Le Nourry, Dissertatio in Apologeticum, ad Nationes et ad Scapulam, Cap. XV-XXI

CHAPTER XV. On the sacred synaxes of the Christians.

ARTICLE I.

For what reason the Christians entered their sacred assemblies; on the prayers poured out there, and above all for the delay of the end; on the reading of the sacred Scriptures, and the exhortations; on the presidents, the approved, the elders, who obtained their honour by no price but by testimony.

There was nothing at all in the whole discipline of the Christians and in their manners that the heathen harassed with sharper calumnies than their synaxes and solemn gatherings for celebrating the sacred mysteries. Wherefore Tertullian judged that the shameless audacity of the calumniators could be thoroughly crushed by no stronger argument than a sincere and simple exposition of the things that were done in them. First, then, he relates to what end the Christians were gathered together: "We come together," he says, "into an assembly and congregation, so that, as if with a band formed, we may surround God with prayers as we pray" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 39, p. 467). But these words, which are found in exactly these terms in all our manuscript codices and in the old editions, seemed to Rigaltius too long, and perhaps too obscure. In the text, therefore, against the authority of the older codex he himself used, he chose to keep only this: "We come together to God, so that, as if with a band formed, we may surround Him with prayers." Yet why he deleted so many words against the unanimous agreement of the codices he gives not even the slightest reason. Was Rigaltius then permitted thus to correct at his pleasure the book of so ancient a writer as though it were his own, and to take away and cut off from it whatever he wished? Tertullian, however, said: "We come together into an assembly and congregation," just as Cicero, after Terence, said: "We come together into the Piraeus" (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, book VII, letter 3, p. 275, line 8; Terence, Eunuch, act III, scene 4, line 1); and Virgil sang:

. . . All the valour of the allies comes together into one.

(Virgil, Aeneid, book X, line 410.)

Thus gathered, the Christians, as if with a band formed, encircled and surrounded God on every side, so that, praying together, they might bend His divine mercy by their prayers. Nor was the force they did Him unwelcome: "For this force," says our author, "is pleasing to God" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 39, p. 467), by which the Christians, with the prayers of all joined together, [laid] formidable

weapons of justice upon Him, and compelled Him by a kind of violence, as it were, not to deny them the gifts of divine clemency they asked for.

In this manner they prayed not for themselves only, but also "for the emperors," as he says further, "for their ministers and powers" (Tertullian, ibid.), that is, for the magistrates and governors, whether of cities or of provinces, and for all those whose service was employed in ruling the peoples; "for the state of the age," that is, of the empire, that it might be firm and stable and not be shaken by wars or seditions; "for the quiet of affairs," that all might always enjoy the good of a peace ever to be wished for. For the Christians knew that the Apostle had commanded that "supplications, prayers, petitions, thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings, and all who are in high station, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all piety and chastity" (1 Tim. 2:1–2). Of these prayers, moreover, which the Christians were accustomed to pour out in their synaxes for themselves and for others, we have treated elsewhere (Dissertation on Arnobius, chapter 8, article 2).

Wherefore it is now enough to observe only what Tertullian added in the same place: that the Christians in these synaxes also prayed to God "for the delay of the end" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 39, p. 467). And what, pray, was that end, if not the end of the whole world, which they supposed was to be overthrown together with the ruin of the Roman empire (the same, To Scapula, chapter 2)? Although this opinion, of which something must be said later (below, chapter 21, article 1), is wholly false, we nevertheless understand from it that the Christians prayed to God for the long duration of the Roman empire as often as they besought Him to bring about a delay of the world's ending. For they had persuaded themselves, wrongly indeed but thoroughly, that "the close of the age" (these again are our author's very words) "is held back by the furlough of the Roman empire" (the same, Apology, chapter 32, p. 447).

But as false as that is, so true are the things done in the sacred synaxes of the Christians which he records thus: "We come together for the calling to mind of the divine writings" (ibid., chapter 39, p. 34), that is, for their reading and recitation. For in this assembly of the faithful, as Justin Martyr says, "the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time allows"; "the commentaries of the apostles, or the writings of the apostles, are read, as far as time permits" (Justin, First Apology, no. 67); or, as Tertullian says, "if the character of the present times" (in which the heathen were raging against the Christians with such cruelty) "compels us either to forewarn or to call to mind anything" (Tertullian, place cited). For with these sacred words they fed their faith, raised their hope, and made their confidence and security fast. And by rereading and hearing more often the precepts of conduct handed down in them, they made their discipline and their manner of right living firmer.

"Exhortations," says our author, followed the reading of sacred Scripture. Justin Martyr earlier: "Then," he says, "when the reader has ceased, the president by word makes the admonition and invitation to the

imitation of these good things." "Then, the reader being at rest, the one presiding makes an admonition, by which he calls and exhorts the others to the imitation of such beautiful things" (Justin, ibid.). And so he relates more explicitly what those exhortations were, and by whom and for what reason they were made.

These, Tertullian goes on, were immediately followed by "rebukes and the divine censure" (Tertullian, ibid.), which Justin Martyr indeed passed over altogether, either because he was consulting brevity or because they did little for his purpose. But Origen asserts expressly, in the first place, that the Christians of his time took pains in every way that their gatherings and synaxes should be filled with prudent men, by whom whatever we hold that is excellent and divine was explained in popular discourses and according to the capacity of each (Origen, Against Celsus, book III).

Then, next, Tertullian at once added that those were utterly cast out from these same assemblies who were defiled by sins, and above all by lust (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 39, p. 469). There was, as we shall show in its place, a threefold class of sins and crimes on account of which, a sentence of excommunication having been passed on the guilty after the example of the Apostle (1 Cor. 5:5 ff.), they were kept from entering the church. And they could not be absolved before they had done public penance for these crimes.

Before that, however, their sins had to be most diligently examined and established. Wherefore, says our author, "judgement is passed with great weight, as among men certain of the sight of God; and it is the highest foreshadowing of the judgement to come if anyone has so offended as to be banished from the communion of prayer and of the assembly and of all holy intercourse" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 39, p. 469). With the greatest care, then, than which none could be greater, they inquired what the sins of the accused were and of what kind, and passed sentence on those convicted as if they had God, the supreme judge of all, before their eyes. That sentence, therefore, was the greatest foreshadowing of the judgement to be passed by God at the very end of the world. For as Cyprian afterwards wrote to Pomponius: "Among the faithful servants of God the proud and contumacious are slain with the spiritual sword of excommunication, when they are cast out of the Church. For they cannot live outside, since the house of God is one, and there can be salvation for no one except in the Church" (Cyprian, letter 5, to Pomponius).

Tertullian continues: "Over these assemblies of the Christians preside all the approved elders" (Tertullian, place cited). But he does not explain to us who those presiding elders were, whom, just as there he calls them by this name alone, so in another place, where he treats of the same synaxes, he calls simply the presiding ones: "The sacrament of the Eucharist," he says, "commanded by the Lord both at the time of the meal and to all, we take even in assemblies before dawn, and from the hand of none but those who preside" (the same, On the Soldier's Crown, chapter 3). By Justin Martyr too, as we saw a little before, the president of each synaxis is called only προεστώς. But Tertullian himself, where he discusses the administration of holy baptism conferred in these same synaxes,

shows openly who these presidents are. There we read these very words of his: "The right of giving baptism belongs indeed to the high priest, who is the bishop; then to the presbyters and deacons, yet not without the bishop's authority, for the honour of the Church, which being safe, peace is safe" (the same, On Baptism, chapter 17). The bishops, therefore, presided over these and the other synaxes of the Christians, and, by their authority, the presbyters and deacons.

Why they were called "elders" by him may be learned from these words of Cyprian: "Long since, throughout all the provinces and in every city, bishops have been ordained who are old in age, sound in faith, proved in affliction, proscribed in persecution" (Cyprian, letter 55, to Antonianus). You see there that bishops are called old in age, and therefore elders. Did not Tertullian, then, designate by that name the bishops, of whom at least the greater part were in his time elders and advanced in age? Besides this, they are said by the same Cyprian to be "proved in affliction," that is, by tortures endured with constancy for the faith of Christ. Yet in another sense they are called simply "approved" by our author, namely, approved and chosen by the vote of others on account of the holiness of their life. For he himself added in the same place: "Having obtained that honour not by price but by testimony. For no thing of God is to be had for a price" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 39, p. 469 f.). No one, we think, will deny that by these words, "that honour," Tertullian there designates the sacred orders of the ministers of God, which were to be conferred on approved and chosen men not for any price at all, however small, but on the sure and weighty testimony of religious men. If you ask the reason, take this from Ambrose, wholly in agreement with Tertullian's words: "You have the Lord's precept, and the example of the prophet Elisha punishing Gehazi: to give freely, and not to sell a ministry but to offer it; for the grace of God is not assessed at a price; nor to seek gain in the sacraments, but the service of a priest" (Ambrose, Exposition on Luke, book IV, § 52). And a little after: "For the guilt of a ministry sold is inexpiable, and grace too: the heavenly vengeance passes to posterity" (ibid., § 53). Afterwards he confirms this by the example of Simon Magus (ibid., book IX, § 19), from whom simony, so often condemned by the canons of the Church and the writings of the holy Fathers, took its name.

ARTICLE II.

On the offering which the Christians made in their synaxes; where it was laid up; whether their charity had grown cold in Tertullian's time; and on whom, and for what uses, what they gave was spent.

Although in Tertullian's time every stain of simony was wholly banished from the Church, yet in the house into which the Christians flocked, as was their custom, to hold their synaxes, there was laid up "a kind of chest," as he says, "with no dishonouring sum, as though of a religion bought." So indeed in our two older codices. But in the two more recent Colbertine codices, "non de honoraria" ["not from an honorary sum"].

In the old and some more recent printed editions, "non de oneraria" ["not from a burdensome sum"]. Worst of all, finally, in Pamelius's edition, "non de ordinaria" ["not from an ordinary sum"]: for that sum was brought in at least every month, as will soon be said. Rigaltius therefore preferred the first reading to the others, both because it is found in the most ancient codex, and because he thinks that by this word "dehonoraria" is meant a sum which belonged to a religion neither for sale nor, as Tertullian says, "bought," and so was a dishonour to no one. Less well, then, did the copyists make out of this word the two words "de honoraria"; unless you wish them to mean that this sum was not given by the Christians, who utterly shrank from the pride of the gentiles, in order to court any human honour. But if you judge that "non de oneraria summa" should be read, a sum, that is, which was neither troublesome nor a burden to the Christians, this reading can be confirmed no less than Rigaltius's by these following words of Tertullian: "Each one puts in a modest offering on the monthly day, or when he wishes, and only if he wishes, and only if he can. For no one is compelled, but he contributes freely" (ibid.). That modest money, then, which each offered at his pleasure and according to his means, could be no great honour or burden. And when he added that it was not "as though of a religion bought" (the same, ibid., chapters 13 and 42), with these words he censures the heathen, who held all sacred things to be for sale, as he himself says and as we shall show below, and exacted a fee for them.

After this Tertullian makes it plain that this sum or offering was given by the Christians "on the monthly day" (ibid., chapter 39, p. 469), that is, once in each month. For Marcianus explains a monthly offering thus: "Persons of slender means are permitted to contribute a monthly offering, provided only that they meet once a month; and the deified Severus also replied by rescript that this applies not in the City but in Italy and the provinces" (Digest, book XLVII, title 22, law 1). And it was under this same Severus, as was noted above, that Tertullian was writing these things.

What then, someone will say: had the charity of the Christians grown cold at that time? Had not the Apostle written to the Corinthians: "Concerning the collections that are made for the saints, as I have ordained for the churches of Galatia, so do you also. On the first day of the week let each of you set aside, storing up what pleases him, so that the collections are not made only when I come" (1 Cor. 16:1–2)? Nor does he speak so there only, but "in almost all his epistles," says Jerome, "and he commands the churches of the gentiles that on the first day of the week, that is, on the Lord's day, all ought to contribute what is to be sent to Jerusalem for the relief of the saints" (Jerome, Against Vigilantius). The Apostle therefore ordered these collections to be made every Lord's day, and the money to be deposited with certain persons until it was sent to the needy and to others who were wretched and in want. Justin Martyr too committed to writing that this custom was kept in his time, at each and every synaxis assembled on the day of the sun or Lord's day: "Those who are well off and willing give, each according to his own choice, what he wishes, and what is collected is deposited with the president." "Those who are wealthier and willing contribute, each at his own discretion, what seems good to him, and what

is thus collected is deposited with the one set over them" (Justin Martyr, First Apology, no. 67).

If, then, in Tertullian's age the Christians paid out this offering only on the monthly day, and that a modest one, had not their mercy and charity been not a little diminished and weakened, as we noted earlier (above, chapter 12, article 3)? Nor does Cyprian, cited by us there, conceal it, who complains thus of the harder heart of a Christian matron towards the poor and wretched: "You are wealthy and rich, and you think you celebrate the Lord's day, you who do not look at the treasury at all, who come to the Lord's [supper] without a sacrifice, who take a part of the sacrifice which the poor man offered" (Cyprian, On Works and Almsgiving). But although some, then seized by the vice of avarice, contributed no offering on that day, many nevertheless bestowed more to be distributed to the poor, not only on the monthly day but, as Tertullian says, whenever they wished. For there he declares that this liberality of the Christians was so great that "the working of a love of this kind," even the greatest, "brands us," doubtless with the mark of an excessive pouring out of money, "in the eyes of some," namely the gentiles (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 39, p. 471).

How great that largess and beneficence of the Christians was, you will learn further from the following words of Tertullian, in which he plainly affirms that it was dispensed, as a deposit of piety, "for feeding and burying the needy, and for boys and girls destitute of means and of parents, and now for old people confined to the house, likewise for the shipwrecked; and if any are in the mines," that is, condemned to the mines, "and if any are on the islands," that is, banished to islands, "or in custody," that is, in prisons, "provided it is for the cause of God's sect, they become nurslings of their confession" (ibid.); that is, the followers of the Christian religion who, having suffered these penalties for confessing it, are fed with money liberally contributed by the Christians. Wherefore he begins his book To the Martyrs thus: "Among the nourishment for the flesh, blessed martyrs designate, which both our lady mother the Church from her breasts and the brethren each from their own means supply to you in prison, take something from us too, which may serve to nourish the spirit as well" (the same, To the Martyrs, chapter 1). And a little after: "The flesh does not lose what is due to it, through the care of the Church and the love of the brethren" (ibid., chapter 2). Before him, Justin Martyr, whom we have commended, had said that with this money the president with whom it had been deposited helps "orphans and widows, and those who are in want through sickness or some other cause, and those who are in bonds, and strangers sojourning among us"; "orphans and widows, or those who are in need on account of sickness or some other cause, and those who are in chains, and guests arriving from abroad" (Justin, First Apology, no. 67).

Eusebius too sets before us a fragment of the letter of Dionysius, bishop of the Corinthians, to the Romans, in which he praises their custom, arising from the very beginning of the Christian religion and increased by Soter their bishop, by which they relieved with various kinds of benefits the poverty of Christians, even of those living in other cities, and of those condemned to the mines (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book IV,

chapter 33, p. 145). Cyprian, moreover, wrote to the presbyters and deacons in these words: "As regards supplying the expenses, whether for those who, having confessed God with glorious voice, have been placed in prison, or for those who labour in poverty and need and yet persevere in the Lord, I ask that nothing be lacking, since the whole sum that was collected has been distributed there among the clergy for cases of this kind, so that more might have the means to work for the necessities and afflictions of each" (Cyprian, letter 5). And how the necessities of the needy were to be relieved by this offering and by alms, he laid down thus: "But if such a man pleads want and the necessity of poverty, his necessity too can be helped among the others who are sustained by the provisions of the Church, provided he is content with plainer but innocent food" (the same, letter 2, to Eucratius). In this way, then, and for this reason, the money offered in the synaxes and deposited with the clergy was distributed to the needy who have been named.

Wherefore Tertullian extols this charity of the Christians, by which they held all things undivided except their wives, as much as he inveighs against the heathen who, as we showed above, sundered it by avarice and insatiable greed (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 39, p. 471). "Nor is it any wonder," he says, if by men so avaricious and not imbued with the Christian religion "so great a charity is outraged," as is written in our older codices and in the old editions, while in the fourth it is simply "violatur," but always with the same sense. Rigaltius, however, against the authority of all the codices, put "convivatur," that is, Christian charity makes a banquet. But this correction is supported by the authority of no codex. Moreover, Tertullian is speaking there of brotherly charity, so outraged by the heathen that they defamed as prodigal the little suppers of the Christians by which it was chiefly nourished. But of these we must now treat.

ARTICLE III.

On the supper given in the synaxes of the Christians, and the prayers that preceded it; and, against the shameless calumnies of the heathen, it is shown how frugal, sober and modest it was.

The heathen certainly knew for a fact that the Christians supped in their synaxes; but they were wholly ignorant with what modesty, frugality and piety this supper was ordered. Wherefore, always inflamed against these same Christians with their usual unbridled fury, "our little suppers," says Tertullian, "besides being infamous for crime, they taunted as prodigal" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 39, p. 473). There were thus two heads of this accusation. The first was that they were infamous for crimes, namely the killing of an infant, the horrible feeding on its flesh, and the foulest incest. But our author utterly overturns this whole most false accusation, as we shall see below. The other charge, of prodigality, he crushes by a bare and most truthful account of that supper. Let it not, I pray, be burdensome to you, then, to hear him relate it, and to examine his words carefully with us. He speaks thus: "Our supper shows its reason by its name:

it is called by the word for love among the Greeks"; in the old editions, "it is called ἀγάπη, which is love among the Greeks" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 39, p. 473). Did the men in charge of these editions, then, add this Greek word, which the copyists, not knowing Greek, did not dare to write? Yet it is found written in Latin in another book, where Tertullian himself writes this of the martyrs sent to prison: "The flesh does not lose what is due to it, through the care of the Church and the agape of the brethren" (the same, To the Martyrs, chapter 2). There that word is taken in its own proper meaning for charity and love. Yet by that name in his Apology, as by Origen (Origen, Against Celsus, book I), whom we have cited elsewhere (volume I of the Apparatus, p. 715), the supper of the Christians is called, in which their mutual love and charity was especially prominent.

That supper, then, given as a pledge of this love, could certainly not be dissolute and prodigal. And even if there had been something lavish and costly in it, it ought not on that account to have been reproached by the heathen. For however dearly it had cost, the needy were helped by it. Indeed, as our author very well observes: "It is gain to spend for piety's sake" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 39, p. 473). But so far were the Christians from going to the greatest expense on this supper that it was furnished with the utmost frugality and modesty. For it "admits," as Tertullian says, nothing intemperate or immoderate, "nothing of vileness, nothing of immodesty" (ibid., p. 477). The word "vile" is sometimes taken for sordid and abject, sometimes also for abundant, in which sense Virgil said "and the vile bean" (Virgil, Georgics I, line 257), that is, as Servius remarks, abundant: "For what abounds is vile; as in: or he loads [it] with vile apples." If our author took that word in this latter meaning, his sense will be that there was nothing superfluous and redundant in the supper of the Christians. We shall, however, more easily be persuaded that the adjective "vile" is used in the former sense, for sordid and abject. For he contrasts the supper of the Christians with the banquets of the gentiles, at which infamous parasites, the vilest of all men, were admitted "to be fattened," as he puts it, "for insults." Nothing of immodesty either was seen in it, and it differed entirely from the feasts of the gentiles and the Bacchanalia which he mentions in the same place, of which we must treat elsewhere and further below.

Moreover, at the sacred table of the Christians "one does not recline," says Tertullian, "before prayer to God is first tasted" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 39, p. 477). He had already said before that they were gathered for this purpose, that they might pray to God and entreat Him, as we have noted. Now, therefore, he speaks of the prayers which they were accustomed to put before the supper. But certainly we learn from Justin Martyr that these were poured out after the reading of sacred Scripture and the exhortation of the president, but before the bread, wine and water were offered.

Tertullian continues: "As much is eaten as the hungry take" (ibid.); which indeed is the reading of our codices and of the old printed ones. Yet it displeased Rigaltius, and on his own authority he wished "cupiunt" ["desire"] to be written,

no doubt because he thought it was signified there that no one was compelled there to eat and drink more or less. But what if our author's sense is that the hungry then ate "not beyond," as he himself says later (ibid., chapter 42, p. 491), or amiss, but as much as they take, namely to drive off hunger moderately, and so that they were led to take food and drink by necessity, not by pleasure? For he immediately added: "One drinks as much as is useful to the chaste" (ibid., chapter 39, p. 477), that is, with such sobriety that chastity suffers no harm from it.

With this temperance in food and drink, then, "they are so filled," he says (ibid.), that is, they use them so temperately, "as men who remember that God must be worshipped by them even through the night." We have made it clear to anyone elsewhere (volume I of the Apparatus, book III, dissertation 1, chapter 6, p. 712 ff.) that it was then established custom and practice for Christians to rise at night to pray to God. Wherefore he wrote to his wife: "Will you escape notice ..... when you rise even in the night to pray?" (Tertullian, To his Wife, book II, chapter 5). But in that passage of the Apology it is not a question of every night, but only of those on which the festal days of the sacred synaxes were celebrated. Finally, during that time of the supper, he says, the Christians "talk as men who know that God hears" (the same, Apology, chapter 39, p. 477) whatever they discussed among themselves about divine things.

He adds besides the hymns sung to God still afterwards, "and from this," he says, "it is proved how he by whom they were sung has drunk" (ibid.), that is, with how great sobriety and temperance he has drunk. And who, from this so candid description of the Christian supper, would not understand how moderate, frugal and pious it was?

ARTICLE IV.

On what was done after the supper in the synaxes of the Christians; on the water for the hands; on the lighted lamps and the hour of the synaxes; on canticles and hymns; on the thanksgiving, and the departure of the Christians.

After the supper, given and finished in the manner we have set out, Tertullian relates three further things done by the Christians, in these words: "After the water for the hands and the lamps, each, as he can from the holy Scriptures or from his own talent, is called into the midst to sing to God" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 39, p. 477). First, then, he noted the water for the hands, which was offered, namely, for washing the hands. This custom had prevailed not only among the Christians but among the gentiles too. For Athenaeus relates that water for washing the hands was given by the Greeks before and after supper, and that the first was called by the ancients κατὰ χειρός and the second ἀπονίψασθαι (Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, book XI, chapter 18, p. 408; the same, book IV, chapter 1, p. 128, and chapter 2, p. 129). This he proves by various testimonies of writers. But before that he published a fragment of a letter of Hippolochus, in which he had written that the guests, filled with food, washed their hands. Lampridius too has recorded that courses were set before parasites by Heliogabalus in such a way that they drank at each one, and washed their hands as if they had eaten (Lampridius, Life of Heliogabalus,

p. 343). That custom, then, of washing the hands after supper, being a decent one, was observed by the Christians too. See Theodoret and others (Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, book I, chapter 18).

Harder to explain, then, will doubtless seem to very many these two following words of Tertullian: "and the lamps." We are not unaware that some have noted that in Wowerius's codex "ad lumina" ["at the lamps"] is written; but that single codex ought not to be preferred to all the others. There, then, our author doubtless wished us to be informed that the lamps were lit at that time, because the Christians gathered towards evening and supped when the day was already over, and after all the things we have related had been done. These lamps, therefore, were lit of necessity, and, as he indicates elsewhere, to put to flight "the darkness of the night" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 7, p. 306). But of these things we have already observed something elsewhere, and shall remark further later (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter 25, article 2).

But someone will doubtless object to us: If these synaxes of the Christians were assembled towards evening, and they began the supper at nightfall, why does the same Tertullian elsewhere call these assemblies "before dawn"? Why did he say in another book: "The sacrament of the Eucharist we take even in assemblies before dawn" (Tertullian, On the Soldier's Crown, chapter 3)? And he testifies that they were called by no other name by Pliny the Younger in his letter to the emperor Trajan. For in it, as Tertullian himself reported, Pliny had written that he had found nothing in the sacred rites of those Christians "except assemblies before dawn to sing to Christ and God" (the same, Apology, chapter 2, p. 273). Moreover, these assemblies are again named by Tertullian "nocturnal convocations": "Who," he says, "will gladly suffer his wife to be taken from his side for nocturnal convocations, if it must be so?" And a little after: "Your husband will not know what you taste in secret before all food," that is, in the morning hours; "and if he knows it to be bread, he does not believe it to be that which it is called" (the same, To his Wife, book II, chapter 4). In a like manner Cyprian too wrote to Caecilius in these words: "Unless perhaps someone fears this in the morning [sacrifices], lest through the taste of wine he should smell of the blood of Christ" (Cyprian, letter 63, to Caecilius). Which, however, is read thus in several other manuscript codices: "Someone fears this, lest he offer wine, lest through the taste of wine, with its strong scent, the smell of wine in the morning hours be recognized by an unbelieving conscience, and he be recognized to be a Christian, while we commemorate the blood of Christ in the offering of wine."

Some think the knot of this difficulty can be untied by distinguishing two kinds of synaxes. One, they say, was that in which the Eucharist was taken by the Christians fasting, very early in the morning. The other, they judge, was that of which we are treating, which they called the agape, and which was usually begun towards evening. But Socrates and Sozomen seem to tell against this answer, who assert that the same custom of holding their assemblies was not kept by the Christians everywhere. For they relate that in some churches the synaxes were held on the sabbath, in others on the Lord's day; and that the sacred mysteries too in some

by people who had dined towards evening, but among others received before any food (Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, book V, chapter 2, page 287; Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, book VII, chapter 17, page 735). But if he should say that they speak of their own time rather than of the most ancient time, and even that of our Tertullian, he will neither prove it easily nor gain much by it. For Tertullian, no differently from Justin Martyr, as is clear from what we have noted above, argues against the heathen, who clamoured as falsely as boldly that utterly horrible crimes were committed in the synaxes of the Christians; does he not, then, speak plainly of all the synaxes, in which he sets out briefly and truly the things that were done? It is certain too that the Christians kept vigil the whole night on certain solemnities, such as that of the Paschal feast. For Tertullian wrote to his own wife: "Who will calmly bear her staying out all night at the solemnities of the Pasch?" (Tertullian, To His Wife, book II, chapter 4). But in the Apologeticum he discusses not only these but other synaxes too, which the Christians were accustomed to prolong far into the night. Nothing therefore prevents them from having been called gatherings before dawn and nocturnal assemblies.

Thirdly, Tertullian relates that after that supper of the Christians "each one, as he can from the holy Scriptures or from his own wit, is called into the midst to sing to God" (the same, Apologeticum, chapter XXXIX, page 477). So when the table had been removed, each one was called on to sing in the middle of the whole assembly and circle some hymn, either taken from sacred Scripture or composed by his own wit in honour of God. And Cyprian exhorts Donatus one day to sing psalms together with these words: "And since our rest is now a holiday and the time is free, whatever of the day remains towards evening, now that the sun is sinking, let us spend this day in gladness, and let not even the hour of the meal be without heavenly grace: let the sober banquet resound with psalms, and since your memory is retentive and your voice tuneful, undertake this office as is your custom. You will feed your dearest friends the better if we have something spiritual to hear; let religious sweetness charm the ears" (Cyprian, To Donatus, at the end). But if anyone should object that Cyprian is not speaking there of the sacred synaxes, what will he gain by it? For if psalms were sung at common suppers, how much more ought they to be sung together in the sacred synaxes? And certainly Pliny, cited by Tertullian himself (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter XXXIX, page 467), had written to Trajan, as we saw before, that he had detected no other crime in the before-dawn gatherings of the Christians except that they sang a hymn to Christ as to a god. We have discussed these hymns elsewhere (Volume I of the Apparatus, pages 413, 656 and 658).

Moreover, the end of this banquet was such as its beginning had been: "For prayer likewise," says Tertullian, "closes the banquet." So when the singing of psalms, or canticles, or hymns was finished, the Christians again poured out prayers to give thanks to God. Finally, "they depart from there," these are still Tertullian's words, "to the same care for modesty and chastity, as people who have dined not so much on a supper as on discipline" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter XXXIX, page 477), that is, on the rule of living piously and holily, and

the divine and spiritual doctrine on which they had fed. But this modest, religious, chaste departure of the Christians from the church has been treated by us elsewhere (Volume I of the Apparatus, page 713).

ARTICLE V.

How the things said about the synaxes of the Christians can be confirmed from the assemblies of the Therapeutae.

Philo the Jew, and after him Eusebius, committed to memory many things about the assemblies of the Therapeutae similar to those which we have so far seen done in the synaxes of the Christians. Therefore, since these can throw light on one another, we think it will be unwelcome to no one, and perhaps not altogether useless to many, if we set before the eyes of all, in a brief account, the things that were done by those Therapeutae. For whether these observed the Mosaic law, as Philo thinks, or the Christian, as it seemed to Eusebius, or both at once, as some more recent writers have held, from their rites at any rate the things that Tertullian related of the Christians can plainly be confirmed.

Now Philo the Jew relates that for these Therapeutae, whom Eusebius judges to have been disciples of Mark the evangelist, the seventh day of every week was festal and hallowed, but above all that which recurs after seven weeks (Philo, On the Contemplative Life, page 893, and 899 and following; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book II, chapter 16 and following, page 53 and following). All of them, men as well as women, came together on that day into one place at a given signal, and entered upon a banquet, and with eyes and hands raised to heaven they prayed that it might please God. When the prayers were finished they reclined according to each one's dignity, yet so that the men held the right side, and the women, most of them all virgins of their own will, the left. Nothing was set out at this banquet except bread for food, salt for relish, and for the more delicate hyssop for seasoning, but for all, as drink, water alone, either cold, or warm for the older ones, since they held wine to be poison. Throughout the whole time of the banquet there was the deepest silence of all, while by one person only some question from the sacred Scriptures was put forward, or one put forward was solved.

After this the one presiding over the gathering led in singing a hymn composed by himself or taken from the sacred prophets, which each one followed in his own fitting order, the rest meanwhile keeping silent, who raised their voice, without distinction of sex, only at the final close of the hymn. Then, the table having been removed, all rose together, and with a cantor leading, singing hymns in God's honour, now with one mouth, now in alternation, they moved their step now straight on, now backwards, or to the right or the left, and at last all together formed a single choir. Finally, when they had spent the night so, turning their face and whole body to the east and there praying for a happy and auspicious day, each one returned to his own.

But it is not our purpose now to determine whether these Therapeutae were Jews or Christians and Jews at once, and the dispute which arose among the learned on that matter, no small one, and which seems to us not yet settled,

to settle. For our purpose it is enough to have noted that Eusebius acknowledges that the things which we have seen described by Philo were observed by the Christians, "and especially the all-night vigils of the great feast, and the exercises in them, and the hymns that are customarily said among us." "And above all the vigils of the great solemnity, and the pious exercises in them, and the hymns which are wont to be recited by us" (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book II, chapter 17, page 57).

Nor indeed is there ground for anyone to object that he erred, who took these Therapeutae, in fact Jews and professing the Jewish law, for Christians. For even if he suffered some human lapse there, yet no one can deny that the sacred rites of the Christians, which were observed in the Churches in his age and even in an earlier one, were not unknown to him. And he plainly asserts that there were many sacred exercises, rites and vigils of the Christians and of the Therapeutae in their gatherings that were alike.

For the rest, from what has so far been argued about the supper and synaxes of these same Christians, the most impudent calumny of the heathen must be utterly manifest to all, by which they lied that these were both prodigal and infamous for horrible crimes. For so great and so impudent a lie is overthrown from its foundations by the simple and true description of these synaxes drawn up by Tertullian and plainly confirmed by others.

Moreover, when into these synaxes, says our Author, "the good come together, when the pious, when the chaste are assembled, it is not to be called a faction but a curia" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter XXXIX, page 477). Not indeed an unlawful and seditious faction, such as that of the heathen used to be, as we shall say below: but it was a curia, where, as Varro and Festus say, the public care of sacred things was conducted (Varro, On the Latin Language, book V, § 6; Festus under the word Curia), and that, to use Cicero's words, "the avenger of rashness and the governor of duty" (Cicero, Speech for Flaccus, page 367, line 28). There, moreover, if anyone had sinned in anything before, he was chastised according to his desert, and the presidents diligently taught the pious duties of each one, and governed them prudently. What then is more absurd and false than to accuse those sacred congregations of being an unlawful faction, where the Christians, as Tertullian rightly asserts, harmed no one, grieved no one, except to the salutary penitence, as the Apostle says, if any by chance had fallen through human frailty or a perverse mind into some grave crime (Tertullian, place cited)? But these were certainly found to be very few. For all the rest, gathered in such holy synaxes, "we are," says Tertullian again, "the same assembled as dispersed: the same all together as one by one" (ibid.), that is to say, upright, good, pious, chaste, as has so far been shown by us more than abundantly and will be confirmed in the following article.

ARTICLE VI.

The heathen's argument against the pious and chaste morals of the Christians is refuted, an argument drawn from the fact that some Christians had fallen away from the moral discipline handed down, from doctrine, and from the Christian religion itself.

Against these things, which have been argued concerning the most holy synaxes and morals of the Christians, and which could be unknown to no one, the heathen boldly rose up,

and set against us, so indeed Tertullian speaks, "that some of ours depart from the rule of discipline" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter XLVI, page 513). Now Christians could depart from it in three ways: first by certain crimes and corrupt morals; second, by errors and heresy; third, by shameful defection from the whole Christian religion itself and a return to the impious worship of the gods.

As regards the first, since the most unjust disparagement of the gentiles had been more than sufficiently refuted from what we have related so far, Tertullian judged that nothing more, and nothing more specific, needed to be said in the Apologeticum. But in his book To the Nations he examines and refutes that accusation: "But by you," he says, "we are called most wicked and most disgraceful in avarice, luxury, dishonesty" (the same, To the Nations, book I, chapter 5, page 565). Thus indeed they used to slander the Christians. And what does Tertullian answer? "We will not deny," he says, "that some are." He admits, then, and does not at all conceal, that there were some Christians who were stained with certain crimes. But what follows from that against the rest, and much more against the Christian religion? Nothing at all, he says: on the contrary, this very thing does a great deal to establish both its truth and its holiness. For "this too suffices," he says, "as a testimony to our name and to a perfect religion, if not all, if not the majority" (ibid.). And of this he gives this fine and true reason: "It is necessary," he says, "that in a body, however whole or pure you please, some mole" (aliqui for aliquis) "should sprout, or a little wart rise up, or a freckle make it dingy" (ibid.). He wrote effruticet, just as in the book On the Soul [he says] that man is formed from two, "so that the two alike sprout forth a man from either substance" (the same, On the Soul, chapter XXVII), that is, arise and grow. But by this small blemish it is shown the more evidently that the whole body is beautiful, sound and perfect. So, then, certain Christians, but very few, like certain moles on their whole body and assembly, showed the more clearly the supreme perfection of the Christian religion.

