M Comp. The Apology, c. xii.: " Every image of a god has been first constructed on a cross and stake, and plastered with cement. The body of your god is first dedicated upon a gibbet."
•5 Veneramini.
"^Tropxum, for " tropaiorum. " We have given the «nse rather than the words of this awkward sentence.
>7 Suggestus.
CMAr. XV.]
AD NATIONES.
12 CHAP. XIII.' — THE CHARGE OF WORSHIPPING THE SUN MET BY A RETORT.
Others, with greater regard to good man- ners, it must be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact that we pray towards the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity. What then? Do you do less than this? Do not many among you, with an affectation of sometimes worshipping the heavenly bodies likewise, move your lips in the direction of the sunrise? It is you, at all events, who have even admitted the sun into the calendar of the week; and you have selected its day,^ in preference to the pre- ceding day 3 as the most suitable in the week'* for either an entire abstinence from the bath, or for its postponement until the evening, or for taking rest and for banqueting. By resorting to these customs, you deliber- ately deviate from your own religious rites to those of strangers. For the Jewish feasts are the Sabbath and "the Purification," s and Jewish also are the ceremonies of the lamps,^ and the fasts of unleavened bread, and the " littoral prayers," ^ all which institutions and practices are of course foreign from your gods. Wherefore, that I may return from this di- gression, you who reproach us with the sun and Sunday should consider your proximity to us. We are not far off from your Saturn and your days of rest.
CHAP. XIV, ^ THE VILE CALUMNY ABOUT ONOCOETES RETORTED ON THE HEATHEN BY TKRTULLIAN.
Report has introduced a new calumny re- specting our God. Not so long ago, a most abandoned wretch in that city of yours,' a man who had deserted indeed his own religion — a Jew, in fact, who had only lost his skin, flayed of course by wild beasts,'" against which he enters the lists for hire day after day with a sound body, and so in a condition to lose his skin " — carried about in public a caricature of us with this label: Onocoetes." This (figure) ' Corap. The Apology, c. xvi.
* Sunday.
3 Saturday.
4 Ex diebus.
5 On the " Coena pura," see our A nti-Marcion, p. 386, note 4. *See Lev. xxiv. 2; also 2 Chron. xiii. 11. Witsius (Aigyptiaca, ii. 16, 17) compares the Jewish with the Egyptian "ritus lucerna- ruiB.
7 TertuUian, in his tract de Jejun. xvi., speaks of the Jews praying (after the loss of their temple, and in their dispersion) in the open air, " per omne litus."
* Comp. The Apology, c. xvi. 9 In ista civitate, Rome.
'" This is explained in the passage of The Apology (xvi.): " He had for money exposed himself with criminals to fight with wild beasts."
" Decutiendus, from a jocular word, " decutire." " This curious word is compounded of ofo«, an ass, and KoiacBai, which Hesychius explains by Upaadai, to act as a priest.
had ass's ears, and was dressed in a toga with a book, having a hoof on one of his feet. And the crowd believed this infamous Jew. For what other set of men is the seed-plot " of all the calumny against us? Throughout the city, therefore, Onocoetes is all the talk. As, how- ever, it is less then " a nine days' wonder," '* and so destitute of all authority from time, and weak enough from the character of its author, I shall gratify myself by using it sim- ply in the way of a retort. Let us then see whether you are not here also found in our company. Now it matters not what their form may be, when our concern is about de- formed images. You have amongst you gods with a dog's head, and a lion's head, with the horns of a cow, and a ram, and a goat, goat- shaped or serpent-shaped, and winged in foot, head, and back. Why therefore brand our one God so conspicuously? Many an Ofiocoefes is found amongst yourselves.
CHAP. XV. 'S THE CHARGE OF INFANTICIDE RETORTED ON THE HEATHEN.
Since we are on a par in respect of the gods, it follows that there is no difference between us on the point of sacrifice, or even of worship,'* if I may be allowed to make good our comparison from another sort of evidence. We begin our religious service, or initiate our mysteries, with slaying an infant. As for you, since your own transactions in human blood and infanticide have faded from your memory, you shall be duly reminded of them in the proper place; we now postpone most of the instances, that we may not seem to be everywhere'' handling the selfsame topics. Meanwhile, as I have said, the comparison between us does not fail in another point of view. For if we are infanticides in one sense, you also can hardly be deemed such in any other sense; because, although you are for- bidden by the laws to slay new-born infants, it so happens that no laws are evaded with more impunity or greater safety, with the deliberate knowledge of the public, and the suffrages'® of this entire age.'' Yet there is no great difference between us, only you do not kill your infants in the way of a sacred rite, nor (as a service) to God. But then you make away with them in a more cruel manner, The word therefore means, " asinarius sacerdos," " an ass of a priest." Calumnious enough; but suited to the vile occasion, and illustrative of the ribald opposition which Christianity had to en- counter.
