object contemplated the priestly office of Christ, did not have any
one to come after him as a confederate, who was meant in some way to serve
as an epitomizer of his narrative.(12)

CHAP. IV.--OF THE FACT THAT JOHN UNDERTOOK THE EXPOSITION OF CHRIST'S
DIVINITY.

7. These three evangelists, however, were for the most part engaged with
those things which Christ did through the vehicle of the flesh of man, and
after the temporal fashion.(13) But John, on the other hand, had in view
that true divinity of the Lord in which He is the Father's equal, and
directed his efforts above all to the setting forth of the divine nature in
his Gospel in such a way as he believed to be adequate to men's needs and
notions.(14) Therefore he is borne to loftier heights, in which he leaves
the other three far behind him; so that, while in them you see men who have
their conversation in a certain manner with the man Christ on earth, in him
you perceive one who has passed beyond the cloud in which the whole earth
is wrapped, and who has reached the liquid heaven from which, with clearest
and steadiest mental eye, he is able to look upon God the Word, who was in
the beginning with God, and by whom all things were made.(15) And there,
too, he can recognise Him who was made flesh in order that He might dwell
amongst us;(16) [that Word of whom we say,] that He assumed the flesh, not
that He was changed into the flesh. For had not this assumption of the
flesh been effected in such a manner as at the same time to conserve the
unchangeable Divinity, Such a word as this could never have been spoken,--
namely, "I and the Father are one."(1) For surely the Father and the flesh
are not one. And the same John is also the only one who has recorded that
witness which the Lord gave concerning Himself, when He said: "He that hath
seen me, hath seen the Father also;" and, "I am in the Father, and the
Father is in me;"(2) "that they may be one, even as we are one;"(3) and,
"Whatsoever the Father doeth, these same things doeth the Son likewise."(4)
And whatever other statements there may be to the same effect, calculated
to betoken, to those who are possessed of right understanding, that
divinity of Christ in which He is the Father's equal, of all these we might
almost say that we are indebted for their introduction into the Gospel
narrative to John alone. For he is like one who has drunk in the secret of
His divinity more richly and somehow more familiarly than others, as if he
drew it from the very bosom of his Lord on which it was his wont to recline
when He sat at meat.(5)

CHAP. V.--CONCERNING THE TWO VIRTUES, OF WHICH JOHN IS CONVERSANT WITH THE
CONTEMPLATIVE, THE OTHER EVANGELISTS WITH THE ACTIVE.

8. Moreover, there are two several virtues (or talents) which have been
proposed to the mind of man. Of these, the one is the active, and the other
the contemplative: the one being that whereby the way is taken, and the
other that whereby the goal is reached;(6) the one that by which men labour
in order that the heart may be purified to see God, and the other that by
which men are disengaged(7) and God is seen. Thus the former of these two
virtues is occupied with the precepts for the right exercise of the
temporal life, whereas the latter deals with the doctrine of that life
which is everlasting. In this way, also, the one operates, the other rests;
for the former finds its sphere in the purging of sins, the latter moves in
the light(8) of the purged. And thus, again, in this mortal life the one is
engaged with the work of a good conversation; while the other subsists
rather on faith, and is seen only in the person of the very few, and
through the glass darkly, and only in part in a kind of vision of the
unchangeable truth.(9) Now these two virtues are understood to be presented
emblematically in the instance of the two wives of Jacob. Of these I have
discoursed already up to the measure of my ability, and as fully as seemed
to be appropriate to my task, (in what I have written) in opposition to
Faustus the Manichaean.(10) For Lia, indeed, by interpretation means
"labouring,"(11) whereas Rachel signifies "the first principle seen."(12)
And by this it is given us to understand, if one will only attend carefully
to the matter, that those three evangelists who, with pre-eminent fulness,
have handled the account of the Lord's temporal doings and those of His
sayings which were meant to bear chiefly upon the moulding of the manners
of the present life, were conversant with that active virtue; and that
John, on the other hand, who narrates fewer by far of the Lord's doings,
but records with greater carefulness and with larger wealth of detail the
words which He spoke, and most especially those discourses which were
intended to introduce us to the knowledge of the unity of the Trinity and
the blessedness of the life eternal, formed his plan and framed his
statement with a view to commend the contemplative virtue to our regard.

CHAP. VI.--OF THE FOUR LIVING CREATURES IN THE APOCALYPSE, WHICH HAVE BEEN
TAKEN BY SOME IN ONE APPLICATION, AND BY OTHERS IN ANOTHER, AS APT FIGURES
OF THE FOUR EVANGELISTS.

9. For these reasons, it also appears to me, that of the various parties
who have interpreted the living creatures in the Apocalypse as significant
of the four evangelists, those who have taken the lion to point to Matthew,
the man to Mark, the calf to Luke, and the eagle to John, have made a more
reasonable application of the figures than those who have assigned the man
to Matthew, the eagle to Mark, and the lion to John.(13) For, in forming
their particular idea of the matter, these latter have chosen to keep in
view simply the beginnings of the books, and not the full design of the
several evangelists in its completeness, which was the matter that should,
above all, have been thoroughly examined. For surely it is with much
greater propriety that the one who has brought under our notice most
largely the kingly character of Christ, should be taken to be represented
by the lion. Thus is it also that we find the lion mentioned in conjunction
with the royal tribe itself, in that passage of the Apocalypse where it is
said, "The lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed."(1) For in Matthew's
narrative the magi are recorded to have come from the east to inquire after
the King, and to worship Him whose birth was notified to them by the star.
Thus, too, Herod, who himself also was a king, is [said there to be] afraid
of the royal child, and to put so many little children to death in order to
make sure that the one might be slain.(2) Again, that Luke is intended
under the figure of the calf, in reference to the pre-eminent sacrifice
made by the priest, has been doubted by neither of the two [sets of
interpreters]. For in that Gospel the narrator's account commences with
Zacharias the priest. In it mention is also made of the relationship
between Mary and Elisabeth.(3) In it, too, it is recorded that the
ceremonies proper to the earliest priestly service were attended to in the
case of the infant Christ;(4) and a careful examination brings a variety of
other matters under our notice in this Gospel, by which it is made apparent
that Luke's object was to deal with the part of the priest. In this way it
follows further, that Mark, who has set himself neither to give an account
of the kingly lineage, nor to expound anything distinctive of the
priesthood, whether on the subject of the relationship or on that of the
consecration, and who at the same time comes before us as one who handles
the things which the man Christ did, appears to be indicated simply under
the figure of the man among those four living creatures. But again, those
three living creatures, whether lion, man, or calf, have their course upon
this earth; and in like manner, those three evangelists occupy themselves
chiefly with the things which Christ did in the flesh, and with the
precepts which He delivered to men, who also bear the burden of the flesh,
for their instruction in the rightful exercise of this mortal life. Whereas
John, on the other hand, soars like an eagle above the clouds of human
infirmity, and gazes upon the light of the unchangeable truth with those
keenest and steadiest eyes of the heart.(5)

CHAP. VII.--A STATEMENT OF AUGUSTINE'S REASON FOR UNDERTAKING THIS WORK ON
THE HARMONY OF THE EVANGELISTS, AND AN EXAMPLE OF THE METHOD IN WHICH HE
MEETS THOSE WHO ALLEGE THAT CHRIST WROTE NOTHING HIMSELF, AND THAT HIS
DISCIPLES MADE AN UNWARRANTED AFFIRMATION IN PROCLAIMING HIM TO BE GOD.

10. Those sacred chariots of the Lord,(6) however, in which He is borne
throughout the earth and brings the peoples under His easy yoke and His
light burden, are assailed with calumnious charges by certain persons who,
in impious vanity or in ignorant temerity, think to rob of their credit as
veracious historians those teachers by whose instrumentality the Christian
religion has been disseminated all the world over, and through whose
efforts it has yielded fruits so plentiful that unbelievers now scarcely
dare so much as to mutter their slanders in private among themselves, kept
in check by the faith of the Gentiles and by the devotion of all the
peoples. Nevertheless, inasmuch as they still strive by their calumnious
disputations to keep some from making themselves acquainted with the faith,
and thus prevent them from becoming believers, while they also endeavour to
the utmost of their power to excite agitations among others who have
already attained to belief, and thereby give them trouble; and further, as
there are some brethren who, without detriment to their own faith, have a
desire to ascertain what answer can be given to such questions, either for
the advantage of their own knowledge or for the purpose of refuting the
vain utterances of their enemies, with the inspiration and help of the Lord
our God (and would that it might prove profitable for the salvation of such
men), we have undertaken in this work to demonstrate the errors or the
rashness of those who deem themselves able to prefer charges, the subtilty
of which is at least sufficiently observable, against those four different
books of the gospel which have been written by these four several
evangelists. And in order to carry out this design to a successful
conclusion, we must prove that the writers in question do not stand in any
antagonism to each other. For those adversaries are in the habit of
adducing this as the palmary(7) allegation in all their vain objections,
namely, that the evangelists are not in harmony with each other.

11. But we must first discuss a matter which is apt to present a
difficulty to the minds of some. I refer to the question why the Lord has
written nothing Himself, and why He has thus left us to the necessity of
accepting the testimony of other persons who have prepared records of His
history. For this is what those parties--the a pagans more than any(1)--
allege when they lack boldness enough to impeach or blaspheme the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself, and when they allow Him--only as a man, however--to
have been possessed of the most distinguished wisdom. In making that
admission, they at the same time assert that the disciples claimed more for
their Master than He really was; so much more indeed that they even called
Him the Son of God, and the Word of God, by whom all things were made, and
affirmed that He and God are one. And in the same way they dispose of all
other kindred passages in the epistles of the apostles, in the light of
which we have been taught that He is to be worshipped as one God with the
Father. For they are of opinion that He is certainly to be honoured as the
wisest of men; but they deny that He is to be worshipped as God.

12. Wherefore, when they put the question why He has not written in His
own person, it would seem as if they were prepared to believe regarding Him
whatever He might have written concerning Himself, but not what others may
have given the world to know with respect to His life, according to the
measure of their own judgment. Well, I ask them in turn why, in the case of
certain of the noblest of their own philosophers, they have accepted the
statements which their disciples left in the records they have composed,
while these sages themselves have given us no written accounts of their own
lives? For Pythagoras, than whom Greece in those days(2) did not possess
any more illustrious personage in the sphere of that contemplative virtue,
is believed to have written absolutely nothing, whether on the subject of
his own personal history or on any other theme whatsoever. And as to
Socrates, to whom, on the other hand, they have adjudged a position of
supremacy above all others in that active virtue by which the moral life is
trained, so that they do not hesitate also to aver that he was even
pronounced to be the wisest of men by the testimony of their deity Apollo,-
-it is indeed true that he handled the fables of Aesop in some few short
verses, and thus made use of words and numbers of his own in the task of
rendering the themes of another. But this was all. And so far was he from
having the desire to write anything himself, that he declared that he had
done even so much only because he was constrained by the imperial will of
his demon, as Plato, the noblest of all his disciples, tells us. That was a
work, also, in which he sought to set forth in fair form not so much his
own thoughts, as rather the ideas of another. What reasonable ground,
therefore, have they for believing, with regard to those sages, all that
their disciples have committed to record in respect of their history, while
at the same time they refuse to credit in the case of Christ what His
disciples have written on the subject of His life? And all the more may we
thus argue, when we see how they admit that all other men have been
excelled by Him in the matter of wisdom, although they decline to
acknowledge Him to be God. Is it, indeed, the case that those persons whom
they do not hesitate to allow to have been by far His inferiors, have had
the faculty of making disciples who can be trusted in all that concerns the
narrative of their careers, and that He failed in that capacity? But if
that is a most absurd statement to venture upon, then in all that belongs
to the history of that Person to whom they grant the honour of wisdom, they
ought to believe not merely what suits their own notions, but what they
read in the narratives of those who learned from this sage Himself those
various facts which they have left on record on the subject of His life.