Then again, those Christians who strayed from the right rule were wont, according to the gravity of their offences, to be admonished, reproved, chastised in the public synaxes, as we saw earlier (previous article), and sometimes, like putrid members, to be cut off and cast out by the sword of excommunication? Wherefore our Author wrote elsewhere to Scapula: "We do not deny a deposit, we adulterate no one's marriage, we treat orphans with piety, we bring relief to the needy, we render to no one evil for evil. Let those look to it who falsely claim the sect, whom we ourselves also disown" (Tertullian, To Scapula, chapter IV), those, namely, who on account of their crimes had been cast out of the sacred gatherings of the Christians, whose name they falsely claimed.

Others, again, boasted that they professed the Christian religion, namely the heretics, who, as he says, "from the one way" of doctrine and truth "cut many crooked and inextricable paths," and drove themselves and others headlong into the abyss of errors and heresies. But these, he says, sprang from the seed of the philosophers, from whose wits, as he said elsewhere, "every heresy is animated,"

and elsewhere, "heresies are suborned" (the same, Apologeticum, chapter XLVII, page 519; the same, Against Marcion, book I, chapter XIII, and On Prescription, chapter VII; the same, Against Hermogenes, chapter VIII). For this reason the philosophers are called, by him more than once and afterwards by Jerome, the patriarchs of the heretics (Jerome, Letter 43 to Ctesiphon). And just as the philosophers, as we observed above, embezzled the sacred Scripture of the Old Testament, so the heretics "adulterated this new-made equipment of ours," that is, the books of the New Testament, "with their own opinions to suit philosophical tenets" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter XLVII, page 519), that is, they tried to accommodate the doctrine handed down in the sacred books of the new Law to philosophical tenets: but mixing false with true in perverse fashion, they fell away from the truth itself and adulterated the true teachings.

But "readily and plainly," he goes on, "we enter a prescription against our adulterers," that is, we oppose an exception to these heretics, the corrupters of sacred Scripture, and refute them by this argument alone, that there is one rule of truth, "which comes from Christ through His companions, and the divergent commentators will be proved to be somewhat later than they" (ibid., page 519). He therefore defines most openly that there is a single rule of the true religion, which was handed down to us by Christ and transmitted through His companions the Apostles, and the first disciples, from whom we have received it both in writing and by word. Whatever, then, the heretics have devised that differs from this norm of tradition did not flow from Christ, nor from His first disciples, and it is plainly false. For they "will be proved" to be later than these.

But by whom, pray, "will they be proved"? By Tertullian himself? If that is so, in these words he promised his book On the Prescriptions against Heretics, where he proved it in fact. But it is not sufficiently settled among the learned whether this book was published before or after the Apologeticum. Could he not, then, have said "will be proved" because it was very easy for anyone to prove?

For the rest, he openly affirms that the heretics, even before any public examination of their false opinions, are convicted of error by the very fact that these are new, and not handed down by Christ or His disciples, but falsely devised by those same heretics. Wherefore elsewhere he promises to explain these things more fully in the book On the Prescriptions against Heretics, as he explains more clearly in these words: "Another little book will maintain this position against the heretics, who are to be refuted even without discussion of their doctrines, because this is what they are by the prescriptions of novelty" (the same, Against Marcion, book I, chapter I).

The gentiles therefore could conclude absolutely nothing from the corruption of the heretics against the truth and excellence of the Christian religion. For these, utterly cut off from the Catholic Church, were no longer Christians except in name, indeed not even in name. I would have you hear Tertullian himself speaking: "If they are heretics, they cannot be Christians, since they do not have from Christ what, having followed it by their own choice, they accept the names of heretics for" (the same, On the Prescription of Heretics, chapter XXXVII). For that reason indeed the Christian emperors

willed that they be called by the name of their founder, "whose crime they imitated in deserting God" (Theodosian Code, title On Heretics, law 65, page 190, volume VI), or, as Constantine the Great said in Socrates, "that they be called by the name of those whose ways they have followed" (Socrates, book I, chapter IX, page 32). If you ask the reason, take this from Cyprian: "As the devil is not Christ, although he deceives in His name, so neither can he be regarded as a Christian who does not abide in the truth of the Gospel and of its faith" (Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church). You see indeed of what strength this argument is against any heretics whatever, which is drawn from the prescriptions, that is, from the ancient tradition of the disciples of Christ. For Tertullian openly demonstrates that the gentiles can make out nothing at all against the perfection of the Christian religion from the very bad errors of those heretics; since they had so corrupted the true doctrine of Christ that they were not held worthy even of the name of Christians.

There was, lastly, a third kind of Christians, who, deserters of their faith and apostates, had returned to the impious worship of the gods like dogs to their vomit. But in vain did the heathen think that something could be inferred against the Christian religion from the crime of these apostates. For those who had broken the faith given to Christ were no longer Christians, nor could they be called by that name. Wherefore Tertullian addresses the heathen in these words: "Men of that sort neither gather with us nor share with us, having become yours again after their offences, since we do not mix even with those whom your violence and cruelty have forced into denial" (Tertullian, To the Nations, book I, chapter V). And how true this is everyone will easily understand from what Cyprian and other ancient writers of ours have more than once recorded about the lapsed, who under the threats and tortures of the tyrants had abjured the Christian faith. But a more suitable place for discussing them will be given us. Rightly, then, does Tertullian, addressing the heathen again, conclude thus: "Without cause you call those Christians whom the Christians themselves deny, who do not know how to deny themselves," that is, the faith of Christ (ibid.). For the true Christians, harried by any tortures however dire, asserting most constantly the truth of the Christian religion even to the cruellest slaughter, obtained the crown of martyrdom. But what our Author has handed down concerning these most holy martyrs must now be explained.

CHAPTER XVI.

On the Christian martyrs.

FIRST ARTICLE.

With what tortures, and how varied and horrible, the Christians were tormented and slaughtered by the heathen; and why they were called Sarmenticii and Semaxii.

Beyond doubt no virtue of the Christians shone out more than their most unconquerable patience, constancy and fortitude in bearing punishments in defence of their religion. For the greater the hatred in which they were held by the heathen for having despised and undermined their religions, the more cruel,

and never before devised by anyone, were the vexations and torments with which they were butchered and put to death. Tertullian lists many of their punishments, which ought not to be passed over by us without some remark. First, then: "Daily," he says, "we are besieged, daily betrayed, very often overpowered in our very gatherings and congregations" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter VII, page 307). Not a few, then, but very many, not rarely but very often, were overpowered in their gatherings and elsewhere. Nor indeed is this surprising. For the heathen, having laid aside all humanity whatever, raged against them, "partly following their own inclinations, partly the laws." What is more, "how often," says Tertullian again, "passing you by," that is, the governors, "does the hostile mob attack us of its own right with stones and fires" (ibid., chapter XXXVII, page 461)! That is, without waiting for any sentence of the judges, the gentiles of the common people, in blind assault, overwhelmed the Christians with blows of stones, or burned them alive.

But to come to their punishments one by one: "now we are banished to islands," says our Author (ibid., chapter XII, page 341); but this penalty of exile was indeed lighter than all the others: "now we are condemned to the mines" (ibid., chapter XII, page 341), to dig them out, that is, with the greatest labour. Very many, again, were thrust into horrible prisons, to be consumed by want and hunger, had not other Christians, as we said above, come to their help. But Tertullian pursues these things more fully in his short but excellent book To the Martyrs (the same, To the Martyrs). Further, he says, "you scrape the sides of Christians with claws" (the same, Apologeticum, chapter XII, page 339). Now the claws were iron instruments, fashioned like the talons of wild beasts, with which the heathen furrowed and tore the sides of the Christians. Wherefore he said afterwards: "Let claws dig us, stretched out towards God," on the rack no doubt, or some other similar machine (ibid., chapter XXX, page 441). For Prudentius sang:

Inflamed by these words, Asclepiades had ordered / the body to be disembowelled, to hang at a distance on the rack, / and to grow under hooks and claws.

(Prudentius, On Saint Romanus, verse 107 and following)

Tertullian goes on: "We are driven to the beasts," that is, we are thrown in the theatre to those that are to devour us: "the beasts," as he described afterwards, "leap upon us" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter XII, page 341; ibid., chapter XXX, page 445). How frequent that punishment of the Christians was you may gather from this, that at every public disaster the gentiles at once, as he still testified, cried out "The Christians to the lion!" (ibid., chapter XL, page 479). And in another book, where he assails and condemns the gatherings of the heathen: "There," he says, "lions are daily demanded against us" (the same, On the Shows, chapter XXVII). Again elsewhere he asserts that the enemies of Christ are already set under His feet, while the whole gathering of the populace still cries "The Christians to the lion!" (the same, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chapter XXII). What more? He warns the haters of chastity that there is no need to fear that there will not be those who shout "The Christians to the lion!" (the same, Exhortation to Chastity, chapter XII). And so it was cried out against

Polycarp, as we learn from Eusebius (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book IV, chapter 15, page 32). Cyprian too wrote of himself: "As soon as the first onset of the disturbance arose, when the people had demanded me with violent clamour" (Cyprian, Letter 20). And what they demanded Pontius teaches us in his Life with these words: "especially since he was demanded for the lion by often repeated cries" (Pontius, Life of Cyprian, page 4). I would have you weigh, then, whether our Tertullian also aimed at this where he said of the Roman populace: "Nor are any more insistent demanders of the Christians than the common crowd." For the plebeians, far more often than the rest, demanded and cried "The Christians to the lion!" Yet if you think that he is speaking there of any kind of death whatever demanded by them, and prove it, we shall not resist much. But meanwhile let us pass on to the other torments of the Christians. Some, says our Author (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter XII, page 339), were set "on crosses and stakes," or, as he said afterwards, "crosses hang them up." Others "lay down their necks," or, as he preferred to say elsewhere, "swords cut off their throats" (ibid., chapter XXX, page 445). Others again "are burned with fires," or "fires lick them," as we read was said by him afterwards (ibid., place cited).

And these various kinds of punishment he sets out thus in his book On Modesty: "Suppose the martyr now under the sword, the head already poised; suppose him on the gibbet, the body already stretched out; suppose him at the stake, the lion already let loose; suppose him on the axle, the fire already piled about" (the same, On Modesty, chapter XXII). Yet he does not declare that the Christians were tortured with those torments only. For in yet another book he records not only "the heavy sword and the lofty cross, and the rage of the beasts, and the supreme penalty of fire," but also "every device of the executioner in the more savage torments," which the wit of man, more cruel than the beasts, could devise (the same, To the Martyrs). And so with those few last words he signified not obscurely that there was no kind of torment with which the Christians were not then racked.

But because the penalty of fire was heavier than the others, or, as we saw written by him just now, the greatest, the gentiles therefore exacted it from the Christians more often. For this reason, as we read there in our manuscripts, they "now," that is, in his time, called them "sarmenticii and semaxii," not without sarcasm and mockery (the same, Apologeticum, chapter L, page 53). In the old editions, however, [it reads] semissii, and some want semassii to be read, and afterwards assis for axis, as if Tertullian meant to say that the Christians were bound to a stake or post of half an as. But in what sense? In the same meaning as asseris? But that is hardly probable. Beyond doubt the better and genuine reading seems to be that of our manuscripts and of all the others, with only one exception, and that perhaps corrupt. For Tertullian himself, the best interpreter of his own mind, added straight after: "because, bound to the stake of a half-axle, we are burned in a ring of brushwood" (ibid.). He said, then, that the Christians, tied to a stake or post, with brushwood placed all around and the fire kindled, were burned alive. Rightly indeed, you will say; but why is that stake called "of a half-axle"? But observe, I pray, of the stake

that by the name is called, as Festus says, a cudgel fixed in the ground (Festus under the word Stipes). The name axis, however, as the same Festus advises, has various meanings (the same, under the word Axis). For sometimes it is taken for the northern part of the sky, sometimes for the rounded shaft about which a wheel turns, whence it is sometimes taken by the poets for the whole chariot; lastly for a cut board. But Tertullian seems to take the name axis in the second sense, and to mean that the martyrs were burned bound sometimes to a whole axle, more often to a stake, or a cudgel fixed in the ground, but smaller by half than an axle. The heathen, therefore, mocked all the Christians with the ridiculous name of semaxii.

But the monstrous and utterly horrible cruelty and rage of the gentiles was not sated by these punishments, so great and so horrible. For "with the very frenzies of Bacchanals," says Tertullian, "they do not spare the Christians even when dead, but tear them from the rest of the grave, from the asylum, as it were, of death, already changed, already not even whole, and cut them in pieces and pull them apart" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter XXXVII). In another dissertation (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter X, article 2) we have made plain with what savagery the heathen raged against the bodies of martyrs dead and buried.

ARTICLE II.

How the blood of the martyrs was the seed of Christians, and had greater power to persuade than Cicero, Seneca, Diogenes, Pyrrho, Callinicus and the other heathen philosophers and orators.

So far was it from being the case that the punishments of the martyrs which we have recounted, and which can scarcely be heard without horror, deterred other Christians from the profession of their religion, that on the contrary, made braver by them, they drew more of the heathen to embrace it, and so their number was always increased. For the heathen themselves, having come to know the martyrs' tortures, so many and so great, and their wholly wonderful constancy, were then indeed drawn to inquire more curiously into the cause of such fortitude, and having discovered and grasped it, they became Christians. But if anyone will not believe us, let him hear our Tertullian: "Who," he says, "beholding the very great constancy of some martyr under torture, is not shaken by the contemplation of it into inquiring what is within the matter? Who, when he has inquired, does not come over? When he has come over, does not long to die" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter L, page 535)? That is, having come to know and confess the truth of that religion, he then longs to end his life by any tortures and punishments whatever? And to Scapula he wrote these words too: "Each one, seeing such endurance, as if struck by some scruple, is both fired to inquire what is the cause, and when he has come to know the truth, he too at once follows" (the same, To Scapula, chapter IV). Every Christian, then, after the profession of his religion, burning with the highest zeal to preserve and defend it, "is ready," says our Author again, "for every punishment" (the same, Apologeticum, chapter XXX, page 445). "For nothing concerns us in this age," he used to say, "except to depart from it" (ibid., chapter XLI, page 489). But never with greater

glory did he think he departed from it than when crowned with martyrdom.

Of the Christian religion once embraced, then, as he shrewdly remarks, "no one is ashamed, no one repents, except plainly of not having been [one] before. If he is marked out, he glories; if he is accused, he makes no defence; when questioned he even confesses unprompted; when condemned he gives thanks" (Apologeticum, chapter I, page 269). And you should not think this was boasted by him too boldly or rashly. For in another book he repeats it again thus: "No one is ashamed, no one repents, except of his former [deeds]. If he is marked out, he glories; if he is dragged off, he does not hold back; if he is accused, he makes no defence; when questioned, he confesses; when condemned, he gives thanks" (the same, To the Nations, book I, chapter I, page 559). No one, then, repented of being a Christian, but of not having been one "before," that is, sooner and earlier, and he was affected with the greatest sorrow for his former offences committed in the foul darkness of idolatry. Moreover, if he is marked out by someone as professing the Christian religion, and is therefore dragged to the tribunals of the judges, "he makes no defence: if he is accused," if he is questioned, he does not resist, does not dissemble, does not deny; but unprompted and glorying "he confesses" (the same, Apologeticum, chapter XLVI, page 511); and, far braver than Lycurgus, of whom we shall speak later with Tertullian (below, chapter 14, article 3), "when condemned he gives thanks." Wherefore he puts an end to his Apologeticum with these words: "For your sentences," heathen, "we give thanks." Why so? "Because when we are condemned by you we are acquitted by God" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter L, page 536). In just the same way Lucius, as Saint Justin witnesses, gave thanks to Urbicus, who had condemned him: "And he declared that he was even grateful to be rid of such wicked masters, knowing that he was going to the Father and King of the heavens." "He professed that he owed him thanks: for he was being freed from wicked masters and passing to God, the Father and King of the heavens" (Justin, Apology 2 to the Senate). But this, were it necessary, could easily be proved by almost countless examples.

It is no wonder, then, that the greater the cruelty with which the heathen mowed down the Christians with the sword, the more sprang up from their blood as from a most fruitful seed. But hear, I beg you, our Author, who addresses the heathen themselves in just these words: "Nor does any more exquisite cruelty of yours avail anything; it is rather an enticement to the sect. We become more each time we are mown down by you. The blood of Christians is seed" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter L, page 535). And elsewhere: "Nor will this sect fail," he says, "which you may know is being built up then when it seems to be cut down" (the same, To Scapula, at the end).

What is more, that very blood of the martyrs, shed with so brave and constant a spirit, far surpassed in eloquence all the gentiles whatever, whether philosophers or others, who exhorted some to the endurance of pain and the contempt of death. For it was more eloquent "than Cicero in the Tusculans," as Tertullian says (the same, Apologeticum, place cited). Now of these disputations the first book, to use the words of the same Cicero, is "on despising death, the second on bearing pain, the third on soothing grief, the fourth on the other disturbances of the mind, the fifth...... teaches that for living happily

that virtue is content with itself (Cicero, On Divination, book II, p. 248, line 14 ff.). More eloquent too was that blood of the martyrs than Seneca in the Fortuita, which we have noted are lost elsewhere (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter 10, article 3) and quoted by Lactantius (Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book V, chapter 13). In this book he had discussed the contempt of death. More eloquent also was that blood than Diogenes, doubtless the Cynic, whom Tertullian himself in another book describes in these words: "a human affectation shaped by the stupor of a dog's equanimity" (Tertullian, On Patience, chapter 2). He, as Laertius witnesses, trained himself in every way to endure labours, and wrote a book on death, by which he no doubt urged others to bear it patiently (Laertius, book VI, Life of Diogenes, §§ 23 and 80). Further, the same blood of the martyrs surpassed in the highest power of speech Pyrrho, who indeed, as Stobaeus notes, taught that there is no difference between life and death (Stobaeus, Sermon 120, p. 606). Laertius says more of him; consult him (Laertius, book IX, Life of Pyrrho, § 91 ff.). Lastly, the eloquence of this blood was greater than that of Callinicus, namely Suctorius, cited by Jerome (Jerome, preface to Daniel, p. 1073), who was not only a historian but also a sophist. He published various treatises, listed by Suidas and Vossius (Suidas under the word Kallinikos; Vossius, On the Greek Historians, book II, chapter 13, p. 225), and many others. But Tertullian had doubtless read one of them, where he discoursed on patience and on despising death.

The blood of the martyrs, therefore, had greater power to persuade than any most eloquent speech of these or of any other heathen writers whatever. Nor was this hard for Tertullian to prove; rather, he proved it by this argument, open to all and wholly unconquerable: "Their words," he says, "do not find so many disciples as Christians do by deeds", that is, by teaching through the shedding of their blood (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 50, p. 535). For we have already shown how greatly the Christians had multiplied in Tertullian's own time. "But that very obstinacy", so he addresses the gentiles, "which you reproach is a teacher" (ibid.). For Pliny the Younger, whom he had cited earlier (the same, ibid., chapter 2, p. 271), uses this word obstinacy in his letter to the emperor Trajan, in which he wrote to him that he had found nothing in the Christians except an obstinacy in not sacrificing to their false gods. Then he added this: "Nor did I doubt that, whatever it was they confessed, their stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy certainly ought to be punished" (Pliny, book X, letter 101, p. 375). So the heathen called stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy that invincible constancy of the Christians by which they preferred to be flayed and butchered with every kind of torture and torment rather than give even the smallest grain of incense to fictitious gods, or deny or dissemble their religion. That wholly wonderful fortitude of soul, then, was the teacher which plainly persuaded the heathen that our religion alone is true.

ARTICLE III.

How Tertullian refutes the heathen who objected that the complaint of the Christians harassed by them was unjust, since those who ran of their own accord to torments and death, which they could have avoided by dissembling their religion, ought rather to be called mad and desperate; and with what right he overturns this disparagement by the examples of Mucius, Empedocles, Dido, Regulus, Anaxarchus, the Spartan boys, the Athenian woman, Cleopatra, and the wife of Hasdrubal.

The heathen, to excuse in some way or other their monstrous and horrible cruelty towards the Christians, replied that no wrong is done to those who wish to perish; nay rather, that these ought to love those through whom they obtained the death which they wished and desired. But Tertullian shows that this answer is wholly empty and futile. For the gentiles demanded of the Christians that they worship false gods and deny their own God to be the only and true God. But this, though it lay in their power and will, they refused with the utmost constancy, and preferred to be condemned rather than "to fall away from God" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 49, p. 528), that is, to fall away from His divine grace by denying God against the resistance of conscience, and, having escaped punishments soon to end by the greatest crime, deservedly to fall into eternal ones.

They were plainly willing, then, to suffer with an unconquered and eager spirit, "but in the way", says Tertullian, "in which a soldier [suffers] war" (ibid.). For so it stands in all the codices, unpublished and published, before Rigault, who with his usual licence removed the last word, soldier, altogether. But our Author's own discourse seems wholly to require it. For he compares our most holy martyrs, contending for their religion before the tribunals of tyrants, with other soldiers who fight in open battle and hand to hand with the enemies of the commonwealth (ibid.). For the battle, he says, and Lactantius after him, belongs to the martyr, "in which before the tribunals of judgement, at the hazard of his life" (Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book V, chapter 11, p. 491; Tertullian, loc. cit.), fighting not with a hand armed with steel but with unconquered patience, he carries off a victory as certain as it is glorious. Now no soldier willingly commits himself to a battle; because he is in peril in it, he trembles with natural fear. But once he has been compelled to enter the battle, he fights with all his strength, and then rejoices when the victory has been won. In this way, then, the martyr, fighting against tyrants, shrinks from the danger with the fear inborn in all. Yet at the victory gained he is flooded with such joy that he not only wills but even loves the battle which he can no longer avoid, and fights the tyrants with all his strength. Tertullian, therefore, did not think that the time of martyrdom should be anticipated with thoughtless rashness, but that as often as it was offered, God so permitting, so often it should be undergone with unconquered fortitude of soul.

But certain heathen, milder than the rest and more favourably disposed towards the Christians, pressed the point that those were mad who could easily, "keeping their purpose in their heart" (Tertullian,

Apology, chapter 27, p. 433), or by a mental restriction, as they say, sacrifice to the gods and so go away unharmed. But these men, under a fraudulent show of kindness, were giving the Christians counsel by which to abuse their credulity. Nor could this counsel come, Tertullian continues, from anywhere else than from the father of lies, the devil, who was striving to get round these same Christians either by force and savagery or at least by cunning and guile.

They therefore held it, as we have shown above (above, chapter 9, article 5; vol. I of the Apparatus, p. 357), the greatest sin ever in any way "to lie about their religion", as Tertullian says. Wherefore they preferred to undergo any torments, however horrible, and to be butchered by them, rather than pretend, by the least lie or by any dissembling or mental reservation, to worship some god whom they knew to be false.

But if not of a madman, said the heathen, it was certainly the act of a desperate man to throw himself into any kind of punishment and into a most cruel death, which could most easily have been avoided by casting two or three grains of incense into the fire. Now we have already observed (Dissertation on Minucius, chapter 12, article 1, and Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter 10, article 3) that the Christians were called by the heathen men of a forlorn and desperate faction, because they despised and did not fear every torment and every most cruel kind of death. We saw in the same places that this absurd charge was rebutted by others. But what does Tertullian say? There is no desperation or ruin, he says, where the victory is not at all in doubt, where there is a sure pledge of pleasing God, where there is a secure reward of eternal happiness (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 50, p. 530).

But come now: with what face, I ask, could our martyrs, meeting death for their true religion with a glad and willing spirit, be accused by the heathen of wicked desperation (ibid.)? Did not they themselves adorn many of their own, who had of their own accord suffered themselves to be killed by the direst torments and a horrible death, not only with the highest praises but with titles of eternal glory and with statues (ibid.)? For, to pass over the great number of gladiators who, as we shall say below, very often lost their lives, thrown of their own will to the beasts, to the applause of these same heathen, "certainly Mucius", says our Author, "willingly burned his right hand on the altar, so that his fame might have this deed" (the same, To the Martyrs, chapter 4). But we have discussed this very deed of Mucius elsewhere (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, chapter 6, article 3).

Did not Empedocles too, he says, "give himself wholly to the Aetnaean fires of the people of Catana"? The manuscript codices wrongly have "to the Athenaean [fires] of the Athenians". For in another book already cited by us we read that he wrote: "who leapt into the fires of Mount Aetna" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 49, p. 528; and To the Martyrs, chapter 4). And elsewhere: "Empedocles, because he had madly fancied himself a god ..... lest he should rot in some more ordinary burial, preferred to be roasted, by hurling himself into Aetna" (the same, On the Soul, chapter 32).

But Horace had sung earlier:

. . . . I shall tell, and shall relate the death of the Sicilian poet: while Empedocles longs to be held an immortal god, he leapt, cold, into burning Aetna. (Horace, Art of Poetry, line 463 ff.)

If you want more, consult Laertius, Lucian, Gregory Nazianzen and others (Laertius, book VIII, Life of Empedocles, § 69; Lucian, dialogue Menippus, p. 142, and Icaromenippus, p. 734, and book II of the History, p. 398).

Then Tertullian: "A certain woman," he says, "the foundress of Carthage, gave a second marriage to the pyre" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 50, p. 530). So all our codices, both unpublished and published. Some therefore think, in vain, that one should read not Aliqua but Elisa. For Dido is so clearly marked out by these words that there is no one who would not recognize her at once. Hence Jerome somewhere wrote in a quite similar way: "I shall briefly touch on the queen of Carthage, who chose to burn rather than marry King Iarbas" (Jerome, Letter 91, to Ageruchia; and Against Jovinian, book I). Yet he, like Tertullian, when relating the same story elsewhere, calls her by her name (Tertullian, To the Nations, book I, chapter 18, p. 584). But these things cannot be unknown even to the boys of the grammar schools, who read Virgil daily.

Our Author goes on: "Regulus, lest he alone should live in exchange for many enemies, suffers crosses over his whole body" (the same, Apology, chapter 50, p. 530); or, as he preferred to put it in another book: "Your Regulus willingly inaugurated the novelty of a manifold and hidden cross" (the same, To the Martyrs, chapter 4, and On the Exhortation to Chastity, chapter 31). But he set it out a little more fully elsewhere in these words: "Regulus, a general of the Romans, captured by the Carthaginians, when he had refused to be exchanged, one man, for many Carthaginian captives, preferred to be returned to the enemy, and, packed into a kind of chest, pierced on every side from without with nails, felt so many crosses" (the same, Apology, chapter 50, p. 530). He therefore calls this most cruel kind of punishment the novelty, not used until then, of a manifold cross, that is, with sharp nails projecting on every side, and a hidden one (the same, To the Nations, book I, chapter 18, p. 584, and To the Martyrs, chapter 4), because, as Tubero testifies in Aulus Gellius (Gellius, Attic Nights, book V, chapter 4), they shut him up daily, enclosed in that chest, in black and deep darkness, until they exposed him to be burned by the most scorching rays of the rising sun. But we have dealt with this punishment of Regulus elsewhere (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, chapter 6, article 3, and Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter 10, article 3).

We have also explained what Tertullian added about Anaxarchus: "When he was being pounded with a pestle, like barley-gruel: 'Pound, pound,' he said, 'the bag of Anaxarchus; for Anaxarchus you do not pound.'" He said "bag" there in the sense in which Lucilius, cited by Nonius, wrote "little bag" for the body (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 50, p. 530; vol. I of the Apparatus, p. 1147; Nonius, On the Meaning of Words, chapter 2); and Arnobius: "Nothing has been promised us for this life, nor in the little bag of this poor flesh" (Arnobius, at the end of book II Against the Nations). In Greek, Gregory Nazianzen wrote "his own sack" (Gregory

Nazianzen, Iambic Poems, 18), his vessel and wineskin.

From there Tertullian returns to the examples of women, and says: "An Athenian courtesan, when the executioner was already worn out, at last spat out her own tongue, bitten off, into the face of the raging tyrant, so as to spit out her voice too, that she might not be able to betray the conspirators" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 50, p. 530). He related the same in two other books (To the Nations, chapter 18, p. 584; To the Martyrs, chapter 4, § 17), but in different words. Ambrose, however, calls her "a Pythagorean, one of the virgins" (Ambrose, On Virgins, book I, chapter 4, § 17). See, if you please, what we noted on this passage of Ambrose, and what we said of her in the earlier volume of this Apparatus of ours, where we pointed out that the name Leaena was given her (vol. I of the Apparatus, p. 1250).

Much more difficult will seem what our Author added straight after: "Zeno of Elea, asked by Dionysius what philosophy offered, when he had answered 'contempt of death', being subjected to the tyrant's scourges, sealed his opinion even unto death" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 50, p. 530). In our manuscript codices, before the word "scourges", "impassible" is read; in the old editions "impassible [scourges]". But Rigault cut this word out as wrongly added by an unskilled copyist. What, though, if Zeno is called impassible in the sense of insuperable, as one who could never be overcome by any tortures? Rigault might perhaps with better right have said that in this text of our Author the name of Dionysius had been corrupted by the copyists. For Laertius has attested that Zeno of Elea died about the seventy-ninth Olympiad (Laertius, book IX, Life of Zeno, § 29). Yet Dionysius the elder is said to have held his tyranny about the ninety-fourth. By him, therefore, Zeno could be neither tortured nor killed. Not wholly without reason, then, can either Tertullian be charged with a slip of memory, or careless copyists, by no unusual error, be held to have later written Dionysius for Nearchus, or Demysus, or Diomedon. For various writers, as we have shown elsewhere (vol. I of the Apparatus, p. 1246), relate that Zeno of Elea was tortured and killed by one of them. Nor should it trouble anyone that Zeno was questioned by him about an attempted tyranny, and not, as Tertullian says, about the good of philosophy. For what prevents the tyrant, having held an inquiry concerning the accomplices in the treason, from asking him what philosophy offered and taught, so as to reproach him the more sharply with that crime of treason by this question?

Finally, Tertullian closes the column of gentiles proud of their endurance with these words in the Apology: "Certainly the scourgings of the Spartans, made harsher even under the eyes of their kinsmen urging them on, confer as much honour as they have shed blood" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 50, p. 530). In his book To the Nations he declares that he wishes indeed to pass over these things, thus: "To say nothing of the Spartan glory" (To the Nations, book I, chapter 18, p. 584); but he stings the heathen with a goad no less sharp. More clearly, though, he wrote to the Martyrs that this utterly inhuman custom had lasted down to his own age: "Today," he says, "among the Lacedaemonians the greatest solemnity is the diamastigosis, that is, the scourging: it is no secret in what rite before the altar the noble

youths are each afflicted with scourges, while their parents and kinsmen stand by and urge them to hold out. For it will be reckoned an ornament and glory, and by a greater title, if the soul rather than the body has yielded to the blows" (the same, To the Martyrs, chapter 4). But we have already related more about these things in the first volume of our Apparatus (vol. I of the Apparatus, p. 1246).

He further brought forward in the book To the Nations the examples of two women (Tertullian, To the Nations, book I, chapter 18, p. 584). The first is called by him simply "the Queen of Egypt", namely Cleopatra, "who made use of her beasts", that is, of the bite of an asp secretly brought to her, by which she took her own life. He wrote this more clearly to the Martyrs: "A woman willingly sought beasts, and indeed asps, serpents more horrible than bull or bear, which Cleopatra set upon herself so as not to come into the hands of the enemy" (To the Martyrs, chapter 4). But this deed of the famous woman has very often been celebrated by historians, Suetonius (Suetonius, book II, Life of Augustus, § 3[.]), Plutarch (Plutarch, Life of Antony, p. 954) and others, and also by the poets. It will therefore suffice to have quoted these verses of Horace, which serve Tertullian's purpose best:

She dared to look upon her fallen palace with a calm face, and bravely to handle the rough serpents, so as to drink the black venom into her body; fiercer once her death was resolved; grudging, no doubt, the cruel Liburnian galleys that she, no humble woman, should be led, a private person, in a proud triumph. (Horace, Odes, book I, ode 37, line 25 ff.)

The other woman, a Carthaginian, was, says Tertullian, "more steadfast than her husband Hasdrubal in the last extremity of her country" (Tertullian, To the Nations, book I, chapter 18, p. 584); or, as he said elsewhere, "when Carthage was already burning, seeing her husband a suppliant to Scipio, she flew down with her sons into the fire of her country" (the same, To the Martyrs, chapter 4). For, when she learned that Hasdrubal, after Carthage was taken, had obtained his life from Scipio and that she had been abandoned by him, she is recorded to have thrown herself with her sons into the fires of the burning city. See Valerius Maximus (Valerius Maximus, book III, chapter 2, Foreign Examples, § 8) and other historical writers.

By so many examples, then, of men as well as of women, Tertullian rightly shows that the Christians, who met with the most willing spirit the death inflicted on them by the heathen for their religion alone, were wrongly accused by them of madness and desperation. For these heaped the highest praises and titles of honour on their own, those so far recorded. But far greater [praise] did the Christian martyrs deserve, who, not to catch at the fleeting and empty glory of men but to gain eternal happiness, suffered themselves in a quite wonderful manner to be flayed with truly horrible tortures. For they held it as most certain that by martyrdom they would attain everlasting blessedness. But this must be explained by us a little more plainly.

ARTICLE IV.

How clearly Tertullian teaches that martyrdom is a second baptism, by which the whole grace of God is redeemed,

all sins are remitted, and a battle from which the Christians as victors, adorned with the palm-embroidered robe, are carried in a triumphal chariot into paradise.

