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ARNOBIUS

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

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

(ADVERSUS GENTES.) BOOK I.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BOOK II.(1)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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