'3 We take Rigaltius' reading, " seminarium."
14 Tanquara hesternum.
'5 Comp. The Apology, c. ix.
16 Sacri.
•7 He refers in this passage to his Apology, especially c. ix.
18 Tabellis.
19 Unius aetatis. This Oehler explains by " per unam jam totam hanc aitatem."
AD NATIONES.
[book I.
because you expose them to the cold and hunger, and to wild beasts, or else you get rid of them by the slower death of drowning. If, however, there does occur any dissimilarity between us in this matter,' you must not over- look the fact that it is your own dear children ^ whose life you quench; and this will supple- ment, nay, abundantly aggravate, on your side of the question, whatever is defective in us on other grounds. Well, but we are said to sup off our impious sacrifice! Whilst we postpone to a more suitable place ^ whatever resemblance even to this practice is discover- able amongst yourselves, we are not far re- moved from you in voracity. If in the one case there is unchastity, and in ours cruelty, we are still on the same footing (if I may so far admit our guilt ") in nature, where cruelty is always found in concord with unchastity. But, after all, what do you less than we; or rather, what do you not do in excess of us? I wonder whether it be a small matter to you ^ to pant for human entrails, because you de- vour full-grown men alive? Is it, forsooth, only a trifle to lick up human blood, when you draw out* the blood which was destined to live? Is it a light thing in your view to feed on an infant, when you consume one wholly before it is come to the birth? ' CHAP. XVI, ^ OTHER CHARGES REPELLED BY THE SAME METHOD. THE STORY OF THE NOBLE ROMAN YOUTH AND HIS PARENTS.
I am now come to the hour for extinguish- ing the lamps, and for using the dogs, and practising the deeds of darkness. And on this point I am afraid I must succumb to you; for what similar accusation shall I have to bring against you? But you should at once commend the cleverness with which we make our incest look modest, in that we have de- vised a spurious night, ' to avoid polluting the real light and darkness, and have even thought it right to dispense with earthly lights, and to play tricks also with our conscience. For whatever we do ourselves, we suspect in others when we choose (to be suspicious). As for your incestuous deeds, on the contrary," men enjoy them at full liberty, in the face of day, or in the natural night, or before high Heaven; and in proportion to their successful issue is your own ignorance of the result.
' Genere.
- Pignora, scil. amoris.
3 See Apology, c. ix.
■♦ Si forte.
5 Parum scilicet?
* Elicitis.
7 Infantem totum precocutn, * Comp. The Apology, c. ix. 9 Adulteram noctem.
«" Ceterum.
since you publicly indulge in your incestuous intercourse in the full cognizance of broad day-light. (No ignorance, however, conceals our conduct from our eyes,) for in the very darkness we are able to recognise our own misdeeds. The Persians, you know very well," according to Ctesias, live quite promiscuously with their mothers, in full knowledge of the fact, and without any horror; whilst of the Macedonians it is well known that they con- stantly do the same thing, and with perfect approbation: for once, when the blinded" CEdipus came upon their stage, they greeted him with laughter and derisive cheers. The actor, taking off his mask in great alarm, said, " Gentlemen, have I displeased you? " " Cer- tainly not," replied the Macedonians, ''you have played your part well enough; but either the author was very silly, if he invented (this mutilation as an atonement for the incest), or else CEdipus was a great fool for his pains if he really so punished himself; " and then they shouted out one to the other, "Wjcswe t\q rf/v firjTEpa. But how insignificant, (say you,) is the stain which one or two nations can make on the whole world! As for us, we of course have infected the very sun, polluted the en- tire ocean! Quote, then, one nation which is free from the passions which allure the whole race of men to incest! If there is a single nation which knows nothing of concubinage through the necessity of age and sex — to say nothing of lust and licentiousness — that nation will be a stranger to incest. If any nature can be found so peculiarly removed from the human state as to be liable neither to igno- rance, nor error, nor misfortune, that alone may be adduced with any consistency as an answer to the Christians. Reflect, therefore, on the licentiousness which floats about amongst men's passions '^ as if they were the winds, and consider whether there be any communities which the full and strong tides of passion fail to waft to the commission of this great sin. In the first place, when you expose your infants to the mercy of others, or leave them for adoption to better parents than yourselves, do you forget what an opportunity for incest is furnished, how wide a scope is opened for its accidental commission? Un- doubtedly, such of )'^ou as are more serious from a principle of self-restraint and careful reflection, abstain from lusts which could pro- duce results of such a kind, in whatever place you may happen to be, at home or abroad, so that no indiscriminate diffusion of seed, or licentious reception thereof, will produce chil- " Plane.