Very great indeed, as we have seen, and greater than all praise, was the most unconquerable fortitude of the martyrs, by which they sealed with their own blood, as with a public seal, the religion received from Christ. And they poured it out all the more willingly, the more surely they knew that by martyrdom they would obtain the whole grace of God and the pardon of all sins. For why did the Christian desire martyrdom so ardently? "That by it," says Tertullian, "he may redeem the whole grace of God, that he may obtain from Him all pardon by the payment of his blood" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter L, page 530). If you ask the reason, he will answer at once: "For all offences are forgiven to this work." In another book he teaches that it is a second baptism, by which the grace of God is given and all sins committed before that most sacred laver of water are fully and entirely remitted. But let us, if you please, hear him speak further: "We have indeed a second laver too, itself one, namely of blood", that is, of martyrdom, "of which the Lord says: I have, He says, to be dipped with a baptism, when He had already been dipped ...... These two baptisms He sent forth from the wound of His pierced side, so that those who believed in His blood might be washed with water, and those who had been washed with water might also drink the blood. This is the baptism which both stands in for the laver not received and restores it when lost" (the same, On Baptism, chapter XVI). Now we have seen this asserted by him (above, chapter XI, article 5), as also by his disciple Cyprian, who moreover openly proclaims the grace of this baptism to be greater than that of the first in these words: "We have given the first baptism to believers; let us prepare each one for the other as well, suggesting and teaching that this is a baptism greater in grace, loftier in power, more precious in honour; a baptism in which angels baptize, a baptism in which God and His Christ exult; a baptism after which no one sins any more; a baptism which completes the growth of our faith; a baptism which, as we depart from the world, at once joins us to God. In the baptism of water the remission of sins is received, in that of blood the crown of virtues" (Cyprian, Exhortation to Martyrdom). More briefly elsewhere: "Can the power of baptism," he says, "be greater or better than confession, than suffering, that one should confess before men and be baptized in his own blood?" (the same, Letter 73, to Jubaianus). He repeats the same elsewhere (the same, Letter 55; On the Lord's Prayer), and Augustine confirms it (Augustine, City of God, book XIII, chapter 7), where by various words of sacred Scripture he shows that martyrdom avails as much as if one were washed in the sacred font of baptism. There he adds: "For what is more precious than a death through which it comes about that all offences are forgiven and merits are more abundantly increased?" Ambrose followed the footsteps of our Tertullian more closely: "Is there not one baptism?" he says. "There is one which the Church gives here, through water and the Holy Spirit, of which the Lord Jesus says: 'I have a baptism to be baptized with, which you do not know.' Certainly He had already been baptized in the Jordan, as what precedes declares; but let this be the baptism of the passion, by which each one also with his own blood

is cleansed" (Ambrose, Exposition of Psalm CXVIII, sermon 3, § 14). But more on these things can be read in the scholastic theologians (on book IV of the Sentences, distinction 4, and in the Summa of St Thomas, part III, question 66, article 11).

The Christians, then, were thoroughly persuaded that they never celebrated a greater triumph over the demons, the haters of their eternal salvation, than when the heathen, suborned by their malign instigations, killed them for the confession of Christ: "For we never triumph over them more," says our Author, "than when for obstinacy of faith" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 27, p. 434), or, as we were saying a little before, for a constant and unconquered defence, "we are condemned." What that triumph of the Christians is, and how glorious, he explains in this way: "We have a battle", in that, accused of the Christian profession, "we are summoned to the tribunals" of the gentiles, "so that there, at the hazard of our lives, we may contend for the truth" of that same religion of ours, in defending it. And in this battle, he says, "we conquer when we are killed." Finally, from this battle "we come out victors when we are led off" (ibid., chapter 50, p. 530), that is, led to punishment, we are consumed and killed. For our Author seems to have taken this word "we are led off" there in this sense, which elsewhere, as we shall see, he took in another meaning. And because the Christians desired nothing more than to die and be butchered in defence of their religion, they certainly conquered when they were put to death. "For victory," Tertullian says further, "is to obtain that for which you have contended" (ibid.).

And the victors in this contest gained both glory and spoil, assuredly the greatest of all; since "that victory", as Tertullian says, "has both the glory of pleasing God and the spoil of living for ever" (ibid.). And this spoil seemed to him perhaps the greater and the more welcome because, as we noted above (above, chapter 11, article 5), he thought that the reward of eternal happiness, deferred for the other just, was conferred on the holy martyrs at once after their death and departure.

Moreover, to those celebrating so signal a triumph over the world and the devil there was not lacking the dress of those who triumph, the palm-embroidered robe and the chariot. But what, do you suppose, were these insignia of the triumphant martyrs? Certainly anything but those of the Roman generals and emperors. For when we are burned alive at the stake of the half-axle, of which [we spoke] a little before, "this," says Tertullian, "is the dress of our victory, this the palm-embroidered robe; in such a chariot we triumph" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 50, p. 530).

First the dress of victory is mentioned there, a name by which in general are signified all the ornaments of victory, or of those who triumph, namely the golden crown, the curule chair, the ivory staff, the embroidered toga, the palm-embroidered tunic and others, of which frequent mention is made in various writers. For brevity's sake he passes over most of these ornaments and indicates only two, the palm-embroidered robe and the triumphal chariot. But Livy brings in Decius speaking of these and others thus: "To whom of gods or men can it seem unworthy that those men whom you have honoured with curule chairs, the bordered toga, the palm-embroidered tunic, and the embroidered toga, and the triumphal crown, whose houses, with the spoils of enemies fastened up, [you have made] conspicuous among

others, should add the pontifical and augural insignia, men who, adorned with the dress of Jupiter Best and Greatest and borne through the City in a gilded chariot, have gone up to the Capitol?" (Livy, book X, § 7). He said "with the dress of Jupiter" because those who triumph, as Servius observes, "have all the insignia of Jupiter, the palm-embroidered sceptre. Hence Juvenal says, 'in the tunic of Jupiter'" (Servius on Eclogue 10, line 27, p. 55). Of the palm-embroidered robe and the chariot he says thus elsewhere: "It should be known that the curule chair is named from the chariot, because only those used it who had been carried in the triumphal chariot; just as the tunic is called palm-embroidered which those earned who had carried off the palm from the enemy" (the same, on Aeneid book II, line 334, p. 637). Does he not hint there that it was so named because it was given to those who had earned the palm? Others, however, think it was so called because palms were woven into it. Of it, moreover, these are the verses of Martial:

Go, companion, and, unharmed, earn great triumphs, and give back the general to the palm-embroidered toga, but soon. (Martial, book VII, epigram 1.)

If anyone wants more, let him go to Ottavio Ferrari (Ferrari, On Clothing, book II, chapter 8), Aldus Manutius (Manutius, On the Roman Toga), Lazare de Baïf (Baïf, On Clothing, chapter 10), Albert Rubens (Rubens, On Clothing, book I, chapter 21), who discuss the triumphal chariot expressly. Besides, on these and the other insignia and ornaments of those who triumph you may, if you like and have leisure, go to Onofrio Panvinio's book On the Triumph and Mader's annotations on it.

But far greater was the truly surpassing glory of the triumph of our martyrs. For, burned on every side in the midst of the flames of kindled brushwood, as in a purple and palm-embroidered robe, and bound to the stake and pole, they were thence led, as with triumphal robe and chariot, not to the Capitol but to paradise, as we saw above (chapter 11, article 5), triumphing over the world, over the tyrants, and over the devil.

CHAPTER XVII.

By what arguments Tertullian demonstrates that the Christians were harassed and butchered by the heathen most unjustly and against the prescriptions of all laws.

ARTICLE I.

With what perversity the heathen hated and persecuted the Christians, who were wholly unknown to them, and without being willing to inquire who or of what kind they were.

What we have said so far of the truth and holiness of the Christian Religion, of its divine teachings and laws, of the excellent morals of its followers, of the most unconquerable fortitude of the martyrs, shows more than enough that this religion alone is true, and that all others are false and to be wholly rejected. No greater iniquity, then, can be devised than that of the gentiles, who for the defence of this their religion harassed, flayed and killed the Christians with the utmost and most horrible cruelty, as we have seen. But our Tertullian, to defend the cause of these same Christians more exactly, set out to demonstrate two further things; and first

that the Christians were condemned by the heathen against all law, natural, divine and human; second, that all the crimes of which they were accused were false, and that it was in truth the gentiles who were guilty of them.

Let us see, then, first by what reasoning he proved the truth of the first proposition, and we shall come afterwards to the second. "But this," he says, "we set before you", presidents of the Roman empire, "as the first cause of the iniquity of the hatred towards the name of Christians; which iniquity the same plea that seems to excuse it aggravates and convicts, namely ignorance" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 1; and To the Nations, book I, chapter 1, p. 559). In some editions odium is read for odii, but wrongly. For "iniquity of hatred" there means the same as "unjust hatred". Tertullian therefore first charges the heathen with the iniquity by which they hated the Christians before they knew who or of what kind they were. For what greater perversity is there than to hate one of whom you plainly do not know whether he is worthy of hatred or of love?

But that the heathen had blazed up against the Christians with this blind hatred our Author shows plainly from this, that "all who formerly", that is, before, "hated them because they did not know the nature of what they hated, as soon as they cease to be ignorant, cease also to hate" (ibid., loc. cit.). In Rigault's edition these words, "the nature of what" (or, as in some printed editions, "was") "they hated", are left out altogether. By what right, whether on Rigault's own authority or by the printers' error, we do not indeed know; but we know well that they are found in the subsequent and latest editions. That they are Tertullian's genuine words, the common agreement of all the codices and the Author's own manner prove clearly enough. This is his argument: When the heathen learned who and of what kind the Christians are, what their piety and uprightness, then at once they ceased to hate them. Therefore they hated them because they did not know before who they were.

Although no one, unless wholly deprived of natural light, could deny this, Tertullian nevertheless presses it, and further convicts the heathen by the authority of Anacharsis, who declared expressly that "the unskilled judging the skilled" are no less at fault "than the unmusical judging the musical" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 1, p. 265). This saying of the philosopher is given by Laertius thus: "He said he wondered how among the Greeks the craftsmen compete, but those who are not craftsmen judge." [The Latin:] He said he wondered how among the Greeks craftsmen contended and those who were not craftsmen judged (Laertius, book I, Life of Anacharsis, § 103). Plutarch, a little differently, reported it thus: "Anacharsis, having attended an assembly, said he wondered at this too, that among the Greeks the wise speak, but the ignorant decide." [The Latin:] Anacharsis said he wondered, when he had been present at an assembly, that among the Greeks the wise spoke but the foolish judged (Plutarch, Life of Solon, p. 81). You see plainly that the same opinion is expressed in all these words, uttered in only somewhat different ones. For it is asserted to be wrong to pass any judgement about things not known.

But far more wicked were the heathen who hated the Christians and condemned them for abominable crimes, even though

although they not only did not know what they were, but with inflexible obstinacy neither wished ever to know nor to inquire. And there was no other cause of this intolerable stubbornness and wilful blindness except that they feared that, by acknowledging what the Christians' manner of life was, they would be forced to admit that they had become better after taking up the religion of Christ.

But they boldly denied that the Christians who had fallen away from the worship of the gods possessed true uprightness: "For a thing is not good," they said, "because it converts many" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 1, p. 266), that is, has brought them over from one profession to another. "And certainly how many," they said, "are formed over from good to evil" (the old editions have praeformantur; better, in other codices and in ours, performantur, or rather reformantur, if the authority of some codex were added). The gentiles added: "How many deserters to the perverse?" Now those are called deserters who desert to the enemy, or who in time of truce go over to those with whom there is no friendship. And yet these, the heathen said further, turned to the perverse, very often become worse indeed. Finally, pressing more sharply, they cried: "Surely a thing is not to be prejudged good because it converts very many and seizes them for itself. I know of changes of mind to the worse side. How many deserters of the good life! How many deserters to the perverse!" (Ibid., and Ad Nationes book I, ch. 1, p. 559.)

But to these Tertullian replies that this is indeed denied by no one, but that all even freely admit that very many have turned themselves from evil to good. Yet this, he says, is easily discerned from the nature of evil and of good. For the inseparable companions of evil are fear, shame, evasion, repentance, lamentation. Therefore, our Author says again, "evildoers are eager to lie hidden, they avoid appearing" (Id., Apology, ch. 1, p. 267). Rigaltius, however, removed these two latter words on his own authority, and did not indeed notice that these very words are repeated in the book Ad Nationes (Id., Ad Nationes book I, ch. 1, p. 559), as are those which he added straight on in the Apology: "When caught they tremble, when accused they deny, not even under torture do they confess easily or always; certainly when condemned they grieve, they reckon up against themselves the impulses of an evil mind, they impute them either to fate or to the stars." But in the book Ad Nationes these latter words are changed thus: "For they reproach themselves with what they were; they impute to fate the passage of an evil mind from innocence against themselves" (Ibid., loc. cit.). But there perhaps the two words "or to the stars" fell out through the copyist's pen. Georgius of Amiens alone, led by conjecture alone, rather boldly put deonerant ("they unburden") in Tertullian's text for dinumerant. For its sense is this: evildoers acknowledge against themselves the impulses of an evil mind, reckon them up and reproach themselves; yet they impute and ascribe the fault of them not to themselves but to the stars, or to fate. Now we have seen (Dissertation on Minucius's Octavius, ch. 6, art. 4) how common was that false opinion of the gentiles by which they supposed that all things happen by fate. But absolutely none of these signs of evil that have been mentioned are found in the Christian, who, as we observed above (preceding chapter, art. 2), is neither ashamed nor repentant of his religion, but when accused and questioned

confesses himself to be a Christian, rejoices, glories, and when condemned gives thanks.

Rightly, then, does Tertullian say: "What evil is this," in the Christians, "which does not have the natural marks of evil?" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 1, p. 269). But in our manuscript codices we read quod natura alia mali non habet; perhaps not altogether badly, if there, as is not at all infrequent with good authors, the particle quam is understood, namely in this sense: "which has no other nature than that of evil." But to most it will doubtless seem that the letter a was there doubled through the ignorance or error of the copyists. See, however, whether the first reading cannot be confirmed from the book Ad Nationes, in which it is said more briefly indeed, but no less clearly: "What evil is this, in which the nature of evil ceases?" (Idem, Ad Nationes book I, ch. 1, p. 560). Indeed our Author adds that there must be the greatest good in that of which the accused rejoices, whose accusation is a thing prayed for.

But he presses the heathen more sharply (idem, Apology, ch. 1, p. 264), and makes it plain that there is nothing evil in the Christians, who, having abandoned the worship of false gods and taken up the religion of Christ, had become better, as we have said. Nor could this be unknown to the gentiles themselves, whatever they cried out to the contrary. For they knew how great was the number of Christians everywhere on earth, and grieved heavily at it, and complained of it as often as publicly. But in whatever way they recognized them, they had certainly seen them made, from evil and wicked men, good and upright; from the unchaste, chaste; from the unjust and criminal, pure, devout, and giving diligent effort to all the virtues. And certainly to them, as Tertullian says, "Caius" (our manuscripts, "Gaius Seius") "seemed a good man, only that he is a Christian" (Ibid., ch. 3, p. 280; and Ad Nationes book I, ch. 4, p. 564). They admired Lucius as wise, this woman as chaste, this son as obedient to his father, this slave as faithful to his master. They admired indeed these and other virtues of the Christians, but that these were Christians they could not bear.

Who then will deny that those rather are in error who "praise what they know," says our Author, "blame what they do not know, and corrupt what they know by what they do not know" (Ibid.)? In all our codices we read irrumpunt ("break in upon") for corrumpunt, but perhaps less well. For in the book Ad Nationes it is written: "In the blindness of their folly they praise what they know, blame what they do not know, and vitiate what they do not know" (loc. cit.); which, as you see, is the same as corrumpunt. If, however, you prefer and approve the reading irrumpunt, we shall not altogether resist. For Lucan sang of rumour:

"Vain rumour too came to your descendants, / and broke in upon the minds of the people." (Lucan, book I, after the middle.)

With the utmost folly, blindness and malice, then, the heathen praised the virtues of the Christians that they knew, but blamed the men themselves, not knowing what their name signified. And from this unknown name they vitiated, or corrupted, their virtues, which they babbled were none at all or false. But certainly nothing is more unjust

than, from some thing one has ascertained, to blame another thing which one does not know, or from a thing unknown to corrupt another that one has recognized. Yet no less was the injustice of condemning and killing the Christians for their name alone, and that unknown, and of never being willing to know and investigate what there is in them either of good or of evil. Indeed the heathen so shrank from this investigation that, most unjust judges, they would never hear them when they were brought to their tribunals. This, then, was the second head of their supreme injustice, which must now be examined.

ARTICLE II.

With how great injustice the heathen condemned the Christians, neither heard nor defended, but merely on account of their name, and most cruelly put them to death.

Tertullian's second argument against the unbridled violence of the gentiles towards the Christians is assuredly of no less strength and weight than the former. It is drawn from a most certain rule of judicial proceedings, which is so consonant with natural equity that, if it is passed over, the judgement of any man whatever is most unjust, altogether void, and null. Now this, as Tertullian shrewdly observes, is the rule which forbids that men "be condemned wholly undefended and unheard" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 2, p. 276). And the gentiles, plainly convinced of the equity of this law, had established that anyone accused of any crime whatever should make use "both of his own mouth," says our Author, "and of hired advocacy," that is, of advocates who, having received a fee, would defend their cause.

But they treated the Christians, accused of false crimes, far otherwise. For they granted them no opportunity ever to defend their innocence either with their own mouth or through anyone's advocacy. Yet, as he shrewdly argues, "for the same guilt" (Ibid.), or, as is read in our manuscript codices and in the old editions, "for the same offence the same procedure ought to have been applied" (Ibid.). What then is more unjust than to grant to a heathen what is just, and to deny that very thing to a Christian?

Moreover, according to the prescriptions of all laws divine and human, any man charged with any crime whatever must not only always be heard and questioned, but it must besides be inquired, and even extorted by examination and torture, what the nature of the crime is, what the place and manner, what the time, who the accomplices and confederates. Nor did the heathen deny that this was most just, who inquired diligently into all these things whenever one of their own was accused by someone of any crime. Yet with the utmost injustice they let all this go and spurned it when the matter concerned "our," says Tertullian, "charges" (ibid.), that is, the vilification and accusation of the Christians. It is therefore less well that our codices have eulogiis, that is, "blessings," unless you prove that the word was taken by him ironically. However that may be, Tertullian's sense is plain and open: he asserts that the gentiles were so far from [proceeding] in the manner that equity demanded

ever to inquire into the crimes of which the Christians were accused, as they did with all others; rather, all inquiry into them had been forbidden to all judges.

For when Pliny the Younger asked the emperor Trajan what was to be done with the Christians, whose number was all but infinite, he replied, says Tertullian, "that people of this kind were not indeed to be sought out, but that when brought forward they ought to be punished" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 2, p. 273). And these are the words of Trajan himself in his letter to Pliny: "They are not to be hunted out; if they are informed against and proved guilty, they are to be punished" (Pliny the Younger, book X, letter 102, p. 377): that is, according to the interpretation of our Tertullian, if they are actually proved and convicted to be Christians, they are indeed to be punished, but by no means sought out. And Eusebius cited this whole passage of Tertullian (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History book III, ch. 33, p. 106), who rendered his words quoted by us into Greek thus: "That the tribe of Christians is not to be sought out, but, when it falls in the way, is to be punished"; which Rufinus rendered in Latin: "Christians are not indeed to be searched for, but if any fall into [their hands], let them be punished" (Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History book III, ch. 27). Tertullian, then, had no doubt at all that by this edict it was declared that Christians were not to be searched out, but that as soon as they were brought before the judges, and it was established that they were Christians, they were to be punished without any further inquiry into anything. And not wrongly. For Trajan immediately added: "Yet on this condition, that whoever denies that he is a Christian, and makes this manifest by the deed itself, that is, by making supplication to our gods, however suspect he may have been in the past, shall obtain pardon through repentance" (Pliny, ibid.). He wished, therefore, no crime of the Christians to be inquired into by the judges, but that when brought forward they be punished for their name alone, without further hearing, unless perhaps they denied this name of theirs and made supplication to the false gods.

With full right, therefore, Tertullian exclaims: "O sentence confounded by necessity!" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 2, p. 275). And he deliberately said "by necessity," because Trajan could not set it out more clearly. And it is confounded because Trajan, as our Author rightly argues (ibid.), says that the Christians are not to be sought out, as being innocent and guilty of no crime; and yet orders them to be punished as guilty and party to the gravest crimes. This same sentence therefore "spares and rages, connives and punishes" (Ibid.). For it feigns clemency by sparing the Christians who were not brought before the judges; but it rages against those brought forward, although innocent, whom it orders to be punished merely on account of their name.

In the whole case of the Christians, then, nothing else was required, as Tertullian says further, but "the confession of the name, not the examination of a crime" (Ibid., p. 271), nor the defence of the accused. For to condemn or acquit them this alone sufficed: that they either denied or confessed their name, that is, that they were Christians.

And how unjust this is, and opposed to all law, divine, natural and human, he further demonstrates

from the examinations which the laws order to be held with scourges and tortures. For they ought to be applied for no other reason than that crimes may be uncovered and those accused of them may confess that they committed them. For all the decrees of princes, if they are not tyrants, the just decrees of the senate, and other laws that are not altogether unjust, prescribe that "the wicked be dug out, not hidden," these are our Author's words, "that those who confess be condemned, not acquitted" (Ibid., p. 276; and Ad Nationes book I, ch. 2, p. 560). And to the judge Scapula he wrote likewise: "What more is enjoined on you than to condemn the guilty who confess, but to recall those who deny to the tortures?" (Idem, To Scapula, ch. 4).

Nevertheless the heathen, against this rule for judging the accused, prescribed with such equity, compelled the Christians by the most cruel tortures of examination not to confess some crime but to deny it. They must therefore have been persuaded that they were harmless and guilty of no crime, since they wanted it to be denied by them, or else that, if they were guilty, they were plainly lying, which is an impiety. For when tortured under examination they confessed and openly cried out that they were Christians. But the heathen, for whom it was not lawful to torture further other accused persons who confessed, ordered the Christians to be tormented more dreadfully until they denied or were killed.

Rightly, then, does Tertullian press them thus: "You see how you yourselves act against your instructions, so as to force those who have confessed to deny. So much do you confess that we are innocent, whom you are unwilling to condemn at once on our confession" (Idem, To Scapula, ch. 4). And certainly by so great a violation of their own laws they condemned themselves most manifestly. For they persecuted the Christians, neither heard nor defended, as guilty of all crimes against the gods, the laws, the emperors, morals, and nature herself. While, then, they strove to drive them by examination to deny these things, they confessed assuredly that those crimes were as false as their innocence and integrity were supreme. In this so dreadful harassment of these same Christians, therefore, there is nothing else, as Tertullian said, but "a battle over the Christian name" (Idem, Apology, ch. 2, p. 279), in which those who denied were acquitted, and those who confessed were tortured to death.

Nor should you suppose that anything there was either invented or exaggerated by him. For plainly the same had been the public remonstrance not only of Justin Martyr, Athenagoras and Tatian, as we have seen elsewhere (Apparatus, vol. I, pp. 351, 356, 471 and 523), but also of Melito, as Eusebius reports (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History book IV, ch. 26, p. 147). For they complained openly that, although no name is good or evil of itself, the Christians were nevertheless condemned merely on account of their designation, without their case ever being heard. And with the same weapon, though hurled a little differently, Minucius Felix transfixed the heathen, as we showed above (Dissertation on Minucius's Octavius, ch. 8, art. 2), and Cyprian, as we shall say below.

Nor did the gentiles take much care to cover this supreme injustice, which, by means of the tablet, of which Cicero

(Cicero, Against Verres book V, p. 179, line 19; oration 39, For Rabirius, p. 561, last line; oration 23, For Flaccus, p. 369, line 47; oration 37, Against L. Piso, p. 543) and others very often mention, they brought out in public as sentence against them. For on this tablet was noted not some crime of the Christians, as of others condemned to death, but only the name of Christians: "From the tablet," says Tertullian, addressing them, "you read out: That man is a Christian" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 2, p. 279); and nothing more. But since the matter is so, he goes on, certainly: "If 'Christian' is the name of no crime, it is very foolish if the crime is of the name alone" (Tertullian, ibid.). And so indeed in Rigaltius's edition. But in our codices: "If a Christian is guilty of the name of no crime, it is very unchaste" (the more recent ones "uncertain"), "if the crime is of the name alone." In certain manuscripts, and in editions older than Rigaltius: "If a Christian is guilty of no crime, the name is very hostile, if the crime is of the name alone." And this seems to be the genuine reading of Tertullian, and in other codices the word nomen to have been transposed, and the other, incestum, corrupted. For Tertullian's sense is that the Christian name was very hateful to the heathen, for which alone, and for no other crime whatever, they so cruelly tortured and killed the Christians.

But certainly, Tertullian presses (ibid., ch. 3, p. 281), no hatred of a name can be conceived unless it signifies something barbarous or vicious in itself, or in the unknown men who are called by it. Yet the heathen had been able to detect nothing vicious in the Christians, whom they had refused to hear even once. Nor is there anything barbarous in the Christian name, which, says Tertullian, "is derived from anointing" (Ibid., p. 281). Nor did the ignorant gentiles advance a whit who prattled that they should be called Chrestians, not Christians. For this very name "is derived from sweetness, or kindness" (Ibid.). But we have discussed the etymology of both names elsewhere (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 17, art. 1).

ARTICLE III.

How absurdly the heathen objected that the Christians were to be held in hatred on account of their own name or that of their author, since no philosopher is said to have hated the Platonists, Epicureans, Pythagoreans, Stoics and Academics, no physician Erasistratus, no grammarian Aristarchus, no cook Apicius, the authors of their sects, on account of their name.

Since there is nothing, even clearer than the noonday sun, that the human mind, blinded by the prejudices of a false religion, does not strive to obscure, it is assuredly no wonder if the heathen, by certain contentious disputations, tried to elude or weaken the most invincible arguments put forward by our Author in defence of the Christians. Yet these men, who were unwilling to hear the Christians, must be heard, and their reasons, whatever they may be, examined.

Now they kept crying out that the crimes of the Christians need not be inquired into, all of which are comprehended in their one name.

But we have already shown that these crimes are utterly false. Suppose, however, if you can, that they are as true as they are false: ought a murderer, or any other criminal man whatever, to be condemned for his name alone? Are not judges bound to hear him, and to investigate where, when, how, and with what accomplices he committed the crime? But the Christians, as we have said, were condemned against these most equitable laws. The judgement of the gentiles was therefore most unjust (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 2, p. 279, and Ad Nationes book I, ch. 6, p. 566).

Yet the gentiles pressed: "The sect of the Christians is hated, surely, in the name of its author" (Ibid., p. 282). Was it not then to be examined whether that author, or his followers, really ought to be held in hatred? But Tertullian most evidently shows that the heathen by this absurd argument kill themselves, as the saying is, with their own sword. For they did not hold the Platonists in hatred for the name of Plato, the Epicureans for that of Epicurus, the Pythagoreans for that of Pythagoras, the Stoics for that of Zeno (Ibid.). Yet these, as we showed elsewhere (Apparatus vol. I, book III, dissertation 2, ch. 17, art. 1 ff., p. 1123 ff.), had been the authors of their sects. Then next the Academics are listed by Tertullian, whom he seems indeed to distinguish from the Platonists (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 3, p. 282). Is he then to be said to have spoken of Arcesilaus and Lacydes, the founders of the Middle and the New Academy, as we observed in the same place? Weigh it, I pray, and pronounce.

He goes on: "And did not physicians take their name from Erasistratus?" who is called by Aulus Gellius "a noble physician" (Gellius, Attic Nights book XVII, ch. 11), by Macrobius "the most noble of the ancient physicians" (Macrobius, Saturnalia book VII, ch. 15). And Strabo attested that in his fathers' time there existed at Smyrna an Erasistratean school of medicine (Strabo, Geography book XII, p. 580). Further, this most celebrated physician is mentioned by Plutarch (Plutarch, Table-Talk book IV, question 1, p. 663, and book VII, question 1, p. 698, and in the Life of Demetrius, p. 907), Pliny (Pliny, Natural History book XXIX, ch. 1, p. 663), Valerius Maximus (Valerius Maximus book V, ch. 7, § 1), and the writer of the Eusebian Chronicle (Chronicle of Eusebius, at the year 1755).

Finally, "cooks too," says Tertullian, "were named from Apicius," whom elsewhere he lists among the most costly cooks, and whose seasonings he derides (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 3, p. 5, and On the Pallium, last ch., and On the Soul, ch. 33). And from Athenaeus we learn that he was very rich in the age of the emperor Tiberius, but dissolute in luxury, that he squandered many myriads of coins through the vice of belly and gullet, and that various kinds of cakes were called by his name (Athenaeus, Deipnosophists book I, ch. 1, p. 7). Seneca too says more of him, of whose words we shall transcribe only these, which serve our purpose best: "Apicius lived within our memory, who in that city from which philosophers, as corrupters of the youth, once

were ordered to depart, professing a science of his own, infected the age with his teaching" (Seneca, On Consolation, to Helvia, ch. 10, p. 781). And elsewhere he, like Pliny (Pliny, Natural History book IX, ch. 17, p. 308) and Jerome (Jerome, Against Jovinian book II), mentions Apicius and his gluttony and boundless gullet. Casaubon further notes three Apiciuses, all infamous for the vice of gluttony (Casaubon on Athenaeus book II, ch. 6, p. 22 ff.). And in an earlier dissertation (Dissertation on Arnobius, ch. 23, art. 4) we more than once cited the published treatise of Apicius on cookery. Nor will you persuade us without great labour that this is the one of whom Tertullian speaks.

But whoever he was, no gentile ever said that a sect founded by anyone was worthy of hatred on account of the mere name of him or of the others we have listed, unless it had first been established that there was something evil in it. The gentiles, therefore, ought not to have hated the Christians, either on account of their own name or on account of their author's, unless they had first ascertained that they were evil. Yet we have already shown that these same gentiles neither knew, nor ever wished to know or to inquire, whether they did anything that ought to be visited with hatred and punishment.

On the other hand, it was wholly unknown to no one that the Christians, "under their own title," that is, merely on account of their name, were at once condemned by the acts and sentences of the governors, as soon as they had been brought before them. For that it is on account of this name alone that they were condemned by them, "we call to witness now your acts," that is, those of the judges, said Tertullian, "you who daily preside over the trying of prisoners," that is, of those committed to prison, "who check off the charges with your sentences" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 44, p. 496), that is, examine the accusations of the accused: was any assassin, or murderer, found among all of them? Any "pickpocket" (Ibid.; compare Festus under the word Manticularius), that is, one who has stolen money stored in other people's purses? Any "plunderer of bathers," or, as he said elsewhere, "bath-thief," who snatched the clothes or silver of bathers? But certainly all these were heathen (Apuleius, Apology 1, before the end), and you found there no true follower of the Christian religion. For "it is not with ours," Tertullian goes on, "but with yours that the prison always seethes" (Plautus, The Captives, act IV, scene 2), and it is entirely filled with your criminal gentiles. "With yours too the mines always sigh" (Tertullian, On Flight, ch. 13), that is, with those who, convicted of crimes, were forced to dig the mines. Finally, "with yours the beasts are always fattened; with yours the givers of games always feed their herds of the condemned" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 44, p. 497). Now the givers of games, as we have already observed elsewhere (Dissertation on Minucius's Octavius, ch. 13, art. 1, and Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 27, art. 1), were those who put on the spectacles of gladiators. And they fed and kept the condemned who, sentenced to the beasts, had to fight with them. And if they had been overcome, then the victorious beasts were fattened on their flesh.

None, therefore, out of their number was a Christian

either thrown into prison or condemned to the beasts for some crime, but merely on account of his name, which had nothing evil in it at all. For Tertullian affirms openly and emphatically: "No Christian is there, unless he is only this," on account of his name; "or if he is something else too," that is, guilty and convicted of some capital crime, "he is no longer a Christian" (Tertullian, loc. cit.), but an apostate from and deserter of the Christian religion. Nothing, therefore, is more unjust, or more contrary to laws divine and human, than to condemn innocent Christians, never heard and defended, for their name alone, and to torture them to death with every kind of the gravest punishment and to kill them.

CHAPTER XVIII.

How absurdly the heathen alleged that they were bound by certain laws of theirs to harass and kill the Christians, when they violated any of their more sacred laws as often as with impunity.

ARTICLE I.

By what reasons Tertullian shows that no man can be compelled by any law or authority to worship a god whom he knows to be false, nor can anyone be deprived of the freedom to embrace the religion that he believes true.

The gentiles, brought into the direst straits, strove to take refuge in the authority of their laws, as in a last bulwark. "We are bound," they said, "by our laws, which command that the Christians be harassed and tortured even to extermination. For us, then, to torture them it is enough to know that they are in fact Christians, and there is no need to inquire further who or of what kind they are" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 3, p. 282). But Tertullian answers that this argument is empty and plainly absurd, and addresses the heathen themselves thus: if by your laws you think it right and necessary to condemn Christians unheard and undefended, "you profess force, and an unjust domination from the citadel" (Ibidem); "from the citadel," he says, that is, perhaps, "from the height and very summit of the city" (Ibid., ch. 1, p. 259), as he had said at the beginning of this book. For whoever condemns any accused man, his case unheard, and orders him to be killed, beyond doubt does not perform the office of a fair judge, but exercises a most unjust domination and an intolerable tyranny.

But to break the obstinacy of the gentiles completely, he draws out another argument from the fact that they gave to each and every person the freedom to worship any god whatever, the one and true God excepted. For having said that one god is worshipped by one man and another by another, freely and at will, he presses them thus: "See whether this too does not contribute to the charge of irreligion: to take away freedom of religion and to forbid the choice of a deity, so that I may not worship whom I would, but am forced to worship whom I would not" (Ibid., ch. 24, p. 418)? For religious worship, he says, ought to be free and voluntary, and no one can ever be compelled by any man or any law to embrace a religion which he knows to be false: for, as he said later, "for the performance of a divine thing a willing mind is required" (Ibid.,

ch. 28, p. 435). And if you ask the reason, he will give you this: "It is a matter of human right and natural power for each to worship what he thinks fit; nor does one man's religion harm or help another. But neither is it the part of religion to compel religion, which ought to be taken up freely, not by force; since even sacrificial victims are required from a willing mind. So even if you compel us to sacrifice, you will render no service to your gods. For they will not desire sacrifices from the unwilling, unless they are contentious. But God is not contentious" (Idem, To Scapula, ch. 2).

