Apologetician

Tertullian's most outstanding apologetic work is Apologeticus (50 chapters). It was written in 197 in Carthage and addressed to the rulers of the Roman provinces. Tertullian destroys the legal and political basis for the religious intolerance of the Roman government in relation to the Christian faith. The introduction (chap. 1-6) states that the attitude of the Roman government towards Christianity is based on its ignorance and is a mockery of the laws. Tertullian focuses his attention on the state law, which declared the Christian faith an unlawful religion and was cited as the most important basis for the persecution and persecution of Christians. The apologist criticizes this - it is based on the imaginary right of the state to interfere in the internal individual life of every citizen. Tertullian demands its abolition. The apology then breaks down into two main parts. In the first of them (chap. 7-27), Tertullian rejects accusations of Christians of secret crimes (killing children, eating them, incest) and insulting the state religion. Having proved that accusations of this kind are unfounded, but rest on rumor and, most likely, are applicable to the pagans themselves, the apologist in the second part (chap. 28-45) dwells on defending Christians from accusations of obvious crimes, the main one of which is insult to the imperial majesty (Christians did not honor the emperor as God). He proves that Christians are not enemies of the emperor and the state and fulfill their duties towards them. Christians look to the emperor as a political ruler, showing him love, loyalty and devotion. In conclusion (chap. 46-50), Tertullian puts forward the absolute sublimity of Christianity as a revealed religion over human philosophy: Christians are superior to philosophers in self-sacrifice and firmness. *The title of the work in Latin is Apologeticum. See also another translation: Apologetic trans. A.Yu. Bratukhin [2005] Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 1. If you, representatives of the Roman power, presiding in an open and high place, almost at the very top of the state, in order to conduct judgment, are not allowed to clearly examine and personally examine what the actual cause of Christians is; if regarding this only one matter your government is either afraid or ashamed to publicly conduct inquiries according to strict rules of justice; if, finally, as has happened very recently, hatred of this sect, excessively active in domestic courts, blocks the path to defense: then let the truth be allowed to reach your ears, at least through the secret path of silent letters. 2. She does not beg for anything for her cause, because she is not surprised at her position. She knows that she lives on earth as a stranger, that it is easy for her to find enemies among strangers; but at the same time she also knows that she has her origin, home, hope, self-love, honor in heaven. Now she only wishes that they would not judge her without recognizing her. 3. What will the laws ruling in their kingdom lose if they listen to her? Will not their strength be all the more glorified if they condemn it even after hearing it? But if they condemn her without listening to her, then, in addition to the reproach of injustice, they will deserve suspicion in some sense, namely: they do not want to listen to her because they are not able to condemn her after listening to her. 4. So, we present before your face the first reason for unjust hatred of the name of Christians. This injustice is the very reason that apparently excuses it, but in fact accuses and condemns it, that is, ignorance. For what is more unjust than that people hate what they do not know, although it deserves to be hated. For only then does it deserve hatred when they find out whether it deserves it. 5. If knowledge of guilt is absent, then how is the justice of hatred defended, which must be justified not by what exists, but by knowledge. Since they hate because they do not know what it is that they hate, why cannot it be something that they should not hate? So, we prove one thing to another: both that they do not know because they hate, and that they unjustly hate because they do not know. 6. There is proof of ignorance, which condemns injustice while defending it; for all those who formerly hated because they did not know what they hated cease to hate as soon as they cease not to know. Christians are made of them, of course, thanks to the acquisition of accurate knowledge, and they begin to hate what they were before, and preach what they hated before, and there are now as many of them as there are of us accused. 7. They cry out that the state is filled with Christians, that Christians are in villages, cities, and islands; They lament the fact that people of every gender, every age, every rank and every rank accept Christianity, as if it were a great disaster. 8. However, this very thing prompts them to assume that some good is hidden here. They are not allowed to make some assumptions; they do not want to get to know the matter more closely. Here only human curiosity becomes numb. 9. They like not to know, while others are glad that they found out. How much more would Anacharsis condemn these ignorant ones, who nevertheless judge those who know, than those uneducated ones, who nevertheless judge the educated? It is better for them not to know, because they already hate. So they decide in advance that what they don't know is something they can't help but hate if they find out. For if there is no reasonable basis for hatred, then, of course, the best thing to do is to abandon unjust hatred. If crime is established, then not only will nothing be taken away from hatred, but on the contrary, it will acquire steadfastness even by the authority of justice itself. 10. But, they say, Christianity should not be considered good simply because it converts many to its side, for there are so many who are completely given over to evil, who run over to the side of corruption. Who denies this? However, what is truly evil, even those very whom it enslaves, do not dare to defend as good. Nature has covered all evil with a garment of fear or shame. 11. Thus, evildoers strongly desire to hide; they try not to show themselves; they tremble if they are caught; they deny if they are accused; they do not easily and do not always confess even if they are subjected to torture, they complain if they are fairly convicted, they count the manifestations of evil will in themselves, attribute them either to fate or to the stars. For they do not want to own what they recognize as evil. 12. Does a Christian do anything like that? No one is ashamed; no one repents, unless they repent of not being a Christian before. If someone is blamed, then he is famous for it; if accused, he does not defend himself; the person asked even confesses voluntarily; the condemned man gives thanks. 13. What kind of evil is this that does not have the natural properties of evil: fear, shame, evasion, repentance, crying? What is this evil for which the defendant rejoices, the accusation for which is desire, and the punishment for which is bliss? You cannot call it madness, since you are convicted of ignorance. 1. But if it is certain that we are criminals and, moreover, the greatest; then why do you yourself treat us differently from those like us, that is, other criminals, although there should be one and the same attitude towards the same crime? 2. When others are accused of everything that we are accused of, they defend themselves and use hired lawyers to prove their innocence. They have the opportunity to both respond and object, since it is generally not allowed to condemn those who did not defend themselves and were not listened to. 3. But Christians alone are not allowed to say anything that would justify their case, that would defend the truth, that would protect the judge from injustice. They only expect what is necessary for public hatred, namely, recognition of the name, and not the investigation of the crime. 4. When you carry out an investigation into the case of a criminal, you pronounce a sentence not immediately after he declares himself a murderer, or a blasphemer, or an incestuous person, or a public enemy (I call my elologies), but after you find out the nature of the crime, the number, place, image, time, witnesses, accomplices. 5. They don’t do anything like that to us, although they should have investigated everything that they falsely accuse us of, namely: how many murdered children have each of us eaten? How many incests have you already committed with the candles extinguished? what kind of cooks were there, what kind of dogs? Oh, what an honor it would be for the judge if he discovered the one who has already devoured a hundred babies! 6. On the contrary, we know that it is even forbidden to search for us. When Pliny the Younger ruled the province, he, having condemned some Christians and deprived others of their positions, turned to the then emperor Trajan for permission on what to do in the future, since he was embarrassed by the sheer number of them. To this Pliny the Younger added that, in addition to his resolute refusal to make sacrifices, he only learned about them that they hold meetings before dawn to glorify Christ as God, and to spread teaching in their society, and that they prohibit murder, adultery, deception, perfidy and other crimes. 7. Then Trajan answered him: although these people should not be found, they should be punished if they are presented. 8. O solution, necessarily mixed! He claims that these people should not be found as innocent, but at the same time he orders them to be punished as guilty. He spares and rages; he hides and reveals. Why are you leading yourself through such a decision? If you condemn, then why don’t you look for it? If you don’t find it, then why don’t you release it? To search for robbers, military guards are chosen by lot in all provinces. In relation to those guilty of insulting the imperial majesty and in relation to public enemies, every man is a warrior. The search extends to accomplices and witnesses. 9. It is not permissible to search for a Christian alone, but it is permissible to represent him, as if searching has anything other to do than representation. So, you condemn the person presented, whom no one wanted to find, who, it seems to me, no longer deserved punishment because he was guilty, but because someone was found who should not have been found. 10. You do not deal with us according to the law of justice against criminals and in the fact that, if they renounce, you torture them so that they confess, and us so that we renounce. But if it really were evil, which we openly admit; Then, of course, we would begin to recant, and you would be forced to force us to confess by torture. You have no right to believe that crimes should not be discovered with the help of searches because you know about their commission from recognition of the name; since you, knowing what murder is, nevertheless, when the criminal confesses to it, try to find out how this crime was committed. 11. Since you assume our crimes from the recognition of the name; then it is all the more criminal for you to force us to renounce this confession, so that, by renouncing it, we at the same time renounce those crimes that you assume from the recognition of the name. 12. But, I believe, you do not want us, whom you consider to be notorious criminals, to perish. Therefore, of course, you usually say to a murderer: “renounce,” and if he persists in his confession, then you usually order him to be tortured as an atheist. If you treat us differently from the guilty; then, therefore, you recognize us as innocent. Therefore, it is as if you do not want us, the innocent, to remain with our confession, which you know should be condemned by necessity, and not by justice. 13. A man says publicly: I am a Christian. He says what he is; and you want to hear what he is not. You, who care about the discovery of the truth, are trying to hear lies from us alone. He says: I am what you are asking if I am. Why are you pushing me to lie? I confess, and you torture me. What would you do if I began to renounce? Others, if they renounce, you, of course, do not easily believe; and if we renounce, you immediately believe us. 14. Such a perversion should lead you to wonder if there is some secret force hiding here that forces you to act contrary to the form, contrary to the custom of legal proceedings and also contrary to the laws themselves. For, if I am not mistaken, the laws command to reveal criminals, and not to hide them; they order that those who confess should be convicted, not released. Such are the decrees of the Senate, such are the mandates of the emperors, such is the power of which you are the servants. Your dominion is civil, not despotic. 15. Despots use torture as a punishment, but you only allow it to investigate a case. With them you preserve the law until consciousness, and if consciousness precedes them, then they become unnecessary. Then a solution is needed; then the criminal must satisfy the debt of punishment and should not be released, therefore no one wants to release him; 16. It is not permissible to desire this, therefore no one is forced to renounce. You consider a Christian guilty of all kinds of atrocities, an enemy of gods, emperors, laws, customs, all nature, and yet you force him to renounce in order to free him, whom you cannot free unless he renounces. 17. You act against the laws, because you want him to claim that he is innocent, so that you can declare him so even against his wishes, and so that he is not responsible for the past. Why is there such darkness that you do not reflect on the fact that you should trust more the one who confesses of his own free will than the one who renounces under compulsion? Will he who is forced to renounce sincerely and out of conviction renounce? And can’t the liberated person immediately laugh at your hatred right before the tribunal, having become a Christian again? 18. So, since you deal with us in everything differently than with other criminals, seeking one thing so that we renounce our name (we, of course, renounce if we do something that Christians do not do), then from here you can easily understand that in our case there is no crime, but only a name that some spirit of hostile force is pursuing, trying first of all to ensure that people do not want to know exactly what they know very well that they do not know. 19. Therefore, they believe about us what has not been proven, and do not want to carry out investigations so that it would not be proven that it does not exist, which they really want to believe, so that a name hated by that hostile spirit is condemned for crimes assumed, and not proven, on the basis of mere confession. We are tortured when we confess; we are executed when we remain steadfast; and we are set free when we renounce, because the battle is about the name. 20. Finally, why do you read out loud from the tablet that he is a Christian? Why don't you read that he is a murderer? If a Christian is a murderer, then why not an incestuous one, or why is he not everything else that you recognize in you? It is only our crimes that you are ashamed or unpleasant to call by their proper names. If a Christian is not guilty of any crime, then his name is a crime. If a crime belongs to a name alone, then it is very dangerous. 1. What does it mean that so many, closing their eyes, hate this name so much that, giving a good review of someone, they blame him for his name alone. One says: “Gai Sei is a good man, just a Christian.” And another says: “I am surprised that Lucius Titius, a prudent man, suddenly became a Christian.” No one will think whether Gaius is good and Lucius is prudent because they are Christians? Or is it not because one of them is good and the other is prudent that they are Christians? 2. They praise what they know, blame what they don’t know, and attack what they know with what they don’t know. But it would be fairer to judge the unknown by the known than to judge the known by the unknown. 3. Others blame those whom they knew before accepting Christianity as frivolous, empty and dishonest people with the same things they praise. They cast their voices in the darkness of hatred. What a woman! How playful! How greedy for pleasure! What a young man! How playful! How prone to love affairs! And such and such people became Christians. So the name is considered the reason for correction. 4. Some enter into an agreement with this hatred at the expense of their own benefits, gladly agree to injustice, just so as not to have in the house what they hate. The husband, no longer jealous, drives away his wife, who is already faithful. The father, who had previously been condescending to his son, now refuses him, who is already obedient. The master, once meek, now drives out of sight the slave, already faithful. As soon as someone becomes better thanks to this name, he immediately arouses strong hatred. The good is not as great as the hatred towards Christians. 5. So, if they hate only the name, then the question is, what are names or words usually accused of? In nothing other than those that sound barbaric, or foreshadow misfortune, or contain slander and shamelessness. A Christian, as the etymology of this word shows, comes from anointing. And the name Christian, which you pronounce incorrectly (for you do not even know our name exactly), means pleasantness or goodness. So they hate the innocent in people and the innocent name. 6. But the sect is hated, of course, for the name of its Founder. But what is new if a sect takes a name for its followers from the name of its founder? Are not philosophers called Platonists, Epicureans, Pythagoreans after their founders? Are they not also called Stoics and Academicians from their places of assembly and schools? Likewise, did not physicians receive their name from Erasistratus, and grammarians from Aristarchus, and cooks from Apicius? 7. However, no one is hated because of the name that has passed along with the teaching of the teacher to the students. Of course, if someone could prove that the Founder is bad and the sect is bad, he would prove that the name is bad, worthy of hatred for the guilt of the sect and the Founder. Therefore, before hating a name, one should recognize the sect by the Founder or the Founder by the sect. 8. But since you have neglected the investigation and knowledge of both, then you are left with only one name, against only one there is a war, just one simple sound condemns both an unknown sect and an unknown Founder, because these latter are only named and not exposed. 1. So, having made, as it were, a preface to condemn the injustice of public hatred towards us, I will begin to defend an innocent cause, and not only will I reject what we are accused of, but I will also turn it on the accusers themselves, so that from here people will know that Christians do not have what, as they know, they themselves have, and so that they will be ashamed, accusing, I do not say, the worst - the best, but at least equals - their equals. 2. We will respond separately to everything that, as they say, we do secretly, but which, as we know, is done openly by those who consider us villains, liars, people worthy of condemnation and ridicule. When our truth refuses everything, then the authority of the laws is finally set against it. 3. They say: after the laws there should be no reasoning; whether you like it or not, obedience to them should be preferred to the truth itself. Therefore, I, as guardians of the laws, will enter into a debate about the laws. 4. First, what a cruel decree you make when you say, “You are not allowed to be.” And you prescribe this without any humane reasoning; you declare violence and unjust tyranny if you assert that we are not allowed to be because it pleases you, and not because duty requires it. 5. If you do not want to allow because you should not allow, then, without a doubt, you should not allow what is bad, and, of course, this presupposes that you should allow what is good. If I find something good that your law has forbidden, then can he, by that preliminary reasoning, forbid me what he would have the right to prohibit if it were evil? If your law has fallen into error, then I believe that it was received from man, and did not, of course, come from God. 6. Are you surprised either that a man could make a mistake in making laws, or that he corrected his mistake by rejecting them? For the laws of Lycurgus himself, corrected by the Lacedaemonians, did not bring their publisher so much grief that he condemned himself to starvation in solitude. 7. And you, thanks to the experience that illuminates the darkness of antiquity, do you not change and abolish ancient and worthless laws every day with new rescripts and edicts of emperors? 8. Severus, the most conservative emperor, has not recently changed the most empty Papiian laws, which commanded children to give birth before the Julian laws - to marry, despite the antiquity of these laws? 9. There were once laws according to which convicted debtors were cut into pieces by their creditors. But such cruel laws were repealed by common consent, and the death penalty was replaced by a badge of shame. The advertisement used for the auction sale of property wanted to pour blood into a person rather than pour it out of him. 10. How many laws do you still have that need to be corrected? What makes laws inviolable is not the number of years, not the authority of their publishers, but justice alone. Therefore, when their injustice becomes known, they are deservedly condemned, although they themselves condemn. How do we call laws unjust? 