" Trucidatus oculos.
'3 Errores.
CHAP. XVII.]
AD NATION ES.
dren to you unawares, such as their very par- ents, or else other children, might encounter in inadvertent incest, for no restraint from age is regarded in (the importunities of) lust. All acts of adultery, all cases of fornication, all the licentiousness of public brothels, whether committed at home or perpetrated out of doors,' serve to produce confusions of blood and complications of natural relation- ship,=' and thence to conduce to incest; from which consummation your players and buf- foons draw the materials of their exhibitions. It was from such a source, too, that so fla- grant a tragedy recently burst upon the public as that which the prefect Fuscianus had judi- cially to decide. A boy of noble birth, who, by the unintentional neglect of hisattendants,3 had strolled too far from hom.e, was decoyed by some passers-by, and carried off. The paltry Greek " who had the care of him, or somebody else,^ in true Greek fashion, had gone into the house and captured him. Hav- ing been taken away into Asia, he is brought, when arrived at full age, back to Rome, and exposed for sale. His own father buys him unawares, and treats him as a Greek.* After- wards, as was his wont, the youth is sent by his master into the fields, chained as a slave. ^ Thither the tutor and the nurse had already been banished for punishment. The whole case is represented to them; they relate each other's misfortunes: they, on the one hand, how they had lost their ward when he was a boy; he, on the other hand, that he had been lost from his boyhood. But they agreed in the main, that he was a native of Rome of a noble family; perhaps he further gave sure proofs of his identity. Accordingly, as God willed it for the purpose of fastening a stain upon that age, a presentiment about the time excites him, the periods exactly suit his age, even his eyes help to recall ^ his features, some peculiar marks on his body are enumerated. His master and mistress, who are now no other than his own father and mother, anx- iously urge a protracted inquiry. The slave- dealer is examined, the unhappy truth is all discovered. When their wickedness becomes manifest, the parents find a remedy for their despair by hanging themselves; to their son, who survives the miserable calamity, their property is awarded t'' the prefect, not as an inheritance, but as th> wages of infamy and incest. That one cas was a sufficient ex- * Sive stativo vel ambulatorio ti. lo. ' Compagines generis. sComitum.
* Graeculus.
5 " Aliquis " is nere understood.
* Utitur Graeco, i.e., cinaedo, " fo» jurposes of lust." 7 Or, " is sent into the country, aa put into prison." ' Aliquid recordantur.
ample for public exposure' of the sins of this sort which are secretly perpetrated among you. Nothing happens among men in soli- tary isolation. But, as it seems to me, it is only in a solitary case that such a charge can be drawn out against us, even in the mysteries of our religion. You ply us evermore with this charge;'" yet there are like delinquencies to be traced amongst you, even in your ordi- nary course of life."
CHAP. XVII.'' — THE CHRISTIAN REFUSAL TO SWEAR BY THE GENIUS OF C^SAR. FLIP- PANCY AND IRREVERENCE RETORTED ON THE HEATHEN.