You hear, surely, by what weighty reasons our Author shows that it is repugnant to law, not only human but also natural, that anyone should ever be compelled by any force to take up some false religion or the worship of a false god. For anyone's religion neither helps nor harms another, who is made neither better nor worse by the good or evil of his neighbour.

Then, moreover, God does not desire sacrifices from one unwilling and resisting, unless He is contentious, that is, wishes to sow quarrels and strife. But such a one can by no means be the true God. Indeed, "no one," says Tertullian further, "will wish to be worshipped by the unwilling, not even a man" (Idem, Apology, ch. 24, p. 418). For plainly to be condemned is the pretence and wicked hypocrisy by which a man feigns outwardly to worship one whom inwardly he spurns and detests.

Besides this, such indeed is the frailty of man that he offends the true God again and again. Yet he cannot appease Him except by a free and sincere conversion of mind and repentance, or by a sacrifice made with the greatest freedom. No one, therefore, can without the utmost injustice compel me to sacrifice to Jupiter, or to any other god, about whom I do not care whether he is propitious or angry with me; much less if I have known for most certain that he was a man and no longer exists.

Tertullian presses further: "And let one," he says, "worship God, another Jupiter; let one stretch suppliant hands to heaven, another to the altar of Faith; let one, if you think so, count the clouds as he prays, another the ceiling-panels; let one vow his own soul to his god, another a goat's" (Ibid.). Ought not all these to be either tolerated or condemned with equal right, and the freedom to worship whom he would not be snatched from one rather than from another?

But these words of Tertullian are not wholly clear and transparent, and perhaps there is room to doubt whether he speaks only of the gentiles, or of them and the Christians together, as has seemed to most. But what if he should be said to have designated both, and the Jews besides? For of the Christians and Jews he could write: "Let one worship God," namely the one and almighty; and of the heathen: "Another Jupiter," as is unknown to no one. Of these same Christians he could further say: "Let one stretch suppliant hands to heaven." For these, as we have seen (above, ch. 14, art. 3), prayed to God with outstretched hands. For although the heathen prayed to his gods in a similar way, he nevertheless seems to be set against the Christian by Tertullian, who said in the same place: "But another," namely the gentile, likewise stretches his hands "to the altar of Faith"; in our manuscript codices is read

"Fidiae", but beyond doubt through the error of copyists. It would perhaps have been more tolerably written "Fidii", whom the gentiles, as Ovid sings, believed to be the son of Jupiter and a god (Ovid, Fasti VI § 4). But rightly "Fidei", whose temple, as of a goddess, stood on the Capitol, as we have observed elsewhere (Tom. I Apparat. p. 866).

To the Jews, however, the following words of our Author seem to refer: "Another, if you think this, may count the clouds as he prays." For of these same Jews Juvenal sang:

Some, whose lot has been a father who reveres the sabbath, / worship nothing but the clouds and the divinity of the sky. (Juvenal, Satires 16, v. 916.)

But why did Tertullian add: "If you think this"? Did he not wish by these words to designate those same Jews whom the heathen falsely thought to worship both the clouds and the sky? To him, moreover, Tertullian opposes another, a gentile, who worshipped the panelled ceilings, that is, of their temples, as we shall show below. He goes on: "and another", he says, a Christian for instance, "may vow his own soul to his God", and consecrate it; but on the other hand another, a heathen, may vow the soul of a goat to a false god. For Virgil sings:

Therefore we shall duly speak to Bacchus his own honour / in our fathers' songs, and bring platters and cakes; / and the sacred goat, led by the horn, shall stand at the altar. (Virgil, Georgics II, v. 393.)

And Martial:

Guilty against the rosy vine, there stood at the altars, about to die, / a goat, O Bacchus, a victim welcome to your rites. (Martial III, epigram 24.)

But what prevents Tertullian from attributing all these things not to Christians and Jews but to the gentiles alone? Did not Menoeceus, Codrus and the Mures, about whom we argued in the preceding dissertation following Lactantius (Lactantius, Book III, chapter 12, page 370) (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter 10, article 4), vow their own souls to the gods? Aristophanes, moreover, brings on Socrates praying to the clouds and invoking them (Aristophanes, the comedy Clouds, act I, scene 3). The gentiles too, with hands raised to the sky, as has been said, prayed to their gods. Therefore Tertullian seems rather to be speaking of these alone, and greater strength will accrue to his argument from it. Rightly indeed, you will say, were it not that he sets against Jupiter a God undoubtedly true, Whom he afterwards still named in the singular number. But what forbids that he should have set against Jupiter, the greatest god of the gentiles, any other god whatever, whether of the greater or of the lesser clans? In whatever way his words are understood, from them he quite rightly concludes that the heathen, against all right and law, had taken from the Christians the liberty of worshipping the true God. For through them all others were permitted to worship not only Jupiter but, the one true God alone excepted, any false and ridiculous god whatever. For with the same cruelty with which impious men took away from Christians the licence of honouring the true God, with equal indulgence they allowed, in any city and province, as will be said below, any god that anyone pleased, even one wholly unknown to others, to be worshipped and adored by any man.

But now we seem to hear someone who whispers in our ear that Tertullian has there gone wholly astray,

inasmuch as he strives by these arguments to prove that everyone must be granted the liberty of worshipping whatever god he wishes, whether true or false, and of choosing some religion at his own discretion. Was Tertullian really so foolish, who with all the powers of his genius, as we have seen, demonstrates that the Christian religion alone is true and to be professed, and all the others false and to be rejected; who plainly and thoroughly contends that it is the supreme wickedness for a Christian to deny, nay even to dissemble, his religion; who heaps every praise on our martyrs precisely because they preferred to be torn to pieces and killed by any of the most dreadful tortures rather than burn three grains of incense to false gods, and with truly wonderful constancy shed their blood in defence of their faith and religion? Had he thought otherwise, he would plainly and for nothing have wasted his labour in writing the Apologeticum and other such books. His arguments, therefore, aim at nothing else than to show by them that no one can be forced to abandon the true religion and embrace a false one; and that the gentiles were most unjust, who gave to each man the liberty of worshipping any god he liked, even one unknown to others, while they took it away from the Christians alone, who worshipped the true God.

But someone else will ask us why he so assertively declares religion to be voluntary, who elsewhere said expressly: "It is fitting that heretics be compelled to their duty, not enticed. Obstinacy must be conquered, not persuaded" (Tertullian, Scorpiace, chapter 2). Let him ask Rigault, however, how our Author would have the obstinacy of heretics conquered and they themselves brought back to their duty, and he will hear: not by force or bodily coercion, but by the spiritual arms of divine Scripture and by divine authority. And in very truth Tertullian himself continues thus: "And certainly that will be judged beforehand to be quite the best which shall be proved to have been established and commanded by God." Wherefore with these arms he there refutes and overcomes them.

Let us, however, be allowed to add that the case of heretics and of gentiles is not the same. For whatever you may say should be decided about heretics, who acknowledged the true God but by their errors and crimes fell away from the Church, it was not on that account ever lawful for the heathen, as Tertullian rightly says, to drive Christians by torments and tortures to the veneration of false gods. For no one is driven into error without guilt, nay, not even led into it. But nothing prevents heretics from being brought back by lawful authority to the truth which they have abandoned.

ARTICLE II.

How foolishly the heathen alleged, in order to torture and destroy Christians, that they were bound by certain laws of the emperors, since by those very men the laws of Lycurgus were amended, who on that account put himself to death by starvation, and others were repealed by the Romans, and namely the Julian and Papian laws, and those which ordered debtors to be cut into two parts; and what those laws were.

No one can ever be bound by any law, unless a most unjust one, to worship some false god. But

an unjust law, as Tertullian rightly says, "has no honour" (Tertullian, Ad Nationes I, chapter 6, page 566), nor has it ever bound the conscience of any man. By no human law, therefore, could Christians be compelled to worship fictitious gods. With what face, then, could the heathen allege that they were bound by certain laws of their emperors to torture and kill them, when they could not deny that very many laws, enacted even by men of greater authority, as we have already seen in the preceding dissertation (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter 28, article 1), according to human weakness and the needs of the times, they had for that reason boldly and with impunity amended, spurned and trampled underfoot? And how could they have denied what is known to all, not only from the most certain testimony of Cicero (Cicero, De legibus I, page 328, line 5 and following), but from the constant experience of all ages? There was therefore no need for Tertullian to confirm it by various examples, and far more of them than was fitting. Nevertheless, since what is superfluous, as they say, does no harm, he gathered together very many laws enacted by various legislators and afterwards either amended or abolished by the peoples, in order at last wholly to stop the mouths of the heathen, who never ceased, even to the point of nausea, to throw up against him the authority of the laws given against the Christians. We have therefore thought it our duty to follow all his footsteps and, to the best of our ability and in our accustomed manner, to explain what he has specifically related about the ancient laws of the heathen, their authors, and their amendment and repeal.

He begins, moreover, with the most ancient legislator, Lycurgus, whose laws, he says, "amended by the Lacedaemonians, caused their author so much grief that in retirement he passed sentence on himself by starvation", or, as he said elsewhere in other words meaning the same, "he chose apocarteresis" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 4, page 286; and chapter 46, page 512), that is, he died of voluntary hunger and starvation. But why, I beg you, did the Lacedaemonians amend these laws, unless because they judged them imperfect and neither useful nor suitable for themselves? Pausanias, however, recorded that he took refuge in a certain village whose name was Alpium, after one of his eyes had been struck out by Alcander, who had disliked his laws (Pausanias, Book III, page 100). Valerius Maximus relates it somewhat more fully and in these words: "Not even laws wholesomely devised could help Lycurgus against finding his fellow citizens hostile. For he was often pelted with stones, once driven out by public fury, even deprived of an eye, and at last banished from his very country" (Valerius Maximus, Book V, chapter 3, foreign examples § 2). But both kept silent as to the kind of death by which he ended his life. Aelian, however, writes that when he had wished to imbue the Lacedaemonians with justice, his eye was indeed put out, either by a stone thrown from ambush or by the blow of a staff (Aelian, Varia historia XIII, chapter 23), as had been reported by various writers. But what is more to our purpose, he cites by name as witness Ephorus, who relates that he perished of hunger in exile. Yet there he did not say whether this hunger was voluntary. Wherefore our Author follows more closely Plutarch, who expressly writes that he bound by oath

the kings, the senate and the citizens that they would diligently observe his laws until he returned from Delphi (Plutarch, vol. I, Life of Lycurgus, p. 57). And lest they be released from the religious obligation of the oath, "he died by starving himself", he put himself to death by starvation. But that did not prevent the Lacedaemonians from spurning and abolishing not only their oath but his laws as well.

Our Author then comes to the Romans, and addresses them in these words: "Do not you also daily, as experience lights up the darkness of antiquity", that is (taught by your own experience), "lop and hew down that whole old and unkempt forest", or the infinite and obscure multitude of ancient laws, "with the new axes of imperial rescripts and edicts", or with new rescripts of the emperors (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 4, p. 286). In Rigault's and the following editions, however, "rustatis et caeditis"; but on what authority neither did he say, nor can we know anything else than that this reading conflicts with all the manuscripts, and with the very Puteanus copy which he had in his hands. We are not unaware, however, that Tertullian wrote elsewhere: "It set about cultivating everything, weeding and grubbing, so that thence, as from slips and layers, peoples from peoples, cities from cities, might be planted everywhere in the world" (the same, De pallio, chapter 2). But who was ever permitted to transfer a word from one book of an author into another against the protest of all the manuscripts? However you read it, the sense of our Author is clear enough: that the bristling forest of ancient laws was cleared and cut back by new edicts of the emperors, by which many things were rooted out like noxious weeds. In vain, therefore, did the heathen with such clamour vaunt the authority of their laws against the Christians.

To demonstrate this further, Tertullian immediately added: "Did not Severus, most steadfast of emperors, yesterday shut out, after an old age of such authority, the most futile Papian laws, which compel children to be had before the Julian compel marriage to be contracted?" (the same, Apologeticum, chapter 4, p. 286 and following). He there plainly teaches that these Julian laws were amended by the Papian, but that both were abrogated by the emperor Severus. Now the Julian laws were various, and were so named from Julius Caesar. To the Papian, or rather Poppaean, laws Papius and Poppaeus, suffect consuls in the time of Augustus Caesar, gave their name. That the Julian law on the marrying of the orders is meant by Tertullian, all readily grant. But how the Papian law compelled children to be had before the Julian law ordered marriage to be contracted, Héraut confesses he does not well understand (Héraut, notes on Tertullian), and Antonio Agustín freely admits it is unknown to him (Agustín, De legibus, chapter 18). Yet it is certainly established that that Julian law, as Dio (Dio, Roman History IV, p. 256), Cornelius Tacitus (Tacitus, Annals III, before the middle) and Suetonius (Suetonius, Life of Augustus, § 34) relate, was revised by Augustus Caesar more severely than elsewhere. For besides the rewards offered to those who had had children, he had imposed heavier penalties on the unmarried and the celibate, which afterwards, because of the uproar of those who refused, to mitigate

he was compelled. Suetonius adds further: "When he perceived that the force of the law was evaded through the immaturity of betrothed girls and the frequent change of marriages, he shortened the time for keeping betrothed girls and put a limit on divorces" (Suetonius, ibid.). May it not be gathered from these words, "through the immaturity of betrothed girls", that because of the multitude of those who had earlier perished in the civil and other wars, it was decreed by the emperor Augustus that virgins should marry even when not yet fully grown and ripe for a husband? And if that is Suetonius's meaning, Tertullian's seems to be this: that it was enacted by the Poppaean law that virgins should be given in marriage at that younger age, before they could have contracted it under the Julian law. And indeed we learn from Dio that the same Augustus decreed that a marriage contract should be void if the wedding were put off beyond two years, that is, says the same Dio, that the virgin whom anyone wished to betroth should be ten years old, and that the wedding should not be deferred beyond two years (Dio, Roman History LIV, page 609). Now if a girl could be betrothed and marry in the tenth year of her age, then she was compelled, as Tertullian says, to have children, who under the Julian law could enter marriage only in her twelfth year. See, if you please, the annotations of Godefroy (Godefroy, Codex Theodosianus, p. 226 and following) and of others on the third law concerning betrothals; and weigh, I pray, whether this or some other interpretation of Tertullian's words which you may devise pleases you more.

There can be no doubt, however, that the emperor Severus abrogated that part of both the Julian and the Poppaean law, and appointed a time at which virgins should marry at a mature age. For Tertullian asserts that this was done "yesterday", that is, in his own time. Moreover we learn from Marcian that something in the Julian laws was amended by the same Severus (Digest XXIII, title 2, law 19). Elsewhere, indeed, we have shown (Tom. I Apparat., Book III, dissertation 2, chapter 18, article 3, p. 1153) that the penalties which had been decreed by these Julian and Poppaean laws against the celibate and the childless were removed by Constantine the Great. But these things are later than the time of our Tertullian.

Finally, Rigault thinks that these laws are called "most futile" by Tertullian because "to think of having children seemed, not without reason, futile and foolish to Christians, who believed that the end of the ages was at hand, and sighed with longing for the exchange of mortal life for eternal". But we have seen that these same Christians were accustomed to pray for the delay of this end. It will therefore more easily be accepted by us that this was said by our Author out of zeal for chastity and virginity; which virtues indeed the Christians cultivated with as much ardour as the gentiles held them in contempt and scorned them.

Then next Tertullian immediately continues: "Formerly the laws were that judgement debtors should be cut into parts by their creditors. Yet by public consent that cruelty was afterwards erased" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 4, p. 287). Now this was one of the most ancient laws, entered first into ten and afterwards into twelve tables, which, on the witness of Livy, "in the immense heap of laws piled one upon another are the fount of all public and private law"

(Livy, Book III, §§ 34 and 35). What that law was, and in what words it was framed, Aulus Gellius will teach you, who wrote out its beginning in one place (Gellius, Attic Nights XV, chapter 13, p. 821), and the whole of it elsewhere in this manner: "For money confessed as owed, and for matters lawfully adjudged, let thirty days be the lawful term. After that, let there be laying on of hands; let him be brought into court. Unless he satisfies the judgement, or someone stands surety for him in court, let [the creditor] take him with him; let him bind him either with a cord or with fetters of fifteen pounds' weight, not less, or if he will, more. If he will, let him live at his own cost. If he does not live at his own cost, let him who holds him bound give him a pound of meal a day; if he will, let him give more. On the third market-day let them cut parts. If they have cut more or less, let it be without fraud" (ibid., Book XX, chapter 1, p. 1101 and following). Fulvio Orsini has reported this same law, not without various readings (Fulvio Orsini, notes on the cited book of Agustín).

To those bound by debt, then, a space of thirty days was first granted by this law in which to seek the money. Then after that they were thrust bound into prison. On the third market-day, however, that is, after another sixty days, they paid the penalty with their life; and if there were several creditors, the debtor's body was cut up, and its parts were given one to each creditor. Than which, says Gellius, "nothing is more cruel, unless, as the fact itself shows, so great an atrocity of punishment was proclaimed with the intention that it should never be reached. For we now see many adjudged and bound, because the worst men despise the penalty of chains. That anyone was cut up in ancient times I have neither read nor heard, since that savagery of punishment could not be despised" (Gellius, ibid.). You see plainly that this is the very law which Tertullian asserts was abolished and repudiated by public consent. Quintilian too confirms it most plainly in these words: "There are certain things not praiseworthy by nature but permitted by law; as by the Twelve Tables it was lawful for a debtor's body to be divided among his creditors, a law which public custom repudiated" (Quintilian, Institutio oratoria III, chapter 6).

And yet if in the laws of the Twelve Tables, which even boys were once obliged to learn, as Cicero says (Cicero, De legibus II, page 341, line 27), as the best of all, there was something not only not praiseworthy, as we have shown elsewhere (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter 26, article 1), but even downright cruel, how much more in the others, which men enacted solely for their own advantage! For no antiquity, nor any dignity of the legislator, but equity alone commends a law. None, therefore, is more unjust than that by which a Christian is condemned for his name alone, without his case ever being heard.

ARTICLE III.

It is examined how the heathen with impunity violated the laws restraining immoderate expense on dinners, furniture and clothing, and what those laws were, and the hundred-as dinners; how boldly they overthrew others, and above all that by which a patrician owning ten pounds of silver was removed from the senate; who he was, and who the freedmen were who, while still breaking the whips, scorned similar sumptuary laws.

Tertullian pursues his argument and, against the heathen raging at the Christians under pretext of certain laws, objects that they were no more bound by these than the heathen themselves were by the sumptuary laws, which with great equity and prudence restrained expense on dinners, household furniture and clothing (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 4, p. 288), or, as he likes to put it himself, "repressing expense and display" (the same, chapter 6, page 205). But they had so boldly overthrown them that they could not answer Tertullian himself when he asked them: "Since those laws have vanished which ordered that no more than a hundred asses be subscribed for a dinner, and that no more than one hen be served, and that not fattened." Aulus Gellius relates that he read in the Miscellanies of Ateius Capito a decree of the Senate by which the leading men of the city were ordered to swear that at the Megalensian games they would not spend more on each dinner than a hundred and twenty asses of bronze, besides vegetables, meal and native wine; nor have more weight of silver at a banquet than a hundred pounds (Gellius, Attic Nights II, chapter 24). Then by the Fannian law it was provided that at the Roman and Plebeian games, at the Saturnalia and on certain other days, no more than a hundred asses should be spent, on ten other days in each month thirty, and on the remaining days ten. Afterwards by the Licinian law it was allowed to spend two hundred on weddings, thirty asses on other days, besides fruit and vegetables. But after this, when these laws had been effaced by neglect and age, and many were squandering ample patrimonies in gluttony, the Cornelian law was given by the dictator Sulla, by which leave was granted to spend three hundred sesterces on a dinner on certain solemn feasts, and on other days no more than thirty. Besides, the Aemilian and the Antian laws further prescribed the expense of dinners and the kind and quantity of foods. Finally by the Julian law, which was enacted, as we have said, in the reign of Augustus, these expenses were indeed greatly increased; but yet so that the tide of unbridled luxury should be checked within certain fixed limits. All these things, explained by Macrobius (Macrobius, Saturnalia III, chapter 17) after Aulus Gellius (Aulus Gellius, at the place cited), plainly establish and confirm the statement of our Tertullian.

Nor did they care any more for the Fannian law already mentioned by us, by which it was forbidden that more than one hen, and that not fattened, should be served at a dinner. Pliny makes mention of this law, and explains in these words how the gentiles began to undermine it: "The Delians began to fatten hens. Hence arose the plague of devouring plump birds, basted in their own fat. I find this first excepted among the ancient prohibitions on dinners already in the law of the consul Gaius Fannius, eleven years before the Punic war, that no fowl be served except one hen which was not fattened" (Pliny, Natural History X, chapter 50, p. 442), that is, fat and crammed, and which by Juvenal is called simply "altilis". "This clause, carried over thereafter, went the round of all the laws, and a loophole was found to defeat them, of feeding cockerels too on food soaked in milk; thus they are approved as much more delicious" (Juvenal, Satire 5, v. 117). Of these, however,

sumptuary and food laws, more is given by Paolo Manuzio (Paolo Manuzio, De legibus Romanis, chapter 18) and Antonio Agustín (Antonio Agustín, De legibus I, chapter 18), cited by us in another dissertation, where we heard Arnobius, after Tertullian, arguing in like manner from these laws (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter 9, article 1).

How far the heathen spurned these excellent laws and held them for nothing, you will learn from just as many words of our Author: "I see also hundred-as dinners, which must now be called after a hundred sesterces" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 6, p. 300). Now those dinners were called hundred-as dinners, as Festus observes, "on which, by the Licinian law, no more than a hundred asses was spent, besides the produce of the earth", that is, a hundred asses, which were small coins of bronze (Festus, under the word Centenariae), as we noted above. Our Author therefore indicates that the expense of the old and frugal dinner had grown beyond measure. For a dinner which formerly had to be furnished for a hundred asses at most was in his time commonly given for a hundred sesterces. And a sesterce was worth two and a half asses. He said a hundred sesterces as a round figure, and used a definite number for an indefinite, in order to censure the excessive expense of dinners by the contrast of a hundred asses with a hundred sesterces. Who, moreover, in even the lightest glance over the lives of the Caesars written by Suetonius and other authors, has not noticed that under their reign dinners were so sumptuous that these historians, though worthy of belief, are scarcely believed? You see indeed with what ease the Romans amended and weakened their ancient and venerable laws, while they babbled that they were bound by the most unjust rescripts against the Christians.

Then next Tertullian asserts that likewise overthrown were the laws "which removed from the Senate, as for a great mark of ambition, a patrician because he had possessed ten pounds of silver" (Tertullian, at the place cited). If anyone asks us who that patrician is, we shall answer him in the words of Aulus Gellius: "Gaius Fabricius Lucinus and Quintus Aemilius Papus were censors at Rome, and they removed from the senate Publius Cornelius Rufus, who had twice been consul and dictator, and they appended as the reason for that mark of censure that they had found him to possess ten pounds of wrought silver for the sake of dining" (Gellius, Attic Nights XVII, chapter 2, p. 1005). You hear indeed that the same sum of silver which Rufus had possessed is there noted by him as by Tertullian. But what he said as "for the sake of dining", Aulus Gellius puts thus: "For the mark of luxury," he says, "because he had ten pounds' weight of wrought silver" (the same, ibid., Book VIII, chapter 8, p. 289). We read the same plainly in the Epitome of Livy (Epitome of Livy, Book XIV). Pliny, however, testifies that the same sum of silver was spent on furniture (Pliny, Natural History XVIII, chapter 6, p. 447), and Valerius Maximus on silver vessels (Valerius Maximus, Book II, chapter 6, § 4). But it will perhaps not be tiresome to hear the latter's words, which bear very much on our subject. They are these: "Every age has told, and will tell hereafter, how by the censorship of Fabricius Lucinius Cornelius Rufus, who had held two consulships and a dictatorship most splendidly, because he had acquired ten pounds of silver vessels, as if

one luxurious by a bad example, he was not retained in the senatorial order." Then he immediately added this: "The very records of our age, so help me, seem to me to be astounded when they are forced to lend their service to relating such great severity, and to fear lest they be thought not to be recording the acts of our own city. For it is scarcely credible that within the same pomerium ten pounds of silver were both an invidious fortune and are now held the most despised poverty."

Does not Tertullian likewise indicate that this sum of silver was spent by Cornelius Rufus on making or buying silver vessels, he who with full right rebukes the greater luxury of the Romans in these following words: "I see silver mines drawn out into dishes", that is, for bringing food to diners, "and it would be little if they were of senators, and not of freedmen, or of men still breaking the whips" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 6, p. 301). He therefore counts it a fault in the heathen that not only senators but freedmen too were dissolved in such luxury, men "still breaking the whips", that is, who had cast off slavery a few days before. For slaves were commonly beaten with whips as their peculiar punishment. Wherefore Juvenal sang this of a Liburnian slave:

. . . . . The Liburnian is said to have come late, / and is made to pay the penalty for another's sleep; / this one breaks the canes, that one is red with the lash. (Juvenal, Satires 6, v. 490.)

In Terence, again, Simo threatens whips and blows to his slave Davus thus:

Beaten with stripes, Davus, I will hand you over to the mill, / even to death. (Terence, Andria I, scene 2, v. 8.)

But of the punishments of slaves more fully in the following dissertation. And if so great was the luxury of these, who had scarcely received their freedom, guess from this how great that of the others was. Wherefore Pliny, cited just now, says: "That an old man who had triumphed was censured by the censors on account of five pounds of silver now seems a fable" (Pliny, Natural History III, chapter 11, page 69). On what ground, then, did the gentiles dare to allege that they were bound by unjust laws against the Christians, they who had openly and with impunity overthrown those most equitable sumptuary laws?

ARTICLE IV.

With what licence the gentiles, spurning the laws which had pulled down theatres as they arose, built far more of them, into which, for the sake of greater pleasure, they flocked in their cloaks.

Tertullian comes to other laws, by which provision had been made for chastity, for honesty and modesty of morals. He makes it plain that these had been overthrown by the heathen with as much licence as the rashness with which they alleged that they were bound by other, plainly wicked, enactments against the Christians: "For where have they gone," he says, "those laws, correctors of vices, which at once pulled down theatres as they arose for the debauching of morals?" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 6, page 299). Certainly it was the common opinion of nearly everyone, as Servius teaches (Servius on Book II of Virgil's Georgics, v. 381; and on Aeneid II, v. 737), that the first games of the theatre were instituted in honour of Bacchus or Father Liber, and were for that reason called Liberalia. But how much the morals of men were corrupted by these games,

there is surely no one who does not easily understand from their utterly detestable foulness and obscenity, of which we have treated elsewhere (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter 17, article 1, and on Lactantius, chapter 35, article 1). If anyone, however, maintains that our Author was in fact speaking not only of these but also of other theatrical games, overthrown in former times, he will certainly have as supporters Tully and Augustine, by whom he is cited. For these are Augustine's own words: "The Romans, although they were already oppressed by a harmful superstition, so that they worshipped those gods who they saw had wished stage obscenities to be consecrated to them, yet, mindful of their own dignity and modesty, by no means honoured the actors of such plays after the manner of the Greeks, but, as Scipio says in Cicero: 'Since they held the art of the stage and the whole theatre to be a disgrace, they willed that that class of men should not only lack the honour of the other citizens, but should also be removed from their tribe by the censors' mark'" (Augustine, City of God II, chapter 13, page 40 and following). This statement of Cicero, so cited, he praises and approves in these following words: "A wisdom truly excellent and to be numbered among the glories of Rome; but I would that it followed itself, that it imitated itself."

So these excellent laws did not long remain in force. For Tertullian attacked the heathen thus: "I see theatres, too, neither single nor bare" (Tertullian, Apologeticum, chapter 6, p. 301): not single, indeed, because when the earlier ones were overthrown they had built far more all over the world. He added, "nor bare", since they were accustomed to flock there dressed not in ordinary clothing but in the paenula. "For lest", he says, "shameless pleasure should grow cold even in winter, the Lacedaemonians first devised the odium paenulae for the games." In all the manuscripts, however, and in the printed copies before Rigault, we read not "odium paenulae" but simply "paenulam". In explaining these obscure and perhaps corrupt words the learned have exercised their wits not a little. Héraut thinks that they perhaps signify that the paenula, which the warlike race of the Lacedaemonians had devised to keep off the rain, was used by the Romans for watching the games with greater endurance. But Tertullian declares plainly enough that it was invented by the same Lacedaemonians not only for military use but also for the games. Rigault, again, suspects that he speaks ironically of paenulae, as being too heavy and weighty, which could therefore create aversion rather than pleasure. But why would Tertullian speak ironically in these words rather than in others, both preceding and following?

Since, then, Tertullian seems to speak without irony and assertively, Ferrari therefore thinks that he there slipped in memory, and wrote paenula for endromis (Ferrari, De re vestiaria, part II, Book II, chapter 1), which was also a thick and shaggy garment, and useful for the palaestra, or rather after the palaestra, no less than the paenula. In confirmation of his opinion he brings forward these verses of Martial:

This thick nursling of a Sequanian weaver, / which, barbarous, bears a Lacedaemonian name, / a coarse gift, but not to be scorned in chill December, / we send you, a foreign endromis, / whether you rub on the sticky ceroma, or [play] the warm trigon, / or snatch the dusty harpastum with your hand. (Martial IV, Epigram 19.)

But there seems to be no need whatever to alter, on the strength of a conjecture, the word penula, which is read consistently in all the manuscripts. For no one can doubt that the Romans attended the public games wearing the penula. Suetonius indeed is our witness that the emperor Galba ordered that at a certain solemn spectacle they should keep their hands within their penulae (Suetonius, Life of Galba, § 6). And in the Epitome of Dio we read that the emperor Commodus commanded the senators to come into the theatre for the last gladiatorial show that he gave, "and to enter the theatre in the equestrian robe and in mantles." He ordered them to come into the theatre clad in the equestrian garment and the penula (Epitome of Dio, Life of Commodus, p. 295). In this attire they had never before been accustomed to enter it, unless the emperor had departed this life. Now μανδύη signifies a certain kind of penula. For Lampridius says of the same Commodus: "Contrary to custom," he says, "he ordered them to come to the show in penulae, not in togas" (Lampridius, in his Life of him, p. 315).

Tertullian therefore rightly reproves the Romans, since against ancient custom they used the penula when they attended the public games and spectacles, especially in winter. For then, because the theatres had no roofs, they put on the penula, so that cold or rain should not harm them, and they might watch the shameful things done there without any discomfort. Contrary to their former customs, then, they had taken up for pleasure's sake the penula, which soldiers put on only from necessity. For of the soldier who professed the Christian religion before the tribune, Tertullian says, "he laid down his very heavy penula" (Tertullian, On the Crown, chapter 1). On this garment, moreover, see Octavius Ferrarius and Bartholus Bartholinus, who published particular studies of it, and others who have published books on clothing.

Who then does not see with what rashness the heathen cried out that they were compelled by the most unjust laws of the emperors against the Christians to harass them, when with such boldness and impunity they utterly despised and spurned other, most equitable laws, which ordered the theatres to be overthrown from their foundations on account of the monstrous corruption of morals? Nor did they set any higher value on many other exceedingly good laws, as Tertullian teaches and as we shall show after him.

ARTICLE V.

It is weighed with what rashness the heathen trampled upon the laws which ordered the insignia of ranks and of birth, and the garments of matrons and of harlots, to be kept distinct, or forbade women to be adorned with gold except in the betrothal ring.

From there Tertullian passes to another kind of law ruined by the heathen, by which in former times provision was most wisely made above all for the modesty and sobriety of women. For those who so insolently cast up against us the laws injurious to the Christian name were themselves content, with a calm and cheerful mind, to see others trampled underfoot which did not allow the insignia of ranks and of honourable birth to be usurped lightly or with impunity (Tertullian, Apology, chapter VI, p. 300). And who does not know that there were various insignia of kings, senators, knights and plebeians, and different garments, by which they were distinguished from one another? Leaving aside, indeed, as very many

we pass over, these other words of our Author himself concern them: "Which king at all displays the insignia of his power on his shoulder, and not either a diadem on his head, or a sceptre in his hand, or some mark of a garment of his own?" (The same, Against the Jews, chapter X).

An edict was also issued by Caesar Augustus, by which he forbade anyone but a senator thenceforth to put on purple, which was then commonly worn (Dio, Roman History, book XLIX, p. 459). Earlier, indeed, Julius Caesar, as Suetonius witnesses, "took away the use of litters, likewise of garments of shell-purple, and of pearls, except for certain persons and ages and on certain days" (Suetonius, Life of Julius Caesar, § 43). These things are explained of women by the author of the Eusebian Chronicle thus: "Women who had neither husbands nor children, and were under fifty-five years of age, were forbidden to use litters and pearls" (Eusebius, Chronicle, 1972).

There was also a great difference between the garments of matrons and those of harlots (Tertullian, Apology, chapter VI, p. 301). For harlots, as Nonius noted, wore a more tucked-up garment (Nonius, chapter 14, On the Kinds of Garments). Wherefore Ulpian says: "If anyone has accosted maidens, if however they were dressed in a slave-girl's garment, he is held to offend less; much less if women were dressed in a harlot's garment and not in that of mothers of families" (Digest, book XLVIII, title On Injuries, etc., law 15).