11. If they punish for their name alone, then we call them not only unjust, but even stupid. If deeds are punished, then why are deeds punished on the basis of just a name? Do others have their cases punished after they are proven guilty, rather than on the basis of their name alone? I am an incestuous one; Why aren’t they investigating me? I am a child killer; Why am I not being tortured? I admit something against the gods, against the emperors; Why don’t they listen to me, who has something to defend himself with? 12. No law prohibits investigating what it prohibits doing; for neither a judge can punish justly unless he knows that something has been done that is not lawful to do, nor can a citizen faithfully obey the law unless he knows what the law punishes. 13. No law owes the consciousness of its justice only to itself, but it also owes this to those from whom it expects obedience. But that law is suspicious if it does not want to be criticized. If the law prevails without criticism, then it is arbitrary. 1. To say something about the origin of this kind of laws, there was an ancient decree according to which no emperor could include anyone in the host of gods without the permission of the Senate. M. Aemilius knows this from the case of his god Alburn. The fact that your Divinity depends on human arbitrariness also speaks in our favor. If God is not pleasing to man, then He cannot be a god. Man must show mercy to God. 2. Therefore, Tiberius, during whom the Christian name appeared in the world, reported to the Senate what was communicated to him from Syrian Palestine, namely, that the true God had been discovered there, expressing his opinion. But the Senate did not accept his opinion, since it itself had not previously examined the matter. The emperor remained unconvinced and threatened the Christian accusers with punishment. 3. Open your comments and there you will find that Nero was the first to rage with his imperial sword against this sect, which was spreading especially in Rome. But such a culprit of our persecution even brings us glory; for whoever knows him can understand that he pursued nothing but the great good. 4. Domitian also persecuted us, part of Nero in cruelty. But since Domitian still had something human in him, he soon stopped what he had started, returning even those whom he had sent into exile. Such are always our persecutors, unjust, wicked, disgraced people, whom you yourself usually condemn and justify those condemned by. 5. But out of so many emperors who follow them up to and including the present, who know things divine and human, point out at least one who would persecute Christians. 6. And we, opposite Marcus Aurelius, the most serious emperor, declare their patron if that letter of his is found, in which he testifies that the thirst of his German army was quenched by the rain requested by the prayers of Christian soldiers. Although he did not directly abolish the punishments of Christians, he actually eliminated them in some way, determining even the gravest condemnation for the accusers. 7. What, therefore, are the laws that only the wicked, unjust, depraved, cruel, base, and insane people use against us? These laws were partially circumvented by Trajan, who forbade searching for Christians. Neither Adrian, although he tried to learn everything mysterious, nor Vespasian, although he conquered the Jews, nor Pius, nor Verus used these laws. 8. Of course, it must be assumed that the worst people should be exterminated rather by the best people, as their opponents, than by their accomplices, that is, the worst. 1. Now I would like the most reverent defenders and guardians of fatherly laws and customs to tell me about their loyalty, about their reverence and obedience to the decrees of their ancestors, if they did not deviate from any of them, if they did not make changes in any of them, if they did not destroy everything necessary and best for discipline. 2. Where did those laws disappear that prohibited luxury and vanity, which commanded that no more than a hundred asses be spent on dinner and that no more than one chicken be served on the table, and an unfed one at that? to use honorary official and family marks with impunity? 3. For I see hundreds of dinners, which should be called so because hundreds of thousands of sesterces are already spent on them, and ingots of silver turned into dishes, and this last is not only among senators, but not even among freedmen or those who are still tearing whips. I see theaters that are not completely alone and not naked. For, so that shameless pleasure would not become cold even in winter, the Lacedaemonians were the first to invent the hated penula for spectacles. I see that there is no difference in clothing between matrons and public women. 4. Those ancestral institutions also disappeared that protected the moderation and continence of women, when not a single woman wore gold, except one finger for the sake of the marriage ring, which the groom gave as a pledge of love, when women so abstained from wine that one matron was punished by her relatives with starvation for sealing the wine cellar cabinets, and another, in the time of Romulus, was killed with impunity by her husband Metenius for that she touched the wine. 5. Women had to kiss their relatives so that the latter could judge the former by their breath. 6. Where is the happiness of marriages, which depended, of course, on good morals and thanks to which, for almost 600 years from the founding of Rome, not a single marriage was dissolved? And now every member of women is burdened with gold, not a single woman’s mouth is free from wine, and divorce has become an object of desire and, as it were, a necessary result of marriage. 7. Even what your fathers wisely decreed regarding your gods themselves, you, their most obedient children, also abolished. The consuls, by order of the Senate, expelled Father Liber with his mysteries not only from Rome, but even from all of Italy. 8. Serapis, Isis and Arpocrates with his Dog's Head were removed by the consuls Piso and Gabinius, who, of course, were not Christians, from the Capitol, that is, from the Curia of the Gods, even destroying their altars, in order to put an end to their cult, full of superstition and immorality. And you, having returned them, showed them the greatest honor. 9. Where is your religiosity? Where is your due respect for your ancestors? You left their clothes, food, home environment, way of thinking and, finally, speech itself. You constantly praise the old, and yet you live in the new every day. Since you have departed from the good institutions of your ancestors, it is clear that you retain and protect only what should not be retained and protected, while you do not protect what should be protected. 10. In my place I will show that that which was handed down to you by the fathers, which you apparently very faithfully preserve, for the violation of which you consider Christians especially guilty - I mean your zeal for the worship of the gods, regarding which antiquity was especially mistaken - you also despise, neglect and completely destroy, contrary to the authority of your ancestors, although you built altars to Serapis, already Roman, although you commit fury in honor of Bacchus, already Italian. 11. For now I will answer the accusation of secret crimes in order to clear the way for myself to criticize open crimes. 1. We are called the greatest criminals for the sacrament of killing children, for eating them afterwards, and for incest after a feast, which the dogs take care of, knocking over the lamps and thereby creating a pandering darkness for modesty caused by the most criminal lusts. 2. However, we are always accused of these crimes, but you do not try to reveal what we have been accused of for so long. So either open it if you believe; or don't believe it. if you haven't opened it. Your concealment testifies to you that there is nothing that you yourself do not dare to reveal. You place a completely different duty on the executioner, namely not that they say what they are doing, but that they deny what they are. 3. The beginning of our teaching goes, as I have already said, from the time of Tiberius. Truth began its existence simultaneously with self-hatred: as soon as it appeared, it immediately became hateful. She has as many enemies as strangers, and, of course, for special reasons. So the Jews are hostile to her out of competition, the warriors out of extortion, the slaves out of habit. 4. We are under blockade every day, we are discovered every day, we are very often captured in our very meetings and gatherings. Who, however, has ever come across a crying child? 5. Who preserved for the judge the bloody mouths of the Cyclopes and Sirens in the form in which he found them? Or who noticed any traces of infidelity in their wives? Who, finally, having discovered such crimes, would hide them? Or who would sell them, bringing with them the criminals themselves? If we are always hiding, then when did what we do become known? Or better yet, who could have discovered it? 6. In any case, this could not have been revealed by the criminals themselves, because according to the law of all mysteries, an oath of silence is obligatory. Therefore, the Samothrace and Eleusinian mysteries are carefully hidden. Shouldn't those mysteries be hidden much more, which, being revealed, now cause human punishments, although they are kept by God himself? 7. So, if we ourselves do not discover our mysteries, then, of course, outsiders discover them. And how do they know about them, when even the permitted mysteries do not allow the uninitiated to them and are wary of all kinds of witnesses, unless the unauthorized ones are not afraid? The nature of word of mouth is known to everyone. The following saying belongs to you: “rumor is an evil, faster than which there is nothing else.” 8. Why is rumor evil? Because it's fast? Because it informs? Or because she is very often deceitful? Even when it communicates any truth, it cannot do without lies: it takes something away from the truth, adds something to it, and generally changes it. 9. What? A lie is a necessary condition for the existence of rumor: it only continues its existence when it conveys a lie, and lives until it is proven. As soon as she proves it, she ceases to exist, and, as if having fulfilled her duty of reporting, she conveys the fact, and from then on the fact is stored and the fact is named. 10. No one, for example, then says: “they say that this happened in Rome,” or “there is a rumor that he received the province by lot,” but they say: “he received the province by lot,” and: “it happened in Rome.” 11. Rumor, as a name for the unreliable, has no place where it is reliable. In fact, does anyone believe rumors except a fool? For the wise man does not believe the unfaithful. Everyone needs to think about how word of mouth happens. No matter how widespread it may be, no matter how strong its foundation seems to be; nevertheless, it must originally have come from one person. 12. Then it spreads little by little, passes through various tongues and ears, and over time no one thinks about whether the first lips sowed a lie. And this often happens either due to the ingenuity of envy, or due to arbitrary suspicion, or due to the innate tendency of some to lie. 13. But it is good that time reveals everything, as your proverbs and wise sayings testify, by the will of nature itself, which has arranged it in such a way that nothing is hidden for a long time, even what rumor has not reported. 14. So, not without sufficient reason, rumor alone has been testifying for so long to the atrocities of Christians. You are presenting against us a witness who has not yet been able to prove what he once reported and brought to the public opinion over such a long period of time. 1. To appeal to the testimony of nature itself against those who suppose that it should be believed, here we declare the reward for these crimes: they promise eternal life. Believe it now. For I want to ask you the following: and you, who believe, will you have so much strength to achieve this reward, knowing this: 2. Come, thrust a knife into a child who is not hostile to anyone, who is not guilty of anything, who is the son of all. If all this lies with the responsibility of another, then you only be present with a person who dies before he begins to live; wait for the young soul to emerge; catch innocent blood; feed your bread with it, eat it with pleasure. 3. Meanwhile, sitting down at the table, calculate the places where your mother and sister are; note these places carefully so that you do not make a mistake when dog darkness comes, for you will commit lawlessness if you do not commit incest. 4. Having received such initiation and such seal, you will live forever. I want you to answer me: does eternity have such a price or not? If it does not, then in that case one should not believe in it. But suppose that you believe in her, then I will deny that you desire her. Suppose you wished, then I will deny so that you can. So why can others if you can't? Why can't you if others can? 5. I believe that we are of a different nature, we are cynopenians or sciapods; We have a different structure of teeth, we have different nerves for dissolute passion. You, who allow this in a person, can do it yourself; for you yourself are the same person as a Christian. You, who cannot do this, should not believe it: for a Christian is the same person as you. 6. But Christians are exposed to all this out of ignorance. They knew nothing of the kind about the Christian mysteries, although, of course, they knew that these mysteries must be performed exactly and sought out with all care. 7. But, I believe, those who wish to initiate themselves into certain mysteries usually first turn to their chief priest so that he tells them what is required of them. Then he would say: you need a child, and a young one at that, who would not know what death is, who would laugh at the sight of your knife; bread is also needed to collect the blood fluid; In addition, you need candlesticks, lamps, dogs, and pieces that would cause the lamps to be knocked over, and most importantly, you will have to come with your mother and sister. 8. What if they don't want to, or if they aren't there? How many Christians are truly single? I think you will not be a legitimate Christian unless you are a brother and a son. 9. Those who wish to accept Christianity may not know about all this before accepting Christianity, but afterward they will learn, recognize it as theirs, and implement it. Those who fear punishment are those who would deserve protection if they declared it, and who, even voluntarily, would rather die than live under such a condition. Let us suppose that they are afraid, but why do they continue to be Christians? For, of course, you would no longer wish to be what you would not be if you knew in advance. 1. To further protect yourself from these crimes, I will show that you yourself commit them, partly openly, partly secretly, which is why you perhaps believe in their existence among us. 2. In Africa, children were clearly sacrificed to Serapis before the proconsulship of Tiberius. He hanged the priests themselves on the same trees of his church, the concealers of crimes, on the crosses dedicated to him. This is what the soldiers of our fatherland testify to, who accomplished this very deed under that proconsul. 3. But even now this sacred work is carried out in secret. It is not only Christians who despise you; no crime is eradicated forever, and no god changes his character. 4. If Saturn did not spare his own sons, then even more so he did not spare other people’s children, whom the parents themselves brought to him, willingly promised and caressed them so that they would be sacrificed without tears. 5. The Gauls sacrificed adults to Mercury. I leave Tauride dramas for their theaters. Here in the famous, most religious city of the descendants of Aeneas there is one Jupiter, in whose honor human blood is shed during his games. But you say: this is the blood of a gladiator. Isn't he a man? Doesn't the sacrifice become more vile because the subject is a bad person? However, blood is actually shed due to murder. O, Jupiter is a Christian and the only son of his father, thanks to his cruelty! 6. But since there is no difference between religious and arbitrary infanticide, although there is a difference between homicide and the killing of one's own children; then I turn to the people. Of these Christians standing around with their mouths open to blood, even of you yourself, who are most just and very strict towards us, how many are there who would be willing to allow me to confront their conscience with the question of who kills their own children. 7. Indeed, there is a difference in the method of killing. In any case, it is more cruel to deprive people of their breath with water and throw them out into the cold, hunger, and dogs, because even an adult would want to die from a knife. 8. Since murder is once and for all prohibited to us, it is not permitted to destroy even an embryo while blood is still forming in a person. To prevent a person from being born means to kill him prematurely, and there is no difference between whether someone removes a soul that has already been born from the body, or destroys one that is being born. Man is already the one who has to become a man; and the whole fruit is already contained in the seed. 9. About the use of blood for food and about similar tragic dishes, read what is said somewhere (I believe in Herodotus) that some peoples, when concluding a treaty, released blood from their hands and gave each other to drink it. They drank something similar, it seems, under Catiline. They say that some Scythians eat each of their relatives after his death. 10. Why go far? Here, until now, a sign of initiation, in the mystery of Bellona, ​​is that blood is taken from an incised thigh into the palm of the hand and drunk. 11. Also, where are those who, wanting to get rid of the epileptic disease, greedily drink the fresh blood of criminals slaughtered in the arena during gladiatorial games? Where are those who eat the meat of wild animals taken from the arena, who try to acquire boar and deer for themselves? During the fight, that boar wiped dry the one it had bloodied, and this deer lay on the blood of the gladiator. You strongly desire the meat of bears that have not yet had time to digest the people they tore to pieces in their stomachs. Therefore, a person who eats such meat burps as a human. 12. How far have you gone from Christian feasts who eat this? Do those who with wild passion open their mouths for human members do less, because they devour the living? Are they not defiled by human blood because they lick future blood? It is true that they do not eat children, but they do eat adults. 13. All this makes Christians blush, who do not eat the blood of even animals, who abstain from all strangled and carrion for fear of being defiled by the blood hiding inside. 14. Finally, among the tortures of Christians you use, there are also botuls filled with blood. You know very well that Christians are not allowed to do that through which you want to turn them away from Christianity. How do you believe that those whom you think to frighten with animal blood open their mouths to human blood, unless you have learned that the latter is more pleasant than the former? 15. To test Christians, you would have to use human blood, just as you use an altar and a casket, for Christians would be recognized through eating human blood in the same way as they are recognized through refusing to offer sacrifices. If they began to eat blood, it would mean the same thing as if they did not begin to make sacrifices. And you, of course, would not have a shortage of human blood when interrogating prisoners and convicting them. 16. Likewise, who is more guilty of incest than those whom Jupiter himself taught it? Ctesias says that the Persians have copulation with their mothers. And the Macedonians, it seems, were not innocent in this, because as soon as they heard the tragedy of Oedipus, they, laughing at the grief of the incestuous, said: “ἤλαυνε εἰς τὴν μητέρα.” 17. But consider now how many cases of incest appear to be unbridled lust. First, you throw children away in the hope that they will be picked up by the compassionate hand of some passerby. You further abandon them in favor of better parents who take them in through adoption. It inevitably happens that over time the memory of someone else's family disappears, and if only once incest occurred, then it then successfully spreads. 18. Then then lust is a companion in every place: at home, outside the home, beyond the seas. Her uncontrollability can easily produce children from blood relatives without knowing it. 19. What keeps us from this and similar things is extraordinary chastity. As far as we are removed from adultery and adultery, so far are we from cases of incest. Some are much more likely to eliminate any possibility of this crime by leading a virgin life. These are elders and children. 20. If you thought that you have this, then you would know that Christians do not have this. The same eyes would tell you both. But the two types of blindness converge so easily that those who do not see what is, it seems that they see what is not. So I will prove everything that they accuse us of. Now I will talk about obvious crimes. 