CHAP. VIII.--OF THE QUESTION WHY, IF CHRIST IS BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN THE
WISEST OF MEN ON THE TESTIMONY OF COMMON NARRATIVE REPORT, HE SHOULD NOT BE
BELIEVED TO BE GOD ON THE TESTIMONY OF THE SUPERIOR REPORT OF PREACHING.

13. Besides this, they ought to tell us by what means they have succeeded
in acquiring their knowledge of this fact that He was the wisest of men, or
how it has had the opportunity of reaching their ears. If they have been
made acquainted with it simply by current report, then is it the case that
common report forms a more trustworthy informant(3) on the subject of His
history than those disciples of His who, as they have gone and preached of
Him, have disseminated the same report like a penetrating savour throughout
the whole world?(4) In fine, they ought to prefer the one kind of report to
the other, and believe that account of His life which is the superior of
the two. For this report,(5) indeed, which is spread abroad with a
wonderful clearness from that Church catholic(6) at whose extension through
the whole world those persons are so astonished, prevails in an
incomparable fashion over the unsubstantial run, ours with which men like
them occupy themselves. This report, furthermore, which carries with it
such weight and such currency,(7) that in dread of it they can only mutter
their anxious and feeble snatches of paltry objections within their own
breasts, as if they were more afraid now of being heard than wishful to
receive credit, proclaims Christ to be the only-begotten Son of God, and
Himself God,(1) by whom all things were made. If, therefore, they choose
report as their witness, why does not their choice fix on this special
report, which is so pre-eminently lustrous in its remarkable definiteness?
And if they desire the evidence of writings, why do they not take those
evangelical writings which excel all others in their commanding authority?
On our side, indeed, we accept those statements about their deities which
are offered at once in their most ancient writings and by most current
report. But if these deities are to be considered proper objects for
reverence, why then do they make them the subject of laughter in the
theatres? And if, on the other hand, they are proper objects for laughter,
the occasion for such laughter must be all the greater when they are made
the objects of worship in the theatres. It remains for us to look upon
those persons as themselves minded to be witnesses concerning Christ, who,
by speaking what they know not, divest themselves of the merit of knowing
what they speak about. Or if, again, they assert that they are possessed of
any books which they can maintain to have been written by Him, they ought
to produce them for our inspection. For assuredly those books (if there are
such) must be most profitable and most wholesome, seeing they are the
productions of one whom they acknowledge to have been the wisest of men.
If, however, they are afraid to produce them, it must be because they are
of evil tendency; but if the), are evil, then the wisest of men cannot have
written them. They acknowledge Christ, however, to be the wisest of men,
and consequently Christ cannot have written any such thing.

CHAP. IX.--OF CERTAIN PERSONS WHO PRETEND THAT CHRIST WROTE BOOKS ON THE
ARTS OF MAGIC.

14. But, indeed, these persons rise to such a pitch of folly as to allege
that the books which they consider to have been written by Him contain the
arts by which they think He wrought those miracles, the fame of which has
become prevalent in all quarters. And this fancy of theirs betrays what
they really love, and what their aims really are. For thus, indeed, they
show us how they entertain this opinion that Christ was the wisest of men
only for the reason that He possessed the knowledge of I know not what
illicit arts, which are justly condemned, not merely by Christian
discipline, but even by the administration of earthly government itself.
And, in good sooth, if there are people who affirm that they have read
books of this nature composed by Christ, then why do they not perform with
their own hand some such works as those which so greatly excite their
wonder when wrought by Him, by taking advantage of the information which
they have derived from these books?

CHAP. X.--OF SOME WHO ARE MAN ENOUGH TO SUPPOSE THAT THE BOOKS WERE
INSCRIBED WITH THE NAMES OF PETER AND PAUL.

15. Nay more, as by divine judgment, some of those who either believe, or
wish to have it believed, that Christ wrote matter of that description,
have even wandered so far into error as to allege that these same books
bore on their front, in the form of epistolary superscription, a
designation addressed to Peter and Paul. And it is quite possible that
either the enemies of the name of Christ, or certain parties who thought
that they might impart to this kind of execrable arts the weight of
authority drawn from so glorious a name, may have written things of that
nature under the name of Christ and the apostles. But in such most
deceitful audacity they have been so utterly blinded as simply to have made
themselves fitting objects for laughter, even with young people who as yet
know Christian literature only in boyish fashion, and rank merely in the
grade of readers.

16. For when they made up their minds to represent Christ to have written
in such strain as that to His disciples, they bethought themselves of those
of His followers who might best be taken for the persons to whom Christ
might most readily be believed to have written, as the individuals who had
kept by Him on the most familiar terms of friendship. And so Peter and Paul
occurred to them, I believe, just because in many places they chanced to
see these two apostles represented in pictures as both in company with
Him.(2) For Rome, in a specially honourable and solemn manner,(3) commends
the merits of Peter and of Paul, for this reason among others, namely, that
they suffered [martyrdom] on the same day. Thus to fall most completely
into error was the due desert of men who sought for Christ and His apostles
not in the holy writings, but on painted walls. Neither is it to be
wondered at, that these fiction- limners were misled by the painters.(1)
For throughout the whole period during which Christ lived in our mortal
flesh in fellowship with His disciples, Paul had never become His disciple.
Only after His passion, after His resurrection, after His ascension, after
the mission of the Holy Spirit from heaven, after many Jews had been
converted and had shown marvellous faith, after the stoning of Stephen the
deacon and martyr, and when Paul still bore the name Saul, and was
grievously persecuting those who had become believers in Christ, did Christ
call that man [by a voice] from heaven, and made him His disciple and
apostle.(2) How, then, is it possible that Christ could have written those
books which they wish to have it believed that He did write before His
death, and which were addressed to Peter and Paul, as those among His
disciples who had been most intimate with Him, seeing that up to that date
Paul had not yet become a disciple of His at all?

CHAP. XI.--IN OPPOSITION TO THOSE WHO FOOLISHLY IMAGINE THAT CHRIST
CONVERTED THE PEOPLE TO HIMSELF BY MAGICAL ARTS.

17. Moreover, let those who madly fancy that it was by the use of magical
arts that He was able to do the great things which He did, and that it was
by the practice of such rites that He made His name a sacred thing to the
peoples who were to be converted to Him, give their attention to this
question,--namely, whether by the exercise of magical arts, and before He
was born on this earth, He could also have filled with the Holy Spirit
those mighty prophets who aforetime declared those very things concerning
Him as things destined to come to pass, which we can now read in their
accomplishment in the gospel, and which we can see in their present
realization in the world. For surely, even if it was by magical arts that
He secured worship for Himself, and that, too, after His death, it is not
the case that He was a magician before He was born. Nay, for the office of
prophesying on the subject of His coming, one nation had been most
specially deputed; and the entire administration of that commonwealth was
ordained to be a prophecy of this King who was to come, and who was to
found a heavenly state(3) drawn out of all nations.

CHAP. XII.--OF THE FACT THAT THE GOD OF THE JEWS, AFTER THE SUBJUGATION OF
THAT PEOPLE, WAS STILL NOT ACCEPTED BY THE ROMANS, BECAUSE HIS COMMANDMENT
WAS THAT HE ALONE SHOULD BE WORSHIPPED, AND IMAGES DESTROYED.

18. Furthermore, that Hebrew nation, which, as I have said, was
commissioned to prophesy of Christ, had no other God but one God, the true
God, who made heaven and earth, and all that therein is. Under His
displeasure they were ofttimes given into the power of their enemies. And
now, indeed, on account of their most heinous sin in putting Christ to
death, they have been thoroughly rooted out of Jerusalem itself, which was
the capital of their kingdom, and have been made subject to the Roman
empire. Now the Romans were in the habit of propitiating 4 the deities of
those nations whom they conquered by worshipping these themselves, and they
were accustomed to undertake the charge of their sacred rites. But they
declined to act on that principle with regard to the God of the Hebrew
nation, either when they made their attack or when they reduced the people.
I believe that they perceived that, if they admitted the worship of this
Deity, whose commandment was that He only should be worshipped, and that
images should be destroyed, they would have to put away from them all those
objects to which formerly they had undertaken to do religious service, and
by the worship of which they believed their empire had grown. But in this
the falseness of their demons mightily deceived them. For surely they ought
to have apprehended the fact that it is only by the hidden will of the true
God, in whose hand resides the supreme power in all things, that the
kingdom was given them and has been made to increase, and that their
position was not due to the favour of those deities who, if they could have
wielded any influence whatever in that matter, would rather have protected
their own people from being over-mastered by the Romans, or would have
brought the Romans themselves into complete subjection to them.

19. Certainly they cannot possibly affirm that the kind of piety and
manners exemplified by them became objects of love and choice on the part
of the gods of the nations which they conquered. They will never make such
an assertion, if they only recall their own early beginnings, the asylum
for abandoned criminals and the fratricide of Romulus. For when Remus and
Romulus established their asylum, with the intention that whoever took
refuge there, be the crime what it might be with which he stood charged,
should enjoy impunity in his deed, they did not promulgate any precepts of
penitence for bringing the minds of such wretched men back to a right
condition. By this bribe of impunity did they not rather arm the gathered
band of fearful fugitives against the states to which they properly
belonged, and the laws of which they dreaded? Or when Romulus slew his
brother, who had perpetrated no evil against him, is it the case that his
mind was bent on the vindication of justice, and not on the acquisition of
absolute power? And is it true that the deities did take their delight in
manners like these, as if they were themselves enemies to their own states,
in so far as they favoured those who were the enemies of these communities?
Nay rather, neither did they by deserting them harm the one class, nor did
they by passing over to their side in any sense help the other. For they
have it not in their power to give kingship or to remove it. But that is
done by the one true God, according to His hidden counsel. And it is not
His mind to make those necessarily blessed to whom He may have given an
earthly kingdom, or to make those necessarily unhappy whom He has deprived
of that position. But He makes men blessed or wretched for other reasons
and by other means, and either by permission or by actual gift distributes
temporal and earthly kingdoms to whomsoever He pleases, and for whatsoever
period He chooses, according to the fore-ordained order of the ages.

CHAP. XIII.--OF THE QUESTION WHY GOD SUFFERED THE JEWS TO BE REDUCED TO
SUBJECTION.