How far women, against the institutions of their ancestors, misused these garments, learn from our Tertullian: "I see," he says, "that between matrons and prostitutes too no distinction of dress is left" (Tertullian, place cited). Nor does he say more there; but what he says more fully in another book he pursues in this manner: "Turn also to the women," he says; "you have to look at what Caecinna Severus pressed gravely upon the senate: matrons without the stola in public. In short, by the decrees of the augur Lentulus, a woman who had thus cashiered herself was punished as for fornication; since certain women had carefully disused the garments that are the tokens and guardians of rank, as hindrances to plying their seductions. But now, playing the procuress against themselves, so that they may be approached more openly, they have forsworn the stola and the supparum, and the little sandal, the head-dress, and even the very litters and chairs in which they used to be kept private and secluded even in public" (The same, On the Pallium, chapter IV). In yet another book he attacks more sharply this same abuse, and that rejected distinction between the garments of honourable matrons and those of harlots. Hear him, I pray, speaking: "How much more blasphemous is it if you, who are called priestesses of chastity, go forth dressed up and painted after the fashion of the unchaste? Or what less have those most unhappy victims of public lusts, whom, if certain laws used to restrain them from marital and matronly adornments, at any rate the wickedness of the age, rising daily higher, has now made equal to all the most honourable women, so that one errs in telling them apart?" (The same, On the Dress of Women, book II, chapter 12). Then a little later: "That Tamar, who had painted and adorned herself, therefore seemed to Judah's suspicion to be sitting for hire, and so she lay hid under her veil, the quality of her dress feigning the harlot; so that he both wished for her as a harlot, and accosted her, and made a bargain" (ibid.). And in a not unlike manner Jerome: "Tamar," he says, "under the appearance of a harlot deceives Judah" (Jerome, Against the Pelagians, book I).

You hear how ancient were the laws on distinguishing the garments of matrons and of harlots, and with what impunity the heathen violated them.

Nor did they care more for the other laws by which provision had been made for the modesty and sobriety of women. For in ancient times, says Tertullian, "no woman knew gold except on the one finger which her betrothed had pledged with the betrothal ring" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter VI, p. 302). And it is unknown to no one that it was a most ancient custom for the betrothed to send his bride, as a pledge of the marriage to come, a ring, which they called pronubus. If anyone, however, would have at least one witness to it cited for him, let him hear Juvenal:

Yet you are preparing an agreement and a compact and a betrothal in our day, and already you are being combed by a master barber, and perhaps you have given a pledge for her finger. (Juvenal, Satire VI, line 25 and following.)

Pliny, moreover, attests to us that in his time this ring was of iron and without a gem: "Even now," he says, "an iron ring is sent as a gift to the bride, and that without a gem" (Pliny, Natural History, book XXXIII, chapter 1, p. 7).

In the age of our Tertullian, therefore, that plainly modest custom had already been changed, and a gold ring was given instead of an iron one. Later, indeed, Isidore spoke thus of rings, and those betrothal rings, in the plural number: "Women did not use rings except those which the betrothed had sent to the maiden, nor was she accustomed to have more than two gold rings on her fingers. But now, for gold, no limb of women is light and free" (Isidore, Etymologies, book XIX, chapter 32). And did he not, in these latter words, look back to these words of Tertullian, by which in the very place we are treating he thus assails the luxury of women: "Now among women, for gold, no limb is light" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter VI, p. 304)? Wherefore Ovid had earlier sung:

Nor come forth weighed down with gold sewn into your garments: the wealth by which you seek us you often put to flight. (Ovid, Art of Love, book III, line 172.)

Pliny is further our witness that he saw Agrippina, the wife of the emperor Claudius, that is, of Nero, "when he was giving the spectacle of a naval battle, sitting beside him, clothed in a military cloak of woven gold without any other material" (Pliny, ibid., chapter 3, p. 39). This Dio too (Dio, Roman History, book X) and Cornelius Tacitus confirm (C. Tacitus, Annals, book XII, before the end). Whoever wishes to know more of this luxury of Roman women, let him consult Meursius (Meursius, On Roman Luxury, chapter 4 and following), Kobierzykus (Kobierzycki, On Roman Luxury, book I, chapter 8 and following), and, if he has leisure, what we have noted elsewhere (Apparatus, volume I, p. 792).

ARTICLE VI.

It is weighed with what severity the use of wine was once forbidden to women, and with what impunity wives were slain by their husbands for its abuse; how immoderately it was afterwards taken by women, who for that reason did not dare offer the customary kiss to their kinsfolk; how frequent was the repudiation of wives, unknown in early times; and in what way the heathen sent their forefathers a notice of divorce in speech and manner of talking.

Nothing indeed [was] more worthy of the ancient uprightness of the Romans

than that wholesome severity by which the use of wine had been so forbidden to women that, as our Tertullian records, "her own people starved to death a matron for having broken the seals of the compartments of the wine-cellar. Under Romulus, indeed, a woman who had touched wine was slain with impunity by her husband Mecenius. For that reason it was also obligatory to offer kisses to their kinsfolk, so that they might be judged by their breath" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter VI, p. 303). The same things plainly, though not in the same order, Pliny sets out more clearly: "It was not lawful," he says, "for women at Rome to drink it (wine). We find among the examples that the wife of Egnatius Mecenius was killed by her husband because she had drunk wine from the cask, and that he was acquitted of the slaying by Romulus. Fabius Pictor wrote in his Annals that a matron, because she had broken the seals of the compartments in which were the keys of the wine-cellar, was forced by her own people to die of starvation; Cato, that kinsmen gave women a kiss for this reason, that they might know whether they smelt of temetum. This was then the name for wine, whence drunkenness too was called temulentia" (Pliny, Natural History, book XIV, chapter 13, p. 142). And who will not readily persuade himself that all these things could not have been so joined together by Tertullian unless he had drawn them either from Pliny himself or from the same sources as he? For Valerius Maximus tells a little differently that the wife of Egnatius Mecenius, because she had drunk wine, was put to death by him without accuser or censurer (Valerius Maximus, book VI, chapter 3, § 9), since all held that she had paid the penalty for violated sobriety as a most excellent example (The same, book II, chapter 1, § 5).

Earlier, indeed, he had said that the use of wine was once unknown to Roman women, because from it the step to forbidden lust is the next one. Moreover, Aulus Gellius again cites Cato, who related that a woman who had either drunk wine or been caught in adultery was condemned in the same way (Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, book X, chapter 23, p. 557). Besides this, Athenaeus not only mentions the wine forbidden to women by the Romans, but added further that the wine-cellar was not entrusted to them, and that a kiss was given by husbands and kinsmen for this reason, that they might tell by smell whether they had in fact drunk wine (Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, book X, chapter 7, p. 429, and chapter 11, p. 440). We have already discussed this prohibition of wine (Dissertation on Arnobius, chapter 4, article 1).

Against this law, however, "because of wine," says Tertullian, "no kiss is free" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter VI, p. 304). Various writers, and above all the satirical poets, inveigh against that vice of drunkenness. But on a matter so very well known it will suffice to have quoted these verses of Juvenal, by which what we said in the preceding article, not only about drunkenness but also about luxury, is plainly confirmed:

No crime is lacking, no deed of lust, since Roman poverty perished. . . . . . . / . . . . . . . . . . / Filthy money first brought in foreign manners, and soft riches broke the ages with base luxury. For what does drunken Venus care? She knows not what distinction there is between groin and head, she who at midnight bites into great oysters, when the unguents foam drenched with neat Falernian, when the drink is from a shell, when now the ceiling walks round in giddiness and the table rises up with twin lamps. Go now, and doubt with what a sneer Tullia sniffs the air, what Maura says to the notorious Collacia, when Maura passes the ancient altar of Chastity. (Juvenal, Satire VI, line 293 and following.)

What more? Our Author further turns it to the reproach of the Gentiles that "the ancient happiness of marriages has vanished, which was surely made prosperous by morals, through which for about six hundred years from the founding of the City no house wrote a bill of divorce" (Tertullian, ibid.). Would you have this proved to you by some Greek and Latin witnesses? The first will be Dionysius of Halicarnassus, whose words are these: "It is agreed that within five hundred and twenty years no marriage was dissolved at Rome; in the hundred and thirty-seventh Olympiad, when Marcus Pomponius and Gaius Papirius were consuls, Spurius Carvilius, a man of some note, is said to have been the first to put away his own wife, being compelled by the censors to swear that he would not live with a wife for the sake of children; for his wife was barren; and for this deed, though it was done under necessity, he remained hated by the people." It is agreed that for 520 years no divorce occurred. At length in the hundred and thirty-seventh Olympiad, Marcus Pomponius and C. Papirius being consuls, Sp. Carvilius, a man not obscure, is said to have been the first to dismiss his wife, being compelled by the censors to swear that he would not keep a spouse for the sake of children, for she was barren; who for this deed, although driven by necessity, was hated by the people for ever (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, book II, p. 96).

The Latin writers Valerius Maximus and Aulus Gellius committed the same things to writing (Valerius Maximus, book II, chapter 1, § 4), except that Gellius, citing Servius Sulpicius as his authority, relates that it happened in the year 523 from the founding of the City, M. Attilus and P. Valerius being consuls (Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, book IV, chapter 3, p. 278). But there, or else later, there certainly lies some error of his memory or of a copyist. For in another book he writes that it was done in the five hundred and nineteenth year from the founding of the City, in which accordingly there must have been other consuls, and perhaps those who are noted by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (The same, book XVII, chapter 21, p. 1008).

From these customs and laws, so equitable, the heathen had therefore plainly and utterly fallen away, for whom divorce, says Tertullian, "is now even a wish, and as it were the fruit of marriage" (Tertullian, ibid.). Nor should you suspect that some exaggeration of his lies here. For you will not hold Seneca suspect, whose words on divorce we read thus: "Does any woman now blush at divorce, since certain illustrious and noble women count their years not by the number of the consuls but by that of their husbands, and go out for the sake of marriage, and marry for the sake of divorce? It was dreaded as long as it was rare; but because no acts are without a divorce," that is, drawn up by public notaries, "what they often heard of they learned to do" (Seneca, On Benefits, book III, chapter 16, p. 53). Let Juvenal also be added here, who assails these most frequent divorces of wives in these verses:

So she rules her husband; but soon she leaves this realm, and changes homes, and wears out bridal veils; then she flies back and seeks again the traces of the bed she scorned. She leaves the doors decked a little before, the hangings of the house, and the boughs still green on the threshold. So the number grows, so there come to be eight husbands in five autumns, a thing worthy of an epitaph. (Juvenal, Satire VI, line 223.)

You hear indeed how clearly he said that one wife, within five autumns, that is, five years, ha[d]

-d eight husbands. Martial, indeed, sharply rebukes a certain Telesina who within one month had married ten times with impunity against the laws that had been passed:

Since the Julian law, Faustinus, was reborn for the peoples, and chastity was bidden enter our homes, it is the thirtieth day, or less, or certainly not more, and Telesina is already marrying her tenth husband. She who marries so often does not marry: she is an adulteress by law. I am less offended by a more straightforward harlot. (Martial, book VI, epigram 7.)

But this wicked licence of divorce was so unbridled that it could scarcely ever be curbed by any laws of the emperors, many of which still exist. And what of the fact that they trampled underfoot not only so many and such excellent laws, in the way we have described, but also the veneration due to their ancestors? Therefore Tertullian, addressing them in these words, presses them thus: "In dress," that is, in clothing, "in food, in equipment, in property, and finally in your very speech you have renounced your forefathers" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter VI, p. 305). And again in another book: "It is plainly evident," he says, "how much you have changed from your ancestors in adornment, dress, furnishings, and in your very food," as is clear from what has already been said. And he added "and in your very speech." Why then in speech too and in the manner of talking? "Because," he says, "you banish the old as rancid" (The same, To the Nations, book I, chapter 10, p. 572), that is, you reject it as unpleasant, rotten and evil-smelling.

ARTICLE VII.

It is examined what the ancient decree was concerning new gods not to be brought in without a decree of the senate, and the vow of Metellus about building a temple in honour of the god Alburnus, which was made void; and how that decree was violated by the heathen, who most shamelessly restored Father Liber, Serapis and Harpocrates with his Cynocephalus after they had been rejected by decree of the senate.

Tertullian presses the heathen more vehemently still, and plainly overwhelms them. For he shows clearly that they spurned and ruined the more sacred laws not only concerning human affairs but also concerning divine rites. Let us hear him, if you please, arguing in his book To the Nations: "But those most wise and prudent ancestors of yours," he says, "whose institutions you do not know how to renounce, especially in the matter of your gods, are themselves also found to be impious. I lie if they had not decreed that no general should dedicate a shrine he had vowed in battle before the senate had approved it, as happened to M. Aemilius Probus, who had vowed one to the god Alburnus. For it is surely a most impious, nay a most insulting offence to place the honour of divinity at the discretion and caprice of human judgement, so that he is not a god unless the senate has allowed him to be one" (Tertullian, To the Nations, book I, chapter 10, p. 573). But he says this more briefly in his Apology: "There was an ancient decree," he says, "that no god should be consecrated by a general unless approved by the senate. M. Aemilius knows it, concerning his god Alburnus. This tells in favour of our cause, that among you divinity is weighed by human decision. Unless a god has pleased man, he will not be a god; man will now have to be gracious to god" (The same, Apology, chapter V, p. 290). In some older editions, indeed, in place of these words, "M. Aemilius knows it," there is found "as Marcus Aemilius"; and

so Eusebius seems to have read it, who gives these words of our Author turned into Greek thus: "There was an ancient decree that no god should be consecrated by a ruler before he had been approved by the senate; Marcus Aemilius did so in the case of a certain idol, Alburnus" (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book II, chapter 2, p. 41). But the sense of either reading is plainly the same. Therefore these things must first be explained, and then it must be examined in what way Tertullian argues from them against the heathen.

There can indeed be doubt which edict that was concerning the consecrating of a god. We know, to be sure, of one described by Cicero in these words: "Let no one have gods of his own, neither new ones nor foreign ones, unless publicly admitted; let them worship privately" (Cicero, On the Laws, book II, p. 334, line 37). Yet another decree seems to be meant by Tertullian, inasmuch as he made mention of a general (imperator). For the law cited by Cicero is far older than the Roman emperors. What then if we say that by the name imperator our Author means the commander of an army, or a consul as its leader? Now Aemilius Probus, ignorant of this law, or giving no thought to it amid the doubtful fortune of battle, vowed that, if he conquered the enemy, he would consecrate a shrine to a god whose name was Alburnus. But he learned by his own experience that this vow, made without a decree of the senate, had been too hasty. For the senate forbade this shrine to be built, just as it later prevented Christ, as Tertullian says in the same place, from being proclaimed God, although Tiberius had earnestly desired it.

Who that god Alburnus was is beyond doubt no less difficult to say. For mention of him occurs rarely among the ancients. From Virgil, however, we learn that in Lucania by the river Silarus there is a mountain which he calls Alburnus in these verses:

Around the groves of Silarus and Alburnus green with holm-oaks there flits in swarms an insect whose Roman name is asilus; the Greeks, translating, have called it oestrus. (Virgil, Georgics, book III, line 146 and following.)

But that mountain had, after the custom of the Gentiles, been consecrated to some god to whom the name Alburnus was given, and Metellus could vow a shrine to him. Nor should you wonder if that god is now unknown; for he was a local god. And these gods, as Servius observes, did not pass over into other regions, and so were known to scarcely any but the inhabitants of those places (Servius, on Aeneid, book VII).

From this Tertullian draws two arguments against the heathen. First, he concludes from it most evidently that the gods of the Gentiles were made according to the will and decision of men, and that therefore no god of the Gentiles can exist unless he has pleased man. But it is the height of impiety to assign divinity to anyone according to the decision of men. For the true God is from Himself and almighty, and therefore subject to none, but all things are subject to Him. The heathen therefore could decree by no law at all, unless a most unjust one, that the Christians, rejecting the worship of the true God, should adore gods made by men, and otherwise should be put to death, even unheard. Secondly, Tertullian infers from it that that ancient decree about not introducing new gods was violated by the Gentiles themselves, who

with equal licence repudiated gods made long before, and restored them when repudiated. For, as he says, "Father Liber with his mysteries the consuls, by the authority of the senate, banished not only from the City but from the whole of Italy" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter VI, p. 304). This he repeats in almost the same words in another book (To the Nations, book I, chapter 10, p. 575). Livy relates this whole history accurately, both when, on what occasion and in what way the unspeakable and horrible crimes which were committed by night in these accursed rites were uncovered by the consul Posthumius, and how for that reason they were utterly abolished and done away with by decree of the senate at Rome and in all Italy (Livy, book XXXIX, § 9 to 19). Wherefore Augustine rightly says: "These things afterwards displeased a saner senate, and it ordered them to be removed" (Augustine, City of God, book VI, chapter 9, p. 156).

On the other hand, our Author says further: "Serapis and Isis and Harpocrates with his Cynocephalus, forbidden the Capitol," that is, driven from the council-house of the gods, "the consuls Piso and Gabinius, who were certainly not Christians, cast out, overturning even their altars, restraining the vices of base and idle superstitions" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter VI, p. 305). But he says this a little more fully in another book, where he also cited Varro as witness in this manner: "Varro records that Serapis and Isis and Arpocrates and Hanubis were forbidden the Capitol, and that their statues, thrown down by the senate, were set up again only through the violence of the populace; but yet the consul Gabinius on the Kalends of January, when he could scarcely approve the victims because of the crowding of the populace, since he had made no decision about Serapis and Isis, held the senate's judgement weightier than the onset of the mob, and forbade altars to be set up" (The same, To the Nations, book I, chapter 10, p. 573).

But I would have you note what was the inconstancy and folly of the Gentiles even in sacred matters, who, after they had with such good right done away with these most shameful and plainly detestable mysteries of Serapis, nevertheless restored them with the utmost impiety, as Tertullian promises he will show more fully later. We for our part have noted some things about both their overthrow and their renewal in our dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius (Dissertation on Minucius' Octavius, chapter 22, article 1), and shall observe more below.

For the heathen, then, who had thus repudiated and restored their gods, it was never lawful to condemn and put to death the Christians, neither heard nor defended, because they were unwilling to deny and renounce the true God and their true religion. And this is further confirmed from what we related in another dissertation (Dissertation on Arnobius, chapter 5, article 1 and following), where we made plain with what boldness they despised, undermined and abrogated customs, laws and even the more sacred institutions.

CHAPTER XIX.

On the laws issued against the Christians, and on the hatred or favour of the emperors towards them.

ARTICLE I.

How Tertullian shows that the first laws against the Christians were passed by Nero, a most wicked emperor, and

then by Domitian, a portion of Nero's cruelty; who nevertheless restored those whom he had banished.

Tertullian has shown amply enough how absurdly the heathen pleaded that they were bound by their laws to harass and kill the Christians, when they with impunity either violated or spurned the institutions, customs and more sacred laws of their ancestors. For they praised the ancients, but "lived newly from day to day," says our Author, and, having shut antiquity out of their business and duties, they ruined the venerable authority of their fathers (Tertullian, Apology, chapter VI, p. 305). But he did not think all this enough for himself, and he goes for the very head of the accusation. He therefore makes it plain that the laws issued against the Christians are most unjust, and were enacted by the worst and most wicked princes. Nor does he show less clearly that good and pious princes either never raged against the Christians or never commanded that rage be used against them. This he shows by a brief survey of the emperors from the beginning of the Christian religion down to his own time (The same, To the Nations, book I, chapter 10, p. 572).

For when the Christian name began to be spread abroad in the world (The same, Apology, chapter V, p. 290), then the emperor Tiberius, as we noted above (above, chapter 8, article 4), wished to enter Christ in the number of the gods, and although he was forbidden by the senate, he nevertheless remained of his opinion. So far, then, was he from passing any law against the Christians that rather, says Tertullian, he threatened their accusers with danger, namely of penalty and punishment (Tertullian, ibid.).

Nor did our Author ever believe that anything was decreed against these same Christians by the emperors Caligula and Claudius. For he added in the same place: "Consult your records; there you will find that Nero was the first to rage with the Caesarian sword against this sect, just when it was rising at Rome" (Tertullian, place cited). We shall explain below why the first persecution of the Christians is said to have been stirred up by this emperor (Dissertation on Lucius Caecilius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, chapter 6, article 1). Therefore we shall observe only this, that it seemed to some that by these words, "your records," our Author means either the Annals of Cornelius Tacitus or rather the life of Nero written by Suetonius. For elsewhere he said: "We read the Lives of the Caesars: Nero was the first to stain with blood the rising faith" (Tertullian, Scorpiace, chapter 15). Nor indeed does this conjecture seem altogether foolish. But what prevents him from having meant further, by the name of records, the secret or public acts of the Romans, in which, as we noted above (above, chapter 9, article 3), extraordinary deeds were preserved committed to writing?

However the matter stands, the Christian religion certainly even glories in this Nero, the most wicked of all tyrants, or, as Tertullian puts it, "in such a dedicator of our condemnation" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter V, p. 293). For being condemned by him, it is by that very fact proved to be good and true. For as he goes on: "Whoever knows him can understand that nothing but some great good

was condemned by Nero" (The same, ibid.). But he pursues this a little more fully in his book To the Nations: "Under Nero," he says, "the condemnation gained strength, so that from this you may now weigh it by the person of the persecutor. If that prince was pious, the Christians are impious; if he was just, if chaste, the Christians are unjust and unchaste; if he was not a public enemy, we are public enemies. What we are, that condemner of ours has shown, punishing of course what rivalled him," that is, virtues contrary to his own most evil morals. "And yet, when all else was erased, this one institution of Nero remained, just, surely, as being unlike its author" (The same, To the Nations, book I, chapter 7, p. 567).

The Gentiles could not, therefore, object to the Christians that they were bound by laws issued by that most impious tyrant. For the first law enacted against them, by one who led a life infamous for so many and such horrible crimes, certainly made it plain to all how chaste and innocent was the Christians' manner of life. Then too, that most bitter enemy of all good men condemned nothing but what was good and fair. The heathen therefore could never be held by his most unjust laws; and the Christians with full right gloried that they had been condemned by so impious a man. Finally, by his cruelty and by outrages unheard of until then he was such a horror to all that all his monuments were erased and abolished. For, as Suetonius says, he was judged a public enemy by the senate and to be punished in the manner of the ancestors (Suetonius, Life of Nero, book VI, § 49). In the Epitome of Dio we read that his statues were smashed and pulled down by the soldiers (Dio, Epitome, p. 196), and, if Plutarch is to be believed, the gladiator Spicillus, when they were dragged through the city, was crushed and killed in the forum (Plutarch, Life of Galba, p. 1056).

But although the heathen with full right rescinded all his acts and decrees, yet through their blind fury against the Christians it came about that, "when all else was erased," Nero's decree against them alone remained. But Tertullian, mocking their madness, added: "Just indeed, as being unlike its author," that is, as unjust as it was like the impious Nero himself and his other unspeakable deeds and laws.

Tertullian continues: "Domitian too, a portion of Nero in cruelty, had made the attempt; but, being also a man, he readily checked what he had begun, even restoring those whom he had banished" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter V, p. 293). Eusebius reported all these words rendered in Greek, and cites another witness, Hegesippus, who recorded that Domitian, after he had questioned certain kinsmen of Christ about their origin and about the kingdom of the same Christ, decreed nothing harsher against them, but let them go free, and by an edict sent out checked the persecution stirred up against the followers of the Christian religion: "to stop by decree the persecution against the Church" (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book III, chapter 20, p. 90). Finally, concerning both Domitian and Nero our Author added this: "Such have always been our pursuers, unjust, impious, base, whom you yourselves," you Gentiles, "have been accustomed to condemn, and those condemned by whom you have been wont to restore" (Tertullian, ibid.).

In vain, then, and altogether foolishly, these same Gentiles attempted

to excuse their own cruelty against the Christians under the empty pretext of the edicts given by these emperors. But of both those emperors, Domitian and Nero, and of the persecution stirred up against the Christians, we shall treat in another dissertation (below, ch. XVI, art. 3; Dissertation on Lucius Caecilius, ch. VI, arts. 1 and 2).

For the rest, if these two most wicked emperors enacted certain most unjust laws against the Christians, it is quite certain that the others, who reigned in the time between the two, or after Domitian down to the age of Tertullian, either did not harass the Christians, or favoured them, or passed no edicts against them, but rather amended the earlier ones. And how certain this is you will surely recognize from these words of Tertullian, with which he challenges the heathen thus: "Of so many princes from that time to the present day, men wise in things divine and human, produce some vanquisher of the Christians" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. V, p. 294). With what face, I ask, did he dare to address the heathen with such assurance, had this not been most true? And certainly he had Melito, cited by Eusebius (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book IV, ch. XXVI, p. 148), and many others, as we have shown elsewhere (Dissertation on Lucius Caecilius, ch. VI, art. 3), as supporters and patrons of his opinion, which he himself further confirms, as will be clear from the following articles.

ARTICLE II.

It is weighed whether Marcus Aurelius favoured the Christian religion because Christian soldiers obtained from God, not without a great miracle, rain for his army when it was perishing of thirst; and how he did not merely remove the penalties imposed on those same Christians, but openly scattered them.

The heathen abused the most unjust laws of the worst emperors for tearing the Christians to pieces with all the greater perversity, the more surely they knew that their [other] emperors had been far better, who either made decrees in their favour or were their supporters and defenders. Tertullian calls these by their names, but without keeping the order of each one's age. For he begins with Marcus Aurelius, whom he asserts to have been the protector of the Christians. Nor, he says, will anyone ever deny it: "If the letters of that most grave emperor are sought out, in which he testifies that that German thirst was dispelled by rain obtained, it may be, through the prayers of Christian soldiers" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. V, p. 295). It is indeed certain, and proved by the unanimous consent of all, whether Gentiles or Christians, that these things happened when Marcus Aurelius was drawing up his battle line to fight against the Germans and Sarmatians. For then his soldiers, who were perishing of thirst, were revived by rain obtained from heaven. But someone will call into doubt whether it was obtained by the prayers of the heathen or of the Christians.

For several heathen writers ascribe this rain to the prayer and piety of the same emperor. The first of these that meets us is Capitolinus, whose words about him are these: "A thunderbolt from

heaven by his prayers against the enemy's war-engine, having obtained rain for his own men when they were suffering from thirst" (Capitolinus, Life of Marcus Antoninus, p. 305). More fully, Themistius in a public oration to Theodosius: "When the army of Antoninus, emperor of the Romans, was oppressed by thirst, the emperor, raising his hands to heaven, said: 'With this hand I have entreated you, and supplicated the giver of life, this hand with which I took no one's life'; and so he put God to shame by his prayer that out of a clear sky there came clouds bearing water for the soldiers." [Then the Latin:] When the army of Antoninus, emperor of the Romans, was suffering from thirst, he raised his hands to heaven: "With this hand," he said, "I, a suppliant, have wished to appease you, and I have prayed to the giver of life, with this hand by which I snatched life from no one": and that by this prayer he appeased the deity, and at once, the sky clearing, a great abundance of rain burst forth to quench the soldiers' thirst (Themistius, Oration XV, to Theodosius, p. 191). Then he straightway added that he remembered a painting he had seen, drawn as a picture, in which the emperor was painted in the midst of the phalanx, and the soldiers were represented catching the rain in their helmets. Baronius, for his part, has displayed a drawing of the column on which that wonderful rain is seen granted by Jupiter Pluvius and Fulminans (Baronius, at the year of Christ 176, § 24).

In the Epitome of Dio, however, we read that it was widely reported that by certain magic arts Mercury was invoked by Arnuphis, an Egyptian magus, together with other demons who dwell in the air, by whose agency he wrung out this rain (Dio, Epitome, p. 274). And although Xiphilinus strives with all the strength of his mind to convict Dio of falsehood on this point (Xiphilinus, ibid., p. 275), Claudian, nevertheless, uncertain and wavering in mind, set out both opinions in these verses:

". . . Whether Chaldean spells by a magus's rite armed the gods, or, as I think, the character of Marcus was able to earn the whole compliance of the Thunderer" (Claudian, On the Sixth Consulship of Honorius, lines 337 ff.).

But this doubt of the heathen, noted also by Lampridius, flowed from nowhere else than from their inborn hatred of the Christians and their customary flattery of their princes (Lampridius, Life of Heliogabalus, p. 141).

For Eusebius asserts, with entire right and justice, that greater credit is to be given to our writers, who, as cultivators of the truth, committed the matter itself to writing simply and candidly (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book V, ch. V, p. 169). And lest anyone should deny him credit, he cites two witnesses, the first of whom is Apollinaris, who had recorded in writing that the name Fulminea ("Thundering") was given by the emperor Aurelius to that legion of Christian soldiers for this reason, that it had obtained that rain from God. But the Gentiles, doubtless seizing on the occasion of this surname, pretended that it was done by Jupiter Fulminans. The second witness, cited by Eusebius, is our Tertullian, whose words from the Apology, transcribed by us above, he quoted rendered into Greek. But he could moreover have cited another book of his, where he affirms no less clearly and assertively that this wonderful rain was granted by God to the prayers of the Christian soldiers. For he wrote this to Scapula, a heathen governor: "Marcus Aurelius, in the German expedition, obtained rain in that thirst through the prayers made to God by the Christian soldiers. When have not, by our kneelings

and fastings, droughts too been driven away? Then the people also, crying out to the God of gods, Who alone is mighty, gave testimony to our God under the name of Jupiter" (Tertullian, To Scapula, ch. IV). From these words, moreover, you will easily observe that it is no wonder at all if heathen writers advertised that wonderful rain as granted by their Jupiter, since they were accustomed to attribute to the same Jupiter miracles like this one that were worked by the prayers of the Christians. But, as Tertullian very well observes, it was to our true and almighty God that they, unwitting and unwilling, were acclaiming under the name of Jupiter.

But someone will perhaps ask why in this later passage he pronounced so affirmatively that this rain was granted to Christian prayers, when in the Apology he added the adverb forte ("it may be"). Did he at some time hesitate in doubt on this matter, or was that adverb wrongly inserted into his text? For it does not stand in the Greek text of Eusebius. But we do not dare to assert this against the authority of the manuscript codices. Is it not, then, more probable that that adverb is not the word of one doubting, but of one mocking the heathen, who foolishly supposed that this rain was given by their fictitious Jupiter?

This would become more evident to all, however, if the letters of the emperor Aurelius which our Author cites had come down to us. Some, nevertheless, suspect that they are those of which a copy is shown printed after the first Apology of Justin Martyr. But we have already noted that that [copy] is spurious and counterfeit (Apparatus, vol. I, p. 369).

Scaliger, however, thinks it can be gathered from these words of Tertullian, "if they are sought out," that they were never read by him (Scaliger, Animadversions on the Chronicle of Eusebius, at the year 2189). This he tries to establish also by the testimony of Orosius. But how could Tertullian have urged the heathen with such confidence to read them, unless he had himself read them, or what was written in them? Moreover, Eusebius concludes from the same words of Tertullian that these letters existed in Tertullian's time, "are still current even now" (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book V, ch. V, p. 169). Why then, argues Scaliger, did Eusebius not copy them out entire with his usual diligence, if they really existed then? But that objection is altogether feeble, unless it be evidently proved that there is no monument whatever of this kind which was not transcribed by Eusebius. And that can never be proved by Scaliger or by anyone else.

For the rest, Marcus Aurelius, mindful of so great a benefit received from heaven through the prayers of the Christians, showed them favour as far as he could. For since he could not entirely suppress the very great fury of the Gentiles against the Christians: "Just as he did not openly remove the penalty from men of this kind," says Tertullian, "so in another way he openly scattered it, by adding a condemnation for their accusers as well, and indeed a fouler one" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. V, p. 296). For he did not dare to remove entirely, relax and remit the penalties which had earlier been established against the Christians by the laws of other emperors; yet in order to restrain the wantonness of the heathen, who never ceased accusing them, other penalties, heavier than [those of] Trajan, who is cited by our Author in the same place, as we shall soon see,

he imposed on these accusers; and by this prudent moderation he protected the Christians for his part.

Moreover, Eusebius has transcribed for us an entire copy of the law addressed to the Commonalty of Asia in the name of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and given in favour of the Christians, whose last words are these: "But if anyone persists in bringing any such person to trial as being such, let the one accused be acquitted of the charge, even if he is shown to be such; but the accuser shall be liable to justice." [Then the Latin:] But if anyone still goes on making trouble for any of them on the ground that he is a Christian, let the one denounced be acquitted of the charge, even if it is established that he is in fact a Christian; but let the informer himself pay the penalty (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book IV, ch. XIV, p. 127). We know, indeed, that some have thought that this law proceeded not from Marcus Aurelius but from Antoninus Pius. But if this opinion be true, it will serve Tertullian's purpose equally. For he also places this same Antoninus Pius among the number of the good princes who enacted no edicts against the Christians (Tertullian, Apology, ch. V, p. 297).

There will perhaps be someone who asks of us how Tertullian extols with such praises the zeal and favour of Marcus Aurelius towards the Christians, when it is under his rule, as we shall observe later (Dissertation on Lucius Caecilius, ch. I, art. 3, and ch. VI, art. 3), that they think the fourth persecution of the Christian Church arose. But that very law which we have just cited supplies us with an answer. For in it, although penalties were decreed against the accusers of the Christians, the gods of the Gentiles are nevertheless praised first. But this commendation increased rather than quenched the passion of the heathen raging against them. And what of the fact that the same Gentiles were persuaded that by these more recent laws the others issued against the Christians were not abrogated? Besides, what could laws do against the unbridled fury of a mob blinded by various superstitions, and the mad onslaughts of the populace? Were not almost innumerable martyrs, these laws being scorned, most cruelly slain in these times, as Eusebius relates (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book V, ch. V, p. 153)? Nothing, therefore, is to be concluded from this against the favourable disposition towards the Christians of Marcus Aurelius, who suffered what he could not prevent.

ARTICLE III.

It is examined by what right Tertullian asserts that the laws written against the Christians were mitigated by the emperor Trajan, and that none were passed against them by Hadrian, the explorer of all curiosities, nor by Vespasian, the vanquisher of the Jews, nor by the emperors Pius and Verus, or Severus.

Tertullian retraces his step, and from Marcus Aurelius comes to Trajan, who was earlier than he. As Tertullian himself says, he "in part frustrated" the laws given against the Christians "by forbidding Christians to be sought out" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. V, p. 296). For by the earlier decrees of the emperors it had been ordered that they be sought out and punished; but Trajan, as we have shown above (above, ch. VII, art. 2), forbade indeed that they be sought out, but ordered that those brought forward be punished.