1. You say: you do not honor gods and do not make sacrifices for emperors. Of course, we do not make sacrifices for others because we do not make them for ourselves. We have rejected the worship of your gods once and for all. Therefore, we are accused of insulting religion and the imperial majesty. This is our most important fault, even our whole one, and therefore we must carefully consider it in order to find out whether prejudice or injustice condemns us in this, of which the former despises the truth, and the latter denies it. 2. We cease to honor your gods from the very moment we learn that they are not gods. So you must demand from us that we prove that they are really not gods, and therefore they should not be revered, since then they should only be revered when they were truly gods. And Christians should be punished only if it were certain that those whom they do not worship because they think that they are not gods are in fact gods. 3. But you say: among us they are gods. Therefore, we turn to your conscience and appeal to it. Let her be our judge, let her accuse us if she can deny that all your gods were people. 4. If she herself insists on her own, she will be exposed in a lie by the ancient monuments known to her, which testify to this day about the cities in which they were born, and about the countries in which traces of their activities remained and in which the places of their burials are shown. 5. So, should I now talk about each god separately, so many and so great: about the new, ancient, barbarian, Greek, Roman, foreign, captive, adopted, private, general, male, female, village, city, sea, military? 6. It is unnecessary to imagine even their generations. I want to speak briefly and generally, and not in order to teach you, but in order to remind you, for you imagine yourself to have forgotten the origin of your gods. Before Saturn you had no god: from him come all your gods, even the best and most famous. Therefore, what is established about the ancestor will also go to his descendants. 7. But Saturn, according to written monuments, is recognized by everyone as a man, namely: Diodorus the Greek, Phallus, Cassius Severus, Cornelius Nepos and all researchers of religious antiquities. The material monuments testify to the same. The most reliable monuments of this kind are, in my opinion, in Italy. There Saturn, after a long wandering and after visiting Attica, settled, being received by Janus or Jan, as the Salians think. 8. The mountain on which he settled was named Saturn. The city he founded is still called Saturnia. Finally, all of Italy, which formerly bore the name of Oenotria, was also called Saturnia. From him came the origin of writing and the minting of coins, and therefore he guards the public treasury. 9. And if Saturn is a man, then, of course, he came from a man. And if he came from man, then, therefore, not from heaven and earth. But since his parents were unknown, it was easy to call him the son of those whose children we can all be considered, for who cannot call heaven and earth his parents out of reverence and respect for them. 10. Or he was called the son of heaven due to the human habit of talking about faces unknown and appearing unexpectedly, that they came from heaven. The crowd calls those whose origins are unknown to them sons of the earth. I am silent about the fact that at that time people were still so undeveloped that the sight of each new person embarrassed them, as if it were a divine sight, because even now already developed people include in the host of gods those who a few days before were recognized as dead by public mourning. 11. Enough about Saturn and these few words. It follows from this that Jupiter is a man, since he came from a man, and all his descendants are people, since he came from people. 1. Since you, without daring to deny that your gods were people, claim that they became gods after death, we will consider the reasons that required this. 2. First of all, you need to admit that there is some supreme God and some mancipation of the deity who made gods out of people. For they themselves could not give themselves a deity, since they did not have it, and no one else could give it to them who did not have it, except the one who actually owned it. 3. And if there were no one who made the gods, then your assumption that the gods were made would have no meaning due to the destruction of their maker. Of course, if people themselves could make themselves gods, then they would never be people precisely because in themselves they would have the power to be better. 4. So, if there is a being that makes gods out of people, then I turn to consider the reasons that prompted this to make gods out of people, and I find nothing except that it, the great God, needed services and help for its divine affairs. But, firstly, it is unworthy of him to need anyone’s help, and especially the help of a dead man. For the great God, if he really needed the help of a dead man, it would be much more worthy to make someone a god from the very beginning. 5. But I don’t see any place for help. For this entire world system, whether it is considered eternal and uncreated, according to Pythagoras, or temporary and created, like Plato, of course, at the very beginning was arranged and located, as rationally as possible. That which accomplished everything could not be imperfect. 6. Nothing expected Saturn and Saturn’s offspring. People would be stupid if they did not know that from the very beginning rain poured from the sky, and the stars emitted rays, and lightning shone, and thunder roared, and Jupiter himself was afraid of the lightning arrows that you put in his hand. People would also be stupid if they did not know that every fruit was in abundance before Liber, and Ceres, and Minerva, even before the first man created from the earth, because nothing provided for the support and preservation of man could appear after man. 7. They also say that the gods did not create the means of life, but at least found them. But what they find already existed. And what existed should be valued not by the one who found it, but by the one who produced it, for he was before the one who found it. 8. But if Liber became a god because he introduced him to the grape, then Lucullus, who was the first to make the Pontic cherry famous in Italy, was treated unfairly, because he was not deified as the culprit of the new fruit discovered by him. 9. Therefore, if from the very beginning the universe was structured and governed by certain laws, according to which it had to fulfill its duties, then there is no reason on its part to make people gods. What you ascribed to your gods was there from the very beginning, and it would have continued to exist even if you had not made your gods. 10. But let's move on to another basis. You claim that the reason for granting deity to people was their merits. I believe that here too you must admit that God, who creates gods, surpasses everyone and everything in justice, and that therefore it was not by chance and not without special merit that he bestowed deity, such a great reward. 11. Therefore, I want to consider their merits, whether they are such that they ascended to heaven, or such that they rather cast them into the abyss of hell, which you, whenever you please, consider a place of underground punishment. 12. For there they usually hide those who are godless, and those who do not honor their parents, and those who commit incest with their sisters, and those who violate marital fidelity, and those who kidnap virgins, and those who defile youths, and those who tyrannize, and those who kill, and those who steal, and those who deceive, and everyone who only like any of your gods. You cannot protect each of your gods from crime or vice if you are not able to deny that he was a man. 13. But if you cannot deny that your gods were people, then something belongs to them that does not allow you to believe that they became gods later. For if you preside over the punishment of the above-mentioned criminals, if you, as honest people, withdraw from communication with them in trade, in conversations, in feasts, and that great God called those like them to participate in his greatness, then why do you condemn those whose colleagues you idolize? 14. Your justice is a reproach to heaven. To please the gods, make all criminals gods. The deification of others like them is their honor. 15. But let's stop talking about this kind of gods. Let us assume that your gods are honest, innocent, and kind people, why did you leave in hell the best people: in wisdom - Socrates, in justice - Aristides, in military skill - Themistocles, in generosity - Alexander, in happiness - Polycrates, in wealth - Croesus, in eloquence - Demosthenes? 16. Which of your gods is more serious and wiser than Cato, more just and victorious than Scipio? Who is nobler than Pompey, richer than Crassus, more eloquent than Tullius? How much more worthy would it have been for that God to wait for them in order to accept them among the gods, since, of course, He knew them in advance to be the best people? He, I believe, was in a hurry and closed heaven once and for all, and now, of course, he is ashamed when the best people grumble in hell. 1. Enough about this. I know that on behalf of the truth itself I will prove that your gods do not exist when I show that they exist. No matter how much I research your gods, I see only the names of some ancient dead, I hear only fables, and I discover religious rites based on fables. 2. As for the images themselves, I see nothing in them except that in terms of material they are sisters to vessels and ordinary household utensils, or that they, having previously been vessels and ordinary household utensils, change their fate through consecration, after the artist, at his own discretion, gives them a new form, treating them during the work itself in a very contemptuous and sacrilegious manner. Therefore, for us, who are punished especially for your gods, it may be a consolation in punishments that the gods themselves suffer the same when they are done. 3. You nail Christians to crosses and pillars; but what image is not first given shape by the clay that is placed on the cross and the pillar? The body of your god appears initially on a rack. You scrape the sides of Christians with iron claws; but through all the members of your gods carpenter's axes, planes and saws pass even more powerfully. We lay our necks; but your gods, before using lead, glue and nails, are without heads. We are thrown to the beasts, but not to those that you use for Bacchus, Cebele and Celeste. 5. We are being burned with fire; but your gods in their first form also suffer. We are condemned to the mines; but from there your gods also come. We are exiled to the islands; but usually some god of yours is either born or dies on the island. If the deity of your gods is acquired in this way, then those who are punished are idolized, and the punishments themselves should be considered deifications. 6. But, of course, your gods do not feel the insults and reproaches that they endure during their fabrication, just as they do not feel the obedience that is shown to them. O godless words, O blasphemous abuse! Grind! Foam! You are the same ones who blasphemed a certain Seneca, who spoke even more, even more harshly about your superstitions. So, if we do not honor statues and images that are cold, like those dead things that they represent, and about which kites, and mice, and spiders have an understanding; then do we not deserve praise rather than punishment for the fact that, having recognized the error, we rejected it? For can we insult those about whom we are convinced that they do not exist at all? What does not exist cannot tolerate anything from anyone, because it does not exist. 1. But you say: for us they are gods. Why do you treat your gods wickedly, sacrilegiously, and godlessly? Why do you despise those whom you assume exist? Why do you exterminate those you fear? Why do you laugh at those you protect? 2. Think: am I lying? Firstly, since some of you worship some gods, others others; then, of course, you insult those whom you do not honor. There can be no preference for one without insulting the other, because there can be no choice without disapproval. 3. Therefore you despise those whom you do not approve and whom you are not afraid to offend by what you do not approve. For, as we said above, the position of each god depends on the will of the Senate. He was not a god whom the senate would not desire and would therefore reject. 4. With the household gods, whom you call lares, you act according to household law: you sometimes pawn them, sell them, remodel them. Saturn, for example, in a chamber pot, Minerva - in a tub. Every god undergoes this when it becomes worn out or broken from long veneration, or when the owner has a more sacred, economic need. 5. You disgrace the public gods by public right: you sell them at public auction. They go to the Capitol for the same thing, and they go to the vegetable market for the same thing. The gods, declared to be sold at auction, are taken to the farm with the usual words of a herald, with an ordinary spear, with the usual care of a quaestor. 6. But taxed fields are cheaper; people who pay capitation are considered less noble, for this is a sign of slavery; and the gods, the more tax they impose, the more sacred they are, or, on the contrary, the more sacred they are, the more tax they are imposed. Greatness is made by the usurer. Religion walks the streets begging. You demand payment for the site of the church, for entry into the sanctuary. You cannot know the gods for free: they are corrupt. 7. What do you do in honor of them that you do not do in honor of your dead? You build churches and altars equally for both. The statues bear the same clothes and the same badges of honor. What age, what art, what occupation did the deceased have, the same age, the same art and the same occupation does God have. How does a funeral dinner differ from the banquet of Jupiter, both from a sacrificial spoon, and a pollinctor from a haruspex? After all, the haruspex also appears to the dead. 8. But you rightly show divine honor to deceased emperors, since you show them the same honor during their lifetime. Your gods will receive them with joy and even thank them, because they, their lords, have become equal to them. 9. But when you, along with the Junos, Ceres and Dianas, worship Larentina, a public woman, as a goddess (even Laida or Phryne); when you erect a statue to Simon Magus with the inscription: to the holy god; when you include the royal page among the gods, then your ancient gods, although they themselves are no better, have the right to consider you their insults, since you attribute to others what antiquity has learned only to them. 1. I want to consider your religious rituals. I do not blame you for the way you behave at sacrifices, when you slaughter thin, stunted and lousy animals, and from the fatted and healthy ones you give for them only what is no good: trimmings and hooves, which you would give to slaves or dogs at home, when you do not put even a third of Hercules’s tithe on the altar. On the contrary, I would rather praise you for this, because you are saving something from destruction. 2. But, turning to your written monuments, which teach you wisdom and prepare you for noble pursuits, what reproaches I find in them! These monuments tell that the gods fought among themselves like gladiators because of the Trojans and Greeks, that Venus was wounded by a human arrow because she wanted to save her son Aeneas, who was almost killed by Diomedes, 3. that Mars almost died from being in chains for thirteen months, that Jupiter, in order not to experience similar violence from other celestials, was freed by some miracle, and that he either mourns the death of Sarpedon, or disgustingly lusts after his sister, assuring her that he did not love his former friends so much. 4. Which poet after that, out of respect for his leader, did not dishonor the gods. This one sentences Apollo to herd cattle for King Admetus, and he contracts construction for Neptune with Laomedon. 5. And among the lyric poets there is one (I mean Pindar) who says that Aesculapius was punished with lightning for his greed, which forced him to abuse medicine. Jupiter is angry if lightning is in his power; He is cruel to his grandson, envious of the husband of art. 6. The most religious people should not have declared anything like this if it had actually happened, and they should not have invented anything like this if it had not happened. Both tragedians and comedians also do not spare the gods: in their prologues they talk about the disasters or errors of the family of some god. 7. I am silent about philosophers; I am content with Socrates alone, who, in desecration of the gods, swore by an oak tree, and a goat, and a dog. But the reason Socrates was condemned to death was because he rejected the gods. Truth has obviously been hated before, that is, always. 8. However, since the Athenians, having repented of their sentence, later condemned Socrates’ accusers, and since they placed a golden image of him in the church; then in this way they clearly expressed their opinion about him. 9. Likewise, Diogenes once laughed at Hercules, and the Roman cynic Varro represents three hundred Jupiters, or Eves, who should be called headless. 1. Some funny inventions are made about the dishonor of your gods, even for your pleasure. Consider the farces of the Lentulovs and the Hostilievs. In your jokes and witticisms, do you ridicule mimics, or your gods? In these farces, Anubis the adulterer, the Moon the man, Diana the carved, the reading of the will of the dead Jupiter and the three hungry Hercules are ridiculed. 2. Yes, and the histrions reveal to you all their vileness. The sun weeps for your pleasure for his son cast out of heaven. Cybele sighs for the proud shepherd for your sake, not blushing at all. You like the singing of elogies and the scandals of Jupiter, as well as the shepherd's judgment over Juno, Venus and Minerva. 3. Already by the fact that the mask of your god covers the most shameful and dishonorable head, and also by the fact that the body, unclean and brought to theatrical art by relaxation, represents some Minerva or some Hercules, is not their greatness offended and is not the deity dishonored while you applaud? 4. You are probably more religious in the amphitheater, where your gods dance on human blood, as well as on the filth of the slain, in order to bring new dramas and new plots to those condemned to fight, where criminals often put on the masks of your gods themselves. 5. We once saw that the one who played Atys, the famous Pessinuntian god, was actually castrated, and the one who played Hercules was burned alive. We laughed as in the cruel games of the midday gladiators, the player of Mercury tested the dead with a red-hot iron rod. We saw how the player who played Jupiter's brother, Pluto, took away the corpses of gladiators with a hammer. 6. Who has hitherto been able to examine separately everything that offends the honor of the gods, that takes away the features of their greatness? Of course, all this happens because the gods are despised both by those who play them and by those who watch their games. 7. But this may just be a joke. However, if I point out what the conscience of each of you knows well, that in your churches contracts for adultery are concluded, that pimping takes place between altars, that very often in the dwellings of priests and church servants passions are indulged in sacred ribbons, caps and purple robes while the incense is still burning; then I don’t know whether your gods should complain about you more than about Christians? At least there are always some of yours who steal sacred objects. For Christians do not visit churches during the day. Probably, they would also begin to rob them if they themselves prayed in them. 8. What do they honor who do not honor anything like that? It is, of course, clear that they honor the truth, since they do not honor lies, and are no longer mistaken in what they did not cease to mistake when they learned that they were mistaken. Please note this in advance and from here take your entire view of our teaching, but first remove false opinions. 1. For you, like some, imagine that the donkey's head is our God. The reason for this opinion was given by Cornelius Tacitus. 2. He, in the fifth book of his history, having begun to tell about the Jewish war from the origin, name and religion of the Jewish people, says, among other things, that the Jews brought out of Egypt, or, as he believes, expelled from there, tormented by thirst in the desert of Arabia, were led to the source by donkeys, who happened to go there from pasture, and that in gratitude for this they began to idolize the head of such an animal. 3. From here, I believe, they concluded that we, as religious relatives of the Jews, venerate the same image. But the same Cornelius Tacitus, who is truly prolific in inventions, in the same story tells that Gnaeus Pompey did not find any image in the temple of Jerusalem, which he examined carefully in order to discover the secrets of the Jewish religion there. 4. In any case, if the Jews venerated any image, it should not have been kept in any other place than their sanctuary, especially since the veneration, although vain, could not be feared by outside spectators, since only priests were allowed to enter this sanctuary. As for the others, the closed curtain took away from them the opportunity to even look there. 