As to your charges of obstinacy and pre- sumption, whatever you allege against us, even in these respects, there are not wanting points in which you will bear a comparison with us. Our first step in this contumacious conduct concerns that which is ranked by you immediately after '3 the worship due to God, that is, the worship due to the majesty of the Caesars, in respect of which we are charged with being irreligious towards them, since we neither propititate their images nor swear by their genius. We are called enemies of the people. Well, be it so; yet at the same time (it must not be forgotten, that) the emperors find enemies amongst you heathen, and are constantly getting surnames to signalize their triumphs — one becoming Parthtctis,^* and another Medicus and Gei-matdcus.^^ On this head '* the Roman people must see to it who they are amongst whom '^ there still remain nations which are unsubdued and foreign to their rule. But, at all events, you are of us,'^ and yet you conspire against us. (In reply, we need only state) a well-known fact,'' that we acknowledge the fealty of Romans to the emperors. No conspiracy has ever broken out from our body: no Csesar's blood has ever fixed a stain upon us, in the senate or even in the palace; no assumption of the purple has ever in any of the provinces been affected by us. The Syrias still exhale the odours of their corpses; still do the Gauls'" fail to wash away (their blood) in the waters of their Rhone. Your allegations of our insanity " I omit, be- 9 Publicse eniptionis. '0 Intentatis.
" Vestris non sacramentis, with a hyphen, your noa-myv teries." '2 Comp. The Apology^ c. xxxv. •3 Secunda.
•5 These titles were borne by Caracalla. ''Or, "topic"— hoc loco.
17 i.e., whether among the Christians or the hcatbcai 18 A cavil of the heathen. "9 Sane.
ao Gallise. ai Vesanix.
AD NATIONES.
[book I.
cause they do not compromise the Roman name. But I will grapple with ' the charge of sacrilegious vanity, and remind you of ° the irreverence of your own lower classes, and the scandalous lampoons ^ of which the statues are so cognizant, and the sneers which are some- times uttered at the public games, '' and the curses with which the circus resounds. If not in arms, you are in tongue at all events always rebellious. But I suppose it is quite another affair to refuse to swear by the genius of Caesar? For it is fairly open to doubt as to who are perjurers on this point, when you do not swear honestly ^ even by your gods. Well, Ave do not call the emperor God; for on this point sannain facimus,^ as the saying is. But the truth is, that you who call Caesar God both mock him, by calling him what he is not, and curse him, because he does not want to be what you call him. For he prefers living to being made a god.^ CHAP. XVIII. ^ CHRISTIANS CHARGED "WITH AN OBSTINATE CONTEMPT OF DEATH. IN- STANCES OF THE SAME ARE FOUND AMONGST THE HEATHEN.
The rest of your charge of obstinacy against us you sum up in this indictment, that we boldly refuse neither your swords, nor your crosses, nor your wild beasts, nor fire, nor tor- tures, such is our obduracy and contempt of death. But (you are inconsistent in your charges); for in former times amongst your own ancestors all these terrors have come in men's intrepidity ^ not only to be despised, but even to be held in great praise. How many swords there were, and what brave men were willing to suffer by them, it were irksome to enumerate." (If we take the torture) of the cross, of which so many instances have occurred, exquisite in cruelty, your own Regu- lus readily initiated the suffering which up to his day was without a precedent; " a queen of Egypt used wild beasts of her own (to accom- plish her death);" the Carthaginian woman, who in the last extremity of her country was more courageous than her husband Asdrubal,'3 J Conveniam.
• Recognoscam.
3 Festivos libellos.
* A concilio.
5 Ex fide.
6 Literally, " we make faces."
7 Comp. The Apology c. xxxiii., p. 37, supra, and Minucius Felix, Octa-c'ius, c. xxiii. [Vol. IV. this Series.]
•oWith the " piget prosequi" to govern the preceding oblique clause, it is unnecessary to suppose (with Oehler) the omission here of some verb like " erogavit."
"Tertullian refers to Cleopatra's death also in his tract ad Mart. c. iv, [See this Vol. infra.']
>3 This case is again referred to in this treatise (p. 138), and in mJ Mart civ. [See this Volume, /■«/>■<».]
only followed the example, set long before by Dido herself, of going through fire to her death. Then, again, a woman of Athens de- fied the tyrant, exhausted his tortures, and at last, lest her person and sex might succumb through weakness, she bit off her tongue and spat out of her mouth the only possible instru- ment of a confession which was now out of her power. '■♦ But in your own instance you account such deeds glorious, in ours obstinate. Annihilate now the glory of your ancestors, in order that you may thereby annihilate us also. Be content from henceforth to repeal the praises of your forefathers, in order that you may not have to accord commendation to us for the same (sufferings). Perhaps (you will say) the character of a more robust age may have rendered the spirits of antiquity more enduring. Now, however, (we enjoy) the blessing of quietness and peace; so that the minds and dispositions of men (should be) more tolerant even towards strangers. Well, you rejoin, be it so: you may compare your- selves •^\\h. the ancients; 7£/^ must needs pur- sue with hatred all that we find in you offen- sive to ourselves, because it does not obtain currency '^ among us. Answer me, then, on each particular case by itself. I am not seek- ing for examples on a uniform scale. '^ Since, forsooth, the sword through their contempt of death produced stories of heroism amongst your ancestors, it is not, of course, '^ from love of life that you go to the trainers sword in hand and offer yourselves as gladiators,'^ (nor) through fear of death do you enrol your names in the army.'' Since an ordinary^ woman makes her death famous by wild beasts, it cannot but be of your own pure accord that you encounter wild beasts day after day in the midst of peaceful times. Although no longer any Regulus among you has raised a cross as the instrument of his own crucifixion, yet a contempt of the fire has even now displayed itself,-' since one of yourselves very lately has offered for a wager ""^ to go to any place which may be fixed upon and put on the burning shirt. '3 If a woman once defiantly danced be- neath the scourge, the same feat has been very recently performed again by one of your own (circus-) hunters ="* as he traversed the ■4 Eradicate confessionis. [See p. 55, supra.]
'5 Non invenitur.
'* Eadem voce.
'7 Utique. The ironical tone of Tertullian's answer is evident.
18 Gladio ad lanistas auctoratis.
»9 We follow Oehler in giving the clause this negative turn; he renders it: " Tretet nicht aus Furcht vor dem Tode ins Kriegs- heer ein."
20 Alicui.
2' Jam evasit.
22 Auctoravit.
»3 Vestiendum incendiale tunica.
24 Inter venatorios: " veaatores circi " (Oehler).
CHAP. XX.]
AD NATIONES.
appointed course, not to mention the famous sufferings of the Spartans.'
CHAP. XIX.' — IF CHRISTIANS AND THE HEATHEN THUS RESEMBLE EACH OTHER, THERE IS GREAT DIFFERENCE IN THE GROUNDS AND NATURE OF THEIR APPAR- ENTLY SIMILAR CONDUCT.
Here end, I suppose, your tremendous charges of obstinacy against the Christians. Now, since we are amenable to them in com- mon with yourselves, it only remains that we compare the grounds which the respective parties have for being personally derided. All our obstinacy, however, is with you a fore- gone conclusion, 3 based on our strong convic- tions; for we take for granted* a resurrection of the dead. Hope in this resurrection amounts to^ a contempt of death. Ridicule, therefore, as much as you like the excessive stupidity of such minds as die that they may live; but then, in order that you may be able to laugh more merrily, and deride us with greater boldness, you must take your sponge, or perhaps your tongue, and wipe away those records of yours every now and then cropping out,* which assert in not dissimilar terms that souls will return to bodies. But how much more worthy of acceptance is our belief which maintains that they will return to the same bodies! And how much more ridiculous is your inherited conceit,^ that the human spirit is to reappear in a dog, or a mule, or a pea- cock 1 Again, we affirm that a judgment has been ordained by God according to the merits of every man. This you ascribe to Minos and Rhadamanthus, while at the same time you reject Aristides, who was a juster judge than either. By the award of the judgment, we say that the wicked will have to spend an eternity in endless fire, the pious and innocent in a region of bliss. In your view likewise an unalterable condition is ascribed to the re- spective destinations of Pyriphlegethon^ and Elysium. Now they are not merely your composers of myth and poetry who write songs of this strain; but your philosophers also speak with all confidence of the return of souls to their former state,' and of the two- fold award " of a final judgment.
'"Doubtless the stripes which the Spartans endured with such firmness, aggravated by the presence of their nearest relatives, who encouraged them, conferred honour upon their family."— Apology, c. 50. [See p. 55, supra."]
^Compare Tke Apology, cc. jdvii. zlviii. xlix. [This Vol., supra.]
SPraestruitur.
* Praesumimus. SEst. '' Interim. 7 Traditum.
* The heathen hell, Tartarus or Orcus. * 9 Reciprocatione.
"Distributione.
CHAP. XX. TRUTH AND REALITY PERTAIN TO CHRISTIANS ALONE. THE HEATHEN COUN- SELLED TO EXAMINE AND EMBRACE IT.