20. Hence also they cannot meet us fairly with this question: Why, then,
did the God of the Hebrews, whom you declare to be the supreme and true
God, not only not subdue the Romans under their power, but even fail to
secure those Hebrews themselves against subjugation by the Romans? For
there were open sins of theirs that went before them, and on account of
which the prophets so long time ago predicted that this very thing would
overtake them; and above all, the reason lay in the fact, that in their
impious fury they put Christ to death, in the commission of which sin they
were made blind [to the guilt of their crime] through the deserts of other
hidden transgressions. That His sufferings also would be for the benefit of
the Gentiles, was foretold by the same prophetic testimony. Nor, in another
point of view, did; the fact appear clearer, that the kingdom of that
nation, and its temple, and its priesthood, and its sacrificial system, and
that mystical unction which is called chri^sma(1) in Greek, from
which the name of Christ takes its evident application, and on account of
which that nation was accustomed to speak of its kings as anointed ones,(2)
were ordained with the express object of prefiguring Christ, than has the
kindred fact become apparent, that after the resurrection of the Christ who
was put to death began to be preached unto the believing Gentiles, all
those things came to their end, all unrecognised as the circumstance was,
whether by the Romans, through whose victory, or by the Jews, through whose
subjugation, it was brought about that they did thus reach their
conclusion.

CHAP. XIV.--OF THE FACT THAT THE GOD OF THE HEBREWS, ALTHOUGH THE PEOPLE
WERE CONQUERED, PROVED HIMSELF TO BE UNCONQUERED, BY OVERTHROWING THE
IDOLS,AND BY TURNING ALL THE GENTILES TO HIS OWN SERVICE.

21. Here indeed we have a wonderful fact, which is not remarked by those
few pagans who have remained such,--namely, that this God of the Hebrews
who was offended by the conquered, and who was also denied acceptance by
the conquerors, is now preached and worshipped among all nations. This is
that God of Israel of whom the prophet spake so long time since, when he
thus addressed the people of God: "And He who brought thee out, the God of
Israel, shall be called (the God) of the whole earth."(3) What was thus
prophesied has been brought to pass through the name of the Christ, who
comes to men in the form of a descendant of that very Israel who was the
grandson of Abraham, with whom the race of the Hebrews began.(4) For it was
to this Israel also that it was said, "In thy seed shall all the tribes of
the earth be blessed."(5) Thus it is shown that the God of Israel, the true
God who made heaven and earth, and who administers human affairs justly and
mercifully in such wise that neither does justice exclude mercy with Him,
nor does mercy hinder justice, was not overcome Himself when His Hebrew
people suffered their overthrow, in virtue of His permitting the kingdom
and priesthood of that nation to be seized and subverted by the Romans. For
now, indeed, by the might of this gospel of Christ, the true King and
Priest, the advent of which was prefigured by that kingdom and priesthood,
the God of Israel Himself is everywhere destroying the idols of the
nations. And, in truth, it was to prevent that destruction that the Romans
refused to admit the sacred rites of this God in the way that they admitted
those of the gods of the other nations whom they conquered. Thus did He
remove both kingdom and priesthood from the prophetic nation, because He
who was promised to men through the agency of that people had already come.
And by Christ the King He has brought into subjection to His own name that
Roman empire by which the said nation was overcome; and by the strength and
devotion of Christian faith, He has converted it so as to effect a
subversion of those idols, the honour ascribed to which precluded His
worship from obtaining entrance.

22. I am of opinion that it was not by means of magical arts that Christ,
previous to His birth among men, brought it about that those things which
were destined to come to pass in the course of His history, were pre-
announced by so many prophets, and prefigured also by the kingdom and
priesthood established in a certain nation. For the people who are
connected with that now abolished kingdom, and who in the wonderful
providence of God are scattered throughout all lands, have indeed remained
without any unction from the true King and Priest; in which anointing(1)
the import of the name of Christ is plainly discovered. But notwithstanding
this, they still retain remnants of some of their observances; while, on
the other hand, not even in their state of overthrow and subjugation have
they accepted those Roman rites which are connected with the worship of
idols. Thus they still keep the prophetic books as the witness of Christ;
and in this way in the documents of His enemies we find proof presented(2)
of the truth of this Christ who is the subject of prophecy. What, then, do
these unhappy men disclose themselves to be, by the unworthy method in
which they laud(3) the name of Christ? If anything relating to the practice
of magic has been written under His name, while the doctrine of Christ is
so vehemently antagonistic to such arts, these men ought rather in the
light of this fact to gather some idea of the greatness of that name, by
the addition of which even persons who live in opposition to His precepts
endeavour to dignify their nefarious practices. For just as, in the course
of the diverse errors of men, many persons have set up their varied
heresies against the truth under the cover of His name, so the very enemies
of Christ } think that, for the purposes of gaining acceptance for opinions
which they propound in opposition to the doctrine of Christ, they have no
weight of authority at their service unless they have the name of Christ.

CHAP. XV.--OF THE FACT THAT THE PAGANS, WHEN CONSTRAINED TO LAUD CHRIST,
HAVE LAUNCHED THEIR INSULTS AGAINST HIS DISCIPLES.

23. BUt what shall be said to this, if those vain eulogizers of Christ,
and those crooked slanderers of the Christian religion, lack the daring to
blaspheme Christ, for this particular reason that some of their
philosophers, as Porphyry of Sicily(4) has given us to understand in his
books, consulted their gods as to their response on the subject of [the
claims of] Christ, and were constrained by their own oracles to laud
Christ? Nor should that seem incredible. For we also read in the Gospel
that the demons confessed Him;(5) and in our prophets it is written in this
wise: "For the gods of the nations are demons."(6) Thus it happens, then,
that in order to avoid attempting aught in opposition to the responses of
their own deities, they turn their blasphemies aside from Christ, and pour
them forth against His disciples. It seems to me, however, that these gods
of the Gentiles, whom the philosophers of the pagans may have consulted, if
they were asked to give their judgment on the disciples of Christ, as well
as on Christ Himself, would be constrained to praise them in like manner.

CHAP. XVI.--OF THE FACT THAT, ON THE SUBJECT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF IDOLS,
THE APOSTLES TAUGHT NOTHING DIFFERENT FROM WHAT WAS TAUGHT BY CHRIST OR BY
THE PROPHETS.

24. Nevertheless these persons argue still to the effect that this
demolition of temples, and this condemnation of sacrifices, and this
shattering of all images, are brought about, not in virtue of the doctrine
of Christ Himself, but only by the hand of His apostles, who, as they
contend, taught something different from what He taught. They think by this
device, while honouring and lauding Christ, to tear the Christian faith in
pieces. For it is at least true, that it is by the disciples of Christ that
at once the works and the words of Christ have been made known, on which
this Christian religion is established, with which a very few people of
this character are still in antagonism, who do not now indeed openly assail
it, but yet continue even in these days to utter their mutterings against
it. But if they refuse to believe that Christ taught in the way indicated,
let them read the prophets, who not only enjoined the complete destruction
of the superstitions of idols, but also predicted that this subversion
would come to pass in Christian times. And if these spoke falsely, why is
their word fulfilled with so mighty a demonstration? But if they spoke
truly, why is resistance offered to such divine power?(7)

CHAP. XVII.--IN OPPOSITION TO THE ROMANS WHO REJECTED THE GOD OF ISRAEL
ALONE.

25. However, here is a matter which should meet with more careful
consideration at their hands,--namely, what they take the God of Israel to
be, and why they have not admitted Him to the honours of worship among
them, in the way that they have done with the gods of other nations that
have been made subject to the imperial power of Rome? This question demands
an answer all the more, when we see that they are of the mind that all the
gods ought to be worshipped by the man of wisdom. Why, then, has He been
excluded from the number of these others? If He is very mighty, why is He
the only deity that is not worshipped by them? If He has little or no
might, why are the images of other gods broken in pieces by all the
nations, while He is now almost the only God that is worshipped among these
peoples? From the grasp of this question these men shall never be able to
extricate themselves, who worship both the greater and the lesser deities,
whom they hold to be gods, and at the same time refuse to worship this God,
who has proved Himself stronger than all those to whom they do service. If
He is [a God] of great virtue,(1) why has He been deemed worthy only of
rejection? And if He is [a God] of little or no power, why has He been able
to accomplish so much, although rejected? If He is good, why is He the only
one separated from the other good deities? And if He is evil, why is He,
who stands thus alone, not subjugated by so many good deities? If He is
truthful, why are His precepts scorned? And if He is a liar, why are His
predictions fulfilled?

Chap. XVIII.--OF THE FACT THAT THE GOD OF THE HEBREWS IS NOT RECEIVED BY
THE ROMANS, BECAUSE HIS WILLIS THAT HE ALONE SHOULD BE WORSHIPPED.

26. In fine, they may think of Him as they please. Still, we may ask
whether it is the case that the Romans refuse to consider evil deities as
also proper objects of worship,-- those Romans who have erected fanes to
Pallor and Fever, and who enjoin both that the good demons are to been
treated,(2) and that the evil demons are to be propitiated. Whatever their
opinion, then, of Him may be, the question still is, Why is He the only
Deity whom they have judged worthy neither of being called upon for help,
nor of being propitiated? What God is this, who is either one so unknown,
that He is the only one not discovered as yet among so many gods, or who is
one so well known that He is now the only one worshipped by so many men?
There remains, then, nothing which they can possibly allege in explanation
of their refusal to admit the worship of this God, except that His will was
that He alone should be worshipped; and His command was, that those gods of
the Gentiles that they were worshipping at the time should cease to be
worshipped. But an answer to this other question is rather to be required
of them, namely, what or what manner of deity they consider this God to be,
who has forbidden the worship of those other gods for whom they erected
temples and images,--this God, who has also been possessed of might so vast
that His will has prevailed more in effecting the destruction of their
images than theirs has availed to secure the non- admittance of His
worship. And, indeed, the opinion of that philosopher of theirs is given in
plain terms, whom, even on the authority of their own oracle, they have
maintained to have been the wisest of all men. For the opinion of Socrates
is, that every deity whatsoever ought to be worshipped just in the manner
in which he may have ordained that he should be worshipped. Consequently it
became a matter of the supremest necessity with them to refuse to worship
the God of the Hebrews. For if they were minded to worship Him in a method
different from the way in which He had declared that He ought to be
worshipped, then assuredly they would have been worshipping not this God as
He is, but some figment of their own. And, on the other hand, if they were
willing to worship Him in the manner which He had indicated, then they
could not but perceive that they were not at liberty to worship those other
deities whom He interdicted them from worshipping. Thus was it, therefore,
that they rejected the service of the one true God, because they were
afraid that they might offend the many false gods. For they thought that
the anger of those deities would be more to their injury, than the goodwill
of this God would be to their profit.

CHAP. XIX.--THE PROOF THAT THIS GOD IS THE TRUE GOD.

27. But that must have been a vain necessity and a ridiculous timidity.(3)
We ask now what opinion regarding this God is formed by those men whose
pleasure it is that all gods ought to be worshipped. For if He ought not to
be worshipped, how are all worshipped when He is not worshipped? And if He
ought to be worshipped, it cannot be that all others are to be worshipped
along with Him. For unless He is worshipped alone, He is really not
worshipped at all. Or may it perhaps be the case, that they will allege Him
to be no God at all, while they call those gods who, as we believe, have no
power to do anything except so far as permission is given them by His
judgment,--have not merely no power to do good to any one, but no power
even to do harm to any, except to those who are judged by Him, who
possesses all power, to merit so to be harmed? But, as they themselves are
compelled to admit, those deities have shown less power than He has done.
For if those are held to be gods whose prophets, when consulted by men,
have returned responses which, that I may not call them false, were at
least most convenient for their private interests, how is not He to be
regarded as God whose prophets have not only given the congruous answer on
subjects regarding which they were consulted at the special time, but who
also, in the case of subjects respecting which they were not consulted, and
which related to the universal race of man and all nations, have announced
prophetically so long time before the event those very things of which we
now read, and which indeed we now behold? If they gave the name of god to
that being under whose inspiration the Sibyl sung of the fates(1) of the
Romans, how is not He (to be called) God, who, in accordance with the
announcement aforetime given, has shown us how the Romans and all nations
are coming to believe in Himself through the gospel of Christ, as the one
God, and to demolish all the images of their fathers? Finally, if they
designate those as gods who have never dared through their prophets to say
anything against this God, how is not He (to be designated) God, who not
only commanded by the mouth of His prophets the destruction of their
images, but who also predicted that among all the Gentiles they would be
destroyed by those who should be enjoined to abandon their idols and to
worship Him alone, and who, on receiving these injunctions, should be His
servants?(2)

CHAP. XX.--OF THE FACT THAT NOTHING IS DISCOVERED TO HAVE BEEN PREDICTED BY
THE PROPHETS OF THE PAGANS IN OPPOSITION TO THE GOD OF THE HEBREWS.

28. Or let them aver, if they are able, that some Sibyl of theirs, or any
one whatever among their other prophets, announced long ago that it would
come to pass that the God of the Hebrews, the God of Israel, would be
worshipped by aIl nations, declaring, at the same time, that the
worshippers of other gods before that time had rightly rejected Him; and
again, that the compositions of His prophets would be in such exalted
authority,(3) that in obedience to them the Roman government itself would
command the destruction of images, the said seers at the same time giving
warning against acting upon such ordinances;--let them, I say, read out any
utterances like these, if they can, from any of the books of their
prophets. For I stop not to state that those things which we can read in
their books repeat a testimony on behalf of our religion, that is, the
Christian religon, which they might have heard from the holy angels and
from our prophets themselves; just as the very devils were compelled to
confess Christ when He was present in the flesh. But I pass by these
matters, regarding which, when we bring them forward, their contention is
that they were invented by our party. Most certainly, however, they may
themselves be pressed to adduce anything which has been prophesied by the
seers of their own gods against the God of the Hebrews; as, on our side, we
can point to declarations so remarkable at once for number and for weight
recorded in the books of our prophets against their gods, in which also we
can both note the command and recite the prediction and demonstrate the
event. And over the realization of these things, that comparatively small
number of heathens who have remained such are more inclined to grieve than
they are ready to acknowledge that God who has had the power to foretell
these things as events destined to be made good; whereas in their dealings
with their own false gods, who are genuine demons, they prize nothing else
so highly as to be informed by their responses of something which is to
take place with them.(4)

CHAP. XXI.--AN ARGUMENT FOR THE EXCLUSIVE WORSHIP OF THIS GOD, WHO, WHILE
HE PROHIBITS OTHER DEITIES FROM BEING WORSHIPPED, IS NOT HIMSELF
INTERDICTED BY OTHER DIVINITIES FROM BEING WORSHIPPED.

29. Seeing, then, that these things are so, why do not these unhappy men
rather apprehend the fact that this God is the true God, whom they perceive
to be placed in a position so thoroughly separated from the company of
their own deities, that, although they are compelled to acknowledge Him to
be God, those very persons who profess that all gods ought to be worshipped
are nevertheless not permitted to worship Him along with the rest? Now,
since these deities and this God cannot be worshipped together, why is not
He selected who forbids those others to be worshipped; and why are not
those deities abandoned, who do not interdict Him from being worshipped? Or
if they do indeed forbid His worship, let the interdict be read. For what
has greater claims to be recited to their people in their temples, in which
the sound of no such thing has ever been heard? And, in good sooth, the
prohibition directed by so many against one ought to be more notable(1) and
more potent than the prohibition launched by one against so many. For if
the worship of this God is impious, then those gods are profitless, who do
not interdict men from that impiety; but if the worship of this God is
pious, then, as in that worship the commandment is given that these others
are not to be worshipped, their worship is impious. If, again, those
deities forbid His worship, but only so diffidently that they rather fear
to be heard(2) than dare to prohibit, who is so unwise as not to draw his
own inference from the fact, who fails to perceive that this God ought to
be chosen, who in so public a manner prohibits their worship, who commanded
that their images should be destroyed, who foretold that demolition, who
Himself effected it, in preference to those deities of whom we know not
that they ordained abstinence from His worship, of whom we do not read that
they foretold such an event, and in whom we do not see power sufficient to
have it brought about? I put the question, let them give the answer: Who is
this God, who thus harasses all the gods of the Gentiles, who thus betrays
all their sacred rites, who thus renders them extinct?

CHAP. XXII.--OF THE OPINION ENTERTAINED BY THE GENTILES REGARDING OUR GOD.

30. But why do I interrogate men whose native wit has deserted them in
answering the question as to who this God is? Some say that He is Saturn. I
fancy the reason of that is found in the sanctification of the Sabbath; for
those men assign that day to Saturn. But their own Varro, than whom they
can point to no man of greater learning among them, thought that the God of
the Jews was Jupiter, and he judged that it mattered not what name was
employed, provided the same subject was understood under it; in which, I
believe, we see how he was subdued by His supremacy. For, inasmuch as the
Romans are not accustomed to worship any more exalted object than Jupiter,
of which fact their Capitol is the open and sufficient attestation, and
deem him to be the king of all gods; when he observed that the Jews
worshipped the supreme God, he could not think of any object under that
title other than Jupiter himself. But whether men call the God of the
Hebrews Saturn, or declare Him to be Jupiter, let them tell us when Saturn
dared to prohibit the worship of a second deity. He did not venture to
interdict the worship even of this very Jupiter, who is said to have
expelled him from his kingdom,--the son thus expelling the father. And if
Jupiter, as the more powerful deity and the conqueror, has been accepted by
his worshippers, then they ought not to worship Saturn, the conquered and
expelled. But neither, on the other hand, did Jove put his worship under
the ban. Nay, that deity whom he had power to overcome, he nevertheless
suffered to continue a god.

CHAP. XXIII.--OF THE FOLLIES WHICH THE PAGANS HAVE INDULGED IN REGARDING
JUPITER AND SATURN.

31. These narratives of yours, say they, are but fables which have to be
interpreted by the wise, or else they are fit only to be laughed at; but we
revere that Jupiter of whom Maro says that

   "All things are full of Jove,"
     --Virgil's Eclogues, iii. v. 60;

that is to say, the spirit of life 3 that vivifies all things. It is not
without some reason, therefore, that Varro thought that Jove was worshipped
by the Jews; for the God of the Jews says by His prophet, "I fill heaven
and earth."(4) But what is meant by that which the same poet names Ether?
How do they take the term? For he speaks thus:

   "Then the omnipotent father Ether, with fertilizing showers,
   Came down into the bosom of his fruitful spouse."
     --Virgil's Georgics, ii. 325.

They say, indeed, that this Ether is not spirit,(5) but a lofty body in
which the heaven is stretched above the air.(6) Is liberty conceded to the
poet to speak at one time in the language of the followers of Plato, as if
God was not body, but spirit, and at another time in the language of the
Stoics, as if God was a body? What is it, then, that they worship in their
Capitol? If it is a spirit, or if again it is, in short, the corporeal
heaven itself, then what does that shield of Jupiter there which they style
the Aegis? The origin of that name, indeed, is explained by the
circumstance that a goat(7) nourished Jupiter when he was concealed by his
mother. Or is this a fiction of the poets? But are the capitols of the
Romans, then, also the mere creations of the poets? And what is the meaning
of that, certainly not poetical, but unmistakeably farcical, variability of
yours, in seeking your gods according to the ideas of philosophers in
books, and revering them according to the notions of poets in your temples?

32. But was that Euhemerus also a poet, who declares both Jupiter himself,
and his father Saturn, and Pluto and Neptune his brothers, to have been
men, in terms so exceedingly plain that their worshippers ought all the
more to render thanks to the poets, because their inventions have not been
intended so much to disparage them as rather to dress them up? Albeit
Cicero mentions that this same Euhemerus was translated into Latin by the
poet Ennius.(2) Or was Cicero himself a poet, who, in counselling the
person with whom he debates in his Tusculan Disputations, addresses him as
one possessing knowledge of things secret, in the following terms: "If,
indeed, I were to attempt to search into antiquity, and produce from thence
the subjects which the writers of Greece have given to the world, it would
be found that even those deities who are reckoned gods of the higher orders
have gone from us into heaven. Ask whose sepulchres are pointed out in
Greece: call to mind, since you have been initiated, the things which are
delivered in the mysteries: then, doubtless, you will comprehend how widely
extended this belief is."(3) This author certainly makes ample
acknowledgment of the doctrine that those gods of theirs were originally,
men. He does, indeed, benevolently surmise that they made their way into
heaven. But he did not hesitate to say in public, that even the honour thus
given them in general repute(4) was conferred upon them by men, when he
spoke of Romulus in these words: "By good will and repute We have raised to
the immortal gods that Romulus who rounded this city."(5) How should it be
such a wonderful thing, therefore, to suppose that the more ancient men did
with respect to Jupiter and Saturn and the others what the Romans have done
with respect to Romulus, and what, in good truth, they have thought of
doing even in these more recent times also in the case of Caesar? And to
these same Virgil has addressed the additional flattery of song, saying:

   "Lo, the star of Caesar, descendant of Dione, arose."
     --Eclogue, ix. ver. 47.

Let them see to it, then, that the truth of history do not turn out to
exhibit to our view. sepulchres erected for their false gods here upon the
earth! and let them take heed lest the vanity of poetry, instead of fixing,
may be but feigning(6) stars for their deities there in heaven. For, in
reality, that one is not the star of Jupiter, neither is this one the star
of Saturn; but the simple fact is, that upon these stars, which were set
from the foundation of the world, the names of those persons were imposed
after their death by men who were minded to honour them as gods on their
departure from this life. And with respect to these we may, indeed, ask how
there should be such ill desert in chastity, or such good desert in
voluptuousness, that Venus should have a star, and Minerva be denied one
among those luminaries which revolve along with the sun and moon?

33. But it may be said that Cicero, the Academic sage, who has been bold
enough to make mention of the sepulchres of their gods, and to commit the
statement to writing, is a more doubtful authority than the poets; although
he did not presume to offer that assertion simply as his own personal
opinion, but put it on record as a statement contained among the traditions
of their own sacred rites. Well, then, can it also be maintained that Varro
either gives expression merely to an invention of his own, as a poet might
do, or puts the matter only dubiously, as might be the case with an
Academician, because he declares that, in the instance of all such gods,
the matters of their worship had their origin either in the life which they
lived, or in the death which they died, among men? Or was that Egyptian
priest, Leon,(7) either a poet or an Academician, who expounded the origin
of those gods of theirs to Alexander of Macedon, in a way somewhat
different indeed from the opinion advanced by the Greeks, but nevertheless
so far accordant therewith as to make out their deities to have been
originally men?

34. But what is all this to us?(8) Let them assert that they worship
Jupiter, and not a dead man; let them maintain that they have dedicated
their Capitol not to a dead man, but to the Spirit that vivifies all things
and fills the world. And as to that shield of his, which was made of the
skin of a she-goat in honour of his nurse, let them put upon it whatever
interpretation they please. What do they say, however, about Saturn?(9)
What is it that they worship under the name of Saturn? Is not this the
deity that was the first to come down to us from Olympus (of whom the poet
sings):

   "Then from Olympus' height came down
   Good Saturn, exiled from his crown
   By Jove, his mightier heir:
   He brought the rate to union first
   Erewhile, on mountain-tops dispersed,
   And gave them statutes to obey,
   And willed the land wherein he lay
   Should Latium's title bear."
     --Virgil's Aeneid, viii. 320-324, Conington's trans.

Does not his very image, made as it is with the head covered, present him
as one under concealment?(1) Was it not he that made the practice of
agriculture known to the people of Italy, a fact which is expressed by the
reaping-hook?(2) No, say they; for you may see whether the being of whom
such things are recorded was a man,(3) and indeed one particular king: we,
however, interpret Saturn to be universal Time, as is signified also by his
name in Greek: for he is called Chronus,(4) which word, with the aspiration
thus given it, is also the vocable for time: whence, too, in Latin he gets
the name of Saturn, as if it meant that he is sated(5) with years. But now,
what we are to make of people like these I know not, who, in their very
effort to put a more favourable meaning upon the names and the images of
their gods, make the confession that the very god who is their major deity,
and the father of the rest, is Time. For what else do they thus betray but,
in fact, that all those gods of theirs are only temporal, seeing that the
very parent of them all is made out to be Time?

35. Accordingly, their more recent philosophers of the Platonic school,
who have flourished in Christian times, have been ashamed of such fancies,
and have endeavoured to interpret Saturn in another way, affirming that he
received the name Chro'nos(6) in order to signify, as it were, the
fulness of intellect; their explanation being, that in Greek fulness(7) is
expressed by the term cho'ros,(8) and intellect or mind by the term
nou^s;(9) which etymology seems to be favoured also by the Latin
name, on the supposition that the first part of the word (Saturnus) came
from the Latin, and the second part from the Greek: so that he got the
title Saturnus as an equivalent to satur, nou^s.(10) For they saw how
absurd it was to have that Jupiter regarded as a son of Time, whom they
either considered, or wished to have considered, eternal deity.
Furthermore, however, according to this novel interpretation, which it is
marvellous that Cicero and Varro should have suffered to escape their
notice, if their ancient authorities really had it, they call Jupiter the
son of Saturn, thus denoting him, it may be, as the spirit that proceedeth
forth from that supreme mind--the spirit which they choose to look upon as
the soul of this world, so to speak, filling alike all heavenly and all
earthly bodies. Whence comes also that saying of Maro, which I have cited a
little ago, namely, "All things are full of Jove"? Should they not, then,
if they are possessed of the ability, alter the superstitions indulged in
by men, just as they alter their interpretation; and either erect no images
at all, or at least build capitols to Saturn rather than to Jupiter? For
they also maintain that no rational soul can be produced gifted with
wisdom, except by participation in that supreme and unchangeable wisdom of
his; and this affirmation they advance not only with respect to the soul of
a man, but even with respect to that same soul of the world which they also
designate Jove. Now we not only concede, but even very particularly
proclaim, that there is a certain supreme wisdom of God, by participation
in which every soul whatsoever that is constituted truly wise acquires its
wisdom. But whether that universal corporeal mass, which is called the
world, has a kind of soul, or, so to speak, its own soul, that is to say, a
rational life by which it can govern its own movements, as is the case with
every sort of animal, is a question both vast and obscure. That is an
opinion which ought not to be affirmed, unless its truth is clearly
ascertained; neither ought it to be rejected, unless its falsehood is as
clearly ascertained. And what will it matter to man, even should this
question remain for ever unsolved, since, in any case, no soul becomes wise
or blessed by drawing from any other soul but from that one supreme and
immutable wisdom of God?

36. The Romans, however, who have rounded a Capitol in honour of Jupiter,
but none in honour of Saturn, as also these other nations whose opinion it
has been that Jupiter ought to be worshipped pre-eminently and above the
rest of the gods, have certainly not agreed in sentiment with the persons
referred to; who, in accordance with that mad view of theirs, would
dedicate their loftiest citadels(11) rather to Saturn, if they had any
power in these things, and who most particularly would annihilate those
mathematicians and nativity-spinners(12) by whom this Saturn, whom their
opponents would designate the maker of the wise, has been placed with the
character of a deity of evil among the other stars. But this opinion,
nevertheless, has prevailed so mightily against them in the mind of
humanity, that men decline even to name that god, and call him Ancient(1)
rather than Saturn; and that in so fearful a spirit of superstition, that
the Carthaginians have now gone very near to change the designation of
their town, and call it the town of the Ancient(2) more frequently than the
town of Saturn.(3)

CHAP, XXIV.--OF THE FACT THAT THOSE PERSONS WHO REJECT THE GOD OF ISRAEL,
IN CONSEQUENCE FAIL TO WORSHIP ALL THE GODS; AND, ON THE OTHER HAND, THAT
THOSE WHO WORSHIP OTHER GODS, FAIL TO WORSHIP HIM.

37. It is well understood, therefore, what these worshippers of images are
convicted in reality of revering, and what they attempt to colour over.(4)
But even these new interpreters of Saturn must be required to tell us what
they think of the God of the Hebrews. For to them also it seemed right to
worship all the gods, as is done by the heathen nations, because their
pride made them ashamed to humble themselves under Christ for the remission
of their sins. What opinion, therefore, do they entertain regarding the God
of Israel? For if they do not worship Him then they do not worship all
gods; and if they do worship Him, they do not worship Him in the way that
He has ordained for His own worship, because they worship others also whose
worship He has interdicted. Against such practices He issued His
prohibition by the mouth of those same prophets by whom He also announced
beforehand the destined occurrence of those very things which their images
are now sustaining at the hands of the Christians. For whatever the
explanation may be, whether it be that the angels were sent to those
prophets to show them figuratively, and by the congruous forms of visible
objects, the one true God, the Creator of all things, to whom the whole
universe is made subject, and to indicate the method in which He enjoined
His own worship to proceed; or whether it was that the minds of some among
them were so mightily elevated by the Holy Spirit, as to enable them to see
those things in that kind of vision in which the angels themselves behold
objects: in either case it is the incontestable fact, that they did serve
that God who has prohibited the worship of other gods; and, moreover, it is
equally certain, that with the faithfulness of piety, in the kingly and in
the priestly office, they ministered at once for the good of their country,
and in the interest of those sacred ordinances which were significant of
the coming of Christ as the true King and Priest.

CHAP.XXV.--OF THE FACT THAT THE FALSE GODS DO NOT FORBID OTHERS TO BE
WORSHIPPED ALONG WITH THEMSELVES. THAT THE GOD OF ISRAEL IS THE TRUE GOD,
IS PROVED BY HIS WORKS, BOTH IN PROPHECY AND IN FULFILMENT.

38. But further, in the case of the gods of the Gentiles (in their
willingness to worship whom they exhibit their unwillingness to worship
that God who cannot be worshipped together with them), let them tell us the
reason why no one is found in the number of their deities who thinks of
interdicting the worship of another; while they institute them in different
offices and functions, and hold them to preside each one over objects which
pertain properly to his own special province. For if Jupiter does not
prohibit the worship of Saturn, because he is not to be taken merely for a
man, who drove another man, namely his father, out of his kingdom, but
either for the body of the heavens, or for the spirit that fills both
heaven and earth, and because thus he cannot prevent that supernal mind
from being worshipped, from which he is said to have emanated: if, on the
same principle also, Saturn cannot interdict the worship of Jupiter,
because he is not [to be supposed to be merely] one who was conquered by
that other in rebellion,--as was the case with a person of the same name,
by the hand of some one or other called Jupiter, from whose arms he was
fleeing when he came into Italy,--and because the primal mind favours the
mind that springs from it: yet Vulcan at least might [be expected to] put
under the ban the worship of Mars, the paramour of his wife, and Hercules
[might be thought likely to interdict] the worship of Juno, his persecutor.
What kind of foul consent must subsist among them, if even Diana, the
chaste virgin, fails to interdict the worship, I do not say merely of
Venus, but even of Priapus? For if the same individual decides to be at
once a hunter and a farmer, he must be the servant of both these deities;
and yet he will be ashamed to do even so much as erect temples for them
side by side. But they may aver, that by interpretation Diana means a
certain virtue, be it what they please; and they may tell us that Priapus
really denotes the deity of fecundity,(5)--to such an effect, at any rate,
that Juno may well be ashamed to have such a coadjutor in the task of
making females fruitful. They may say what they please; they may put any
explanation upon these things which in their wisdom they think fit: only,
in spite of all that, the God of Israel will confound all their
argumentations. For in prohibiting all those deities from being worshipped,
while His own worship is hindered by none of them, and in at once
commanding, foretelling, and effecting destruction for their images and
sacred rites, He has shown with sufficient clearness that they are false
and lying deities, and that He Himself is the one true and truthful God.

39. Moreover, to whom should it not seem strange that those worshippers,
now become few in number, of deities both numerous and false, should refuse
to do homage to Him of whom, when the question is put to them as to what
deity He is; they dare not at least assert, whatever answer they may think
to give, that He is no God at all? For if they deny His deity, they are
very easily refuted by His works, both in prophecy and in fulfilment. I do
not speak of those works which they deem themselves at liberty not to
credit, such as His work in the beginning, when He made heaven and earth,
and all that is in them.(1) Neither do I specify here those events which
carry us back into the remotest antiquity, such as the translation of
Enoch,(2) the destruction of the impious by the flood, and the saving of
righteous Noah and his house from the deluge, by means of the [ark of]
wood.(3) I begin the statement of His doings among men with Abraham. To
this man, indeed, was given by an angelic oracle an intelligible promise,
which we now see in its realization. For to him it was said, "In thy seed
shall all nations be blessed."(4) Of his seed, then, sprang the people of
Israel, whence came the Virgin Mary, who was the mother of Christ; and that
in Him all the nations are blessed, let them now be hold enough to deny if
they can. This same promise was made also to Isaac the son of Abraham.(5)
It was given again to Jacob the grandson of Abraham. This Jacob was also
called Israel, from whom that whole people derived both its descent and its
name so that indeed the God of this people was called the God of Israel:
not that He is not also the God of the Gentiles, whether they are ignorant
of Him or now know Him; but that in this people He willed that the power of
His promises should be made more conspicuously apparent. For that people,
which at first was multiplied in Egypt, and after a time was delivered from
a state of slavery there by the hand of Moses, with many signs and
portents, saw most of the Gentile nations subdued under it, and obtained
possession also of the land of promise, in which it reigned in the person
of kings of its own, who sprang from the tribe of Judah. This Judah, also,
was one of the twelve sons of Israel, the grandson of Abraham. And from him
were descended the people called the Jews, who, with the help of God
Himself, did great achievements, and who also, when He chastised them,
endured many sufferings on account of their sins, until the coming of that
Seed to whom the promise was given, in whom all the nations were to be
blessed, and [for whose sake] they were willingly to break in pieces the
idols of their fathers.

CHAP. XXVI.--OF THE FACT THAT IDOLATRY HAS BEEN SUBVERTED BY THE NAME OF
CHRIST, AND BY THE FAITH OF CHRISTIANS ACCORDING TO THE PROPHECIES.

40. For truly what is thus effected by Christians is not a thing which
belongs only to Christian times, but one which was predicted very long ago.
Those very Jews who have remained enemies to the name of Christ, and
regarding whose destined perfidy these prophetic writings have not been
silent, do themselves possess and peruse the prophet who Says: "O Lord my
God, and my refuge in the day of evil, the Gentiles shall come unto Thee
from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have
worshipped mendacious idols, and there is no profit in them."(6) Behold,
that is now being done; behold, now the Gentiles are coining from the ends
of the earth to Christ, uttering things like these, and breaking their
idols! Of signal consequence, too, is this which God has done for His
Church m its world-wide extension, in that the Jewish nation, which has
been deservedly overthrown and scattered abroad throughout the lands, has
been made to carry about with it everywhere the records of our prophecies,
so that it might not be possible to look upon these predictions as
concocted by ourselves; and thus the enemy of our faith has been made a
witness to our truth. How, then, can it be possible that the disciples of
Christ have taught what they have not learned from Christ, as those foolish
men in their silly fancies object, with the view of getting the
superstitious worship of heathen gods and idols subverted? Can it be said
also that those prophecies which are still read in these days, in the books
of the enemies of Christ, were the inventions of the disciples of Christ?

41. Who, then, has effected the demolition of these systems but the God of
Israel? For to this people was the announcement made by those divine voices
which were addressed to Moses: "Hear, O Israel; the Lord thy God is one
God."(7) "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness
of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath."(8)
And again, in order that this people might put an end to these things
wherever it received power to do so, this commandment was also laid upon
the nation: "Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them; thou
shalt not do after their works, but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and
quite break down their images."(1) But who shall say that Christ and
Christians have no connection with Israel, seeing that Israel was the
grandson of Abraham, to whom first, as afterwards to his son Isaac, and
then to his grandson Israel himself, that promise was given, which I have
already mentioned, namely: "In thy seed shall all nations be blessed"? That
prediction we see now in its fulfilment in Christ. For it was of this line
that the Virgin was born, concerning whom a prophet of the people of Israel
and of the God of Israel sang in these terms: "Behold, a virgin shall
conceive, and bear a son; and they shall call(2) His name Emmanuel." For by
interpretation, Emmanuel means, "God with us."(3) This God of Israel,
therefore, who has interdicted the worship of other gods, who has
interdicted the making of idols, who has commanded their destruction, who
by His prophet has predicted that the Gentiles from the ends of the earth
would say, "Surely Our fathers have worshipped mendacious idols, in which
there is no profit;" this same God is He who, by the name of Christ and by
the faith of Christians, has ordered, promised, and exhibited the overthrow
of all these superstitions. In vain, therefore, do these unhappy men,
knowing that they have been prohibited from blaspheming the name of Christ,
even by their own gods, that is to say, by the demons who fear the name of
Christ, seek to make it out, that this kind of doctrine is something
strange to Him, in the power of which the Christians dispute against idols,
and root out all those false religions, wherever they have the opportunity.

CHAP. XXVII.--AN ARGUMENT URGING IT UPON THE REMNANT OF IDOLATERS THAT THEY
SHOULD AT LENGTH BECOME SERVANTS OF THIS TRUE GOD, WHO EVERYWHERE IS
SUBVERTING IDOLS.

42. Let them now give their answer with respect to the God of Israel, to
whom, as teaching and enjoining such things, witness is borne not only by
the books of the Christians, but also by those of the Jews. Regarding Him,
let them ask the counsel of their own deities, who have prevented the
blaspheming of Christ. Concerning the God of Israel, let them give a
contumelious response if they dare. But whom are they to consult? or where
are they to ask counsel now? Let them peruse the books of their own
authorities. If they consider the God of Israel to be Jupiter, as Varro has
written (that I may speak for the time being in accordance with their own
way of thinking), why then do they not believe that the idols are to be
destroyed by Jupiter? If they deem Him to he Saturn,(4) why do they not
worship Him? Or why do they not worship Him in that manner in which, by the
voice of those prophets through whom He has made good the things which He
has foretold, He has ordained His worship to be conducted? Why do they not
believe that images are to be destroyed by Him, and the worship of other
gods forbidden? If He is neither Jove nor Saturn (and surely, if He were
one of these, He would not speak out so mightily against the sacred rites
of their Jove and Saturn), who then is this God, who, with all their
consideration for other gods, is the only Deity not worshipped by them, and
who, nevertheless, so manifestly brings it about that He shall Himself be
the sole object of worship, to the overthrow of all other gods, and to the
humiliation of everything proud and highly exalted, which has lifted itself
up against Christ in behalf of idols, persecuting and slaying Christians?
But, in good truth, men are now asking into what secret recesses these
worshippers withdraw, when they are minded to offer sacrifice; or into what
regions of obscurity they thrust back these same gods of theirs, to prevent
their being discovered and broken in pieces by the Christians. Whence comes
this mode of dealing, if not from the fear of those laws and those rulers
by whose instrumentality the God of Israel discovers His power, and who are
now made subject to the name of Christ. And that it should be so He
promised long ago, when He said by the prophet: "Yea, all kings of the
earth shall worship Him: all nations shall serve Him."(5)

CHAP. XXVIII.--OF THE PREDICTED REJECTION OF IDOLS.

43. It cannot be questioned that what was predicted at sundry times by His
prophets is now being realized,--namely, the announcement that He would
disclaim His impious people (not, indeed, the people as a whole, because
even of the Israelites many have believed in Christ; for His apostles
themselves belonged to that nation), and would humble every proud and
injurious person, so that He should Himself alone be exalted, that is to
say, alone be manifested to men as lofty and mighty; until idols should be
cast away by those who believe, and be concealed by those who believe not;
when the earth is broken by His fear, that is to say, when the men of earth
are subdued by fear, to wit, by fearing His law, or the law of those who,
being at once believers in His name and rulers among the nations, shall
interdict such sacrilegious practices.

44. For these things, which I have thus briefly stated in the way of
introduction, and with a view to their readier apprehension, are thus
expressed by the prophet: And now, O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us
walk in the light of the Lord. For He has disclaimed His people the house
of Israel, because the country was replenished, as from the beginning, with
their soothsayings as with those of strangers, and many strange children
were born to them. For their country was replenished with silver and gold,
neither was there any numbering of their treasures; their land also is full
of horses, neither was there any numbering of their chariots: their land
also is full of the abominations of the works of their own hands, and they
have worshipped that which

their own fingers have made. And the mean man(1) has bowed himself, and the
great man(2) has humbled himself; and I will not forgive it them. And now
enter ye into the rocks, and hide yourselves in the earth from before the
fear of the Lord, and from the majesty of His power, when He arises to
crush the earth: for the eyes of the Lord are lofty, and man is low; and
the haughtiness of men shall be humbled, and the Lord alone shall be
exalted in that day. For the day of the Lord of Hosts shall be upon every
one that is injurious and proud, and upon every one that is lifted up and
humbled,(3) and they shall be brought low; and upon every cedar of Lebanon
of the high ones and the lifted up,(4) and upon every tree of the Lebanon
of Bashan,(5) and upon every mountain, and upon every high hill,(6) and
upon every ship of the sea, and upon every spectacle of the beauty of
ships. And the contumely of men shall be humbled and shall fall, and the
Lord alone shall be exalted in that day;(7) and all things made by hands
they shall hide in dens, and in holes of the rocks, and in caves of the
earth, from before the fear of the Lord, and from the majesty of His power,
when He arises to crush the earth: for in that day a man shall cast away
the abominations of gold and silver, the vain and evil things which they
made for worship, in order to go into the clefts of the solid rock, and
into the holes of the rocks, from before the fear of the Lord, and from the
majesty of His power, when He arises to break the earth in pieces.(8)

CHAP. XXIX.--OF THE QUESTION WHY THE HEATHEN SHOULD REFUSE TO WORSHIP THE
GOD OF ISRAEL; EVEN ALTHOUGH THEY DEEM HIM TO BE ONLY THE PRESIDING
DIVINITY OF THE ELEMENTS?

45. What do they say of this God of Sabaoth, which term, by
interpretation, means the God of powers or of armies, inasmuch as the
powers and the armies of the angels serve Him? What do they say of this God
of Israel; for He is the God of that people from whom came the seed wherein
all the nations were to be blessed? Why is He the only deity excluded from
worship by those very persons who contend that all the gods ought to be
worshipped? Why do they refuse their belief to Him who both proves other
gods to be false gods, and also overthrows them? I have heard one of them
declare that he had read, in some philosopher or other, the statement that,
from what the Jews did in their sacred observances, he had come to know
what God they worshipped. "He is the deity," said he, "that presides over
those elements of which this visible and material universe is constructed;"
when in the Holy Scriptures of His prophets it is plainly shown that the
people of Israel were commanded to worship that God who made heaven and
earth, and from whom comes all true wisdom. But what need is there for
further disputation on this subject, seeing that it is quite sufficient for
my present purpose to point out how they entertain any kind of presumptuous
opinions regarding that God whom yet they cannot deny to be a God? If,
indeed, He is the deity that presides over the elements of which this world
consists, why is He not worshipped in preference to Neptune, who presides
over the sea only? Why not, again, in preference to Silvanus, who presides
over the fields and woods only? Why not in preference to the Sun, who
presides over the day only, or who also rules over the entire heat of
heaven? Why not in preference to the Moon, who presides over the night
only, or who also shines pre-eminent for power over moisture? Why not in
preference to Juno, who is supposed to hold possession of the air only? For
certainly those deities, whoever they may be, who preside over the parts,
must necessarily be under that Deity who wields the presidency over all the
elements, and over the entire universe. But this Deity prohibits the
worship of all those deities. Why, then, is it that these men, in
opposition to the injunction of One greater than those deities, not only
choose to worship them, but also decline, for their sakes, to worship Him?
Not yet have they discovered any constant and intelligible judgment to
pronounce on this God of Israel; neither will they ever discover any such
judgment, until they find out that He alone is the true God, by whom all
things were created.

CHAP. XXX.--OF THE FACT THAT, AS THE PROPHECIES HAVE BEEN FULFILLED, THE
GOD OF ISRAEL HAS NOW BEEN MADE KNOWN EVERYWHERE.

46. Thus it was with a certain person named Lucan, one of their great
declaimers in verse. For a long time, as I believe, he endeavored to find
out, by his own cogitations, or by the perusal of the books of his own
fellow-countrymen,(1) who the God of the Jews was; and failing to prosecute
his inquiry in the way of piety, he did not succeed. Yet he chose rather to
speak of Him as the uncertain God whom he did not find out, than absolutely
to deny the title of God to that Deity of whose existence he perceived
proofs so great. For he says:

   "And Judaea, devoted to the worship Of an uncertain God."(2)
     --LUCAN, Book ii. towards the end.

And as yet this God, the holy and true God of Israel, had not done by the
name of Christ among all nations works so great as those which have been
wrought after Lucan's times up to our own day. But now who is so obdurate
as not to be moved, who so dull(3) as not to be inflamed, seeing that the
saying of Scripture is fulfilled, "For there is not one that is hid from
the heat thereof;"(4) and seeing also that those other things which were
predicted so long time ago in this same Psalm from which I have cited one
little verse, are now set forth in their accomplishment in the clearest
light? For under this term of the "heavens" the apostles of Jesus Christ
were denoted, because God was to preside in them with a view to the
publishing of the gospel. Now, therefore, the heavens have declared the
glory of God, and the firmament has proclaimed the works of His hands. Day
unto day has given forth speech, and night unto night has shown knowledge.
Now there is no speech or language where their voices are not heard. Their
sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the end of the
world. Now hath He set His tabernacle in the sun, that is, in
manifestation; which tabernacle is His Church. For in order to do so (as
the words proceed in the passage) He came forth from His chamber like a
bridegroom; that is to say, the Word, wedded with the flesh of man, came
forth from the Virgin's womb. Now has He rejoiced as a strong man, and has
run His race. Now has His going forth been made from the height of heaven,
and His return even to the height of heaven. (5) And accordingly, with the
completest propriety, there follows upon this the verse which I have
already mentioned: "And there is not one that is hid from the heat thereof
[or, His heat]." And still these men make choice of their little, weak,
prating objections, which are like stubble to be reduced to ashes in that
fire, rather than like gold to be purged of its dross by it; while at once
the fallacious monuments of their false gods have been brought to nought,
and the veracious promises of that uncertain God have been proved to be
sure.

CHAP. XXXI.--THE FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECIES CONCERNING CHRIST.

47. Wherefore let those evil applauders of Christ, who refuse to become
Christians, desist from making the allegation that Christ did not teach
that their gods were to be abandoned, and their images broken in pieces.
For the God of Israel, regarding whom it was declared aforetime that He
should be called the God of the whole earth, is now indeed actually called
the God of the whole earth. By the mouth of His prophets He predicted that
this would come to pass, and by Christ He did bring it eventually to pass
at the fit time. Assuredly, if the God of Israel is now named the God of
the whole earth, what He has commanded must needs be made good; for He who
has given the commandment is now well known. But, further, that He is made
known by Christ and in Christ, in order that His Church may be extended
throughout the world, and that by its instrumentality the God of Israel may
be named the God of the whole earth, those who please may read a little
earlier in the same prophet. That paragraph may also be cited by me. It is
not so long as to make it requisite for us to pass it by. Here there is
much said about the presence, the humility, and the passion of Christ, and
about the body of which He is the Head, that is, His Church, where it is
called barren, like one that did not bear. For during many years the
Church, which was destined to subsist among all the nations with its
children, that is, with its saints, was not apparent, as Christ remained
yet unannounced by the evangelists to those to whom He had not been
declared by the prophets. Again, it is said that there shall be more
children for her who is forsaken than for her who has a husband, under
which name of a husband the Law was signified, or the King whom the people
of Israel first received. For neither had the Gentiles received the Law at
the period at which the prophet spake; nor had the King of Christians yet
appeared to the nations, although from these Gentile nations a much more
fruitful and numerous multitude of saints has now proceeded. It is in this
manner, therefore, that Isaiah speaks, commencing with the humility(1) of
Christ, and turning afterwards to an address to the Church, on to that
verse which we have already instanced, where he says: And He who brought
thee out, the same God of Israel, shall be called the God of the whole
earth.(2) Behold, says he, my Servant shall deal prudently, and shall be
exalted and honoured exceedingly. As many shall be astonied at Thee; so
shall Thy marred visage, nevertheless, be seen by all, and Thine honour by
men. For so shall many nations be astonied at Him, and the kings shall shut
their mouths. For they shall see to whom it has not been told of Him; and
those who have not heard shall understand. O Lord, who hath believed our
report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We have proclaimed
before Him as a servant,(3) as a root in a thirsty soil; He hath no form
nor comeliness. And we have seen Him, and He had neither beauty nor
seemliness; but His countenance is despised, and His state rejected by all
men: a man stricken, and acquainted with the bearing of infirmities; on
account of which His face is turned aside, injured, and little esteemed. He
bears our infirmities, and is in sorrows for us. And we did esteem Him to
be in sorrows, and to be stricken and in punishment. But He was wounded for
our transgressions, and He was enfeebled for our iniquities; the
chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed.
All we, like sheep, have gone astray, and the Lord hath given Him up for
our sins. And whereas He was evil entreated, He opened not His mouth; He
was brought as a sheep to the slaughter; and as a lamb before him who
shears it is dumb, so He opened not His mouth. In humility was His judgment
taken. Who shall declare His generation? For His life shall be cut off out
of the land; by the iniquities of my people is He led to death. Therefore
shall I give the wicked for His sepulture, and the rich on account of His
death; because He did no iniquity, neither was any deceit in His mouth. The
Lord is pleased to clear Him in regard to His stroke.(4) If ye shall give
your soul for your offences, ye shall see the seed of the longest life. And
the Lord is pleased to take away His soul from sorrows, to show Him the
light, and to set Him forth in sight,(5) and to justify the righteous One
who serves many well; and He shall bear their sins. Therefore shall He have
many for His inheritance, and shall divide the spoils of the strong; for
which reason His soul was delivered over to death, and He was numbered with
the transgressors, and He bare the sins of many, and was delivered for
their iniquities. Rejoice, O barren, thou that dost not bear: exult, and
cry aloud, thou that dost not travail with child; for more are the children
of the desolate than those of her who has a husband. For the Lord hath
said, Enlarge the place of thy tent, and fix thy courts;(6) there is no
reason why thou shouldst spare: lengthen thy cords, and strengthen Thy
stakes firmly. Yea, again and again break thou forth on the right hand and
on the left. For thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and thou shall
inhabit the cities which were desolate. There is nothing for thee to fear.
For thou shall prevail, and be not thou confounded as if thou shall be put
to shame. For thou shall forget thy confusion for ever: thou shall not
remember the shame of thy widowhood, since I who made thee am the Lord; the
Lord is His name: and He who brought thee out, the very God of Israel,
shall be called the God of the whole earth.(7)

48. What can be said in opposition to this evidence, and this expression
of things both foretold and fulfilled? If they suppose that His disciples
have given a false testimony on the subject of the divinity of Christ, will
they also doubt the passion of Christ? No: they are not accustomed to
believe that He rose from the dead; but, at the same time, they are quite
ready to believe that He suffered all that men are wont to suffer, because
they wish Him to be held to be a man and nothing more. According to this,
then, He was led like a sheep to the slaughter; He was numbered with the
transgressors; He was wounded for our sins; by His stripes were we healed;
His face was marred, and little esteemed, and smitten with the palms, and
defiled with the spittle; His position was disfigured on the cross; He was
led to death by the iniquities of the people Israel; He is the man who had
no form nor comeliness when He was buffeted with the fists, when He was
crowned with the thorns, when He was derided as He hung (upon the tree); He
is the than who, as the lamb is dumb before its shearer, opened not His
mouth, when it was said to Him by those who mocked Him, "Prophesy to us,
thou Christ."(8) Now, however, He is exalted verily, now He is honoured
exceedingly; truly many nations are now astonied at Him.(1) Now the kings
have shut their mouth, by which they were wont to promulgate the most
ruthless laws against the Christians. Truly those now see to whom it was
not told of Him, and those who have not heard understand.(2) For those
Gentile nations to whom the prophets made no announcement, do now rather
see for themselves how true these things are which were of old reported by
the prophets;(3) and those who have not heard Isaiah speak in his own
proper person, now understand from his writings the things which he spoke
concerning Him. For even in the said nation of the Jews, who believed the
report of the prophets, or to whom was that arm of the Lord revealed, which
is this very Christ who was announced by them,(4) seeing that by their own
hands they perpetrated those crimes against Christ, the commission of which
had been predicted by the prophets whom they possessed? But now, indeed, He
possesses many by inheritance; and He divides the spoils of the strong,
since the devil and the demons have now been cast out and given up, and the
possessions once held by them have been distributed by Him among the
fabrics of His churches and for other necessary services.

CHAP. XXXII.--A STATEMENT IN VINDICATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE APOSTLES AS
OPPOSED TO IDOLATRY, IN THE WORDS OF THE PROPHECIES.

49. What, then, do these men, who are at once the perverse applauders of
Christ and the slanderers of Christians, say to these facts? Can it be that
Christ, by the use of magical arts, caused those predictions to be uttered
so long ago by the prophets? or have His disciples invented them? Is it
thus that the Church, in her extension among the Gentile nations, though
once barren, has been made to rejoice now in the possession of more
children than that synagogue had which, in its Law or its King, had
received, as it were, a husband? or is it thus that this Church has been
led to enlarge the place of her tent, and to occupy all nations and
tongues, so that now she lengthens her cords beyond the limits to which the
rights of the empire of Rome extend, yea, even on to the territories of the
Persians and the Indians and other barbarous nations? or that, on the right
hand by means of true Christians, and on the left hand by means of
pretended Christians, His name is being made known among such a multitude
of peoples? or that His seed is made to inherit the Gentiles, so as now to
inhabit cities which had been left desolate of the true worship of God and
the true religion? or that His Church has been so little daunted by the
threats and furies of men, even at times when she has been covered with the
blood of martyrs, like one clad in purple array, that she has prevailed
over persecutors at once so numerous, so violent, and so powerful? or that
she has not been confounded, like one put to shame, when it was a great
crime to be or to become a Christian? or that she is made to forget her
confusion for ever, because, where sin had abounded, grace did much more
abound?(5) or that she is taught not to remember the shame of her
widowhood, because only for a little was she forsaken and subjected to
opprobrium, while now she shines forth once more with such eminent glory?
or, in fine, is it only a fiction concocted by Christ's disciples, that the
Lord who made her, and brought her forth from the denomination of the devil
and the demons, the very God of Israel is now called the God of the whole
earth; all which, nevertheless, the prophets, whose books are now in the
hands of the enemies of Christ, foretold so long before Christ became the
Son of man?