5. However, you will not deny that you yourself worship all draft animals and horses in their entirety as your goddess Oenon. Perhaps you condemn us because, living among worshipers of all kinds of livestock and animals, we worship only donkeys. 6. But the one who believes that the cross is our God will be our comrade in deifying him. When a tree is worshiped in order to gain favor from heaven, it does not matter what its external appearance is, since the nature of the substance is always the same; The form is not important either, since that same (substance) is the body of God. But what is the difference between the pillar of the cross on the one hand and Pallas of Athens and Cirere of Faria on the other? Both are offered for sale without an image, in the form of a rough block of wood and unshaped wood. 7. Every tree placed straight is part of the cross; we therefore worship God as a whole and intact. We said above that sculptures begin the formation of your gods from the cross; but you give divine honor to the Victorias, although in the trophies the insides of the trophies are made up of crosses. 8. The entire Roman camp religion reveres banners, swears by banners, places banners above all gods. All known, small shields on banners are nothing more than decorations of crosses. The well-known veils of the banners of generals and emperors are the essence of the clothing of crosses. I praise diligence: you do not want to idolize undecorated and naked crosses. 9. Some think much more rationally and more plausibly, namely: the sun is our God. We will therefore consider ourselves among the Persians, although we worship the sun, which is not depicted on the canvas; since we have it everywhere in its firmament. 10. Without going into details, let’s say that this opinion arose from the fact that they learned that we pray facing the east. But many of you, when you feel like praying to the heavenly gods, turn your faces in the same direction. 11. Likewise, if we celebrate the day of the sun, it is for a completely different reason, and not because we idolize the sun. We occupy second place behind those who devote the day of Saturn to idleness and feasting, deviating from the Jewish custom, which they do not know. 12. But recently a completely new image of our God appeared in this city. One gladiator for hire exhibited a painting with the following inscription: “Deus christianorum Onocoetes.” This god had donkey ears, had a hoof on one leg, held a book in his hand, and was dressed in a toga. We laughed at both the name and the image. 13. But the citizens of this city should have immediately worshiped this two-formed god, because they accepted among their gods those who had the heads of dogs and lions, who had the horns of goats and rams, who had goats from the thighs, reptiles from the legs, and birds on the soles or behind. 14. This is in abundance so that we do not leave, as if deliberately not refuted, anything that is said about us. Turning now to the presentation of our religion, we will again refute all this. 1. What we worship is one God. He created the entire universe with all the wealth of elements, bodies and spirits out of nothing with the word he commanded, the mind with which he created order, the power with which he could do everything, to adorn his greatness. Therefore the Greeks called the world κόσμος, decoration. 2. He is invisible, although He is seen; He is not tangible, although He appears by His mercy; He is incomprehensible, although comprehended by the human mind, therefore He is true and great. For what can usually be seen, touched, comprehended, is less so with the eyes that see, and the hands that embrace, and the mind that comprehends. And what is incomprehensible is known only to oneself. 3. That which is makes that God is comprehended, although He does not accept comprehension. So greatness makes Him both known and unknown to people. This is the main fault of those who do not want to know Him, Whom they cannot help but know. 4. Do you want us to show Him from His creations, so numerous and so great, which surround us, support us, amuse us and frighten us, or from the testimony of the soul itself? 5. Although the soul is imprisoned in the body, although it is darkened by perverted teachings, although it is deprived of vigor due to passions and lusts, although it slavishly serves false gods; however, when he comes to his senses, freed as if from intoxication or sleep, or some kind of illness, and becomes healthy again, he pronounces the name God, and this name alone, since the true God really is one. Everyone says: “Great is God, good is God, and whatever God will give.” 6. The soul testifies to Him as a Judge when it says: “God sees, I commit to God, God will reward me.” O testimony of the soul, Christian by nature! And, saying this, she turns her gaze not to the Capitol, but to the sky. She, of course, knows the dwelling of the living God: from Him and from there she descended. 1. But in order for us to know more fully and accurately both God himself and His orders and desires, He gave the holy books to all who want to seek the true God, to find the one sought, to believe in the one found, to serve the one who believes. 2. He sent men into the world from the very beginning who were worthy to know God and to reveal Him through their righteousness and innocence, giving them the divine Spirit, so that they would preach that there is only one God, who created all things, who formed man from the earth (for He is the true Prometheus), 3. Who put the world in order, establishing certain periods and alternations, Who gave signs of His punishing greatness with rains and fires, Who, in order to gain mercy from Himself, gave teaching, Who determined retribution both for those who did not know and despised Him, and for those who obeyed Him, Who, therefore, at the end of this age will judge His admirers to reward them eternal life and their despisers for casting them into eternal fire, when everyone who died from the beginning will be resurrected, transformed and subjected to judgment to determine one or another reward. 4. Once upon a time we laughed at this. We are one of yours. Christians are made, not born. 5. Those whom we called preachers are called prophets, since they were obliged to speak the future. Their words and the miracles they performed for the sake of faith in the true God are in the treasury of the scriptures, and they are not hidden. Ptolemy, who is called Philadelphus, a most learned king and very sensitive to all kinds of literary works, competing, as I believe, with Pisistratus in the care of libraries, demanded, on the advice of the most famous grammarian of that time, Demetrius of Falerius, his librarian, along with other books that attracted attention either by their antiquity or by their content, and from the Jews their books written in their own, native language, which therefore were only with them. 6. For the prophets were only from the Jews and always spoke only to them, as to the people of God, chosen for the sake of the fathers. Those who are now called Jews were formerly called Jews. 7. Therefore their books are Hebrew and their language is Hebrew. So that Ptolemy could know the contents of these books, the Jews appointed him 72 translators, whom Menedemos, the philosopher and defender of providence, respected for their similarity in thoughts. Aristaeus also confirmed this to you. 8. So books translated into Greek are still shown at the church of Serapis in the library of Ptolemy with the most Jewish books. 9. But the Jews also read them publicly. This right is acquired by a fee. Everywhere, every Saturday they meet. Whoever hears will find God. Whoever tries to understand Him will be forced to believe. 1. These books derive their greatest authority from their extreme antiquity. And it is your custom to prove the authenticity of a religion by its antiquity. 2. All your property, movable and immovable, your ancestors, classes, the sources of every ancient style of yours, many nations, the most remarkable cities, the deep antiquity of stories and monuments, finally, the very images of letters, indicators and guardians of things and (I think we have said little so far) your gods themselves, the very temples, oracles and sacred rites surpass for centuries the writings of one prophet, in which lies the treasure of all Jewish religion and therefore ours too. 3. If you have ever heard of any Moses, then he is a contemporary of Inachus of Argos. He lived before Danae, the oldest person among you, by almost 400 years (only seven years are short of 400 years). He lived almost 1000 years before the defeat of Priam. I could say that besides that number, he preceded Homer by 500 years, if I followed others. 4. Other prophets, although they lived after Moses, yet the most recent of them were not later than your first sages, legislators and historians. 5. It is not difficult to prove this, but it would deviate away from the main goal and would require a lot of time. We would have to sit for a long time at many written monuments with arithmetic finger movements. To do this, it would be necessary to open the archives of the most ancient peoples - the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Phoenicians. 6. To do this, it would be necessary to turn to their citizens who wrote about this, namely: to Manetho the Egyptian, Berosus the Chaldean, Hierom the Phoenician, king of Tyre, and to their followers: Ptolemy of Mendes, Menander of Ephesus, Demetrius of Falerius, King Juba, Appion, Phallus and to the one who either confirms or refutes these writers, namely: to Joseph of Judah, the domestic defender of Jewish antiquities. 7. To present the most accurate chronology, the Greek tsensuals must also be compared. Must travel through the stories and literatures of the whole world. However, I have already given part of this proof, identifying those authors and those sources from which it can be drawn. 8. But I limit myself to this, fearing that in haste I might say too little, or that, being carried away by this proof, I might become too drawn out. 1. If we do not prove the divinity of our books by their antiquity, if the antiquity itself is doubtful; then instead we will present you with a stronger proof, namely: the greatness and authority of these books. There is no need to learn this slowly and from others. Before us is what will teach us: the world, time and result. 2. Everything that happens was predicted in them; everything they see is heard; that lands devour cities, that seas destroy islands, that wars internal and external rage, that kingdoms collide with kingdoms, that famine, plague, all kinds of local deadly diseases and various kinds of deaths cause devastation, that the low rise and the high fall; 3. that justice is becoming rare, and injustice is becoming more frequent; that concern for good education ceases; that the seasons and the elements shirk their duties; that natural forms are upset by wonderful and ugly forms - all this was foreseen and written in advance in these books. When we transfer it, then it is read. When we experience this, then it is proven. The truth of prophecy is, I believe, a reliable evidence of divinity. 4. So, this ensures the accuracy of the prophecies that have not yet been fulfilled, because they were spoken along with those that are being fulfilled daily. The same lips uttered both prophecies, the same books proclaim them, the same Spirit reveals them, the same time belongs to the prophecy that foretells the future. 5. People, of course, differ in the time at which the prophecy is fulfilled, at which it turns from the future into the present, and from the present into the past. I ask you: what are we doing wrong when we believe unfulfilled prophecies, having learned to believe them through two steps? 1. But since we said that this sect, which many consider to be a new sect, contemporary in its appearance with Tiberius, as we openly say, is established on the sacred books of the Jews, to which the deepest antiquity belongs; then, perhaps, someone, taking into account its present situation, will think that under this name, as if under the shadow of the most famous or at least permitted religion, we want to hide our own prejudices. 2. It is all the easier to think that we have nothing in common with the Jews either in time, or in the choice of food, or in holidays, or in circumcision itself, or in the name, which, of course, should have been the case if we worshiped the same God. 3. But the people already know that Christ is some kind of man whom the Jews condemned, so that it would be all the more easy to consider us idolizers of man. But we are not ashamed of the name of Christ; on the contrary, we are pleased to bear His name and be condemned for Him, and we think of God no differently. So it is necessary to say a little about Christ as God. 4. The Jews, to whom the extraordinary righteousness and faith of the patriarchs belonged, had God’s special mercy towards them. Thanks to these virtues, this people was great, and his kingdom was glorious, and he was so happy that God himself taught him how he could gain His mercy and how, on the contrary, cause His wrath. 5. But how much they sinned, being proud of the faith of their fathers to the point of madness, deviating from the true teaching towards atheism, this would prove their present plight, if they themselves did not admit it. Scattered, homeless and deprived of their fatherland and church, they wander throughout the world, having neither man nor God as their king. They are not allowed to visit their fatherland even as aliens. 6. While the prophets threatened them with this, they also predicted to them that at the end of this age God would choose for Himself much more faithful admirers from every tribe, people and place, on whom He would transfer His mercy, and even greater due to their ability to perceive the most perfect teaching. 7. So He, Whom it was announced that He would come from God to reform and improve the teaching, has come. He is Christ, the Son of God. Therefore, He was proclaimed as the Lord and Teacher of this teaching and this mercy, as the Enlightener and Leader of the human race, as the Son of God. He was not born to be ashamed of the name of a son or the seed of a father. 8. God did not become His Father as a result of incest with a sister, or desecration of a daughter, or adultery with someone else’s wife. His Father was not a scaly or horned or feathered lover. He was not Dana's lover, turning to gold. Your gods suffered this from Jupiter. 9. But the Son of God was not born of adultery, and she who was His Mother had no husband. But first I will talk about His nature, and from here the nature of His birth will be clear. 10. I have already said that God created this whole world with word, mind and power. It is known that among your philosophers Logos, that is, Word and Reason, is considered the artist of the universe. For Zeno recognizes him as a figure who put everything in order. He calls him fate, and god, and the soul of Jupiter, and the necessity of all things. Cleanthes attributes all this to the Spirit, which, in his opinion, permeates the universe. 11. And we attribute to the Word, Reason and Power, through which, as I said, God created everything, the Spirit, as its own nature, in which the word is found when it proclaims, and reason when it draws plans, and power when it carries out plans. We learned that He (Logos) came from God and was born through procession, and therefore He is the Son of God and is called God because of the unity of nature, for God is Spirit. 12. And although the ray moves away from the sun, the part is from the whole; However, the sun is in the ray, and the substance is not separated, but spreads. So from the Spirit is Spirit and from God is God, like light kindled from light. Matter, the source, remains whole and undiminished, even if you borrow many branches from it. 13. So that which came from God is God and the Son of God, and both are one. So the Spirit is from the Spirit, God is from God, differing in order and not in number, in degree and not in quality. God is not separated from the source, but expands. 14. So this Ray of God, having descended into a certain Virgin, and the flesh formed in her womb, is born as a man united with God, as was always predicted before. The flesh, animated by the Spirit, feeds, grows, speaks, teaches, does, and is Christ. 15. Accept this narrative for a while, as similar to your narratives, until I show how Christ proves Himself, and who among you composed a fable of this kind to overthrow this truth. The Jews also knew that Christ would come, since the prophets told them about it. 16. The Jews are still awaiting His coming, and their disbelief in the coming that has already taken place is the main subject of our dispute with them. For since His two comings are signified - the first, which has already taken place in human humiliation, - the second, which will come at the end of the world in obvious divine greatness; then they, not understanding the first, considered the second for one thing only, as predicted more clearly, and it was expected, 17. Because they did not understand the first coming (if they had understood, they would have believed; if they had believed, they would have received salvation); then their guilt deserves punishment. They themselves read in their books that they will be deprived of wisdom and reason and that they will not use their eyes and ears. 18. The One in whom they saw a simple man due to His humiliation, they should have considered a magician for His extraordinary power; for He cast out demons from people with a word, restored sight to the blind, cleansed lepers, strengthened those stricken with paralysis, gave life to the dead again, dominated the very elements, pacifying storms and walking on the waves. By such deeds He clearly showed that He is the Word of God, that is, the Logos, the original, first-born Word, having as companions strength and reason and strengthened by the spirit, the same One who created and created everything with the Word. 19. Because He denounced the scribes and leaders of the Jews with His teaching, and especially because so many became His followers, these scribes and leaders became so embittered against Him that finally, presenting Him to Pilate of Pontius, who at that time ruled Syria from the side of Rome, they forcibly demanded his consent to give Jesus to them to be crucified. He Himself predicted that they would do this to Him, and not only He, but also the ancient prophets long before Him. 20. He, even nailed to the cross, showed many signs of his death. For He voluntarily gave up the ghost with a word, before the executioner completed his work. At the same time there was an eclipse of the sun in the middle of the day. This eclipse was considered ordinary by those who did not know that it was predicted about Christ. And yet, the story of this world event is in your archives. 21. After He was taken down from the cross and laid in the tomb, the Jews placed military guards over Him with special vigilance, so that His disciples, having taken His body away, could not deceive gullible people. They feared this because He himself had previously said that He would rise on the third day. 22. But on the third day, after the earth suddenly shook, the stone fell away from the tomb, and the guards fell in horror, nothing was found in the tomb except the clothes of the buried man, although none of His disciples were visible. 23. Nevertheless, the leaders, for whom it was very important to declare this fact a criminal act of the disciples, to keep the people in a slavish attitude towards themselves and to turn them away from faith in Him, spread the rumor that He was stolen by the disciples. For He did not appear to the people, on the one hand, so as not to free the godless from error, and on the other, so that faith, to which a great reward is destined, would have the opportunity to prove itself. 24. He spent 40 days with some disciples in Galilee, the land of the Jews, teaching them what they were then to teach others. Then, having entrusted them with the responsibility of preaching throughout the entire universe, He was taken to heaven by a cloud surrounding Him on all sides. This is much more probable than what Proclus usually claims about Romulus. 25. Pilate, himself already a Christian by conviction, reported all this regarding Christ to the then emperor, Tiberius. And the emperors themselves would openly acknowledge what was communicated to them about Christ if they were not needed by the world, or if Christians could be emperors. 26. The disciples, according to the command of their divine Teacher, spread throughout the universe. And they themselves, having voluntarily suffered a lot from the persecutors of the Jews, of course, for their firmness in the truth, finally shed Christian blood in Rome due to the cruelty of Nero. 27. But we will present to you more reliable witnesses of Christ, the very ones you worship. If, in order for you to believe Christians, I bring such witnesses for the sake of which you do not believe them, then such testimony is of great importance. 28. However, this is the essence of our teaching, this is the origin of our sect and our teaching with its Founder, as we have learned. Maybe now no one will invent anything that would disgrace us. Perhaps now no one will believe anything else that concerns us, because no one is allowed to lie in the matter of their religion. For whoever declares that the object of his veneration is not what he actually venerates, he renounces what he venerates and transfers veneration to something else and therefore no longer venerates what he has renounced. 