But his successor Hadrian established no law at all against them, though he seemed bound to be more hostile to them than the others: "For he was," says our Author, "the explorer of all curiosities" (the same, ibid., p. 297), that is, wholly given over to every kind of magic art. And certainly it was charged to him as a vice, on the testimony of Xiphilinus, that he was "most given to curious arts, and made use of divinations and sorceries of every kind." [Then the Latin:] That he was most curious, and made use of divinations and all magic arts (Xiphilinus, Epitome of Dio, p. 262). And Ammianus Marcellinus, where he speaks of Julian the Apostate, says: "Given to excessive inquiry into presages, so that in this respect he seemed to equal the emperor Hadrian, being superstitious rather than a lawful observer of sacred rites" (Ammianus Marcellinus, Book XXV, ch. IV, p. 427). Nevertheless, says Tertullian, no law against the Christians was enacted by this Hadrian. For this reason Melito, in his Apology to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, wrote that the ignorance of Nero and Domitian had been corrected by the rescripts of the emperors who followed: "Among whom your grandfather Hadrian is seen writing to many others, and in particular to Fundanus, proconsul of Asia." [Then the Latin:] Among whom your grandfather Hadrian gave letters both to many others and to Fundanus, proconsul of Asia (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book IV, ch. XXVI, p. 148). Jerome moreover attests that when Hadrian was visiting Eleusis, and had been initiated into almost all the sacred rites of Greece, a book was offered him on behalf of our Christian religion, "which was of such admiration to all that its excellent genius allayed a most severe persecution" (Jerome, Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers, § 19, and Letter LXXXIII, to Magnus. But the Gentiles, having found in the great superstitions of the impious emperor an occasion given them for harassing the Christians with impunity, raged against them most bitterly; although he passed no law against them; indeed, he later allayed the storm that had arisen.

Then next our Author goes still further back from this Hadrian to Vespasian, who likewise, he says, issued no edict against the Christians, "although," he says, "the vanquisher of the Jews" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. V, p. 294), whom almost all the heathen were accustomed to confuse with the Christians. And who does not know that the nation of the Jews was vanquished by him, and that a triumph over them was celebrated at Rome with his son Titus? And that he made no decree concerning the Christians, Eusebius is witness, who recorded that the second persecution after Nero was stirred up by Domitian, "although his father Vespasian had devised nothing untoward against us." [Then the Latin:] Although his father Vespasian had never attempted to do us any injury (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book III, ch. XVII, p. 88).

What more? Pius too, who reigned a long time after Vespasian, neither approved nor signed, Tertullian goes on, any bloody laws against the Christians (Tertullian, place cited). For Melito, in the Apology already cited by us, addresses Marcus Aurelius in these words, as given by Eusebius: "And your father, while you also were administering all things with him, wrote to the cities that they should make no innovations concerning us; among them, both to the Larissaeans and to

the Thessalonians, and to the Athenians, and to all the Greeks." [Then the Latin:] Your father also, at the time when you were administering all things together with him, wrote to the cities that they should not stir up tumults against us, by name to the Larissaeans, to the Thessalonians, to the Athenians, and finally to all the Greeks (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book IV, ch. XXVI, p. 148). Several learned men of our age are also of opinion that it was by him that the law in favour of the Christians was passed which, as we noted a little earlier, others nevertheless ascribe to Marcus Aurelius (previous article).

The sixth, finally, and the last of these fairer emperors, is named by Tertullian in these words: "No Verus imprinted laws against the Christians" (Tertullian, place cited), understanding, no doubt, "on the public tablets," so that they might be promulgated. But it is worth observing here that in the text of Eusebius, who rendered this passage of Tertullian into Greek, these words, "No Verus," are omitted (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book V, ch. V, p. 170). And certainly this Verus himself, made partner in the empire by Marcus Aurelius, reigned with him nine years at most, and died before him. For this reason some suspect that this name was corrupted in Tertullian's text, and that Severus should be read. For Pamelius informs us that it is actually found in one Vatican [manuscript] and in another of Liège. But since it is not read in all the other codices, and those of better note, we dare define nothing against the authority of so many codices. Could not Tertullian have mentioned him precisely because, following the example of Aurelius, his colleague, by whom he had been adopted, he passed no law against the Christians and had devised nothing against them?

If, however, anyone should contend rather obstinately that the name of Severus was written there, we shall not much resist. For Tertullian in another book commends his singular inclination and goodwill towards the Christians, with which, on account of a miracle worked in his favour, he embraced them all, at least in the first years of his reign. But let us hear his words, if you please: "Severus himself," he says, "the father of Antoninus Caracalla, was mindful of the Christians. For he sought out the Christian Proculus, who was surnamed Torpacion, the steward of Euhodia, who had once cured him by means of oil, and kept him in his palace until his death; whom Antoninus too knew very well, having been reared on Christian milk" (Tertullian, To Scapula, ch. IV). He thus informs us that the emperor Severus was wonderfully relieved of a certain illness by oil which Proculus had given him. And lest anyone, either too stubborn or altogether incredulous, should raise doubt about so great a miracle, he declares both the surname and the office of Proculus. He was called Torpacion, he says, and he was the steward of Euhodia. But who he was is now most difficult to say.

In another book, moreover, Tertullian relates that the errors of the Valentinians were attacked not only by Justin Martyr, Miltiades and Irenaeus, but also by Proculus, of whom he speaks in this manner: "Our Proculus, the dignity of a virgin old age and of Christian eloquence; whom I should wish to follow in every work of faith, as in this one" (the same, Against the Valentinians, ch. V). But since

this book was composed by Tertullian after his defection to the Montanists, and Proculus is called "our," some think it can be gathered from this that he is so called because he was given over to the same errors of the Montanists. For this reason they add that he is indicated in these words of Jerome: "Caius, under Antoninus the son of Severus, held a notable disputation against Proculus, a follower of Montanus" (Jerome, Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers, § 19). But since this man was a Montanist, he does not seem in fact to be the same as Proculus Torpacion. Besides, the latter is called the steward of Euhodia, while the former is most celebrated for the dignity of Christian eloquence.

But we learn from the Epitome of Dio that Evodus (Euodos) was the tutor of Antoninus Caracalla, "his nurturer" (Dio, Epitome, 333). Proculus, then, could have been the steward of this Evodus, or Euhodias. For at this very time he was living in the palace of Severus, as Tertullian says, where Caracalla came to know him, and at his instigation was "reared on Christian milk."

For the rest, whatever be determined about this Proculus Torpacion, there is no room for doubting that Severus, on account of his health restored to him in a wonderful manner, favoured the Christians. For not only did he keep this Christian Proculus in his palace; but also, as Tertullian further asserts, "most illustrious women and most illustrious men, though Severus knew them to be of this sect, he not only did not harm, but even honoured with his testimony, and openly withstood the people raging against us" (Tertullian, To Scapula, ch. IV). He therefore really favoured the Christians, and indeed not a little, and showed himself their supporter and defender, not secretly but publicly. And why should he not have favoured those from whom he had not only received a very great benefit, but whose utmost loyalty towards himself he had also always experienced? For among the factions of Cassius, Niger and Albinus, which arose from the very beginning of his reign, as we have seen above (above, ch. II, art. 1) and as will be said further below, no Christian was ever found.

Nor should you say that these things conflict with what we said above (ibid.), that a persecution against the Christians was stirred up by the same emperor Severus. For it was set in motion not at the beginning of his reign, but after ten years and more. And it is certain that up to that time he favoured the Christians not a little.

Moreover, we think there is no fair judge of things who does not readily understand, from what has been said so far, of how great strength is this argument of our Author, by whose weight he utterly overwhelms the heathen, who boasted that they were bound by their laws to torture and destroy the Christians. For he has shown that these laws were both most unjust and given by most unjust princes. Nor has he made it less clear that they were corrected and amended by several others, endowed with uprightness and equity. Finally, those who passed no law against the Christians without doubt tried to guard and protect them, as far as the iniquity of the times allowed.

CHAPTER XX.

On the crimes of injury to the divine majesty, of which the Christians were accused, as falsely as shamelessly, by the heathen, who were themselves guilty of them.

ARTICLE I.

How unanswerably Tertullian demonstrates that the Christians were undeservedly accused of infanticide, that is, of an infant slain in their sacred assemblies, its flesh afterwards eaten and its blood drunk, and of most shameful incest; and how he utterly overthrows the empty cavils of the heathen; where [something is said] of the Cynopennae, the Sciapodes and the Antipodes.

No other pretext remained to the heathen for harassing and destroying the Christians, except that they should accuse them, in some way or other, of some capital crime. But they had advanced to such a pitch of fury and madness that they called them guilty not of one outrage only, but, as Tertullian says, of all "crimes, enemies of the gods, of the emperors, of the laws, of morals, and of the whole of nature" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. II, p. 277). But who, struck by this truly horrible accusation, would not at once be astounded? For how could the Christians be guilty of so many and such great crimes, who, as we have already shown, not only worshipped the one true God with the highest veneration, but whose morals were also most chaste, and their manner of life most pious? So false a charge, therefore, collapsed of itself. But since the Christian religion, as Tertullian puts it, "makes no plea for its cause" (ibid., ch. I, p. 259), nor, as the guilty are wont, seeks any grace or any favour, it therefore desires and asks this one thing: that it be examined according to the severer prescriptions of the laws. For this reason Tertullian undertakes to examine and refute one by one all the things that were laid against the Christians, and demonstrates most plainly that these same Christians were as falsely charged with these outrages as it was certain that the Gentiles were in truth guilty of them.

For what is more foreign to the truth than to convict of injury to the divine majesty those who, as we have said, always worshipped the true God both privately and publicly in their assemblies, and preferred to be put to death by any of the most atrocious tortures rather than deny this one God, or venerate false gods with any worship, even one merely feigned and pretended? On the contrary, the Gentiles were most evidently convicted of this supreme impiety, who worshipped manufactured gods, as we shall show below, gods whom they confessed to have been infamous and defiled by every kind of the most shameful crimes.

Yet these never ceased crying out that the Christians were guilty of injury to the divinity because in their assemblies, and amid their more sacred mysteries, they most shamelessly defiled themselves with the most unspeakable crimes. "For we were called," says Tertullian, "most wicked on account of the sacrament of infanticide" (ibid., ch. VII, p. 306), that is, of the infant whom they were reported to devour after it had been killed there. Then also, after that execrable banquet, they were said to be polluted by most shameful "incest, which the overturners of the lamps," these are still our Author's words, "the dogs, the pimps, that is, of darkness, and also

procure the shamelessness of impious lusts" (ibid.). In our manuscript codices and in the old editions the word tum is lacking, and it does not seem very necessary there. The sense of Tertullian, who sets out these things more briefly in another book, is this: after the lamps have been overturned and put out by the dogs, the darkness, performing the office of the most impure pimps, procures the shamelessness of impious lusts (the same, To the Nations, Book I, chs. XV and XVI). These, then, were the principal and capital crimes which the heathen, as we have noted elsewhere, and not once (Dissertation on Minucius's Octavius, ch. VIII, art. 1 ff.), laid against the Christians for so long and with such great shamelessness, and which were refuted and confuted by the ancient Fathers of the Church with as great ease.

Our Tertullian, however, overthrows this false charge from its foundations by various weighty reasons. For first he addresses the heathen themselves in this manner: "We are always said by you to be guilty of such great crimes; and you do not trouble to dig out, investigate and review what we have so long been said [to do]" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. VII, p. 307). Yet no one ought to be condemned before he is convicted of the crime: "Therefore either dig it out," he says, "if you believe it," and convict the Christians of these crimes, "or do not believe it, since you have not dug it out" (ibid.). Indeed, by this affected dissimulation and negligence "it is settled beforehand" (ibid.), and by a most certain presumption the innocence of the Christians and the highest integrity of their morals is proved, "in that you yourselves do not dare to dig out" (ibid.) those crimes of which you accuse them, as falsely as rashly, and for which, without their cause ever being heard, as we have seen, you condemn, torture and kill them.

Moreover, this perversity of the heathen was all the greater in that they could the more easily and readily investigate and learn whether those crimes of the Christians were true. "For the census of this discipline," says Tertullian, that is, the beginning of this Christian discipline spread through the world, "is from Tiberius" (ibid.); or, as he puts it more explicitly in another book: "Under the emperor Augustus this name," of Christians, "arose; under Tiberius its discipline shone forth." But certainly, since the Christian religion is true, "it began with hatred of itself," these again are his very words, "as soon as it appeared, to be hostile." In our manuscript codices, however, [it reads] "it is hostile," that is, at the very time at which it began [and] appeared to the world, it was hostile and hateful to all; and "it had as many enemies as there were outsiders" (the same, To the Nations, Book I, ch. VII, p. 307), that is, absolutely all men except the Christians themselves alone. For, as Tertullian further says, their enemies were, first, "the Jews, from their own jealousy," that is, from their envy towards them, with which they always burned on account of their old rites abrogated by Christ; next, "the soldiers, from extortion" (the same, Apology, ch. VII, p. 308), that is, as some think, by the crafty accusation of men in a fury, but better, by cruel harassment; finally, "from their very nature, even the" Christians' "own household" (ibid.); inasmuch as, impatient of their condition, they lay in wait for their masters in the usual way, and never ceased striving to harm them.

"By all these, then, daily," Tertullian goes on, "we are besieged, daily we are betrayed, very often in our very gatherings

and assemblies we are crushed" (ibid.); or, as he said elsewhere in addressing the Gentiles themselves: "You know even the days of our meetings; and so we are both besieged and crushed, and held fast in our very secret assemblies" (the same, To the Nations, Book I, ch. VII, p. 568). It could not, therefore, be hidden from the Gentiles what the Christians were accustomed to do in them.

But who ever, argues our Author (Tertullian, Apology, place cited), "came upon an infant thus wailing" while it was being slain by the Christians? Who "kept for the judge" "the bloody mouths," as he had found them, of the Christians who were eating its flesh and drinking its blood, "like those of Cyclopes and Sirens," not wiped clean at all, to be inspected? Who, even in the wives, "detected any unclean traces" of an adultery committed a little before in those same assemblies (ibid.)? These things he pressed thus in other words in another book: "Who ever came upon a half-eaten boy? Who detected the marks of teeth in bloodied bread? Who, breaking in on the darkness with a sudden light, discovered anything unclean, not to say incestuous (the same, To the Nations, Book I, place cited)?" In the Apology, moreover, he alluded to the twofold fable of the Cyclopes and the Sirens. For the poets, the Greek as well, like Homer (Homer, Odyssey VIII, after the middle), as the Latin, like Virgil (Virgil, Aeneid, Book III, lines 617 ff.), fabled that the Cyclopes were one-eyed men who devoured their guests. No less known is the fable of the Sirens, who, when seafarers had been lulled to sleep by the sweetness of their song, cast them into the sea (Pliny, Natural History, Book X, ch. XLIX, p. 441).

Tertullian therefore argues thus: the Christians had as many enemies as there were heathen, Jews, soldiers and household slaves, by whom they were daily besieged and crushed even in their assemblies. If, then, they had perpetrated so many and such horrible crimes in them, they could most easily have been detected by so many of their enemies, so hostile as they were. Yet out of their almost infinite number up to this time not even one ever recognized the least traces of any crime. Most false, therefore, were those crimes which wicked slanderers kept casting at the Christians (Tertullian, To the Nations, Book I, ch. VII, p. 569).

Nor could these men, however utterly shameless, reply that the witnesses of these crimes had ever been corrupted by the Christians with money or a fee. "For who," says Tertullian, "on finding such deeds, concealed them, or sold them while dragging the very men [to court]?" (the same, Apology, ch. VII, p. 308.) That is, it could not happen that some heathen either concealed of his own accord these crimes of the Christians known to him, or, while he was dragging Christians to the tribunals of the judges, sold them for some price and then became altogether dumb. In another book, moreover, he expresses these things in other words, see whether clearer ones, thus: "If we obtain by a reward from the heathen, the witnesses of our crimes, that we be not dragged out in public as such," as they are truly aware of us to be, and condemned, "why are we crushed," accused and convicted by no one? "Can we not," by corrupting witnesses with gold, "also not be dragged" to judgement "at all? For who" the betrayal, that is, the declaration and accusation

of some horrible crime, without the crime itself, which could at some time be recognized and punished by another, either the witness or the judge sells, or the accomplice buys off (the same, Book I To the Nations, chapter 7, p. 568).

By no one's testimony, therefore, had it ever been proved that the Christians were guilty of these crimes. For who, as Tertullian presses, would ever have betrayed them? Not the Christians themselves, certainly. For if it was unlawful for the heathen to divulge their Samothracian and Eleusinian rites, how much more were the Christians bound to keep silent about their divine mysteries (Tertullian, Apology, at the place cited, and Book I To the Nations, chapter 7, p. 568)? If, then, they were covered by them with the deepest silence: "Whence," says Tertullian, "comes the knowledge of them to the gentiles outside, since even pious initiations always keep away the profane and are without witnesses, unless the impious are less afraid" (ibid., at the place cited)? In our handwritten manuscripts of better note, and in most of the old editions, we read "even impious initiations". And perhaps not wrongly. For Tertullian could argue thus from the lesser, as they say, to the greater: if the impious initiations of the heathen must be concealed, how much more the sacred and pious ones of the Christians; unless the impious gentiles, by publishing them, fear less for themselves than the Christians do?

Our author presses further, and demonstrates by this argument that these execrable crimes can neither be committed nor believed by anyone: to Christians living piously a blessed eternity was promised after this life. But to what Christian, or to anyone about to be initiated into the Christian religion, could it ever be persuaded that it could be purchased by so many and such great crimes? Could not even one gentile, not altogether mad, ever give credence to any man, even of the highest authority, saying these things, or, if you will, swearing them, and with so easy a credulity defile himself with such atrocious outrages? And yet if the heathen can neither believe nor commit these things, how much less the Christians, whose nature is no other than that of the rest of men (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 8, p. 312, and Book I To the Nations, chapter 7, p. 569)? "For they are not cycopennae or sciapodes," says Tertullian, or, as in the other book, "some cynopennae, or sciapodes, or some antipodes from beneath the earth" (the same, at the place cited, pp. 312 and 569). The first, if Ctesias, whom Pliny cites, is to be believed, "were called Monocoli," he says, "with single legs, of wonderful swiftness in leaping; and the same were called Sciapodes, because, lying on their backs on the ground in the greater heat, they protect themselves with the shade of their feet" (Pliny, Natural History, Book VII, chapter 2, p. 11). Of these, moreover, Solinus wrote (Solinus, Polyhistor, chapter 52, p. 80), Augustine (Augustine, City of God, Book XVI, chapter 8, p. 422), Suidas (Suidas, under the word Σκιάποδες), and, in Tzetzes, Apollodorus (Tzetzes, Chiliades 7, line 662 and following). The cynopennae, however, are called cyclopes in some printed editions, in others cynophanes, but against the authority of our manuscript codices. Vossius, for his part, thinks one should read cynopanes, in Greek κυνωπάνες, horned dogs (Vossius, notes on Mela, Book III, On the Situation of the World, chapter 9). Salmasius, however, prefers the reading of those same codices of ours, Cynopennae, from the Greek verb κυνοπεινᾶν, as if, he says, "suffering a dog's hunger" (Salmasius, notes on Solinus,

p. 1005). Rightly indeed, for Tertullian's purpose, since he is there speaking of the Christians, who were falsely accused by the heathen of feeding on the flesh of a slain infant and of suffering a more than canine hunger. But who these were matters little to know. For our author is speaking of monsters which all freely admit to be wholly fictitious.

What then, someone will say, did he also think the antipodes monsters like these? But he is read to have made no mention of them in the Apology, only in the book To the Nations. And did he not name them there because he himself, like many others named by us elsewhere (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter 21, article 6), had persuaded himself that there could be no antipodes, unless they walked, as they used to say, with their footsteps reversed? And certainly they are hooted off by him in these words as nothing other than monsters and false, invented men: "Or some from the subterranean earth", sprung up like mushrooms, who have a nature other than the men of our earth. But the Christians were far removed from the savagery of these and other monsters, being unlike our other men only in this, that they surpassed them in humanity and charity. Never, then, could they have been compelled, under any appearance of piety and religion, to chew the flesh of an infant slain by themselves, and afterwards to be defiled with debaucheries, adulteries and incests.

Yet, struck with a blind obstinacy, the gentiles insisted that the too credulous Christians, or at least the novices in their religion, had been imposed upon and deceived. But nothing more foolish and absurd could be invented. For it was the custom of the Christians that those to be initiated were taught by the father of the rites, that is, the bishop, or some vicar of his, the things by which they were to be prepared for those same rites, or what was to be done in them. With what face, then, would a bishop or anyone else have said to a novice or a Christian: "When you come to the sacred synaxes, you will need an infant, still tender, who does not know death, who will smile under your knife with which you will cut his throat; likewise bread with which to gather the juice of the blood", or better, in the other book, "the raw blood" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 8, p. 313, and Book I To the Nations, chapter 7, p. 569). "Needed too are dogs, to put out the lights after a morsel is thrown to them, and finally your sister and mother are needed, on whom to commit debauchery in the midst of the darkness"? But tell us, pray, with what ears could any Christian or novice hear these things? Surely not without horror? Ought he not at least to have feared the laws by which, as Cicero reminds us, it was provided: "Let the pontiffs punish incest with the supreme penalty" (Cicero, On the Laws, Book II, p. 335, line 15)? And if he thought this penalty could be avoided by the fraud or the authority of the Christians, how was it that, when questioned by heathen judges, he preferred to be racked with crueller torments and killed rather than confess these crimes, against which conscience utterly revolts? To no man of sound mind are these things credible, nor will he be persuaded that they could ever have happened.

The gentiles insisted that they had learned by report that the Christians were in truth guilty of the aforesaid crimes. But utterly witless, Tertullian replies, and futile is

this reply (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 7, p. 309, and Book I To the Nations, chapter 7, p. 566). For they could not deny that what the most celebrated poet sang is true:

Rumour, an evil than which no other is swifter. (Virgil, Aeneid, Book IV, line 174.)

For rumour is the name only of an uncertain thing, and it very often arises "either from the bent of rivalry", that is, envy, "or from the whim of suspicion", that is, from suspicion gratuitously invented, "or from the pleasure of lying". Sprung, then, from so bad a beginning, and from the mouth of one person only, it mostly lies, or if it ever reports anything true, even then it either adds something, or takes something away, or changes it. And it thrives just so long as it proves nothing. For when the thing has been proved, then by that very fact it ceases and falls away. Rightly, therefore, does a wise man put no faith in it, much more when it alone is the informer and messenger of utterly hidden crimes which no man in possession of his mind either dares or is able to commit. We, for our part, have observed elsewhere that this reply of Tertullian is plainly confirmed by Minucius Felix in fewer words indeed, but no less effective ones (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, chapter 8, article 2). Finally Tertullian added that rumour, as swift as it is lying, is not to be believed, but the truth is to be investigated; since, as the proverb common among the heathen had it, "Time reveals all things" (Tertullian, ibid., p. 310). This adage Aulus Gellius (Gellius, Attic Nights, Book XII, chapter 11) cited as celebrated in these verses of Sophocles:

Therefore hide nothing, since, seeing all things and hearing all things, time unfolds all things.

Hide nothing in the face of these things, since, seeing all things, and hearing all things, time reveals everything.

Seneca, for his part, says: "Some false things have the appearance of truth. Time must always be given: the day discloses the truth" (Seneca, On Anger, Book II, chapter 540). But Erasmus gathers more on this proverb, and you may consult him (Erasmus, Adages, chiliad 2, century 4, adage 17). And who announces falsehoods under the appearance of truth more often than rumour? On its testimony alone, then, if not false, at least uncertain, the gentiles ought not to have relied in harassing the Christians; but they should have taken time, so that, their case having been examined, the truth might be known.

ARTICLE II.

How invincibly Tertullian shows that the gentiles are guilty of the homicide of which they falsely accused the Christians, inasmuch as in Africa they sacrificed infants to Saturn up to the proconsulship of Tiberius, and that this custom persisted in secret; although the priests of Saturn, hanged on the overshadowing trees of his temple, "the soldiery of our country being witness", paid the penalty by death.

Nothing more shameless, surely, can be devised than falsely to accuse another of a most grievous crime of which the accuser himself is openly convicted of being guilty. Yet such were the heathen who most shamelessly charged the Christians with infanticide and incest. For this is the very thing, as Tertullian says in addressing them,

whereby "perhaps you have believed of us" other things (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 9, p. 314), the far graver crimes which we have reviewed, to be committed by us. But he deliberately added "perhaps" there, because a little before he had said that those crimes of which they accused the Christians were so atrocious that they could scarcely have been believed by any man unless they themselves had done some similar things. First, then, he shows that they were murderers in various ways, because "infants", as he puts it, "were sacrificed to Saturn in Africa openly up to the proconsulship of Tiberius, who exposed the priests themselves on the very trees of their temple that overshadowed their crimes, as on votive crosses, the soldiery of our country being witness, which performed that very service for that proconsul" (ibid. and following). Of this detestable sacrifice of infants, contrary to all the laws of nature itself, we have observed more in our earlier dissertations (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, chapter 9, article 2, and Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter 34, article 3). It remains, then, that we now weigh one by one the things that are peculiar to our Tertullian.

He relates, then, first, that this most cruel custom persisted "up to the proconsulship of Tiberius". Some, however, have suspected that one should read there "up to Tiberius the proconsul", that is, some proconsul either sent by the emperor Tiberius, or whose surname was Tiberius, and who was altogether other than this Tiberius the emperor, and later than him. But because this emendation, such as it is, did not suffice, they added another, and then thought one should read "the soldiery of our father being witness", that is, as they surmised, of Tertullian's father, who was proconsul after the death of Tiberius Caesar. But they ought first to have proved that Tertullian's father was called by the proper name Tiberius. And then all the codices, printed as well as manuscript, oppose this conjecture.

What, indeed, prevents the emperor Tiberius from having forbidden that most dreadful sacrifice of infants in Africa? Did not Pliny record that in the year 647 from the founding of the City, when Cn. Lentulus and P. Licinius Crassus were consuls, it was forbidden by decree of the senate that a man be sacrificed; but, because this most monstrous custom still persisted afterwards among the Gauls, "the principate of Tiberius Caesar", he says, "did away with their Druids. . . . . Nor can it be sufficiently reckoned how much is owed to the Romans, who did away with monstrous practices in which to kill a man was thought most religious, and indeed to eat him most wholesome" (Pliny, Natural History, Book XXX, chapter 1, p. 728). Do you hear that in a most impious sacrifice men were not only killed by the gentiles, but their flesh was also eaten? And Tiberius Caesar is said to have done away with it in Gaul and elsewhere. Why not in Africa too, as Tertullian so expressly declares? And if any similar example can contribute to the confirmation of this opinion, Josephus will supply it to us (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, Book XVIII, chapter 4, p. 622). For he attests that the temple of Isis was demolished by the same Tiberius, and her statue thrown into the Tiber, because Paulina, a noble woman, by Decius Mundus, a young man feigning to be the god Anubis, in

that temple of Isis, through the wicked arts of the priests, had been violated. Why, then, would he have spared the still more horrible sacrifice of infants immolated to Saturn in Africa rather than in Gaul, as we have said, and in other regions?

But on what ground, you will say, was it said by Tertullian, "up to the proconsulship of Tiberius"? Had Tiberius, before he held the helm of the Roman empire, been proconsul in Africa? But what, pray, forbids that he was declared proconsul of Africa there by Augustus Caesar, or earlier? If, however, anyone rightly proves that Tertullian is to be understood of another Tiberius, proconsul of Africa, we shall readily agree with him.

He added, moreover, that the most cruel priests of Saturn were by order of the same Tiberius exposed on the trees of his temple, which overshadowed such great crimes. For around the temples of the gentiles trees were planted, consecrated to the particular god of each temple; of which, to pass over others, Apuleius committed this to writing about a certain shrine: "She sees splendid gifts and fringed garments lettered in gold, fixed to the branches of the trees and to the doorposts, which, together with thanks for the favour done, bore witness to the name of the goddess to whom they had been dedicated" (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, Book VI, a little after the beginning, p. 92). You see, then, that gifts were hung on these trees, and on them was set the name of the god to whom that temple was dedicated. But from these trees, "overshadowing", says our author, the temple of Saturn, votive and dedicated crosses were made, on which those most inhuman priests were hanged and forced to end their life by the noose. Whether this is the true sense of these words of Tertullian, which have exercised the wit of the learned not a little, I would have you weigh, or else bring us another, better one. But you will doubtless admit with us that some light can be brought to this passage by these verses of Ausonius, in which he sang of Love hanged on the trunk of a myrtle:

A myrtle is chosen, most noted in the mournful grove, hateful for the punishments of the gods. There Proserpina, once scorned, had tortured Adonis, mindful of Venus. On its lofty trunk they hang Love, his hands bound behind his back, grieving at the bonds drawn tight on his feet, and afflict him with punishment past all measure. (Ausonius, Idyll 2, line 55 and following.)

And lest anyone should doubt about the punishment exacted from those priests of Saturn, our author calls as witness the soldiery of his country, "which performed", he says, "that very service for that proconsul" Tiberius (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 9, p. 315); by which words he undoubtedly means that the soldiers of Africa who were then serving under Tiberius the proconsul, while performing their duty, saw the priests hanged and strangled on those trees. But the gentiles were indeed terrified by their example, yet not wholly overcome. For they no longer dared to sacrifice infants to Saturn openly; but "now in secret", says Tertullian, "this sacred crime is kept up" (the same, ibid.). Armed, then, under the appearance of a false piety against their own innocent sons, they did not cease to slaughter them secretly and covertly, in contempt of the laws of their emperors. And thus indeed Saturn, who, as our author says, and as we have seen elsewhere, to his own sons (ibidem, and Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius,

chapter 9, article 2), did not spare, did not lay aside his former cruelty; and he willed that the children of other men should still be sacrificed to him.

Even if, then, the Christians had killed some infant in their synaxes, which was nevertheless utterly false, they ought not on that account to have been accused and condemned by the heathen, who with the most monstrous inhumanity sacrificed their own sons to Saturn as victims, as they supposed, most pleasing to him.

ARTICLE III.

It is shown that guilty of homicide also were the Gauls, who sacrificed men to Mercury, and the Tauri, who sacrificed them to Diana; likewise the Romans, who in the city of the Aeneadae drenched Jupiter at their games with human blood; and others who wrung out in water the breath of their newborn children, or exposed them to a death by no means uncertain; and how much the Christians abhorred all homicide, for whom it is not lawful even to destroy what is conceived in the womb, while the blood is still being drawn off into a man.

Tertullian goes on, and demonstrates that the gentiles are guilty of parricide and homicide. For "an age greater than that of infants", he says, "was cut up for Mercury among the Gauls in their rites too"; and this he repeats in another book (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 9, p. 316, and Scorpiace, chapter 7). We, for our part, have noted more elsewhere about this utterly execrable sacrifice (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, chapter 9, article 2), where we also explained more clearly what he at once subjoins: "I leave the Taurian fables to their theatres" (ibid.); or, as he himself says in another book: "Nothing glows there but savagery", namely that "which furnished the fables of the sacrifices of the Tauri" (Tertullian, at the place cited, and Against Marcion, Book I, chapter 1), who, that is, sacrificed their guests to Diana.

He continues: "Behold, in that most religious city of the pious Aeneadae there is a certain Jupiter", namely Latiaris, "whom at their games", the circus and gladiatorial ones, "they drench with human blood". Elsewhere we read it written by him: "To Jupiter Latius, to this day, in the middle of the City, human blood is given to taste; and no one demurs, or fails to presume some reason, or the inestimable will of his god" (the same, Apology, chapter 9, p. 317; Scorpiace, chapter 7). And who does not see that it is not without great irony that the Romans are called by him by the name of "the most religious city" and of "the pious Aeneadae", who boasted that they drew their origin from Aeneas, whom Virgil everywhere calls the pious father? But who could be more impious and less religious than these Romans, who at the games and shows consecrated to Jupiter Latiaris, their best and greatest god, watched not merely with dry but with glad eyes gladiators killing one another, or men torn and killed in horrible fashion by the beasts with which they fought? But of this cruel homicide, and spectacle as well, we have treated in another dissertation (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, chapter 8, article 2).

The heathen replied that then indeed blood was shed

but the blood of men who were either beast-fighters, "or criminals slaughtered" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 9, p. 321). Now the first, as they said, were the vilest of men, who, hired for gain, freely let out their services for slaughtering beasts. The second, because of their crimes, as will be said below, were compelled by sentence passed by the judges to fight against beasts. The slaughter of these men, therefore, said the heathen, held nothing evil.

But Tertullian easily and quickly overturns that vain evasion (ibid.). For a beast-fighter, however vile, and the lowest dregs of the city, is not on that account any less a man, and his life is taken from him by a homicide equal to that of a richer man. And if a criminal has been condemned to death, then certainly the more wicked he is, the more unworthy he is to be sacrificed to Jupiter; or, to use the words of Tertullian himself: "This is the more shameful, that it is the blood of an evil man" (ibid.) that is poured out in honour of the supreme god, as they called him. Wherefore he there exclaimed, jesting not without wit about the heathen and their Jupiter: "O Christian Jupiter!" (ibid.), who was the cause and author of the homicide of which the Christians were falsely accused, and by this title "the only son of his father" Saturn, who had devoured his sons, a son "in cruelty", in which, that is, he was like him.

Tertullian presses on, and asserts that the crime of those who killed the children born to them is greater than that homicide. Would you hear him pressing and addressing the heathen? Here are his very words: "Certainly you more cruelly wring out their breath in water, or expose them to cold and hunger and dogs." But you will ask why the extinguishing of infants' breath in water is called by him a more cruel kind of death. Some reply that philosophers, with whom Servius agreed, taught that the soul of man is fiery, and is therefore extinguished in water with more difficulty, or reduced to nothing (Servius on Book I of Virgil's Aeneid, line 95). And they think it can be proved that this is in truth the cruellest death of all by these verses of Ovid.

It is not death I fear; it is the kind of death that is wretched: take away the shipwreck, and death will be a gift to me. (Ovid, Tristia, Book I, elegy 2, line 57 and following.)

But the poet sang this out of love of a tomb, which as one shipwrecked he would have lacked. As for the philosophers, if some thought the soul of man to be fire, others certainly thought it water, others body, others breath, others something else, as we have shown elsewhere (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter 23, article 2). Tertullian, moreover, did not mark the opinion of one philosopher rather than of another.

To us, therefore, the reply of those seems to have little solidity who, while they examined the reason of Tertullian's words more curiously than was fitting, looked for a knot in a bulrush. For he speaks in no other way of the infants whose breath is extinguished in water than of the others who were exposed to cold, hunger and dogs. But he asserts that the killing of all these infants is crueller than that of other men, because infants exposed to certain death were destitute of absolutely every help by which others could defend themselves, and were therefore killed more cruelly than those older in years. But that this is Tertullian's sense, not

his following words indicate not obscurely: "For even a greater age would have wished to die by the sword" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 9, p. 319); it would prefer, that is, to be killed by one stroke of the sword rather than in the long-drawn and languishing manner of the pitiable infants. Of this exposure of infants, moreover, and of the force of this argument, we have disputed in our dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius Felix, and in the places cited there (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, chapter 9, article 12).

Every kind of homicide, moreover, was so forbidden to the Christians that it was not lawful for them, in Tertullian's words, "even to destroy what is conceived in the womb, while the blood is still being drawn off into a man" (Tertullian, at the place cited), that is, while the foetus in the mother's womb had not yet received human shape. For not all the members of a man are formed at once, nor is the soul poured into the foetus immediately, but many days after conception, as the philosophers think and as we have shown elsewhere (Dissertation on Lactantius, chapter 27, article 2, and 40, article 6). And if it was unlawful for Christians to bring about abortions of this kind, how much more to kill any men! Who, then, would not be indignant that they were so rashly arraigned for homicide by the heathen, who so frequently killed other men most cruelly, as has already been said and is still to be said?

ARTICLE IV.

How certainly Tertullian asserts that human blood was drunk by the heathen in the public games dedicated to Jupiter, and by those who sought a remedy for the falling sickness, and by others who, like Catiline, entered into a pact with certain men; likewise that in Africa those consecrated to Bellona were sealed with blood drunk, and that by others a crime more execrable than these was committed.

With the same evidence with which Tertullian demonstrated that nothing is more false than that the blood of an infant killed by the Christians when celebrating their sacred mysteries was drunk, he shows with the same certainty that the gentiles are in fact guilty of so great an outrage. For in the Latiar games, of which we treated in the preceding article, "with human blood", says Tertullian, "they drench" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 9, p. 317); or as in another book: "To Jupiter Latius, to this day, in the middle of the city of Rome, human blood is given to taste" (Scorpiace, chapter 7). The unknown author of the book On Spectacles, published after the works of Cyprian, describes how that impious sacrifice used to be performed: "What need is there," he says, "to pursue more, or to describe the monstrous kinds of sacrifices at the games? Among which sometimes even a man becomes a victim by the robbery of a priest, when the gore, received hot from the throat in a bowl, while it is still seething, and flung as it were into the face of a thirsting idol, is cruelly pledged to it" (the author of the book On Spectacles). We, for our part, have disputed about this sacrifice, as absurd as it is cruel, in our dissertation on Minucius's Octavius (Dissertation on Minucius, chapter 9, articles 3 and 4), where we also treated of those who, suffering from the falling sickness, sought a cure by drinking the blood of men slaughtered at these spectacles. For these, as Tertullian says, "at the show in the arena, of criminals

slaughtered, carry off the fresh blood with greedy thirst, to cure the falling sickness" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 9, p. 321). And who, unless a monstrous man of iron, would not shudder to provide for his life by such a remedy and by the cruel death of other men?

Not far removed from the inhumanity of these were those savage nations which struck and confirmed pacts among themselves by drinking blood drawn from their own limbs. Of this plainly barbarous custom Tertullian cites Herodotus as witness in these words: "Read whether it is not related somewhere (it is in Herodotus, I think) that certain nations entered into a pact by blood poured from the arms and tasted by each of the two parties" (ibid. and following). By these words, "in Herodotus, I think", he indicates clearly enough that he recited these things thus from memory, so that he was not altogether sure whether they had been committed to writing by Herodotus himself or by another writer. Yet he could have cited the same Herodotus with certainty; for in his first book he relates this of the Lydians: "These nations make oaths as the Greeks also do, and besides this, when they cut their arms into the flow of blood, they lick up each other's blood." "These nations enter into pacts both in other respects by the rite of the Greeks and by bloodying their arms with wounds willingly received, and licking up each other's blood" (Herodotus, Book I, § 74). And of the Scythians in another book: "The Scythians," he says, "make oaths in this way with whomever they make them: pouring wine into a great earthen cup, they mix into it the blood of those who are cutting the oaths, striking them with an awl or cutting a little of the body with a knife; and then they dip into the cup a short sword, and arrows, and a battle-axe, and a javelin; and when they have done these things, they pray much, and then those who are making the oath drink it off, and the most worthy of their followers." "The Scythians enter into pacts with anyone in this manner: wine having been poured into a great earthen cup, they mix in it the blood of those who strike the pact, piercing them with a small knife or cutting a little of the body with a sword. Then they dip in the cup a short sword, arrows, an axe, a javelin. When they have done this, they devote themselves with many words; afterwards the wine is drunk off not only by those who made the pact, but also by those companions who are of the greatest dignity" (the same, Book IV, § 70).

Tertullian, then, could without hesitation have called this ancient writer as champion of his opinion, and with all the better right because he has Lucian in support (Lucian, the dialogue Toxaris, or On Friendship, p. 630). For he attests that the Scythians let blood drip into a cup from cut fingers, and, having dipped the point of their swords in it, drank together, and so concluded a pact which it was afterwards lawful for no one to break. And of certain peoples, neighbours of the Axiacae, Pomponius Mela recorded this: "They love wars and slaughter; and it is the custom of those at war to drink the gore of the man they first killed from his very wounds...... Not even their pacts are bloodless. Those who make a covenant wound themselves, and when they have mingled the blood drawn out, they taste it. This they think the surest pledge of lasting faith" (Pomponius Mela, On the Situation of the World, Book II, chapter 1, p. 27).

To these, moreover, Cornelius Tacitus, where he speaks of the pact between Rhadamistus and Mithridates: "It is the custom of kings," he says, "whenever they enter into alliance, to join right hands and bind their thumbs together and tie them tight with a knot. Then, when the blood has spread into the extremities, they draw the gore by a light stroke and lick it in turn. This pact is held mysterious, as if consecrated by mutual blood" (Cornelius Tacitus, Annals, Book XII, after the middle).

What more? Valerius Maximus writes this of Sariaster, or Tigranes the Younger, who, leaving his father, had gone over to Pompey the Great, and then from the same Pompey back to his father: "Sariaster so conspired with his friends against his father Tigranes, king of Armenia, that they all let blood from their right hands and drank it in turn" (Valerius Maximus, Book IX, chapter 11, foreign examples, § 3).

Nor were the more humane Romans far removed from this barbarity and savage custom. For "something of the kind", says Tertullian, "was tasted under Catiline too" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 9, p. 321), namely when he conspired against the Republic, as we have shown elsewhere (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, chapter 9, article 4).

That custom, moreover, plainly devoid of humanity, flourished not only in the profane but also in the sacred assemblies of the gentiles, and not only among barbarian nations remote from Tertullian, but in Africa itself too, and at the very time when he was writing this Apology. For of those who were initiated into the mysteries of Bellona he speaks in this manner: "Today, there among you, blood from a gashed thigh, caught in the palm and given to be eaten, seals those consecrated to Bellona" (Tertullian, ibid.). But in all our manuscript copies, for sacratos.... esui we read sacratus.... et sui. But these words make no sense. In the editions older than Rigault, sacratus..... et suis datus signatis. But you would scarcely get a better sense from that. This passage of Tertullian, then, has been corrupted, and to heal it some wish to read haustui in place of et sui, or et suis, or esui. And this, indeed, can be said of blood caught in the palm better than esui. Nor shall we much resist this conjecture, provided you show further that sacratos is to be emended in place of sacratus. For Minucius Felix (Minucius, Octavius), who drew many things from this book, expressed Tertullian's sense in these words, where, like him, he charges the heathen: "that Bellona steeps her rite in a draught of human gore". See what we have noted in our dissertation on his book (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, chapter 9, article 4, and chapter 20, article 3).

Further, so that the heathen might be the more ashamed, if that could ever be, to accuse the Christians of a false crime, he reproached them with another horrible crime, in decent words, as the matter required. But it is not to be named by us, much less explained, though the satirical poets make it plain enough and assail it everywhere (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 9, p. 323, and Book I To the Nations, chapter 15, p. 580).

ARTICLE V.

It is shown how gladiators, Scythians, Massagetae and Derbices fed on human flesh, who, once they had taken up the Christian religion, departed from these savage customs.

Tertullian goes on, and makes it plain to all that the heathen not only drank the blood of men but also fed on their flesh. For first the gladiators, when the shows are over, "dine", he says, "from the arena on dishes of wild beasts" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 9, page 322), that is, at dinner they eat the flesh of the beasts which they had killed in the circus a little before. Yet those beasts had not yet been able to digest the raw flesh of men, slaughtered by them in those same shows, which they had just devoured. And so by these most cruel gladiators "the very bellies of the bears", as our Author puts it, "are sought after, still undigested with human entrails" (ibid.). And so indeed it stands in Rigault's edition; but in the older ones, in place of the word cruditantes we read trucidantibus, quite wrongly; while in our manuscripts and in other codices there is constantly found cruditantibus adhuc de visceribus humanis, that is, [entrails] still raw and not yet digested in the belly and stomach of the bears which had devoured them. But whether this is the true reading, who would dare to decide with certainty without the help of some more correct codex? Yet whatever it may be, it is clear enough that Tertullian meant nothing other than that the flesh of bears was sought after and eaten by the gladiators, bears which a little before had devoured the entrails and flesh of men, and which were therefore still undigested in their stomachs.

But, you will say, is not the noun alvei also corrupt, and should one not rather write alvi, which are the receptacles of food? Not absurdly indeed, if you were to say that the better part is taken by Tertullian for the whole, and if you could prove this emendation from at least some codex. For not only the bellies of bears but their other flesh too was commonly eaten, as can be gathered from the words of Apuleius in which he describes the most magnificent equipment of a gladiatorial show: "The she-bear", he says, "which surpassed the others in the bulk of her body, we carry to our lodging as if to be prepared for food" (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, book IV, page 59). What then forbids us to keep the word alvei, common to all the codices, by which are meant the vessels in which the flesh of the bears was only half cooked, flesh which the gladiators sought and ate with such greed? Therefore Tertullian concludes from this: "And so the flesh of a bear, fed on a man, is belched up by a man" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 9, page 323), by whom it had been killed a little before.

But there were beyond doubt others far more savage than these gladiators, of whom he speaks not indeed so assertively, but only in this manner: "They say that among certain tribes of the Scythians too each dead man is eaten by his own people" (ibid.). Yet surely he could have declared this without hesitation. For from Strabo we learn that guests were sacrificed by the Scythians, who ate their flesh and, in place of cups,

used their skulls (Strabo, Geography, book VII, page 298). Then a little later he records this about the Massagetae, who were either peoples of the Scythians or their neighbours: "Among them the best death is held to be when, having grown old, they are cut up together with the flesh of sheep and eaten mixed with it", that is, "They reckon it the best kind of death if, worn out with old age, they are cut up with the flesh of the flock and devoured together with it" (ibid., page 513). Eusebius follows Strabo, adding the Derbices to the Massagetae, and relates that by both peoples those whom they held dearest, their parents now exhausted by age, were sacrificed, and that they used their flesh as a most sumptuous feast (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, book III, chapter 4, page 11). But if you want something stated more clearly, go to Pliny (Pliny, Natural History, book VI, chapter 17) and to Solinus, who follows him (Solinus, chapter 15, page 34), who expressly affirm that the Scythians are man-eaters, "feeding on human bodies". From Herodotus too you will learn that the Melanchlaeni, so called from their black clothing, lived by Scythian customs and were accustomed to eat human flesh (Herodotus, book IV, § 107). To this is added Mela, whom you may hear relating this: "As the Essedones make cups of the heads of their parents, so do they of the heads of their bitterest enemies. Among the man-eaters the very feasts are prepared from human entrails" (Mela, On the Situation of the World, book II, chapter 1, page 27).

Moreover Eusebius, already cited by us, asserted in the same place that the Massagetae and Derbices, as soon as they gave their names to the Christian religion, departed from these savage and inhuman customs (Eusebius, at the place cited). For the rest, in our dissertation on the book of Minucius Felix (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, chapter 9, article 2), and in other places cited there, we have shown that the Christians were never in fact privy to and guilty of this man-eating, but the heathen alone.

ARTICLE VI.

How clearly Tertullian shows that the Christians were most falsely accused of secret incest in their sacred assemblies, an incest by which the heathen, following the example of Jupiter, were defiled openly and quite often.

We have now made it plain to everyone by what weighty arguments, and how strong, our Tertullian utterly crushed the plainly absurd calumny of the heathen, by which the heathen most shamelessly lied that the Christians were defiled by infamous incest in their assemblies. For how would those men have wished to pollute their sacred mysteries with incest so often repeated, who, as we have shown elsewhere, kept with the greatest zeal the chastity of the married commanded them by Christ, or perpetual virginity, though it was not commanded? Yet such was the shamelessness of the heathen that they most falsely charged them with the crime of secret incest, a crime which in fact was committed by those very men not only in secret but "in every light", as Tertullian says, "and in every night, and with all heaven aware" (Tertullian, To the Nations, book I, chapter 16, page 581), as much with impunity as with daring. And why should they not have committed so great a crime, whom, as he quite rightly presses, "Jupiter himself taught" (the same, Apology, chapter 9, page 325), namely by his own example, to commit incest? For who does not know how truly Athenagoras

(Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians) and other Fathers of the Church cast in the teeth of these same heathen what was openly proclaimed by their own writers, that this very Jupiter begot children of his own mother, and of his daughter Core, or Proserpina? Who, too, has touched even with the tips of his lips the books published by the profane poets, and has not at once shuddered that Juno is brought on by them boasting that she was the sister and the wife of that same Jupiter? Yet "all", says Justin Martyr, "think it a fine thing to be imitators of the gods", that is, "All reckon it a fine thing that they are imitators of the gods" (Justin, Apology 1). And although the heathen denied that they had really imitated him, they still could not impute to the Christians as a vice what they admitted to have been done by Jupiter, the supreme god, as they called him. Of these crimes of his, moreover, we have argued enough and more than enough in our earlier dissertations.

Moreover the Persians imitated that supreme, or rather supremely impious, Jupiter, "who", says our Author, "Ctesias testifies, have intercourse with their own mothers" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 9, page 325). Our older manuscript codices show Chteseas written, and in the book To the Nations, Thesias (To the Nations, book I, chapter 16, page 581). But of this name Ctesias, and of that abominable crime of the Persians, we have treated in other dissertations of ours (Apparatus, volume I, page 1259, and Dissertation on Arnobius, chapter 24, article 2; Apparatus, volume I, page 1239, and dissertation on Minucius, chapter 20, article 2).

Then next Tertullian gathers that the Macedonians came under a great suspicion, or at any rate proof, of incest, from this: "Because", he says, "when they had first heard the tragedy Oedipus, seeing the grief over the incest, they said: 'Drive on into the mother'" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 9, page 325). But it is remarkable how corruptly and variously these Greek words are written in our manuscript codices and in other printed editions. For in the three older ones it reads ΕΑΑΥΝΕ ΕΙϹ ΤΗΝ ΑΑΙΓΕΕΡΑ or ΤΗΝ ΑΑΙΓΕΡΑ; in two others elline eistena ligera; in the first edition, at Basle in the year 1512, ἔμενεν εἰς τὴν μητέρα. In the second, of the year 1528, only emene is read, in Latin characters, and the other words are omitted. Finally, in the book To the Nations it is found, also in Latin letters: Elaune ten metera. Those Greek words, then, were corrupted by copyists who knew no Greek, and you could not easily say which were actually written by Tertullian.

Gothofredus, however, who first saw to the printing of these books, does not doubt at all that this latter reading of the Agobard codex is the true one, and that there was written by Tertullian himself in Greek letters ἔλαυνε εἰς τὴν ματέρα; Rigault, on the other hand, asserts that ἔλαυνε εἰς τὴν μητέρα is written in ancient codices. But he ought to have indicated which these codices were, and whether they are different from ours. For besides the codices already noted and read by us he had no other, but only certain Fulda readings that are not wholly certain. But what can you settle about the true reading of Greek words corrupted by copyists unless you have sound codices to hand? Weigh, however, whether Tertullian's sense is expressed by these Latin words: "Come, drive on into the mother." For King Oedipus, brought on the stage, a warrior,

when he was represented weeping over the incest which he had unknowingly committed with his mother, then the Macedonians, mocking this weeping of the warlike king, stung him with this gibe: "Come, drive on into the mother", as if he were about to subdue some mother-city. That this is our Author's sense can perhaps not ineptly be gathered from his book To the Nations, where he sets these things out more fully, in these words: "When Oedipus first came on the stage of those Macedonians, his eyes put out, they received him with laughter and derision. The tragic actor, dismayed, drew back his mask and said: 'Surely I have not displeased you, gentlemen?' The Macedonians answered: 'No, you [did] finely indeed'" (the manuscript codex has pulcher). And from this he argues thus: "Either the writer is most foolish, if he made it up, or Oedipus most mad, if he did so; and from then on you said one to another, elaune ten matera" (Tertullian, To the Nations, book I, chapter 16, page 581). You hear Tertullian plainly relating that the masked Oedipus was at first received by the Macedonians with laughter and derision, but that they afterwards confessed he did not displease them; and that then, talking among themselves, they uttered these words in turn: Elaune ten metera. If these are genuine, they mean that one Macedonian said to another: "Drive, urge, goad, push on at the mother, and imitate Oedipus." For in that sense the verb ἐλαύνω is taken by Aristophanes (Aristophanes, Electra, verses 735 and 740), by Homer, and by other Greek writers. But whatever word Tertullian used, by it he quite deservedly convicts the Macedonians of incest, who either praised it in Oedipus or provoked one another by his example to commit it.

Finally he proves that not the Macedonians alone but any other heathen whatever were privy to this outrage, from the fact that, as we have said, they exposed their newly born sons. For those parents did not afterwards recognize the children they had earlier exposed to the mercy of strangers, nor were they recognized by them. It often happened, then, that through this ignorance those lustful parents inflicted debauchery and incest on their own sons (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 9, page 326, and To the Nations, book I, chapter 16, page 582). And Tertullian proves this by a most ill-starred example, which had happened at Rome a little before he wrote the books To the Nations and, as it seems, in the reign of Commodus. For Fuscianus, as he says, was then prefect of the City, when a certain boy, having gone out over the threshold of his father's house, is carried off by some petty Greek and taken to Asia. The boy, grown older, is brought back to Rome, where he was debauched by his own father, who no longer recognized him. Afterwards his parents recognized him by certain marks on his body, "and", says Tertullian, "they cure themselves with the noose". Fuscianus, for his part, assigned their goods to the boy, "not as an inheritance", as he says, "but as the wages of debauchery and incest" (the same, To the Nations, book I, chapter 16, page 582).

Moreover there seems to be room for doubt whether that wicked father was condemned not only by Fuscianus but also by the senate. For the beginning of this story in the Agobard codex reads thus: "Such a tragedy broke out when Fuscianus was prefect of the City, the punishment having been decreed by the senate. Through the chance negligence of his attendants, having gone out beyond the door,

the way, drawn along by passers-by, he was lost from home. The petty Greek who had reared him, or, entering from the threshold, had caught him in the Greek manner. Then, changed" (ibid., etc.). But several of the copyist's errors are refuted there. For first, Rigault was so persuaded that reatus must be read there in place of senatus that he restored it in Tertullian's very text. Next he cut out of it these words, "who had reared him", and these, "or from the threshold"; and besides he thinks that the word "entering" should also be removed. For the first emendation he gives this reason: that if this case had been judged by the senate, it ought not to have been judged further by Fuscianus. So it should rather be read: "when Fuscianus had decreed the punishment of the guilt". And this conjecture does indeed seem quite probable. But what if something is missing there, and Tertullian meant that the sentence of Fuscianus had been approved by the senate? Rigault, however, has not told us why he removed entirely from our Author's text these words: "who had reared him". Are they so useless there that they ought to have been cut off without anyone being told? Did he not afterwards say: "a foster-child in boyhood"? Finally he suspects that the words "or from the threshold" and "entering" should be taken away, because the latter is a gloss on the former. But let others judge of these things. For our part, if there were room for conjecture, we should suspect that instead of the words progressus iter one should read progressus puer, since it is of course the boy who is in question there, and whose boyhood is mentioned a little later.

But however corrupt this passage may be, the story of this abominable incest is no less certain. Rightly, then, does Tertullian conclude from it that there were many other parents guilty of the same crime, who, because it was hidden, escaped the penalties owed to a most grievous fault. Who, moreover, will deny that not from this story alone but from very many other examples which we have related (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, chapter 10, article 2) the heathen are most plainly convicted of the incest of which they accused the Christians with a most shameless lie? So let us now come to their other charges, no less false.

ARTICLE VII.

How absurdly the heathen objected that the head of an ass was worshipped by the Christians; who gave occasion to this fable; with what shamelessness a certain Jewish rascal carried about a picture of that ass with an utterly ridiculous inscription; and how truly these same heathen worshipped whole asses and other beasts, either living or painted.

With another calumny, no smaller than the rest, the heathen vainly tried to defame the Christians, as though they worshipped "an ass's head", as Tertullian says, as a god. But that, he says, was the mere dream of wakeful and envious men who were trying by any means to slander the Christians. He does not deny, however, that occasion was given to this false charge by Cornelius Tacitus. For Tacitus had written in his histories, as rashly as falsely, that springs of water were shown by certain wild asses to the Jews, who, wandering in the vast deserts of Arabia, were suffering from thirst, and that with these they quenched it; for which reason, as he said, in testimony of a grateful mind, they consecrated an image of the ass.

And because the Christian religion was very close to the Jewish, the Gentiles made up from this that an ass's head was worshipped by the Christians too (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 16, page 365 and following, and To the Nations, book I, chapter 11, page 577). But elsewhere we have overturned this most absurd charge from its foundations, not only as it concerns the Jews but also the Christians (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, chapter 11, article 1).

It remains, then, for us to weigh a particular incident, which is described by our Tertullian in two books thus: "Lately a new edition of our God has been published in this city, since a certain criminal, hired to dodge the beasts, put up a picture with an inscription of this kind: THE GOD OF THE CHRISTIANS, ONOCHOETES. He had the ears of an ass, was hoofed on one foot, carried a book and wore a toga" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 16, page 372). In another book he sets it out a little more fully: "Now rumour has put forward something about our God. So much so that lately a most abandoned man in this city, a deserter even from his own religion, a Jew only by the loss of his skin, all the more so because of the bites of the beasts, to which, hiring himself out daily, he now strips off skin over his whole body as he goes about, put up a picture against us under this title: ONOCHOETES. He had the ears of geldings, and was in a toga with a book, hoofed on one foot" (the same, To the Nations, book I, chapter 14, page 579).

First, then, he said that this was done "lately", that is, a little before he composed both books, and "in this city", where he was living. So there is no room for doubting the truth of this incident. Next, that its author was a certain Jew, a deserter from "his own", that is, the Jewish religion, who, being then a Jew "only by the loss of his skin", that is, by circumcision alone, professed the impious worship of the heathen; but that he was a most abandoned man, convicted by public judgement of several crimes and therefore condemned to the beasts, so that he would of course fight with them in his turn. But because he was permitted at times to be free from this combat, he would, to make greater gain, hire himself out of his own accord daily "for dodging the beasts", that is, for avoiding their charges and bites by fighting. For, as Cassiodorus aptly observes: "A detestable act, an unhappy contest, to wish to strive with wild beasts which he does not doubt he will find stronger than himself. His only confidence, then, is in eluding, his one comfort in deceiving. And if he does not succeed in escaping the beast, sometimes he will not even be able to find a grave" (Cassiodorus, Variae, book V, letter 42, page 94). Such was that circumcised Jew who, besides circumcision, "daily", says Tertullian, "now strips off skin over his whole body", that is, received many wounds every day from the bites of the beasts. And that kind of men was called bestiarii, about whom we treated a little before (above, chapter).

So in the public games that rascal, a pseudo-Jew, in order to mock the Christian religion, carried about the plainly ridiculous image described by Tertullian, whose inscription was this: THE GOD OF THE CHRISTIANS, ONOCHOETES (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 16, page 372), or, as in our manuscript codices and

others Onochitis, in others Onochorsitis, or Onochortissis, or Onocholasis; in the ancient editions Onychites, and in some, finally, Ὀνοχῆλος. And in the unpublished copy of the book To the Nations and in other printed ones this name is written in three ways: first Onocholtes; second, Onochoites; third, Onochoete (the same, To the Nations, book I, chapter 14, page 579). But the more varied and discordant the readings of this one name are, the more clearly it appears that it is corrupt. That is why a good many learned men have toiled not a little in healing it. For some think Onochoetes should be read, so that by this word is meant an ass that is master of the sacred rites, and priest, by whom others were to be initiated. Others prefer it written Onochorsites, from the ass's head; others Onocoites, that is, of asinine origin and lineage. Others again Onotacoustes, in Greek Ὀνωτακούστης. But why labour to find the one name in this inscription, to which these two Latin words, "God of the Christians", are shown to be prefixed in the book of the Apology? For what if that latter name was invented by a wicked trifler and then corrupted by copyists? And what if it is some common Punic word, now entirely obsolete? Ought not the explanation of this name and picture given by our Author to suffice us: "He had", he says, "the ears of an ass, was hoofed on one foot, carried a book and wore a toga"? And this he declared in the book To the Nations in other words, but ones meaning altogether the same.

That painted ass was "in a toga", that is, covered with a toga, and "carrying a book", evidently in mockery of the Christians, who held the sacred Gospels in the highest honour and were accustomed to carry them with them and to read them openly in their assemblies.

But the Christians and Tertullian laughed at that monstrosity of a godhead, born from the brain of an impious rascal, and at its name and form. Why should they not have laughed at a thing "lacking", as he says, "the authority of time, and weak by the character of its author" (the same, Apology, chapter 16, page 373, and To the Nations, book I, chapter 14, page 579)?

Nor indeed can anyone object to us that the Gnostics were not so far from this, who long before, as we observed following Epiphanius (Epiphanius, Heresies 26, page 91) (Apparatus, volume I, page 244; Dissertation on Minucius, chapter 11, article 1), had invented Sabaoth, the seventh of the Aeons, as maker of heaven and earth, whom some babbled bore the form of an ass, others of a pig. For this ridiculous image of Sabaoth was altogether different from the hideous figure of the God of the Christians which that most worthless and most shameful betrayer of the Jewish religion had most absurdly devised.

Closer to it, perhaps, came the white ass which, as Suidas relates (Suidas, under the word Ζήνων) and as we have noted elsewhere (Dissertation on Minucius, at the place cited), a certain Zeno of Alexandria, a deserter from the Jewish religion, is said to have led through the synagogue of the Jews on the sabbath day. But even if this were proved to have been done before Tertullian's time, it still differed much from that picture which the pseudo-Jew, in derision of the God of the Christians, not in a synagogue but

carried about in the public shows of the Gentiles. Yet it could be said, not altogether absurdly, that one of these pseudo-Jewish rascals gave the other the occasion for doing this.

But although each of those portents of godhead was utterly detestable, the Gentiles could still not condemn either of them plainly and thoroughly without at once condemning themselves of wickedness and madness. For Tertullian proves this clearly by the words with which he addresses them: "You will not deny that all beasts of burden, and whole geldings, together with their Epona, are worshipped by you" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 16, page 365). And again in the first book To the Nations: "Indeed you worship whole asses, and together with their Epona you consecrate all beasts of burden and cattle and wild beasts likewise, along with their stalls." Therefore he presses them thus: those heathen ought at once to have worshipped that two-formed name invented by the Jew (To the Nations, book I, chapter 11, page 577), "because they have received gods blended with the head of a dog and of a lion, and horned from the goat and from the ram, and goats from the loins, and serpents from the legs, and winged on the foot or the back" (the same, Apology, ibid.). Similarly in his book To the Nations: "There are among you gods with the head of a dog, and of a lion, and horned from the ox, and from the ram, and from the he-goat, goat-born, or snake-like, and winged on foot, brow and back" (To the Nations, book I, chapter 14, page 579). But we have explained all these things in other dissertations, and have heard Minucius disputing against the heathen in a similar way (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, chapter 14, article 2, and Dissertation on Arnobius, chapter 20, article 1).

But Tertullian cuts their throats with their very own sword thus. "If", he says, "you count it a vice in us that we worship an ass's head as God, you certainly convict yourselves of being much worse. For you call not just an ass's head, or certain parts of beasts, but whole asses and a great many other whole beasts gods, and you really worship them." And what greater absurdity, I pray you, than for someone to be accused of one crime by another who confesses himself guilty of the same and of many graver ones? But these things, says Tertullian, are "over and above". For as certain as it was that beasts were worshipped by the heathen, so false was it that an ass's head, or asses, were worshipped by the Christians. For they worshipped the one supreme God, who created all things, and who cannot be either seen or comprehended by anyone.

ARTICLE VIII.

How thoughtlessly the heathen counted the worship of the cross of Christ a vice in the Christians, when they themselves worshipped all manner of crosses in the images of their gods, in trophies, standards, and the adornment of military ensigns; of what parts Tertullian thought the cross of Christ was composed; why he called the robes of the cross siphara; the cross whose figure a man shows with his hands outstretched.

The heathen pressed further that the supreme majesty of God was injured and violated by the Christians through the religious worship of the cross to which Christ had been fastened. But by what reasoning, do you think, did Tertullian wash away this charge, repeated by them again and again? By none other, surely, than

by turning back on the heathen themselves the weapon they had hurled. For he is silent on whether the Christians really worshipped that cross, and only shows by various weighty arguments that they were altogether imprudently reproached for this worship by the heathen, who venerated all manner of crosses everywhere.

What then, you will say, did he by some deceitful silence deny or conceal that the cross of Christ was honoured by His disciples? Not in the least. For for what reason could he have denied or concealed it, who acknowledges that they fortified their foreheads with the sign of the cross at almost every act of their life? And why, I ask, did they so often put that sacred sign on their foreheads, unless they had been fully persuaded that there was some protection for them in it, and that it was worthy of their veneration (Tertullian, On the Crown, chapter 3, and To his Wife, book II, chapter 5)? But of this most ancient custom of venerating the cross of Christ we have argued at greater length against the heretics in other dissertations of ours (Dissertation on Minucius, chapter 11, article 3, and on Lactantius, chapter 19, article 1, and on Lucius Caecilius, chapter 5, article 2). Tertullian, then, could not deny what in his time was in daily use among all Christians and was well enough known even to the Gentiles themselves (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 16, page 366).

Therefore to those who charged them with the worship of the cross of Christ he gave no other answer than this very brief one: "Whoever thinks us devotees of the cross will be our fellow-votary"; or, as in another book: "Whoever affirms that we are priests of the cross will be our fellow-votary" (the same, To the Nations, book I, chapter 12, page 578). The word consecraneus, as is noted in the old glosses, means the same as "partner in the sacred rites". He openly asserts, then, that the Gentiles were utterly thoughtless, who, though they worshipped a great many crosses, nonetheless dared to accuse the Christians of this superstitious and impious worship because they venerated the cross of Christ.

But before we examine the arguments by which he strives to prove it, we must note what he said the figure of the cross of Christ was. "To us", he says, "the whole cross is imputed, with its yard-arm, that is, and with that projection of the seat" (ibid., To the Nations, book I, at the place cited). He teaches us, then, that the cross of Christ was whole and complete, as being composed of three parts: namely the upright beam, and the yard-arm, that is, the other, transverse beam, and the seat, or little stool, set on the cross and projecting from it. We have observed elsewhere (Apparatus, volume I, page 597) that a controversy arose among the learned whether that stool, or projecting piece of wood, was placed under the whole body of the crucified man or only under his feet. But since it is called a "seat" by our Tertullian, by this name he beyond doubt hints clearly enough that it was placed in the middle of the cross and that the body of the crucified man rested on it, so that it should not slip down under its heavier weight, or fall when the hands were torn. Some, however, think this seat is meant by these words of our same Tertullian in another book: "The outermost horns of the cross; for in the yard-arm of a ship too, which is part of a cross, the extremities are called horns; the one-horned

stake in the middle of the upright" (Tertullian, Against the Jews, chapter 2). They admit, however, that this passage is not entirely uncorrupted, and that it therefore cannot be settled with certainty whether the upright beam of the cross is not meant by these latter words. But it seems beyond doubt that the cross of Christ is called by him whole and complete, composed of both beams, upright and transverse, and of the seat.

But to check the rashness of the heathen who reproached the Christians with the worship of this cross, he shows by heaped-up arguments that many other crosses, not only whole ones but parts of them too, were worshipped by them. For, as he says, "the Attic Pallas is not distinguished from the upright of a cross, nor the Pharian Ceres, who stands exposed without a likeness, a rough stake and a shapeless piece of wood" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 16, page 366). And he repeats this in almost the same words in the book To the Nations (To the Nations, book I, chapter 11, page 577). But in our manuscript copies Ceres Fariam is written, in the older printed ones Ceres Farrea; and this reading pleases most, because they consider that this name was given to Ceres because she is said to have discovered spelt and the fruits of the earth. Others, however, prefer to read Pharia, or Faria, as in the book To the Nations. For they hold that Ceres was called by that surname because she was worshipped on Pharos, an island of Egypt. Something about her, moreover, was observed by us in our dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius Felix (Dissertation on Minucius, chapter 14, article 4).

More than once in other dissertations (Apparatus, volume I, page 734 and following, and Dissertation on Arnobius, chapter 20, article 1) we have noted that, before the Gentiles fashioned the images of their gods in the likeness of a man, a scimitar was held and worshipped as a god by some, by others a sword, a blade, a spear, by some a stone, by others a rough piece of wood and an unworked stake. And this custom persisted rather long among certain nations. Tertullian, moreover, seems to indicate that even in his own time there existed an image of Pallas in the region of Attica, and of Ceres on the island of Pharos, which was merely a rough stake and a shapeless piece of wood without any likeness. And this can certainly be confirmed from what we related in the dissertations of ours cited. The heathen, then, in worshipping a stake of this kind fixed in the earth as a sacred divinity, were surely worshipping part of a cross.

And they venerated whole crosses in the images of their gods that represented the human likeness. For these could not be fashioned by modellers and craftsmen unless clay or some other material was first actually laid over supports set in the manner of a whole cross. That is why Tertullian rightly says: "We have said that the origin of your gods is brought about by the modellers from a cross" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 16, page 366). And earlier he had said: "He first shapes the image in clay" (ibid., chapter 12, page 340), that is, begins to form it, with the clay built up over a cross and a stake. And again in another book: "On this beginning and as it were framework the clay, woven over it from above, little by little completes the limbs and builds up the body, and puts on the cross within the clay the bearing that pleased [the maker] ..... from

the clay [is laid] on the cross; from the clay the god in a certain manner passes over, the cross into the god by way of the clay. You consecrate, therefore, a cross, from which [the god] begins to be consecrated (To the Nations, Book I, ch. 12, p. 578).

Of these things, however, we have already treated in our dissertation on the book of Minucius Felix (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, ch. 4, art. 12), and also of trophies, cantabra and standards. On the same reasoning all these things are added by our Author: Those siphara of the standards and cantabra (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 16, p. 369). Now siphara, or sypharium, supparus and supparum was the name of various kinds of garment and of sail, for instance of ships and of the theatre; but there, as is plain enough, it is taken by Tertullian for the covering of the military standards, laid upon a cross, whether of wood or of some other material. For he says straight after: these siphara are the robes of the cross (ibid.), that is, they are the wrappings and the coverings with which the cross was veiled or covered. By the name siphara, therefore, he designates that veil hung from the transverse part of the cross with which the standards and cantabra were adorned. Wherefore he mocks the heathen in these words: I praise your diligence. You did not wish to consecrate bare and unadorned crosses (ibid.). In the other book also: Those siphara are the garments of crosses. You blush, I suppose, to worship unadorned and bare crosses (the same, To the Nations, Book I, ch. 12, p. 579).

He presses on still: You adore Victories, though in trophies crosses are the inward parts of the trophies (the same, Apology, at the place cited), that is, they are set beneath the trophies. A little differently, however, in the other book: Victories you venerate as divinities, and indeed as the more august the more joyful they are, con.... one what they may better exalt, crosses will in a certain manner be the inward parts of trophies (the same, book To the Nations, at the place cited). It is certain that Victory was placed by them in the number of the goddesses: which, though it is unknown to scarcely anyone, it may suffice to have proved by these words of Tully: Why the temple of Concord, of Liberty and of Victory, all of which things, because their force was so great that it could not be governed without a god, the thing itself obtained the name of gods (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, Book II, p. 223, line 5). Of her and of her image Claudian made these verses:

Victory herself would open her sacred temple to the general.

O you who rejoice in the green palm and are clothed with trophies, virgin guardian of the Empire, who alone heal wounds and teach [men] to feel no toil. (Claudian, On the Praises of Stilicho, Book III, line 204 and following.)

Her image, therefore, shone in the trophies, that is, in the spoils taken from the enemy, which, set upon the top of a stake erected in the figure of a cross, were wont to be carried in solemn procession. The heathen, then, adoring Victory not only in her temple but also in these trophies, were adoring the cross as well. For victorious trophies, says Minucius Felix (Minucius, p. 287), imitate the figure not only of a simple cross but also of a man fastened upon it.

But let us follow Tertullian as he presses still more sharply: The religion of the Romans, he says, wholly a religion of the camp, venerates the standards, swears by the standards, sets the standards before all the gods. All those notable displays of images are necklaces of crosses (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 16, p. 367). So indeed in our manuscript codices and in the older printed editions. But Rigault there [removed] the name of the Romans

without giving any reason, removed. We suspect, however, that it was there, because in the book To the Nations he repeats the same things, but with that name of the Romans omitted, in these words: In victories the religion of the camp worships crosses as well; it adores the standards, swears by the standards, prefers the standards to Jupiter himself; but that display of images and the whole adornment of gold are necklaces of crosses (the same, To the Nations, Book I, ch. 12, p. 579). But Rigault does not seem to have sufficiently noticed that that name of the Romans could be passed over in this book, which is addressed to all the nations in general, but not in the Apology, which was sent to all the magistrates, and above all to the Roman ones. Now the custom of adoring the military standards had become so strong among them that Artabanus, king of the Parthians, coming, as Suetonius says, to Caligula's legate, adored the eagles and the Roman standards and the images of the Caesars (Suetonius, Book IV, in the Life of Caligula, § 14).

Why it should be called the religion of the camp, and why it swore by its standards, may be understood from these words of Seneca: The first bond of soldiering is religion, and love of the standards, and the abomination of desertion; then thereafter the rest is easily required and enjoined of those who have been bound to the oath (Seneca, Letter 95, p. 305). The first thing, therefore, was the soldiers' oath, by which they bound themselves to military service, on which much is said by Schele in his notes on Polybius (Schele, ch. 1, on the oath), Brisson (Brisson, beginning of Book IV of the Formulae), Justus Lipsius (Lipsius, On the Roman Army, Book I, dialogue 6, p. 26), and others. But besides this oath the soldiers swore also by their standards. For Lucan brought in a centurion swearing to Caesar by them thus:

. . . By the ten standards fortunate in camp, and by your triumphs over whatever enemy, I swear. (Lucan, Book II, line 278.)

Nor indeed is it surprising, since (Lucan, Book II, line 370) they thought their standards and eagles to be, as we learn from Cornelius Tacitus, the legions' own divinities (Tacitus, Annals, Book II, after the beginning, p. 20). Elsewhere, of Antonius quelling a mutiny: Then turning, he says, to the standards and the gods of war, he prayed that they would rather cast that fury, that discord, upon the armies of the enemy, until the mutiny died down (the same, Histories, Book III, after the beginning, p. 180). But more clearly still Dionysius of Halicarnassus: These standards are most honoured by the Romans on campaign, and are held sacred like the shrines of the gods. Nothing in the Roman army is held more venerable than the standards, nor are they judged less sacred than the images of the gods (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, Book VI, p. 375).

Wherefore Tertullian added, it sets the standards before all the gods (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 16, p. 368), namely that religion of the camp; because the soldiers venerated them, as they did the banners, with greater worship than all their other gods. There will perhaps be someone who thinks that by these words Tertullian meant that the military standards were carried in the army and in battle by the front-rank men ahead of the images and likenesses of the gods; but the former sense seems to agree better with his words and mind. For in the other book he said: It prefers the standards to Jupiter himself, even though he is the greatest of its gods (the same, To the Nations, Book I, ch. 12, p. 579).

And yet all those notable displays of images, he says, are necklaces of crosses. Some, however, have wished us to be advised that in some manuscripts there is read in signis [on the standards] and not insignes [notable], and not wholly absurdly either. For it is of the soldiers' standards that he is treating in that very place. But because in far more copies, and copies of better note, insignes is found, we do not dare to reject this reading. Nothing, however, can be drawn for the confirmation of this reading rather than of the other from the book To the Nations, where Tertullian passed over this word and added these words: That display of images and the adornment of all the gold are necklaces of crosses (ibid.). Some indeed think that the word suggestus is there taken for clothing and ornament; but they ought to have proved it. For what if it is taken for the very act of suggerere, that is, of bearing up from beneath these images, which hung from the higher part of the spear, or of the long piece of wood, and were the necklaces and ornaments of the crosses, because these were veiled and adorned by them placed above them? But of all these things we have already disputed in our dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius Felix (Dissertation on Minucius, ch. 12, art. 4), where we showed besides that a man, as our Author says at last, with hands outstretched, bears before him the image of the cross (Tertullian, To the Nations, Book I, ch. 12, p. 578).

But we seem to hear someone who will object that this argument of Tertullian is altogether weak. For the Gentiles, he will say, in adoring the images of their gods, the standards, the trophies, the victories and any other things of the kind, gave no thought whatever to the crosses which were set beneath them or which they veiled. But he ought to notice that the argument of Tertullian and of the other defenders of the Christian religion rests on that opinion of the heathen by which they held the images and standards of their gods to be true gods. They therefore in very fact adored them whole, and all their parts, of which crosses were the chief. For they thought that the god was made not only out of the form, dress and quality of the image, but also out of its material, and they were wont to venerate him whole and as composed of all his parts. It must be said, therefore, that the crosses set beneath the veils and necklaces of the military standards, as well as the other parts of the same standards, of which perhaps they then gave no express thought, were honoured by them with religious worship.

CHAPTER XXI.

On the crimes of injured human majesty, of which the heathen wrongly tried to arraign the Christians as guilty.

FIRST ARTICLE.

How plainly Tertullian shows that the Christians were undeservedly accused of injured human majesty, who with the whole affection of their mind prayed not to false gods but to the true and almighty God for the safety of the emperor and his prosperity, and for the long continuance of the Roman empire, which Tertullian and many others thought would come to its end together with the whole world.

We have so far set out and explained all the arguments by which Tertullian most clearly demonstrates

that the Christians were accused by the heathen, altogether falsely and most shamelessly, of injured divine majesty, of which those accusers themselves were on many counts entirely guilty. Now, therefore, we must examine by what weight of reasons, and in like manner, he shows that the heathen were in truth conscious of injured human majesty, although with the utmost rashness they still did not fear to charge the Christians with this crime. For, to use his words: We have come to the second count, of injured majesty more august (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 28, p. 436), namely that of the emperors. Their majesty is called more august for this reason, that the Gentiles dreaded to injure the majesty of the living emperor far more than that of Jupiter and the other dead gods, as we shall say a little later. But the Christians, honouring the emperor with due reverence, prayed for his safety not to dead and fictitious gods, but to the true and living God, from Whom those same emperors had in very fact received their supreme power, second to Him, the enjoyment of light, and whatever they were (ibid., ch. 30, p. 441).

For from this sole and almighty God the Christians in daily prayers earnestly besought for those same emperors, as Tertullian says, a long life, a secure empire, a safe household, brave armies, a faithful senate, an upright people, quiet, and whatever are the wishes of a man and of a Caesar (ibid.); that is, whatever the emperors could desire, according to the laws of equity and justice, for their private life and their imperial dignity. No less assertively did other eminent defenders of the Christian religion proclaim this: God alone, said Justin Martyr, we worship, and in other things we gladly serve you, acknowledging you as emperors and rulers of men, and praying that together with the imperial power you may be found to have a sound understanding. We adore God alone, and serve you in other matters, professing that you are emperors and princes of men, and at the same time praying that you may be found to possess, along with the imperial power, a sound mind (Justin, Apology to Antoninus, p. 64). Athenagoras, moreover, at the end of his Embassy for the Christians openly declares that the same Christians prayed to God for the empire of the Augustus, that it might grow more and more, that all things might befall him as he would wish, and that his son and heir might succeed to his place (Athenagoras, Embassy for the Christians, p. 40). But there is no need to pursue more at length these things, which are well enough known to all. We have also made plain to all (above, ch. 14, art. 3) with what sincere affection of mind, with what innocent soul, with what humble and lowly bearing of body they strove to obtain these things from their almighty God by private and public prayers poured out. Wherefore we shall add nothing further except what he wrote to Scapula, the heathen governor: We honour the emperor too in such a way as is lawful for us and expedient for him, as a man second from God.... Therefore we sacrifice for the emperor's safety, but to our God and his, and as God has commanded, with pure prayer. For God, the founder of the universe, has no need of any odour or blood. For these are the food of demons (Tertullian, To Scapula, ch. 2).

Nor could the heathen answer that these vows of the Christians for the emperor's safety were false and lying, or that the prayers of those who, so as not to undergo the torments due to them, poured them out with the lips only were deceitful. For by this futile answer the heathen, as Tertullian says, granted that the Christians had in truth poured out prayers to their God for the safety of the emperors (the same, Apology, ch. 31, p. 446). And who would ever have proved that these did not proceed from the inmost feeling of the heart, but from the mouth only? But that they were entirely sincere he plainly establishes from this, that in our sacred Scriptures, which we have shown were not unknown to the heathen themselves, it is enjoined upon each and all Christians, he says, for the overflowing of kindness, to pray to God even for enemies and to ask good things for their persecutors (ibid.). And who does not see that by these words he designates that precept of Christ: You have heard that it was said: You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy; but I say to you: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute and slander you (Matt. 5:43 ff.)? For by these words Christ commands that Christians no longer hate their enemies, as the Jews did, but love them for the overflowing of Christian kindness, do good to them, and pray to God for those who persecute and slander them with the inmost and sincere affection of the heart.

But who, he goes on, are more the enemies and persecutors of the Christians than the emperors, for the injury of whose majesty we are summoned on a charge, that is, accused (Tertullian, at the place cited)? Elsewhere, indeed, he uses this word more than once (ibid., ch. 35, p. 454). For above he had said: We are summoned as guilty of sacrilege and of [treason against] majesty. And below: Concerning the second majesty, that is, after God, we are summoned on the second sacrilege. This is a word of the jurists, by which the same is signified as being called into court. By the law laid down by Christ, therefore, the Christians were bound to make supplication to God for the emperors, however much they were their enemies and persecutors, and for their safety.

What, moreover, of the fact that by yet another law, given by the Apostle, the Christians were bound to ask God expressly for kings, and for princes and powers, that all things may be peaceful (ibid., ch. 31, p. 446)? There in a few words, and without naming the same Paul, he takes in what was written by him to Timothy thus, and has already been quoted by us (above, ch. 12, art. 1): I beseech that first of all supplications be made, thanksgivings, for all men, for kings and for all who are in high station, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and chastity (1 Tim. 2:1 f.).

Tertullian proves this, however, not by the authority of sacred Scripture alone, and by the law laid down for Christians, but also by this reason, against which no one could so much as mutter: When the empire is shaken, he says, its other members being shaken too, we also, surely, though we be reckoned strangers to the disturbances, are found somewhere in the fall (Tertullian, Apology, at the place cited). But there, against the witness of our codices and of the printed editions, the word aestimemur has been removed in Rigault's edition. By what

whether through the carelessness of the printers or by Rigault's own authority, just as we do not know, so we do not at all doubt that it was rightly added by our Author. For, as we have seen, he first asserted that the Christians were everywhere mingled with the heathen in all public affairs. Nevertheless they were reckoned strangers to the disturbances of the Gentiles, because they were wholly estranged from their mysteries and superstitious worship. In other respects they lived with the heathen, and therefore when the empire was shaken they too were necessarily shaken. For the tranquillity of the empire, then, and the safety of the emperors, they prayed to God with a ready and whole mind, not only privately but also publicly in their assemblies, as we observed above (above, ch. 15, art. 1).

What, moreover, of the fact that a greater necessity, if we believe Tertullian, required the Christians to pour out these prayers from the heart (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 32, p. 447)? For the opinion had spread through their minds that the end of the world, soon to come, was then being foretold by various portents, but that it was nevertheless, as we have already observed (above, ch. 15, art. 1), not to be destroyed before the Roman empire was overthrown. They prayed, therefore, for its long continuance, and that the end of the world, which they did not wish to experience, might be delayed. But although that opinion of the Christians, as we saw above (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 29, art. 1 ff.), is not true, it is not thereby the less certainly established that they begged of God with sincere prayers both the safety of the emperors and the peaceful long continuance of their empire.

ARTICLE II.

That the Christians were undeservedly accused of injured human majesty because they would not sacrifice to the gods of the Gentiles for the emperor's safety, nor pray to those who could protect neither their temples nor themselves, nor give or preserve the emperor's safety; but God almighty alone [could], from Whom the Christians were able to obtain it by their prayers.

By the weight of so many reasons it has been sufficiently demonstrated that the Christians, who with their whole mind prayed to God daily for the safety of the emperors, were not guilty of injuring their majesty. What, then, could the Gentiles set against this, except utterly feeble arguments and absurd quibbles, which collapse of themselves and fall to the ground entirely? Yet, so that we, like our Tertullian, may leave nothing untouched, these must be examined, so that it may become plainer to anyone with how great injustice those same Christians were harassed and oppressed on account of their religion.

The heathen, then, objected that they were convicted of injured human majesty because they stubbornly refused to sacrifice to their false gods, or to pray to them, for the safety of the emperors. But to whom, says Tertullian, must one sacrifice thus (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 29, p. 438)? Is it not to those who are able to bestow safety on any man, and on the emperors too? Yet the gods of those same heathen can confer it neither on the emperors nor on any man. For these gods are either demons, and, as was said above, most wicked spirits, lost and damned, or rather dead men, as

the heathen knew for certain from their own consciousness, and as we shall show below. The Christians, therefore, could neither hope for the safety of the emperors from either of these, nor ought they to ask it.

For in what way could those false gods give it, who were never able to protect either themselves or their temples and images from thieves or from the injuries of time? Wherefore to keep them safe they needed, as our Author says, the watches of soldiers, that is, their guard by day and by night. The author of the letter to Diognetus plainly supports Tertullian, reproaching the heathen with this, rightly and deservedly, thus: The gods of stone and of earthenware you worship leaving them unguarded, but those of silver and gold you lock up by night and by day set guards beside them, lest they be stolen. You venerate gods of stone and of earthenware, without guards; but those of silver and gold you shut up by night, and by day you post guards, lest they be carried off by theft (Letter to Diognetus, after the beginning, p. 495). Rightly, therefore, does Tertullian declare that these watches are forbidden to the Christian soldier, thus: He will keep watch for the temples which he has renounced, and he will dine there where it does not please the apostle, and those whom by day he put to flight by exorcisms, namely the demons and the gods of the Gentiles, he will defend by night, leaning and resting upon the javelin (Tertullian, On the Crown, ch. 11). Other editions [have] upon the luncho, that is, the lance by which the side of Christ was pierced. You see indeed for what reason the heathen kept watch and vigil for their gods. But these guards, however watchful, could not prevent their temples and images from being despoiled, carried off, and made an object of mockery and contempt to very many. Nevertheless the Gentiles were certainly persuaded that these images were their gods themselves, or at least their dwelling, seat and abode. We have noted more about these things elsewhere (Dissertation on Arnobius, ch. 20, art. 5, and on Lactantius, ch. 35, art. 5), and shall speak of them further below.

Grant, however, if you like, that the Gentiles did not believe these images to be gods, but only that the gods were represented by them: what will you gain by that? For it is certain that these very gods of the Gentiles, whoever they were, hung upon the nod and will of the emperor. And many, as we showed above, found this out by experience. Indeed several gods, as Tertullian said, had Caesar angry with them (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 29, p. 439), who, that is, had forbidden not only that their shrines and statues be built, but that they themselves be held for gods. Nothing, moreover, is more absurd than to seek the safety of the emperor from gods subject to him, when they could sooner obtain their own safety from him than he could his from them. Wherefore Tertullian addresses those same heathen in these words: But you are irreligious, who seek that safety where it is not; you ask it of those by whom it cannot be given (ibid., p. 440). So indeed in our codices and in the old editions. But Rigault, against the authority of all of them, had religiosi written, no doubt because he thought that they are there called religious ironically. But is it lawful on account of this conjecture to alter the author's text by one's own authority, and above all when the sense of either reading is the same?

Again, he demonstrates that the Christians were more anxious than the Gentiles for the safety of their emperor,

(ibid., ch. 33, p. 448), inasmuch as they knew for certain that he had been chosen by their true God. For thence, he says, is his power, whence is his spirit and life (ibid., ch. 30, p. 442). And this he had come to know not only by natural light, but from our writers inspired by the divine Spirit (the same, On Prescription, Book I, ch. 2). For Solomon, as he says, in the book of Wisdom addresses the kings themselves thus: Power is given to you by the Lord, and strength by the Most High (Wis. 6:4). And Paul wrote to the Romans: There is no power but from God, and those that are, are ordained by God (Rom. 13). Tertullian therefore rightly and deservedly concludes from this: Caesar is more ours, appointed by our God (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 33, p. 448), than any gods of the Gentiles, who never could make any caesar or emperor. The Christian, therefore, by asking his God, by Whom the emperor was established, contributes more to the emperor's safety than the heathen by praying to his invented gods, who can bestow not even the least benefit on the emperor or on any man.

ARTICLE III.

How vainly the Gentiles objected that the Christians were guilty of injured human majesty because they refused to swear by the emperor's genius; but they swore nevertheless by his safety, though on a wholly different principle from the Gentiles.

The heathen insisted that the Christians were convicted as guilty against the majesty of the Caesars because they declined to swear by their genii, or, as our Author says elsewhere: We are called irreligious towards the Caesars, because we neither propitiate their images nor swear by their genii (Tertullian, To the Nations, Book I, ch. 17, p. 583). Now the heathen, as Festus witnesses (Festus, On the Meaning of Words, Book XX, under the word Genius), called genius not only the god of each place, but also him who held the power of carrying on all things; and there, in confirmation of his opinion, he cites these words of Aufustius: The genius is the son of the gods and the parent of men, from whom men are begotten; and therefore he is called my genius, because he begot me. Servius, moreover, observes somewhere that the ancients called genius the natural god of each place, or thing, or man; and elsewhere that the manes are called genii by Virgil, which all receive by lot together with life (Servius on Georgics I, p. 85, and on Aeneid VI, p. 440). Varro too, quoted by Augustine (Augustine, City [of God], Book VII, ch. 15, p. 172), had said that the genius is a god who is set over, and has the power of, the begetting of all things. More on genii [is said] by Lipsius (Lipsius, Physiology, Book I, ch. 19, p. 554 ff., vol. IV), by Natalis Comes (Natalis Comes, Mythology, Book IV, ch. 3), by Vossius (Vossius, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry, Book I, ch. 18), and by others, and by us in our earlier dissertations.

What we touched on lightly there demonstrates more than enough that the heathen were persuaded that the emperor's genius was his own particular god, by whom they thought he had been begotten and was ruled. No wonder, then, if they swore by him, and accused the Christians, who refused to swear, of injured majesty.

But these, [drawn] to this impious oath now by blandishments,

now by threats and torments, very often provoked by the heathen, were never willing to take it. Do you wish to have this proved to you by some example? Eusebius is at hand, who relates once and again that the most holy martyr Polycarp was pressed by the proconsul to swear by the genius of Caesar: Swear, he said, by the fortune of Caesar (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book IV, ch. 15, p. 132). But the proconsul, Eusebius goes on, received from him no other answer than this: You pretend not to know that I am a Christian, to whom that oath is plainly and utterly forbidden. We are indeed not unaware that by the Greek word τύχη fortune is signified, but there that fortune of Caesar is meant which the heathen thought was governed by his genius. But of this oath of the heathen, and of its refusal by the Christians, we have disputed in our earlier dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius (Dissertation on the Octavius of Minucius, ch. 12, art. 3).

The Christians, therefore, abhorred every oath by the genii of the emperors, since these were either nothing or demons, subject to these same Christians, who, adjuring them in the name of Christ, cast them out of the bodies of the possessed (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 32). It was not lawful for them, then, to swear by those over whom they held the highest power. Besides, the heathen who swore by the genius of Caesar very often swore falsely. For traitors and perjurers were wont to break the faith given to Caesar by this oath (the same, To the Nations, Book I, ch. 17, p. 583). Who, then, has on his conscience the crime of injured majesty? Is it he who is held by an impious oath or an infamous perjury, or the other, who steadfastly refuses to take that most iniquitous oath (above, ch., art.)?

The Christians, therefore, in rejecting this, were the less guilty of injured human majesty in that they more willingly swore by the emperor's safety, which is more august, says our Author, than all genii, as we set out a little before (ibid.). And we have Athanasius as witness of this oath, who wrote these things to the emperor Constantius about Syrianus, without doubt a Christian: Calling to witness your safety, having called your safety to witness (Athanasius, Apology to Constantius, p. 310, vol. I), he promised that he would cause no further disturbance, but would refer the matter with much greater solemnity to his religious consideration. And in the Carthaginian Conference Marcellinus the count bound himself by the same oath in these words: Whether I shall take part in this business as judge with another or alone, I promise, by the admirable mystery of the Trinity, by the sacrament of the Lord's incarnation, and by the safety of the aforementioned princes, Honorius and Theodosius, that I shall judge nothing other than what the pleadings of the parties, when examined, shall have been able to demonstrate, and what the faithfulness of the truth shall have found (Conference of Carthage, after the book of Optatus, p. 481). You see indeed of how great weight this oath is, which is joined, in a famous assembly of bishops, with two others than which nothing could be more sacred. Moreover, more examples of this oath, both in public and in private affairs, and confirmed by the laws of the emperors, occur quite often, readily to hand for all (Theodosian Code, law VIII, on agreements and settlements). Nothing, therefore, is to be added by us, except that it is a most ancient

custom to take this oath. For in the sacred Scriptures (Gen. 42:15, 16) Joseph the Patriarch is related to have sworn twice by the life of Pharaoh. Basil, however, wished us to be advised that, even though it bears some appearance of an oath, it is not an oath properly so called, but rather a certain means by which a thing may more easily be made persuasive to hearers (Basil, homily on Psalm XIV, 2). But Tertullian openly declares that the Christians swore by the emperor's safety for this reason, that, he says, we wish that to be safe which God has willed, and we hold this for a great oath (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 32, p. 447). You understand, therefore, how great a difference there was between Christians and heathen swearing thus. For the Christians by this public religious oath affirmed that with a sincere mind they desired and asked for the safety of the emperor, who had been set over them by God. But the heathen, with impious flattery, solemnly declared the emperor, whom they wished dead, to be a God and a partaker of true divinity. Of so wicked a flattery Horace was certainly a witness and an accomplice, who, as we noted elsewhere (Dissertation on Minucius, ch. 12, art. 3), wrote these lines to Caesar Augustus:

To you while yet present we grant early honours, and set up altars at which to swear by your name. (Horace, Epistles, Book I, 1, lines 15 and 16.)

ARTICLE IV.

That the Christians were wrongly charged by the heathen with injured human majesty for this reason, that they would not call the emperors gods: that the emperor himself was reminded of his weakness in the greatest glory of his triumph: that the title of god and lord was refused by Augustus Caesar: that the emperors were called lords by the Christians in the common sense of the word: that it was forbidden to the Gentiles to call the emperor a god before his death and apotheosis.

Certainly there was no greater perversity than that of the Gentiles, who brought a suit of injured majesty against the Christians for this reason, that they flatly refused to call the emperors gods or to bestow divine honours on them. For, as Tertullian cleverly argues: He denies him to be emperor who calls him god. Unless he is a man, he is not emperor (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 33, p. 449). For who can deny that the emperor, begotten of a father and mother as a man, cannot be God, Who must be wholly eternal? The Christians, therefore, who rightly abhorred the most foul flattery of the heathen calling their emperors gods, could not on this account be arraigned by anyone for injured human majesty.

Indeed Tertullian, by the most celebrated example of the triumphing emperor, most plainly convicts the heathen, who were accustomed to call him a god, of a most shameful lie. For at this highest peak of human glory, or, as he puts it, in the most lofty chariot of his triumph, he is reminded of his weakness. For it is suggested to him from behind: Look behind you; remember that you are a man (ibid.). He is silent, however, as to who it was that suggested this, no doubt because he was then as well known to all as he is known to few today. But by Tzetzes he is called an attendant, a servant,

and public servant. Indeed, of the triumphal chariot and of that monitor he sang these lines:

And how upon the chariot a public servant / stands behind him, holding up the crown, / and saying to him at the ear: look also at what is behind.

And how in the chariot a public servant / stands behind this man, holding up the crown, / and saying into his ear: look also at what is behind. (Tzetzes, Chiliades XIII, § 461.)

Pliny, however, calls him the physician of envy and of glory: "Hanging beneath them," he says, "the physician of envy defends the chariots of those who triumph; and a like medicine of the tongue bids the same men look back, lest Fortune, the executioner of glory, be won over behind them" (Pliny, Natural History, book XXVIII, ch. 4, p. 570). But if this passage of Pliny is sound and whole, he means there that the envy which those who triumphed were wont to stir up in others, or the vice of vainglory by which they could be bewitched, was healed by the medicine of the tongue of the servant standing by, who reminded the one triumphing of his human condition. For the same Pliny elsewhere said openly that the crown of the one triumphing was held up by a servant (ibid., book XXXIII, ch. 1).

But because in the former passage Fortune is called the executioner of glory, Isidore perhaps took it into his head from this that the monitor was not a servant but an executioner: "Those who triumphed," he says, "were touched by an executioner, so that, raised to so great a height, they might be reminded of human lowliness" (Isidore, Etymologies, book XVIII, ch. 2, p. 156). But Jerome, beyond doubt, does better in calling him simply a companion, who amid the acclamations of the peoples whispered into the ear of the one triumphing the words recorded by Tertullian. For he wrote to Paula: "A companion clung behind those triumphing in the chariot, saying at each acclamation of the citizens: Remember that you are a man" (Jerome, Letter 22, to Paula). And if the emperor amid such pomp of triumph was bound to remember his humanity, how much more through the whole course of his life. The Christians therefore could not call any emperor God, since, as Tertullian rightly says, they did not know how to lie, or did not dare to mock him (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 33, p. 449).

He presses further: "Augustus, though the shaper of the Roman empire already founded by Julius Caesar, did not wish to be called even master, much less god" (ibid., ch. 34, p. 450). If you want a witness to this moderation, we shall call Suetonius, who handed down this about the same Augustus: "He always shrank from the title of master as a curse and a reproach. When, while he was watching the games, it was declared in a mime, 'O just and good master!', and all, exulting as though it were said of him, had applauded it, he at once checked the unseemly dancing with his hand and look, and on the following day rebuked it with a very stern edict; and after this he did not allow himself to be called master even by his children or grandchildren, whether in earnest or in jest, and he forbade such flatteries even among themselves" (Suetonius, Life of Augustus, § 53).

But someone will rise against this and will cite against us another witness, Cornelius Tacitus, who also committed to writing that various rumours were spread after the death of the same Augustus, and that by him nothing for the honours of the gods

was left, since he willed to be worshipped with temples and in the likeness of deities through flamens and priests (Cornelius Tacitus, Annals, book I, after the beginning). But this can certainly be answered with other words of Suetonius: "Although he knew that temples were customarily decreed even to proconsuls, he accepted them in no province except jointly in his own name and that of Rome. In the City indeed he most stubbornly refrained from this honour" (Suetonius, Life of Augustus, § 52). So even if he allowed that, which is to be treated later, it is no less certain that the title of master was rejected by him, which his successors seized most greedily. For Pliny the Younger, though a heathen, openly asserted in his Panegyric to the emperor Trajan that the time was past in which base flatterers fawned on the emperor as on a god and deity: "For we speak," he says, "not of a tyrant but of a citizen, not of a master but of a parent" (Pliny, Panegyric of Trajan, beginning). The Christians therefore with better right refused to call the emperor god, because, as our Author says, "this is the name of the true God alone" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 34, p. 449), as we have noted elsewhere (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 12, art. 1).

But since it had long been received by usage that the name of master be given to emperors and to others, Tertullian says on this account: "I will plainly call the emperor master, but in the common sense, when I am not forced to call him master in the place of God" (Tertullian, ibid.). But Rigaltius removed these two words, "in the common sense", both because he had learned that they were not in the Fulda manuscript, and because, as it seems to him, they smack of a note taken from the margin. Yet those words occur in all our copies and in others, whether printed or manuscript. And there is no room for doubt that many of them surpass the Fulda manuscript in antiquity. How then could they have been thrust from the margin into the text? Do they not also make the best sense, and one fitting the Author's purpose? "I call the emperor master," he says, "when I am not forced by this name to acknowledge him as God, but when I utter that name in the common sense", that is, in the ordinary meaning in which a son is wont to call his father, a servant his lord, and some men others. How common and popular this title was you may learn from Martial alone:

You know you were born of a slave-woman, and you confess it winningly, / when you call your father "master", Sosibianus.

And elsewhere:

When I call you "master", Cinna, do not be pleased with yourself; / often I greet even my own slave so in return. (Martial, book I, epigram 82.)

But it would be utterly tedious to prove at greater length things so well worn and met everywhere by all. In this ordinary and common sense, then, our Author continues, I call the emperor Master, "but otherwise I am free of him", and not his servant. "For my Master," he says, "is the one God, almighty and eternal, the same Who is also the Master of the emperor himself", and Whom therefore both he and all other men are bound to serve (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 34, p. 449).

The name of father, moreover, our Author far more welcome

declares to be than that of master, because this is a name of power, that a name of loving devotion. Wherefore from what has already been said he draws this conclusion: "So far is it from right that the emperor should be called god, which cannot be believed, not only by a most shameful but also by a pernicious flattery, but as if, having an emperor, you were to name another" (ibid.). But these words, "which cannot be believed", doubtless seemed useless to Rigaltius, who cut them out against the witness of all the manuscripts and editions, whether printed or unprinted. Was it then lawful for him, on his own authority, to lop off from Tertullian's text everything that seemed superfluous to him? Is not this his meaning: the emperor ought to be father of the fatherland, and this name is far more welcome than that of master. You ought therefore not to call the emperor God, since he cannot be believed to be so. For by this most shameful and pernicious flattery you signify that you have another emperor, who is not God but a man, who rules over you, a man.

Finally, if the gentiles had kept to their own laws and customs, it was not lawful for them to call any emperor god except after his death and apotheosis, that is, his enrolment among the gods by decree of the senate, as we saw above. For "it is a curse", says Tertullian, "to name Caesar god before his apotheosis" (ibid.). Herodian, above others, described carefully the solemn procession of this apotheosis, and first reminds us that it was the custom of the Romans for emperors to be consecrated by their successors and so declared enrolled among the gods (Herodian, History of His Own Times, p. 540). Before that, therefore, it was lawful for no one to call them gods. Hence Cornelius Tacitus puts an end to the fifteenth book of his Annals with these words: "The honour of a god is not paid to the prince until he has ceased to live among mortals" (Tacitus, Annals, book XV, at the end). Rightly therefore Tertullian says in another book: "But we do not call the emperor god. For at this, as the common saying goes, you make a sneer. Nay, you who call Caesar god both mock him by saying what he is not, and speak ill of him, because he does not wish to be what you say; for he would rather live than become a god" (Tertullian, To the Nations, book I, ch. 18, p. 583). For since he could be a god only after his death, he would certainly rather live than lay down his life and afterwards become a god, or rather be adorned with this wholly lying title. The Christians therefore could not, without the utmost injustice, be called guilty of injured human majesty, or public enemies, on the ground that they would not call the emperor God. For this title belongs to Him alone Who is not man, but eternal and immortal.