50. From this, therefore, let them understand that the matter is not left
obscure or doubtful even to the slowest and dullest minds: from this, I
say, let these perverse applauders of Christ and execrators of the
Christian religion understand that the disciples of Christ have learned and
taught, in opposition to their gods, precisely what the doctrine of Christ
contains. For the God of Israel is found to have enjoined in the books of
the prophets that all these objects which those men are minded to worship
should be held in abomination and be destroyed, while He Himself is now
named the God of the whole earth, through the instrumentality of Christ and
the Church of Christ, exactly as He promised so long time ago. For if,
indeed, in their marvellous folly, they fancy that Christ worshipped their
gods, and that it was only through them that He had power to do things so
great as these, we may well ask whether the God of Israel also worshipped
their gods, who has now fulfilled by Christ what tie promised with respect
to the extension of His own worship through all the nations, and with
respect to the detestation and subversion of those other deities?(6) Where
are their gods? Where are the vaticinations of their fanatics, and the
divinations of their prophets?(7) Where are the auguries, or the auspices,
or the soothsayings,(8) or the oracles of demons? Why is it that, out of
the ancient books which constitute the records of this type of religion,
nothing in the form either of admonition or of prediction is advanced to
oppose the Christian faith, or to controvert the truth of those prophets of
ours, who have now come to be so well understood among all nations? "We
have offended our gods," they say in reply, "and they have deserted us for
that reason: that explains it also why the Christians have prevailed
against us, and why the bliss of human life, exhausted(1) and impaired,
goes to wreck among us." We challenge them, however, to take the books of
their own seers, and read out to us any statement purporting that the kind
of issue which has come upon them would be brought on them by the
Christians: nay, we challenge them to recite any passages in which, if not
Christ (for they wish to make Him out to have been a worshipper of their
own gods), at least this God of Israel, who is allowed to be the subverter
of other deities, is held up as a deity destined to be rejected and worthy
of detestation. But never will they produce any such passage, unless,
perchance, it be some fabrication of their own. And if ever they do cite
any such statement, the fact that it is but a fiction of their own will
betray itself in the unnoticeable manner in which a matter of so grave
importance is found adduced; whereas, in good truth, before what has been
predicted should have come to pass, it behoved to have been proclaimed in
the temples of the gods of all nations, with a view to the timeous
preparation and warning of aIl who are now minded(2) to be Christians.

CHAP. XXXIII.--A STATEMENT IN OPPOSITION TO THOSE WHO MAKE THE COMPLAINT
THAT THE BLISS OF HUMAN LIFE HAS BEEN IMPAIRED BY THE ENTRANCE OF CHRISTIAN
TIMES.

51. Finally, as to the complaint which they make with respect to the
impairing of the bliss of human life by the entrance of Christian times, if
they only peruse the books of their own philosophers, who reprehend those
very things which are now being taken out of their way in spite of all
their unwillingness and murmuring, they will indeed find that great praise
is due to the times of Christ. For what diminution is made in their
happiness, unless it be in what they most basely and luxuriously abused, to
the great injury of their Creator? or unless, perchance, it be the case
that evil times originate in such circumstances as these, in which
throughout almost all states the theatres are failing, and with them, too,
the dens of vice and the public profession of iniquity: yea, altogether the
forums and cities in which the demons used to be worshipped are falling.
How comes it, then, that they are falling, unless it be in consequence of
the failure of those very things, in the lustful and sacrilegious use of
which they were constructed? Did not their own Cicero, when commending a
certain actor of the name of Roscius, call him a man so clever as to be the
only one worthy enough to make it due for him to come upon the stage; and
yet, again, so good a man as to be the only one so worthy as to make it due
for him not to approach it?(3) What else did he disclose with such
remarkable clearness by this saying, but the fact that the stage was so
base there, that a person was under the greater obligation not to connect
himself with it, in proportion as he was a better man than most? And vet
their gods were pleased with such things of shame as he deemed fit only to
be removed to a distance from good men. But we have also an open confession
of the same Cicero, where he says that he had to appease Flora, the mother
of sports, by frequent celebration;(4) in which sports such an excess of
vice is wont to be exhibited, that, in comparison with them, others are
respectable, from engaging in which, nevertheless, good men are prohibited.
Who is this mother Flora, and what manner of goddess is she, who is thus
conciliated and propitiated by a practice of vice indulged in with more
than usual frequency and with looser reins? How much more honourable now
was it for a Roscius to step upon the stage, than for a Cicero to worship a
goddess of this kind! If the gods of the Gentile nations are offended
because the supplies are lessened which are instituted for the purpose of
such celebrations, it is apparent of what character those must be who are
delighted with such things. But if, on the other hand, the gods themselves
in their wrath diminish these supplies, their anger yields us better
services than their placability. Wherefore let these men either confute
their own philosophers, who have reprehended the same practices on the side
of wanton men; or else let them break in pieces those gods of theirs who
have made such demands upon their worshippers, if indeed they still find
any such deities either to break in pieces or to conceal. But let them
cease from their blasphemous habit of charging Christian times with the
failure of their true prosperity,--a prosperity, indeed, so used by them
that they were sinking into all that is base and hurtful,--lest thereby
they be only putting us all the more emphatically in mind of reasons for
the ampler praise of the power of Christ.

CHAP. XXXIV.--EPILOGUE TO THE PRECEDING.

52. Much more might I say on this subject, were it not that the
requirements of the task which I have undertaken compel me to conclude this
book, and revert to the object originally proposed. When, indeed, I took it
in hand to solve those problems of the Gospels which meet us where the four
evangelists, as it seems to certain critics, fail to harmonize with each
other, by setting forth to the best of my ability the particular designs
which they severally have in view, I was met first by the necessity of
discussing a question which some are accustomed to bring before us,--the
question, namely, as to the reason why we cannot produce any writings
composed by Christ Himself. For their aim is to get Him credited with the
writing of some other composition, I know not of what sort, which may be
suitable to their inclinations, and with having indulged in no sentiments
of antagonism to their gods, but rather with having paid respect to them in
a kind of magical worship; and their wish is also to get it believed that
His disciples not only gave a false account of Him when they declared Him
to be the God by whom all things were made, while He was really nothing
more than a man, although certainly a man of the most exalted wisdom, but
also that they taught with regard to these gods of theirs something
different from what they had themselves learned from Him. This is how it
happens that we have been engaged preferentially in pressing them with
arguments concerning the God of Israel, who is now worshipped by all
nations through the medium of the Church of the Christians, who is also
subverting their sacrilegious vanities the whole world over, exactly as He
announced by the mouth of the prophets so long ago, and who has now
fulfilled those predictions by the name of Christ, in whom He had promised
that all nations should be blessed. And from all this they ought to
understand that Christ could neither have known nor taught anything else
with regard to their gods than what was enjoined and foretold by the God of
Israel through the agency of these prophets of His by whom He promised, and
ultimately sent, this very Christ, in whose name, according to the promise
given to the fathers, when all nations were pronounced blessed, it has come
to pass that this same God of Israel should be called the God of the whole
earth. By this, too, they ought to see that His disciples did not depart
from the doctrine of their Master when they forbade the worship of the gods
of the Gentiles, with the view of preventing us from addressing our
supplications to insensate images, or from having fellowship with demons,
or from serving the creature rather than the Creator with the homage of
religious worship.

CHAP. XXXV.--OF THE FACT THAT THE MYSTERY OF A MEDIATOR WAS MADE KNOWN TO
THOSE WHO LIVED IN ANCIENT TIMES BY THE AGENCY OF PROPHECY, AS IT IS NOW
DECLARED TO US IN THE GOSPEL.

53. Wherefore, seeing that Christ Himself is that Wisdom of God by whom
all things were created, and considering that no rational intelligences,
whether of angels or of men, receive wisdom except by participation in this
Wisdom wherewith we are united by that Holy Spirit through whom charity is
shed abroad in our hearts(1) (which Trinity at the same time constitutes
one God), Divine Providence, having respect to the interests of mortal men
whose time-bound life was held engaged in things which rise into being and
die,(2) decreed that this same Wisdom of God, assuming into the unity of
His person the (nature of) man, in which He might be born according to the
conditions of time, and live and die and rise again, should utter and
perform and bear and sustain things congruous to our salvation; and thus,
in exemplary fashion, show at once to men on earth the way for a return to
heaven, and to those angels who are above us, the way to retain their
position in heaven.(3) For unless, also, in the nature of the reasonable
soul, and under the conditions of an existence in time, something came
newly into being,--that is to say, unless that began to be which previously
was not,-- there could never be any passing from a life of utter corruption
and folly into one of wisdom and true goodness. And thus, as truth in the
contemplative lives in the enjoyment of things eternal, while faith in the
believing is what is due to things which are made, man is purified through
that faith which is conversant with temporal things, in order to his being
made capable of receiving the truth of things eternal. For one of their
noblest intellects, the philosopher Plato, in the treatise which is named
the Timaeus, speaks also to this effect: "As eternity is to that which is
made, so truth to faith." Those two belong to the things above,--namely,
eternity and truth; these two belong to the things below,--namely, that
which is made and faith. In order, therefore, that we may be called off
from the lowest objects, and led up again to the highest, and in order also
that what is made may attain to the eternal, we must come through faith to
truth. And because all contraries are reduced to unity by some middle
factor, and because also the iniquity of time alienated us from the
righteousness of eternity, there was need of some mediatorial righteousness
of a temporal nature; which mediatizing factor might be temporal on the
side of those lowest objects, but also righteous on the side of these
highest,(4) and thus, by adapting itself to the former without cutting
itself off from the latter, might bring back those lowest objects to the
highest. Accordingly, Christ was named the Mediator between God and men,
who stood between the immortal God and mortal man, as being Himself both
God and man,(1) who reconciled man to God, who continued to be what He
(formerly) was, but was made also what He (formerly) was not. And the same
Person is for us at once the (centre of the) said faith in things that are
made, and the truth in things eternal.

54. This great and unutterable mystery, this kingdom and priesthood, was
revealed by prophecy to the men of ancient time, and is now preached by the
gospel to their descendants. For it behoved that, at some period or other,
that should be made good among all nations which for a long time had been
promised through the medium of a single nation. Accordingly, He who sent
the prophets before His own. descent also despatched the apostles after His
ascension. Moreover, in virtue of the man(2) assumed by Him, He stands to
all His disciples in the relation of the head to the members of His body.
Therefore, when those disciples have written matters which He declared and
spake to them, it ought not by any means to be said that He has written
nothing Himself; since the truth is, that His members have accomplished
only what they became acquainted with by the repeated statements of the
Head. For all that He was minded to give for our perusal on the subject of
His own doings and sayings, He commanded to be written by those disciples,
whom He thus used as if they were His own hands. Whoever apprehends this
correspondence of unity and this concordant service of the members, all in
harmony in the discharge of diverse offices under the Head, will receive
the account which he gets in the Gospel through the narratives constructed
by the disciples, in the same kind of spirit in which he might look upon
the actual hand of the Lord Himself, which He bore in that body which was
made His own, were he to see it engaged in the act of writing. For this
reason let us now rather proceed to examine into the real character of
those passages in which these critics suppose the evangelists to have given
contradictory accounts (a thing which only those who fail to understand the
matter aright can fancy to be the case); so that, when these problems are
solved, it may also be made apparent that the members in that body have
preserved a befitting harmony in the unity of the body itself, not only by
identity in sentiment, but also by constructing records consonant with that
identity.


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. (LNPF I/VI, Schaff). The digital version is by The Electronic Bible
Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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