29. We declare and declare publicly, and wounded and bloodied in the hearing of all we say to you who subject us to torture: “We honor God through Christ.” Consider Him as a man, but God wants to be known and revered through Him and in Him. 30. To the Jews I answer that they themselves learned to honor God through the man Moses. I object to the Greeks that Orpheus in Pieria, the Museum in Athens, Melampus in Argos, Trophonius in Boeotia obliged people to devote themselves to a well-known sect. If we turn our attention to you, rulers of nations, Pompilius Numa, who established very difficult superstitions among the Romans, was a man. 31. May Christ also be allowed to reveal the divinity as his own nature. He should not have done what Numa did, namely: frighten rude and wild people with a multitude of gods who should be served, and through this lead them to humanity. On the contrary, He had to open the eyes of people already educated and deceived by their education to the knowledge of the truth. 32. Find out therefore whether the deity of Christ is true. If it is such that those who recognize it become good; then it follows from this that they renounce all false gods, especially those who, hiding under the names and images of the dead, try to gain people’s faith in themselves as gods, through some signs, wonders and prophecies. And that's why we say that there are some spiritual beings. Their name is not new: philosophers know about demons. Socrates himself expected the demon's opinion. How could he not expect it? They say that he was in it from childhood, diverting it, of course, from good. All poets know about them, and the uneducated crowd very often uses them in their curses; for the people, as if instinctively, declare Satan, the head of this evil family, in the same curses. And Plato also did not deny angels. Even magicians exist to be witnesses of this and that name. But how from some angels who became evil of their own free will arose an even more evil race of demons, condemned by God along with their ancestors and with the head about which I spoke, this is reported in the Holy Scriptures. Now we need to say enough about their activities. Their activity consists in the overthrow of man. So from time immemorial the malice of these spirits was aimed at the destruction of man. Therefore, they inflict illnesses and heavy blows on his body, and in his soul they produce sudden and unnatural manifestations through violence. They easily influence both parts of the human being thanks to the insight and subtlety of their nature. Spiritual forces can do many things. Since they are invisible and intangible, they are revealed rather in their results than in the actions themselves. This happens when some hidden poison of the wind destroys tree and grain fruits in bloom, deprives them of life in the buds, harms them during ripening, or when air brought in secretly spreads the infection. In exactly the same secret way, demons and angels harm the soul, arousing in it rage, or vile madness, or cruel passions with various delusions. The main thing between these errors is that they, having captivated and seduced the souls of people, recommend idolatry to them in order to provide themselves with their favorite food through incense and bloody sacrifices to idols. And what food is better for them than that which diverts people from contemplating the true God through false spells? I will also explain what deceptions they do and how. Every spirit is swift: such are angels and demons. Therefore, in an instant they are everywhere. The whole universe is one place for them. Whatever happens anywhere, they know about it as easily as they easily proclaim it. And, of course, they are always the authors of evil, but they are never the authors of good. They then learned the orders of God Himself from the prophetic speeches, and now they learn from the readings of the Holy Scriptures. Having thus learned something future from here, they compete with the Divine when they steal the prophecies. And with what cunning they present ambiguous results in the sayings of the oracles, Croesus knows about this, Pyrrhus knows about it. However, the Pythian oracle declared that the turtle was boiled with lamb. He did this as I said above, namely: at one point he visited Lydia. Since they live in the air, are in the vicinity of the stars and rotate among the clouds, they know what is preparing in the sky, and therefore they announce the rains that they already feel. They are the true healers of diseases. For they first inflict illnesses, then they add new or opposite medicines for the sake of a miracle, then they stop inflicting illnesses, and people believe that they have cured them of their illnesses. Why should I therefore talk about other false actions of demons: about the appearances of the Castors, about the water that the Vestal carried in a sieve, about the ship that was dragged with a belt, about the beard that turned red as a result of touching it? They did all this so that the stones would be recognized as gods, so that they would not seek the true God. Further, if magicians also produce ghosts and dishonor the souls of the already dead; if they kill children for prophecy; if they imagine many wonderful things with the help of charlatan tricks; if they induce dreams, having at their disposal the helping power of the angels and demons they have invited once and for all, through whom they usually prophesy goats and tables, then how much more will this power, of its own free will and for its own sake, try in every possible way to do what it does for others? Or, if both angels and demons do the same as your gods, then where is the superiority of the Deity, which, of course, must be thought to be more powerful, above all? Is it not better, therefore, to assume that those who pretend to be gods, because they do what makes them recognize gods, are gods themselves, than to consider as gods those who are identical with angels and demons? The difference in places produces, I believe, that in churches you consider as gods those whom you do not recognize as gods in other places; that it seems to you that the one who runs across the sacred roofs is not as mad as the one who jumps over the neighboring roofs, and that one force is found in the one who cuts the genitals or hands, and another in the one who cuts his throat. The results of madness are the same, and the reason that prompts it is the same. But until now we have presented verbal evidence, and now we will present material evidence, from which it will be clear that the same nature belongs to both names. Let a man be brought before your tribunal here who is known to be possessed by a demon. As soon as any Christian commands this spirit to speak, he will confess that he is as truly a demon as God is falsely elsewhere. Let also be brought one of those who are thought to act under the direct influence of God, who, breathing over the altar, perceive the deity from the burning, who are healed by vomiting, who prophesy by breathing heavily. If your very Virgin of Heaven, the promise of rains; if your very Aesculapius, professor of medicine, who saved the lives of Socordius, Tenatius and Asclepiodotus, who were about to die the next day, does not admit to a Christian that they are demons, without daring to deceive him: then immediately shed the blood of this most impudent Christian. What is more obvious than this? What is more convincing than this evidence? The simplicity of truth is palpable, its power is with it, nothing can arouse suspicion. You will say that it is done by magic or some similar deception, if your eyes and your ears will allow you to do so. What can be put forward against what is shown with obvious truth? On the one hand, if they are really gods, then why are they deceiving themselves by calling themselves demons? Or perhaps in order to obey us? In this case, your gods are subject to the Christians. Those should not be considered gods who are subordinate to man, his enemy, although he does something to dishonor them. On the other hand, if they are demons or angels, then why do they declare themselves gods in other places? Just as those who are considered gods would not want to call themselves demons if they really were gods, so as not to deprive themselves of greatness; Likewise, those whom you directly call demons would not dare to pretend to be gods in other places, if those whose names they use were really gods. For they would be afraid to abuse the greatness that belongs to beings, without a doubt, the highest and such as should be feared. Therefore, there are no gods that you recognize. If they existed, they would not declare themselves demons and would not deny that they are gods. So, when both sides deny the existence of gods, then know that both there and here are the same creatures - demons. Now you must search for the gods. For you see that those are demons whom you formerly considered gods. Thanks to us, you will learn from your same gods not only that neither they themselves nor those like them are gods, but also who God is; Is it the One Whom we Christians preach, and is He the only one? Should one believe in Him and venerate Him in the same way as the religion and cult of Christians require? They will then say: Who is that Christ with his fable? Is He an ordinary person or a magician? Was He stolen from the tomb after death by His disciples? Is he in hell now? Isn't He rather in heaven, from where He has to come amidst the shaking of the whole world, with the trembling of the universe, with the groans of all people except Christians, as God's Power, God's Spirit, as the Word, Wisdom, Reason and Son of God. And let them laugh with you at everything you laugh at. Let them deny that Christ will judge every soul from eternity after the resurrection of its body. Let them say that this judgment went to Minos and Radomantus, as Plato and the poets think. Let them at least remove the marks of their shame and reproach. Let them deny that they are unclean spirits, which, however, can be seen from their food, blood, smoke, the stench of burnt animals and from the foul speeches of their prophets. Let them deny that they, along with their worshipers and their deeds, are destined for the same day of judgment. But all this power and strength of ours over them depends on the pronunciation of the name of Christ and on the reminder that they will face great punishments from God through the Judge of Christ. They, fearing Christ in God and God in Christ, submit to the servants of God and Christ. Thus, at our command, they leave their bodies as a result of the simple touch of our hands and the breath of our lips, being frightened by the thought of eternal fire, against their own desire, with sorrow and shame, in the presence of you. You who believe them when they lie, believe them when they tell the truth about themselves. No one lies for his own humiliation; on the contrary, everyone lies rather for his own aggrandizement. Therefore, one must believe them more when they are confessed to their own detriment than when they are denied to their advantage. Yes, these testimonies of your gods usually increase the number of Christians. How often do we, believing them, believe through Christ and in God. They themselves kindle faith in our Scripture; they themselves create the boldness of our hope. You honor them, as I know, even with the blood of Christians. Therefore, they would not want to lose you, servants so useful and so obedient, and they would not want Christians to ever drive them out of you, if it were possible for them to lie in front of a Christian who wants to prove the truth to you. All this confession by which they deny that they are gods and assert that there is no other God except the One to whom we have given ourselves, sufficiently refutes the charge of insulting the pagan religion in general and the Roman religion in particular. For if there really are no gods, then there really is no religion. If there is no religion because there really are no gods, then of course we are not guilty of insulting religion. On the contrary, the accusation passes on to you: you honor lies, and not only despise the true religion of the true God, but even persecute them, and therefore you are the ones who commit the crime of real irreligiosity. But let us assume that it is true that your gods are in fact gods, and in this case, should you not agree with the general opinion that there is some kind of highest and most powerful Being, the Head of the world, who has the most perfect greatness. For according to the general idea of ​​the Deity, the power of the highest dominion is in the hands of one Being, while His functions belong to many. So, for example, Plato says that the great Jupiter is accompanied in the sky by a crowd of gods and demons. Therefore, along with this god, one should also honor his procurators, prefects and governors. If this were so, then what crime is committed by the one who, in order to gain greater favor from the emperor, does what he can, places his trust in him, does not ascribe the name of the emperor, like the name of God, to anyone else, since calling and allowing anyone other than the emperor to be called emperor is considered a criminal offense? Let one worship God, and the other Jupiter; let one stretch out his praying hands to heaven, and the other to the altar of Fidea; let one count the clouds during prayer, if you believe this, and the other count the lacunaria; let one devote his soul to his God, and the other the soul of a goat. See whether the deprivation of freedom of religion and the prohibition of the choice of the Divine deserve the name of irreligion, when they do not allow me to honor the One I want, but force me to honor the One I do not want. No God, or even any person, will desire forced veneration. Therefore, the Egyptians were also allowed their stupidest religion, which demanded the deification of birds and animals and punished anyone who killed any of these gods with death. And every province and every city has its own god, for example: Syria - Atargatu, Arabia - Dusara, Noriki - Belen, Africa - Celeste, Mauritania - its princes. I have named, I believe, the provinces of Rome, and yet their gods are not Roman, because in Rome only those gods are worshiped that are worshiped throughout Italy by municipal law, namely: Delventinus of Casinien, Visidian of Narnia, Ancharia of Anscuman, Nortia of Volsivien, Valentia Ocriculan, Hostia of Sutrina and Juno of Falis, who received the nickname in honor of the father of “Curis”. But we alone are forbidden to have our own religion. We insult the Romans and are not considered Romans because we worship a non-Roman god. It is good that the God to whom we all belong, whether we wish it or not, is the God of all people. But your right allows you to honor anyone other than the true God, as if He to Whom we all belong is not therefore the God of all people. It seems to me that I have sufficiently decided the question of the false and true Deity, presenting solid evidence based not only on considerations of reason, but also on the testimony of those themselves whom you consider gods, so that there should be no more reasoning on this subject. But since the authority of the Roman name itself protests, I will not leave without refutation the objection caused by the prejudice of those people who say: the Romans, thanks to their most thorough religiosity, have been raised to such a height that they have mastered the universe, and that their gods actually exist, since those who serve them more than others prosper more than others. Of course, this award was given to the Romans by their gods as a prerogative. Sterkul, Mutun and Larentina increased their power. For I cannot think that foreign gods would be more willing to help foreign people than their own, and that they would give over to overseas people their native land, where they themselves were born, raised, became famous and were buried. Cybele probably foresaw if she fell in love with Rome in memory of the Trojan people, her native, whom she patronized during the war with the Greeks; if she tried to go over to the side of the avengers, about whom she knew that they would conquer Greece, the conqueror of Phrygia. Therefore, in our time, she presented tangible proof of her greatness, directed towards Rome: after the taking of M. Aurelius from the state, the most holy archigallus, on the ninth day of the same calends, on which he sacrificed unclean blood, cutting off his hands, issued the usual orders about the health of the emperor Mark, who had already died. O slow messengers, o late reports, thanks to which Tsibela did not learn about the death of the emperor earlier! Really, Christians should laugh at such a goddess. But Jupiter, having forgotten the famous Idaean cave, and the copper plates of the Corybantes, and the most pleasant smell of his nurse, would not immediately allow his Crete to be subjugated to Roman power. Wouldn’t he prefer his own known grave to any Capitol, so that the country that hid his ashes would rather dominate the world? Would Juno also wish that her beloved Punic city, which she preferred even to Samos, would be destroyed by a foreign people, and, moreover, descended from Aeneas? I know the following: “here was her weapon, here was her chariot, even then the goddess sought and contributed to the fact that he, Carthage, would be the ruler of the peoples, if only fate would somehow allow it.” This unfortunate wife and sister of Jupiter did not have the strength to resist fate. However, Jupiter himself obeys her. And yet, the Romans did not show as much honor to fate, which betrayed Carthage to them against the will and desire of Juno, as they did to the most corrupt harlot Larentina. It is known that many of your gods were kings. If they have the power to transfer royal power because they themselves were kings, then from whom did they themselves receive it? Who did Saturn and Jupiter worship? Some Sterkul, I suppose. But the Romans with their indigitaments are later than them. Although some of your gods did not reign, others reigned, who did not honor them, because they were not yet considered gods. Therefore, the power to give kingdoms belongs to others, since there were kingdoms much earlier than these gods appeared. But how unreasonable is it to attribute the greatness of the Romans to the merits of religiosity, when religion began to make progress after power or kingdom! Although Numa had already invented religious superstitions, it is known that the cult of the Romans did not yet have either images or churches. Religion was economical, rituals were poor, and there was no Capitol towering to heaven. Then there were only random altars made of earth, only Samian sacrificial vessels that emitted a stench, and God himself was nowhere to be found, for the arts of the Greeks and Etruscans had not yet filled Rome with sculptural images. So the Romans were not religious before they became great, and therefore they are not great because they are religious. And how could those whose greatness came from irreligion become great through religion? For, if I am not mistaken, every kind of dominion or power is sought through war and extended through victory. But wars and victories consist of conquering cities and very often destroying them. This matter does not happen without insulting the gods. For then, along with the fortresses, the churches are destroyed, the priests are killed along with the citizens, and church property is stolen along with worldly property. So, as many sacrileges of the Romans as there are trophies; as many triumphs over the gods as there are triumphs over nations; as much booty as there are still images of captured gods. And these gods accept prayers from their enemies, and to those to whom they should have rendered more insult than honor, they give power without end. However, since they are deprived of any feeling, they are insulted with impunity and worshiped uselessly. Of course, we cannot agree that, thanks to religiosity, those who, as we said, became great as they insulted religion, or who insulted it as they became great, became great thanks to religiosity. And those whose kingdoms fell to the power of Rome were not without religions when they lost their kingdoms. So, look, is it not He who distributes kingdoms, to Whom belongs not only the governed world, but also the governing man himself? Was it not He who arranged the succession of kingdoms in the world according to certain periods, Who was before all time and created time itself? Is it not He, under Whom the human race once existed without a state, who raises up and overthrows kingdoms? Why are you deceiving yourself? Forest Rome was earlier than some of its gods. He reigned before such pride of the Capitol was erected. The Babylonians reigned before the Pontiffs, and the Lidians before the Quindecemvirs, and the Egyptians before the Salians, and the Assyrians before the Luperci, and the Amazons before the Vestals. Finally, if the Roman gods give kingdoms, then in this case Judea, as the despiser of all pagan gods, would never reign. You, Romans, once honored her God with sacrifices, the church with gifts, and the people with alliances. You would never have lorded it over her if she had not sinned against Christ. This is enough to refute the charge of insulting the gods. Lest it seem that we are insulting them, we have proven that they do not exist. Therefore, we, being called by you for