16

Romans changed in every thing, even in religion.

APOL. cellar; and under Romulus one who had touched wine was slain with impunity by her husband Mecenius. Wheredata sit fore also they were obliged to offer kisses to their nearest

1

I. 6. truci

kinsfolk, that they might be judged by their breath". Where
is that happiness in marriages, favoured doubtless by good
morals, through which, during nearly six hundred years'
from the founding of the city, no one family wrote a writing
of divorcement? In the women, now, owing to their gold,
no limb is light', owing to their wine, no kiss is free: and
for divorce, it is now even the object of a wish, as though it
were the proper fruit of matrimony. As touching even
your gods themselves, the decrees, which your fathers had
providently enacted, ye, these same most obedient persons,
have rescinded. Father Bacchus, with his mysteries, the
Consuls by the authority of the Senate, banished not only
from the city, but from the whole of Italy'. Serapis, and
Isis, and Harpocrates with his dog-headed monster, having
been forbidden the Capitol", that is, turned out of the palace
of the gods, the Consuls Piso and Gabinius (certainly not
Christians) renounced, overturning even their altars, thus
checking the vices of base and idle superstitions. These ye
having bestowed, have conferred the highest dignity upon
them. Where is your religion? Where is the reverence
due from you to your ancestors? In dress, food, establish-
ment, income, finally in your very language, ye have
renounced your forefathers.
Ye are ever lauding the
ancients, yet fashioning your lives anew every day. By
which it is manifest, that, while ye fall back from the good
customs of your ancestors, ye retain and guard those things
which ye ought not, while ye guard not those which ye

Plin. xiv. 13. (al. 12.) Val. Max.

6. 3. 9.

P Ib. and Arnob. l. ii. p. 91. ed. Lugd. 9 520. Val. Max. ii. 1. 4. And that for barrenness.

r De Cult. Fem. i. fin.

See Senec. de Benef. iii. 16. Juv. vi. 20. Martial. vi. 7. ap. Hav.

t Liv. l. xxxix. Val. Max. i. 3. Aug. de Civ. D. vi. 9.

And their altars destroyed (Varro ap. Tert. ad Nat. i. 10.) by the Senate, and allowed only to be without the walls, Dio. xl. 47. xlii. 26. they were

restored by popular tumult, but forbidden by Gabinius chiefly, A. U. C. 695. (Tert. ib.) Arnobius, ii. 95. mentions both. Afterwards M. Emil. Paulus himself broke down the walls of the temple, Val. Max. i. 3. fin. The worship was vix ægreque admissum, Macrob. i. 7. in the triumvirate by Augustus, Dio. xlvii. 15. Lucan. vii. 83. but even afterwards only without the city, Dio. liii. 2. and a mile from it, liv. 6. The worship appears to have been that of the populace. (Tert. 1. c. Val. Max. 1. c.)

adhuc

Christians, so beset with enemies, must have been detected. 17 ought. Besides1 that very thing, which being handed down Ipsum from your fathers ye seem most faithfully to observe, in which ye mark out the Christians as specially guilty of transgression,-I mean diligence in worshipping the gods, wherein antiquity hath mostly erred,—although ye have rebuilt the altars of the now Roman Serapis, although ye offer your frantic orgies to the now Italian Bacchus, I will immoshew in the proper place to have been just as much despised and neglected and destroyed by you, contrary to the authority of your ancestors. For I shall now make answer to the evil report touching secret crimes, that I may clear my way to such as are more open.

letis

VII. We are said to be the most accursed of men, as touching a sacrament of child-murder, and thereon a feast, and incest after the feast, where the dogs that overturn the candles, our panders forsooth, procure darkness and an absence of all shame besides, for impious lusts. Yet 'said to be' is ever the word, and ye take no care to expose that which we have been so long said to be. Wherefore either expose it, if ye believe it, or be unwilling to believe it, seeing ye have not exposed it. Through your own connivance it is ruled against you, that that hath no existence which even yourselves dare not expose. Far other is the task which ye impose on your executioner against the Christians, not that they should confess what they do, but deny what they are. This religion dateth, as we have already set forth, from Tiberius. Truth set out with being herself hated; as soon as she appeared, she is an enemy 3. As many as are strangers 3inimica to it, so many are its foes: and the Jews indeed appro- Luke 3, priately from their rivalry, the soldiers from their violence, 14. even they of our own household from nature. Each day are we beset, each day betrayed; in our very meetings and assemblies are we mostly surprised. Who hath ever in this way come upon a screaming infant? Who hath kept for the judge the mouths of these Cyclopses and Sirens, bloody as he found them? Who hath discovered any marks of impurity even in our wives? Who hath concealed such crimes,

* c. 13.

y See above, c. 2.

I c. 5.

a Athenag. Leg. §. 3. Orig. c. Cels.

i. 3.

est

Mat. 10,

36.

I. 7.

omnium

18

Proverbial falsehood of report.

APOL. when he hath discovered them, or hath taken a bribe to do so, while haling the men themselves"? If we be always concealed, when was that, which we commit, divulged? Yea, by whom could it be divulged? By the criminals themselves forsooth! Nay, verily since the fidelity of 1 vel ex secresy is, by the very rule of all mysteries', due to them. forma The Samothracian and Eleusinian are kept secret; how myste- much more such as, being divulged, will in the mean time provoke even the vengeance of man, while that of God is kept in store! If themselves then be not their own betrayers, it followeth that strangers must be. And whence have strangers the knowledge, when even holy mysteries ever exclude the profane, and beware of witnesses? unless it be that unholy men have the less fear! The nature of fame is known to all. It is your own saying,

riorum

"Fame is an ill, than which more speedy none." (VIRG.)

Why “Fame an ill?" because "speedy?" because a telltale or because mostly false? who, not even at the very time when she beareth any thing true, is without the vice of falsehood, detracting, adding, changing from the truth! What, when her condition is such, that she endureth only while she lieth, and liveth only so long as she proveth not her words? for when she hath proved them, she ceaseth to be; and, as having discharged her office of talebearer, delivereth up a fact. And thenceforward the fact is laid hold of, the fact is named, and no one saith, (for instance,) They say that this happened at Rome,' or The report is that he hath obtained the province,' but, ' He hath obtained the province,' and This happened at Rome.' Fame, a name for uncertainty, hath no place when a thing is certain. But would any, but an inconsiderate man, believe Fame? since a wise man believeth not that which is uncertain. All may judge that, over whatever extent it be spread, with whatever assurance framed, it must needs have at some time sprung from some one author, and thence creep into the channels of tongues and ears. And a fault in the first little seed doth so darken the rest of the tale, that none enquireth whether that

i. e. had they been bribed, they had let them go altogether

Internal evidence of falsehood of charges.

19

first tongue have not sown a falsehood, which often happeneth either from the spirit of rivalry, or the wanton humour of suspicion, or that taste for falsehood which in some is not new, but inborn. But it is well that "time revealeth all things," which even your own proverbs and sayings testify, according to the general law of nature which hath so ordained that nothing long remaineth hidden, even that which fame hath not spread abroad. With good cause then hath Fame been so long the only witness of the crimes of the Christians. This informer ye produce against us, who even to this time hath not been able to prove that which she once threw out, and in so long a period hath strengthened into an opinion.

VIII. That I may appeal to the authority of Nature herself against those who presume that such things are to be believed, lo! we set before you the reward of these crimes. They promise eternal life. Believe it for the moment: for I ask this, whether even thou, who dost believe it, thinkest it worth while to attain to it by such a conscience? Come plunge thy knife into an infant, the foe of none, the accused of none, the child of all. Or, if this be the office of another, only stand by this human being, dying before it hath lived; wait for the young soul's flight; catch the scarce-matured blood; soak thy bread in it; freely feed upon it. Meanwhile as thou sittest at the meal, calculate the places where thy mother, where thy sister is; note them diligently, so that when the darkness caused by the dogs shall fall upon thee, thou mayest not err; for thou wilt incur pollution if thou commit not incest. Thus initiated and sealed thou livest for ever. I desire thee to answer whether Eternity be worth such a price; or if not, therefore it ought not to be believed to be so. Even if thou shouldest believe it, I say that thou wouldest not do it; even if thou wouldest, I say that thou couldest not. And why should others be able, if ye are not able? Why should ye not be able, if others are able? We,

Obscurat, i. e. the original falsehood is so mixed up in all the parts of the story, as to make it impossible to see clearly what the truth really is. (Tr.) According to another reading, (obscurant)" And the other appendages

of the tale so disguise the fault in the first little seed, that none considereth &c."

d Athenag. Leg. §. 2.

e Salvian, 1. iv. (ubi sup.) p. 39. ed. Manut.

I. 8.

20 Those who joined Christians, must have discovered them.

6

APOL. I suppose, are of another nature! Are we Cynopeans or Sciapodes'? Have we other rows of teeth? other nerves for incestuous lust? Thou that canst believe these things of a man, canst also do them". Thou thyself also art a man, as is a Christian. Thou that canst not do them, oughtest not to believe them, for a Christian also is a man, and all that thou also art. But (say ye) men while in ignorance are cheated and practised on". Because forsooth they knew not that any such thing was asserted of the Christians, a thing doubtless to have been looked to by them, and investigated with all diligence! But it is the custom, methinks, for those who desire to be initiated, first to go to the master of the mysteries, and to note down what things must be prepared'. Then saith he, An infant thou must needs have, still of tender age, who knoweth not what death is, who can smile under thy knife: bread too, with which thou must take up the mess of blood: candlesticks moreover, and candles, and certain dogs, and sops, which may make them stretch forward to overturn the candles: above all, thou wilt be bound to come with thy mother and sister.' What if they will not come, or if thou hast none? What, in short, must solitary Christians do? A man, I suppose, will not be a regular Christian, unless he be a brother or a son! What now, even if all these things be prepared for men ignorant of them? Surely they know them afterwards, and bear with and pardon them. They fear to be punished! men, who, if they publish them, will deserve to be defended; who should rather even die voluntarily, than exist under such a conscience. Well! grant that they do fear. Why do they still go on? for it followeth that thou canst not wish any longer to be that, which, if thou hadst known it before, thou wouldest not have been.

IX. To refute these charges the more, I will shew that that is done by you, partly in public and partly in secret, through which perchance ye have come to believe them of us also. In the bosom of Africa, infants were publicly

f Lit. "dog-faced" and "feet-shadowed," fabulous monsters, ap. Plin.

vii. 2.

Salvian, iv. p. 93. Minut. F. p. 289.

1.

h See details in Minut. F. p. 87.

i Apul. Milesiarum sive Metamorph. xi. pp. 255 et 262.