sacrifice, refuse this out of the honesty of our conscience, from which we know who gets these sacrifices assigned to idols and dedicated to human names. But some consider it madness that we prefer perseverance to salvation, since we could make sacrifices publicly and depart innocent, keeping our faith in our souls. Yes, you give us advice on how to deceive you; but we know where this comes from, who is doing all this, and how, to overthrow our steadfastness, either cruel cruelty or crafty exhortation is arranged. Of course, the spirit of demons and evil angels, which, being our enemy due to its fall and envying us for God's mercy towards us, wages war against us through your souls, directed and tuned by secret suggestion to every perversion of justice, to every cruel injustice, which we said at the beginning. For although all the power of demons and spirits of this kind is subordinate to us, they, like evil slaves, combine insolence with fear and want to insult those whom they fear at other times. Of course, fear also arouses hatred. In addition, their desperate state as a result of preliminary condemnation (ex praedamnatione) considers it a consolation for themselves to now use anger while the punishment is delayed. And yet they, being captured, submit and submit to their position and nearby entreat those against whom they are armed from afar. So, when they rebel against us, in whose power they are, in the image of rebellious restraint houses, or prisons, or mines, or penal houses of this kind, realizing that they are not equal and that they will suffer even more, then we involuntarily confront them as equals, and we fight, persisting in what they attack, and never again triumph as when we are condemned for the firmness of our faith. Since it can easily be seen that it is unfair to force free people to make sacrifices when they do not want to (in other cases, free will is required, of course, to accomplish a divine work), then, of course, it should be considered absurd if one would force another to worship those gods whom he should propitiate himself for his own good. Couldn't the latter then say to the former by right of freedom: I do not want Jupiter to be merciful to me? Let the angry Janus come to me with whatever brow he pleases. What's wrong with me? You, of course, were taught by the same spirits to force us to make sacrifices for the health of the emperor. Just as you have the duty to coerce, so we have the duty to resist. So, we have come to the second accusation, the accusation of insulting an even more sacred majesty, since you show greater reverence to the emperor and fear him with greater calculation than Jupiter Olympus himself. And this is right, if only you understood. For is not everyone living stronger than anyone dead? But you do this not out of reflection, but out of fear of the immediately acting government. Therefore, here too you find yourself irreligious towards your gods, for you are more afraid of human power. Finally, you are more likely to have an oath broken by all the gods than by one genius of the emperor. If those to whom sacrifices are made can grant health to the emperor or to any person in general; if angels or demons, spirits most evil in their essence, perform any good deed; if the dead save; if convicts are released; if, finally, the dead protect the living, which you admit: then let all this be established in advance, and then condemn us for insulting the imperial majesty. After all, of course, your gods would first of all guard their statues, images and churches, which, as I believe, the imperial soldiers carefully guard. Even the very material from which they are composed comes, I think, from the imperial mines, and all churches are completely dependent on the will of the emperor. Finally, many gods have already experienced the imperial wrath. Only thanks to established custom do they bring them gifts and give them privileges. Therefore, how can those who are in the power of the emperor and who are subordinate to him have the health of the emperor in their power? It seems that they can give the emperor what they themselves would rather receive from him. So, we commit a crime against the greatness of emperors because we do not subject them to their things, because we do not arouse laughter by fulfilling our duty (de jfficio) about their health, thinking that it is not in leaden hands. But you are religious, who seek it (health) where it is not, ask for it from those to whom it cannot be given, despising the One in Whose power it is. And besides, you are rebelling against those who know how to ask for it, who can ask for it because they know how to ask for it. For we ask the emperors for health from the eternal God, from the living God, from that God whose favor the emperors themselves primarily desire. They know who gave them power. They, as people, also know who gave them their soul. They feel that he alone is God, in whose power they are, in relation to whom they are second, after whom they are first, who is before all gods and above all gods. Why is it not so, when He is higher than all living people and superior to the dead? They reflect on how long the power of their power extends, and therefore they acknowledge God. They realize that they are strong through Him against whom they cannot be strong. But let the emperor finally conquer heaven, let him carry the captive sky during his triumph, let him send guards to heaven, let him impose taxes on heaven. He can't do this. That is why He is great because He is smaller than the sky. For he himself belongs to the One to whom heaven and all creation belong. Where is he from and the emperor, where is the man from before he became an emperor. That's where he gets his power and his spirit. Christians go there with open arms because they are innocent, with bare heads because we are not ashamed, without a prompter (sine monitore) because we pray from the heart. We always pray for all emperors, that their life may be long, that their power may be serene, that their family may be safe, that their troops may be brave, that their senate may be faithful, that their people may be honest, that their state may be peaceful, and that all that man and the emperor desire. All this I cannot ask from anyone else except the One from Whom, as I know, I will receive, since He himself is the one who only gives, and I am the one to whom He must give: I am His servant, who alone honors Him, who does not spare life for His teaching, who brings to Him the best and fattest sacrifice, which He Himself commanded - a prayer that comes from chaste flesh, from an innocent soul, from the spirit a saint, and not grains of incense the size of one ace, not the juices of an Arabian tree, at the bottom of a drop of wine, not the blood of a worthless, outdated bull, and not a conscience perverted after all these abominations. When your victims are examined by the most vicious priests, I wonder why the insides of the sacrificial animals are examined, and not the insides of the sacrificers themselves? So, we, with our hands outstretched to the sky, can be scraped with claws, can be crucified on crosses, can be subjected to fire, can have our throats slashed with swords, can be thrown to beasts: the very position of a praying Christian is convenient for all kinds of executions. So, you, good rulers, do this, torture the soul that brings prayer to God for the emperor. There is crime where truth and devotion to God are. Now we flattered the emperor and invented those desires that we spoke about, of course, to avoid violence. Without a doubt, such an invention is useful. For you allow us to prove everything that we defend. So, you, who think that we do not care at all about the welfare of the emperors, look at the Word of God in our Scripture, which we ourselves do not hide, and which many accidents deliver to strangers, outsiders. Learn from it that, in order to express abundant goodwill, we are commanded to pray to God even for our enemies and to ask Him for benefits to our persecutors. Who are the great enemies, the persecutors of Christians, if not those for insulting whose greatness we are condemned? However, it (Scripture) directly and clearly says: “You pray for kings, .. for rulers and authorities, that everything may be calm among you” (1 Tim. 2:2). For when the head is deprived of tranquility, then all its members are deprived of it, and although we consider ourselves alien to disorder, we are also in some place prone to disaster. We have another, greater need to pray for the emperors, also for every type of power and for the Roman state. We know that the greatest catastrophe that awaits the entire globe and the very end of the world, threatening terrible disasters, is being slowed down by Roman power. We do not want to experience this catastrophe and this end, and therefore, when we pray for a postponement of this, we thereby contribute to the continuation of the Roman state. But we swear, not only by the geniuses of the emperors, but by their prosperity (per salutem), which is more important than any geniuses. Don't you know that demons are called geniuses, hence the diminutive name daemonia? In emperors we see judges of God, who made them rulers over the nations. We know that they contain what God willed, and therefore we want good for him. But we usually conjure demons, that is, geniuses, in order to drive them out of people, and we do not swear in order to show them divine honor. But what more can I say about the respect and reverence of Christians for the emperor, whom we should look upon as the person chosen by our God? Yes, I can honestly say: the emperor is more ours than yours, since he was appointed by our God. That is why I care about the well-being of the emperor, as mine, more than anyone else, not only because I ask it from the One who can bestow, and not only because I ask someone who deserves the fulfillment of the request, but also because, placing the greatness of the king below the greatness of God, I entrust it to God, to whom alone I submit it. I subordinate him to the One with whom I am not equal. For I will not call the emperor God, either because I do not know how to lie, or because I do not dare to laugh at him. If he is a man, then it is fitting for a man to yield to God; it is enough for him to bear the name of emperor. Great is the name given to him by God. Whoever calls him God claims that he is not an emperor: if he is not a man, then he is not an emperor. Even in his triumph, when he is on the most exalted chariot, he is reminded that he is a man. For a slave is tied to him from behind, who says: “Look who is behind you; remember that you are human." And, of course, he is especially pleased that he shines with such glory that he needs to be reminded that he is a man. It would be smaller. If he had been called God at that time, he would have been called falsely. He becomes more because he is called not to call himself God. Augustus, the founder of the empire, did not even want to be called ruler (dominus), for this is also the cognomen of God. Of course, I can call the emperor dominus, lord, but in the common sense, when I am not forced to pronounce the word dominus, lord, instead of Deus, God. However, I am free in relation to him, for I have only one Lord - Almighty, Eternal God, the same one who is the Lord of himself. How is it that the ruler is the one who is the father of the fatherland? And the name of love is more pleasant than the name of power, and the heads of families are more often called fathers than rulers, domini. Moreover, the emperor should not be called God, since this is not only the most vile, but also the most dangerous flattery. If you, having one emperor, began to call another by this name, would you not thereby inflict the greatest and most unforgivable insult on the one you have, and would you not endanger the one you call? You, wanting God to be merciful to the emperor, be respectful to God. Stop believing that there is another God, and stop saying that there is another God who needs God. If flattery is not ashamed of lying, calling the emperor God, then let it at least fear misfortune. It is criminal to call the emperor God before his apotheosis. So, Christians are public enemies, because they do not pay empty, false, or reckless honors to emperors, because they, as people of true religion, spend their holidays conscientiously rather than dissolutely. Of course, it is a great thing to bring censers, hearths and beds into public places, to revel in the streets, to give the city the ugly appearance of a tavern, to turn dirt into wine, to run around in gangs for insults, for shamelessness, for arousing carnal lusts. Is public joy really expressed by public shame? Is it really proper for solemn imperial days that is not proper for other days? Those who maintain order out of respect for the emperor, do they violate it for the sake of the emperor? Can unbridled bad morals be piety, and can luxury be considered respect? Oh, we are justly worthy of condemnation! For why do we spend imperial days chastely, soberly and honestly? Why don’t we hang laurel wreaths on our doors on a special day and light lamps in clear daylight? It is a respectable thing to clothe your house during a public celebration in the clothes of some new brothel. However, in this respect of yours for the second (imperial) greatness, for which we, Christians, are accused of the second atheism, because we do not perform the same imperial celebrations with you in a way that neither modesty, reverence, nor chastity allows us to do, and which is prompted rather by the desire for our own pleasure than by prudence - I would like to show your loyalty and honesty, so that from here it can be seen that those are worse than us Christians who do not want to consider us Romans, but they want to recognize us as enemies of the Roman emperors. To the Quirites themselves, to the very native people of the seven hills, I ask the question: has the Roman language spared any of its emperors? Witnesses of this are the Tiber and the school of animals. Yes, if nature covered human hearts with some kind of transparent material to transmit light, then whose hearts would not be speckled with images of a new and new emperor, taking care of the distribution of gifts? This could be seen then even at a time when they shout: “May Jupiter multiply your years from our years.” A Christian does not know how to both pronounce these words and desire a new emperor. But you say: such is the mob. Although the mob, however, is Roman, and no one torments Christians as much as the mob. Other classes, due to their position, are submissive in conscience. From the Senate itself, from the horsemen, from the camp, from the palace itself, nothing hostile is blowing. But where did Cassia, and Nigra, and Albina come from? Where did those who pursued the emperor between the two laurels come from? Where did those who practiced gymnastics come from when they strangled him? Where do those who, armed, invade the palace, being more daring than the Sigerians and the Parthenians? From the Romans, if I'm not mistaken, and not from the Christians. And all of them, on the eve of the uprising, made sacrifices for the prosperity of the emperor, and swore by his genius, having one name on their lips and another in their hearts, and called Christians, of course, public enemies. But those who are now daily revealed as accomplices or approvers of a villainous party, the surviving remnant after the defeat of state criminals, with what fresh and branching laurels they decorated their doors, with what high and brilliant lamps they illuminated the vestibules, with what graceful and luxurious cushions they filled the forum, not in order to celebrate public joys, but in order to clothe the desires of their own hearts in a triumph alien to their own hearts, and to inaugurate the image of their own hope, Moreover, they changed the name of the emperor in their hearts. The same services are provided by those who inquire about the lives of emperors, astrologers, haruspices, augurs and magicians, the knowledge of which, as having come from fallen angels and forbidden by God, Christians do not resort to even in their own affairs. Who needs to find out about the continuation of the life of the emperor, except the one who does something against him or wishes, or hopes and expects something after him? For they do not ask about the continuation of the life of relatives with the same intention as about the continuation of the life of masters. One character is the curiosity of relatives, and the other is the curiosity of slaves. If it is true that those who are called Romans are enemies, then why are we, who are considered enemies, excluded from the ranks of the Romans? Can't we also be Romans and be enemies, since those who were considered Romans turn out to be enemies? Therefore, the reverence, respect and loyalty due to emperors does not consist in such deeds that enemies can do to further disguise themselves, but in those in which God is as truly revealed in relation to the emperor, as it is necessary for Him to reveal himself in relation to all people. Of course, we are obliged to perform these deeds of a kind soul not only for the emperors. We do not do any good under the condition of persons, because we expect praise or reward not from a person, but from God, the Demander and the Rewarder for indifferent (in relation to persons) good deeds. Therefore, we are the same towards emperors as we are towards our neighbors. For an evil desire, an evil deed, an evil word, an evil thought towards anyone is equally forbidden to us. Everything that is not permissible in relation to the emperor is not permissible in relation to any other person. Everything that is not permissible to everyone is all the more not permissible in relation to the very one who is so great by the grace of God. If we are commanded, as I said above, to love our enemies, then whom should we hate? Likewise, if we are forbidden to return insult for insult, so as not to be insulters ourselves, then whom can we insult? You can know this yourself. For how many times have you raged against Christians, sometimes of your own accord, sometimes out of obedience to the laws? How many times have the mob hostile to us, even having passed you by, attacked us with stones and fire at their own discretion? In the most frenzied bacchanals, Christians do not even spare the dead, since they are pulled out of their coffins, some of the refuges of death, already different, no longer whole, since they are cut and torn into pieces. However, have you ever heard of us, whom you consider to be a crowd of conspirators who decided to die for their cause so that we would take revenge on you for all this? But one night with a few torches could generously take revenge on you, if it were permissible among us to repay evil for evil. But let it not be that the divine sect defends itself with human fire, or that it grieves over the suffering that serves to test it. However, if we wanted to expose open enemies, not just secret avengers, would we be lacking in their number and strength? Are the Moors, the Marcomanni, the Parthians themselves and the peoples bordering them more numerous than those who have spread throughout the entire universe? We have existed since yesterday, and we have filled all your places: cities, islands, fortresses, municipalities, meeting places, the very camps, tribes, decuries, palace, senate, forum. We left only your churches to you. What kind of open war would we not be capable of, what kind of war would we not be ready for, even if we were inferior to you in strength - we, who so willingly allow ourselves to be killed, if our teaching did not command us to rather be killed ourselves than to kill others? We could fight you without weapons and without rebellion, separating from you as dissatisfied with you. For if we, being such a huge number of people, were to move away from you to some distant corner of the earth; then, of course, the loss of so many citizens of any kind would not only be a disgrace for your rule, but at the same time a punishment. Without a doubt, you would be horrified when you look at your loneliness, at the stoppage of activities, at some kind of stillness of the universe, as if dead. You would try to find those who could be controlled. You would be left with more enemies than citizens. But now you have very few enemies thanks to the huge number of Christians, almost all citizens. You would like to consider almost all Christian citizens enemies and call them enemies of the human race rather than of human error. Who would free you from those secret enemies that always upset your soul and health? I'm talking about the attacks of demons that we drive out of you without reward, without payment. It would be enough for our vengeance to leave you free to the rule of unclean spirits. But you, without thinking about rewarding us for such help, want to consider us not only a difficult race of people, but even enemies. Yes, we are enemies, but not of the human race, but rather of human error. Therefore, without any fear, we should consider our sect to be among the permitted factions, since it does nothing that is usually the reason for fear of the unlawful factions. For, if I am not mistaken, the reason for the prohibition of factions is the concern for public peace, so that the state is not divided into parties, which can easily disturb the comitia, senate, curiae, popular assemblies and spectacles due to competition in occupations, especially now that people have begun to consider the corrupt and hired business of their violence as a craft. But we, completely indifferent to fame and honors, have no need for meetings, and nothing is so alien to us as political life. We recognize one universal state - peace. In the same way, we reject your spectacles as much as I reject their sources, which, as we know, are borrowed from superstition, since the things from which they are composed are alien to us. Our speech, our vision, our hearing have nothing in common with the madness of the circus, with the immorality of the theater, with the cruelty of the arena, with the emptiness of the xista. How are we harming you if we dream of other pleasures? If, finally, we do not want pleasure, then this is, of course, our loss, not yours. But we refuse what you like. And you do not enjoy our pleasures. The Epicureans were allowed to believe that the essence of pleasure was peace of mind. Now I myself will reveal the affairs of the Christian faction, so that, having rejected evil, I will show good. We are a body (corpus) through the knowledge of religion, the unity of doctrine and the union of hope. We come together and gather in order to surround God with common prayers, as if by an army gathered in one place. This power pleases God. We also pray for the emperors, their ministers and authorities, for the existence of the human race, for the tranquility of the state and for the slowing down of the end of the world. We gather to read Divine Scripture if the circumstances of the time require us to warn against something or remind us of something. Through the Holy Scriptures we, of course, nourish faith, elevate hope, establish boldness and strengthen discipline with rules. Admonitions, punishments and divine judgment also take place there. And the trial is carried out, of course, with great care, since the judges, Christians, know that God sees it, and that it (the trial) is the most important predetermination of the future judgment for the one who sins so much that he withdraws from fellowship in prayer, in assembly and in any holy deed. The chairs are honest and elder people, who acquired this honor not with money, but with general approval, for no work of God is based on money. If we have some semblance of a money box, then it is not drawn from honorary sums, as if from the sums of a religion taken at the mercy of. In our box, everyone makes a small alms on the first day of the month or whenever he wants, if he wants and if he can. For no one is forced to do this, but everyone brings it voluntarily. This is, as it were, a pledge of love, for the money collected in this box is spent not on feasts, not on drinking bouts and not on ungrateful taverns, but on the feeding and burial of the poor, on boys and girls who have lost property and parents, and on old people already at home, also on shipwrecked people, and if someone is either in the mines, or on the islands, or in custody, then he too becomes a student of his confession. But for such deeds, and especially for deeds of love, some revile us. “Look,” they say, “how they love each other,” for they themselves hate each other; “how they are ready to even die for each other,” because they themselves are ready to kill each other. But even the fact that we call each other brothers is blamed on us, I believe, for no other reason than because among them, every name of kinship is suspected of passion. And we are your brothers by right of nature, the one mother of all, although there is little humanity in you, because you are evil brothers. But how much more justly are those called and considered brothers who have come to know the one Father God, who have received the one Holy Spirit, who from the same womb of ignorance have reached with horror to the one light of truth. But perhaps we are not considered legitimate brothers because no tragedy speaks of our brotherhood, or because we are brothers in property, which with you almost stops brotherhood. We, uniting spiritually, have common property. Everything is inseparable with us, except for our wives. In this alone we do not allow communication, in which only others have communication. They not only take advantage of their friends’ wives themselves, but also very indifferently offer their wives to them. I believe that they do this, following the example of the wisest and oldest, the Greek Socrates and the Roman Cato, who shared with their friends their wives taken into marriage, for the birth of children and from other persons. I don’t know for sure whether they did it against their will. However, why should they care about their chastity when their husbands themselves gave it to them so frivolously? Oh, an example of Athenian wisdom and Roman severity: the philosopher and the censor are pimps! So, is it any wonder if such love feasts? Therefore, you also accuse our suppers (cenulas) of great atrocities, and also reproach them of wastefulness. Yes, the saying of Diogenes applies to us: “The Megarians arrange such feasts as if they intend to die tomorrow, and erect buildings as if they never intend to die.” But everyone sees a straw in someone else’s eye more easily than a log in his own. The air is contaminated by the belching of so many tribes, curiae, and decurii. Saliyas who intend to give dinner need a lender. The expenses for Hercules's tithes and his dinners are calculated by tabularia. Is the choice of chefs announced for the Apaturia, Dionysia, and Mysteries of Athens? The smoke coming from the preparations for Serapis's dinner alarms the fire brigade. Only the Christian dining room is criticized. Our supper (cena) bears witness to itself by its very name: it is called by the same name as the Greeks call love. No matter what expenses our supper may cost, there is benefit in making expenses in the name of love, since at this supper we help all the poor, not because among you parasites strive for glory to sacrifice their freedom under the condition of satisfying their bellies amid reproaches, but because God especially cares about the poor. If the reason for the supper is honorable, then judge the rest according to its reason. As for religious duties, they do not allow anything base, nothing immoderate. They do not sit down at the table before listening to God’s prayer. They eat as much as they need to satisfy their hunger. They drink as much as abstinent people need. They become so satisfied that they remember that they should pray to God at night. They say so that they know that God himself hears them. After washing the hands and lighting the lamps, everyone is called to the middle to sing to God what they can, from the Holy Scriptures or from their own hearts. From here you can see how everyone drank. Supper also ends with prayer. From the supper they disperse not into gangs of murderers, not into crowds of vagabonds, not to commit debauchery, but for the same concern for modesty and moderation, like such people who did not so much eat as study. Such a meeting is, of course, in fairness, unlawful if it is the same as unlawful meetings. It should rightly be condemned if complaints are brought against it in the same way that they complain about factions. Do we ever intend for anyone's destruction? We who are gathered are the same as those who are separated; We and everything are the same as each individual: we do not offend anyone, we do not upset anyone. When honest, kind people gather, when pious, chaste people gather, then such a meeting should be called not a faction (assembly), but a curia. On the contrary, the name of faction should be given to those who conspire to hate good and honest people, who unanimously demand the blood of innocent people, hiding behind the false opinion to justify their hatred that they, Christians, are the culprits of every social disaster, every national misfortune. If the Tiber entered the walls, if the Nile did not overflow the fields, if the sky did not give rain, if an earthquake occurred, if there was a famine or epidemic; then they immediately shout: “Christians to the lion.” So many to one? I ask you: before Tiberius, that is, before the coming of Christ, how many great disasters befell the earth and cities? We have read that the islands of Hiera, Anafa, Delos, Rhodes and Kos perished with many thousands of people. And Plato says that the earth, larger than Asia and Africa, was submerged by the Atlantic Ocean. But the Sea of ​​Corinth was also created by an earthquake and the force of the waves gave its name to Sicily, separating it from Lucania. Of course, all this could not happen without harm to the residents. And where were then, I don’t say, the despisers of your gods, the Christians, but your gods themselves, when the flood devastated the whole earth, or, as Plato believes, only the lowlands? The very cities in which they were born and died, as well as those that they founded, testify that they (the gods) appeared after the flood. If these cities had not appeared after this disaster, they would not have existed to this day. Palestine had not yet accepted the Jewish crowd from Egypt, and the founder of the Christian sect had not yet settled there when the cities bordering it, Sodom and Gomorrah, were burned by heavenly fire. Until now, that country smells of fire, and if somehow tree fruits appear there, then only the eyes can use them, but not the mouth, because they (the fruits) turn to ashes when touched. Also, neither Etruria nor Campania complained about Christians when the city of Volsinia was burned by lightning, and the city of Pompeii was destroyed by its fire-breathing mountain. No one had yet worshiped the true God in Rome when Hannibal modius measured his victory at Cannae with the help of Roman rings. All your gods were revered by everyone when the Senones took possession of the Capitol itself. And the good thing is that when any disasters happened to the cities, the churches were subjected to the same destruction as the walls, because from this I have the right to conclude that they did not come from the gods, since they concerned them themselves. The human race has always deserved punishment from God, firstly, because it did not fulfill its duty towards Him, since, having understood Him in part, it not only did not look for Him, but even invented other gods for itself in order to worship them; secondly, by the fact that, without seeking the Teacher of innocence, the Judge and Giver of guilt, he was filled with all vices and crimes. But if I had found Him, I would have known Him. And if he had known, he would have honored Him, and then He would have been more merciful to him than angry. So, we must believe that now the same one is angry who was always angry before the name of Christians appeared. Since the human race enjoyed benefits that appeared before it invented gods for itself, why should it not believe that disasters also come from Him whose benefits it did not feel? He is guilty before the One to whom he is ungrateful. However, if we compared the previous disasters with the present ones, it would turn out that since the world accepted Christians from God, they have become easier. For from that time on, innocence diminished the iniquities of the age, and God’s prayer books appeared. So, for example, when there is no rain and, as a result, hunger threatens, then you, well-fed every day and constantly ready to eat, having worked in baths, taverns and brothels, perform aquilitions in honor of Jupiter, announce nudipedals to the people, look for the sky at the Capitol, expect clouds from the ceilings, turning away from God himself and from the sky itself. And we, withered from fasting, exhausted from abstinence, having withdrawn from all the pleasures of life, dressed in sackcloth and showered with ashes, knock on heaven and touch God; and when we ask for mercy, they honor Jupiter. So, you harm human affairs, you always bring public disasters, since you despise God and worship statues. For it must be considered more likely that He who is despised is angry, and not those who are revered. Or, of course, they are very unjust if, because of Christians, they inflict disasters on their admirers, from whom they should have removed what Christians deserved. This, you say, can be applied to your God, since He Himself allows that His admirers suffer because of the pagans. Find out His orders in advance, and then you will not object so much. For He who once and for all has appointed eternal judgment after the end of the age, does not separate His admirers from those who do not, before the end of the age, which is the condition of the judgment. Now He is equally merciful and strict towards the entire human race. He wants both good and evil to be common to both His admirers and His non-worshippers, so that everyone equally experiences His mercy and severity. Since we have been taught this from Him Himself, we love His mercy, we fear His severity, but you, on the contrary, despise both. Therefore, all the blows of this century serve as edification for us, and as punishment for you. But we are not at all burdened by them: firstly, because we do not need anything in this world, except how to get out of it as quickly as possible, and secondly, because if any disaster happens, it is attributed to your sins. Although it concerns us somewhat, since we live together with you; however, we rather rejoice because we recognize divine predictions that confirm the fidelity and truth of our hope. If those whom you honor send all the disasters upon you because of us, then why do you continue to honor them, so ungrateful and so unjust: they should rather help you and protect you during the disasters of Christians. But we are also accused of other types of crimes. They say we are useless for trading purposes. How are those people who live with you, who use the same food, the same clothing, who have the same household and the same everyday needs, useless for these matters? For we are not the Brahmins or the gymnosophists of the Indians who live in the forests and renounce life. We remember that we are obliged to thank God, the Lord, the Creator. We do not despise anything that He has created. We only refrain, so as not to use it excessively and for evil. Therefore, we live in this world not without a forum, not without a bazaar, not without public baths, not without shops, not without factories, not without taverns, not without your nundins and not without your other commerce. You and I sail, and do military service, and engage in agriculture, and trade, publishing about our arts and working for your use. I do not understand how we seem to be useless for the commercial affairs with which and from which we live. But if I do not participate in your religious ceremonies, then on this day I am still a man. I do not bathe at dawn during the Saturnalia, so as not to lose both night and day; however, I bathe at the proper and healthy time, because it preserves both color and blood for me. I can become numb and pale after my ablution even after death. I do not recline at the table in public during Liberals, which is usually done by those condemned to fight with animals who are dining for the last time; however, where I recline at the table this day, I dine from your supplies. I don't buy a head wreath. Is it important to you how I use flowers, which, after all, were bought? I think it's nicer when they are free, not tied up and tilted in all directions. But even when they are woven into a wreath, we smell the wreath with our nose. Let those who smell with hair know this. We don’t go to shows, but I would rather buy what’s sold there in my own places. We, of course, do not buy incense, but if the Arabians complain about this, then the Sabeans should know that their goods are bought from them more and more expensively for the burial of Christians than for incense to the gods. At least, you say, the income of churches is decreasing daily: how many people now donate to the churches? We, of course, are not able to provide assistance to both the people and the gods of your mendicants. We do not think that help should be given to anyone other than the one who asks for it. Therefore let Jupiter extend his hand, then he too will receive, for our charity sometimes spends more in the streets than your religiosity in the churches. But as for other duties, Christians should be thanked for them, since they pay them in good faith. We do not appropriate anything that belongs to others by lying. If you count how much the treasury is losing thanks to the lies and deceit of your testimony, then you can easily see that taxes in favor of churches are rewarded on our part with other taxes. However, I admit, who can really complain about the uselessness of Christians, not without reason. These are, first of all, brothel keepers, pimps, adulterers, then murderers, poison compilers, magicians, then haruspices, sorcerers and astrologers. But not bringing them any benefit means bringing great benefit. However, whatever the loss to you from this sect, it can be rewarded with some interest. How many do you have, not to mention those who cast out demons from you, not to mention those who pray to the true God for you, but those whom you cannot fear at all. But when so many of us, just people, are killed, when so many of us, innocent people, are killed, then no one sees such a great and real loss of the state, no one pays attention to such an insult to public rights. For evidence of this I turn to your acts, since you daily preside over the trial of criminals, since you pronounce sentences on them, you number so many criminals according to various indictment tables. Who is called a robber, who is a pickpocket, who is called a blasphemer or an insolent, or a robber of bathers, and who is also a Christian? When Christians appear under their own name, who among them is like so many criminals? Yours always fill the dungeons, yours groan in the mines, yours always feed the beasts, yours always form the herds of those criminals whom the muneraria fatten. There is not a single Christian there; and if there is, it is only because he is a Christian; or if he is there for another reason, then he is no longer a Christian. So, we alone are innocent. Is it any wonder if it is necessary? Yes, it really is necessary. God taught us innocence, and we know it perfectly, since it was revealed by the perfect Teacher, and we faithfully guard it, since it was commanded to us by such a Being, Who is the Judge who is not despised. The human mind taught you innocence, and human power commanded it to you. Therefore, you do not have a perfect and awe-inspiring teaching that can teach you true innocence. Human wisdom is only as strong in showing what is good as authority is able to force it to be done. Just as she can easily be mistaken, so this one can easily be despised. And in fact, what is better to say: “Thou shalt not kill,” or to teach: “Do not even be angry”? What is more perfect: to prohibit carnal adultery, or to command one to abstain even from spiritual adultery? What is more sublime: to forbid doing evil, or to forbid speaking evil? What is more commendable: not to cause offense, or even not to respond to offense with offense? However, you should know that your very laws, which apparently teach innocence, are borrowed from the divine law, as the most ancient. We have already spoken about the time of Moses’ life. But what authority belongs to human laws, which very often happen to be avoided by a person, since most of his crimes are unknown, and sometimes even despised, since he violates them of his own will and due to circumstances? Consider also the short duration of all punishment; at least no punishment extends beyond death. Therefore, Epicurus places a low value on all torment and every illness, saying that both deserve contempt, for long-lasting torments and illnesses are not great (moderate), and great ones are not long-lasting. On the contrary, we, knowing that God sees everything and that His punishments are eternal, only try to be innocent. We fully know what innocence consists of, and that it is impossible to hide from the eyes of God, and that the torment will not be temporary, but eternal. We fear Him whom even he who judges those who fear must fear; we fear God, not the proconsul. We have withstood, I believe, all accusations that require Christian blood. We have shown what we are like, and also what we can use to prove that we really are like that. This, as stated above, can be proven by our religion, the antiquity of the Holy Scriptures, and also by the consciousness of evil spirits. Who will dare to expose us in lies, using not sophistic means, but the same ones that we use? But when our truth becomes obvious to everyone, then unbelief, exposed by all the well-known good of our sect, asserts that it, in any case, was not established by God, that it is rather some special type of philosophical school. They say: philosophers teach and preach the same things that Christians teach and preach, namely: innocence, justice, patience, sobriety, modesty. Why is it that those whose teachings are considered identical with our teachings are not equal to us in other respects? Why do they have the right to preach their teachings with impunity, but we do not have this right? Or why are they, like us, not forced to do the same thing that we are forced to do and for failure to do which we are subjected to torture? For who forces a philosopher to either make sacrifices, or swear, or carry lighted candles in broad daylight for the sake of vain grandeur? On the contrary, they openly overthrow your gods and condemn public beliefs in their writings, and you praise them. Many of them even bark at emperors, but you tolerate it, and it happens rather that they receive statues and salaries for this than are condemned to be devoured by wild beasts. But this is fair, for philosophers are not called Christians. The name of a philosopher does not put demons to flight. Why convert when philosophers consider demons to be first after the gods? Here are the words of Socrates: “if the demon allows.” Although Socrates knew partly the truth, for he denied the gods; however, before his death, he ordered a rooster to be sacrificed to Aesculapius, probably in order to honor his father, because Apollo declared Socrates the wisest of all people. O foolish Apollo! You called the one who denied the existence of gods the wisest. To the extent that truth arouses hatred against itself, to that extent does he suffer who stands for it (the truth) and protects it in conscience. Whoever distorts it and only, apparently, adheres to it, gains favor with its persecutors. If philosophers imitate the truth like mimics and at the same time distort it in order to achieve their own glory, then Christians seek it as necessary, and precisely preserve it, since they care about their salvation. Therefore, we have no similarities with philosophers, either theoretically or practically. For what did Thales, the first philosopher of the physical school, tell the truth about God to Croesus, who repeatedly asked him? In vain Thales asked for delays for a more mature discussion. Any Christian artisan finds God, shows Him, and in fact expresses what is required in relation to Him, although Plato claims that the creator of the universe is difficult to find and, having found Him, it is difficult to inform everyone about Him. If we compare philosophers with Christians regarding chastity, what happens? I read part of the verdict about Socrates: he is recognized as a molester of young men. And a Christian does not cheat on the female sex. I know that Phryne also lusted for the sake of Diogenes’ criminal passion. I hear that a certain Speusippus, a follower of Plato, died while committing adultery. A Christian is born a man only for his wife. Democritus, who blinded himself because he could not look at women without lust and torment if he did not satisfy his passion, clearly proved by this blindness his intemperance. A Christian does not even with healthy eyes see women in women: his soul is blind to passion. If I were to defend Christians in relation to humility, then here is Diogenes, with dirty feet, trampling Plato’s proud feather beds - one pride - with another. But a Christian is not proud towards the poor. If I were to argue about moderation, then Pythagoras seeks tyranny from the Turians, and Zeno from the Prienes. But a Christian does not even covet an edilst. If I wanted to argue about patience, then Lycurgus doomed himself to starvation, because the Lacedaemonians corrected his laws. And a Christian gives thanks even to the condemned. If I were to compare a Christian with a philosopher in relation to fidelity, then Anaxagoras refused his guests a mortgage. And even outsiders call a Christian a faithful one. Should I argue about humanity? Aristotle deprived his friend Hermias of his place in a vile manner, but a Christian does not harm even his enemy. The same Aristotle vilely flattered Alexander, whom he should have ruled, and Plato sold himself to Dionysius for the sake of his stomach. Aristippus, in purple and under a mask of great importance, indulged in luxury; Hippias was killed while plotting for his city. But a Christian never tries to flatter his fellow citizens, although they treat him with all cruelty. Perhaps someone will object to us that some of our own are falling away from the correct teaching. Therefore, we cease to consider them Christians, and the above-mentioned philosophers, despite their deeds, continue to bear the same name and be revered for their wisdom. So, what is similar between a philosopher and a Christian, a student of Greece and a student of heaven, between one who seeks glory and one who seeks salvation, between a sage in words and a sage in deed, between a builder and a destroyer, between a friend of error and its enemy, between a forger of truth and a faithful interpreter of it, between its thief and its guardian? Truth is older than everything, if I'm not mistaken. The antiquity of the Holy Scriptures, demonstrated above, contributes to the belief that it was a treasury for all subsequent wisdom. If I had not been embarrassed by the volume of the essay, I would have proved this too. Which poet, which philosopher is there who would not draw anything from the writings of the prophets? There, too, philosophers found satisfaction for their thirsty spirit. Therefore, only in what they learned from us can we be compared with them. Because of this, it seems to me, some prohibited philosophy. By this I mean the inhabitants of Thebes, Sparta and Argos. Although the philosophers turned to our writings, they, as people greedy for fame, as already mentioned above, and for eloquence, changed at their own will everything that they found there, for they did not believe so much in the divinity of these writings as not to allow them to be changed, and did not understand them properly, since they were then covered with a cloud and were dark to the Jews themselves, to whom they belonged. And even where the truth was in simple clothing, the human mind, which despised faith, made even more changes. Therefore, the reliable thing that philosophers found was made unreliable. As soon as they, having found God, began to talk about Him differently from how they found Him, they argued about His properties, and about His essence, and about His location. Some claim that He is incorporeal, and others that He is corporeal: the first is the Platonists, and the second is the Stoics. Some taught that He consists of atoms, like Epicurus, and others that of numbers, like Pythagoras, and still others that of fire, like Heraclitus. According to the Platonists, He rules the world, but according to the Epicureans, He is idle and inactive, and in relation to human affairs does not seem to exist. The Stoics think that He is outside the world and moves the world from the outside, like a potter with his wheel, and the Platonists, on the contrary, that He exists inside the world, like a helmsman who is on the ship that he rules. In the same way, they express different opinions about this world: according to some it happened, but according to others it did not; some believe that he will perish, while others claim that he will exist forever. They have no less disputes about the soul: some consider it divine and eternal, while others believe that there is an end to its existence. Everyone made the changes they wanted. And it is not surprising if the Old Testament is distorted by the minds of philosophers. Even the New Testament was distorted by the descendants of philosophers, heretics, with their opinions for the sake of philosophical doctrines, and from one straight road they made many crooked and impassable paths. I want to note this in advance, so that if anyone knows the difference in the Christian sect, it does not seem that Christians in this respect can be compared with philosophers, and so that he does not condemn the truth for the diversity of its understandings. We object to our distorters without any difficulty that this is a rule of truth that originated from Christ and was transmitted by His companions, who, obviously, lived somewhat earlier than these various commentators. Everything that is against the truth came from the truth itself as a result of the efforts of the spirits of error to imitate it. They are the perpetrators of distortions of the Christian saving teaching; They started some fables in order to destroy faith in the truth through similarity or to achieve it (faith) for themselves. For there are those who think that Christians should not be believed because poets and philosophers should not be believed, or that poets and philosophers should be believed; because Christians should not be trusted. Therefore, if we preach that God will one day judge, then they laugh at us, for they say, and poets and philosophers proclaim judgment in the underworld. And if we threaten Gehenna, which is the receptacle of secret fire for underground punishment, then they laugh at us even more, for this is like the river Pyriphlegethon in the kingdom of the dead. And if we are talking about paradise, as a place of bliss, designated for the reception of the souls of saints and separated from our globe by a certain wall of a fiery belt, then the Champs Elysees have already taken possession of such faith. But where, I ask you, did such a similarity among philosophers and poets come from, if not from our sacred books, as the most ancient? But if this is so, then our teaching has even more right to be believed when copies of it are believed. If the teachings of philosophers and poets originated from their own souls, then our sacred books should be considered copies of them, which, however, contradicts the very essence of the matter, for the shadow never precedes the body, and the copy never precedes the original. Enough about this. If some philosopher begins to assert that a man, as Laberius says, according to the teachings of Pythagoras, is made from a mule, and a snake from a woman, and to prove this he uses all the art of dialectic and eloquence, then will he not arouse agreement with himself and arouse a firm determination to abstain from the meat of animals for fear that in this meat he might not eat the flesh of some of his ancestors? But if a Christian begins to teach that from man a man will be made again, and from Gai - Gai, then the people will shout that such a teacher should not only not be listened to, but should even be stoned, or at least should not come to him. If there is any reason for the return of human souls to bodies, then why cannot they return to the same bodies in which they were before, for this really means to be resurrected (restitui), to become again what they were before? They themselves are not what they were before, because they cannot be what they were not unless they cease to be what they were. If we wanted to talk about who should transform into which beast, it would require a lot of jokes and a lot of idle time. But we will talk more about what concerns our defense. We preach that, of course, it is much more prudent to believe that man will come from man, whatever - from whatever, as long as man from man, so that the same nature of the soul passes into the same nature of the body, even if not into the same image. Of course, since the reason for the resurrection is the appointment of judgment, it is necessary that the same person who was there must appear in order to receive from God the determination of reward or punishment. And the bodies must be resurrected, because the soul alone cannot suffer without solid matter, that is, flesh, and because what souls generally must endure according to the judgment of God, they deserve not without the bodies in which they did everything. But how, you ask, can destroyed matter appear in judgment? Look at yourself, O man, and you will believe it. Remember what you were before you came into existence. Of course, nothing; for if you had anything, you would remember it. Therefore, you, who were nothing before you began to exist, turned into the same thing, that is, nothing, when you cease to exist, why, by the will of the same Author, Who willed you to be from nothing, cannot you again appear from nothing? What new will happen to you? Once you were not, but you appeared; You will also appear when you are gone again. Explain, if you can, how you came, and then ask how you come. But, in any case, it is easier for you to become what you once were, because without difficulty you once became what you never were. I think, perhaps, they doubt the power of God, who created such a world from what did not exist, so to speak, from the abyss of emptiness and insignificance, who revived it with the spirit that animates all souls, and who revealed the very example of human resurrection as a testimony to you. The light that disappears daily appears again; in the same way, darkness returns again after its disappearance. Extinct stars emit rays again. Times begin where they end. The fruits ripen and grow again. The only seeds that produce abundant growth are those that have rotted. Everything is preserved through destruction, and everything is restored through destruction. You, man - what a great name, if you understood yourself even because of the saying of the Pythia - the master of everything that dies and comes to life, will you really die in order not to rebel? Wherever you stop your life, no matter what power destroys you, consumes you, or destroys you, it will bring you back. To him belongs even nothingness, to whom everything (totum) belongs. Therefore, you say, one must always die and always rise again. If the Lord of the universe made such a determination, then, of necessity, against the will, they would have to obey him. But He has now determined it as He announced. That mind, which formed the universe from opposite substances - from empty and solid, from animate and inanimate, from tangible and intangible, from light and darkness, from life and death, so distributed and arranged that the first period of the existence of the world in which we live is temporary, and the second, which we expect, is eternal. Therefore, when the end of the age comes and when the temporary form of this world, spread out before eternity like a veil, changes; then the entire human race will be resurrected to receive what it deserves in this age - good or bad, and to determine both for infinite eternity. Consequently, there will be neither a new death nor a new resurrection, but we will be the same as we are now, and we will not be different after that, namely: the worshipers of God, clothed with eternal bodies, will always be before His face, and those who do not worship Him will be punished by eternal fire, which by its nature, namely divine, will be incombustible. And philosophers know the difference between secret fire and obvious or ordinary fire. People have long used one fire, and the other serves as an instrument of divine judgment. This last fire either brings down lightning from the sky, or spits out flames from the earth through craters. He does not destroy what he burns, but as he destroys, he creates. Therefore, the mountains always burn, and the one who is struck by heavenly lightning remains unharmed, so that no fire turns him to ashes. And this can testify to eternal fire and be an example of an unceasing judgment that produces punishment: the mountains burn and remain intact. What about criminals and enemies of God? Such a teaching, when we preach, is considered a prejudice, and when it is preached by philosophers and poets, it is considered the highest knowledge and the stamp of genius. They are wise and we are foolish; they are worthy of honor, and we are worthy of ridicule and even moreover, punishment. Let us suppose that the doctrine which we now defend is in fact a prejudice; but it is necessary. Let's assume that it is stupid; however, it is useful, since those who believe him are forced to become better, fearing eternal fire and hoping for eternal bliss. Therefore, one should not call false and consider stupid that which helps to foresee the truth. Under no circumstances is it permissible to condemn what is useful. So you deserve the charge of prejudice, since you condemn what is useful. Therefore, our teaching cannot be stupid. But if it is false and stupid, then it does not harm anyone. It, of course, would have to be placed on a par with many other teachings, for which you do not impose any penalty, since they are empty and legendary, and for which you do not accuse or punish, since they are harmless. But even in this case, it should be subjected (if only it should) to ridicule, and not to swords, fires, crosses and beasts. As a result of this unjust cruelty, not only the ignorant crowd, but also some of you, become fanatic, namely those who gain the favor of the mob through injustice, and boast about it. And as if everything that you can do against us does not depend on our will. Of course, I am a Christian if I wish to be so. Therefore, you can only condemn me when I wish to be condemned. But if you can’t do what you can against me, unless I want it; then what you can do depends on my will, and not on your power. Therefore, the mob is in vain to consider our torment as their triumph. This triumph, which she ascribes to herself, belongs rather to us, who desire to be condemned rather than to fall away from God. On the contrary, those who hate us should rather be sad than rejoice, since we achieve what we have chosen. Therefore, you say, why are you complaining about us persecuting you if you want to suffer? On the contrary, you should thank those through whom you endure what you desire. Yes, we want to suffer; but just like a warrior wants war. He does not endure it with pleasure, since fear and danger are associated with it. However, he fights with all his might, and, winning, rejoices in the battle, because he gains glory and booty, although he complained about the battle. Our battle is that we are called to court to fight for the truth under pain of losing our lives. Holding onto the toga for which we are fighting constitutes our victory. This victory has both glory - to be pleasing to God, and spoils - to live forever. But we are led to death, of course, when we hold back what we are fighting for. That's why we win when we are killed; finally we leave the world when we are taken to judgment. Now you can call us Sarmentii and Semaxii, because they burn us, tied to a tree divided in half, and surrounded with branches all around. This is the outward appearance of our victory; this is our robe of honor; on such a chariot we achieve triumph. Therefore, it is not without reason that the vanquished do not like us; That's why we are considered desperate and lost people. But this despair and this destruction raises your banner of courage to a glorious and honorable cause. Mucius willingly left his right hand on the brazier: O strength of spirit! Empedocles gave himself entirely to the fire of Etna: O strength of will! The famous founder of Carthage entered into a second marriage at the stake: oh the miracle of chastity! Regulus, in order not to live alone for the benefit of many enemies, received wounds all over his body: O brave man and conqueror in captivity! Anaxarchus, when he was beaten to death in a mortar, said: “Beat, beat the fur of Anaxarchus, for you do not beat Anaxarchus,” - about the courage of the philosopher, who joked even at his death. And I omit those who, wanting to gain a name for themselves, killed themselves with a sword or some other easier way, although you praise them for this kind of suffering. The Athenian hetaera, having tired the executioner, finally spits out her bitten tongue in the face of the tyrant, so as not to be able to reveal the conspirators if she, forced by torture, decided to do so. When Zeno the Eleanus, being asked by Dionysius about what philosophy brings to a person, answered: contempt in death, and when this tyrant ordered to beat him with whips, he, insensitive, proved his words with his very deeds until his death. The cruel scourgings of the Lacedaemonians, carried out in front of relatives who even encouraged them, brought as much honor to the suffering house as they shed blood. O permissible glory, because it is human! She is not credited with any harmful prejudice or desperate stubbornness when she despises death and all kinds of torment. She is allowed to endure as much for the fatherland, for property, for power, for friendship, as she is not allowed to endure for God. And, in addition, you provide statues for all of them, make images with inscriptions and carve words of praise on the boards for constant remembrance. Yes, through monuments you, in some way, ensure the resurrection of the dead, as much as you can. And whoever expects a true resurrection from God when he suffers is insane. But, good governors, much better in the eyes of the people, if you sacrifice Christians to them, do it, crucify us on crosses, torture us, condemn us, exterminate us. Your injustice proves our innocence. Therefore, God allows us to endure all this. Just recently you openly admitted that in our country, violation of chastity is considered more severe than any other punishment and any kind of death, for you sentenced a Christian woman to be sent to a brothel, and not to be torn to pieces by a lion. But no refined cruelty brings you success; she rather favors our sect. The more you destroy us, the more we multiply; the blood of Christians is the seed. Many of yours urge you to patiently endure grief and death, such as; Cicero in Tusculani, Seneca in Fortuiti, Diogenes, Pyrrho, Callinicus; however, they do not find as many disciples as Christians, for those teach with words, and these with deeds. The very stubbornness for which you condemn is the teacher. For who, seeing him, does not try to think about what is going on here. Who doesn’t come to us just to reflect? Who does not want to suffer, as soon as he comes to receive the full mercy of God, so that through his blood he can acquire forgiveness for his sins? For all sins are forgiven for this. Therefore, we hereby give thanks for your sentences. Since human and divine law are in hostile relationship, God forgives us at the very time when you condemn. You might be interested in: