D. N. Le Nourry, O.S.B., Dissertatio in Marci Minucii Felicis librum qui Octavius inscribitur

DISSERTATION ON THE BOOK OF MARCUS MINUCIUS FELIX WHICH IS ENTITLED OCTAVIUS.

BY DOM NIC[OLAS] LE NOURRY, MONK OF THE O[RDER OF] S[AINT] B[ENEDICT], OF THE CONGREGATION OF SAINT MAUR.

CHAPTER ONE.

An analysis of this book; who its author is; and who were Caecilius and Octavius, who are introduced in it as disputants.

ARTICLE ONE.

Analysis of this book.

This book contains nothing other than a dialogue in which Caecilius, given over to the superstitious vanities of the heathen, tries by various arguments to prove that the worship of the gods of his fathers and forefathers is to be abandoned by no one, and that all must persevere in it. Octavius, on the other hand, who had rejected that impious worship and, together with Minucius Felix, had given his name to the Christian profession, so overturns all the arguments of Caecilius from their foundations, and demonstrates the truth of the Christian religion by reasons of such weight, that Caecilius, wholly convinced by them, embraced it with a glad and thankful mind.

From the very opening of the book Minucius relates how delightful he found the remembrance of the things that had befallen him with Octavius while he lived with him at Rome, and above all the remembrance of this disputation. For Octavius had come to him unexpectedly on some business at the time of the vintage and the holidays of the courts. Octavius's arrival was as welcome to Minucius as it was unforeseen. When over one day and another they had satisfied the eagerness of their great longing, both resolved to go to the sea baths at Ostia, taking along Caecilianus, Minucius's companion. So at daybreak, as they were making for the sea, "walking along," as he says, "the shore," Caecilius, "having noticed" an image of Serapis, raised his hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss upon it with his lips. For this reason Octavius at once sharply reproached Minucius that the infamy of this impious deed redounded no less upon him, as Caecilius's host, than upon Caecilius himself. Nevertheless, having covered the rest of the way from there, they walked along the seashore talking about navigation,

There, moreover, when Minucius and Octavius were watching, not without some pleasure, boys playing at skimming shells over the sea, Caecilius, on the contrary, paying no attention at all to so pleasing a spectacle, showed a rather sad mind. Minucius therefore missed in him his usual cheerfulness. But he frankly confessed that he had been struck by Octavius's words, and therefore asked that he might dispute with Octavius about the truth of his religion. Octavius agreed together with his companion, and, a somewhat higher spot having been chosen, Minucius sat in the middle between him and Octavius.

Before Caecilius enters upon this disputation, he asks Minucius to hold the balance of a most impartial judge, just as if nothing about any religion had so far been ascertained by him. Then he asserts without hesitation that it can very easily be proved that all things in human affairs are doubtful, in suspense, uncertain, and rather probable than true. It is therefore to be lamented, he says, and worthy of everyone's indignation, that certain unlearned men, ignorant of the sciences and arts, do not hesitate to decide something about the sum of things and the divine majesty, concerning which philosophers had not dared to lay down anything certain down to this very day. And not without reason; for they were persuaded that weak men are denied the searching of heavenly things, and that it ought to be enough for them if they know themselves more intimately. Then by a brief induction he tries to show that it is not certain whether all things were made with some God as their author. And from the prosperous fortune of wicked men, Phalaris and Dionysius, and the adverse fortune of good men, Rutilius, Camillus and Socrates, and from the varied and slippery chances of earthly things, he strives to prove that it is not yet established for us whether the world is ruled by the providence of God, or whether fortune, loosed from laws, is lord over all things.

From this, then, he concludes that it is better to adhere to the ancient religions handed down, and to reverence and adore the gods, than to pass any judgement about them. For from the very beginning of the world our forefathers held these gods either as gracious or as kings. For every nation, and afterwards the Romans, so worshipped their own deities that the latter by their pious worship of them earned supreme dominion over the whole world. Then he does not shrink from asserting that this worship of the gods, which is the holier the older it is, is sufficiently proved by certain miracles, and has not been despised and mocked with impunity by some impious men. Declaring that he has passed over a great many other things about the natural [powers] and gifts of the gods, about the songs of the poets, and about oracles foretelling things to come, he confidently pronounces that the presence of the gods is made manifest to anyone from the temples which they inhabited; from the seers, who knew things to come; from the benefits by which the gods themselves were accustomed to deserve well of men; and finally from dreams, in which they were most evidently recognized. Therefore, although the nature or origin of these gods is uncertain, the agreement of all nations concerning them must nevertheless remain firm. Wherefore, he says, the impious rashness of Theodorus, Diagoras and Protagoras, who wished to abolish this religion entirely, or at least to weaken it, is by no means to be tolerated.

But certainly much less, he says, ought the unlawful and desperate faction of the Christians to be tolerated, and that light-shunning race of theirs, gathered from the lowest dregs of mankind, and bound together by nocturnal gatherings, solemn fasts and inhuman foods. For these men despise temples as tombs, spurn the gods, laugh at sacred rites, care nothing for honours, and finally so scorn torments that, while they fear to die after death, they meanwhile have no dread of dying. Nevertheless, scattered through all parts of the earth, they recognize one another by secret marks, and love one another almost before they know one another. And they are said to adore the head of an ass, to worship the genitals of their priest, and to venerate a crucified man and the very instrument of this punishment. What more? On a solemn day they assemble for a banquet, and there, having drunk the blood of an infant most cruelly slain, they ratify the covenant struck, and their novices are initiated. But after that banquet of most monstrous savagery, the lights having been put out by a dog, in shameless darkness they all mingle by uncertain lot, and so become incestuous, either in deed or in conscience. Moreover, whatever they worship they strive with great zeal to conceal; they have no altars, no temples, no known images.

Their God, moreover, like that of the Jews, is said to be one only, Whom, though they can neither see nor show Him, they nevertheless think to be utterly restless in mind, perversely inquisitive, present everywhere, diligently searching out all the deeds of men and the inmost thoughts of the mind, even though He cannot attend to each individually. They also assert that there will be a conflagration of the whole world, and, after the resurrection of our bodies, to the just of a most blessed life, to the unjust

of the greatest punishments they promise an eternity. For that reason they condemn pyres and burials by fire, and ascribe all things to the divine will or to fate. Yet no dead man can be raised from the underworld; and no one has ever been called back to life by the lot of Protesilaus, even for a single hour. But what is to befall these Christians after death they ought to divine from this: that now, destitute of all divine help and subject indeed to the Romans, they are weighed down by the greatest calamities and miseries, abstain from honest pleasures, spectacles, processions, public banquets, food offered to idols, flowers and garlands, and reserve ointments for funerals.

Caecilius therefore exhorts his companions to cease prying into the regions of heaven and the secrets of the world, and to follow this saying of Socrates: "What is above us is nothing to us." And indeed he deserved to be praised by the divine oracle for this reason: "that he had learned that he knew nothing." From this source, moreover, flowed the prudent doubt of Arcesilaus, of Carneades and of most of the Academics on the highest questions, and the hesitation of Simonides, when questioned by the tyrant Hiero about the gods, a hesitation to be imitated by all. Finally Caecilius declares that he subscribes with a willing mind to the opinion of these men; and, not without the disdain of a proud mind, he puts an end to his discourse by challenging Octavius to answer his arguments.

Then Minucius modestly answered Caecilius that he ought not to exult over the elegance of his discourse, the subtle variety of his speech, and his own by no means mediocre eloquence; but that each of his arguments must be carefully weighed, so that whatever in them is true and sound may be selected, approved and accepted. But Caecilius, not without some sign of an offended mind, said that by weakening the force of his disputation he was departing from the duty of a scrupulous judge. For Octavius was free to refute, if he could, all that he had brought forward, and he himself was now fully ready to hear him in deep silence.

"I will speak indeed," answered Octavius, "and will strive with all my strength to wash away the most bitter stain of reproaches with a stream of truthful words." Before all else, however, he declares that it is not right for him to conceal that the mind and opinion of Caecilius are doubtful, wavering, unsettled and fluctuating. Yet he admits that this is to be attributed not to any malicious guile on his part, nor to a cunning and crafty mind in him, which is wholly alien to his sincerity, but to ignorance of the truth.

Next, setting about weakening each of Caecilius's arguments, he teaches that no one should take it ill that Christians, however unlettered and poor, discuss heavenly matters. For such were not only the philosophers and the other inventors of the arts, but also men of our own nation, who, however needy and destitute, handed down prudence and learning to others. And indeed, since intelligence is not given by fortune or wealth but is implanted in us by nature, any person of whatever sex and condition can investigate divine things and pass judgement on them.

He grants indeed that man ought to know himself, who he is, whence, why, by whom, and out of what elements he was made; but he plainly and utterly denies that this knowledge can be acquired by him unless he first comes to know the universe of things, and God Himself. For no one, unless wholly bereft of mind, can contemplate the ordered beauty of the whole world without at once being persuaded that it was founded not by a chance concourse of atoms but by God, and is ruled and governed by Him. This he confirms and establishes from the motions and usefulness of the sky, the sun, the moon and the stars, from the cycle of the months, the alternation of darkness and light, the wonderful order of the seasons, the steady variety of the crops, the bounds of the sea, the manifold armour inborn in living creatures for their own defence, the form and shape of man, and the manner of begetting and being born. For all these things cannot come about without the providence of almighty God. And God has taken thought not only for the universe as a whole but for each of its parts. For who doubts that by His command Britain is made fruitful by the warmth of the sea, Egypt by the Nile, Mesopotamia by the Euphrates, the East by the river Indus? In short, just as we perceive that someone presides over a house set in order with splendid furnishing, so we perceive that this Lord presides over the whole world.

Furthermore, Octavius proves that He is the one and only God by the example of earthly kingdoms, namely those of the Persians, the Thebans and the Romans, where, he says, no brother could ever endure a brother, nor father-in-law a son-in-law, as partner in the kingdom. And what of the fact that, just as bees, flocks and herds have only one king or leader, so there is one God, Who, lacking beginning and end, governs all things?

But although He, infinite and immeasurable, and known in His greatness to Himself alone, can be neither seen nor named by us, yet if you take away the additions of earthly names you will clearly recognize Him. And indeed Octavius argues that there is a unanimous agreement of all men about Him from the fact that the common people, stretching their hands towards heaven, call upon Him. Moreover the poets have called Him father of gods and men, and Virgil creator of all things, mind and spirit. Indeed even the more eminent philosophers themselves, as he shows one by one, Thales, Anaximenes, Diogenes of Apollonia, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Antisthenes, Speusippus, Democritus, Straton, Aristotle, Heraclides, Theophrastus, Zeno, Chrysippus, Cleanthes, Diogenes, the Babylonian, Xenophon, Aristo and Plato, although they differ from us in words and language, nevertheless came round to our opinion about that very one God, some more obscurely, some more plainly.

And with these matters thus argued, Octavius clearly convicts of falsehood the ridiculous old wives' tales and absurd traditions about Scylla, the Chimaera, the Hydra, the Centaurs and others, peddled by our forefathers as marvels. No less clearly he shows that the worship of the gods has always been senseless and impious. For indeed the most ancient men at first certainly their own kings,

illustrious leaders, chaste queens stronger than their sex, and inventors of the arts, they venerated no differently than gods, on account of their famous deeds or the benefits received from them. And this indeed is proved by Octavius from the testimony of Euhemerus, Prodicus, Perseus and Alexander the Great, by whom the native land of the gods, their birthdays, their tombs or their benefits, and the secrets of the priests are recounted. The heathen, therefore, could not deny these things, following [it] up, that neither the sistrum, he says, of Isis, nor the tomb of Serapis or Osiris, and the sacred mysteries betray anything other than the sad ends, fates and funerals of wretched gods. Who, moreover, does not see that the Eleusinian rites of Ceres, and the other rites of Jupiter and Cybele, are no less absurd than shameful?

What great absurdities and rotten trifles, moreover, do the heathen peddle about the form and figure of their gods! For they portray Vulcan as lame, Apollo as beardless, Aesculapius his son as bearded, Neptune with grey-green eyes, Minerva with blue-grey ones, Juno with ox eyes, Mercury with winged feet, Pan with hoofed ones, Saturn with fettered ones, Janus with a double face, Diana girt up high, the Ephesian one with many breasts, Trivia with a triple head and many hands, Jupiter bristling with as many monstrosities of form as he is called by names, Erigone hanging by a noose, the Castors living and dying on alternate days, Aesculapius struck by a thunderbolt, and Hercules burnt in the fires of Oeta.

These fables, moreover, first handed down by impious men, others afterwards made famous, and the poets above all, who did no little harm to the truth by their authority. Therefore Plato not undeservedly cast Homer out of his state, who with shameless mockery sang of Venus wounded, Mars put to flight not without wounds, Jupiter set free by Briareus. [Jupiter] weeping the fall of Sarpedon with bloody showers, and enticed by the girdle of Venus; Hercules carrying out dung, Neptune building the walls of Laomedon without any wage, Apollo pasturing the flock of Admetus, Vulcan forging the thunderbolts of Jupiter born in Crete, the adultery of Mars and Venus, and Ganymede carried off by the same Jupiter. But by those ridiculous and obscene fictions the minds of boys are corrupted, and at length they grow old in them basely and wickedly.

From Diodorus Siculus, nevertheless, from Thallus and Nepos, whom Octavius cites, all could very easily have learned that the chief of these was Saturn; who, fleeing from Crete for fear of his son, and received in Italy by Janus, taught uncivilized men a great many things, and, by having his name given to various places, proved himself to be a man. Jupiter, for his part, who reigned in Crete, from which he had expelled him, died in this island, where his tomb is shown. Moreover Romulus after his death, Proculus forswearing himself, Juba with the Moors willing it, and others too, although unwilling and resisting, were proclaimed gods. Yet the true God can neither be born nor die.

Next, the images and statues of the gods Octavius

attacks, and makes plain that these things, fashioned in whatever way by the hands and craft of workmen from either cheap and base or costly material, and very often fouled by birds and other animals, are impiously worshipped by the heathen and wearied with prayers in vain and to no purpose. Moreover, by a brief survey he shows how many ridiculous, obscene and cruel rites were observed in celebrating the mysteries of certain gods.

Then next he shows that Caecilius wrongly boasts that the Romans, through the due observance of superstitions of this kind, gained the empire of the whole world. For that kingdom was begun in parricide and grew by crimes, impiety and sacrileges. And what of the fact that the native gods, Romulus, Picus, Tiberinus, Consus, Pilumnus, Picumnus, Cloacina, Fear, Pallor, Fever, Disease, Acca Laurentia and Flora, could bring no help to those same Romans? Much less the gods of other nations, whom they did not worship until these had first been conquered in war and a triumph had been held over them. Finally, no one is unaware that the Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Greeks and Egyptians reigned before any Roman superstitions whatever, superstitions worse than all others.

Further, the weapon lightly hurled by Caecilius from the auspices and auguries of birds Octavius blunts against him with the examples of Regulus, Mancinus, Paulus and Caesar. By similar examples of Amphiaraus, Tiresias and the Pythian Apollo he also shows that the argument drawn from oracles is no more valid. But because someone could insist that at least some oracles had been true, Octavius therefore judged that the matter must be traced back more deeply and from its first origin. He says, then, that there are certain unclean spirits who through desire and vices have lost the simplicity of their substance. Nor could the heathen deny this. For the poets call them demons, and they were known to the Magi and to Socrates, who had one of them as guardian and counsellor. Who they are, Hostanes and Plato explain at length. And the Magi and others produce various illusions by the breath and inspiration of these lost angels, who strive to destroy men along with themselves.

Those demons themselves lurk beneath statues and images, dwell in shrines, or creep into the bodies of men; they disturb the natural order of certain things, pour forth oracles wrapped in false responses, and bring about other extraordinary things, such as those which Caecilius had recounted concerning Jupiter, the Castors and Claudia, so that to the heathen they seem to have worked true miracles. Yet they are then compelled to confess that these things were done not by God but by themselves, when, adjured by Christians through the true God, they are also driven out of possessed bodies by holy exorcisms. For this reason they flee from Christians at close quarters, and stir up so great a hatred of the Gentiles against them that they begin to hate them before they know them, and even charge them with abominable crimes which hitherto could be proved by no one. And indeed Octavius plainly testifies that he learned this by his own experience, when he himself, still a heathen, and his companions, the Christians

by various tortures strove to compel not so much to confess those fictitious crimes as to abjure the faith of Christ.

There, however, he most invincibly demonstrates that the Christians are as falsely charged with sacrilege, incest, debauchery and parricide as it was certain and true that precisely the same crimes, or ones wholly like them, and even greater ones, were in fact committed by the heathens themselves. And first, he says, those who perversely kept crying out that the head of an ass was adored by the Christians were the very ones who consecrated asses together with Epona and Isis, venerated the heads of oxen and of wethers, and dedicated gods represented either with a goat's and a human form or with an ox's and a dog's face. Besides this, the Romans themselves worshipped the bull Apis and other animals, serpents, birds, beasts and fishes, just like the Egyptians, who revered Isis and Serapis no more than the pungency of onions and the rumblings of the belly.

As for what Caecilius next objected, that the genitals of the priest are worshipped by the Christians, Octavius asserts that this is as false as it is certain that the heathens defile themselves with the most obscene foulnesses, which it has never been lawful for us either to name or to hear.

Nor was it any more true that a man fastened to a cross for his crimes is worshipped by us. For we rightly believe Him to be not only innocent but God. On the contrary, the Egyptians slay victims and offer sacrifices to a man chosen by themselves. Others, again, invoke the divinities of kings enrolled by themselves among the gods, make supplication to their images, and implore their genii.

Crosses, moreover, Octavius goes on, we neither worship nor wish for. But the heathens perhaps venerate them as parts of their gods. For the figure of the cross is seen in their own standards, which they worship, in their banners, ensigns and trophies, and in many other natural things which he mentions.

He says also that the slander about the blood, drunk by the Christians, of an infant killed by themselves is most shameless. The heathens, on the other hand, as he argues, both cruelly expose newly born children and, before they are born, kill them by a most cruel abortion. Saturn, moreover, is said to have devoured his sons, and infants are sacrificed by certain inhabitants of Africa, just as Egyptian guests were by the Tauri and by Busiris, and men by the Gauls and the Romans; and Jupiter himself too, horrible to tell, is worshipped with this victim. What more? With human blood Catiline bound his conspiracy, with it sacrifice is made to Bellona, and the falling sickness is healed. Finally, athletes devour beasts still fattened on the gore and limbs of men. But for Christians it is not lawful even to hear of or to see a homicide, and they are forbidden the blood of animals.

Also, the banquet polluted with incest which is objected against the Christians is as far removed from all likelihood as it is established that the gentiles are in very fact guilty of incest. For the Persians have intercourse with their mothers, the Egyptians and Athenians with their sisters. The poets, moreover, sing of various and execrable adulteries of the gods, of which most of the gentiles too were accomplices. But the Christians, bound by the bond of a single marriage,

outside it always chaste, who, persevering in virginity, held modest, sober banquets tempered with grave cheerfulness.

But although they refuse the purple and honours, they are nevertheless not sprung from the lowest dregs of the common people, nor factious, nor chatterers in corners. For of their approved life no uncertain testimony was the complaint, often repeated, about their number growing daily. And certainly they recognize one another not by a mark of the body but by the sign of innocence, and as much as they love one another, and rightly and deservedly call one another by the name of brothers, so much the more cruelly do the heathen, unknown to one another, rage against themselves with mutual hatreds.

Nor can it be said that these same Christians conceal what they worship because they have no shrines and no altars. For they were persuaded that God cannot be enclosed by any temple, nor any image of Him be fashioned, and that no victim is more pleasing and more acceptable to Him than a man's pure and sincere conscience.

Moreover, although we do not see this God with our eyes, just as we do not see the winds, the sun and our own soul, we nevertheless clearly know Him from His works. And being present everywhere He sees all things, even the more secret thoughts of our mind, and we live almost with Him, and in His bosom. But if it is nevertheless said that God was of no profit to the Jews, certainly the writers of the Jewish annals were in any case the most reliable witnesses that they forsook God before they were forsaken by Him.

Furthermore, since all things that have a beginning also have an end, it is no wonder if this world is at last to be consumed by fire. And indeed Octavius shows that this was the opinion of the Stoics, the Epicureans and Plato concerning that conflagration of the world. But the latter, like Pythagoras, acknowledged only a halved recall of a dead man to life. It is certain, however, that God, Who formed man out of nothing, can raise him from death to life. And by certain examples Octavius proves that there will be this resurrection of the bodies which the Christians used to bury after the ancient and better custom. In a not very dissimilar way he shows that just and pious men are to be rewarded after this life with eternal happiness, but the unjust with everlasting punishments. Then he next demonstrates clearly that the morals of the Christians are much holier than those of the gentiles. No less plainly he teaches that what is given is nothing other than what God has spoken, Who determines the fates according to the deserts of each. And there he promises that he will at some time discuss fate more fully.

After this he makes it most manifest that the poverty with which Christians are reproached is not a disgrace but a glory, just as their misfortunes, and the tortures, however horrible, most unjustly inflicted upon them for the confession of Christ, and death itself, are not punishments but proofs of virtue, and triumphs, and spectacles worthy of God. This Octavius indeed shows clearly by setting the deeds of certain most courageous heathen beside our martyrs

in comparison. But if some, not knowing God, abound in riches and honours, or are raised to the very summit of dignities and of empire, he asserts that these are victims fattened and garlanded for punishment, who are surely lifted the higher so that they may fall with a heavier collapse. For without the knowledge of God there can be no solid happiness.

Further, he declares that the Christians do not attend the shows and processions for this reason, that they knew with absolute certainty that these were no less impious than cruel. They likewise abstain from things offered to idols, lest anyone should think that they either yield to demons or are ashamed of their own religion. Yet they do not scorn every colour and scent of flowers. For they are accustomed to use them scattered, loose and soft, and to encircle their necks with garlands; but to crown the head of a dead man they judge superfluous and useless. With the same tranquillity with which they live they bury the dead, awaiting the crown of eternal happiness in most certain hope. Therefore, however much Socrates, Arcesilas, Carneades, Pyrrho, the Academics and Simonides may assert that they know nothing for certain, the Christians nevertheless not undeservedly glory that they have found that truth which those men had sought in vain. Their religion, then, is the true one, and, the superstitions of the gentiles being rejected, it is to be embraced by all.

Further, when Octavius had concluded these things, and Minucius, carried away in admiration of him, was silent, Caecilius exclaimed that he had been conquered by Octavius, and was now the conqueror of his own error, and that he professed the Christian religion from that very moment. Finally, a clearer explanation of our mysteries having been put off to the following day, all returned home glad and cheerful.

Article II.

Whether Minucius Felix is the author of this book, and who he was.

That Minucius Felix is the author of this book or dialogue is proved by so invincible an authority of writers beyond all question of credibility that no room for doubt on the matter can remain for anyone. For Firmianus Lactantius, who flourished in the reign of Diocletian, as Jerome notes (Jerome, Catalogue of Writers § 80), and not long after Minucius, has these words about him (Lactantius, book I On True Religion, chapter 11): « Minucius Felix, in that book which is entitled Octavius, argued thus: that Saturn, when he had been put to flight by his son and had come into Italy, etc. » And this we do indeed read in this book of Minucius. After this the same Lactantius: « Of those, he says, who are known to me, Minucius Felix held no ignoble place among advocates. His book, whose title is Octavius, shows how fit an asserter of the truth he could have been, had he devoted himself wholly to that pursuit (Lactantius, book V On Justice, chapter 1). »

Jerome, moreover, in his Catalogue On Illustrious Men, or ecclesiastical writers: « Minucius Felix, he says, a distinguished advocate at Rome, wrote a dialogue of a Christian and a heathen disputing (the most ancient

manuscript codex of Saint-Germain-des-Prés [reads] disputantis), which is entitled Octavius... Lactantius too makes mention of this Minucius in his books" (Jerome, On Ecclesiastical Writers, ch. 58), namely in those which, as you see, have been cited by us. To Magnus, moreover, he wrote this further about him (the same, Letter to Magnus): "Minucius Felix, an advocate of the Roman forum, in the book whose title is Octavius, and in another against the Astrologers, if indeed the title does not belie its author, what of the pagan writings did he leave untouched? To Heliodorus also he writes this concerning Nepotian (the same, Letter on Heliodorus): "He used to say that of Tertullian... Thus Minucius Felix, so Victorinus, in this manner Arnobius spoke." Finally, in the Apology against Jovinian (the same, Letter 30 to Pammachius, or Apology against Jovinian): "I say nothing," he says, "of the Latin writers Tertullian, Cyprian, Minucius, Victorinus, Lactantius, Hilary."

It would indeed be long and useless to bring forward all the testimonies of more recent writers concerning the author of this book. For it is sufficiently established that it is attributed to our Minucius by all, with no one objecting, and is claimed for him quite rightly and deservedly.

Now he who is called Minucius by some, with the letter c changed into t, bore the agnomen of Marcus. For Octavius addressed him in these words: "It is not the part of a good man, brother Marcus, a man, etc." And Caecilius: "Although to you, brother Marcus, etc."

But however well known to all and noble the consular family of the Minucii was among the Romans, so far it is unknown to anyone whether our Minucius drew his origin from it or from which other. Nor has anyone better ascertained what his native land was. Some, however, suspect from the style of this work which we are treating that he was born in Africa. But these neither prove, nor are able to prove, that anything of the harsher African speech is detected in him. Could it be said with better right that Caecilius and Octavius, bound to Minucius by so great a bond of love, were in fact Africans and his fellow countrymen? But surely this, as we shall see a little later, is neither so certain, nor can it be inferred without any doubt from the closeness of their friendship, however great.

But we think there will be no one who will deny that Minucius lived for a long time at Rome, which was then the head of all the other cities of the whole world, where he discharged the office of advocate. For Lactantius and Jerome, cited by us, assert this plainly and openly. And Minucius himself, at the beginning of this book, writes that Octavius came to him at Rome, and that together with him and another companion he went a little later to Ostia: "When," he says, "the vintage holidays had relaxed my judicial duties," that is, when at the time of the vintage he was free from the labour of the courts with which he was occupied throughout the whole year. Did not Octavius too say of himself and of Minucius, or rather in the name of Minucius alone: "Yet we did not undertake to defend and protect any sacrilegious and incestuous persons, even parricides;

these, however," namely the Christians, "we thought ought not to be heard at all." From which it is clear that he, while he was still a heathen, discharged the office of an advocate.

But he himself is our witness that from his earliest years, and up to an age already well grown, he was bound to all the superstitions of the gentiles, and that at length, having sent them notice of dismissal, he embraced the Christian faith. For concerning himself and Octavius he handed down this in writing: "He alone was privy to my loves, my companion in my errors; and when, the darkness having been scattered, I was emerging from the depth of shadows into the light of wisdom and truth, he did not reject me as a companion, but, what is more glorious, ran on ahead." Caelius, moreover, addresses him thus from the very opening of his speech: "How little doubtful it must be to you, brother Marcus, concerning the matter into which we are now above all inquiring, that is, the truth of the heathen and of the Christian religion," "inasmuch as, having been diligently versed in both manners of living, you have rejected the one and approved the other." Indeed Octavius too, speaking perhaps not so much of himself, as we have said, as of Minucius Felix, again speaks in this manner: "But how unjust it is to pass judgement on things unknown," namely the Christians, "and unexamined, as you do, believe us who ourselves repent of it. For we too were the same, and once, while still blind and dull, we thought the same as you, as though the Christians worshipped monsters, devoured infants, and held incestuous banquets. Nor did we understand that these tales were always being bandied about by them, and never either investigated or proved... we thought these ought not to be heard at all. Sometimes too, pitying them, we raged the more cruelly, so as to torture those who confessed into denying, that is, so that they might not perish, exercising on them a perverse interrogation, one that would not dig out the truth but would compel a lie. And if anyone weaker, overwhelmed and conquered by the suffering, had denied that he was a Christian, we showed him favour, as though, having abjured the name, he had by that denial at once purged all his deeds. Do you recognize that we thought and did the same things that you think and do?"

But someone will perhaps further ask of us whether Minucius Felix, after he had given his name to the Christian faith, still devoted his labour to discharging the office of an advocate. But let him, I pray, turn his mind to what we observed a little before, that he came with Caecilius and Octavius to Ostia, where the disputation set out in this book with which we are dealing was held, at the time when "the vintage holidays had relaxed his judicial cares." Yet at that time, as we showed from the words of Caecilius cited a little before, Minucius professed the Christian religion. Wherefore, when Caecilius had paid reverence to an image of Serapis that he came upon, Octavius at once inveighed against Minucius thus: "It is not the part of a good man, brother Marcus, so to abandon a man who clings to your side at home and abroad in this blindness of common ignorance as to allow him on so bright a day to dash himself against stones... since you know that, of this error, no less upon you than upon

him himself does the disgrace redound." But there Octavius, as you see, reproaches Minucius on this account: that, though he then professed the Christian religion, he had allowed the image of Serapis to be worshipped by Caecilius, his inseparable companion, on the way by which he was going to the shore at Ostia.

Nor ought this to seem strange to anyone. For at that time Christians were not accustomed to lay down their offices, nor their dignities, or other functions, together with the religion of the heathen. But they at that time, as we have said and shall say more fully below, scattered through the whole world and mingled with the heathen, used to carry on all kinds of duties and business with them, the worship of the gods alone excepted. Hence Tertullian (Apology ch. 37, p. 33): "We are of yesterday," he said, "and we have filled all that is yours: cities, islands, forts, towns, assembly places, the very camps, tribes, decuries, the palace, the senate, the forum; we have left you only the temples." And below (the same, ibid. ch. 42): "And so we share this world with you, not without the forum, not without the meat market, not without baths, shops, workshops, inns, your markets and the rest of commerce. We too sail with you, and serve as soldiers with you, and farm, and trade; accordingly we combine our crafts, we make our labours public for your use. How we could seem unprofitable to your business, with whom and on whom we live, I do not know. But I do not frequent your ceremonies, etc."

How piously and holily Minucius afterwards lived, Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, teaches in these words (Eucherius of Lyons, Letter to Valerian): "And when shall I unroll from that volume of multitude Firmianus, Minucius, Cyprian, Hilary, John, Ambrose, men most illustrious in eloquence? They had said, I believe: What is this? The unlearned rise up and seize heaven; and we with our learning, behold where we wallow in error and blood. They had said this; and for that reason they themselves afterwards did violence to the kingdom."

Article III.

Who Caecilius and Octavius were, who are introduced in this book as disputants.

Since this book contains nothing else, as we have seen, besides the dialogue of Caecilius and Octavius disputing about the heathen and the Christian religion, someone will no doubt ask us who they were. But to him we shall frankly answer that nothing more certain can be brought forward about them than from this book. Caecilius, then, who pleads the cause of the heathen, is there called by Octavius by another name, Natalis. "Nor shall I hide," he says, "that at the outset I noted the opinion of my Natalis to be thus wandering, roving, slippery... but in my Natalis I do not wish, I do not believe, there is cunning; subtle urbanity is far from his simplicity." From these words we further gather that he was a good man, upright, sincere and a friend of simple truth.

Nor can anyone doubt that he was at first indeed bound over to the religion of the gentiles, which he strives in this book to defend in good faith and with all the powers of his intellect. And indeed when he understood that he through

Minucius's side was being struck by Octavius, because he had saluted the image of Serapis after the manner of the gentiles, as has been said, he was seized by such great grief that he broke out into these words: "For a long while now the speech of our Octavius has been sharply tormenting and stinging me, in which, inveighing against you, he rebuked you for negligence, so as covertly to accuse me more heavily of ignorance." Finally, such was his uprightness and frankness, and such the candour of his mind, that, having listened most attentively to Octavius's speech, he at once and of his own accord confessed himself defeated, abjured his former errors, and embraced the Christian faith.

Some, however, think it can be gathered from those words of his in which he calls Fronto of Cirta his orator that he was by native country a Cirtensian, that is, sprung from Cirta, a most noble town of Numidia: "The speech of our Cirtensian also testifies to this." Since Octavius knew well that this was true, he answered him thus: "So too your Fronto made his statement about this, not bearing testimony as one who affirms, but scattering abuse as an orator." Nevertheless, since Caecilius could have called Fronto his own for another reason, let the judgement of how much weight this argument carries be left to others.

Whatever, moreover, may be decided about his native country, we certainly know that he lived for a long time at Rome, and in the same house as Minucius. There, moreover, so close a bond of friendship had arisen between the two that Caecilius never departed from Minucius's side. For Octavius openly declares that he was "a man clinging to the side" of Minucius Felix "at home and abroad." Accordingly, when Caecilius had adored the effigy of Serapis, Octavius at once said, rebuking Minucius: "Know that the disgrace of this error redounds no less upon you than upon him."

For the rest, he seems to have been a philosopher and to have followed the sect of the Academics, who asserted that all things are doubtful and uncertain, and that they knew nothing. For in his speech he plays no other part than that of a man of the Academy of this kind, as is most plainly evident to all not only from its opening but also from its end. What of the fact that in the same speech he strives to prove that it is wholly uncertain, and has been ascertained neither by himself nor by any man hitherto, whether there is one god or several, and that therefore it is better, in a matter so doubtful, to follow the traditions received from our forebears concerning those same gods and their worship? But when the light of truth shone upon him, then at once, his former errors repudiated, as we have seen, he acknowledged one God, believed, and professed the Christian religion.

Some, however, have thought it could be concluded from the writings of Lampridius that this Caecilius was an African by nation, a rhetorician by profession, and the tutor of Diadumenus, who was the son of Macrinus. But this opinion rests on no ground at all, not even on a plausible reason, indeed not even on the name itself. For those who have been permitted to read the manuscript codices of Lampridius assert that in all of them the teacher of Diadumenus is called neither Caecilius nor Caecilianus, but Caelianus. As for the suspicion of certain others that he was Natalis, who in the reign of Severus, Christ

having confessed, afterwards defected to the Theodotian heretics, these indeed rest on a mere and wholly feeble conjecture, namely on the likeness of the name alone.

But indeed those, then, are believed to be nearer [the truth] who hold that he is the man who, having returned to Africa and afterwards been made a presbyter, brought Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, to the Christian religion itself. For of him Pontius the Deacon relates the following in his life of the same Cyprian: "He had, indeed, from among us too, the companionship of a just man of praiseworthy memory, Caecilius, a presbyter then both in age and in rank, who had corrected him from worldly error to the knowledge of the true divinity. Him he loved with all honour and every mark of respect, regarding him with dutiful veneration, no longer as a friend equal in soul, but as the parent of his new life." In memory of so great a benefit, moreover, Cyprian without doubt took the surname of Caecilius. For what else, I ask, do these words of Jerome signify (On Ecclesiastical Writers, ch. 67): "Thereupon, at the persuasion of the presbyter Caecilius, from whom he also obtained his surname, he became a Christian"? Caecilius, for his part, in turn pursued Cyprian with such love and honour that, again on the testimony of Pontius, when dying he commended his wife and children to him. "Soothed by his dutiful attentions," says Pontius, "he was moved by the merit of so immense an affection that, departing from the world, with his summons now near at hand, he commended to him his wife and children, and him whom he had made a partner in the fellowship of the sect he afterwards made the heir of his piety." But that this is the Caecilius of whom we are treating they think is not unreasonably confirmed from the fact that his age and Cyprian's were the same, and the same, as it appears, their homeland, to which Caecilius had returned after giving his name to Christ. To this is added that Cyprian copied out word for word several fragments of this book, of which we [speak] below. But even if you should prove that nothing in these weighty reasons is opposed to this opinion, you will nevertheless never persuade anyone that anything at all certain and indubitable can be concluded from them.

Octavius, on the other hand, who is also surnamed Januarius by Caecilius, was, as Minucius says, an excellent and holy man, and most friendly to him. And certainly each burned with such love for the other "that you would believe," says the same Minucius, "that one mind had been divided between two." Each, too, as we have noted, had been an advocate of causes and a heathen, and both together, having abjured the impious worship of the gentiles, were initiated into the Christian religion. At that time, moreover, Octavius was Minucius's most faithful companion (for so Minucius himself speaks), that is, he was living with him at Rome. From there he afterwards returned to his homeland, and having been joined in marriage there, he begot several children. But with them still infants,

and trying out half-formed words, left behind, he came to Rome again for the sake of business and of visiting Minucius, where he was received by him with the greatest joy. His piety and holiness are sufficiently disclosed by the ardour and zeal of mind with which, carried away against the superstitions of the gentiles, he so sharply rebuked Caecilius, and even Minucius himself, for the image of Serapis having been adored by him, as we have seen. We know indeed that in Cyprian's time there were in Africa certain bishops, of whom one is called Natalis and the other Januarius. But whoever says that these are the same men who dispute in this book of Minucius will be guessing at their pleasure, supported by no reason whatever, not even the least.

Moreover, Minucius at the beginning of this book seems to indicate that Octavius had departed from this life when he committed this dialogue of his with Caecilius to writing. For there he explains how dear the memory of him was to him, and how deeply that man was fixed in his inmost feelings, and he straightaway adds: "Not undeservedly, on departing, that excellent and holy man left us an immense longing for himself." Yet because he uses the simple word discedens, it does not seem so easy for us to say whether it is to be understood of Octavius's death or of his departure from him and from Rome. Nor, however, are we unaware that these words are explained in the former sense by certain learned men, doubtless because Minucius added: "He left us an immense longing for himself." But whether he could not surely have said this of a man most closely joined to him and most dear, with whom he had one mind and soul, and who was now separated from him by a long distance of lands, let that be your judgement, learned reader.

However the matter stands, there are some who suspect that Octavius and Caecilius, who are introduced by our Minucius as disputing in this book, are fictitious and assumed persons. But these too bring forward no confirmation at all of their conjecture, not even the slightest. Further, we are not unaware that feigned men of this kind are quite often introduced in their books by various writers, from whom our author without doubt borrowed this form of dialogue. But these writers for the most part either warn their readers of this fiction themselves in express words, or it is easily understood from their discourse. On the other hand, in this book of our author nothing whatever occurs that would lead us to believe that the disputants were not real men, or that all the things narrated are not true. For the rest, whatever you say on that matter, Minucius's arguments against the rites of the gentiles and for the defence of the Christian religion will always remain intact and of the same weight.

CHAPTER VIII.

On the date of this book, its style, title, subject matter, divisions, manuscript codices and editions; the observations of various writers on it; on the corrupt passages; and what Minucius drew from others, and others from him.

ARTICLE ONE.

At what time this book was published

At what time Minucius committed that conversation of Caecilius and Octavius to writing, and brought it into the form of a book which it bears, is a matter disputed among the most learned writers of this age. For some think that this book was written by Minucius about the year of Christ 160. But they are led by no other reason than that they have persuaded themselves that Fronto, the orator of Cirta, whom they call the teacher of the emperor M. Aurelius, is cited in this book. But it is altogether uncertain whether the Fronto praised by Minucius was really the preceptor of Aurelius. Next, what prevents Fronto, having died earlier, from being cited afterwards by our author? Finally Jerome, in the Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers (§ 53 and 584), assigns to Tertullian, who, he relates, like others, flourished in the reigns of Severus and Caracalla, a place far earlier than to Minucius.

Some, on the contrary, have held that Minucius was later than Cyprian, who ended his life by martyrdom in the year of Christ 258. For Jerome, they say, in his Apology against Jovinian, or Letter to Pammachius, named our Minucius after that same Cyprian. From this they think two things can be concluded: first, that where Minucius himself discusses the harassment of the Christians, the persecution raised by the emperor Decius is indicated there; second, that Minucius in this book drew a good deal from the treatises of Cyprian.

But this whole argument rests on Jerome's Apology alone. And there, in naming various writers, he does not follow the order of time. With the foundation of this opinion overturned, then, it must itself fall too. Nor does Minucius seem to speak of the Decian persecution, but of another, older one. Moreover, Cyprian without doubt excerpted his material from Minucius, rather than Minucius from him.

Therefore others hold that this book of our Minucius was published at the beginning of the third century of the Church, when, after the edicts issued by the emperor Severus, the gentiles were raging against the Christians. For Jerome, in the Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers (§§ 58 and 59), where he observes the order of time more carefully, placed our Minucius immediately before Caius, as in all the editions of that Catalogue, or immediately after him, as in our very ancient Saint-Germain codex, written out in Lombardic script a thousand years ago. But in all the codices of this book, whether published or unpublished, Cyprian is placed long after both, namely after seven other writers. May one not, then, infer from this that Minucius and Caius were contemporaries, and older than Cyprian?

Yet "under Zephyrinus, bishop of the city of Rome," says the same Jerome, "that is, under Antoninus, the son of Severus, he held a disputation against Proculus, a very prominent follower of Montanus." Earlier, indeed, Eusebius had said once and again that this Caius lived under the pontificate of Zephyrinus (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History II, 25, and VI, 20). And Zephyrinus is said to have presided over the Roman Church from the year 201 or 202. Now the son of Severus, that is Caracalla, whom Jerome mentions, reigned after Severus his father from the year 211 to the year 217. May it not be concluded from this that the book of our Minucius was brought to light under the rule of Caracalla, and when the heathen were still raging against the Christians?

But learned men object that Caecilius reproached Octavius that the Christians then had no temples, and that this was certainly not denied by Octavius. Yet Origen, they say, in his commentaries on Matthew, which he is reported to have composed in the reign of Philip, that is, about the year 244 (Origen, Tract. on Matthew, ch. 28), has testified to us that the churches of the Christians had been burned. Before then, therefore, they had been built in public places, but not long before, and only when Alexander Severus, about the year 222, ruled the Romans. For he, as Lampridius witnesses, "wished to make a temple to Christ and to receive Him among the gods, which Hadrian too is said to have contemplated, who had ordered temples without images to be made in all cities" (Lampridius, Life of Alexander Severus, after the middle). The Christians, then, without doubt did not let slip the opportunity of building churches offered them by Alexander. But why, I ask, would they have let slip a similar opportunity given them earlier by Hadrian, as Lampridius relates in the same place? This argument therefore wavers, and nothing certain at all can be concluded from it.

They insist, however, that Caecilius boldly asserted that the Christians were men from the lowest dregs of the people, everywhere oppressed by the greatest miseries and poverty. But this could not have been said except a little before the reign of Alexander Severus, whose palace was filled with Christians, who certainly did not live their lives in the greatest miseries and poverty.

But this argument certainly has no greater weight and strength. For we have already heard Tertullian saying that the cities, the fortified places, the forum, the senate, the palace were filled with Christians, who had left the gentiles nothing but the temples of the false gods. And who will deny that these, like the heathen, were not all of the lowest lot, but of every condition?

What indeed of the fact that our Minucius himself, after professing the Christian religion, was of no lesser condition than before; but he was distinguished, as

we observed above, an advocate of causes? Moreover, although Caecilius, and others too, as we shall explain below, said that many of the Christians were poor and needy, they do not, however, deny that not a few of them abounded in great riches and resources. For this reason Octavius replies to Caecilius, who reproaches the Christians with their poverty, low birth and humble station: "We are not at once of the lowest rabble if we refuse your honours and purple robes," namely when these were at odds with Christian holiness.

What then, someone will say, can nothing certain be determined about the date of this book? We shall reply that Minucius quite plainly denies that, when he was writing these things, public churches had been built by the Christians, or, as he himself puts it, that there were any public temples into which they could openly assemble. And from this it is not unreasonably inferred that this book was published before Alexander Severus gained possession of the empire of the Romans, whose palace, as we have said, was full of Christians, to whose God he himself had resolved to build a temple. But at what time precisely that book was made public can be gathered, as we think, from no source more certainly than from the cited Catalogue of Jerome on Ecclesiastical Writers. For although it were proved that not all the writers mentioned by him are listed there with the order of time strictly kept, nevertheless too many are enumerated from Tertullian to our Minucius, and from the same Minucius to Cyprian, for it not to be concluded, not absurdly, that this book was published by Minucius after the works of Tertullian and before those of Cyprian on the same subject (Jerome, Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers, § 53, p. 115; § 58, p. 117; and § 67, p. 119). Now Tertullian brought out his Apologeticum, which is to be discussed below, [about] the year 200; Cyprian, on the other hand, is held to have written his To Demetrianus about the year 257. Minucius must therefore be said to have made this book public in the interval between these years. Then again, if he really asserts, as we were saying a little earlier, that there were at that time no public churches of the Christians, it will further be concluded from this that this book went out to the public before the year 220, in which Alexander Severus was raised to the empire. And if all these things are further compared with one another, can it not more probably be said that this book was published by Minucius about the year of Christ 217, in which Caracalla was killed, or while Heliogabalus was reigning, and the Christians were being harassed with impunity by the heathen through the various storms of the Roman Empire? We, however, do not begrudge one more skilled who may suggest better things.

Article II.

In what words and in what style this book was composed, what its title is, what Minucius Felix's aim in it is, and whether he pleaded the cause of the Christians fully or perfectly.

Although Minucius Felix most openly declares that this book was published by him from the disputation held, as

was said above, between Caecilius and Octavius; yet no one ought to doubt that he composed it not so much in their words as in his own. For what was spoken by them he could retain from memory with all the more difficulty, because he testifies that he reduced it to this form of a book which we see not at once, but after some time had elapsed, and after Octavius had departed from him. Moreover, the style of this whole book is plainly the same. And who will easily allow himself to be persuaded that Caecilius and Octavius, disputing on the spur of the moment, spoke in exactly the same manner? To this, indeed, there is also the same manner of speaking, and the same method of expression, in the preface placed before this disputation by Minucius himself as in the whole book. But that it was composed by Minucius will be granted far more readily by those who judge that Caecilius and Octavius were fictitious persons.

Furthermore, all confess with plainly great agreement and with one voice that Minucius's manner of speaking in this Dialogue is weighty, pointed, elegant, polished, keen, vigorous, compressed, concise, and filled everywhere throughout with excellent and weighty sentences. In it there also occur certain elegant descriptions, well-balanced and most pleasing by their very brevity, and above all that one, celebrated on the lips of all, in which the game of boys amusing themselves by throwing potsherds into the sea is described.

There is also no one who does not see that this book is divided into two parts, of which the first contains the speech of Caecilius on behalf of the heathen, and the second that of Octavius on behalf of the Christians. But everything in it has always been written continuously, and without any division of the discourse, both in the manuscript codex and in the printed editions. Only in its latest edition, indeed, have certain marks or numbers for dividing the text into chapters been placed in the margins. But these divisions rather often do not seem accurate enough. For the greater convenience of readers, however, the whole book can easily be divided into various chapters,

The true and genuine title of this book is Octavius, which those most reliable witnesses cited by us, Lactantius and Jerome, most plainly declare was given to it by Minucius himself. In so entitling it, Minucius imitated Plato, Cicero and others, who prefixed to books of this kind, composed in the form of a dialogue, the name of him who plays the principal part in them. Such in this book is Octavius represented to be, who triumphed over his adversary, namely Caecilius, and at last brought him to the point of acknowledging that the Christian religion which he was attacking was true, and of embracing it at once.

Furthermore, Minucius had no other aim and end in this whole book than to demonstrate the falsity of the heathen religion and the truth of the Christian. But since this demonstration can be made by various arguments and in different ways, Minucius took upon himself to prove only that the gods of the gentiles are false and fabricated, that their worship is wholly impious and absurd, that there is only one God, present everywhere, and for all

and each exercising providence; that the morals and assemblies of the Christians are holy and unblemished; that the heathen are themselves guilty of those crimes of which they falsely accused the Christians, whom, against all law and right, they tore to pieces and slaughtered with every most dreadful kind of torment for their name alone. These things are proved by him most invincibly, either by arguments, as they say, ad hominem, that is, by the testimony of the heathen writers themselves, or by others drawn from natural reason and equity itself.

But if the matter stands so, someone will say, on what ground does Lactantius say that our Minucius is one of those defenders of the Christian religion who "were not equal to its defence"? (Lactantius, Divine Institutes 5.1.) Why too does he assert without hesitation that this work of his shows "how fit an advocate of the truth he would have been, if he had devoted himself wholly to that pursuit"? Does he not signify plainly enough by these words that this subject was handled by Minucius either very lightly, or merely for the sake of relaxing and refreshing the mind? Not at all. For that disputation was undertaken by him so seriously and with such great zeal, that Caecilius openly declared that by it alone he had been overcome and compelled to forswear the errors of the gentiles and to embrace the Christian religion. Lactantius therefore seems to have meant nothing else than that in this book of Minucius the defence of the Christian religion is not presented whole, entire, and perfect and complete in every part, as it could have been. For the truth of the Christian religion can be demonstrated by various arguments, as we have already pointed out and as all readily admit, which suffice singly and separately. No one, therefore, will ever rightly and deservedly lay it as a fault upon Minucius that, to overthrow utterly the errors of the gentiles, to repel their most false accusations against the Christians, and to establish the truth of the Christian religion, he chose out of many arguments those by which these things are more than sufficiently demonstrated. Thus indeed some by no means obscure defenders of the Christian religion demonstrated its truth from the fulfilled oracles of the divine prophets, others from the miracles of Christ and His disciples, others again by other arguments which there is no need to enumerate here; yet who has ever dared to say that they did not duly discharge their office as defenders?

Article III.

On the manuscript codices and the various editions of this [book].

For a long time now only one manuscript codex of this book has survived to us, copied eight hundred years ago in a hand elegant indeed, but by an unskilled scribe. It is presented under the name of Arnobius, after his seven books Against the Nations, with this title: Here ends the seventh book of Arnobius: here happily begins the eighth book. The Supreme Pontiff gave this codex, found at Rome in the Vatican library, as a gift to Francis the First, king of the French, together with one copy of its first edition; and now in the royal library

at Paris, formerly marked with the number 1344, now 3975, it is preserved.

Deceived by the false title of this manuscript, Faustus Sabaeus of Brescia in the year 1542 had it printed under the name of Arnobius, and as if it were his eighth book. Then, after an interval of three years, that is, in the year 1545, Sigismundus Gelenius made public a new edition of this book, under the same title and name, at Basel from the press of Froben.

Afterwards those by whom this book was printed and published again in the same manner in Germany were led by the same error.

Thus, then, this book, wrongly ascribed to Arnobius, circulated for so long, with no one noticing, in various parts of the world: Italy, France, Germany. This error had so taken hold of all the other learned men as well that Erasmus himself, practised as he was in reading the books of the holy Fathers of the Church, asserted that the true Octavius of Minucius was no longer extant. But if he had read both this book of our author and the other books of Arnobius with a more attentive mind, it would have been easy and ready for him, no less than it once was for Nepotian, as Jerome testifies (Jerome, Letter 35, to Heliodorus, p. 271), to discern the quite different manner of speaking of each. And indeed, what would have been easier for Erasmus and all the others than, on turning over this book, to detect at once that the books of Arnobius are not composed in the form of a dialogue, as this Octavius of Minucius is, and are in a far different style?

But Franciscus Balduinus understood this very well indeed, and for this very reason, relying on the authority of Lactantius and Jerome, whom we have cited above, he restored this Octavius to its true parent, Minucius Felix. Accordingly, in the year 1560 he had it printed at Heidelberg from the press of Ludovicus Lucius, inscribed with the very name of Minucius.

Thirteen years later, however, namely in the year 1583, a new edition of this book together with the seven of Arnobius was prepared at Rome by Fulvio Orsini, in which it was separated from them as though Orsini had been the very first to do so, and no one had hitherto thought of separating this book of Minucius from those of Arnobius. But if he had seen Balduinus's edition, you will not quite undeservedly find his good faith wanting; if he did not know it, his diligence.

From then on, however, this book was published by all the others under the name of Minucius. For after this it came out through the zeal and care of Johannes a Wower at Basel from the printing house of Froben in the year 1603. And he informs us that he corrected the errors of the Minucian text from that edition of Fulvio Orsini, and from a certain other book, in whose margin Pierre Daniel had collected variant readings from the royal manuscript and from other books.

At Hamburg, moreover, that same book of our Minucius was published once and again, in the years 1610 and 1612, by Gebhard Elmenhorst together with the seven books of Arnobius.

In a similar manner too another edition of it at Paris in the year 1613 by Didier Hérault, but without any on the Octavius

observations, as will presently be said, prepared, was brought out into public light.

Ouzelius points out to us another edition of this book, issued from the workshop of the Oxford printers, but differing little from the others.

Afterwards, however, Nicolas Rigault brought it out to the public at Paris, at the house of the widow of Mathurin Dupuis, revised anew according to the authority of the Royal codex and, as he himself says, corrected and emended in various places. And indeed in this royal manuscript codex we have found Rigault's marks, by which he separated and corrected the words of Minucius, and various punctuation marks, by which he believed the clauses and phrases ought to be distinguished. From this edition, moreover, the same book was afterwards printed at Amsterdam in the year 1645, and among the Works of Cyprian in the year 1666. But the edition prepared by Rigault could not escape the censure of many,

For although Jacob Ouzel extols it with no small praises, yet he himself, while still a youth, published in the year 1652 at Leiden, at the house of Johannes le Maire, another which, as he thought, was better. For in its preface he informs the reader that he has retained the author's words where they had been rightly emended by others from the royal codex, and elsewhere has preferred the common reading. His own conjectures, however, and those, as he himself says, most certain, he inserted into the text of Minucius only once or twice, and committed the rest to his annotations. Finally he testifies that he has changed a great many things in the faulty punctuation and division of the words.

This edition of Ouzel was reprinted in the Hackius workshop at Leiden in the year 1672; but on whose authority, or by whose zeal and labour, is passed over in complete silence. For in only a brief notice the printers declare that they had hesitated, doubtful and anxious, as to which writer's works above all they should strike off in new type, and that at length, on the advice of learned men, they had published this Octavius of Minucius Felix, complete, as they say, in all its parts, and illustrated with all the notes and annotations of various [scholars] that had appeared up to that time.

But to Gronovius, as will be said a little later, it seemed far otherwise. For he thinks that there is none worse and less to be approved than this very one, on account of those same notes of Ouzel. Furthermore, although it appears to have been printed in more elegant type than all the others, we have nevertheless found many printers' errors, and especially in the observations and notes where the books of authors are cited. This we have thought it necessary to point out, so that no one hereafter may be led into error through not having examined them diligently enough.

Christoph Cellarius, moreover, for the benefit of Christian youth, had another edition of this book of Minucius completed at Halle in the year 1699. For this was his opinion, and would that it were everyone's: that the best authors of Latinity, Cicero and others who present nothing but what is chaste and honourable, should indeed be read by Christian young men, but that with them should be joined the most ancient writers of the Christian Church, writers of purer Latinity. For persuaded, and not without reason, he

held that by this reading young people could be steeped and formed at once in the brilliance and elegance of Latin speech, and in the teachings of our faith, holiness of morals, and church history.

Finally, this book was committed to print in the year 1709 at Leiden "from the recension of Jacob Gronovius". By what reasons he was led to publish it again, he himself explains thus at the very opening of his preface: "An edition of M. Minucius Felix was to be repeated in this city, when through various talk my frequent commendation of this little book, and my former and constant reading of it, came to the notice of the booksellers, so that it could not be but that they should come to me." On many counts, therefore, the republic of letters is without doubt indebted to him, because he did not refuse his labour to these booksellers, or rather printers. For without it, indeed, it would have been all over with a new edition of the Octavius, or it would have come out defiled rather than cleansed by less learned hands.

He finds fault, however, with all the earlier editions of this book, and asserts that there is none in which a good deal is not lacking. But he tries above all to discredit those which were put together by Rigault and Ouzel in the years 1645, 1652 and 1672. Yet he censures nothing else in them except that the annotations published in them "are", he says, "too copious and wordy, or too few." For by the longer ones not only is the whole charm of Minucius' style obscured and made to vanish, but his text too, submerged in them, can scarcely be read through by anyone without great weariness. He thinks, moreover, that a number of passages remain which, although they need correction, were left entirely untouched and passed over by the writers of those observations.

But certainly Gronovius seems to exaggerate the faults of these and other editions with no other intent than to persuade everyone that his own is superior to all the others, and complete in every respect. Yet the passages in the text of our Minucius which he judges to be still disfigured by a good many errors, or to be rather obscure, he strives to elucidate, or, what is rarer, to emend, on the authority of no manuscript codex, but only by his own or others' conjectures. Of what weight these conjectures are, moreover, we shall show below in its proper place, and we shall soon make it plain that in his notes he fell into the same faults which he dared to censure with such confidence in others.

It should further be observed that some of the editions of this book of Minucius reviewed so far were printed not once, but a second, a third, and even more times. But since nothing new was added to them, to enumerate and review them here seems to us of little use, or rather altogether superfluous.

Article IV

On the notes and observations of various [scholars] on this book.

Of all those by whose labour we have said this book was printed, there are few who on it many

notes and observations have not published. What these are, then, or of what sort and kind, must now be explained by us. First, Joannes Meursius brought forward some on this Octavius, which we have in print in a certain little work entitled Hypocriticus Minucianus, sive Criticus subsecivus. In these he attempted to correct by his conjectures some passages of our author which seemed to him corrupt, but time and again with less success and aptness. Some few other things, however, he explains and interprets with the words of other writers.

Franciscus Balduinus, moreover, in his Prolegomena to this book, after he has claimed it for Minucius Felix, makes some preliminary remarks on his age, family, homeland and profession, on advocates and on the Roman forum. Then next he discusses the style and argument of his book and the different manner of disputing of Caecilius and Octavius, and briefly sets out several heads of this disputation. These he confirms from certain other writers, and above all from the defenders of the Christian religion, Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, Arnobius, Lactantius, Ambrose and Augustine; but almost nowhere does he indicate in which books, or in what part of the books, these passages that he has cited are found. Finally, at the end of the preface, he exhorts Christians to the study of venerable ecclesiastical antiquity.

Wowerus, for his part, paid due regard to brevity in his notes. In them he strives either to correct faults in the text, or to explain or confirm the words and sayings of Minucius Felix by certain testimonies of other writers. But in citing these you would certainly, with right and with reason, require greater diligence of him. For in places he gives only the writer's name, but does not trouble to indicate his book, or the place in the book, where the words cited by him occur. This we have noticed him doing especially when he refers us to the books of Tertullian, and above all to his Apologeticum. Sometimes too he wanders outside his subject. Let that passage serve as an example where Octavius is called by Caecilius, not without abuse, « chief of the bakers. » For there Wowerus has wrongly heaped up many things which have nothing whatever to do with the author's purpose.

Elmenhorst's notes, moreover, are longer than those of Wowerus, and in them he records the passages of the authors he cites much more accurately than Wowerus does. Yet in such long observations you will look in vain for anything that bears on the integrity or emendation of the text of Minucius; for in them he aims only at this, that many things which have been said by the author may be supported and established by the testimonies of others. Lastly, he sometimes refers us to his own animadversions on Arnobius, or to those of Wowerus on this book of our Minucius. All those notes of Elmenhorst, furthermore, Gronovius in his usual manner despises, and asserts that to be true which had earlier been pronounced about them by Scaliger (Scaliger, Letters 260 and 261).

But as for those which came from Heraldus, in most of them, about the emended, on the authority of the royal manuscript,

text of our author, or about correcting it by his own conjectures, he argues. In others, however, he either refers us to his own notes on the books of Arnobius, or to the Apologeticum of Tertullian, of which, however, he scarcely ever cites any chapters anywhere. In the remaining notes, finally, he tries to confirm the statements of Minucius from other writers. But these concern rather the first part of this book, namely the speech of Caecilius and his calumnies against the Christians. Very few of this kind, however, are on the reply of Octavius, and on the impious rites of the heathen rejected and assailed by him.

To some, however, the observations of Rigault on this book seem learned and not a little careful. For, to pass over others, Ouzel in his preface to that book admits that many excellent things are found in them, and that soundness was restored to the Octavius by him more than by all the others; yet he blames Rigault on this account, that he indulges his own conjectures too much and, by mixing them with the words of Minucius, makes him say things which had not entered his mind. If, however, you believe Gronovius, this disputation of Minucius Felix deserved "to come forth more reverently, and more keenly polished and set in a better light" than in that edition of Rigault.

But certainly whoever reads his observations will plainly find that in them a reason for the emended text is sometimes given, some rather obscure words are explained, and several passages of Minucius are confirmed by the authority of other authors. No less clearly, however, will he perceive that often neither the books of these [authors] nor the chapters of the books, but only the name, are cited. He will also detect many things entirely passed over by him which would seem to need some explanation no less than the rest. Finally, anyone will be able to recognize from what is to be said later with what slight conjectures he often sought to emend the text of Minucius.

Although Ouzel's comments on this book are indeed very long, he nevertheless admits that they were composed by him "in youthful years" and "while the press was running." Moreover, he declares that in them he sometimes departed from the opinion of others, albeit most learned men, but without insult. But no one would deny that they are rather prolix. For he often digresses entirely from the author's text under discussion, and heaps up even to nausea many things which have nothing at all to do with it. Do you wish some examples of these digressions to be set before you? See, I pray, how foreign to the purpose are the things which he brought in to explain the passage of Minucius on carved and anointed stones, concerning the idols set up in the Meccan temple of the Turks. And what does Ouzel's rather long inquiry contribute to Minucius's purpose, about the effort spent by the Romans in dedicating shrines, or by certain others in observing auguries, and about the first inventor of auguries, and about the etymology of delubrum? Why too did he, when the occasion was offered him of speaking only about the birthdays of the gods, to explaining the birthdays of men, princes as well as private persons, and even of cities, and the various rites of celebrating them,

run on at the very greatest length? No smaller are his digressions on the name and offices of Mercury, where Minucius simply says that he is depicted with winged feet; on sneezing, where the daemon of Socrates is mentioned; and, to pass over a great many other things, on the dog and the other animals which the Egyptians worshipped, of which Minucius had made no mention. But these things will perhaps seem to some more easily pardonable in a young man who, since he wished to display his empty learning, could not make his observations shorter, published, as he himself says, "while the press was running". But Gronovius nevertheless could grant him no indulgence. For he calls him a savage and iron-hearted man, and an impious commentator, who falsely pretends that his remarks were born "while the press was running". They are in truth, he says, a wicked receptacle in which he stored away his thefts, which would rather have deserved curses, had he not received some things from Gronovius's very own father, from Boxhorn, Vossius and Elias Schevius. But who will not admit that this censure is too severe, and more that of a savage and iron-hearted man than of a fair judge.

Cellarius, for his part, indicates that he has accomplished three things in his notes. First, that an account is given of the text as emended by him. Second, that histories and fables, if any are rather obscure, are illustrated, and finally that the Latin words of Minucius, whenever they occur less usual or more difficult, are more clearly explained. But in these remarks he either repeats many things said by others, or leaves unmentioned many things which needed exposition no less than the rest.

Furthermore, Jacob Gronovius asserts that this collection of all the notes and remarks with which we have dealt so far is nothing other than an undigested mass, a boundless heap of refuse, and insane digressions from the text of Minucius. Yet certainly, although he admits that the same text of Minucius is altogether perversely overwhelmed and submerged by that absurd and useless luxuriance of remarks, he nevertheless laments that many things were omitted in them, by which Salmasius, Brummer, Ernesti, and above all John Price, in places belonging to other works, attempted to emend or explain certain obscure passages of our author.

For this reason Gronovius himself, in his own edition of this book, the last of all, added to those earlier observations, if you except some of Ouzel's, these of Salmasius and others, and his own. But he slips quite imprudently into the same aberrations which he condemns in others with such confidence. For by the longer annotations, his own and those of others which he transcribed, the text of Minucius is plainly drowned far more than in the earlier editions. For one may see several pages on which not one word of Minucius stands; on others only one line, or two or three; on the rest very few lines of the text itself. Who then will deny that Ouzel himself, whose notes Gronovius thinks should be held in such contempt, was far more prudent, who in his edition presents Minucius's whole and entire

text, and has thrown all his remarks back to its end?

But of how much importance, and how far more excellent than the rest, the notes of this same Gronovius are, if you are eager to know, must be made plain to you by some examples. First, then, he notes on these words of Minucius, "to return to things past", that a most effective description is given here of true delight, felt from past joys. This he tries to prove by examples from Tully and Vespasian, no more to the purpose than countless others. Then he at once continues thus: "Certainly what the eyes do here, thought can bring about in other cases; indeed, may I not live, if this happiness does not accompany me through my years: that both domestic happiness may console me, and I may live at Cambridge with John Pearson, at Paris with Henri Valois, at Florence with Antonio Magliabechi, men most blessed for ever with every praise of learning." Good heavens, how splendid, how learned, how necessary this observation was! Who, had it been left out, could ever have heard Minucius speaking altogether clearly and lucidly?

Where, again, Caecilius said "that clouds are always growing", there he heaps up a great deal about the Greek nouns from νεφέλη and νέφος, and does so not in order to explain his author's text, but in order to refute Pricaeus and the French translator of this book.

But afterwards he wanders off still further, where Caecilius objected to the Christians that no one had come back from the dead even by the lot of Protesilaus, "with leave granted at least for some hours." For first he informs us that nothing is either more charming than this Latin expression, or more pleasing to himself. Then he proves at great length and breadth that by this single and elegant genitive "of hours" a small portion of time is signified, which would not extend beyond one day. Who, pray, would ever have grasped that in his mind, had Gronovius not pointed it out? Finally he sharply rebukes Janus Brouxhusius, who wanted "few" to be written before the word "of hours", and adds that he had been harassed by him with every kind of lies and slanders. Was it then lawful for him, rather than for others, not only to digress in overlong notes from his author's purpose, but also to avenge private injuries?

But come now, who in the editions of this book has put forward any remark longer than the one written by him on these few words of Minucius about the image of Diana: "built up with many breasts and spits"? For this note fills [six] pages of that book and more, and an entire letter of Holstenius, published more than once, is copied out there. Could he not, if it was necessary, either have sent it off to the end of the book, or have culled from it, as from the observations of Wower, Elmenhorst and others, some things that contributed more to the explanation of our author.

But we ourselves too would certainly be overlong, if we wished to review one by one other notes of Gronovius similar to these, and above all those by which, of a more recent

certain writer, he inserts testimonies written in the French language, and points out Ouzel's thefts and compilations everywhere throughout. As if, with these left out, the text of Minucius could not have been understood!

Yet we are not those who, like Gronovius, despise the notes and observations of all others, or think that they ought to be wholly rejected. For it must be admitted that in them a varied learning, both of Gronovius himself and of others, is repeatedly found, and that by them some of Minucius's more obscure ways of speaking are explained, as well as certain words foully corrupted by the copyist. But other things still remain which call for a healing hand, and which no one indeed would deny to need explanation. A new edition of this book, therefore, more accurate and complete than the rest, can without doubt be prepared by some learned and sincere lover of the truth, not overly devoted to his own party.

Article V.

On certain passages of this book that are corrupt or suspected of corruption.

Since only one manuscript of this book survives to us, the royal codex, it is indeed no wonder if in the author's text there occur various errors of an unskilled copyist who did not know Latin, which so many editors of scholia and notes have either passed over untouched or have tried to emend by conjectures either insufficiently certain or false. Concerning these passages, then, that are corrupt or suspected of corruption, besides those things which will be said further below, where a more suitable occasion presents itself, something must be brought forward here, and a healing hand applied to them, if it can be done.

First, then, Meursius suspected that in this passage of the Octavius, where Minucius said: "When at dawn, walking towards the sea, etc.", the name of Caecilius, the companion of the others, had been omitted. But wrongly. For soon after Minucius calls him by his name; and a little later Octavius calls him "a man clinging at home and abroad" to Minucius's "side". From this it is sufficiently clear that in the earlier passage the name of Caecilius can easily be supplied by all.

Rigault observed that Minucius, discoursing on the waves of the sea, said: "Delighted there by the curling and swelling wanderings." But in the royal manuscript codex the first letter C of the former word crispis was corrected, and another which preceded it seems to have been deleted, as also the one which stood in the middle of the word torosis. Wherefore some have thought that tortuosis ought to be read there, others that torosis was rightly corrected by the copyist. This reading indeed is approved by Rigault. For, he says, physicians spoke of the swellings (toros) of the veins, and poets of the swellings of manes. But more to Minucius's purpose he could have cited this verse of Virgil:

and we dwell on the swelling banks of rivers, and meadows fresh with streams.

(Virgil, Aeneid 6.674.)

Afterwards, indeed, we read in the royal codex: "More easily among

companions to dispute, than to join after the manner of the wise in these matters, etc." These words indeed appear corrupt to many. Therefore some have thought that we should read "than to join hands with a wise man," while others read "than to join after the manner of the wise," that is, as the wise are accustomed to converse and dispute among themselves. But since this verb "conserere," on its own and without some noun added, say "hands," "battle," "war," or something similar, is scarcely ever used by good writers, nothing certain can without doubt be determined without the help of another manuscript codex.

A little later Caecilius asks Minucius to hold the balance of a most impartial judge in his dispute with Octavius. "And," so he addresses him, "sit beside me as one ignorant of either side." But Ouzelius, against the authority of the royal codex, thinks that there, as in the Oxford edition, it should be corrected to "Trust me"; since to the grammarians it is unusual to read "Judge, trust me." But do we not often read in Virgil "to sit down on fields, at tables, on thwarts"? Why then was it not permitted to Minucius to write "Sit beside me as judge," when Cicero too and other most polished writers have said "He sits beside me, he sits beside Jupiter"?

Moreover, what is written in the manuscript codex, "The things which are above us, suspended in the sky, are raised up," seems to some suspected of error. In place of "sublata" ("raised up"), therefore, they think "sublimata" ("lifted on high") should be restored; and to confirm this Rigaltius cites these words of a certain book wrongly ascribed to Ambrose: "How this whole sky which we see would be suspended in lofty sublimity (book On Solomon, appendix)." But with better right we can cite in favour of the reading of the royal manuscript the true Cicero, who said against Rullus on the agrarian law: "Rome, set on hills and in valleys, raised up and suspended in upper storeys (Cicero, Oration 2, On the Agrarian Law, page 309)."

In some editions one may read these words: "Although weights have founded the earth." In others, however: "Although weight has founded the earth." But this reading of the manuscript codex ought not to have been changed on mere conjectures: "Although it has founded the earth by weight." For there these two words, "its matter," must be understood and supplied from the words which precede thus: "Although its matter has suspended the sky, although it has founded the earth by weight": that is, its matter has suspended the sky, and matter, which is thick and heavy, has also founded the earth by its weight.

But this passage is most corrupt, written thus in the royal manuscript codex: "But also xpĩnai quantã nrã, what portents do they invent?" For what these words mean is most difficult to say. Rigaltius, however, rendered them thus: "But also the Christians, wherever in so [much] ours, what portents do they invent?" and they are explained by him thus: "The Christians, wherever they are, in the cities of Italy, in the provinces of the Roman people, in so

[much] ours, spread abroad, what portents do they invent?" But no one has followed this reading and conjecture. Therefore all the others have wished it to be emended: "What monsters, what portents do they invent?" And this indeed agrees better with the preceding and following words. But what would you dare to determine, where there is a single manuscript codex, and that one plainly corrupt, unless you were to find another, better one?

But where Minucius shows from created things that God the Creator exists, there he said: "The winter olive harvest is necessary." But what has this to do with Minucius's purpose, says Rigaltius? For in most regions olives do not grow. It ought rather, he goes on, to have been written "the winter moisture," by which the ground in winter, as if steeped in olive oil, lies at rest. But he did not sufficiently notice what we read in Columella: "The middle of the olive harvest is for the most part the beginning of the month of December; for before this time too a sharp oil is made (Columella, book 12, chapter 50, beginning, page 484)." And although this happens only in some regions, these words of Columella were nevertheless quite sufficient to vindicate our author's reading. For if the olive harvest is thus in the month of December, could it not be called a winter one? Moreover, Cicero argues from vines and olive groves, which do not grow in all parts of the earth, in exactly the same manner as Minucius (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book 2, page 238, line 16)." But Gronovius guesses that the same Minucius wrote hiberni, that is, the olive harvest "of winter"; but this is an utterly futile and empty conjecture, and against the authority of the manuscript codex.

After this we read in the printed editions these words of Octavius: "Birds live without patrimony, and from day to day graze the pastures." But in the royal codex is written "graze the pastures." This reading of the author certainly ought not to have been altered with such facility. For pastures are places in which cattle graze. Why then could Octavius not say "graze the pastures," just as Virgil says:

And they graze the woods and the heights of Lycaeus.

(Virgil, Georgics, book 3, line 314.)

This passage, which the manuscript codex presents thus, is still as obscure as it is corrupt: "To this end indeed certain men are raised up to empires and dominions; that the character of them of a lost mind of licence of power may freely trade." Since these words seemed to have scarcely any sense, they were emended thus in the printed editions: "To this end indeed certain men are raised up to empires and dominions, that lost minds may freely trade upon their character by licence of power." Rigaltius, moreover, holds that "lost minds" means the same as slanderers, flatterers, and other plagues of the human race of this kind. Nor does he observe anything further there. Furthermore, the words of Minucius, so corrected, yield this sense: Flatterers or slanderers freely trade upon the character of princes and kings, by the licence of power which they have over them. Others, however, would prefer to read: "That the character of them of a lost mind the licence of power

may freely trade": that is, they are raised up for this purpose, that the character of their ruined mind may traffic in the licence of free power. Gronovius finally, keeping the words 'licentia, et liberae potestatis', explains this whole passage thus: Dominions and empires are bought and sold by the character of their ruined mind, by the licence of free power. But who would dare to assert that Minucius, who speaks everywhere with such clarity and elegance, has fallen into so great an obscurity of speech? It is better, therefore, to await the help of a manuscript of better quality for healing this passage than to indulge in vain and light conjectures.

Then Octavius continues straight on: 'Without knowledge of God,' he says, 'what solid happiness can there be, since death is like a dream? Before it is grasped, it slips away.' Some suspect that the word mors [death] there is superfluous. Others, again, want the noun res [thing] substituted for it. But wisely nothing has been changed in the text. For the sense of our author here is plain and clear enough: without the knowledge of God there can be no solid happiness, but only a fleeting and empty one; since this happiness is death, which Cyrus in Xenophon said was like a dream, or sleep: 'nothing is nearer to human death than sleep' (Xenophon, book 8 of the Expedition of Cyrus, p. 237).

Finally, one of these two passages will perhaps be suspect to some, the former of which stands thus at the beginning of the book: 'And so, when at daybreak we were proceeding by walking along the shore, etc.' By these words Minucius indicates that very early in the morning he went walking towards the sea with his two companions, and after a walk of no great length all sat down in the same place to dispute. The other passage, which seems to conflict with this, stands thus at the end of the book: 'Even now, however, some things remain behind..... about which tomorrow; for the sun is already sinking towards its setting.' For, someone will say, did the walk and the disputation of Caecilius and Octavius, which is contained in this little book of Minucius, last through the whole day? Did Minucius do nothing else with his companions besides this disputation and a walk of no great length, and did they all alike spend the whole day either walking or disputing, without lunch and fasting? Therefore, perhaps, the last words of this latter passage should be deleted, or, in the former, the word diluculo [at daybreak].

But this manner of speaking is not to be taken entirely to the letter of the law, as they say. For Minucius did not hand down in writing everything that was done that day by himself and his companions. And indeed, since he testifies that he wrote this disputation at another time than that at which it was held, he thought that only those things which bore on the other [matter] should be narrated, the rest being passed over. Finally, Tertullian openly declares in these first words of his book Against the Jews that a whole day, right up to evening, was spent in a similar disputation between a Christian and a Jewish proselyte: 'It happened lately that a disputation was held between a Christian and a Jewish proselyte. By turns, with a contentious rope, each dragged out the day into the evening

(Tertullian, book Against the Jews, chap. 2).' Yet no one has ever dared to argue from this either against the genuineness of this text or against the truth of the disputation. If, moreover, there are any other words of Minucius that are corrupted or suspected of corruption, we shall discuss them below when the occasion presents itself.

Article VI.

What Minucius has drawn from other writers, Cicero, Seneca, Tertullian, and what in turn Cyprian and others have drawn from this book of the same Minucius.

Just as we observe that a good many things in this book of Minucius have been drawn from other writers, namely Cicero, Seneca and Tertullian, so too we observe that many things have been carried over from it by Cyprian in so many words, especially into his book On the Vanity of Idols. Some of these we shall now select; the rest, so that the same things may not be repeated, we shall more conveniently reserve for their own places, where the things Minucius teaches will have to be examined.

First, then, Minucius proves by this argument that one God truly exists: « What can be so plain, so acknowledged and so evident, when you have looked up into the sky and surveyed with your eyes the things that are below and around, as that there is some divine power of most excellent mind, by which all nature is inspired, moved, nourished and governed? « Cicero, however, presses the same argument in plainly the same way, but more briefly, thus: « What can be so plain and so evident, when we have looked up at the sky and contemplated the heavenly bodies, as that there is some divine power of most excellent mind, by which these things are ruled (Cicero, book 2 On the Nature of the Gods, beginning, p. 214, line 10)? » Do you see that most of them are the same words of Cicero, which have been amplified by Minucius?

Then next Minucius: « But a more lengthy discourse on the stars must be left to the astronomers.... each of which not only needed a supreme craftsman and perfect reason in order to be created, made and arranged, but also cannot be perceived, discerned and understood without the highest skill and reason. » And Tullius: « This whole arrangement of the stars... what other nature, devoid of mind, could have brought about these things, which not only needed reason in order to come into being, but cannot be understood, what sort they are, without the highest reason (Cicero, same book, p. 231, line 41)? »

Again Minucius: » Or why should I speak of the manifold protection of animals against one another? Some armed with horns, others fenced with teeth, and founded on hooves and spiked with stings, or free through swiftness of foot, or through the raising of spines? » Cicero more fully: « Then we see this, how each defends itself with its own weapons against fear and force. Bulls protect themselves with horns, boars with tusks, lions with their bite; some by flight, others by hiding (Cicero, ibid., p. 233, line 59). »

Moreover, Minucius sometimes by contraction does more briefly what Cicero had drawn out at greater length. For he says thus: « The Nile tempers the dryness of Egypt, the Euphrates tills Mesopotamia, the Indus is said both to sow and to water the East. » But Cicero more amply: The Nile irrigates Egypt, and when throughout the whole summer, overwhelmed

and filled up, it has held it, then it recedes and leaves the fields softened and overlaid with silt for sowing. The Euphrates makes Mesopotamia fertile, bringing into it every year new fields, as it were. The Indus, however, which is the greatest of all rivers, not only gladdens and softens the fields with water, but also sows them; for it is said to carry down with it a great quantity of seeds of grain and the like (Cic. ibid. p. 234, l. 20)."

Then straight after, Minucius: If, having entered some house, you had seen everything cultivated, arranged and adorned, you would surely believe that a master presides over it, and one much better than those good things; so in this house of the world, when you behold heaven and earth, providence, order and law, believe that there is a Lord and Parent of the universe, more beautiful than the stars themselves and the parts of the whole world." Cicero had gone before him with these words: "As, if anyone has come into some house, or into a gymnasium, or into the forum, when he sees the method, measure and discipline of all things, he cannot judge that these things come about without a cause, but understands that there is someone who presides and whom they obey; much more, amid such great motions and such great changes of so many things, and the orders of such great things, in which immense and infinite ages have never once proved false, must he decide that such great motions of nature are governed by some mind (Cic. ibid. p. 216, l. 3)."

That Minucius also plucked many things from Seneca is easy to prove. For he brings in Caecilius railing thus at the Christians, who were unwilling that the dead bodies of men should be burned on pyres: "As if it made no difference whether wild beasts tear them apart, or the seas consume them, or the ground covers them, or the flame carries them away." But Seneca had said: "That divine soul, about to go forth from the man, judges that it no more concerns it where its receptacle is put, whether fire burns it up, or wild beasts tear it apart, or earth covers it, than the afterbirth concerns the newborn infant (Sen. Ep. 92, p. 381)."

Octavius, moreover, replies to the poverty charged against the Christians: "No one can be as poor as he was born." In plainly similar fashion Seneca: "No one lives as poor as he was born (Sen., the book Why to Good Men, etc., or On Providence, ch. 6, p. 504."

The same Octavius a little later: "That we feel the human failings of the body is not punishment but military service... calamity is quite often the training of virtue." And Seneca: "Fortune beats us and lacerates us. Let us endure it; it is not cruelty, it is a contest." And a little before these words: "Calamity is the occasion of virtue (Sen. ibid. ch. 4, p. 409).

Octavius continues: "God... in adversities searches out and examines each one: He weighs the character of each by dangers: He questions him even to the final death, secure that nothing can be lost to Him." Now, I pray, hear Seneca: "Those, therefore, whom God approves, whom He loves, He hardens, He reviews, He exercises; but those whom He seems to indulge, whom to spare

you judge exempted. His portion will come to the man who has long been happy. Whoever seems to have been let off has been put off (Seneca, ibid., ch. 4, p. 408)."

Octavius adds: 'And so, as gold is tested by fires, so we are tested by perils.' And Seneca, after the words of his that we have cited: 'Fire proves gold, misfortune proves brave men (Seneca, ibid., ch. 5, p. 301).'

Why say more? Octavius continues and says: 'What a beautiful spectacle for God, when a Christian grapples with pain, when he is matched against threats and punishments and tortures!' Earlier Seneca had said in the same book: 'Behold a spectacle worthy for God, intent upon His work, to look upon. Behold a pair worthy of God, a brave man matched with ill fortune (Seneca, ibid., ch. 2, p. 492).' Do you see how rightly Minucius has turned what Seneca, among the heathens the best and most honourable of men, had written, against the heathens themselves and to the defence of the doctrine of the Christians, which is far holier than the gentile one?

If we pass from the heathen writers to the Christians, we shall also observe several things that Minucius plucked from the books of Tertullian, and above all from his Apology. To prove this, however, it will suffice for now to bring forward only some of them. Of God, then, Octavius said this: 'All things whatsoever that exist He commands by word, orders by reason, perfects by power.' Of Him also Tertullian: 'What we worship is the one God, Who this whole mass ... by the word with which He commanded, by the reason with which He orders, by the power with which He was able, brought forth out of nothing (Tertullian, Apology ch. 17, p. 14).'

Again, of the same God Octavius says: 'What of the fact that I have the consent of all about Him? I hear the common people, when they stretch out their hands to heaven, say nothing other than "God", and "God is great", and "God is true", and "If God grant". Is this the natural speech of the common people, or the prayer of a confessing Christian?' Likewise Tertullian: 'The soul ... names God by this name alone, because it is the proper name of the true God: "God is great", "God is good", and "What God may grant" is the voice of all. It also calls Him to witness as Judge: "God sees", and "I commend it to God", and "God will repay me". O testimony of the soul naturally Christian! Finally, in uttering these things it looks not towards the Capitol but towards heaven (Tertullian, ibid.).' He said the same, but more briefly, in two other books (the same, in the book On the Testimony of the Soul ch. 2, p. 81, and in the book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, ch. 3, p. 381). But that Minucius had in view these words of the same Tertullian, which we have reported, ought to be doubtful to no one.

Was he not also aiming at other words of his, where he quite rightly cast these things in the teeth of the gentiles: 'Where, more than among altars and shrines, are debaucheries bargained for by priests, procurings negotiated, adulteries plotted? More often, in short, does burning lust spend itself in the little rooms of the temple-keepers than in the brothels themselves.' For Tertullian, in a plainly similar manner, had earlier cast it in the teeth of these same heathens: 'The consciences of all

will recognize that adulteries are arranged in the temples, that procuring is carried on between the altars, that lust is satisfied mostly in the very dwellings of the temple-keepers and priests, under the same fillets and mitres and purple robes, while the incense is burning (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 15, p. 16).'

Moreover, concerning the utterly cruel savagery of the gladiators, these are the words of Octavius: Not unlike them are those too who devour beasts from the arena, smeared and stained with gore, or fattened on the limbs and flesh of a man. On the same subject Tertullian: Those who dine on the wild-beast fare from the arena, who seek it from the boar, from the stag. That boar wiped off, in grappling, the man whom he had bloodied; that stag lay in the gladiator's blood. The bellies of the very bears are sought after, still undigested with human entrails. So flesh fed on man is belched up by man (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 9, p. 10.

To this, again, Octavius says: Nor are we factious, if we all have a mind for one good, being as quiet when gathered together as when single. And Tertullian: This assembly of the Christians, if anyone complains of it under the heading under which there is complaint about factions: to whose ruin have we ever come together? We are the same when gathered as when scattered, the same all together as singly, harming no one, grieving no one (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 39, p. 36).

Finally, to let pass for now a good many other things which are to be cited below, Octavius says: He has conquered who has obtained what he strove for. And Tertullian: Victory is to obtain that for which you have contended (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 59, p. 44).

Now let us come to the things which Cyprian copied out of our Minucius: When ever, says our author, did a partnership in kingship either begin with good faith or part without bloodshed? Cyprian, in as many words: When ever did a partnership in kingship either begin with good faith or cease without bloodshed (Cyprian, book On the Vanity of Idols, p. 14)? From which you might perhaps gather that in the text of Minucius likewise desiit (ceased) should be read for discessit (parted), as it is better opposed to the verb coepit (began).

Minucius: The bees have one king, the flocks one leader, the herds one ruler. Cyprian:

The bees have one king, and the flocks one leader, and the herds one ruler (Cyprian, ibid.).

Minucius: He Who by His word commands all things whatsoever that are, by His reason orders them, by His power perfects them, He cannot be seen, He is brighter than sight; He cannot be grasped, He is purer than touch; He cannot be estimated, He is greater than the senses... and so we estimate Him worthily when we call Him inestimable. And Cyprian: He Who by His word commands all things whatsoever that are, by His reason orders them, by His power perfects them; He cannot be seen, He is brighter than sight; He cannot be grasped, He is purer than touch; He cannot be estimated, He is greater than sense; and so we estimate Him worthily when we call Him inestimable (Cyprian, place cited). There, however, Cyprian passed over certain words of Minucius, omitted by us and marked with some dots, doubtless for the sake of brevity.

may keep soft for the evils to come. For you are mistaken, if anyone

Minucius: "Do not seek a name for God: God is His name. There is need of designations when a multitude must be divided into individuals by the proper marks of names. For God, Who alone is, the word 'God' is the whole.... I hear the common people.... And, 'God is great'; and, 'God is true'; and, 'If God grant': this is the natural speech of the common people." Cyprian: "Do not seek the name of God; God is His name. There is need of designations where a multitude must be divided by the proper marks of names. For God, Who alone is, 'God' is the whole designation.... The common people in many things confess God by nature.... We often hear it said: 'O God!' and, 'God sees'; and, 'I commend it to God'; and, 'God will repay me', and, 'What God wills'; and, 'If God grant'." (Cypr. ibid. p. 15.) Do you see how Cyprian has inserted his own words among the words of Minucius? Moreover Minucius committed this to writing about the images of dead men: "What had been taken up as consolations became sacred rites." Of the same things Cyprian: "What had at first been taken up as consolations became sacred rites (Cypr. ibid. p. 11)."

Minucius: "That great Alexander of Macedon wrote in a notable volume to his mother that the secret about gods who had been men had been betrayed to him by a priest out of fear of his power." Cyprian: "Alexander the Great writes in a notable volume to his mother that the secret about gods who had been men had been betrayed to him by a priest out of fear of his power (Cypr. ibid. p. 12)."

Minucius: "The Castors die by turns, that they may live; Aesculapius is struck by lightning, that he may rise into a god; Hercules is burned up in the fires of Oeta, that he may put off the man." Cyprian, still in the same words: "Castor and Pollux die by turns, that they may live; Aesculapius is struck by lightning, that he may rise into a god; Hercules is burned up in the fires of Oeta, that he may put off the man (Cypr. ibid. p. 11)."

Minucius: "Apollo pastures the flock of Admetus. Neptune built walls for Laomedon, and the unlucky builder did not receive the wage for his work." Cyprian: "Apollo pastured the flock of Admetus. Neptune built walls for Laomedon, and the unlucky builder did not receive the wage for his work (Cypr. ibid.)."

Minucius afterwards records this about Saturn and Janus: "He taught them to imprint letters, to stamp coins... And so he preferred his hiding-place to be called Latium.... and Janus [preferred] the Janiculum." Cyprian: "Hence Latium received its name from his hiding-place. He was the first in Italy to establish the imprinting of letters, the stamping of coins.... From whose name, that of Janus, the Janiculum was called (Cypr. ibid.)."

Minucius: "The cave of Jupiter is visited, and his tomb is shown." Cyprian reported this in plainly the same number of words: "The cave of Jupiter in Crete is visited, and his tomb is shown (Cypr. ibid.)."

Minucius: "Through the perjury of Proculus, Romulus [is] a god." But Cyprian: "Romulus, through the perjury of Proculus, was made a god (Cypr. ibid. p. 12)."

Minucius on the gods: "Why, if they were born, are they not born today too, unless perhaps Jupiter has now grown old, and

childbearing has failed in Juno." On the same gods Cyprian says: "But if the gods were at some time born, why are they not born today as well, unless perhaps Jupiter has grown old, or childbearing has failed in Juno (Cypr. ibid.)."

Minucius: "We know the home-grown gods of the Romans. Romulus, Picus, Tiberius, and Consus, and Pilumnus and Picumnus are gods. Tatius both discovered and worshipped Cloacina. Hostilius [discovered and worshipped] Fear and Pallor; soon afterwards Fever was dedicated by someone or other.... and indeed Acca Larentia and Flora too were harlots." Cyprian: "We know the home-grown gods of the Romans. There is Romulus... Picus, and Tiberius, and Pilumnus and Consus.... Tatius both discovered and worshipped the goddess Cloacina too; Hostilius [did the same with] Fear and Pallor; soon afterwards Fever was dedicated by someone or other; and Acca and Flora were harlots (Cypr. ibid. p. 12)."

Minucius: "Thracian Mars, or Cretan Jupiter, or Juno now of Argos, now of Samos, now of Carthage, now Taurian Diana or the Idaean Mother, or the Egyptian [deities], those are not divinities but monstrosities." Cyprian: "Thracian Mars and Cretan Jupiter, and Juno whether of Argos or of Samos or of Carthage, and Taurian Diana, and the Idaean Mother of the Gods, and the Egyptian [deities] are monstrosities, not divinities (Cyprian. ibid. p. 15)."

Minucius: "Before them, by God's dispensation, the Assyrians, Medes and Persians, and also the Greeks and Egyptians, long held kingdoms." Cyprian: "Before [them] the Assyrians, and the Medes, and the Persians held dominion; and we know that the Greeks and the Egyptians reigned (Cypr. ibid.)."

Minucius: "What of Regulus? Did he not observe the auguries, [and yet] he was captured? Mancinus kept to religious observance, and was sent under the yoke, and surrendered. Paulus too had greedy chickens at Cannae; yet he was laid low with the greater part of the commonwealth. Gaius Caesar, when the auguries and auspices were set against his sending ships across to Africa before the winter solstice, scorned them; all the more easily did he both sail and conquer." Cyprian: "Regulus observed the auspices and was captured. Mancinus kept to religious observance and was sent under the yoke; and Paulus had greedy chickens, and yet he was slain at Cannae. C. Caesar, when the auguries and auspices were set against his sending ships across to Africa before the winter solstice, scorned them, and all the more easily sailed and conquered (Cypr. ibid.)."

Minucius on the demons: "Spirits impure and wandering, corrupted away from their heavenly vigour by earthly stains and desires.... Being already lost, they do not cease from destroying, and being depraved, from instilling the error of their depravity." Cyprian in like manner: "Spirits impure and wandering, who, after they were sunk in earthly vices and withdrew from their heavenly vigour through earthly contagion, do not cease, being lost, from destroying, and, being depraved, from instilling the error of their depravity (Cypr. ibid.)."

Minucius further on the same: "These impure spirits, then.... consecrated beneath statues and images, lurk hidden there, and by their breath.... they are breathed into the seers.... At times they animate the fibres of the entrails, steer the flights of birds, govern the lots, produce oracles wrapped in many falsehoods. For they are both deceived and deceive....

they disturb life, make sleep restless, and, creeping secretly even into bodies, ... they terrify minds, distort limbs; so that they may compel men to worship them, so that, fattened on the smoke of altars or on the sacrifices of cattle, they may seem to have cured, by releasing what they had bound." Cyprian: "These spirits, then, lurk under statues and consecrated images; these by their breath inspire the breasts of seers, animate the fibres of entrails, govern the flights of birds, rule the lots, produce oracles, always wrap the false in the true. For they are both deceived and deceive; they disturb life, make sleep restless. Creeping secretly even into bodies, they terrify minds, distort limbs ... so that they may compel men to worship them, so that, fattened on the smoke of altars and the pyres of cattle, they may seem to have cured, by releasing what they had bound (Cyprian, ibid., p. 14)."

Minucius again, of the same demons: "They so take possession of minds that men begin to hate us before they know us, lest, once they know us, they might either imitate us or be unable to condemn us." Cyprian too: "Hence they drive the crowd into hatred of our name, so that men begin to hate us before they know us, lest, once they know us, they might either imitate us or be unable to condemn us (Cyprian, ibid.)."

Minucius: "What temple shall I build for Him, for God, when this whole world, fashioned by His work, cannot contain Him? And when I, a man, dwell more spaciously, shall I shut up the might of so great a majesty within one little shrine? Is He not better dedicated in our mind, consecrated in our inmost breast?" And Cyprian: "What temple can God have, whose temple is the whole world? And when man dwells more spaciously, shall I shut up the might of so great a majesty within one little shrine? He is to be dedicated in our mind, consecrated in our breast (Cyprian, ibid., p. 15)."

Other things besides occur in this book of Minucius, similar indeed to these, which Cyprian wrote either in the book we have already cited so often, or in his books To Donatus and To Demetrianus, and elsewhere, which it would take too long to transcribe now. Therefore we shall bring them forward below, where there is need to confirm the view of our author.

But it will doubtless seem strange that Cyprian, so eloquent and learned a man, copied word for word so many passages of a single little book composed by Minucius. Very many, therefore, will easily persuade themselves that Minucius borrowed his material from Cyprian rather than Cyprian from Minucius. But if Minucius, as we have already shown, published his book first, then he certainly did not take his material from Cyprian, but Cyprian from him. And what of the fact that our Minucius was of neither low nor obscure name; for Lactantius calls him a man endowed with no mean learning and, as was observed above, a distinguished advocate, and did not hesitate to draw a good deal from his book. Why, then, not Cyprian too?

CHAPTER III.

New annotations on the book of Minucius Felix; and first the arguments are weighed by which Caecilius denies, and Octavius proves, that God exists.

ARTICLE ONE.

What will be treated in these notes and how; and first it is inquired whether the Christians are to be excluded from this disputation.

Nothing, as we have already said, occurs in this whole book of Minucius, if you except the prologue and epilogue and the judgement of the same Minucius, other than the disputation of Caecilius and Octavius, in which the one strives with all the strength of his talent to champion and defend the religion of the heathen, the other that of the Christians. But the arguments of each, and above all Octavius's replies to the unjust accusations of Caecilius, separated from one another by a long interval of discourse, can so confuse the reader's mind that he can hardly take in their force and weight unless he reads and rereads them again and again. Besides this, many things in them are touched on briefly and summarily which, though they were clear and plain in Minucius's time, are now obscure to many, and must therefore be explained by us.

We have therefore decided that three things are to be performed in our observations. First, we shall set out and examine each argument of Caecilius together with Octavius's replies and refutations of it, which are separated from one another, at once and jointly. Second, we show what in them is firm or weak, true or false. Third, we shall try to explain what has been said too tightly and concisely, or too obscurely.

In his first argument against the Christians Caecilius contends that they are by no means to be admitted to this disputation about these matters, and are to be heard by no one. He thinks his argument can be drawn from a twofold condition of these same Christians, one of which was peculiar to them, the other common to them with all other men. For he says they were gathered from the lowest dregs of the people, wholly without the liberal arts, unlettered, plainly ignorant, mere laymen, and therefore altogether unworthy to be heard disputing and deciding "about the sum of things and the majesty," that is, about God, whether He exists, and who and of what kind He is. And what of the fact that it is not only unworthy but even, as he himself says, "a matter for indignation" that men of this sort had come to such audacity as to settle something certain about God, about whom the most learned of the philosophers had so far not dared to lay down anything? Do you want the very words of Caecilius set before you? Here they are: "It is a matter for indignation and grief to all that certain people, and these unskilled in studies, uninitiated in letters, ignorant even of the mean arts, dare to decide something certain about the sum of things and the majesty, concerning which through so many ages

of very many sects, philosophy itself is still deliberating." Again, he presses the charge that the Christians were "men of a lost, unlawful and desperate faction, who, having gathered the more ignorant from the lowest dregs, and women who slip by the pliancy of their sex, set up a rabble of profane conspiracy; and in short," he says, "a skulking and light-shunning nation, mute in public, talkative in corners."

Nor, moreover, was Caecilius alone in reproaching the Christians with this condition, the lowest of all men, with the boorishness and ignorance of the meanest. For Celsus too, himself a pagan, inveighs against them in Origen as the vilest and lowest of all, daring to teach anything only in the presence of boys, silly women and fools, thus: "We see indeed those too who in the market-places perform the most notorious tricks and go round collecting, who would never approach a gathering of sensible men, nor dare to display their wares among them; but wherever they see striplings, and a crowd of household slaves, and a throng of senseless people, there they thrust themselves in and show off." "We see certainly that those itinerant mountebanks display these things so commonly bandied about, not before gatherings of prudent men, since they by no means dare to do that, but wherever they have noticed a crowd of young drudges and fools, they push themselves in there and put themselves up for sale there." And a little after: "We see also in private houses wool-workers and cobblers and fullers, and the most uneducated and boorish men, who dare not utter a word in the presence of their elders and wiser masters; but when they get hold of the children privately, and with them some foolish women, they relate astonishing things, to the effect that one ought not to heed one's father and teachers, but to obey them." "One may see wool-workers, cobblers, fullers in their homes, and every most illiterate and most boorish man, daring to say nothing in the presence of the older and more prudent fathers of families. But when they have got hold of their children apart, and ignorant silly women, they hold forth with certain marvellous things: that parents and teachers are not to be listened to, but that they themselves are to be believed (Origen, book 3, Against Celsus, pp. 141, 142, quarto edition).

For this reason Gregory Nazianzen mocks the emperor Julian the Apostate thus: "These are our tales, that is, these are the tales of the Galilaeans, despised and abject men. This is what we who adore Christ [have done]. This is what the disciples of fishermen, and, as they themselves say, of ignorant men [have done]. This is what we [have done], who sit with old women and sing psalms. This is what we [have done], worn out by long fasts and half-dead. This is what we [have done], who keep vigil in vain and trifle in nocturnal stations, and yet we lay you low. Where are the grammarians? Where are the counsellors? For I am pleased to borrow a triumphal hymn from one of our unlearned men, as indeed he seems to you (Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 4 against Julian, p. 298 and following)."

Nevertheless Julian himself, in Cyril

of Alexandria, holds these things against the Christians not so much of his own age as of the first century of the Church: nor did they hope that you would ever come to this degree of power. For they were content if they deceived maidservants and slaves, and through these the wives, and men such as Cornelius and Sergius; if one of these appears among those known at that time, once he has been mentioned (for these things happened under Tiberius or else Claudius), consider that I lie about everything. Nor did they hope, he says, that you would ever come to such a degree of power. For they themselves were content if they deceived maidservants or slaves, and through these wives and men, such as Cornelius and Sergius, of whom if one should appear among the illustrious men of that age (and yet these things took place in the times of Tiberius Claudius), consider that I lie about everything (Cyril of Alexandria, book 6, Against Julian, p. 206). Caecilius, however, does not fear to assert that the Christians even in his own age were illiterate and untaught men of the vilest common people.

But it is absurd, he says, or, if you prefer, a matter for indignation, that they should determine something without hesitation about God, concerning Whom very many philosophers are still deliberating. Nor should you say that this was invented by Caecilius about so many philosophers without grounds. For Cicero not only asserts that the opinions of these most learned men, as he himself puts it, about God were various and greatly at variance, but, "those who had said that there are gods," he says, "are placed in such variety and disagreement that it would be tiresome to enumerate their opinions." And a little later: "Surely so great a doubt of the most learned men about the greatest of matters will compel even those who think that they have something to fall into doubt" (Cicero, book 2, On the Nature of the Gods, pp. 195, 197).

But Octavius, or rather Minucius under the name of Octavius, refutes this argumentation of Caecilius and of the other heathens in a twofold way and overturns it from its foundations. For first he grants to Caecilius without contest, and concedes, that all the Christians were, as he contended (falsely, however), poor, unlettered and unskilled. But he demonstrates in many ways that the argument he drew from this is utterly feeble and weak. For indeed any men whatever, of whatever age, sex and rank, are by nature capable of sense and reason, and wisdom is implanted in them not by chance but by nature.

Next, the gentile philosophers themselves, and the other inventors of the arts, had at the beginning been plebeians, untaught and half-naked. Nay rather, says Octavius, our own people, however poor, devised wisdom, and others afterwards handed it down. Talent therefore is neither given by means and riches nor acquired by study and labour, but is inborn in man together with his very mind.

Finally, in debates and controversies it is not so much the authority of the disputant that is sought as the weight of the reasons, and the truth. This indeed, to say it in passing, is asserted by Cicero in these words: "For in disputing it is not so much the weight of authority (otherwise: authors) as of reason that is to be sought

(Cicero, book 1 On the Nature of the Gods, after the beginning, p. 197). » Therefore whoever disputes about God and divine things persuades everyone that the truth is being defended by him all the more effectively, the more his speech is unpolished and the less it is painted over with the display of empty eloquence. But it is better to hear Octavius disputing against Caecilius in his own words: « Let them know, he says, that all men, without distinction of age, sex or rank, have been brought forth capable and fit for reason and sense, and that they have not obtained wisdom by fortune but have had it implanted by nature. Indeed, the philosophers themselves too, or any others who have passed into memory as discoverers of arts, before their skill of mind brought forth the renown of their name, were held to be plebeians, unlearned, half-naked. But the rich, bound fast to their means, have been accustomed to gaze up at gold rather than at heaven. It is our own poor who have both devised wisdom. and handed down learning to the rest. Whence it is evident that talent is not given by means nor acquired by study, but is begotten with the very formation of the mind. There is therefore nothing to be indignant or grieved at if anyone whatever inquires into, thinks about and speaks forth on divine things, since what is sought is not the authority of the one disputing but the truth of the disputation itself; and moreover, the more unskilled the speech, the more illustrious it is, since it is not painted over with the display of eloquence and charm, but is upheld, just as it is, by the rule of right. »

In quite the same way Cyril of Alexandria argues against Julian, who raises the same objections: « But because little women and servants believed, and some obscure men were called, he therefrom finds fault with the clemency of the Saviour. But is it not better to think that a man, in so far as he is born a man, in no way surpasses a man, but that one principle of substance proceeds through all? For there is one entry of all into the world, and an equal departure, as it is written... There is indeed one nature for all men. And it is so constituted as to be fit for anything worthy of praise. For it is wise, and can distinguish the better from the worse. Nothing therefore prevents a man of the lowest lot from being wise, and one who is destitute of money from cultivating justice, and one who is of servile condition from appearing fair and honourable.... I for my part would therefore say that a poor man, if he has taken up an upright and honourable manner of living, is beyond comparison superior to a greedy rich man, and a wise slave to a senseless master... Moreover one may see that those who among the Greeks most surpassed the rest in the praise of virtue were at first craftsmen and practised a common and mean art which they had received from their parents, yet not without admiration for their wisdom. I pass over many. I come to Socrates himself, the son of Sophroniscus, who, born of a midwife mother and a sculptor father, was thoroughly skilled in that art, and did not think it a disgrace to himself, (Cyril of Alexandria, book 6 Against Julian, p. 207). » Cyril's Greek words, since it would be too long to quote them here, you will be able to read in his book, where this [point], both by the authority and by the words of Porphyry, from the third of the History of the Philosophers

book, transcribed by him, most clearly proven, he confirms by the testimony of Timaeus. To these may be added Laertius, who in the Life of Socrates cites Plato, who related that he was born of Sophroniscus, a stonemason, whose craft he afterwards practised, and of Phaenarete, a midwife (Laert. book 2, § 18). Moreover Valerius Maximus, Suidas, Timon, [whom] we cite in the following article, and others support him (Val. Max. book 3, ch. 4).

What, indeed, of the fact that Cyril in the same place, again on the testimony of the same Porphyry, shows that Plato, having first been long trained in the wrestling-schools, passed over to philosophy from athletic sweat, or, as some say, from the Isthmian and Pythian games, or from other contests (Cyril of Alex. book 6 against Julian, p. 208)?

He adds besides that Zamolxis the Thracian was a slave of Pythagoras, and that he imbued many women with philosophical disciplines, just as Plato did Marcella. To this, further, is added what we have discussed elsewhere concerning women philosophers, painters and poets (vol. 1, Apparatus, book 3, dissertation 2, ch. 18, art. 4, p. 1155; and ch. 24, art. 3, p. 25 and following).

Finally, whether Minucius by this name, "our people", meant the Hebrews, who handed down the pagan arts and disciplines, this has already been proven by us in vol. 1, Apparatus, book 2, dissertation 2, ch. 7, § 2, p. 387, from Justin Martyr and from Clement of Alexandria, in the same place book 3, dissertation 2, ch. 1, art. 1, p. 834, ch. 15, art. 1 and following; and from what [we said] about Thales, ch. 17, art. 1, p. 1121; about Pythagoras, in the same place ch. 17, art. 2; about Plato, in the same place art. 4; and about the thefts and plunderings of the philosophers from our sacred Scripture, ch. 16, art. 2; and lastly from the inventors of the arts and sciences, in the same place ch. 31, art. 1, p. 1187 and following.

Now although this reply of Minucius, which utterly overturns the frivolous argumentation of Caecilius, ought fully to have satisfied both him and anyone else, however peevish a man, he nevertheless adds a second to it. For he plainly and wholly denies that the Christians of his time were such as Caecilius so boldly asserted, poor men of the lowest lot of all, unlearned and illiterate. For "we do not," he says, "straightway belong to the lowest rabble if we refuse your honours and purples." And these words, and no more, the most modest man uses, with which in very few words he denies that what Caecilius rashly affirmed is true.

But what he denies with such modesty, Origen, where he replies to Celsus, openly declares to be the greatest abuse and a shameless calumny (Orig. 3, book 2, Against Celsus, p. 142 and following). Nor is this indeed surprising. For Tertullian, a little earlier than Minucius, recorded this about himself and all the Christians of his age: "We are of yesterday, and we have filled all that is yours, cities, islands, forts, towns, meeting-places, the very camps, tribes, decuries, the palace, the senate, the forum: we leave to you only the temples

(Tertullian, Apology, chapter 37, page 33)." But certainly, of those who filled the cities, the forum, the camps, the decuries, the palace, the senate and so many other places, very many, as we have already said, were certainly neither men of the lowest station, nor poor, nor unlearned and illiterate.

But why, someone will say, did Minucius pass over in so deep a silence these things and others to be cited by us below? Why, we too say, did he not at once shut the mouth of Caecilius, lying so shamelessly, even by his own example alone? For a man could not be called one of the dregs of the lowest populace who, as we have already observed from those most substantial witnesses Lactantius and Jerome, was a distinguished advocate at Rome. We shall therefore not be persuaded with difficulty that he thought he ought to use so modest and moderate a reply, so that by that gentleness and moderation he might the more easily entice his adversary to forswear his errors and to embrace the Christian religion.

Nothing, moreover, was more foolish than the charge that Caecilius pressed, that the Christians were a skulking, light-shunning nation, chattering in corners. For in truth they preached their teachings publicly; but the heathen were ashamed and afraid to hear these things, lest they should be unable to deny that they were true. But of these matters more fully below.

Lastly, it is further shown evidently from what has been said that, however varied and discordant the opinions of the gentile philosophers about God may have been, however much they doubted about Him, and, if you will, some denied that He exists, the Christians nevertheless, even if poor and illiterate, were able to dispute about Him, and to establish something certain, and to deliver a true judgement.

In vain, therefore, does Caecilius exhort them towards the end of his speech that they should cease « to pry into the regions of heaven and the fates and secrets of the world. For it is enough to look at what lies before one's feet, especially for the unlearned, the unpolished and the uncultivated. » That this was drawn from Democritus, from whose spring Epicurus watered his little gardens with vain and false opinions, Cicero teaches in these words: « Democritus trifles not unskilfully, as a natural philosopher, a class than which nothing is more arrogant: What is before his feet, no one looks at; he searches the regions of heaven. (Cicero, book 2 On Divination, p. 282, line 30). For this argument of a proud man, intemperately abusing letters and leisure, has been utterly overthrown by what has been said thus far.

Article II.

The arguments are weighed by which Caecilius strives to prove that it is not lawful for Christians and others to dispute about God.

Caecilius proves that the Christians are to be kept from all disputation about God by another reason, which is plainly common to him along with the rest of mankind: for he objects that such is the weakness of human nature that it is granted to no one to know or to search out the things that hang above us in the heaven, or that lie below in the bowels of the earth. « Let human mediocrity, he says, keep away from inquiry into divine things, since it has been given neither to know the things that hang above us in the heaven..... nor the things beneath the earth....., nor has it been permitted to search them out. » For it suffices for each one if, « according to the ancient oracle of the sage

we know ourselves. » He alludes, moreover, to that most celebrated adage Γνῶθι σεαυτόν, "Know yourself," which we have noted elsewhere is ascribed by some to Thales, by others to Chilon, and also to the Pythia (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, book 3, diss. 2, ch. 14, art. 3, p. 1097; and ch. 19, art. 4, p. 1170).

Caecilius adds that if at any time, indulging in an insane and foolish labour, we should wander beyond the bounds of our lowliness, this error is not to be entangled with the vain and fear-ridden opinions of the Christians. He therefore wants no disputation at all to be undertaken by the Christians about God and divine things, and holds that it is enough for them if they know themselves.

He strives, moreover, to establish and confirm this by the great authority and testimony (as it seemed to him at least) of Socrates, who was proclaimed by a divine oracle the wisest of men. "If there is a desire to philosophize," he says, "let each of you who is great enough imitate, if he can, Socrates, the prince of wisdom. Whenever that man was asked about heavenly things, his answer is well known: WHAT IS ABOVE US IS NOTHING TO US. Rightly, therefore, did he earn from the oracle the testimony of singular prudence. He himself perceived that this oracle had set him above all for this reason: not because he had discovered everything, but because he had learned that he knew nothing. Thus the highest prudence is wisdom confessed."

That these things were not said by Caecilius without consideration is proved by the fact that Cicero committed to writing something similar about the same Socrates: "Socrates seems to me, as is agreed among all, to have been the first to call philosophy away from things hidden and wrapped up by nature herself, and to have brought it to common life, so that it should inquire into virtues and vices and, altogether, into good things and bad; while he held that heavenly things are either far removed from our thought or, even if they were fully known, contribute nothing to living well. In almost all his discourses, which were written down variously and copiously by those who heard him, he argues in such a way that he affirms nothing himself but refutes others; he says that he knows nothing except this very thing, and that he excels the rest in this, that they think they know what they do not know, whereas he knows this one thing, that he knows nothing; and that for this reason he thinks he was declared by Apollo the wisest of all, because this alone is the whole of wisdom, not to think that one knows what one does not know (Cicero, Academica book 1, p. 5, l. 41 ff.)." And who will not readily let himself be persuaded that these and other words of Cicero, related by us elsewhere where we were treating of the same Socrates, agree so closely with the sayings of Caecilius that we seem to have ground for suspecting, not altogether absurdly, that he drew his own from there (vol. 2 of the Apparatus, book 3, diss. 2, ch. 17, art. 5, p. 1133 ff.)?

Furthermore, of this oracle of Apollo in praise of Socrates Cicero again in other books (Cicero, On Old Age, p. 417, l. 12; and On Friendship, p. 419, l. 43, and p. 129, l. 22; Pausanias, book 1, p. 20; Pliny, Natural History book 7, ch. 31; Solinus, ch. 1, p. 11; Valerius Maximus, book 3,

ch. 4, and very many others have made mention. Laertius, however, attests that it was uttered by the Pythia thus:

Of all men Socrates is the wisest.

Of all mortals Socrates is the wisest.

(Laertius, bk. 2, in the Life of Socrates, § 37.)

Justin Martyr (Justin, Cohortat. ad Graec. p. 33) put forward the same account of this oracle as Caecilius and Cicero. Lucian (de Saltat. p. 507; Dial. Amor. p. 583; and Dial. de Sectis, p. 304), after mentioning it more than once, speaks of Socrates himself in these words: "Who cried out to all that he knew not only not all things, but nothing whatever, or this alone, that he did not know." "He professed by the testimony of all that he knew not only not all things, but nothing at all, or that he knew only this, that he did not know."

Theodoret, moreover (de Graec. affect. curat., serm. 2, p. 488; ibid., serm. 4, p. 5[?]1), who attributes this oracle to the Pythia, in one place reports the words of Xenophon (bk. 1 Memorab. p. 740; and bk. 4, p. 815), in which he relates how Socrates used to dissuade any men whatever from the investigation of heavenly and divine things, and asserted that those who tried to search into them were either foolish or in the greatest danger of folly. The words of Xenophon, however, you will find entire in his books, and also cited by Cyril of Alexandria (Cyril, bk. 5 contra Julian. p. 480) and by Gellius, bk. 4 Noct. Att. ch. 4). Laertius nonetheless (bk. 2, §§ 37 and 45) proves by the testimony of the same Xenophon (bk. 1 Memorab. p. 726) that Socrates at times discoursed on the providence of God; and the passage of Xenophon cited by him is in fact found in his books.

Finally, the saying of the same Socrates cited by Caecilius, "What is above us is nothing to us," is set forth by Lactantius (bk. 3 de falsa Sapient. ch. 20, p. 308) in these words: "Socrates had this celebrated proverb: What is above us is nothing to us." Jerome, for his part, uses it thus against Rufinus: "You oppose the whole of physics to me, so that Socrates, passing over to ethics, would have said in vain: The things that are above us are nothing to us (Jerome, Apologet. advers. Rufin. bk. 2, well past the middle)." For the rest, Caecilius concludes from these things that the safe doubt of Arcesilas, Carneades, Simonides and the Academics in the highest matters, and above all concerning the gods, is to be imitated. You see, surely, on what foundations this argumentation of Caecilius, that is, of a heathen man, rests. Now let us examine what Octavius answers to it.

Article III.

The replies of Octavius are set out, by which he refutes and overthrows the foregoing arguments of Caecilius.

Octavius indeed admits, and grants to Caecilius, that man ought to know himself, and to consider with attentive mind what he is and whence he comes, whether compounded of elements or atoms, or made and created by God. But this, he says, cannot be known by him,

unless he knows God. Then indeed, just as the other living creatures are bent downwards and born for this, that they should look only at the ground and their fodder, so man has a lofty and upright countenance, so that he does not crawl on the ground, but by raising his eyes to heaven and contemplating the whole adornment of the world may arrive at the knowledge of God. And what of this, that it is not lawful for him to be ignorant of the divine brightness that thrusts itself upon our eyes and senses? For if he surveys the things that are set below, around and above him, those before his feet and in the regions of the sky, then at once he will most plainly discover that there is some Deity of most excellent mind, by Whom all created nature is moved, nourished and governed. And this indeed we have already seen that he plucked from the first book of Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods. The Christians, therefore, asserting this most steadfastly, entangled themselves in no vain or fearful opinions.

From the authority of Socrates that had been put forward against him, however, he frees himself very easily, and with very few words he makes light of it and plainly disposes of it. For after he had shown that the many things by which he had proved that God exists were certain, he at once added this: "Therefore let Socrates, the Attic buffoon, see to it, who confessed that he knew nothing, though he boasted of the testimony of a most deceitful demon." Nor indeed does he say more there, but what he says is abundantly sufficient for utterly destroying all those things that had been drawn from the authority of Socrates. For he readily grants to Caecilius that Socrates did indeed confess that he knew nothing, but in the same place he asserts that he was "an Attic buffoon." And if you ask on whose authority he said this, Cicero will answer you that he was so called by Zeno. "Zeno indeed," he says, "pierced with abuse not only those who were then living, Apollodorus, Syllus and the rest, but Socrates himself, the parent of philosophy. Using a Latin word, he said that he was an Attic buffoon (Cicero, book 1, On the Nature of the Gods, p. 209, line 9)." Wherefore Lactantius, on this very matter, citing the same Zeno, assails Socrates with these words: "He used to swear by the dog and the goose. O buffoon of a man, as Zeno the Epicurean says, inept, abandoned, desperate, if he wished to mock religion; mad, if he did this in earnest, so as to hold a most foul animal for a god (Lactantius, book 3, On False Wisdom, ch. 20, p. 309)." Thus indeed he surely proves that Socrates was rightly and deservedly called a buffoon by Zeno, though an Epicurean; since if he swore jestingly by the dog and the goose, he derided and mocked religion. But if in earnest, he was certainly mad, who held a most foul animal for a god, just like the Egyptians. Hence beyond doubt Timon in the Silloi depicted this philosopher in these verses:

But from these there turned aside the stone-carver, the prater about laws, the enchanter of the Greeks, who made men precise in argument, the sneerer who sneered at orators, the sub-Attic, the dissembler.

From these flowed forth the babbler of laws and polisher of stones, the seer of the Greeks and master of imposture, the mocker, the sub-Attic rhetor, and the dissembler.

(Laertius, book 2, Life of Socrates, § 19.)

Nor is there reason for anyone to object that Socrates by the Greeks,

as Cicero testifies, was called eirōn, that is, witty, facetious, elegant (Cic. book 2 On the Orator p. 167, and in Brutus, p. 240; book 2 Academic Questions p. 14; book 2 On Duties p. 365); since with Attic salt, that is, with words salted with gravity, he never ceased to assail the other philosophers who boasted that they had acquired wisdom for themselves: but when the Epicureans took this rather hard, they lashed him with the most insulting gibe of 'buffoon'. For who would deny that a man who professed that he knew nothing, not even God Himself, is rightly called 'buffoon' by the other heathen philosophers, and by Minucius and Lactantius, or, what is milder, 'Attic buffoon'?

Moreover Minucius very sharply and wittily rebukes that Socrates who gloried in the testimony of Apollo. For it was the oracle of a most deceitful demon, which, as we shall see below, he shows to have been poured out and to have proceeded from impious demons, as indeed were the others bandied about by the heathen. Hence Tertullian very aptly, against this very oracle of Apollo by which, he says, 'Apollo proclaimed Socrates the wisest of all, exclaims thus: O thoughtless Apollo! He gave testimony of wisdom to that man who denied that the gods exist (Tertull. Apology ch. 46, p. 40).'

The authority of Socrates being thus overthrown, the testimony of Arcesilas, Carneades and the other Academics, cited next by Caecilius, must necessarily collapse plainly and utterly. For these, as Caecilius himself admits, were disciples of Socrates and champions of the same opinion. 'From this source,' are Caecilius's words, 'flowed the safe doubt of Arcesilas, and long afterwards of Carneades and of very many Academics, on the highest questions: a manner in which the unlearned can philosophize with caution, and the learned with glory.' This opinion of Arcesilas, Carneades and the other Academics is most clearly explained by Cicero, book 3 On the Orator p. 193; book 2 On Ends p. 58; book 3 On Duties p. 390; On Divination, book 2, p. 301; especially book 1 Academic Questions p. 10, and book 4, pp. 14, 15 and following; and by Diogenes Laertius, book 4 On the Lives and Doctrines of the Philosophers, where he wrote the life of both Arcesilas and Carneades; Augustine, book 19 On the City [of God] ch. 18, and book 3 Against the Academics p. 284; Gellius, book 11 Attic Nights ch. 5, where he clearly sets out what difference there is between the Academics and the Pyrrhonists; Vossius, Jonstonus and others, who committed much to writing about the philosophers and their sects. We ourselves have discussed the empty sect of the Academics, and by name Arcesilas and Carneades, in the first volume of this Apparatus, book 3, dissertation 2, ch. 17, art. 5, p. 1134. Who, then, does not understand with what right Minucius, having refuted and rejected Socrates, counts the opinions and testimony of all these as worth nothing at all, and utterly spurns them?

Of no greater value with him is that which Caecilius presses at somewhat greater length from Simonides. 'What?' he says, 'is not [that] of Simonides the lyric poet to be admired by all

and to be followed, that hesitation? What of Simonides: when he was asked by the tyrant Hiero about what and of what kind he thought the gods to be, he first asked for a day for deliberation, on the next day he extended it to two days, and soon, on being reminded, he added as many again; finally, when the tyrant inquired into the reasons for so great a delay, he answered that for him, the more slowly the inquiry proceeded, the more obscure the truth became.' He seems, however, to have borrowed this from Cicero. For the Latin orator narrates the same things thus: "You ask me what or of what kind God is? I shall use Simonides as my authority: when the tyrant Hiero had asked this same thing of him, he requested one day for himself for the sake of deliberating. When the same man asked it of him on the next day, he sought two days; when he kept doubling the number of days, and Hiero in wonder asked why he was doing so, he said: Because the longer I consider it, the more obscure it seems to me (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book 1, p. 204, line 2 and following)." There indeed Simonides is called by the same Cicero "a sweet poet", and hence, as Suidas says, he was called Μελικέρτης, Melicertus, on account of his sweetness. Therefore in the royal manuscript codex of our Minucius "Simonidis Melchi" is read corruptly, and in the printed editions "Melici" has been restored not badly. Pausanias, moreover, makes mention of him, and Aelian testifies that he was a Cean by fatherland. We, however, have already discussed him. (Pausanias, Attica, book 1, p. 2; Aelian, Varied History, book 4, ch. 15; book 9, last ch., and book 12, ch. 25. Apparatus, vol. 1, book 3, dissertation 2, last ch., last art., p. 1284.)

How little, moreover, Minucius values not only this Simonides, or Arcesilaus and Carneades, but also Pyrrho and all the other Academics and gentile philosophers, gather from these words of his: "Let Arcesilas, and Carneades, and Pyrrho," concerning whom Laertius, Eusebius and others, and we elsewhere, [have written], "and the whole multitude of the Academics deliberate; let Simonides too adjourn for ever: we despise the haughty brows of the philosophers, whom we know to be corrupters and adulterers, and tyrants, and eloquent against their own vices. We display wisdom not in dress but in mind: we do not speak great things, but live them: we glory in having attained what they sought with the utmost effort and could not find." (Laertius, book 4, in the Life of Pyrrho; Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, book 14, ch. 17 and 18, p. 350.)

Likewise Cyprian, who transferred certain things from these words into his book On the Good of Patience thus: "We see that philosophers are neither humble nor gentle, but greatly pleasing to themselves, and by the very fact that they please themselves, displeasing to God. But we, who are philosophers not in words but in deeds, display wisdom not by clothing but by truth, who know the consciousness of virtues rather than the boasting of them, who do not speak great things but live them (Cyprian, On the Good of Patience, after the beginning, p. 510 and following)."

Tertullian, however, concerning whom we [have spoken] in its place (Dissertation on Tertullian, ch. 4, art. 4), related the same things about Thales that Minucius related about Simonides, in this manner:

"What did that Thales, the chief of the natural philosophers, report as certain about the Divinity to Croesus when he enquired, after he had repeatedly let the extensions granted him for deliberating run out?" (Tertullian, Apology ch. 46, p. 40.) Rightly therefore does Minucius conclude that neither human weakness nor the avowed ignorance of the philosophers could ever have prevented Christians from discussing God and heavenly things. For before our Minucius, Tertullian had said in the passage already cited: "Any Christian workman both finds God and shows Him, and thereafter also assigns in fact everything that is sought in God; although Plato asserts that the maker of the universe is neither easy to find nor, once found, easy to describe to all." Finally, Tertullian in that place, as we shall show more fully in its proper place, approves what Minucius said about the vices of the philosophers.

Article IV.

The arguments are examined by which Caecilius denies that [God] exists and Octavius demonstrates [it].

Since Caecilius in his disputation sustains the part and office of the Academics, as we have said, it is no wonder if from the very opening of his speech he firmly asserts that it can be proved with no trouble at all that "all things in human affairs are doubtful, uncertain, in suspense, and all of them probable rather than true." But although the falsity of so absurd and senseless a proposition has been abundantly demonstrated by us, following Octavius, in the preceding articles, Caecilius nevertheless tries to infer from it that it has hitherto been certain and ascertained to no one whether God exists. "Let the seeds of all things," he says, "have been condensed in the beginning by nature combining with itself: what God is the author here? Let the members of the whole world have grown together, been arranged and been formed by chance collisions: what God is the contriver? Granted that fire has kindled the stars, and that the sky has been held up by its own matter, that the earth has been founded by its weight, and that liquid has flowed into the sea, whence comes this religion, whence this dread, which is superstition?" But by these words, surely, Caecilius, [adopting] the opinion of Democritus and Epicurus, which had been rejected by other philosophers, and by which, as Cicero and others say, they held that all things were formed by the motion and collision of atoms, strives to undermine the true teaching of the Christians about God (Cicero, On Ends book 1, p. 41 ff., and Academic Questions book 1, p. 4; and On the Nature of the Gods book 1, pp. 203, 204 ff.; Laertius books 9 and 10, in the Lives of Democritus and Epicurus; Theodoret, discourse 2, p. 487, and discourse 4, p. 528; Gassendi vol. 1, p. 256 ff., volume of the Syntagma of the Philosophy of Epicurus, part 2, § 1, ch. 16; and ourselves, Apparatus vol. 1, pp. 435 and 1136). For in Cicero himself Velleius the Epicurean strove to refute Plato's opinion about God by the same argument: "With what eyes," he said, "could your Plato behold that construction of so great a work, by which he makes the world to be built and erected by God? What exertion? What iron tools? What levers? What machines? What servants were there for so great a task? And in what manner to obey and comply with the will of the architect

were fire, water, earth able! And whence arose those five forms from which the rest are formed, falling aptly together to produce a mind and to bring forth the senses? It is a long road to all the things that are of this kind, so that they seem to be things wished for rather than things discovered." (Cic., On the Nature of the Gods book 2, p. 198, line 22.)

But Caecilius doubtless thought that by this mine of Cicero's all the opinions of the philosophers about God were overthrown. For if all things have been put together by the chance motion and collision of atoms, and the elements flow back and roll round into themselves without any artificer or author, then assuredly no God exists, or at least that is doubtful and uncertain.

But Octavius rightly replies that those who hold that the world and all its adornment has been massed together out of certain fragments or atoms, cohering with one another at random and by chance, seem to have neither mind, nor sense, nor eyes. And Cicero had said before: "Here, then, should I not wonder that there is anyone who persuades himself that certain solid and indivisible bodies are carried along by force and weight, and that a world most richly adorned and most beautiful is produced from the chance collision of those bodies? I do not understand why he who thinks this could have come about should not likewise think that, if countless forms of the twenty-one letters, whether of gold or of any kind whatever, were thrown together somewhere, the Annals of Ennius could be produced from them when shaken out onto the ground, so that they could then be read in order. I doubt whether chance could nevertheless manage this even in a single verse. . . But if a concourse of atoms can make a world, why can it not make a portico, why not a temple, why not a house or a city, which are less laborious and indeed far easier? Truly they babble so rashly about the world that he seems to me never to have looked up at this wonderful adornment of the sky, which is the next topic" (Cic., On the Nature of the Gods book 2, p. 228, line 6). Nor content with having said this once, he repeats it in another book, more briefly indeed, but no less clearly: "The beauty of the world," he says, "and the order of the heavenly things compel us to confess that there is some excellent and eternal nature, and that it is to be looked up to and admired by the human race" (the same, book On Divination, p. 301, line 22).

Nor is there reason for some atheist or other, or an obstinate unbeliever, to object against us that Cicero followed the Academic sect, he who held all things to be uncertain and really doubted whether the true God or the other gods of the gentiles existed. For we are not asking what he himself thought, nor whether out of some fear he did not dare to confess openly the One Whom he knew to be the true God. Rather, we are weighing of what weight his argument is. And there is no man of sound mind who could deny that by it is most invincibly demonstrated that there exists one sole God, the Creator and Ruler of all things. For wherever, as Octavius says, one turns one's eyes, whether upwards, or downwards, or this way and that, one will find as easily as certainly that there is some most excellent

mind's Divinity, by which all things have been made and are governed.

Both Cicero and Octavius prove this most manifestly by a by no means brief recounting of created things. Octavius, indeed, proves it from the heaven and its swift [movement], and from the fixed and settled motion of the sun and moon; from the waning and labour of that same moon, that is, from its various wanderings, or waxings and wanings, as may be understood from Cicero, who will be cited shortly, and from Maro (Virgil, Georgics 2.478); likewise from the unbroken alternation of light and darkness, from the order and arrangement of the stars; from the steady variety of the crops and of the four seasons of the year; from the sea bounded by the limits of its coasts and shores; from the ebb and flow of the tides of the Ocean: from the perennial course of streams and rivers, from the upright mountains, the curving hills, and the outstretched plains; from the natural protection of living creatures; and above all from the beauty of man and from his limbs, none of which was formed except for the sake of necessity or of comeliness, and from the very shape of all men; in which, although they appear like one another, they are nevertheless found each unlike the others by certain features; and finally from the manner of being born, or the desire of begetting, implanted in each one.

Cicero, however, pursues this induction far more fully, and [devotes] the greater part of the whole second book On the Nature of the Gods to explaining and elucidating it (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book 2, p. 228 and following). It would certainly be too long, and of little use, to transcribe here all the things which were said by him most elegantly, after his manner, and were sampled by our Minucius; all the more so because they can easily be seen by anyone in his work. It will therefore be enough for us to observe that we are there reminded by Cicero, follower of the Academics though he was, that this argument is not only handled by certain philosophers, and by name by Cleanthes, but that all philosophers too ought to have been plainly and thoroughly convinced by it. "For the philosophers," he says, "ought, if perhaps the first sight of the world had confounded them, afterwards, when they had seen its motions to be bounded and uniform, and all things regulated by fixed orders and unchangeable constancy, to have understood that there is within this heavenly and divine house someone who is not only its inhabitant, but also its ruler and governor, and as it were the architect of so great a work and so great a gift (book 2 On the Nature of the Gods, p. 227; ibid., p. 216)." He had already said other things plainly similar to these in the same book. But you may further consult Philo the Jew, the author of the book On Monarchy, and of the Greek Questions, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaeus, Lactantius, Athanasius and others.

What indeed [of the fact] that not only these pagan, Jewish and Christian writers, but also the more recent scholastics, and especially St Thomas, use, to demonstrate, as they put it, the existence of God, this argument, one of so much greater weight than the others as it can more easily be perceived and understood by all. Wherefore the Apostle

from this declares emphatically that there is no man who can have any excuse at all for God's being unknown to him. For "His invisible things," he says, "from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood through the things that have been made; His eternal power also and divinity; so that they are without excuse" (Rom. 1:20). Hence Tertullian: "And this," he says, "is the sum of the offence of those who refuse to acknowledge what they cannot fail to know (Tertull. Apology ch. 17, p. 18)." And Cyprian in almost the same words: "And it is the sum of the offence, to refuse to acknowledge Him Whom you cannot fail to know (Cypr. book On the Vanity of Idols p. 14)." This indeed we have seen asserted before both of them by Clement of Alexandria (vol. I of the Apparatus, dissertation 2, ch. 6, art. 1, p. 948).

Article V.

Another argument of Minucius is examined, by which he shows that God, known by the inmost sense of men and by their very conscience, really exists.

Our Minucius calls the heathen back from the creatures, and from the altogether wonderful adornment of the whole world, to themselves, to their inmost sense, and to the conscience proper to each one. For the idea and knowledge of God as really existing, he says, is so implanted and inborn in their minds that not only philosophers and the learned, but the common people too and the unlearned, with nature as their guide, openly and plainly confess on various occasions that He exists. "What of the fact," says Minucius, "that I have the agreement of all on this? I hear the common people, when they stretch out their hands to heaven, say nothing other than God: and, God is great; and, God is true; and, If God grants it. Is this the natural speech of the common people, or the prayer of a confessing Christian?"

Moreover he there immediately added that the heathen, under the false name of Jove and of their gods, in fact call upon the true God Himself. "Those who want Jove as chief," he says, "are mistaken in the name, but agree about the divine power." Cyprian plainly handed down the same in his writings, as we saw before. But Tertullian had gone before both of them, who argues against the same heathen in a plainly similar way: "Do you wish," he says, "that we prove it from the testimony of the soul itself," namely that only one God of all things exists? "Which, although pressed down by the prison of the body, although hemmed in by perverse teachings, although enfeebled by lusts and desires, although enslaved to false gods, nevertheless when it comes to itself, as from a drunken bout, as from sleep, as from some illness, names God, by this alone, because properly this one God is true, good and great." So the older manuscripts of better repute, as we shall see in its place. "And, What God grants, is the utterance of all. It also calls Him to witness as Judge: God sees; and, I commend myself to God; and, God will repay me. O testimony of the soul naturally Christian! Finally, in uttering these things it looks not to the Capitol but to heaven. For it knows the seat of the living God. For from Him and from thence it came down (Tertull. Apology ch. 17, p. 18)."

But he pursues these things still more fully in another book. Since it would be too long to write all of them out, we shall bring forward some, and those above all which bear on the second passage of our Minucius. « We hear you, he says, openly and with full freedom, which is not permitted to us, at home and abroad, declaring thus: What God may grant; and, If God wills. By that utterance you both signify that there is someone, and you acknowledge all power to be His, to Whose will you look; at the same time you also deny that the others are gods, while you call them by their own names, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and Minerva. You affirm God alone, Whom alone you name God; so that when you sometimes call those others gods, you seem to have used what belongs to another, and as it were on loan. Concerning the nature of God also, Whom we preach, it is not hidden from you. God is good, God does good, is your saying (book On the Testimony of the Soul, chapter 2, page 81). » In the book to Scapula too: « The people, he says, acclaiming the God of gods, Who alone is mighty, in the name of Jupiter, rendered testimony to our God (the same, book To Scapula, chapter 4, page 87). »

But that, he says, is « the testimony of the soul naturally Christian, » namely in this, that it has, implanted by nature, a knowledge of the true God of the Christians. For he affirms elsewhere no less plainly, as we shall see in its place, that Christians are made, not born. Therefore our Minucius said: « This is the common speech of nature, or the prayer of a Christian confessing » that God, that is, exists. But when he has proved this first and chief document of the true religion by various testimonies of the pagan philosophers, he concludes from them « that either Christians are now philosophers, or philosophers were even then Christians, » in this, that they acknowledged the true God, but not the other doctrines of the Christian religion. But of this further in our dissertation on the Apologeticus of Tertullian.

Moreover Arnobius argues in plainly the same manner as he and our Minucius. « Grant, he says, a true judgement, and looking round on all these things which we see, [a man] will sooner doubt whether the other gods exist than hesitate about God, Whom we all know by nature to exist, whether when we cry out: O God! or when we make Him witness against the wicked, and raise our face to heaven as though He saw us (Arnobius, book 2 Against the Gentiles, beginning, page 43). »

Lastly Lactantius argues similarly against the heathen. « For when they swear, he says, and when they wish, and when they give thanks, they name not Jupiter, or many gods, but God; so far does truth itself, under the compulsion of nature, burst forth even from unwilling breasts. . . . But if some grave necessity presses on them, then they remember God. If the dread of war roars about them, if a long drought denies sustenance to the crops, if a fierce storm, if hail falls upon them, they flee to God, help is sought from God; God is prayed to come to their aid. If anyone at sea, while the wind rages,

is tossed about, he calls upon Him. If anyone is afflicted by some violence, he at once implores Him. If anyone, brought down to the utmost necessity of begging, asks for food with prayers, he appeals to God alone, and by His divine and only power (Lactantius, Institutes, book 2, chapter 2, page 138). »

Moreover, that knowledge of God is so implanted in the mind and inmost senses of men that it cannot be unknown by anyone without great guilt. For "it is neither right nor lawful," says our author, "to be ignorant of the heavenly brightness that thrusts itself upon our eyes and senses." Therefore he afterwards confidently asserts that any who are ignorant of God are, no differently from the impious, to be punished with due penalties and torments. If you wish to hear him speaking, here are his very words: "None but a profane man hesitates [to judge] those who do not know God deservedly as impious, as unjust, since it is no lesser crime to be ignorant of the Parent of all and the Lord of all than to injure Him." But you have already heard the apostle Paul, Tertullian and Cyprian, cited by us, pronouncing the same things concerning those who neither from created things nor from that knowledge of God inborn in their minds acknowledge Him, or are willing to acknowledge Him.

But how far even the pagan philosophers favour this opinion concerning the knowledge of God innate in man, learn from their Latin Orator: "What nation is there," he says, "or what race of men, that does not have without teaching a certain anticipation of the gods, which Epicurus calls prolepsis, that is, a certain representation of a thing taken beforehand in the mind, without which nothing can be understood, or inquired into, or disputed?... For since the opinion has not been established by any institution, or custom, or law, and the firm agreement of all to a man remains, it must be understood that there are gods, since we have implanted, or rather innate, notions of them. But that on which the nature of all agrees must be true. It must therefore be confessed that there are gods" (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book 1, page 202, line 5 and following). But what is truer than that confession and argument of a heathen man, except that he spoke of his gods in place of the true and only God? But see, I pray, whether he corrected this error where, by the testimony of Ennius, he shows that this true God, as Minucius and Tertullian say, is invoked by all under the name of Jupiter: "If this were not so," he says, "how could Ennius have said with the assent of all:

Look upon this shining thing on high, which all invoke as Jove.

Him indeed both Jove and lord of things, and ruling all things by His nod, and, as the same Ennius [says],

Father both of gods and of men.

and a present and all-powerful God. Whoever doubts this, I truly do not understand why the same man could not doubt whether the sun exists or not" (On the Nature of the Gods, book 2, page 214, line 12 and following).

CHAPTER VI.

On the one God.

ARTICLE ONE.

The argument is examined by which Octavius shows, on the authority of the heathen poets Homer and Virgil and of the philosophers Thales, Anaximenes, Diogenes of Apollonia, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras and Xenophanes, that there is only one God.

Just as Minucius demonstrates by the weightiest arguments and the common consent of all peoples that God truly exists, so too he shows clearly, by the testimony of the heathen themselves, both poets and philosophers, that He is altogether one. He begins with the poets thus: "I hear," he says, "the poets too proclaiming one father of gods and men, and that the mind of mortals is such as the parent of all has declared it."

Someone may perhaps ask of us whether these words belong to one poet, Greek or Latin, or to several. But at the end of the preceding article we saw that Jupiter, whom all invoke, is called by the poet Ennius "father of gods and men." And Cicero there brings in Balbus the Stoic quoting these very words, by which he confirms that the divinity of a most excellent mind exists. Augustine moreover, where he shows that the Stoics gave the name of Jupiter to him "whom they held the highest God," attests (Augustine, City of God V, 8, p. 121) that the same Cicero quoted these verses of Homer and turned them into the Latin tongue thus:

Such are the minds of men as the light with which father Jupiter himself / has illumined the fruitful lands.

These verses appear in Homer himself in Greek thus:

For such is the mind of men upon the earth, / as the day which the father of men and gods brings upon them.

(Homer, Odyssey XVIII, 135.)

Which the Latin translator rendered thus:

For such is the mind of earthly men / as the father of men and gods leads forth day by day.

We know indeed that Lactantius has handed down that nothing pertaining to the truth could be supplied by Homer, since he wrote of human rather than divine things (Lactantius, Divine Institutes I, 5, p. 21). But besides the fact that Cicero quoted these lines as approved by the Stoics, they certainly fit the purpose of our Minucius so well that he plainly seems to have aimed at them. If, however, anyone rightly proves to us that Ennius, or other poets, are cited by him there, we shall at once subscribe to him.

The other poet is named by Minucius, as afterwards by Lactantius (Lactantius, Divine Institutes I, 5, p. 22), by his own name thus: "What of Maro of Mantua? Does he not more openly, more nearly and more truly," that is, more closely, approach the true view of God, and declare it more openly and more truly? Yet our author gives his verses neither whole nor in what book they stand, but only their sense,

and certain words, though taken from two of his books, in this manner: "In the beginning a spirit within nourishes heaven and earth and the other members of the world, and a mind infused moves them; thence the race of men and beasts, and whatever other living thing there is." The same writer elsewhere names this mind and spirit. For these are his words: "For God goes through all lands and the tracts of the sea and the deep heaven: whence men and beasts, whence rain and fires." It will therefore be not altogether useless, and worth the trouble for some, to write out those verses whole and to show where they are found. The first are read thus in the sixth book of the Aeneid:

In the beginning heaven, the lands and the watery plains, / the shining globe of the moon and the Titanian stars, / a spirit within nourishes; and mind, infused through the limbs, / moves the whole mass and mingles itself with the great body; / thence the race of men and beasts, and the lives of flying things, / and the monsters that the sea bears beneath its marble surface.

(Virgil, Aeneid VI, 719 ff.)

The later ones are found thus in the fourth book of the Georgics:

For God goes through all / lands and tracts of the sea and the deep heaven; / from Him flocks, herds, men, every kind of wild beast, / each at its birth draws for itself its slender life.

(The same, Georgics IV, 220 ff.)

On these verses, and especially the first, the observations of Servius should be read. Minucius could have cited many other poets, and especially Greek ones, whom we treated in the preceding volume (vol. I of the Apparatus, p. 784); but because everyone acknowledges that Homer, as appears, was the leader and chief of all the Greek poets, and Maro of the Latin, he therefore judged their testimonies more than sufficient to prove that principal dogma of the Christian religion.

He passes therefore to the more celebrated philosophers, and proves that they agreed in the same view, if not in the same words, yet in very fact. He begins with Thales thus: "Thales of Miletus, who first of all disputed about heavenly things, said," as we saw elsewhere, "that water was the beginning of things, and that God was that mind which formed all things out of water" (vol. I of the Apparatus, pp. 434 and 776). And these words seem to be taken from Cicero, where he disputes on the same question as our Minucius. For he, like him, reviews there the opinions of the philosophers, and he too begins with this same Thales thus: "Thales of Miletus, who first inquired into such matters, said that water was the beginning of things, and that God was that mind which fashioned all things out of water (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods I, p. 199, line 20)." Lactantius afterwards handed down the same things in almost as many words as Minucius (Lactantius, Divine Institutes I, 5, p. 24).

But Minucius added immediately after these words things which have been so corrupted by the carelessness of copyists that without some new manuscript codex they can hardly

anyone can the true reading of them be found. For in our printed editions they are presented thus: "And (Royal ms. eo, Rigault eho) the principle of water and spirit, higher and more sublime than that it could (Royal ms. poterit, wrongly) be found by man, handed down by God (Royal ms. traditum)." Ought not sed, or something of that kind, to be read at the beginning of these words in place of the word eo? However that may be, the meaning of Minucius seems to be that the principle of water and spirit, as the cause, material and efficient, as they say, of all things, is higher and more sublime than that it could be found by man, unless he be taught by God Himself. Therefore Thales could not find this, which was handed down by God alone. Nevertheless he could have learned it from the Egyptians, with whom, as we have said elsewhere, he had associated. And the Egyptians had received it from Moses, and he from God (vol. II of the Apparatus, p. 1138 ff.).

"Anaximenes next," Minucius continues, and afterwards, "Diogenes of Apollonia [holds] the air infinite and immeasurable." But Cicero sets out the opinion of each separately. And first concerning Anaximenes these are his words: Anaximenes established the air as God, and that it is begotten, and is immeasurable and infinite, and always in motion." (Cicero, book 1, On the Nature of the Gods, p. 199, line 25.) But Minucius deliberately omitted these words, "and that it is begotten": for by the former words he departed from our true opinion concerning God by so much the more as by the following ones, "infinite and immeasurable," he seems to come nearer to it.

Concerning Diogenes of Apollonia, Tullius afterwards speaks thus: "As for the air, which Diogenes of Apollonia uses as God, what sense can it have, or what form of God?" (Cicero again, ibid., p. 200, line 10.) But who or of what kind that air was which Diogenes of Apollonia used as God, that Latin orator is indeed silent, but it is declared by Augustine in these words: "Diogenes, the other hearer of Anaximenes, said indeed that air is the matter of things, from which all things were made, but that it is possessed of divine reason, without which nothing could be made from it." (Augustine, book 8 of The City of God, ch. 2.) You see indeed with how good a right Minucius said that the opinion of both Anaximenes and Diogenes concerning God was the same, and that it was not altogether at variance with the Christian one. For although he differs from others in that he called air the matter of things, yet in this he agrees with the Christians, that he seems to have held for certain that air, possessed of divine reason, is the efficient cause of all things.

For there is no lack of writers who suspect that by the name of infinite and immeasurable air these philosophers understood not indeed this air which we breathe, but a certain divine spirit, as we have heard Virgil singing, by which the whole fabric of the world is cherished and animated. And these words of Plutarch in Eusebius concerning the opinion of Anaximenes seem to favour this suspicion: "Anaximenes

of Miletus taught that air is a principle of this kind; for from it all things are born, and into it in turn all things are dissolved. For our soul, ψυχὴ, for example, is air, and it warms and protects us, and spirit and air, πνεῦμα καὶ ἀὴρ, embrace the whole world as well: and spirit and air have one and the same meaning, 'air and spirit are spoken of synonymously'" (Eusebius, book 14 of the Preparation for the Gospel, chapter 14, page 74). And in the first book of Plutarch's On the Opinions of the Philosophers these things are read (Plutarch, book 1 On the Opinions of the Philosophers, chapter 3, page 876, volume 2). But there Anaximenes is refuted by him, because he assigned only the matter of things, and not the efficient cause. Earlier, however, Eusebius relates from another book of Plutarch, the Stromata, that nothing else was asserted by Anaximenes except that air, which he thought infinite, is the principle of all things. But Laertius explains these things as though Anaximenes had thereupon established two first principles of things (Laertius, book 2, § 3, and book 9, 57). But these perhaps either did not set out the whole opinion of that man, nor of Diogenes of Apollonia, or else by the name 'infinite' immense spirit is to be understood. On the opinion of both, moreover, see the other authors cited by us elsewhere, and Augustine, Letter 118, to Dioscorus, page 338 (volume 1 of the Apparatus, book 2, dissertation 2, § 29, page 435, and book 3, dissertation 3, chapter 1, article 1, page 776).

Minucius continues: «For Anaxagoras, God is called the ordering and motion of an infinite mind.» Likewise Cicero: «Then,» he says, «Anaxagoras, who received his teaching from Anaximenes, was the first to hold that the ordering and motion of all things were designed and accomplished by the power and reason of an infinite mind» (Cicero, book 1 On the Nature of the Gods, p. 199, line 22). Elsewhere, however, somewhat differently: «Anaxagoras [held] matter to be infinite, but [that] its particles, similar to one another and minute, were at first confused, and afterwards brought into order by the divine mind.» (book 4 Academic Questions, page 33, line 12). But Laertius set out his opinion far more clearly and more certainly from his books, and on the authority of Timon, thus: He was the first to set mind over matter, beginning his treatise thus, which is expressed pleasantly and grandly: 'All things were together; then mind came and set them in order'; on account of which he too was called Mind. And Timon says of him in the Silli thus:

And somewhere they say Anaxagoras is, a valiant hero, / Mind, because indeed he had mind, who suddenly gathering up / bound tightly together all things that before were in confusion.

«He first added mind to matter, writing thus at the beginning of his Work, in pleasant and magnificent language: All things were together, then mind came and arranged them; for which reason he too is called mind or intellect, ὁ νοῦς. Timon sang of this very thing concerning Anaxagoras in the Silli:

Now where Anaxagoras, mind is, most valiant hero, / who mind suddenly. for mind was not lacking to him, / he thinks [it] to have composed the things that were once disordered.

On him too Lucretius has said more, and also Augustine, and we too in the places already cited. (Lucretius, book 1, before the end.)

Next Minucius: "For Pythagoras God is a mind, passing through and extended throughout the whole nature of things, from which also the life of all living creatures is taken." Our author further drew this from Cicero: "Pythagoras," he says, "held that there is a mind extended and passing through the nature of things, from which our minds were plucked" (Cicero, book 1, On the Nature of the Gods, p. 199, line 37). Lactantius without doubt followed both. And to the same thing also comes what Laertius and Plutarch record about the Pythagorean unity and duality asserted by him, as is clear from what we observed about the same philosopher in the earlier volume of our Apparatus, in the places already cited (Lactantius, Divine Institutes book 1, ch. 5, p. 24, and On the Wrath of God, ch. 1, p. 796; Laertius, book 6, in the Life of Pythagoras; Plutarch, book 1, On the Opinions of the Philosophers, p. 876; vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 783).

After this Minucius says: "It is well known that Xenophanes teaches that God is the whole infinite together with mind." These, however, are Cicero's very words: "Then Xenophanes, with mind added, held that everything besides which was infinite is God" (Cicero, book 1 On the Nature of the Gods, p. 199, line 4). But Laertius relates, somewhat differently yet in no wholly different sense, that he thought: "that the substance of God is spherical, and has nothing in common with men; that He sees as a whole and hears as a whole, yet does not breathe; and that He is at once all things, mind, wisdom, eternity" (Laertius, book 9, § 15). There, however, by this word σφαιροειδῆ he means a spherical or round substance, nothing other than an infinite one. And he used it for this reason, that a round figure has neither beginning nor end. Wherefore Cicero again, in another book, reported the same opinion of Xenophanes in these words: "Xenophanes said that all is one, and that this is not changeable, and that it is God, never born, and everlasting, and of a spherical figure" (Academic Questions book 4, p. 33). Further, before the age of Minucius, Clement of Alexandria openly taught that this opinion of Xenophanes agrees with Christian doctrine and with these words of Isaiah: "To whom have you likened Me, says the Lord?" This indeed he proves in this way: Well indeed does Xenophanes of Colophon, teaching that God is one and incorporeal, add:

One God, among gods and men the greatest, / in no way like to mortals in body, nor in mind.

"Rightly therefore does Xenophanes of Colophon, teaching that God is one and incorporeal, add:"

Greatest in kind of gods and men is the one God, / Who neither in body nor in mind is like to any mortals.

This passage, which we have touched on briefly elsewhere, Eusebius copied out entire; who nevertheless in another place

sets out the words of Plutarch, in which he represents Xenophanes' opinion about God very differently. See Epiphanius and Theodoret (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 1113; Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel book 13, ch. 13, p. 679, and book 1, ch. 8, p. 25; Epiphanius, Exposition of the Faith, p. 1087; Theodoret, discourse 2 of the Cure of Greek Maladies, p. 486).

Article II.

On the other pagan philosophers: Antisthenes, Speusippus, Democritus, Strato, Epicurus, Aristotle, Heraclides Ponticus, Theophrastus, Cleanthes, Zeno, Chrysippus, Diogenes of Babylon, Xenophon, Aristo and Plato.

Let us, if you please, take a step with our Minucius towards the other pagan philosophers. What Antisthenes and Speusippus thought about God he relates thus: "Antisthenes [held] that the popular gods are many, but the natural one is chief; Speusippus, however, that the natural animate [power], by which all things are ruled, is God." But these things he undoubtedly borrowed from Cicero, who had said of both in almost as many words: "Antisthenes, in the book which is entitled the Physicus, says that the popular gods are many, the natural one is one... Not very differently Speusippus (in the royal manuscript Seuxippus, but wrongly), following his uncle Plato, speaks of a certain force by which all things are ruled, and that it is animate." (Cicero, book On the Nature of the Gods, p. 200, line 22.) Lactantius afterwards committed the same opinion of Antisthenes to writing. (Lactantius, Divine Institutes book 1, ch. 5, p. 24; and the book On the Anger of God, ch. 11, p. 796.) But we have dealt with this philosopher and with Speusippus elsewhere (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, pp. 1113, 1122 and 1134). Laertius, for his part, in the Life of the latter asserts that he remained within the doctrines of Plato his uncle. But Numenius, as cited by Eusebius, complains of those doctrines having been undermined by him. Finally Laertius notes that a book of Definitions was written by him, which some think to be the one that came to light among the known works of Plato. At the beginning of that book this definition of God is read: "God is a living being immortal, self-sufficient for happiness, an eternal substance, the cause of the nature of the good"; God is an animal immortal, content with Himself, an everlasting essence, the cause of the nature of the good" (Laertius, book 4, § 1, 5; Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel book 4, ch. 5, p. 727; in Plato, vol. 3, p. 411).

Again, Minucius had drawn from Cicero the things which he added afterwards about Democritus: "What of Democritus? Although the first discoverer of atoms, does he not for the most part speak of nature, which pours forth images, and of intelligence, as God?" For Cicero says similarly of him: "What of Democritus," he says, "who counts now images and their revolutions among the number of the gods, now that nature which pours forth and sends out images, now our knowledge and intelligence?" (Cicero, book cited, p. 200, line 5.) Wherefore Augustine writes these things to Dioscorus about that opinion of Democritus: "How much better had I not even heard the name of Democritus, than with sorrow

I should think of some man, reckoned great in his own times, who held that the gods are images which flowed from solid bodies and were not themselves solid, and that these, going about hither and thither by their own motion and gliding into the minds of men, bring it about that a divine power is conceived, although that body from which the image flowed is surely judged to be the more excellent the more solid it is. And so he wavered, as these men say, and his opinion tottered, so that at times they said that a certain nature, from which the images had flowed, is God, which nevertheless could not be conceived except through those images which it pours forth and emits, that is, which from that nature, which he considers somehow corporeal and everlasting, and on this account also divine, are borne, as it were by a likeness of body, as though by a continuous emanation, and come and enter into our minds, so that we might be able to think of God or the gods." (Augustine, Letter 118, p. 340.) But however much Democritus may have wavered and vacillated, from those things at least which Augustine himself and Cicero have handed down in writing about his opinion, who would not see that Minucius said rightly and not undeservedly that the divine nature was acknowledged by him at least in some manner, and that God is in truth one? And that was enough for the purpose of the same Minucius.

Next he sets out the opinion of Strato in these very few words: "Strato too, he also [says it is] nature." But the fewer these words are, the less clear they are; and so Cicero, often praised by us, will supply you with their unravelling: "Nor is that pupil of his, Theophrastus's, to be listened to," he says, "Strato, the one who is called the natural philosopher, who holds that all divine power is located in nature, which has the causes of begetting, increasing or diminishing, but lacks all sense and shape." (Cicero, work cited, p. 200, line 45.) Do you want more? Hear again the same orator speaking of him: "You deny that anything can exist without God. See, Strato of Lampsacus comes at you from the flank, to grant that god of yours exemption from a great task indeed. But since the priests of the gods have exemption, how much more fair is it that the gods themselves should have it? He denies that he makes use of the work of the gods for constructing the world. Whatever things exist, he teaches, have all been brought about by nature; not like that man who says that these things are compacted from rough and smooth, and hooked and barbed bodies, with void interposed: these he considers the dreams of Democritus, not teaching but wishing. He himself, going through the parts of the world one by one, teaches that whatever either is or comes to be is coming to be or has come to be by natural weights and motions. Thus he frees God from a great labour, and me from fear." (Book 4, Academic Questions, p. 35, line 46.) If you desire another to be cited for you, Plutarch is at hand, who left this written about Strato's opinion: "And indeed the foremost of the other Peripatetics, Strato, neither agrees with Aristotle in many things, and has held opinions contrary to Plato about motion, about mind, and about soul, and about generation; in the end he says that the world itself is not a living being, and that what is according to nature

follows what is according to chance. "And indeed Strato, the foremost of the remaining Peripatetics, both disagrees with Aristotle on many matters and defends views contrary to Plato on motion, mind, soul and generation. Finally, he denies that the world itself is a living being, and says that nature follows the impulses of fortune, chance supplying the beginning of nature's motion, and that thereafter physical motions are thus brought to completion by nature." (Plutarch, book Against Colotes the Epicurean, p. 1115.) What, moreover, Strato called nature we have already seen explained in Cicero. But we shall still have something to say about this opinion of his when we endeavour to make plain to all how it is refuted by Lactantius.

Meanwhile let us follow our Minucius. "Even that Epicurus," he says, "who imagines the gods either idle or non-existent, nevertheless sets nature above [all]." But this opinion of Epicurus about God is expounded at length in Cicero by Velleius the Epicurean. For after he has shown with many arguments that the life of God is such that nothing more blessed, nothing at all more abounding in every good, can be conceived, he gives this reason for his view: "For he does nothing, is entangled in no occupations, undertakes no works; he rejoices in his own wisdom and virtue; he holds it as certain that he will always be in pleasures both the greatest and eternal." Afterwards he declares in the same place that Epicurus taught falsely that the world was brought about by nature: that there was no need of craftsmanship, and that this thing was most easy for it." (Cicero, book 1 On the Nature of the Gods, p. 203, line 8.) For he prattled, as we have already said, that all things had been made by a chance concourse of atoms. Finally, in the same place, Tullius said in the name of Velleius, that is, of the Epicureans: "And piously and holily we worship a nature excellent and pre-eminent." But our Minucius distinguishes from these things that Epicurus taught to be false those by which he admitted, willing or unwilling, a nature more excellent than all others, and therefore divine. Consult, if you please, Laertius, and the notes of Menagius and Gassendi on him, and another book of the latter (Laertius, book 10, § 123; Menagius and Gassendi, notes on him; book 6 of the latter On the Life and Morals of Epicurus, chapters 1, 2, 3.)

Next, Minucius transcribed a great many words of Cicero, in which he reports Aristotle's opinion about God. See, indeed, how he speaks: "Aristotle varies, and yet assigns a single power. For at one time he calls mind God, at another the world, at another he sets God over the world." And thus Tullius: "Aristotle, in the third book On Philosophy, throws much into confusion, disagreeing with his master Plato alone. For now he attributes all divinity to mind, now he says that the world itself is God, now he sets some other over the world." (Cicero, book cited, p. 200, line 26 and following.) And these things indeed Minucius excerpted, but he left out what follows: "And he assigns him this role, that by a certain backward rotation of the world he should direct and maintain its motion; then he says that the heat of the sky is God... But when he wishes the same God to be without a body, he deprives him of all sense and prudence." Fewer things nevertheless than either,

concerning that opinion of Aristotle, Lactantius reported in this manner: "Aristotle, although he is at variance with himself and says and thinks things that contradict one another, nevertheless testifies that one supreme mind presides over the world." (Lactant. book 2 of the Divine Institutes, ch. 35, p. 25; and the book On the Anger of God, ch. 11, p. 796.) And more briefly still in another book: "Almost the same," he says, "as Antisthenes," of whom we spoke a little before, "is Aristotle with his Peripatetics." See Plutarch, Lescalopier, and, if you wish, what we have observed elsewhere (Plutarch, book 1 On the Opinions of the Philosophers, ch. 7, p. 881; Lescalop. on the passage of Cicero cited, § 33, p. 54, and On the Theology of Aristotle, p. 184 ff., vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 781).

Moreover, "Heraclides Ponticus," says Minucius, "ascribes a divine mind to God, although in various ways, assigning the sovereignty now to the world, now to the divine mind." But these things indeed, and others besides concerning him, Cicero relates: "From the same school of Plato," he says, "Heraclides Ponticus stuffed his books with childish fables; and yet at one time he thinks the world is a divine mind; he also attributes divinity to the wandering stars, and deprives God of sense, would have His form be changeable, and in the same book again reckons earth and heaven among the gods." (Cic. book On the Nature of the Gods, p. 200, line 39 ff.) Minucius therefore, as you see, reports of Heraclides' opinion only those things which served his purpose. His life was written by Laertius, and we discussed him in the earlier volume in the place cited a little before (Laert., towards the end of book 5; vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 779).

Next, Minucius joins four other philosophers together thus: Theophrastus and Zeno and Chrysippus and Cleanthes are themselves also of many forms, but they all come back to the unity of providence." Then straightaway he reviews the opinions of the last three one by one, but said nothing further about the first. Whether this was omitted by Minucius himself or by the carelessness of a copyist, who would dare to assert? Further, if you are eager to know the opinion of Theophrastus, these words of Cicero will disclose it to you: "Nor indeed is the inconsistency of Theophrastus to be borne; for at one time he assigns the divine sovereignty to mind, at another to heaven, and then again to the signs and heavenly stars." (Cic. ibid., p. 200, line 42.) See, if you please, what we have remarked about him elsewhere (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 781).

These things having been observed, let us now examine what Minucius determines about the other three. He begins, then, with Cleanthes: "Cleanthes asserts that God is mind, at one time soul, at another ether, most often reason." Thus he began from the last, although, like Cicero, in whose footsteps he trod after his custom, he acknowledges that he was a disciple of Zeno. Concerning his opinion, Cicero himself committed these things to writing: "Cleanthes, who heard Zeno, at one time says that the world itself is God, at another gives this name to the mind and soul of the whole of nature, at another to the last and highest fire, poured round on every side, outermost, encircling and embracing all things, which ether

is named, he judges to be the most certain God." Cic., book cited, p. 101, line 18.) This indeed he unfolds yet more fully, as has been noted by us elsewhere (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 782).

Next Minucius assigns the second place to Zeno, the teacher of Cleanthes, and sets out his opinion about God thus: "Zeno, his teacher, holds the natural and divine law, and sometimes the ether, and at other times reason, to be the principle of all things. The same man, by interpreting Juno as the air, Jupiter as the sky, Neptune as the sea, and fire as Vulcan, and by showing that the other gods of the common people likewise are elements, severely censures and refutes the public error." But have not these things too been culled from this passage of Cicero? "Zeno holds that the natural law is divine, and that it has the force that commands what is right and forbids the contrary..... In another place he says that the ether is God..... But in other books he thinks that a certain reason pervading all nature is endowed as divine. The same man attributes this same thing to the stars, and also to the years, the months, and the changes of the years. When indeed he interprets the Theogony of Hesiod, he altogether removes the customary and received notions of the gods. For he counts neither Jupiter, nor Juno, nor Vesta, nor anyone who is so called among the number of the gods, but assigns these names, by a kind of signification, to inanimate and mute things." Cic., book cited, p. 200, line 47 and following.) But Laertius bears witness to us that this was the opinion of Zeno: that God is one, and mind, and fate, and Zeus, and is called by many other names, "That God is one, and mind, and fate, and Jupiter, and is called by many other names." (Laertius, book 7, in the Life of Zeno, §§ 135 and 147.) These names indeed he afterwards enumerated. Hence Tertullian: "Among your wise men too it is agreed that the Logos, that is, word and reason, is regarded as the maker of the universe. For Zeno defines this as the maker, who formed all things in their arrangement, and [says] that the same is called fate, and God, and the mind of Jupiter, and the necessity of all things." (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 21.) Lactantius follows Tertullian (Lactantius, book 6 of the Institutes, ch. 7, p. 373. But we have already touched on some of these in the previous volume of our Apparatus (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 780). But by what reasoning the same Zeno and the Stoics thought that the gods of the common people were elements, we shall show in the following dissertation (dissertation on Arnobius, ch. 17, art. 5).

Third, Chrysippus is named by Minucius, who, "he says, "believes God to be much the same things: a divine force, a rational nature and fated necessity, and imitates Zeno in the interpretation of natural philosophy in the poems of Hesiod, Homer and Orpheus." And Cicero pursues these things much more fully (Cic., book cited, p. 201, line 27). For from the first book of the same Chrysippus On the Nature of the Gods he records these things committed to writing: "He says that the divine force is placed in reason, and in the mind and intelligence of universal nature; and he says that the world itself is God, and

the whole diffusion of its mind; then its very ruling principle, which resides in mind and reason, and the common nature of things, containing all things whatsoever; then the fated shadow, and the necessity of future things." When he had added other things to these, which you may read in the same place, he reported the following from the second book of that same work On the Nature of the Gods: "In the second, however, he wishes to accommodate the tales of Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod and Homer to what he himself had said in the first book about the immortal gods, so that even the most ancient poets, who never so much as suspected these things, may appear to have been Stoics." On these and the other Stoics, see Laertius, who published their lives, Plutarch, Lipsius, and what we observed in the preceding volume. (Laertius, book 7, On the Lives and Doctrines of Famous Philosophers; Plutarch, book 1, On the Opinions of the Philosophers, chapters 7 and 8; and the book On the Self-Contradictions of the Stoics; Lipsius, book 1, Stoic Physiology, dissertation 3 and following, vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 1780.)

Our Minucius continues, and says: "Diogenes of Babylon too has the method of expounding and explaining the birth of Jupiter and the origin of Minerva, and the rest of this kind, as being names of things, not of gods." Cicero had gone before him in these words: "Diogenes of Babylon," whom elsewhere he calls a great and weighty Stoic, "in the book that is entitled On Minerva, transferring the birth of Jupiter and the origin of the virgin to philosophy, separates it from fable" (Cicero, book 1, On the Nature of the Gods, p. 220, line 41, and book 3, On Duties, p. 394). You will find other books of his, On Divination, On Nobility and On Laws, cited by the same Cicero, by Athenaeus and by Plutarch; but if you believe Laertius, he was "a Stoic" "from Seleucia, and was called the Babylonian because of the nearness of the cities"; if you trust Gellius, he lived in the time of the poet Plautus and of Carneades the Academic; if Lucian, he prolonged his life to his ninety-second year (Cicero, book 1, On Divination, p. 255; Athenaeus, book 4, Deipnosophists, p. 168, and book 12, p. 526; Plutarch, book On Exile, p. 605; Laertius, book 6, towards the end of the Life of Diogenes, § 81; Gellius, book 17, Attic Nights, chapter 21; Lucian, On Long Lives, p. 916).

What more? Minucius brings forward two others who flatly denied that the majesty of God can be understood by men. For the one, to use his words, "Xenophon the Socratic denies that the form of the true God can be seen, and therefore holds that it ought not to be sought." The other, "Aristo of Chios, [holds] that it cannot be comprehended at all." On the former Cicero speaks more explicitly: "Xenophon, in the things which he reported as said by Socrates, makes Socrates argue that the form of God ought not to be sought, and has the same man call both the sun and the mind God, and now speak of one god, but then of several gods." And indeed what Cicero relates about him is actually found in the fourth book of Xenophon's Memorabilia. Our Minucius took the first part of this proposition for his own uses, and after him Lactantius, and also Theodoret. But we have dealt with it elsewhere (Cicero, book 1, On the Nature of the Gods, p. 200, line 18;

Xenophon, Memorabilia book 4, p. 802; Lactantius, On the Wrath of God, ch. 11, p. 795; Theodoret, vol. 4, Discourse on Faith, p. 477).

Cicero set out the few words of Minucius on the opinion of Aristo in these more numerous and clearer ones: "He holds that the form of God cannot be understood, and he says that there is no sense in the gods, and he doubts altogether whether God is a living being or not (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 782; Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods book 1, p. 204, line 8)." It should be observed in passing that in the royal manuscript codex of Minucius one does not read, as in the printed editions, "Aristo of Chios," but "Aristo the Stoic." You will therefore perhaps ask whether "Stoic" rather than "of Chios" should be read there. But whichever way you read it, it makes little difference. For Aristo was both a Chian by birth and a Stoic by school of philosophy. This, moreover, is clear enough from what we have remarked about him elsewhere (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, 3rd dissertation, book 2, ch. 18, art. 2, p. 1145 ff.). Finally Plato, easily the chief of all the rest, rightly closes the line of these philosophers. Minucius relates his opinion concerning God thus: "For Plato in the Timaeus God is, by His very name, the parent of the world, the craftsman of the soul, the maker of heavenly and earthly things, whom he declares at the outset to be difficult to find because of His excessive and incredible power, and, when you have found Him, impossible to speak of in public." Accordingly he openly declares that this opinion of Plato is clearer than all the others, and almost wholly heavenly, "had it not sometimes been sullied by an admixture of civic persuasion," that is, had he not, fearing the hemlock and death of Socrates his teacher, been compelled at times to flatter in a cowardly and servile way the false and empty opinions of the ignorant crowd. Hence Justin Martyr: "Here Plato, fearing those who embrace polytheism, brings in his demiurge saying things contrary to himself." "Plato, fearing those who had embraced the worship of many gods, brings in his God the Maker speaking things contrary to one another" (Justin, Exhortation to the Greeks, p. 21; Plato in the Timaeus, p. 41, vol. 3), with the other gods, of course, who he had said in the same place had come from Him.

Cicero, however, when he relates his opinion, first reproaches his inconsistency. "Now about the inconsistency of Plato," he says, "it is a long matter to speak, who in the Timaeus says that the father of this world cannot be named, but in the books of the Laws does not think that one ought to inquire at all what God is." (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods book 1, p. 200, line 11.) Lactantius cited the same book and opinion of Plato (Lactantius, Institutes book 1, ch. 8, p. 41, and On the Wrath of God, ch. 11, p. 795). But Cicero there, and afterwards Eusebius, record more things about Plato himself and his inconsistency, to which Lescalopier attempted to reply (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel book 13, ch. 14; Lescalopier, Exposition of Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods book 1, § 30, p. 50). These things, however, Minucius passed over as not serving his purpose.

Furthermore, the words of Plato cited by Minucius and others actually read thus in his Timaeus: "And indeed to find that parent of this universe

is difficult, and when you have found Him, impossible to make known to the crowd, to declare to all is impossible." (Plato, vol. 3, p. 28). Athenagoras copied out the same words where, like our Minucius, he plainly shows that the pagan philosophers acknowledged one supreme God (Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians, p. 6 and following). Again, those words of the philosopher were quoted by Cicero in the Fragments, and by Tertullian, and we have reported them elsewhere (Cicero, Fragments, p. 26; Tertullian, Apology, ch. 46, p. 40; vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 781 and 948, p. 155).

Then after this Minucius adds: "These too are almost the same as ours. For we both know God and have called Him the parent of all." Likewise Athenagoras: "If then Plato is not godless, who understands the maker of all things to be one uncreated God, neither are we godless, who know and hold fast as God Him by whose Word all things have been fashioned and by whose Spirit from Him all things are held together." "But if this opinion of Plato concerning the one unbegotten God of the universe is not impious, neither shall we be impious, who acknowledge and revere that God by whose Word, as all these things were fashioned, so by His Spirit they are held together."

From all these opinions of the philosophers, thus set out, Minucius draws this conclusion: "I have set out the opinions of almost all the philosophers whose glory is more illustrious, that they designated God as one, albeit by many names, so that anyone might think either that Christians are now philosophers or that philosophers were already then Christians," in the sense, namely, which we explained above. But consider, I pray, whether Augustine departed far from this conclusion, who pronounces this concerning the same philosophers: "And so, if those men could live this life again with us, they would surely see by whose authority men might more easily be helped, and, with a few words and opinions changed, they would become Christians, as very many Platonists of recent times and of our own times have done" (Augustine, On True Religion, ch. 4, vol. 7, p. 750). Let it further be permitted to add one thing to these: that most of those philosophers are cited by Tertullian, Lactantius and others for the same reason, and that from their opinions the same thing is plainly established and concluded. But we shall deal with them later.

Article III.

Another argument of Octavius concerning the one God is weighed, drawn from the examples of earthly kingdoms and of natural things.

From earthly empires, where no one can endure a partner in his kingship, Minucius seeks another argument, by which he confirms and proves not only that there is but one God, but that all things are governed by the rule of Him alone. "For when," he says, "did a partnership in kingship ever either begin in good faith or continue without bloodshed?" Earlier, Ennius in Cicero:

There is no sacred partnership, nor good faith, in kingship.

(Cicero, On Duties, bk 1, p. 354, line 9.)

But our Minucius proves this by four examples, the last of which is put forward by Cicero in the same place. But our author related them the more obscurely the more briefly he did so. For he never even calls those with whom the matter is concerned by their own name. It will therefore not be beside the point to explain these things a little more plainly.

He therefore took his beginning from the Persians in these words: 'I pass over the Persians, who divined sovereignty from the neighing of horses.' But who will understand this, unless he knows the history of Darius, king of the Persians, or has called it back to memory? For when the Magi had been slain and their sordid domination, as Valerius Maximus says, had been crushed, Darius was created sole king by compact and agreement, after his horse, at the very rising of the sun, through the trick of Aebares, had given out a neigh (Valerius Maximus, book 7, chapter 2, Foreign examples, § 2). See Herodotus, Justin the historian, Valerius Maximus and others (Herodotus, book 3, §§ 82, 85 and following; Justin, near the end of book 1; Valerius Maximus, at the place cited).

No clearer are these following words of Minucius: 'And the pair of the Thebans, dead, I pass over as a fable'; or, more obscurely and corruptly, in the royal codex, 'through the dead fable.' In these few words Minucius touches briefly on the fable of the brothers Polynices and Eteocles, sons of Oedipus king of the Thebans, celebrated in song by Statius (Statius, Thebaid, books 11 and 12). Now it is told thus. When Oedipus was going of his own accord into exile, he yielded his kingdom to those same sons of his on this condition, that they should rule in turn. Eteocles, moreover, the elder by birth, after he had reigned in the first year, refused Polynices the place of ruling in the following year. The latter, having suffered the rebuff, betook himself to Adrastus king of the Argives, and betrothed to himself Argia, his daughter. Then, having gathered an army, he made war on the Thebans together with Tydeus, the other son-in-law of Adrastus. In this war both brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, having engaged in single combat, fell by wounds dealt to each other. Finally, when their corpses had been placed on the pyre, the flame is said to have divided itself into two parts as a sign of implacable hatred. Hear, if you please, Ovid singing of this in these verses:

By design, when a common sacrifice is made on the altar / for the brothers who perished each by the other's hand, / the black ash itself, at discord with itself, as though it were bidden by them, / is split into two parts. (Ovid, Tristia, book 5, elegy 5, verse 33 and following)

There are extant on this matter verses of the Greek Branor, which Ausonius turned into Latin (Ausonius, Epigram 129). And, to pass over Pausanias, Diodorus Siculus, Seneca and others, Lucan alluded to it in these verses:

showing the Latin [festivals] completed, the flame is split into parts and rises with a twin peak, imitating the Theban pyres.

Then indeed Minucius says: 'Concerning the twins, over the kingdom of shepherds and of a hut, the memory is very well known.' Rightly indeed, but far more clearly if he had added the names of Romulus and Remus. For no one is unaware that Remus, because in mockery of his brother he had leapt over the new walls of Rome, by his angry brother Romulus, or

...killed at least by his order (Livy, book I; Florus, book I, and others).

Our author also kept silent the names of those whom he brings forward as his last example. "The wars of son-in-law and father-in-law," he says, "were spread over the whole world, and the fortune of so great an empire could not hold two." But Cyprian, who, as we have said, compiled these last three examples, as well as many others, from Minucius, calls each by his name. "Pompey and Caesar," he says, "were kinsmen by marriage, and yet they did not keep the bond of kinship in rival power" (Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols, p. 14). How they were kinsmen by marriage, and the one was father-in-law and the other son-in-law, you will learn from these words of Suetonius about Caesar: "To keep Pompey's alliance and goodwill, he offered him in marriage Octavia, his sister's granddaughter, who was married to C. Marcellus, and asked for himself his daughter's hand" (Suetonius, Life of Caesar, § 27), who was betrothed to Faustus Sulla. Earlier he had said: "About the same time he married Calpurnia, daughter of L. Piso, who was to succeed him in the consulship, and gave his own Julia to Cn. Pompey, having set aside her former betrothed, Servilius Caepio (§ 21)." See besides, if you please, Plutarch in his Life of Pompey, and other writers of Roman history (Plutarch, vol. I, p. 644).

Moreover, as Minucius goes on, it was not only men who could not endure a kingdom to be divided between two, even between two joined by closer bonds of nature; nature itself could not either. "See," he says, "the rest: the bees have one king, the flocks one leader, the herds one ruler." Cyprian reported this in as many words (Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols, p. 14). And each concludes from it that the highest power in heaven is not divided either, and that therefore there is only one God. After Lactantius, of whom we speak in his place, Jerome brings forward many other examples of this kind drawn from these, by which he had undertaken to prove that there ought to be one ruler in a monastery. "Even dumb animals," he says, "and herds of wild beasts follow their leaders. Among bees there are chiefs. Cranes follow one in lettered order. There is one emperor, one judge of a province. Rome, when it was founded, could not have two brothers as kings at once, and was dedicated by fratricide. In Rebecca's womb Esau and Jacob waged war... In a ship there is one helmsman; in a house one master. In an army however great the signal of one is awaited" (Lactantius, Divine Institutes I, 3 ff.; On the Anger of God, ch. 11, p. 793; Jerome, Letter 95, to Rusticus the monk, p. 775).

From these, then, Octavius argues thus against the heathen Caecilius in Minucius's name: "Do you believe that the highest power in heaven is divided, and that the whole power of that true and divine empire is split?" Cyprian in fewer words: "Much more," he says, "is there one ruler of the world (Cyprian, ibid.)." And Athanasius presses this argument in such a way that all may still more easily feel and perceive its force and weight. "The very order of the arrangement," he says, "and the harmonious agreement of all the parts, show plainly that there is not many but one leader and governor of the world. For if many presided over the world, that order could not be kept; but all things would be full of confusion and disturbance, while each drew everything to his own will and fought against another. For just as we held that many gods are no gods, that polytheism is atheism, so it must be said that many rulers are no rulers. For since one would overthrow the other's rule, there would certainly be no one to command and to have dominion, no one to rule and govern" (Athanasius, Oration against the Gentiles, § 38, p. 37).

And who would not see that the same thing is proved by our Minucius with exactly this reasoning? "Since it is plain that God, the parent of all, has neither beginning nor end, who grants birth to all, perpetuity to Himself, who was before the world, Himself a world to Himself, who commands by His word all things that are, orders them by His reason, perfects them by His power." We have seen that the same things were said both earlier by Tertullian and later by Cyprian. Do you see how much strength there is in this argument, by which those most learned men clearly demonstrate that there can be no gods at all if there are many, and that it is therefore altogether necessary that there be one only, and not many gods?

CHAPTER V.

On the name, nature and attributes of God.

ARTICLE ONE.

Who and what God is, what His name is, and how He is known by man, although He cannot be seen with bodily eyes.

Although Octavius had proved by arguments as certain as they were evident that God exists and that He is one, Caecilius, still wavering with the usual obstinacy of the heathen, tries to weaken their force and strength, if only he ever could, with this question: "Whence," he says, "or who is He, or where is this one God, solitary, forsaken, whom no free nation, no kingdoms, not even Roman superstition have known? Only the wretched nation of the Jews worshipped one God, and they too." To these questions of Caecilius and the other Gentiles Minucius steadfastly answers that the God of these very Jews and of the Christians is altogether the same, whom Caecilius himself had declared to be even then scattered over the whole world, and whom Tertullian, as we observed, had declared to have filled all places.

To the one asking who that God is, Octavius answers: "Do not seek a name for God: God is His name. There is need of words where a multitude is to be distinguished individually by the proper marks of their names

to God, who alone is, the word "God" is the whole; if I call Him father, you would think Him earthly; if king, you would suspect Him fleshly; if lord, you will certainly understand Him as mortal. Take away the additions of names, and you will behold His brightness." In Cyprian, who transcribed the first phrase in just as many words, these two words "by individuals" are omitted, and in the same place it is written: "God is His name; there is need of words there, where a multitude is to be distinguished by the proper marks of designations." (Cyprian, book On the Vanity of Idols, p. 15.) Nor does he say more there.

Lactantius, moreover, says of Trismegistus: "He," he says, "wrote books, and indeed many, in which he asserts the majesty of the supreme and singular God, and calls Him by the same names by which we call God and Father; and lest anyone should ask His name, he said that He is nameless, because He does not need the distinctiveness of a name, by reason of His very oneness." Lactantius, book 1, chapter 6, p. 39.) The words of Trismegistus are quoted by Lactantius thus: "But God is one, and the one does not need a name; for He Who is, is nameless." Then Lactantius himself argues thus: "God therefore has no name, because He is alone. Nor is there need of a proper word except when a multitude requires distinction, so that you may designate each single person by his own mark and appellation. But for God, because He is always one, the proper name is God." But what he added there after the Greek words of Trismegistus he seems certainly to have drawn from our author, as he did many other things too, and he has rendered his sense clearer.

Minucius therefore teaches, first, that the nature of God is most simple, such as can in no way whatever be divided, and that He Himself is neither earthly, nor bodily, nor mortal, and therefore is of a spiritual and immortal substance.

Next, that God, such and so great as He is in Himself, is indeed not known by us; yet that any man whatever, by removing from the idea of Him whatever things are earthly and imperfect, arrives at a clear knowledge of Him.

Thirdly, that names are imposed only on those things which are distinct and different from one another, so that it may be designated which each one is. Wherefore to God, he says, Who is most simple, and alone existed before all creatures and always, no name can be given, as Trismegistus, just quoted by Lactantius, used to say. And in an altogether not dissimilar way Justin Martyr: "For God neither did anyone who gives a name exist beforehand, nor did He Himself think it necessary to name Himself, being one and alone. It cannot at all be that any proper name be attributed to God, because names are imposed for the designation and distinguishing of the things subject to them, which are various and many. But before God no one existed who might give Him a name; nor did He Himself consider that He needed to be designated by any name, existing as one and alone (Justin, Exhortation to the Greeks, p. 19)." And again elsewhere, more than once, he, like other Fathers of the Church too, denies that any proper name of God can be devised.

Nor does it stand in the way of these things that, to Celsus objecting that God is unnameable, Origen replies: It needs a distinction. For if [it is meant] that nothing among words and the things they signify can represent the properties of God, what is said is true, since indeed many qualities too are not nameable. For who can convey by a name the difference of the quality of the date and of the sweetness of the dried fig? . . . It is no wonder, then, if God is in this way not nameable. But if you take "nameable" in the sense that it is possible by names to represent something of what concerns Him, so as to lead the hearer by the hand and make him understand, concerning God, as far as is attainable by human nature, some of the things concerning Him, it is nothing absurd to say that He is nameable. "A distinction is needed. For if he means that in the meanings of words nothing can express the properties of God, it is true; since many qualities are unnameable. For who could distinguish by names the quality of the sweetness of the date and the sweetness of the dried fig?...It is no wonder therefore if God is unnameable in this manner. But if 'nameable' is taken in the sense that one can by names lead the hearer by the hand to some knowledge of God, as far as human nature is permitted to comprehend, He will not absurdly be called nameable." (Origen, Against Celsus, book LXI, p. 320, quarto edition.) For Origen admits that no proper name can be imposed on God by anyone, nor can He be named by anyone, except in so far as is granted to human frailty.

But these points having been thus quite truly and rightly laid down, our Minucius, and with him Cyprian and Lactantius, assert that this word God is in truth, so far as it is lawful for man, as Origen says, to name Him, the whole and proper name of the true God. Earlier, indeed, we read that this was confirmed by Tertullian in these words: "The soul, although pressed down by the body, although. . . . names God, by this alone, because properly this true God is good and great." (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 17, p. 24.) Wherefore he asserts that this name of God is to be given to Him alone and to no other.

But who He is, if anyone should inquire of our Minucius, as Caecilius did, he will at once receive this answer from him: "He can neither be seen, He is brighter than sight, nor grasped, He is purer than touch (these last three words, although transcribed by Cyprian, are missing in the royal manuscript codex), nor estimated, He is greater than the senses (infinite, immeasurable, and known to Himself alone how great He is, while for us the heart is too narrow for understanding [Him]), and so we estimate Him worthily thus, when we call Him inestimable." (Cyprian, book On the Vanity of Idols, p. 14.) All of this, with only those things excepted which are enclosed in brackets, Cyprian copied out in as many words. But Tertullian, earlier than both, had said the same in other words in this manner: "He is invisible, although He is seen; incomprehensible, although He is represented through grace; inestimable, although He is estimated by human senses; therefore He is true [and] so great. But what can be seen in the common way, what can be grasped, what can be estimated, is less both than the eyes by which it is taken hold of, and

the hands by which it is defiled, and the senses by which it is found. But what is immeasurable is known to itself alone; this is what causes God to be reckoned [God], while it does not admit of being reckoned: thus the force of His greatness presents Him to men as both known and unknown.” Who does not know that the same things were handed down again and again by Theophilus of Antioch, and by Nazianzen and other Fathers of the Church? Theophilus of Antioch, book 1 To Autolycus, after the beginning, page 71.)

But against these proofs, so certain and so true, some heathen will still rise up and, with Caecilius, will insist that these are monsters and prodigies of the Christians' tenets, by which they claim in vain to have a God. For they are forced to admit that He can neither be shown nor be seen. But what wonder is it, says Minucius, if the Christians profess that they do not see with the eyes of the body their God, Whom they clearly recognize from His works? Do you yourself, whoever you are, heathen man, see with your eyes the wind and the blasts by which all things are driven? Does not the keenness of your eyes grow dull and blunted in gazing at the sun, which is the cause of seeing for all? Do you see and behold your soul, by which you live, by which you are animated, by which you speak?

And let no one, I pray, persuade himself that the empty quibbles and cavils of the heathen were refuted by these comparisons by our author alone. For the same comparisons were used not only by the most ancient and other Fathers of the Church, but also by certain most learned writers of the Gentiles. And to select a few out of many, Theophilus of Antioch says: “God created all things when they did not exist, so that from His works it might become known to man how excellent He is. As the human soul in the human body is not seen, being invisible, but is known from the movements of the body, so neither can God be seen by human and bodily eyes... Just as, if someone sees a ship fitted out with its tackle ploughing the sea and putting into port, he surely believes that there is someone by whom it is steered, a helmsman in it... If man cannot fix his eyes on the sun, which is indeed a very small element,” that is, compared with God, “because of the surpassing heat and power, much less can mortal man gaze upon the glory of God, which is ineffable to man.” (Theophilus of Antioch, book 1 To Autolycus, page 72.) He says more there besides, which, if you wish to see it written in Greek, you will be able to read without difficulty in his book.

Later, indeed, Lactantius argues in exactly the same way and also employs several comparisons of this kind: “Above all, since God cannot be seen by man, yet so that no one should think from that very fact that God does not exist, because He is not seen by mortal eyes, among the other wonders of His ordinances He also made many things whose force indeed is apparent, yet whose substance is not seen, such as voice, smell, wind, so that by the proof and example of these things God too, although He did not come before the eyes,

we might nevertheless discern from His force, His effect and His works. What is clearer than the voice, or stronger than the wind, or more violent than an odour? Yet these, although they are carried through the air, come to our senses and strike them with their power, are not discerned by the keenness of the eyes, but are perceived by other parts of the body. Likewise God is not to be grasped by us through sight or through any other frail sense, but is to be beheld with the eyes of the mind, since we see His works, excellent and wonderful.” (Lactantius, book 7, On the Blessed Life, chapter 9.) You will be able to consult Irenaeus and others who set out the same things; for those passages are too long for us to transcribe them all.

What of the fact that Cicero himself too, so that we may also set a pagan writer against pagan men, spoke in quite the same way: «So, although you do not see the mind of man, as you do not see God, yet as you recognize God from His works, so from the memory of things, and from invention, and from swiftness of motion, and from all the beauty of virtue, recognize the divine power of the mind» (Cicero, book 1, work cited, page 126, line 38.)

Minucius therefore, by these arguments, which pagan and Christian writers alike have approved with equal right, answers Caecilius most plainly and utterly demolishes his reasoning. Wherefore he rightly concludes: «We believe in God from this, that we can perceive Him but cannot see Him. For in His works and in all the motions of the world we behold His power ever present, when He thunders, lightens, strikes with the thunderbolt, when He makes the sky clear, as we have shown above.

Article II.

By what arguments Minucius proved that God is infinite, eternal, immeasurable, and knows all things.

Most of the attributes of God, that is, His supreme and divine perfections, are clearly set out by our Minucius. For he declares Him to be infinite for this reason, that He lacks beginning and end. Nor could Caecilius deny this, since that saying of Thales recorded by Laertius must have been known to him: What is the divine? Thales used to say: That which has neither beginning nor end. «What is God? That which lacks beginning and end.» (Laertius, book 1, in the Life of Thales, § 36.)

Then indeed Minucius asserts that He is eternal, inasmuch as He «grants birth to all things, to Himself perpetuity,» and Himself existed before the world. Tertullian, moreover, seems to derive this eternity of God from the preceding argument of Minucius, by which He is proved to be infinite. For he argues thus against Hermogenes. What other standing does God have than eternity? What other state does eternity have than to have always been and to be going to be, by the prerogative of no beginning and no end?» Tertullian, book against Hermogenes, chapter 4, page 267.) But those two attributes of infinity and eternity are so connected with each other that each can equally be proved from the other. But hear further, I pray, Gregory Nazianzen disputing on the eternity of God. «God both always was,» he says, «and is, and will be: or, to speak more correctly, He always is;

...for "was" and "will be" are segments of our time and of our fluid nature. But He always is, and He names Himself in this way when He gives His oracle to Moses on the mountain. For He embraces in Himself the whole of what is, neither having a beginning nor about to have an end (Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 38, p. 811)." These words are found in the same terms in his Forty-second Oration (the same, Oration 42, p. 898). Since God, then, receives both that He is and whatever He is from no other but from Himself, He must therefore be both infinite and eternal.

Caecilius contended that another novel monster of Christian doctrine was that its followers proclaimed God to be immense and present everywhere. For how, he said, can He be present in all places, set in heaven, and at the same time "spread out through all things"? What then? answers Minucius. Is not the sun, fixed in the sky, present everywhere? Does it not mingle with all things without loss of its light, which remains always whole and undiminished? Yet much more is God not only near to and infused into each thing, but also into us. Indeed Minucius adds: "We not only act under Him, but, I might almost say, we live with Him." Some will perhaps suspect that by these words he had in view that saying of the Apostle: "In Him we live, and move, and are (Acts 17:28)." But since in the whole disputation, dealing with heathens, he drew nothing, as we observed, from our sacred Scripture, he certainly put forward this reasoning because the heathen could neither weaken nor reject it. And indeed Seneca, though a pagan, had written in a certain Letter: "He (God) ministers to the human race: He is everywhere and at hand to all. And elsewhere: Wherever you turn, there you will see Him meeting you. Nothing is empty of Him (Seneca, Letter 6, p. 397 ff.; On Benefits IV, 8)." Finally, to pass over more, in another Letter again: "God comes to men; nay, what is closer, He comes into men (Letter 73, p. 305)." Since, then, as Minucius rightly teaches after Thales and Aratus, all things are full of God, all things must also be known to Him (Thales, in Aristotle, On the Soul I, 5). Therefore He, the beholder of all, knows all the deeds and thoughts of men.

But against all this Caecilius pressed obstinately that it is vainly and groundlessly imagined that God is present in all places, deeds and thoughts. For what else, he says, were the champions of this opinion forcing upon us by these words but a God "troublesome, restless, and even shamelessly inquisitive"? But this was the very impious complaint of the Epicurean philosopher in Cicero. "You have set upon our necks," he says, "an everlasting master, whom we should fear day and night. For who would not fear a God who foresees and thinks of and notices everything, who thinks that everything concerns Him, an inquisitive God full of business?" (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods I, p. 203, line 29.) For this reason Lucretius both gives the greatest thanks to Epicurus for driving out this fear and congratulates him exceedingly. And what of the fact that Cicero, where he relates that Strato taught "that all things were brought about by nature," afterwards added there: "So he frees both God from a great labour and me from fear. For who, when he thinks himself cared for by God, can fail to dread the divine power day and night, and, if anything adverse befalls him, and to whom does it not befall, to fear that it has happened deservedly?" (Cicero, Academica, p. 33, line 47.)

But those philosophers, and above all the Epicureans, plainly men of pleasure, made these objections. For they were persuaded that God, if He knew the deeds and thoughts of men, was to be feared, and that their pleasure and happiness was therefore disturbed by this fear. God nevertheless is not at all like other kings, who "move all things of their kingdom," says Minucius, "through the services of ministers"; but He knows all things by Himself, nor has He "need of informers" to know them. The most ancient philosophers acknowledged this of their own accord. For Thales of Miletus, as we learn from Laertius, "when asked whether a man doing wrong escaped the notice of the gods, said: Not even when he thinks it. Not even thinking it, he said" (Laertius I, Life of Thales, § 36). Valerius Maximus handed down the same to posterity, and gave this reason for that pronouncement: "Admirably Thales: for when asked whether the deeds of men escaped the gods, he said: Not even their thoughts; so that we might wish to have not only our hands but also our minds pure, since we should believe that the divine power is present to our secret thoughts (Valerius Maximus VII, 2, § 8, ext.)."

The fear thus arising in men, then, though it may be irksome to Epicureans and wicked men, is rightly and deservedly judged by the rest most good and most just. See the authors cited on the passage of Laertius, Lucan, Euripides, and Theon the Sophist, who attributes this saying not to Thales but to Pittacus.

CHAPTER VI.

On divine Providence.

ARTICLE ONE.

The arguments are examined by which Minucius shows that the world, and all things and each, are governed by the providence of God; where Britain, the Nile, the Euphrates and the Indus are treated.

By the same arguments by which Minucius proved that God exists, he infers that all and each of the things which were first created by His nod and will, and the whole world, are ruled and governed by His divine Providence.

Now we have set out and examined these arguments above. And no one can deny that their force is the highest and their weight the greatest. Cicero, moreover, as we have said, in the principal part of the second book of his On the Nature of the Gods, far more copiously,

than our author, demonstrates by the same weight of reasons against the Epicureans that the world is administered by divine providence.

He, and after him Minucius, asserts and illustrates this proof concerning divine Providence by the comparison of a house, which lies ready to hand for anyone. And our Minucius indeed says: "But if, on entering some house, you had seen everything cultivated, arranged, adorned, you would certainly believe that a master presided over it, and that he was better than those good things: so in this house of the world, when you look out upon heaven and earth, upon providence, order, law, believe that there is a Lord of the universe and a Parent, more beautiful than the stars themselves and the parts of the whole world." Earlier, however, the Orator had said: "As, if someone should come into some house, or into a gymnasium, or into the forum, when he sees the method, measure and discipline of all things, he could not judge that these things come about without a cause, but would understand that there is someone who presides and whom men obey; much more, amid such great motions and such great alternations, amid the orderly courses of so many and such great things, in which immeasurable and infinite antiquity has never once proved false, must he conclude that such great motions of nature are governed by some mind." (Cicero, book 2 On the Nature of the Gods, page 216, line 3 and following.)

And God by His providence takes care not only of the universe of things, by which all things are contained, but also of the individual parts of the world. But let us hear, if you please, Minucius demonstrating this also by certain examples: "Britain," he says, "is lacking in sun, but is refreshed by the warmth of the sea flowing round it. The Nile tempers the dryness of Egypt. The Euphrates cultivates Mesopotamia. The Indus is said both to sow and to water the East." But in the royal manuscript codex, after the word "Nile", these words are read: "The river Euphrates makes up to Mesopotamia for the rains." Why indeed these words were changed in the printed editions is certainly unknown to us.

But we do not at all doubt that these things were excerpted from the second book of Cicero On the Nature of the Gods, where he uses the same examples of the Nile, the Euphrates and the Indus, likewise to prove the Providence of God. His words, however, having been transcribed by us above, we have judged it superfluous to repeat here (Cicero, book 2 On the Nature of the Gods, page 234, line 20; see above, chapter 2, article 6).

But did not Minucius, you will say, wrongly and preposterously put forward Britain first as an example? For whence did he learn that it is lacking in sun? But tell me, I ask, did not Strabo also similarly hand down these things in writing about the Britons: "The air is rainy rather than snowy. And in clear weather a mist holds for a long time, so that through the whole day the sun is seen for only three or four hours, those around midday; and this happens also among the Morini, and the Menapii, and all who are neighbours of these." "The air among them is subject to rains rather than to snows: and even with a clear sky a certain mist holds for much of the time, so that in one day not more than three or four, which are around

midday, hours, can the sun be seen. And this same thing happens to the Morini too, and to the Menapii, and to their neighbours." (Strabo, Geography, book 4, p. 300.)

Do you wish another witness also to be brought forward for you? Tacitus too is at hand, whose words are these: "The sky is foul with frequent rains and mists; severity of cold is absent. The length of the days is beyond the measure of our world; and the night is clear and, in the farthest part of Britain, short, so that you can distinguish the end and the beginning of daylight by only a slight interval. And if the clouds do not hinder, they affirm that the brightness of the sun is seen through the night, and that it does not set and rise, but passes across; that is to say, the extremities of the earth, being flat, with their low shadow do not raise the darkness high, and night falls below the sky and the stars." (Tacitus, Life of Julius Agricola, well after the beginning.)

But if besides you should still want a third witness, we have Caesar ready to hand as well, who had crossed over into this island. For of it he writes in this manner: "The places are more temperate than in Gaul, the cold being milder... In the middle of this crossing is an island which is called Mona; besides, several smaller islands are thought to lie off it, about which islands some have written that at the winter solstice it is night for thirty continuous days." (Caesar, Gallic War, book 4, p. 743.) But these, like Herodian, Servius and Jordanes, were either deceived by a false rumour, or are speaking of the farthest bounds of Scotland towards the north. For Tacitus, already cited, says in the Life of Julius Agricola: "Presently," he says, "[the night is] clear and, in the farthest part of Britain, short, so that you can distinguish the end and the beginning of daylight by only a slight interval." (Herodian, Histories, book 3, p. 84; Servius on book 1 of Virgil's Georgics, p. 81; Jordanes, On the Affairs of the Goths, ch. 2.)

Granted, another will say, let the matter be so, I indeed concede it. But on what reasoning, he will ask, does Minucius firmly affirm that Britain is refreshed by the warmth of the sea? To him, then, we shall reply with the words of Cicero: "The seas," he says, "when stirred by the winds, grow so warm that it can easily be understood that heat is enclosed in those vast masses of water. For that warmth is not to be held external and adventitious, but stirred up by agitation in the inmost parts of the sea. And this happens to our bodies too, when they grow warm through motion and exercise." (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book 2, p. 217, line 42 and following.) But he is speaking in general of any sea whatever. What wonder, then, if Britain grows warm with the warmth of the sea that surrounds it on every side, with its heat? But perhaps he would have done better to say that this warmth is stirred up not from heat enclosed in the sea, but only from its agitated salty parts and from its vapours.

Now concerning the three rivers mentioned by Minucius, if you should seek the testimonies of other writers besides Cicero, many will quickly be brought forward for you. For in the first place, Diodorus Siculus shows clearly not only how the Nile tempers the dryness of Egypt, as Minucius says, but also how it renders it fruitful and fertile. His Greek words, however, because they are rather long, we shall give only from a Latin translator: "Its flooding," he says, "from

the summer solstice as its starting point, increases until the autumn equinox. Meanwhile, bringing in fresh silt from time to time, it waters the soils, both those lying idle and those planted with crops and plants, for as long as the farmers wish. For they easily turn aside the gently approaching waters with modest embankments, and, when these are opened, if it seems useful, they let them in again with no great labour; and it brings so great a saving of labour and so much profit to men that the greatest part of the country folk, having cast their seed onto the dried fields of the earth, drive in their cattle to tread it down, and after four or five months return to reap. Some, having lightly broken up the top surface of the ground with light ploughs after the watering, take from it huge heaps of grain without great expense and the hardships of labour." (Diodorus, Library, book 1, p. 22.) St Ambrose too, no less clearly: "In spring," he says, "the Nile overflows among the Egyptians, so that the earth may soften for the casting of seeds, and the seeds sown may be received in a more caressing bosom and a gentler lap." Ambrose, book On Noah and the Ark, ch. 14, § 48, p. 247.) Whoever wants more, let him consult Strabo, Mela, Pliny, Solinus and others. (Strabo, Geography, book 5, p. 694, and book 7, p. 788; Mela, On the Situation of the World, book 1, ch. 9; Pliny, Natural History, book », ch. 9, p. 357, and book 18, ch. 8, p. 490; Solinus, ch. 32.)

The same authors attest that, as Egypt is made fertile by the Nile, so Mesopotamia, as Minucius says, is made fertile by the Euphrates. Of this river indeed Pliny relates the following: "It too rises after the manner of the Nile, differing a little in its fixed days, and floods Mesopotamia when the sun occupies the twentieth degree of Cancer. It begins to diminish in Virgo, after Leo has been passed. It withdraws altogether in the twenty-ninth degree of Virgo." (Pliny, Natural History, book 5, ch. 27, p. 584.) Solinus, Pliny's transmitter and imitator: "It enriches Mesopotamia," he says, "with the overflowings of its yearly flood, after the likeness of the Egyptian river, that is, the Nile, covering the lands and bringing fertility to the soil, at almost the same times as the Nile." (Solinus, ch. 38.) See, if you please, Strabo, Arrian, Quintus Curtius and other geographers. (Strabo, Geography, book 16, p. 740; Arrian, On the Expedition of Alexander, book 7, pp. 453 and 489; Q. Curtius, book 5, a little after the beginning.)

Furthermore, after the same Strabo has said something about the rivers that flow into the Ganges and the Indus, he confirms on the authority of Eratosthenes what Minucius committed to writing about the Indus: "From the exhalation of so many rivers, and from the etesian winds, as Eratosthenes says, India is drenched by the summer rains and the plains become marshes; in these rains, then, flax is sown, and millet, besides these sesame, rice, bosmoron. In the winter seasons wheat, barley, pulses and other edible fruits of which we have no experience." "Eratosthenes is the authority that from the exhalations of these so great rivers, and from the blowing of the Etesian winds, India is soaked with summer rains and the plains are filled with pools, and in

these rains flax is sown, and millet, and sesame, rice and bosmorum; but in the winter season wheat, barley, pulses and other edible crops, of which we have no experience." (Strabo, Geography, book 15, p. 690).

Do you see how rightly Minucius concludes from all these things that each and every thing is administered by the Providence of God? For lands that are by their own nature barren, both scorched by the heat of the sun and not moistened by rains, it makes fruitful by the floodings of these rivers. In exactly the same way he had shown earlier that by this divine providence the fruitfulness of the other parts of the world had been provided for in a quite wonderful manner by the fixed alternation of the four seasons of the year: "Now of how great providence is it," he says, "lest winter alone should burn with ice, or summer alone should scorch with heat, to insert between them the moderate temperateness of autumn and spring, so that, along the footsteps of the returning year, the hidden and harmless transitions might come round again." But there he said "Winter burns with ice," just as Virgil:

Or the piercing cold of Boreas should scorch. (Virgil, book 1, line 93.)

Article II.

The arguments of the heathen Caecilius against divine Providence, drawn from the prosperity of the wicked and the adversities of the good, are examined; where [it is treated] of Dionysius the tyrant, Phalaris, Rutilius, Socrates, Camillus, and the wretchedness of the Jews and Christians.

Caecilius raises many objections against divine Providence, of which some concern all men universally, some certain men in particular, some the Gentiles, some the Jews, and some, finally, the Christians. First, then, how, he said, if the Providence of God stands, are sacred and profane places, just as pious and impious men, struck alike and equally by lightning and other chance misfortunes? Why are the guilty as well as the innocent, the good and the wicked, overwhelmed by storms and shipwrecks without any distinction? Why, finally, are the most wicked men often, very often, more flourishing and happier than the best?

Then, by certain examples, he undertakes to prove that it is false that the world is governed by divine Providence, or that each and every one is provided for. But it is better to hear Caecilius himself setting these things forth: "But if the world," he says, "were ruled by divine Providence and by the authority of some deity, Phalaris and Dionysius would never deserve a kingdom, Rutilius and Camillus would never deserve exile, nor Socrates poison." By exactly the same argument, in Cicero, Cotta the Academic was striving to shake the Providence of God (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book 5, p. 252, line 4 and following). And he laid down as certain what was chanted by Telamon about the gods in this single verse:

For if they cared, it would go well with the good, which now is not the case:

That Academic, moreover, strives to confirm these things by the same and by more examples than Caecilius, though leaving out Camillus. There he presses them thus: "Why is my uncle, a most innocent and also a most learned man, P. Rutilius, in exile? Two short of

forty years Dionysius was tyrant of a most wealthy and most prosperous city. How many penalties before him, in the very flower of Greece, did Pisistratus, and Phalaris, and Apollodorus pay, though only after many had first been tortured and killed... What shall I say of Socrates, over whose death I am wont to weep when reading Plato? « Then, after he had recounted many impious deeds and sacrileges of Dionysius, which were afterwards noted by Valerius Maximus too (book 1, chapter 1, Foreign Examples, § 3), he concluded his narrative with these words: « This man, then, neither did Olympian Jupiter strike with a thunderbolt, nor did Aesculapius destroy him as he wasted away with a wretched and lingering disease; but having died in his own bed he was borne to the pyre of Tympanis, and the power which he himself had gained through crime he handed on to his son as an inheritance, as though it were just and lawful.» (Cicero, at the place cited.)

Yet neither Caecilius nor the other Gentiles could conceal that that Dionysius, whose various and singular crimes both Cicero and Valerius Maximus recount elsewhere as well, was most wretched in so blessed and happy a fortune (the same, Tusculans book 5, p. 186, line 3 and following; Valerius Maximus book 9, chapter 13, Foreign Examples, § 4). For Cicero himself committed this to writing about him in another book: « What do we think of that elder Dionysius? With what torment of fear was he wont to be racked, who, dreading the barbers' razors, used to singe his hair with a glowing coal?» (Cicero, On Duties book 2, page 377, line 17 and following.)

Valerius Maximus, however, relates that he paid the penalty for his crimes in another way, thus: « Although he did not undergo the punishments he deserved, yet through the disgrace of his son he paid in death the penalties which he had escaped while alive. For divine wrath proceeds with slow step to its own vengeance, and makes up for the slowness of the punishment by its severity. » (Valerius Maximus book 1, chapter 1, Foreign Examples, § 5.)

Concerning the death of Phalaris, Cicero handed down this to posterity: « The third is Phalaris, whose cruelty is notorious beyond that of the others, who perished not through a plot, like the one I mentioned just now, Alexander, nor at the hands of a few, like this man of ours, but on whom the whole multitude of the Agrigentines made an attack. » From Valerius Maximus, moreover, you will learn by whose counsel and in what manner this tyrant was killed by the Agrigentines (Valerius Maximus, book 3, chapter 3, Foreign Examples, § 2).

The story of P. Rutilius Rufus, whom Paterculus calls the best man not only of his own age but of every age, is known to all (Paterculus, Histories book 2. For who does not know that he was driven into exile by a conspiracy of the tax-farmers, whose robberies he had restrained, although, as Cicero bears witness, he was entirely innocent? (Cicero, Oration 2, For Fonteius, page 227 and following, and Oration 37, Against Piso, page 544.) Of him, moreover, Valerius Maximus speaks thus: « What is more wretched than condemnation, than exile? Yet from P. Rutilius, struck down by a conspiracy of the tax-farmers, they were unable to take away his authority. As he made for Asia, all the cities of that province sent envoys to meet him, awaiting his retirement there. That he was in exile, would anyone

say in this place, or more justly that he triumphed? » (Val. Max., bk 2, ch. 10, § 5.) Seneca said similar things more than once (Seneca, book Why Misfortunes Befall Good Men, etc., ch. 3; book On Benefits, ch. 17; and letters 25 and 69. But these verses of Ovid about the same Rutilius are not to be omitted:

And admire the weighty strength of great-souled Rutilius, / who did not make use of the return granted on a condition; / Smyrna held the man, not Pontus and a hostile land. (Ovid, Eleg. 4, 1, From Pontus, line 65.)

Finally Vossius mentions him, and you will be able to consult him without difficulty if you please (Voss., bk 1 On the Greek Historians, ch. 22).

Furthermore, Plato's book On the Death of Socrates, which Cicero testifies he never read over without tears, is the very one that is entitled Phedo, or On the Soul. At its end Plato laments, with no less eloquence than grief, how this same Socrates ended his life by drinking poison (Plato in Phaedo, vol. 1, p. 146 and following, and Apology of Socrates, vol. 1). On the slaying of so great a philosopher one can read his Apology, written by the same Plato, by Xenophon and by Apuleius, as well as the books and treatises of Seneca, Origen, Augustine and very many others. (Xenoph. Apology of Socrates, p. 705, and bk 2 of the Memorabilia; Apuleius, Apology of Socrates; Laertius, bk 2, Life of Socrates, § 42; Seneca, book On Providence, p. 272; bk 1 On the Happy Life, chs 26 and 27; and letter 74. Origen, bk 2 Against Celsus, p. 71; Augustine, bk 8 On the City [of God], ch. 3, p. 192; Laertius, at the place cited; Origen, bk 1 Against Celsus, p. 5; Seneca, book On Providence, ch. 3, p. 495.) Moreover, the writers we have cited relate how false and fabricated were the charges for which he was condemned to death by most unjust judges. Finally Laertius, and afterwards Origen, recorded that the Athenians repented of the unjust condemnation as soon as he had died. Therefore Seneca asserts that this death was as glorious for him as the life of very many others was infamous: « You judge, » he says, « that Socrates was badly treated, because he drank down that publicly mixed potion as nothing other than a medicine of immortality, and discoursed about death right up to death itself. It went badly with him, because his blood was congealed and, as the cold gradually crept in, the vigour of his veins came to a halt, How much more is he to be envied than those who are served from a jewelled cup, for whom a catamite, trained to endure everything, dilutes snow suspended in gold? Whatever these men drink they will measure out again in vomit, gloomy and tasting their own bile again. But he will drain the poison gladly and willingly. »

Finally, concerning Camillus, whom Caecilius, not Cicero, mentions, you will find these things written by Valerius Maximus: « Furius Camillus, both the most fruitful increase of the Roman strength and its surest protection, was unable to safeguard his own safety in the City whose welfare he himself had established and whose prosperity he had increased For by L. Apuleius, tribune of the plebs, as though

an embezzler of the Veientine booty, he was made a defendant and was sent into exile by harsh and, so to speak, iron sentences; and that at a time when, deprived of an excellent young son, he ought rather to have been relieved with consolations than burdened with disasters. But his country, unmindful of the very great merits of so great a man, joined the condemnation of the father to the funeral of the son. Yet, he says, "the tribune of the plebs complained that fifteen thousand asses were missing from the treasury, for at that much the penalty was fixed. An unworthy sum, on account of which the Roman people was to be deprived of such a leader." (Valer. Max., bk. 5, ch. 3, § 2.) These things Plutarch described at length, whom you may consult, as also Seneca, Diodorus Siculus, Livy, Florus and others (Plutarch, in the Life of Camillus, vol. 1, p. 334 ff.; Seneca, bk. 4, On Benefits, ch. 27, and bk. 5, ch. 17; Diodorus Siculus, bk. 14 of the Library, p. 456; Livy, bk. 5, § 32.)

From the heathens Caecilius passes to the Jews and Christians, and by their example strives thus to do away with divine Providence: "I know indeed," he said, "that one God is worshipped by the Jews openly and plainly. But what help, or what aid, has He brought them? Is it not a most wretched nation, which together with its God is captive to the Roman Deities (the royal codex has 'names', the edition of Rigault 'men')?"

But he presses the Christians still more sharply: "See," he says, "the greater and better part of you, as you say, are in want, are cold, toil with labour and hunger, and God permits it and pretends not to see; He does not wish, or is not able, to help His own; thus He is either powerless or unjust." But "these things," he goes on, "are few, and common with others. To you, moreover, we see that there are always peculiar and proper evils besides, namely threats, punishments, tortures, crosses and fires. Where then is your God? Why does He not come to your aid and help you?"

But not Caecilius alone, but all the heathens were accustomed to assail the Christians with this very complaint and remonstrance. For, as Clement of Alexandria relates, they objected to them: "If God cares for you, why ever are you persecuted and put to death? Or does He Himself hand you over to this?" "If God takes care of you, why do you suffer persecution and are put to death? Or does He Himself hand you over to them?" (Clement of Alexandria, bk. 4 Stromata, p. 504.) And a little after: "But why are you [not] helped when persecuted..." "But why, when they persecute you, is no help brought to you..." (Ibid. p. 505.) In Eusebius too the Church of Lyons and Vienne wrote: "But the more moderate, who seemed to sympathize to some degree, reproached us much, saying: Where is their God, and what has their religion profited them, which they chose even before their own life?" "Some who were a little fairer, and who seemed in some measure to grieve at our lot, reproached us repeatedly, saying these things: Where is their God, and what has this religion profited them, to which they have put even their own life second?" (Eusebius, bk. 5 History, ch. 2, p. 165.)

Therefore with all these arguments both Caecilius himself,

and very many other heathens, and especially the Epicureans and Academics, as we have shown from Cicero's books On the Nature of the Gods, attacked divine Providence. By these [arguments] they tried to prove that God, if there is any, enjoys the highest repose and happiness, does nothing, is distracted by no occupations, undertakes no works, and is blessed in this, that He holds it certain and assured that He will always be in the greatest and eternal pleasures. For this reason they rejected the Providence of God asserted by the Stoics as if it were a fortune-telling old woman, and denied that God cares for anything, or that the world is governed by any providence of His. But they raised these objections as impiously as they did contrary to the goads of their own conscience, so that they might sin with impunity and do whatever they pleased. But let us hear Octavius, if you please, refuting and overturning those various arguments.

Article III.

How Octavius weakens and destroys the foregoing arguments of Caecilius.

The arguments raised against him by Caecilius against divine Providence Octavius dissolves and destroys from the foundations with as much ease as solidity. For you have already observed that the examples put forward by the heathens, of the tyrants Phalaris and Dionysius and also of Socrates, a supreme and admirable philosopher, as they used to say, were overturned by those very [examples]. But as to what is said about thunderbolts, which with a vain and ineffectual stroke, or without any distinction, strike sacred and profane places, and pious and impious men. Octavius answers that it is so far from our denying from this that God exists, that rather, "in all the motions of the world," he says, "we behold His power always present, when He thunders, lightens, hurls the thunderbolt, when He makes it clear." Indeed, just as we recognize God and His almighty power in the clearness of the sky, so we do in its greatest and most turbulent storms. And certainly, although no one then sees God with bodily eyes, who can doubt nevertheless that He is the first author of these so great motions, Whom he then fears and reveres? For this reason thunders roar, says Tertullian, "that men may be terrified," and that by this terror the wicked may return to a sounder mind and implore the mercy of God (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 17, p. 18). But of Tertullian we [shall speak] in his own place.

The second argument of Caecilius against the Providence of God, repeated rather often, and not without tedium, by other gentiles and atheists, is drawn from the happiness of certain wicked men and the misery of the good. For how, they say, could God, equally just and powerful, have endured these things? But Minucius easily and clearly shows that he alone is happy who knows the true God and serves and obeys Him piously and faithfully. To weaken the argument of Caecilius he uses for the most part the same reasons and words as Seneca, although a moralist (Seneca, book Why to Good Men, etc., p. 488 ff.).

First, then, he flatly denies that those are happy who abound in riches, or who have attained the most exalted ranks of honours and dignities. For they are raised higher only to fall more heavily; or, as Claudian sang:

They are raised on high / that they may fall the heavier for their collapse. (Claudian, Against Rufinus 1)

Moreover, these men are fattened for punishment like victims, and are crowned for penalty like sacrificial beasts. What of the fact, too, that flatterers, by feigned blandishments and assents, very often abuse the power of others?

Besides, is not the rich man "ill entrusted to fortune," says Minucius, and committed to its inconstancy? Is he not less enriched than burdened by his riches, as by provisions for completing the short journey of life? And a king fears as much as he is feared, and is alone in the face of danger. For Labienus, quoted by Seneca, rightly sang:

He must needs fear many whom many fear.

But he who proclaims the nobility of his family praises not himself but his parents. Finally, he who glories in the fasces and the purple grows squalid in mind. For all men, whether poor or rich, are born with an equal lot, and are distinguished by virtue alone.

Cyprian, however, in his Epistle to Donatus, pursues this far more copiously than our author (Cyprian, Epistle 2 to Donatus, pp. 7 and 8). We do not venture to copy out his rather long discourse here in full, though you will doubtless not regret having read it. We shall therefore add what we read written more briefly by Apuleius: "Is he well-born? You are praising his parents. Is he rich? I do not trust fortune. I rather count these things over. Is he strong? He will be worn down by sickness. Is he swift? He will pass into old age. Is he handsome? Wait a little, and he will not be." (Apuleius, On the God of Socrates, near the end.) See, if you please, Seneca's book On Providence, or Why Evils Befall Good Men though There Is a Providence, which we have cited, and on this book the Disputation of Muretus, and the Observations of Morellius and of others.

Minucius proceeds, and in like manner explodes the argument drawn from the poverty and adverse fortunes of upright men. For that poverty, he says, is neither infamy nor misery, but glory, and an occasion for acquiring and strengthening virtue. For our "mind, as it is loosened by luxury, so is strengthened by frugality." Then again, he is rich in want who covets nothing; on the contrary, he is poor who, abounding in riches, still desires more. Wherefore Pomponius Rufus in Valerius Maximus said: "He has all things who covets nothing, and indeed more surely than he who possesses everything." (Valerius Maximus, book 4, chapter 4, preface.)

To this is added the fact that no one, as Minucius says after Seneca, "lives as poor as he was born." From this, moreover, Seneca infers that poverty is to be despised (Seneca, book On Providence, ch. 6, p. 504). Next, as regards the Christians, Minucius asserts without hesitation that they could obtain riches and resources from God, if these were useful to them; but that these are spurned by them, and that innocence and piety are preferred.

Of far less weight, however, or rather of no weight at all, is the point which Caecilius presses from the most wretched condition of the Jews. For as long as they worshipped God piously and holily, as long as they diligently complied with His precepts, so long, it is agreed, did they enjoy prosperity and every kind of good fortune, not without great miracles. But after they deserted God by their impiety and their crimes, then, deserted by Him, they paid the due penalties of their impiety and crimes. Hear, I pray, the words of Minucius: "As long as they worshipped chastely, innocently and religiously, as long as they obeyed His salutary precepts, from few they became innumerable, from needy rich, from servants kings; few, they overwhelmed many, unarmed, they overwhelmed the armed, while fleeing, they overwhelmed their pursuers, by the command of God and with the elements striving on their side... Thus you will understand that they deserted before they were deserted, and that they were not captured together with their God, but were surrendered by God as deserters from His discipline."

Nor could Caecilius, or anyone else whatever, reply that this was freely invented by Minucius, since it is read everywhere throughout the writings of those same Jews, handed down for eternal memory. For they wrote nothing in them against themselves and their fathers except what could neither be passed over in silence nor concealed. Minucius adds, moreover, that the Jews were all the more guilty because all these things had been foretold in those same books of theirs long before they happened.

Besides this, he names two witnesses expressly, Josephus and Antonius Julianus. The former, indeed, was worthy of credence beyond all question in this matter, for he was a Jew, and in the books which he wrote about his nation and the Jewish War, which are worn by the hands of all, anyone can very easily read the things that Minucius relates. The latter too, as Minucius indicates clearly enough, had published commentaries on the Jews. But we suffered the loss of these so long ago that scarcely anyone besides our author is found who makes mention either of them or of Julianus himself. Yet no one, unless he is utterly incredulous, can deny that the things set forth by our Minucius are true.

But if anyone more captious than Caecilius should demand that another witness be cited for him in place of Julianus, we shall at once give him Tertullian, whose words are these: "So much favour did the Jews have with God, on account of the outstanding righteousness and faith of their original founders, whence both the greatness of their race and the loftiness of their kingdom flourished for them, and so great a felicity, that they were forewarned by the voices of God about deserving well of God and not offending Him. But how greatly

they transgressed, puffed up with confidence in their fathers, straying from the discipline into a profane manner, even if they themselves did not confess it, their present-day end would prove; scattered, wandering, and exiles from their own sky and soil, they roam through the world without man, without God as king, and they are not granted, even by the right of strangers, to greet their native land at least with a footstep? » (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 1, p. 20.) Moreover you will find the same things in Cyprian, who, in drawing on this whole passage of Tertullian, at times even borrowed his very words (Cyprian, book On the Vanity of Idols, p. 15). But these matters are to be treated more fully in another dissertation of ours.

Caecilius, however, pressed the point that the Providence of God is proclaimed in vain, since He suffers good men with impunity to be afflicted by any adverse misfortunes whatever, and above all suffers Christians to be harassed, tortured and put to death with the greatest and most exquisite punishments. But Minucius admits that this is indeed true; yet he contends that these things are the surest signs not only of the Providence of God, but also of His compassion, nay rather of His love and goodwill. For God, as he says following Seneca, tests and examines each man in adversity; or, to use the very words of Seneca himself: « Those whom God approves, whom He loves, He hardens, He reviews, He exercises. But those whom He seems to indulge, whom He seems to spare, He keeps soft for evils to come. For you are mistaken if you believe anyone exempted. His portion will come to the man long happy; whoever seems to have been let off has been put off (Seneca, book On Providence, ch. 4, p. 498). » Therefore, as gold is tested by fire, say both of them, Seneca and Minucius, so the brave, pious and upright man is tested by miseries and calamities. He can therefore seem wretched, but in reality he is not wretched. For whatever evils and torments of the body there are, they are not punishments but military service, and more often a training in virtue, or as Seneca says: « It is not cruelty; it is a contest, » and an occasion for virtue (Ibid. ch. 5, p. 581; ch. 3, p. 494; ch. 4, p. 498). » Minucius adds besides what is confirmed not only by the same Seneca but also by Plato and Xenophon, that our strength grows wholly torpid without the exercise of toil (Plato, in Theaetetus, vol. 1, p. 153; Xenophon, book 7 of the Expedition of Cyrus, p. 198).

Furthermore, we praise Seneca here above all others, and have quoted his words, because Minucius took many things from him, as we have shown above. For the rest, on all these matters you may also read Cicero's Paradoxes; Valerius Maximus, book 6, ch. 4, On Poverty Praised; Justin Martyr, Apology 76, p. 43 and following; Clement of Alexandria, book 4 of the Stromata, p. 504 and following; Tertullian, Apology, ch. 41; Cyprian, the treatise On Mortality, p. 158; Arnobius, book 2 Against the Nations, p. 97; Lactantius, book 5, chs. 21 and 22, p. 529 and following; Ambrose, sermon 11 on Psalm 118, p. 1110 and following, and book 2 On Jacob and the Happy Life, ch. 9, p. 473 and following;

Augustine, book On the City [of God], chapter 29, page 27; Theodoret, Oration 6, On Providence, page 377 and following; On the Cure of Greek Maladies, sermon 6; likewise On Providence, page 573 and following; and very many others. Meanwhile, however, let us follow our author, who most sharply turns this feeble weapon of the heathen back against themselves.

Article IV.

How Octavius refuted the argument drawn by Caecilius from the punishments and death of the martyrs; where the examples put forward of Scaevola, Regulus and Aquilius are expounded; and on the great number of the martyrs, and on the necessity of divine grace for undergoing martyrdom.

Minucius proceeds, and shows clearly to Caecilius and the other heathen that by the most cruel punishments of the Christian martyrs the Providence of God is not only not harmed, but is commended in a quite wonderful manner. For so far does it seem to him from being the case that a Christian, tortured to death with the most dreadful agonies and torments for the profession of his religion and breathing out his soul in them, is wretched and unhappy, that he rather judges him a spectacle worthy of God. For is not the most holy martyr worthy of the kindly gaze of that supreme Majesty, and most acceptable to Him, who, for the public confession of the Christian faith having endured countless punishments, and those most atrocious, at last, his blood poured out, triumphs over executioners and tyrants?

Certainly no heathen, however obstinate, can rightly and justly deny this who has read these words of Seneca about the brave man: "Behold a spectacle worthy for God, intent upon His work, to look upon. Behold a pair worthy of God, a brave man matched with evil fortune, especially if he has also challenged it. I do not see, I say, what Jupiter has on earth more beautiful, should he wish to turn his mind to it, than to watch Cato, his party broken more than once, standing nonetheless upright amid the public ruins... It is clear to me that the gods watched with great joy when that man, the most vigorous avenger of himself, was taking thought for the safety of others and arranging the flight of those departing; while he was even pursuing his studies on his last night, while he was driving the sword into his sacred breast, while he was scattering his entrails, and drawing out with his hand that most holy soul, too worthy to be defiled by steel." (Seneca, book On Providence, chapter 2, page 242.) If Seneca could say these things of a heathen brave man, placed in so many adversities and uncertain of his lot after this life, what ought he to have said of a Christian martyr, who knew more certainly than certain that by his death he would attain eternal happiness?

But lest Caecilius or any other heathen should object that this was indeed the opinion of Seneca, or of some Stoic philosopher, but not of others, Minucius therefore presses further, and sets before the eyes of Caecilius and the rest the examples of Mucius Scaevola, Regulus and Aquilius, whom, although they seemed unfortunate, all the heathen nevertheless extolled to the heavens with the highest praises on account of their unconquered constancy in the bitterest torments. What punishments, moreover,

Aquilius and Regulus endured, Minucius passes over in silence, doubtless because these things were unknown to no one in his time. But lest perhaps they be unknown to anyone, we will relate them briefly. Concerning the punishment of Mucius Scaevola, Arnobius added this in the same place: "Who, when he had erred against the King, would have perished among the enemy, had he not lost his right hand." For when Porsenna, king of the Etruscans, was besieging Rome in a heavy and protracted war, he boldly entered the enemy's camp, and, as Cicero says, without any hope of safety; and there, unwittingly, he killed the king's secretary in place of the king himself, whom he wished to kill (Cic., Paradoxa, p. 434). Wherefore, captured and brought before the king's tribunal, he fearlessly thrust his right hand into a fire kindled for sacrifice. Terrified by this daring, Porsenna released him and granted him his freedom (Livy, Decade 1, book 2, p. 22 ff.). But we have spoken of this deed of his elsewhere.

Marcus Attilius Regulus, whom our author mentions later, consul for the second time in the First Punic War, was captured by the enemy whom he had broken and conquered in various defeats; when he had been sent to Rome about exchanging captives, and had sworn that he would return: When he came, says Cicero, he did not vote in the senate for the captives to be given back. Then, though he was held back by his kinsmen and his friends, he nevertheless preferred to return to most certain punishment rather than break the faith pledged to the enemy (Cic., On Duties, book 1, p. 356, line 16 ff.). And so, having returned to them, he was put to death by sleeplessness and starvation. See the same Cicero, On Ends, book 5, p. 112, and above all On Duties, book 3, p. 401 ff.; Valerius Maximus, book 1, chapter 1, § 14, p. 13; Eutropius, Roman History, book 2; Aurelius Victor, On Illustrious Men, p. 605; Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, book 6, chapter 4; Florus, book 2, chapter 2; Seneca, On Providence, chapter 13, p. 272; Augustine, City of God, book 1, chapter 13, p. 15; chapter 24, p. 23; book 2, chapter 23, p. 52, and book 3, chapter 18, p. 66. On both, moreover, Scaevola and Regulus, Cicero, On Duties, book 3, p. 252; Lactantius, book 5, chapter 13, p. 496; Tertullian, Apology, chapter 50, and To the Martyrs, chapter 4, and others. One thing further only we shall remark: that the opinions of these writers concerning the penalties of Regulus and the manner of his punishment were various.

For the rest, the more frequent the mention of this Regulus and of Mucius Scaevola among various writers, the rarer that of Aquilius, recalled by our author in the same place. Hence certain people indeed suppose that the copyist erred in writing his name, and that there, in place of Aquilio, one should read Atilio or Acilio. With this emendation made, they judge him to be the man whom Dionysius of Halicarnassus called Atylius, or rather, as they prefer, Acylius (Halicarnassus, Antiquities, book 3, p. 259 ff.). But these conjectures are futile and empty. For Minucius is speaking of entirely innocent men who were slain by various kinds of most dreadful punishments. But Atilius, on the testimony of the same Halicarnassian, paid the deserved penalty for his crime.

But what, pray, prevents us from saying

the discourse is made by Minucius about Marcius Aquilius, whom, handed over by Mithridates to a most cruel death, Appian describes in these words: "Not long afterwards he led Marcius Aquilius, the chief author of this embassy and of the war, captured and bound, around on an ass, compelled to proclaim with his own voice before the onlookers that he was Marcius, until at Pergamum he poured molten gold into his mouth, reproaching the Roman name with its corruptions by bribery." (Appian, book on the Mithridatic War, long after the beginning, p. 125.) Pliny too: "No longer, he says, through any one of the Quirites, but with the whole Roman name disgraced, the king." Mithridates poured gold into the mouth of Aquilius, the captured general. (Pliny, Natural History book 33, ch. 3, p. 32.)

We are indeed not unaware that it is handed down in the writings of Valerius Maximus that M. Aquilius preferred to serve Mithridates basely rather than to die gloriously and bravely. But Valerius himself there keeps in deep silence by what kind of death he perished (Valerius Maximus, book 9, ch. 13, § 1). Yet although he thought otherwise about the death of Aquilius than Appian and others did, he certainly could not prevent Minucius from following the opinion of these rather than that of Valerius Maximus. To this is added that this Aquilius is believed to be the one about whom Cicero, in a certain Oration, discourses thus: "Will you suffer that king (Mithridates) to go unpunished, who killed a legate of the Roman people, a man of consular rank, after torturing him with chains and scourges and every punishment?" (Cicero, oration 13, For the Manilian Law, p. 243.) Finally Arnobius, of whom [we shall speak] in his own place, used the example of this same Aquilius against the heathen, just as our Minucius did (Arnobius, book 1, p. 23.)

Now, I ask you, take note how rightly our author argues against the heathen from these examples. For first, from the example of Scaevola, he reasons thus: "And how many of our people have endured, without any wailing, having not only the right hand but the whole body burned and consumed, especially when they had it in their power to be released?" Then, more sharply, with all [the examples] gathered together at once, he presses on in this manner: "Compare our men with Mucius, or with Aquilius or Regulus. Our boys and weak women mock crosses and tortures, wild beasts and all the bugbears of punishments, by a patience in pain that is inspired [from above]." In exactly the same way, and from the same examples of Mucius and Regulus, Lactantius reasons: "Our people, he says, to say nothing of the men, boys and weak women, overcome their torturers in silence, and not even fire can wring a groan from them. Let the Romans go and boast of Mucius or Regulus... See, the weak sex and frail age endures being torn apart in the whole body, not from necessity, since they could avoid it if they wished, but from will, because they trust in God." (Lactantius, Divine Institutes book 5, ch. 13, p. 493 and following.) But other heathens, though strong with robust bodies, cried out when they were tortured and uttered groans, because "they lack, he says, an inspired patience." These very words, as you see, our Minucius had already used. Lactantius therefore expressed not only the meaning of our author

and his mind, but also certain of his very words.

Further, we think it will be neither unwelcome nor unpleasant to anyone if, from both those passages of Minucius and Lactantius, we observe that the number of martyrs in their time was not small, as some falsely suppose. For do they not openly and plainly declare that their multitude was great, when they say that not only men but also boys and weak women suffered their bodies to be burned and consumed with the utmost patience and without any groan? And what is to be said of the various other kinds of torments, of which they were silent: of crosses, of wild beasts, and of "all," as he himself puts it, "the terrors of punishments"? Did not Christians, cruelly put to death by so many and such varied torments, and in no small number, then win the palm of martyrdom?

It must moreover be noted that Minucius, like Lactantius, was convinced that no one, without the divine help of victorious grace, could have endured those most cruel torments for the confession of Christ, even unto death, with such great constancy (Lactantius, loc. cit.). For, first, each of them expressly affirms that patience was inspired in them. But how was it inspired, if not by the help of divine grace? Next, Minucius adds "that there is no one who would be willing to undergo punishment without reason, or who could endure torments without God." And Lactantius afterwards wrote: "Nor could patience itself, without God, overcome such great torments (Lactantius, at the place cited)." Does he not by these words most clearly assert and vindicate the very necessity of divine grace for meeting death by so many and such great torments? But something more is to be said about Lactantius below (Dissertation on Lactantius, chap. 28, art. 1).

Article V.

How the last argument of Caecilius against divine Providence, drawn from the opinion of the Christians concerning fate, is resolved by Octavius.

The last bulwark of Caecilius against divine Providence was the common opinion, as he claimed, not only of the gentiles but also of all the Christians, who held that all things come about by fate. What then? How could Caecilius so confidently assert that this was the common view of all Christians universally? Did they not attack it with all the great strength of their minds? Had he said this of some heretics, we would yield to him without reluctance. But who can bear him when he asserts this of all Christians without exception? Yet hear, I pray, by what reasoning he tries to prove it. "Whatever we do," he says, "as others ascribe it to fate, so you ascribe it to God; thus [you say] that the members of your sect act not of their own accord, but as chosen," that is, you Christians have embraced your sect and religion not freely and of your own will, but by divine election. Now when he was making these objections, he seems to have had in view those words of Christ which he had either heard from Christians or read in the Gospel of John: You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you (John 15:16). And from these he concludes:

"Therefore you invent an unjust judge, who would punish in men their lot, not their will."

But Minucius quickly and easily overturns this futile and inept argument. For although we have been chosen by God, it is nevertheless certain that the human will is always free, and that accordingly men are punished by God on account of their free acts, if they are wicked, and not on account of their lot. "For the mind," as he says, "is free, and therefore it is the action of a man that is judged, not his rank." God, therefore, is a just and equitable judge, Who visits men with reward on account of good acts, and with punishments on account of evil ones.

But Octavius deals more generously with Caecilius. He grants him, as he wishes, that all Christians have believed that all things come about by fate. But what is fate, he asks? "Fate is what God has spoken concerning each one of us." Nor does Augustine oppose this definition of fate. For "the order of causes," he says, "in which the will of God is most powerful, we neither deny nor call by the word fate, unless perhaps we understand fatum as named from fando, that is, from speaking." (Augustine, book On the City, ch. 9, p. 123.) You will see more on this matter in Vossius, in his Etymologicon.

With this definition of fate laid down, Octavius contends that no fatal necessity of acting is imposed on man by God. For God, "since He can foreknow the matter," he says, that is, all future things, whether the good or the evil works of men, "determines fates according to the merits and qualities of individuals." By these words he certainly teaches that God, Who by His divine foreknowledge knows perfectly all future things, and whatever each one is going to do, whether well or ill, but always with great freedom, determines according to the merits of individuals, whether good or evil, their fates, that is, either eternal punishments or rewards, or establishes and decrees them by His eternal decree. From these things he concludes in this manner: "Thus in us it is not our birth that is penalized, but the nature of our disposition that is punished," that is, not birth, or the manner of being born, but our vices, and all those things in which we have sinned by not obeying the commands of God, are most justly punished by Him.

Furthermore, since Caecilius openly asserts that the impious opinion about fate or fatal necessity was championed by very many of the Gentiles, someone will no doubt ask us who they were. But we shall satisfy anyone who asks this most fully, as we judge, with these words of Cicero: "And to me indeed," he says, "it seems that, since there were two opinions of the ancient philosophers, one of those who held that all things come about by fate in such a way that this fate brought the force of necessity, in which opinion were Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles and Aristotle; the other of those to whom the voluntary motions of minds seemed to be without any fate, Chrysippus, like an honorary arbiter, wished to bear himself in the middle; but he attaches himself rather to those who want minds freed from the necessity of motion. But while he uses his own words, he slips

...he falls into such difficulties that he confirms the necessity of fate against his will" (Cicero, On Fate, p. 307, line 48 ff.). Whoever wants more, let him go to the same Cicero's book On Fate, from which these things are taken. Let him read also very many of the more recent Christian writers, Lipsius and Vossius, and among the ancient Fathers of the Church, Augustine, Eusebius and Tatian, who in his Oration to the Greeks, as we observed elsewhere, thoroughly harries and refutes this error (Vossius, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry II, 45 ff.; Lipsius, On Constancy, 29 ff.; Augustine, City of God V, 2 and 20; Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel VI, 1, 2, 3 ff.; and Tatian, vol. I of our Apparatus, p. 543).

CHAPTER VII.

On other dogmas of the Christian religion.

ARTICLE ONE.

The arguments are examined by which Caecilius attacks the resurrection of our bodies and Octavius defends it; where metempsychosis is treated, and the authors and champions of this opinion, Pythagoras and Plato.

Caecilius tries to tear up certain other teachings of the Christian religion, but with no happier success. And one of the chief among them is beyond doubt that by which the future return of our body to life is asserted. For if that is taken away, as the Apostle says, our faith will be vain and empty. Caecilius strove to overturn this foundation of our faith and hope by this dilemma: Either we shall rise, he says, without a body, or with a body. Not the first; for without a body there is neither mind, nor soul, nor life. And so the heathen argued, who babbled that nothing could exist except what is bodily. Nor yet, continues Caecilius, shall we rise with a body, either our very own or another's. Not our very own, since it will have been dead so long that nothing at all of it could remain left over. Nor another's, since the man brought back to life from the dead would be not the same in number but another.

By a second argument Caecilius further fights thus against the raising of our dead body to life: "What single one has come back from the dead, even by the lot of Protesilaus, with leave of absence granted for hours at least, so that we might believe from the example?" Now we have observed that some vainly guess that in this text of Minucius the adjective "few" (paucarum) is to be added to the noun "hours." For it is sufficiently understood there, because the lot of Protesilaus is in question, who is said to have been the first of the princes of Greece killed by Hector in the Trojan war. Laodamia, his wife, as soon as she learned that he was dead, is said to have obtained from the gods by great prayers that she might be allowed to enjoy his conversation for three hours, he being raised to life. See Propertius, Hyginus, Catullus and Ovid, who wrote a Letter to this Protesilaus in his wife's name (Propertius I, Elegy 19; Hyginus, Fable 103; Catullus, poem 63, to Mallius; Ovid, Heroides 13).

This argument of the heathen was frequent and very often repeated. By Justin Martyr it is put thus: because you have not yet seen a dead man risen, unbelief holds you. "Because you have not yet seen a dead man rise again, the disbelief of the resurrection holds you (Justin, Apology II, p. 65)." Likewise by Theophilus of Antioch: But you also deny that the dead are raised; for you say, Show me even one raised from the dead, that seeing I may believe: "But you also deny the resurrection of the dead. For you say: Show me at least one called back from the dead, and if I see him, I will put faith in your words" (Theophilus, To Autolycus I, p. 77). To these, besides others whom it would take long to report, let Lactantius be added, who in like manner brings in the heathen making these objections: "So many ages have now passed: what single one has ever risen from the dead, that we might believe by his example?" (Lactantius VII, 22, p. 719.)

But why, says Minucius, do you, Caecilius, a heathen, dare to reject this teaching of the Christians on the resurrection of our bodies as an old wives' tale? Why do you ask that it be proved to you by the example of one? Have you forgotten that at least half of it is steadfastly championed by Pythagoras and Plato, who asserted the transmigration of our souls from dead bodies into others? But if that has slipped from your memory, read, I pray you, the first book of Diodorus Siculus, and there you will find it written by him that Pythagoras received this opinion from the Egyptians (Diodorus Siculus, Library I, p. 62). Turn over the books of Herodotus, and there you will see that he likewise said that the Greeks, under which name he doubtless includes Pythagoras and Plato, drew it from the same Egyptians (Herodotus II, § 123). Go to Laertius, and from the writers cited by him you will learn what Pythagoras proclaimed about the various transmigrations of his soul (Laertius VIII, §§ 4 and 5). If all this is not enough for you, you will surely not refuse belief to Laberius, who in Tertullian openly testifies that this very opinion of metempsychosis was championed by Pythagoras (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 48, p. 42). But Tertullian himself, Ambrose, and others, like our Minucius, rightly conclude from this that the teaching of the Christians on the resurrection of our body ought not to be incredible to the heathen (Ambrose, On Faith in the Resurrection II, § 65, vol. II, p. 1151).

And what of the fact that the same Tertullian elsewhere asserts without hesitation that this, concerning the transmigration of souls,

absurd dogma was asserted not only by the same Pythagoras but also by Plato, just as our Minucius said (the same [author], book On the Soul, ch. 28). But as far as Plato is concerned, there is no need at all of any witness to prove it. For he is read to have handed it down in his books neither obscurely nor once only (Plato, at the end of the book On the Soul, vol. III, p. 104, and Republic book 10, vol. II, p. 620).

But before we proceed further, two things are to be observed here. And first, that concerning that ridiculous error of the philosophers Minucius said: "This opinion is worthy not of a philosopher's study but of a mime's vice." For it is remarkable with how much zeal men, neither few nor unlearned, strive to emend this passage, which they judge corrupt, and how varied the corrections of it they have devised. But they bring forward nothing certain on account of which the genuine reading of the manuscript of the royal codex ought to be changed. Therefore, keeping that reading, Rigault suspects that Minucius with these words aimed at the mimes, who on the stage sometimes transformed themselves into beasts and put on their shapes. Others, however, think that Minucius is censuring Laberius, cited by Tertullian, as we noted a little earlier, and these verses of his transcribed by Crinitus:

And I hear many evil things even from good men / By that [doctrine], as once they changed us, the philosophers change, / And now out of a mule they make a man, out of a woman a snake, / And out of diverse things diverse other things. (Crinitus, On Honest Discipline, book 11, ch. 3.)

Now Laberius was both a poet and a mime, of whom, besides others, Macrobius [says]: "Caesar induced Laberius, a Roman knight of harsh outspokenness, with five hundred thousand [sesterces] to come out onto the stage and himself act the mimes which he was in the habit of writing." (Macrobius, Saturnalia, book 2, ch. 7.) And there Macrobius reports several verses of Laberius about how he was compelled to act the mimes written by himself. Of him too Horace sang:

And admire the mimes of Laberius as beautiful poems. (Horace, Sermons, book 2, Satire 10.)

Laberius therefore had without doubt mocked these ravings of the philosophers about metempsychosis not only in his writings, cited a little earlier, but also in mimic performances. Minucius could therefore infer from this that this error was worthy "of a mime's vice," or of a mime's abuse," or "of the abuse of a mime," namely of Laberius, or, if you will, of any pantomime whatever.

It is to be noted, secondly, that Pythagoras is called by Minucius the first who introduced this opinion, or rather raving. But by what right, or on what witness, did he affirm this so assertively? For Diodorus Siculus most plainly, as we have already said, and Herodotus somewhat more obscurely, testify that the first authors of this opinion were the Egyptians, from whom Pythagoras received it. Therefore either Minucius erred, or rather he meant nothing else than that this opinion, by Pythagoras as its first inventor and author among the Greeks, was disseminated.

But if he declared only this latter point, he will without doubt have as his witness Herodotus himself, whose words are these: There are those of the Greeks who have made use of this account, some earlier, some later, as though it were their own; whose names I know but do not write. "This account there are some among the Greeks who have taken over as though it were their own, some earlier, some later, whose names, though I know them, I do not consider ought to be written." (Herodotus, book 2, § 123.) But far more clearly was it written by Jerome: "And since I had said that I had read the doctrines of Pythagoras, hear what Pythagoras first discovered among the Greeks: that souls are immortal, and pass from some bodies into others." (Jerome, Apology against Rufinus, book 3, before the end, p. 470. Vol. 1 of the Apparatus, pp. 522, 620 and 1136; Dissertation on Lactantius, chap. 29, art. 1; Dissertation on Tertullian's Apology, chap. 11, art. 2.) Concerning this opinion of his and of Plato, moreover, we have already spoken, and it will be discussed further below.

Article II.

Other arguments of Octavius for proving the resurrection of our bodies, and the contrary arguments of Caecilius, are examined.

Against the first argument of Octavius Caecilius and the other gentiles objected that they could never have subscribed to the utterly ridiculous opinion, whether of Pythagoras and Plato or of the Christians, about our body being recalled to life; since that can never come about by any reasoning whatever that may be devised. But Octavius checks the senseless rashness of his adversary, who doubted the divine power, thus: "Who is so foolish or so stupid as to dare to deny that a dead man could have been recalled to life by God?" For just as He fashioned and created man out of nothing, so He can with equal ease raise him from the dead. But Justin Martyr presses this argument more sharply: "If anyone had ever asserted to you, when you did not yet exist as such, nor had been born from such, pointing to human seed and to a painted image, that from that very seed a nature of this kind could come to be, would you have believed it before it had been done? I do not think, indeed, that anyone would dare to say anything against this. But just as from the beginning you would not have believed it possible that such beings should come into existence from a tiny drop, and yet you see that they have come into existence; in the same way consider that it is not impossible that human bodies, dissolved and cast into the earth like seeds, should in their own time, at the command of God, rise again and put on an incorruptible nature." (Justin, Apology 2, p. 65.)

With the same weapon too not only Tatian and Athenagoras, who are to be cited by us shortly, but also Tertullian strikes the heathen, thus: "Consider yourself, O man, and you will find the proof of the matter. Reflect on what you were before you existed: certainly nothing; for you would remember it, if you had been anything. You, then, who were nothing before you existed, and likewise become nothing when you cease to exist, why could you not exist again out of nothing, by the will of the same Author, Who

willed you to exist from nothing? You who were not have been made; when again you will not be, you will be made. Give, if you can, the reason by which you were made, and then inquire how you will be made. And yet you will surely be made more easily into what you once were, since you were made with equal lack of difficulty into what you had never at any time been. There will be doubt, I suppose, about the powers of God, Who composed this so great body of the world out of that which had not been, no less than out of a death of emptiness and void, animated by the Spirit that animates all things." (Tert., Apology ch. 48, p. 42.) And he pursues these things more fully in that book (the same, book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, ch. 11 and following). More briefly, however, Lactantius afterwards: "If in the beginning God fashioned man in some unspeakable manner, let us believe that the old [man] can be restored by Him Who made him new" (Lactantius, book 7 of the Institutes, ch. 23, p. 721.)

The Gentiles, however, insisted that it could not possibly happen that a man's body, swallowed by waters, burned by fire, reduced to dust, ashes and embers, changed into another body, should be raised up again the same in number, restored and re-formed. But Minucius answers that, although that body "is withdrawn from us, it is nevertheless kept for God, the guardian of the elements." And this indeed he [says] in few words, which Tatian pressed in more, in this manner: "We believe that this will be so, caring nothing meanwhile however much you may judge that we trifle and babble. For just as I did not know who I was before I was born, when I did not yet exist at all, but existed only in the substratum of fleshly matter; then, having been begotten, I who formerly was not have assurance of my being by the very generation; so, having been born, and reduced through death to not being, I shall again exist once more, visible to the eyes. Although the whole flesh be consumed by fire, yet the world receives the evaporated matter; although I waste away either in rivers or in the sea, or am torn apart by wild beasts, yet I am laid up in the storehouse of the very rich Lord. And though the poor and the impious do not know this, yet God Who reigns will, when He wills, bring back to its former integrity the substance visible to Him alone." (Tatian, Oration against the Greeks, p. 146.)

In like manner Tertullian also answers: "Wherever you have been dissolved, whatever matter has destroyed you, swallowed you, abolished you, reduced you to nothing, will give you back. To Him belongs nothingness itself, to Whom belongs also the whole." (Tertullian, Apology ch. 48, p. 43.) Athenagoras, however, presses and explains these things against the Gentiles far more at length. There, moreover, he himself [says], just as the other Writers already cited by us: "If, when they did not exist, He made the bodies of men at their first constitution, and their first principles, He will also raise them up when dissolved, in whatever manner it may happen, with ease; for this too is equally possible for Him." "If God created the bodies of men when they did not exist, and brought into being the principles from which they draw their origin, He will also restore them, however dissolved, with the same ease. For this is equally easy for Him." (Athenagoras, book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, p. 43 and following). The rest, however,

which it would take too long to transcribe here, you will not find it irksome to read in his book.

But although Minucius overturned the frivolous cavils of the heathen from their foundations with so many reasons of such great weight, he nonetheless refutes and destroys them further with various examples: "See, then," he said, "how, for our comfort, all nature rehearses the future resurrection. The sun sinks and is born, the stars set and return, flowers die and come back to life, after old age the shrubs put forth leaves, seeds grow green again only once they have decayed: so the body in this age, like trees in winter, still hides its greenness under a feigned dryness. Why do you hurry for it to revive and return while the winter is still raw?" The same is the method of Theophilus of Antioch for proving the future resurrection of our body. "God," he says, "furnishes proofs from very many things by which He may drive away our incredulity, as far as the matter of the resurrection is concerned. Observe, if it is not troublesome, the dying of seasons, of days and of nights. Do you not notice how they thus die and rise again? Why should I mention besides the resurrection of fruits and seeds, all of which serve our wishes? For if you scatter on the ground a grain, for example, of wheat or of other crops, it first dies and is dissolved, and only then is born and rises up into a fruit-bearing stalk. The nature of trees and oaks, according to the command of the Lord, by a certain hidden power invisible to us, brings forth fruits at fixed times. Sometimes a sparrow or some other little bird, swallowing the seed of an apple, or of a fig, or of some other thing, flies off to some high, rocky place and lets it out through another part of its body into some hollow. What happens? That seed grows up and turns into a great tree, although it was swallowed and passed through such great heat. But if you wish to behold a more wonderful sight, one arranged for this purpose, that the resurrection of the dead may be proved with greater evidence, I bid you raise your face not only to earthly things but also to the resurrection of heavenly ones. Look at the moon, which each month both perishes and is born again; and consider the other stars too. Moreover, in yourself also, though you are unaware of it, recognize the working of resurrection, O man. I do not doubt that at some time, afflicted with ill health, you lost your flesh, and your looks, and your strength; but God, granting you mercy and providing medicine, brought it about that you recovered the lost flesh, looks and strength. And just as you do not know where your flesh went when it left you, so it escapes you whence it returned and whence you received it. 'But truly,' you say, 'the flesh sprouted again from food and flavours turned into blood.' Well said indeed; but make no mistake: this is the gift of God, and it is not to be credited to any other." (Theophilus, To Autolycus, book 2, p. 77 ff.) With the same or quite similar examples very many Fathers of the Church, and those the most learned, confirmed the future resurrection of our bodies. But because their words are too lengthy for them here

to be set out in full, these we shall point out to all the curious who wish to survey everything with their own eyes. Let them read, then, Tertullian, Apology chap. 48, and the book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chap. 12; Ambrose, book V of the Hexaemeron, chap. 22 and 25, p. 109 ff., and above all book II On Faith in the Resurrection, § 53 ff., p. 1147 ff.; Theodoret, oration 9 On Providence, towards the end, p. 436 ff.; Nilus, oration 1 on Easter, in Photius, Library, p. 1530. Let them further consult Augustine, book XXII On the City, chap. 21 ff., p. 676 ff., where he explains whether and how bodies, whether those that have been reduced to embers and ashes, or those eaten by other men, or even those of infants, are to be recalled to life. Let them also turn over, if they have the leisure and the inclination, the pseudonymous book of Justin Martyr, Questions and Answers to the Greeks, p. 208 ff., published among the Works of that same Justin.

But some heathen, or some unbeliever or other, will rise up and object to us that the examples so far put forward to prove the resurrection of our body are of little or rather of no weight. For neither do the sun and the stars die, nor do the same flowers and fruits, numerically the same, come back to life once dead. Yet those most learned men whom we have praised were surely not so dull and obtuse as to have been ignorant of these things or not to have noticed them. For they were not unaware that all comparisons, as they say, limp in some respect. They therefore employ them for this purpose, to show from them that there are many examples at our disposal which have something in common and alike with our dead bodies, which are one day to be recalled to life, and by which the power of God to recall these, which alone is in question, is plainly and clearly proved. For do not the setting and rising of the sun and the stars, do not fruits and other things of this kind springing up again from their own rotting seeds, present to us some likeness of our body rising again? But if these things continually come about by the accustomed power of God, how did the heathen dare to deny that our dead bodies can be raised to life by the same power of God? For them, then, to return to the air of the light they have lost, nothing else is required than the will of God Himself. And that God wills this is gathered most evidently from our sacred Scriptures, as we shall show further on from others of our writers. But since the heathen raised a dispute not about this will of God at all, but only about His power, Minucius and others thought it enough for themselves to have demonstrated this by various examples, and also by certain arguments ad hominem, as they say.

Moreover, these points having been established and confirmed by these means, our author judged that nothing more need be answered to the foolish quibble of Caecilius, by which he demanded that some dead man be produced for him who had ever come back to us alive. For what need was there for the divine power of raising the dead to be proved by the example of Protesilaus or by any other, when it had been demonstrated by the most certain weight of reasons? Theophilus of Antioch, however, so that the gentiles' dull and feeble

weapon he may blunt, brings forward other examples than that of Protesilaus, handed down by the gentiles themselves, in this manner: "But what remarkable thing do you do, if you see and believe? Do you then believe that Heracles, who burned himself, lives, and that Asclepius, struck by lightning, has been raised, yet you disbelieve the things spoken to you by God? Perhaps, even if I show you a dead man raised and living, you will disbelieve this too. If you believe that Hercules, whom the flame took up, lives, and that Aesculapius, struck by the thunderbolt, was restored to life, what madness is it to be unwilling to give credence to the things which God speaks? Doubt would hold you, even if I presented to you someone called back from the dead, whether I could find credence with you." (Theophilus, book to Autolycus, p. 77.) He could besides have brought forward the example of Er the son of Armenius related by Plato, of which we [speak] elsewhere, and many other things peddled by the heathen; but our writers scorned these as superfluous. For the rest, if anyone should desire still more on the future resurrection of the dead than those things which we have reported from the authors cited, let him go to Tatian, Ambrose and others, who published entire treatises on this subject (vol. I, Apparatus, book III, dissertation 2, chapter 16, article 1, p. 1116).

Article III.

The arguments are weighed by which it is shown that wicked men are to be tormented with eternal punishments and everlasting fire, but the pious and just to be endowed with perpetual happiness; where [we treat] of the fires of Mount Etna and Vesuvius, the Stygian marsh, and the fiery river of the underworld.

Just as Caecilius rejects with mockery and repudiates the doctrine of the Christian faith concerning the return of dead men to life, so too [does he reject] that concerning the everlasting punishments of the wicked and the eternal happiness of the pious. "Deceived," he says, "by this error" of a future return from death to life, the Christians "promise to themselves, as being good, a blessed and perpetual life when dead; to the rest, as being unjust, everlasting punishment.... What awaits you after death, wretches, consider while you live. You who dream of an immortality after death, when you are shaken by danger, when you burn with fevers, when you are torn by pain, do you not yet perceive your condition?" Finally he pronounces as boldly as impiously: "As we are born, so we also perish," that is, just as before we were born we were nothing, so after death, reduced to the same nothingness, we shall be utterly nothing. And thus indeed Caecilius argued. But here it should be observed in passing that the words "you are shaken by danger" in this text displeased some, and that they divine that one should read "querquero", that is, you are shaken with cold and trembling, or with a cold fever. But the royal manuscript codex opposes this conjecture, and the words that follow also forbid it to be admitted.

But Octavius modestly replies to Caecilius, who was objecting these things to the Christians, or rather arrogantly reproaching them, that most men, from consciousness of their deserts, that is, with their sins and vices convicting their conscience, rather wish than actually believe that man is utterly extinguished by death and is not for any

punishments reserved afterwards. And there is certainly no doubt that against those who deceive themselves by this error and sin the more freely, the more slowly they are dealt with by the most just judgement of God, the more severely they are punished. Hence Valerius Maximus says of Dionysius, tyrant of the Syracusans: "With slow step," he says, "divine wrath proceeds to its own vengeance, and makes up for the slowness of the punishment by its severity." (Valerius Maximus, book 1, chapter 1, External examples § 3, page 21.)

But if, as a heathen man admits, divine vengeance does not allow those guilty of graver crimes to go away unpunished, others beyond doubt cannot deny that wicked, criminal and impious men, who die still defiled by their crimes, are to be visited after death with the punishments they owe. For then the penalties which they did not pay in this life they will pay in the other, which will be eternal, as everlasting penalties in eternal fire. For "the wise fire," says Minucius, "burns the limbs and restores them, gnaws them and nourishes them." Nor could the heathen reply that this was the invention of certain people who wished to frighten others. For this is not more difficult for almighty God than to raise a dead man to life. It suffices therefore that He should will it. And that He does so will, not only do the sacred Scriptures declare, but also His divine justice, which can leave no crime unavenged.

But Minucius, in order to persuade the heathen of this more easily, brings forward in confirmation of this teaching certain examples of fires, of thunderbolts, and of the mountains Etna and Vesuvius and of lands burning everywhere, which were certainly not unknown to them. Hear him, if you please, speaking: "As the fires of thunderbolts," he says, "torment bodies and do not consume them; as the fires of Etna and Vesuvius, and of burning lands everywhere, blaze and are not used up: so that penal conflagration is not fed by the losses of those who burn, but is nourished by the uneaten laceration of their bodies." But he seems to have taken this from the following passage of Tertullian, discussing the same eternal fires: "Philosophers too know the difference between the secret and the public fire. So very different is the one which serves human use from the one which appears for the judgement of God, whether striking thunderbolts from heaven or belching forth from the earth through the peaks of mountains. For it does not consume what it burns, but while it expends, it repairs. So the mountains remain ever burning, and he who is struck from heaven is safe, so that he is no longer reduced to ashes by any fire. And this will be a testimony of the eternal fire, this an example of the perpetual judgement that nourishes punishment. The mountains burn and endure. What of the guilty and the enemies of God? These are the things which in us alone are called presumptions, but in philosophers and poets the highest knowledge and remarkable judgements." (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 48, page 43.) In the same way too Lactantius, after both of them, Tertullian and Minucius Felix, argued in plainly these words, slightly different from the others (Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 7, chapter 21, page 715 and following): the nature of the everlasting fire "is different from this fire of ours, which we use for the necessities of life, which is extinguished unless it is fed by the kindling of some material. But that

divine [fire] lives and thrives always through itself without any nourishment, and has no smoke mixed in, but is pure and clear, and fluid in the manner of water. For it is not driven upwards by any force, as ours is... Therefore the same divine fire, by one and the same force and power, will both burn the impious and restore them; and as much as it takes away from their bodies, so much will it put back (our codex [reads] resumet), and will supply eternal fuel to itself. This the poets transferred to the vulture of Tityus: thus, without any loss to the bodies that grow again, it will only scorch them and affect them with the sensation of pain." (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 29.) But concerning this argument of Lactantius and Tertullian we shall say something more in its proper place, and shall show in what sense this author and Minucius understood the word erogare (Dissertation on Tertullian, ch. 11).

Let us proceed meanwhile, and meet those who in the name of the gentiles will perhaps object to us that the comparisons of thunderbolts, of mountains and of ever-burning lands with the fire of the underworld are utterly inept. For is not, he will say, something of the substance of a man struck by lightning consumed by its blaze? Is not new fuel also always supplied to the fires of Etna and Vesuvius (in the manuscript codex Hennei et Jesui, corruptly, as you see), or of other mountains, or of burning lands? The Christians, on the contrary, asserted that the fire of the underworld would always be the same, and that nothing at all of the human body burned by it would perish. But Tertullian, whom our Minucius, as we have already pointed out, follows, entirely cut off this weight of reasoning from the heathen. For he shows that the greatest force of this argument lay in this, that the gentiles, with no one objecting, admitted that certain fires of thunderbolts, mountains and lands were wholly extraordinary. And could he not infer from this that the same heathen wrongly denied that another fire could be kindled by the infinite power of God, which would always remain the same and, by not consuming the bodies of the impious, will burn and torment them eternally?

Nor did Minucius stop there, but by yet another comparison, or by another argument, ad hominem as they say, he confirms how ineptly Caecilius and the other gentiles had denied this: "Men are reminded," he says, "by the books of the most learned and the poems of the poets, of that fiery river, and of the heat winding many times round from the Stygian marsh, which they have handed down as prepared for eternal torments and known both from the disclosures of demons and from the oracles of the Prophets." Here, moreover, Minucius without doubt cited both profane and sacred writers. For by the name of the Prophets he designates the books of the Old Testament, and also, if you will, the utterances of the sibyls and of others whom the heathen considered to be prophets; by "the disclosures of demons," the sacred books of the New Testament, where we read that demons openly, with all listening, confessed that they were tormented by eternal fires. To the heathen, therefore, that public confession of the demons

he sets before them, which neither they nor anyone else was able to deny.

But he calls the profane, or heathen, writers as witnesses "of the fiery river from the Stygian marsh," namely of Acheron, which the same heathens tell in their fables is one of the four most celebrated rivers of the underworld, and full of fires, as Servius says, which received the waters of Pyriphlegethon (Servius on book 6 of Virgil, Aeneid, p. 404. But who these and the other two rivers of the underworld were, anyone will very easily be able to learn from Plato, who described them, and from very many others (Plato, Phaedo, vol. 1, p. 112 ff.).

From that same Plato one will also be taught with the same ease why the Styx is called a marsh by Minucius, and is said to be quite often surrounded by that burning; although others have handed down that it is a river whose water is so cold that anyone who has drunk it dies at once. For the Styx, he says, falls into a dreadful and monstrous place, and forms a marsh (the same, ibid., p. 113). It then enters the earth and, circling round, flows into Pyriphlegethon, which burns with fire, and yet its water is not mixed with that one or with any other river. And having made its circuit, it pours itself into Tartarus. Moreover, that whole passage of Plato has been copied out by Eusebius (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, book 11, chapter 23, p. 567). And who will not readily persuade himself that this very Plato above all is cited by our Minucius under the name of the most learned men, or, as Tertullian says, of the philosophers, and this book of his? Nor perhaps will anyone deny that, of the poets praised by him and by Tertullian, the first place must be given to Homer and the second to Virgil. For Homer indeed sang:

There into Acheron flow Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus, which is a branch of the water of Styx, and a rock, and the meeting of two loud-roaring rivers.

Here indeed into Acheron flow together Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus, which is surely an outflow of the water of Styx. And a rock, and the meeting of two loudly sounding rivers. (Homer, Odyssey 10, line 145.)

And afterwards Virgil:

From here is the way of Tartarean Acheron, which leads to its waters; here a whirlpool, turbid with mire and with a vast abyss, seethes, and belches all its sand into Cocytus. (Virgil, Aeneid 6, line 295 ff.)

On these verses Servius observes the following: "He means that Acheron is born, as it were, from the depths of Tartarus; that its estuaries create the Styx, and that from the Styx in turn Cocytus is born." See further, if you wish, what he had noted earlier on line 167 of the same book. But mention of the Stygian marsh is frequent in various writers.

Then Minucius goes on: "And therefore among them," he says, "even King Jupiter himself swears solemnly by the scorching banks and the black abyss," that is, beyond doubt by the Stygian waters, of which Homer says:

Come now, swear to me by the inviolable water of Styx.

Come now, swear to me by the inviolable water of Styx. (Homer, Iliad 14, line 271.)

In another book also he sang:

And the down-flowing water of the Styx, which is the greatest and most dread oath for the blessed gods.

And the very water of the Styx lying beneath, which is the greatest and most weighty oath for the blessed gods. (The same, Odyssey, book 5, line 185 and following.)

Virgil plainly agrees with Homer in these Latin verses:

You see the deep pools of Cocytus and the Stygian marsh, by whose divine power the gods fear to swear and to break faith. (Virgil, Aeneid, book 6, line 325 and following.)

If you want more, consult Apollonius, Argonautica, book 2, line 290; Hesiod, Theogony 4, 883 and following, and 5, 795 and following; Ovid, book 1, Metamorphoses 5, 184 and following; Apuleius, book 7 of the Metamorphoses, about the middle; Natalis Comes, book 3 of the Mythology, chapter 1 and following; Vossius, book 3 of On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry, chapter 81, page 359 and following.

Furthermore, as certain as it is that wicked men who depart from this life conscious of their crimes are visited with eternal punishments by a just and almighty God, so certain ought it to be that the just, dying in justice, are endowed by the same God with everlasting happiness. Minucius, however, judged that by the very act by which he proved the first he had sufficiently demonstrated the second. Therefore he did not think that this needed further proof, and he does not hesitate to declare openly: "These, that is, the pious, live secure in the hope of future happiness."

Article IV.

The arguments are examined by which Octavius proves against Caecilius that the world will one day perish by fire, and concerning the opinions of the Stoics, the Epicureans and Plato on that matter.

The Christians still held as certain and as a settled decree that this whole world, and all things that are in it, are to be consumed by fire. But Caecilius attacks this in these few words: "As if either the eternal order of nature established by divine laws would be thrown into confusion, or, the compact of all the elements being broken and the heavenly framework split apart, this mass which is held together and encircled would be overthrown." But Octavius rebukes him in these words: "Either that an unforeseen fire falls, or not to believe it difficult, is of common error." To many, however, these words seem obscure. Therefore Rigaltius and certain others wished the text to be written in the printed editions, corrected by the transposition of two words, thus: "Either to believe in an unforeseen fire, or that what is difficult does not fall, is of common opinion." Ouzelius, on the other hand, thought that the fault should be healed by the addition of one word, thus: "Either that an unforeseen fire falls, or not to believe that it suffices, is of common error." But wrongly, and against the authority of the manuscript codex and against the mind of Minucius. For his meaning here is plain enough to all: it is a common error to believe that an unforeseen fire does not fall, or that this is difficult, namely for God, Who with the same ease with which He created all things can destroy them. And that this is his true mind is clearly evident from his own words and argument that follow.

But indeed he proves his proposition by these arguments, and first of all: "Who among the wise," he says, "does not know that all things which have arisen perish, that the things which have been made pass away? That the heaven too, with all things that are contained in the heaven, will cease just as it began?" There without doubt he sets the wise against the unlearned multitude of men, whether by that name he designates the philosophers or any others whatever who do not allow themselves to be led by the opinions of the ignorant populace. But before this Cicero had brought in Velleius the Epicurean disputing thus: "Do you suppose that this man (Plato) tasted natural philosophy, as the saying goes, with the tip of his lips, who thinks that anything which has arisen can be eternal? For what joining together is there that is not dissoluble? Or what is there which has some beginning and has no end?" (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book 2, p. 108, line 31 and following.)

Cyprian, for his part, writes to Demetrianus that this law was established by God Himself, that all things which have arisen should perish and at some time come to an end: "This sentence," he says, "has been given to the world, this is the law of God: that all things which have arisen should perish, and things which have grown should grow old, and strong things be weakened, and great things be diminished, and, when they have been weakened and diminished, come to an end." (Cyprian, To Demetrianus, vol. 1, p. 187.) And he pursues these things more at length, which you will be able to read in his book, as also almost innumerable other things handed down on the same subject by other writers, which there is no need to heap up now.

Moreover our Minucius confirms that most true opinion of the Christians concerning the end of the world and its future burning not only by the common opinion of the wise, but also by the testimonies of certain philosophers, even though not of the same school. For immediately after the earlier words of his cited by us, he added: "That [the world], nourished by the sweet water (ms. 'of sweet') of springs or of the sea (ms. 'the seas to nourish'), will pass into the force of fire is the constant opinion of the Stoics, because, the moisture having been consumed, this whole world takes fire." It is truly astonishing how much learned men disagree with one another in emending this passage, which they hold to be corrupt. For some think that the reading of the manuscript codex should be kept, but after these words, "is the constant opinion", they entirely reject what follows there as a superfluous addition which crept from the margin into the text. And they say that this is the meaning of Minucius: the springs will no longer nourish the waters of the sea with their sweet waters, but that nourishing, or the nourishment of the sea, as is the opinion of the Stoics, will pass into the force of fire, or be consumed by fire. Others suspect that nothing in the text of the manuscript codex is to be changed except "sweet waters" for "of sweet water", and that the sense of our author is this: the nourishments, or nutriments, which the springs and seas owe to the heaven, will pass into the force of fire together with it.

But Gronovius, having rejected all these conjectures, thinks that all the kinds of liquids, which are of a threefold difference, are comprehended in the words of Minucius. Wherefore he holds that his text should be corrected thus:

"the nourishment of springs, of fresh water, of the sea will pass away into the force of fire." But apart from the fact that this correction rests on no authority, what difference, I ask, is there between the nourishment of springs and that of fresh water?

But however obscure and hard to emend the words of our author are, so certain indeed does it seem that he had in view these words of Cicero: "The stars are fiery by nature, and therefore they are nourished by the vapours of earth, of sea and of waters, those which are raised by the sun from fields that have been warmed and from the waters.... From this our people (namely the Stoics) think that there will come about that of which they said Panaetius was in doubt, that at the last the whole world would take fire, when, the moisture being consumed, neither could the earth be nourished nor would the air return, whose origin could not exist once all water had been drained away. Thus nothing would be left but fire, from which, as a living being and God, the renewal of the world would in turn take place, and the same ordered array would arise." (Cic. On the Nature of the Gods, book 2, p. 252, line 12 ff.) For you see that some things in those words are the same as in Minucius, who accordingly wished to render Cicero's meaning. And this meaning seems to be: that none of the wise is ignorant that the heaven and all the things contained in it are nourished as much by the fresh water of springs as by that of the sea; and that this very heaven and the whole world, once the moisture has been consumed, as the Stoics held, will pass away into that force of fire from which it had begun. If, however, anyone should bring forward something more certain, we shall not oppose him.

On this tenet of the Stoics, besides Cicero, whom we have cited, Philo handed down the following in writing: "The Stoics [hold] one world, and God the cause of its generation, but of its corruption no longer God, but the power of untiring fire that exists in things, which in long periods of time resolves all things into itself, and out of which again the regeneration of the world is established by the providence of the Craftsman." "The Stoics assert one world, and God the author of its generation; but of its corruption not God likewise, but the untiring force of fire implanted in things, which after long windings of time will consume all things and change them into itself, and from which the providence of the Maker will restore the world anew." (Philo, book That the World is Incorruptible, p. 940.) Afterwards, however, he added: "Boethus, Posidonius and Panaetius, men most powerful in Stoic doctrine, as though seized by a divine influence, abandoned the conflagrations and restorations and went over to the divine tenet of the incorruptibility of the world." They deserted to the more divine doctrine, that of the incorruptibility of the whole world. But consider, I ask, whether by these words that statement of Cicero which we have seen can be confirmed, that not Panaetius alone but other Stoics as well doubted whether the opinion of their other fellows on the future burning of the world was true. But for our Minucius it was enough that this was the opinion of by far the greater number. See, on the cited passage of Cicero, the observations of Lescalopier, and Origen's disputation against Celsus (Origen, Against Celsus, book 5, p. 244), and also, if you wish, what by us in the earlier

volume of our Apparatus has been observed (Apparatus vol. 1, book 3, dissertation 2, ch. 16, art. 1, p. 1117).

Nor, moreover, does our Minucius assert that this opinion about the conflagration of the elements and the ruin of the world belongs to the Stoics only, but also, "the Epicureans," he says, "hold this very same view." But whether he is to be understood there of all the Epicureans or only of certain of them, and whether he believed that Epicurus received this from his teacher Democritus, no small room for doubt is given. Indeed, Epicurus wrote these things to Pythocles (in Laertius, book 10, § 88) in these words: "A world is a certain enclosure of heaven, containing stars and all things that appear, having a portion cut off from the infinite, and ending in a boundary either rare or dense, and when it is dissolved, all things in it will undergo confusion ... in which the ending cannot be grasped." "The world is a certain containment of heaven, containing the stars and the earth and all things that are seen, and having a cutting-off from the infinite, and ending in a boundary either rare or dense: when it is dissolved, all things that are in it will receive confusion: either ending, or in that which is whirled round, or in that which has stability.... in which we are unable to comprehend the boundary." Plutarch, however, whose words Eusebius reported, relates these things in the second book On the Opinions of the Philosophers: "Epicurus [held] the world perishable because it is generated, like an animal, like a plant." "Epicurus said that it (the world) will perish because it was born, like an animal and a plant (Plutarch, On the Opinions of the Philosophers, book 2, ch. 4, p. 886; Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, book 15, p. 842)." Lactantius, however, testifies that these things were drawn by Epicurus from the springs of Democritus: "Epicurus, on the authority of Democritus, says that the world both arose and will at some time perish." Afterwards he sets out his opinion more precisely: "Epicurus," he says, "or Democritus, said that it was born of its own accord, by seeds coming together with one another, and that when these are dissolved again, separation and destruction will follow (Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 7, ch. 2, p. 647, and ch. 3, p. 657)." And rightly indeed. For a little above we heard the Epicurean who in Cicero asserts that everything that has arisen must necessarily perish.

But we do not yet have it sufficiently established in what way Epicurus or his followers said the world would perish: whether by water, or by fire, or, as Lactantius says, by the dissolution of the atoms or corpuscles, or by their collision and strikings, as Philo indicates in these words concerning Democritus and Epicurus: "They sketch many worlds, whose generation they ascribe to the mutual strikings and interweavings of atoms, and their destruction to the collisions and separations of the things that have come to be." "They imagine many worlds, whose generation they attribute to the collisions and connections of the atoms, their corruption to strikings and leapings apart (Philo, On the Incorruptibility of the World, p. 940)." For indeed, if many worlds by various collisions of this kind and

strikings Epicurus held could be destroyed, why not all as well? Gassendi, however, more probably supposes that he taught that this world is to be wholly consumed by fire, as being more active than all the other elements (Gassendi, Syntagma Philosophiae Epicuri § 2, ch. 7, vol. 3, p. 32). But if he had either read the words of our author cited by us a little before, or had remembered that he had once read them, he could without doubt have brought them forward as a by no means feeble confirmation of his conjecture.

Last of all Minucius comes to Plato, who, as he himself reports: 'Plato speaks: he says that parts of the world now flood,' (but this last word some either reject, or retain if after 'Plato' [a comma] is added) 'and now in alternating turns blaze; and though he said that the world itself was made perpetual and indissoluble, he nevertheless adds that to God the Maker Himself alone it is both dissoluble and mortal. So it is no wonder if this mass is destroyed by Him by Whom it was built.' Minucius there relates two things asserted by Plato. First, that the world was created by God 'indissoluble', yet in such a way that it could be dissolved and destroyed by Him. Second, that parts of the world in alternating turns either flood, that is, are overwhelmed by waters, or 'blaze', that is, are burnt up by fire.

But the first point Plato indeed declared most plainly: Wishing therefore to make the best offspring, he made this a begotten god, never to be destroyed by any other cause except the God Who had put it together, if ever He wished to dissolve it. 'When therefore God wished to produce a most beautiful offspring, the world, He made it a begotten god, never to be corrupted by any other cause except by God, Who composed it, if ever He wished to dissolve it (Plato in the Timaeus, vol. 3, p. 94). For which reason indeed we read this committed to writing by Arnobius: 'That divine Plato, thinking many things worthy of God and not common to the multitude, in that discourse and book which is entitled Timaeus, says that the gods and the world are corruptible by nature and not wholly exempt from dissolution, but are held together in a perpetual bond by the will of God, the King and Ruler (Arnobius, book 2, p. 68).'

Philo the Jew, moreover, attested that this was truly Plato's opinion concerning the world as created and incorruptible, because by him the supreme God is introduced as having spoken these words to the other gods (Philo, book That the World Is Incorruptible, p. 950): Gods of gods, of whom I am maker and father of works that are indissoluble so long as I do not will it. Now everything that has been bound is dissoluble; but to wish to dissolve what has been well fitted together and is in good state is the part of an evil one. Wherefore also, since you have come into being, you are not immortal, nor wholly indissoluble; yet you will certainly not be dissolved, nor meet with the fate of death, having obtained my will as a bond still greater and more sovereign than those with which you were bound together when you came into being (Plato, Timaeus, vol. 2, p. 41). These words indeed are found in Plato's Timaeus, apart from some variant readings. The first words, moreover, were cited by Athenagoras

(Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians, p. 7); and the whole is presented in a certain fragment of Cicero's works, rendered into Latin thus: "Attend to this, you who are sprung from the seed of the gods. The works of which I am parent and maker, which were made by me, are not dissolved against my will, although everything that is bound can be loosed; but it is by no means the part of a good being to wish to dissolve what is bound by reason. But since you have been born, you cannot indeed be immortal and indissoluble; yet you will by no means be dissolved, nor will any fates of death destroy you, nor any deceit stronger than my counsel, which is a greater bond for perpetuity than those by which you were bound at the time when you were begotten (Cicero, On the Universe, appendix, p. 29, line 6 ff.)."

But these do not explain whether Plato held that the world is to be destroyed by fire and water in alternate turns. Clement of Alexandria, however, set it out in these words: But Plato says that the earth is purged at certain times by fire and water, somewhat thus: Many destructions of men in many ways have taken place and will take place, the greatest by fire and water, and other lesser ones by countless other means. And a little later he adds: But the truth is, there is a deviation of the bodies that move round the earth and in the heaven, and at long intervals a destruction of the things on earth by much fire. Then he speaks next of the flood: But when again the gods, purging the earth with waters, flood it, those in the mountains, herdsmen and shepherds, are saved; but those in our cities are carried into the sea by the rivers. "Plato says that the earth is purged at certain times by fire and water in this way: There have often been many destructions, and there will be, the greatest by fire and water; and indeed other, lesser ones by countless other means. And a little later he adds: In truth there is a change of the things that go round the earth and the heaven, and after long intervals a destruction of the things on earth comes about by much fire. Then he adds on the flood: But when again the gods, purging the earth with waters, flood it, those who are in the mountains, herdsmen and shepherds, are preserved; but those who are in the cities among us are carried into the sea by the rivers (Clement of Alexandria, Stromata V, p. 549 ff.)."

Weigh, I beg you, whether our Minucius aimed at this passage of Clement of Alexandria, and whether from what has been said those can be reconciled with one another who say, like Lactantius (Institutes VII, 1, p. 656; and ch. 3, p. 656), that Plato taught that the world would remain for ever, or, like Epiphanius (Against Heresies I, p. 12, and Exposition of the Faith, p. 1088), that it is subject to corruption and will in time be dissolved. For Plato taught, as we have seen, that the world is to be dissolved by the will of God alone, and therefore of itself, and unless God willed it, would remain for ever. See also whether he is rightly and deservedly blamed by Cicero, cited a little before, for holding that the world both had a beginning and yet would be eternal in the manner we have described. Whatever you pronounce, you will not be able to deny that Minucius, from this view of Plato and others about the world's being at length destroyed, not absurdly concludes that the heathen could not deny the truth of the Christians' doctrine, by which they asserted that the world would one day perish by fire. We noted something about it in the preceding volume of our Apparatus, and shall say more in our subsequent dissertations (vol. I of the Apparatus, p. 1117).

CHAPTER VIII.

On the three execrable crimes, infanticide, the eating of human flesh, and incest, of which the Christians were accused by Caecilius and other heathens.

ARTICLE ONE.

What and of what kind that accusation was, what its occasions were, and how long it lasted.

We have seen so far with what vain and useless effort Caecilius strove to shake certain chief teachings of the Christians, and with what weight of reasons they are established by Octavius, or rather by Minucius Felix. Let us now come to the accusations by which Caecilius and other heathens tried, with plainly reckless daring, to defame the sacred rites and most holy morals of these same Christians. First, then, Caecilius accuses all Christians of utterly horrible crimes committed in their synaxes and nocturnal assemblies. For he says that on a certain solemn day they gather somewhere for banquets to be held in those nocturnal synaxes. A light having been kindled there, an infant is most cruelly killed by them, and with a more than bestial fury they feed on its flesh and lick up its blood; finally, the torches having been put out, all are defiled by every crime of debauchery, adultery and incest.

We have already observed in the preceding volume of our Apparatus that it is recorded by certain writers of the second century of the Church, and especially by Justin Martyr, Athenagoras and Theophilus of Antioch, that the Christians were charged by the heathen with these crimes. But even if these and others of our authors granted that certain heretics, noted by us in the same place, such as the Cataphrygians, or Basilides, or Carpocrates and his followers, or the Gnostics, as Irenaeus (Against Heresies I, 24), Eusebius (History IV, 7, p. 120) and Epiphanius (heresy 26, § 5, p. 87, and heresy 27, § 3, p. 104) testify, furnished some occasion for this calumny, they nevertheless assert openly and most constantly that this accusation is utterly false. Nay, they publicly protest that the heathen never investigated, nor dared to investigate, whether those crimes of the Christians were true, lest they should at some time recognize them to be false. Also that no man of any condition, as will be said later, [could] find

at any time, except a very few lying slaves of the Christians, from whom the cruellest tyrant of all was able to extort, by tortures however exquisite, the confession that these crimes were true and had been committed by the Christians.

But although this testimony, as certain as it is public, suffices to explain and confirm the view of our Minucius, who rightly and justly flatly denies these execrable crimes, yet since Caecilius frames this accusation somewhat differently from the writers cited by us, it is worth hearing him. For he explains in this manner the way in which the heathen then shamelessly made use of that detestable lie: "The story about the initiation of novices is as detestable as it is well known. An infant covered with meal, so as to deceive the unwary, is set before the one who is being initiated into the rites. This infant is killed with blind and hidden wounds by the novice, who has been urged on to seemingly harmless blows by the surface of meal. Its blood, oh horror! they thirstily lap up, its limbs they eagerly divide among themselves.... And concerning the banquet it is well known..... On a solemn day they gather for a feast with all their children, sisters, mothers, people of every sex and of every age. There, after much feasting, when the banquet has grown hot and the frenzy of incestuous lust has blazed up with drunkenness, a dog that is tied to a lampstand is provoked to rush and leap by the throwing of a morsel beyond the length of the cord by which it is bound. Thus, the light that would have been a witness being overturned and extinguished, in shameless darkness they entwine themselves in the embraces of unspeakable desire, by the uncertainty of chance, and if not all in deed, yet all in complicity in incest." What is more cruel, impious, inhuman and horrid than these crimes?

But before we proceed further, it must be observed that in the manuscript codex one reads: "The heat of drunkenness of incestuous lust"; but through the carelessness of the copyist, as most have judged. Therefore in several editions they chose to write "with drunkenness", with a sense certainly clear and plain enough. But this emendation did not please Gronovius, who suspected that the words "of incestuous lust" were corrupt, and that one should read "the heat of drunkenness blazed up into blind lusts." For concerning incest, he says, it is said a little later: "yet equally in complicity in what is uncertain." But so far are the earlier words "of incestuous lust" from being excluded by these last words that the latter rather seem to point to what has already been said. The other reading therefore comes nearer to the truth; yet it ought to be confirmed by the authority of a better codex.

But wholly lacking in probability is what Gronovius added in the same place, that by these words of Caecilius about the Christian assemblies the Baptism of infants is meant. For could Caecilius, disputing against the Christians in the name of the Gentiles, not speak of their sacred gatherings without making mention of Baptism? Was whatever was done in these gatherings known to him and to the heathen? Were infants, moreover, initiated by holy Baptism as often as the Christians entered upon their gatherings, solemn indeed but secret? It is well, however, that Gronovius, as regards infants,

freely admits that they were washed in the sacred waters of Baptism in the age of Minucius Felix.

As for the crimes of which the Christians were accused as falsely as rashly, Tertullian left us this in writing about them: "We are called most wicked on account of the sacrament of infanticide, and the feeding upon it, and the incest after the banquet, in that dogs, averters of the lights, pimps namely, procure darkness, and also the shamelessness of impious lusts (Tertull. Apologet. ch. 7, p. 8)." There, however, he gathers in a few words all the crimes which Caecilius, or Minucius, set out at greater length, namely infanticide, a banquet furnished with the flesh and blood of an infant most inhumanly slain, then dogs as overturners of the lights, and promiscuous couplings of every kind and incests. There, however, Tertullian does not explain altogether clearly how an infant was said to be killed by the Christians.

Afterwards, however, he declares openly that the heathen really believed that the infant's raw, or uncooked, blood was caught by the Christians, and bread dipped in it, which they then ate, just as they also ate the flesh of the same infant (ibid. ch. 8, p. 9). In another book, however, he speaks more obscurely, and mentions nothing else but "infanticide, the hour of the lamps, the service of the dogs, and the devices of darkness," with whose help the Christians were said to be defiled by every kind of debauchery, adultery and incest (the same, To the Nations, book 1, ch. 15 and 16, p. 60). But we shall explain these things more thoroughly in their proper place (Dissert. on Tertull. ch. 20, art. 1).

Origen, however, where he deservedly rebukes Celsus for still casting these crimes at the Christians with his usual insolence, testifies there that the authors of this calumny, brought against the Christians from the very beginning of the infant Church, were not the heathen, nor the heretics, as we saw said by others a little earlier, but the Jews. He adds moreover that even in his own time certain people were deterred by these rumours, utterly false as they were, from embracing the Christian religion, and shunned all conversation with Christians. "He seems to me to have done something similar to the Jews who, at the beginning of Christianity, spread abroad slander against the word: namely that, having sacrificed a child, they partake of its flesh; and again, that those who belong to the word, wishing to do the deeds of darkness, put out the light, and each has intercourse with whatever woman happens to be at hand. This unreasonable slander again indeed held sway over very many, persuading those who were strangers to the word that the Christians are such people. And even now it still deceives some, who are turned away by such things from coming even into a simpler fellowship of discourse with the Christians." "Celsus seems to me," he said, "to have done the same as the Jews did at the beginning of the Christian doctrine, when a rumour was spread that the men of that sect fed on the flesh of a slaughtered boy; and that whenever it pleased them to give themselves to secret lusts, the light being put out, each defiled whatever woman he had first come upon. This false and unjust opinion long ago very many estranged from our religion

kept, persuaded that Christians are such; and up to this time it still deceives some, since for that reason they so shun Christians that they are unwilling to have even a simple conversation with a Christian man." (Origen, book 6 Against Celsus, p. 292 ff.)

Nevertheless, if the Jews were the authors of this calumny, it was without doubt increased by certain gentile slaves of Christians, noted in the Letter of the Church of Lyons and Vienne transcribed by Eusebius, who, seized by the governor and dreading the tortures, at the instigation of demons and with the soldiers urging them on, had falsely charged the Christians with θυέστεια δεῖπνα, καὶ οἰδιποδείους μίξεις, "Thyestean banquets and the incestuous couplings of Oedipus", which will be explained by us shortly (Eusebius, book 5, ch. 2, p. 156).

But this calumny lasted only a short time afterwards. For, again on the testimony of Eusebius, after the innocence of the Christians had become known to all, that most shameless accusation was utterly extinguished. "But these arts of the demon," says that learned man, "by no means succeeded for him for a long time: since the truth itself established and commended itself, and with the passage of time shone out more clearly day by day... At the same time that calumny too, which had been fastened upon our religion, was extinguished by the lapse of time (Eusebius, book 4 of the History, ch. 7, p. 120)." Now, however, we must examine how Minucius refutes these crimes, as false as they are horrible.

Article II.

The general arguments are weighed by which Octavius refutes the crimes laid against the Christians by Caecilius and the gentiles.

By a twofold reply Octavius makes it plain to all that nothing at all is more rotten than these calumnies, nor more foreign to truth itself and to all likelihood whatever. The first reply is general, and embraces all those crimes together, which Octavius shows to be utterly false and wholly incredible. The second refutes each crime one by one, and shows clearly that the individual charges are brought against the Christians as falsely as they were committed shamelessly and with impunity by the gentiles. The former reply is to be examined in this article, the latter in those that follow.

Octavius, then, or Minucius, confidently replies that it has come about through the evil arts of the demons that the heathen "begin to hate us as men before they know us, lest, once they know us, they should either be able to imitate us or be unable to condemn us." Which indeed Cyprian repeats in as many words (book On the Vanity of Idols, p. 14). Wherefore he most justly remonstrates with Caecilius and the other gentiles, that they condemned Christians unknown, unexamined and never heard. And lest the heathen should dare to deny this, he declares emphatically that he had not merely learned it for certain from others, but had it fully ascertained by his own most baneful experience, of which he then most deeply repented. If you do not believe us, here are his very words: "How unjust it is to

judge things unknown and unexamined, as you do, believe us, who ourselves repent of it. We too were the same, and once, while still blind and dull, we thought the same as you: that the Christians worshipped monsters, devoured infants and held incestuous banquets. Nor did we understand that these tales were always being bandied about by them, and never either investigated or proved; nor that in so long a time no one had come forward to betray [them], though he would have obtained not only pardon for the deed but also reward for the information." We have seen that the most just complaint of Justin Martyr, and of the others cited by us a little earlier, was the same. But Tertullian presses it still more sharply and more fully against the heathen, and after him Lactantius and others, as is to be shown by us in its proper place (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 1 and 2, and To the Nations, book I, ch. 7; Lactantius, book V, ch. 1).

Yet the extreme iniquity of the Gentiles against the Christians, contrary to all right, did not stop there. For Minucius and Octavius, while still devoted to the superstitions of the Gentiles and discharging, as we have said, the public office of advocate, used to defend before the judges any sacrilegious persons, parricides and men accused of other most grievous crimes, and took up their patronage. But against the Christians, raging with an utterly impious and hitherto unheard-of commiseration, they would compel them by dire interrogation and most bitter punishments, if it could be done, not to confess those crimes, but to deny that they were Christians. "Conducting," he says, "a perverse interrogation in their case, not one that would bring out the truth, but one that would compel a lie."

Tertullian too assails this same most iniquitous cruelty of the Gentiles thus: "Therefore not even in this do you proceed towards us according to the form of judging evildoers, in that to others who deny you apply torture to make them confess, to Christians alone to make them deny, whereas, if it were an evil, we would indeed deny it, and you would compel us by torture to confess... A man cries out: I am a Christian. He says what he is; you want to hear what he is not. You who preside to extort the truth labour to hear a lie from us alone. I am, he says, what you ask whether I am. Why do you torture me into perversity? I confess, and you torture; what would you do if I denied? Plainly, when others deny you do not readily give them credence; us, if we deny, you believe at once. Let this perversity be suspect to you, lest some force lie hidden in secret which employs you against the form, against the nature of judging, against the very laws as well (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 2, p. 3, and To the Nations, book I, ch. 2, p. 46 ff.)." Nor was he content to have said this once, but afterwards he presses the heathen again and says: "You lay upon the executioner a far different task against the Christians: not that they should say what they do, but that they should deny what they are."

Cyprian, moreover, argues in a similar way against the same Gentiles, and refutes and confounds them with this dilemma: "To be a Christian either is a crime or is not. If it is a crime, why do you not kill the one who confesses?

...confessing? If it is not a crime, why do you persecute the innocent? For I ought to have been tortured if I denied it; if, fearing your punishment, I had concealed by a deceiving lie what I had formerly been, and that I had not worshipped your gods, then I should have been tortured, then I should have been driven by the force of pain to confess the crime, as in other inquiries the accused are tortured who deny that they are guilty of the crime of which they are accused, so that the truth of the deed, which is not betrayed by the informing voice, may be wrung out by bodily pain. But now, when I confess of my own accord, and cry out, and with frequent and repeated words again and again declare that I am a Christian, why do you apply tortures to one who confesses (Cyprian, To Demetrianus, p. 190 ff.)?"

Another head of the most unjust judgement of the gentiles against the Christians was that if anyone, overcome at last by the force of tortures, denied that he was a Christian, they then favoured him, extolled him with praises and increased him with honours. As though it had been lawful for them, by this false piety, not only to acquit men accused of so many and so great crimes, who did not deny having committed them, but to heap them with all good things merely for denying the Christian name! Thus they confessed, as Tertullian says, that all the crimes of the Christians lay in the name alone (Tertullian, Apology 2 and 3, p. 4, and To the Nations I, 3, 5).

But by this fraud and cunning the impious men wished more easily to entice others to abjure the Christian faith. And do not think this was invented by us without ground. For Minucius confesses that he himself did it, not without the greatest sorrow of a contrite heart. "And if anyone weaker," he says, "pressed and overcome by suffering, denied that he was a Christian, we favoured him, as though, having forsworn the name, he purged all his deeds by that denial. Do you recognize that we thought and did the same things that you think and do? Whereas, if reason and not the instigation of a demon were judging, they should rather have been pressed, not to deny that they were Christians, but to confess to incests, debaucheries, to impious, that is polluted, rites, to infants sacrificed." Lactantius too afterwards recorded the same in these and as many words: "But if any, from fear of pain or death, or by their own faithlessness, have deserted the heavenly sacrament, or have consented to the deadly sacrifices, they praise them and load them with honours, so as to entice the rest by their example" (Lactantius I, 9, p. 48).

Another most certain proof of the integrity and innocence of the Christians was that, if they had committed such great crimes, at least some of them would at some time have repented, or would have feared to pay the penalties due to their crimes, or would at last have blushed to have given their name to a religion that drove them to commit them. "Yet it is so far from being an evil," says Minucius, "that the Christian when accused neither blushed nor feared, and repented of one thing only, that he had not been one before." But we read that these things were said earlier and more fully by Tertullian. For these are his very words: "But the Christian, what is like this? No one is ashamed, no one repents, except of not having been one before. If he is marked out, he glories; if he is accused, he does not defend himself; when questioned, he even confesses of his own accord; when condemned, he gives thanks. What evil is this, which does not have the natural marks (ms. other nature) of evil, fear, shame, evasion, repentance, lamentation? What evil is this, of which the accused rejoices, the accusation of which is a prayer, and the punishment a happiness (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 2, p. 4)?" How much weight and moment this argument has is gathered from this, that it cannot be that a man conscious of so many crimes, with conscience alone as avenger, should not have blushed; or should not have repented of having given his name to a sect that drove him to these crimes; or finally, accused of so many execrable outrages, should not have feared to undergo punishment. Yet nothing of the kind happened to the Christians. Nay, always glorying in their name and profession, they most constantly endured for the defence of both any tortures, even the most cruel, even to death.

Further, our Minucius cannot bear it to be objected to him by the heathen that the Christians are convicted by the report, spread everywhere, of so many and so great crimes. For first he contends that these false rumours were disseminated by the wicked arts of demons. Then: "Rumour," he says, "is always fed by scattered lies, and is consumed when the truth is shown." But Tertullian pursues this much more fully and, citing also a line of Virgil, demonstrates most invincibly that nothing is more trivial, weak and absurd than this argument (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 7, and To the Nations I, 7). But how he presses this and the other points set out by us, we shall examine in its place (Dissertation on Tertullian, ch. 20, art. 1).

CHAPTER IX.

It is shown how false are the first two crimes charged against the Christians, that an infant was killed by them amid the sacred mysteries and its flesh afterwards devoured, and that the heathen, on the contrary, were truly guilty of these,

ARTICLE ONE.

The arguments are examined by which Minucius wholly frees the Christians from both these crimes.

Although Minucius, by general replies, had more than sufficiently washed away the three horrible and unspeakable crimes branded on the Christians by Caecilius and other gentiles, he nevertheless comes to each one, which he refutes and destroys singly by a twofold reasoning. For first he shows that it is altogether false. Then he proves most clearly that the gentiles themselves, the hateful accusers of the Christians, are in reality guilty of it and privy to it.

He began with the slain infant, its flesh eaten and its blood drunk, in these words: "I should like now to meet the man who says or believes that we are initiated by the slaughter and blood of an infant. Do you think

it can happen that so soft, so tiny a body should receive the deadly blows of wounds, that anyone should slay, pour out and drain the raw blood (Tertullian uses the same word, Apology ch. 8, p. 9) of a new and scarcely yet born human being? No one can believe this except one who could dare it." He says, therefore, that this accusation is so utterly at odds with all truth that it could be believed only by those who were perpetrating the same crime. Justin Martyr, for his part, gives us the reasons why it surpasses all human belief (Justin Martyr, Apology, p. 50). "For it can be credible to no one," he says, "that people given over to the most shameful pleasures, and feeding on the human flesh of a slaughtered infant, as the Christians were represented by the heathen, should of their own accord deprive themselves of all goods, riches and means, and allow themselves to be put to death with the most exquisite torments for the mere confession of so cruel a religion, and even at times offer themselves to death unbidden."

What, moreover, of the fact that Trypho the Jew, asked by the same Justin Martyr whether he thought true that crime and the other which they were accustomed to lay upon the Christians, "to devour human beings, and after the feast, the lamps having been put out, to be entangled in unspeakable promiscuous intercourse," answered without any hesitation: But as for the things which many say, they are not worth believing; for they have gone far from human nature. "The things bandied about by many are unworthy of belief; for they are far removed from human nature (Justin, Dialogue against Trypho, p. 227)." Do you hear the Jew not only confessing of his own accord that these things are incredible, but also giving the reason why he was persuaded that they were altogether false and could not be believed?

Tertullian, moreover, not without reason asserts that it lies wholly beyond all credibility, and beyond the opinion of any man not entirely out of his mind, that the Christians had come to such a pitch of madness as to promise life and an eternal reward to those who were defiled by such great and such horrible crimes, not once or rarely, but almost the whole time of their life. It is better, however, to hear him speaking: "That I may appeal to the testimony of nature herself against those who presume that such things are to be believed: see, we set forth the reward of these deeds. They promise eternal life. Believe it for the moment. For I ask you this: whether you, even you who have believed, would value it so highly as to arrive at it with such a conscience. Come, plunge the steel into an infant, guilty of nothing, the child of all; or if that is another's office, do you only stand by a human being dying before he has lived. Wait for the new soul as it flees. Catch the raw blood; soak your bread in it; eat with relish. Meanwhile, as you recline, count the places: where your mother is, where your sister, note carefully, so that when the canine darkness has fallen you may not go astray. For you will have committed a sin needing expiation if you have not committed incest. Initiated and sealed in such things, you live for ever. I want you to answer whether eternity is worth so much? Or if not, then for that very reason it is not to be believed. Even if you have believed, I deny that you are willing; even if you are willing, I deny that you are able. Why then should others be able, if you are not able?

Why can you not, if others can (Tertullian, Apology ch. 8, p. 9. Likewise Tertullian, To the Nations bk 1 ch. 7, p. 52; Dissertation on Tertullian ch. 20, art. 1 and following)?" But he relates these things still more fully both there and elsewhere, and they are to be explained by us in their proper place.

To this response Minucius adds a second: that this infanticide is foreign as much to the truth itself as to the morals and institutions of the Christians. For how could it be permitted to them, by either the custom or the precept of their Church, to kill an infant with impunity, they for whom, as he argues, "it is lawful neither to see nor to hear of homicide"?

Against these same public and wicked slanderers Athenagoras also hurls the same weapon: "How," he says, "could anyone accuse them either of homicide or of feasting on human flesh, when he has learned that they neither wish nor are able to look upon the punishment even of a man justly put to death? "For those whom they know cannot bear even to see a man put to death, even justly, who would charge them with either man-slaying or man-eating?" He continues: "Who does not set the highest value on those spectacles in which you, the emperors above all, present gladiators and wild beasts to the people? But we, judging that it makes not much difference whether one is a spectator or the author of a slaughter, are averse in mind to these spectacles. How then shall we, who do not bear even to see it done by others, lest any guilt and defilement should redound upon us from it, ourselves commit homicide (Athenagoras, Embassy for the Christians, p. 38)?"

Theophilus of Antioch argues against the gentiles in quite the same manner. For he wrote to Autolycus (Theophilus, To Autolycus bk 3, p. 126) in these words: "Now see whether those who are taught such things," that is, the most holy laws of Christ recounted by him, "and learn such things, could live after the manner of brute animals and be polluted by wicked couplings, or could, what is the most monstrous of all, touch human flesh, namely that of an infant killed by themselves? Since we are forbidden even to watch the shows of the gladiators, lest we become sharers and accomplices in the murders. Nor ought we to watch the other spectacles, lest our eyes and ears be defiled, becoming partakers in the words sung there; for if one should speak of man-eating, there the children of Thyestes and Tereus are eaten. Especially since we are forbidden even to watch single combats, lest, that is, we be made partakers in slaughters of this kind. Nor do we dare to watch the rest, lest our eyes be stained and our ears hear the profane songs that are sung there; namely, while they recount the tragic crimes of Thyestes and recite the devoured children of Tereus."

There is no one, moreover, who does not know what those tragic and most monstrous crimes of Thyestes and Tereus are, which the heathen represented in public spectacles. For Thyestes is said to have defiled by adultery the wife of his brother Atreus. In revenge for this outrage Atreus

set his son before him to be feasted on; and they tell the tale that the sun, so as not to see these crimes, therefore turned its course back. Tereus, moreover, king of the Thracians, after he had violated Philomela, the sister of his wife Procne, cut out her tongue and shut her up in the closest custody. But she was afterwards led out by Procne, and the two together gave Itys, born of an adulterous union, to his father Tereus to be eaten at a banquet. So many crimes, besides Ovid and others, Martial sang thus in two lines of verse:

He plays more who writes of the luncheon of savage Tereus, or of your supper, uncouth Thyestes.

(Ovid, Metamorphoses, books 6 and 14; Martial, Epigrams, book 1, 19.)

You see, therefore, with how much justice our Minucius and the other most ancient Fathers of the Church asserted that the Christians were accused of homicide by the heathen most falsely of all; for they so abhorred it that they were never willing even to see or hear it represented in the public shows. No less clearly do you perceive that they were charged with having eaten human flesh as falsely as certain heathen were charged with it truly. If anyone, moreover, should wish to have others who argue in like manner set before him, we shall cite Tertullian, On the Shows, chapters 19 and 20; Cyprian, Letter to Donatus, chapter 15; Lactantius, book 6, chapter 20, page 619, and in the Epitome, chapter 6, page 743.

Nor, further, is this all; Minucius also refutes that calumny by another argument. "So far," he says, "do we guard ourselves against human blood that we do not know even the blood of edible cattle in our food." Tertullian, however, presses this argument against the same heathen more sharply and more vehemently. And his words are surely worth being copied out here: "Let your error blush before the Christians, who do not have even the blood of animals in our edible meals; who for that reason also abstain from things strangled and from carcasses that died of themselves, so as not to be defiled by any blood, even blood buried within the flesh. Finally, among the tests of Christians you offer them sausages actually distended with gore, being of course quite certain that what you wish to make them go astray by is unlawful among them. Moreover, what sort of thing is it that you should believe those whom you are confident shudder at the blood of cattle to be greedy for human blood?" (Tertullian, Apology, chapter 9, page 10.)

And not men alone, but women too, cleared the Christians of a plainly fictitious crime by this strong reasoning. For Eusebius relates that Biblias, a Christian woman, overcome by most dreadful tortures, at first indeed abjured the faith of Christ and said before the tyrant many things about the Christians, as impious as they were false. But she came to her senses under the torture and, so to speak, awoke out of a deep sleep, being reminded by the temporary punishment of the eternal chastisement in Gehenna, and she contradicted the blasphemers, saying: "How could such people eat children, who are not permitted to eat even the blood of irrational animals?" "But she came to her senses," these are the words of Eusebius, "amid the tortures, and was roused as if from a deep sleep, the present punishment concerning the torments of eternal Gehenna

admonishing her, and contradicting the impious: How could it be, she said, that they should eat infants, they who are not permitted even to taste the blood of animals (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book 5, chapter 1, page 159)?"

What could be stronger and more effective than this woman's testimony for refuting the calumny of the heathen? Bibliades, a Christian woman, tormented with the most savage punishments, affirms that the crime laid upon the Christians is false; but, overcome by extreme pains, and in order to be freed from them, she confesses it to be true, as falsely as unwillingly. Then she returns to a sounder mind and openly declares that she had spoken falsely, compelled by the force of the torments; and at last, mangled by yet more dreadful torments, she perseveres in this last confession of hers, and dies. What man of sound mind, then, will deny credence to this testimony? As for the blood of animals forbidden to Christians, we have discussed it elsewhere (volume 1 of the Apparatus, book 3, dissertation 1, chapter 3, article 5, page 480 and following).

Article II.

It is shown how surely Minucius convicts the heathen of homicide, inasmuch as they exposed their newborn sons or killed them by abortion, and moreover the Carthaginians sacrificed their own children to Saturn, the devourer of his own sons, and then tried to stifle their wailing with caresses and kisses; and for what reason.

No greater calumny can be devised by thoroughly depraved men than when they charge others, wholly innocent, with the gravest crimes of which they themselves are guilty. And such Minucius proves the heathen to have been. For he makes it plain to all that the homicide of which, as was said in the preceding article, they most falsely accused the Christians was in truth committed by themselves, not once, nor in one way only, but very often and in various ways. For besides what we related in the preceding article from Theophilus of Antioch, our Minucius reproaches them with a twofold kind of homicide: the exposure of newborn sons, and abortion before they were born. "I see you," he says, "now exposing your begotten sons to beasts and birds, now crushing them out, strangled, by a wretched kind of death. There are women who, by drinking drugs, extinguish in their very bowels the beginning of the man to be, and commit parricide before they give birth."

In the same way Athenagoras too had earlier said: On what ground shall we slaughter men? We who say that women who use abortifacient drugs commit murder and will render account to God for the abortion. "We who say that women using abortive medicines are guilty of homicide and will render account to God." (Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians, p. 37.) For is not he, he continues, guilty of the same crime who extinguishes the foetus in its mother's womb, or exposes a newborn child to a death by no means uncertain, as he who kills a man advanced in age? Yet from these crimes, he says there, the Christians shrank as much as they were often and with impunity perpetrated by the heathen. But let us hear Tertullian, who openly

and boldly reproaches them with these things, and argues against them thus: "But since, as regards infanticide, it makes no difference whether it is committed by sacred rite or at one's own pleasure, although it does make a difference as regards parricide, I shall turn to the people: how many, would you say, of these who stand around and gape for the blood of Christians, and even of you yourselves, the most just magistrates and most severe against us, shall I strike upon in their consciences, who kill the children born to them? Since there is a difference also in the manner of death, you surely wring out their breath more cruelly in water, or expose them to cold, and hunger, and the dogs? For even a riper age would prefer to die by the sword. But for us, murder having once been forbidden, it is not lawful to destroy even what is conceived in the womb, while the blood is still being formed into a human being. To prevent birth is a hastening of murder; nor does it matter whether one snatches away a life already born or disturbs one that is coming to birth. He too is a man who is going to be one; the whole fruit is already in the seed (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 9, p. 10)." But on these matters we have spoken more fully in our dissertation on this book (Dissertation on Tertullian, ch. 20, art. 3).

No less sharply, and not without irony, Lactantius repels this shameless calumny, which the guilty themselves were not afraid to employ against the innocent. "They call [us] impious," he says, "they themselves, of course, being pious and shrinking from human blood, whereas, if they considered both their own deeds and those of the people whom they condemn as impious, they would at once understand how lying they are, and how much more deserving of all the things that they either say or do against the good. For it is not from our number but always from theirs that those arise who beset the roads armed... who secretly mix poisons, who kill their wives in order to gain their dowries, or their husbands in order to marry adulterers, who either strangle the children born of them or, if they are excessively pious, expose them (Lactantius, Institutes, book 5, ch. 9, p. 483; Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 27, art. 2)." But he says certain other things about these matters elsewhere, as we shall see in its proper place. Whoever wishes for more, let him consult Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plato as cited by Theodoret, Philo the Jew, Clement of Alexandria, and what we have observed elsewhere on the exposure of children (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, book 2, p. 88; Theodoret, vol. 4, sermon 9, p. 678; Philo, On the Special Laws, p. 793 and following; Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, book 3, p. 226, and Stromata, book 2, p. 400; Apparatus, vol. 1, p. 805).

Moreover, by other examples Minucius proves most unanswerably that the most cruel parricide, and other murders, were customarily committed by the heathen not only with impunity but with public praise and applause, both formerly and still in his own time. For the heathen were convinced, he says, that his sons had been devoured by Saturn. For this reason credulous men in certain parts of Africa held it a matter of piety to sacrifice their own sons to him as well. Human victims, too, were slain by the Pontic Taurians and by the Egyptian Busiris, by the Gauls to Mercury, and by the Romans a Greek man and a Greek woman, a Gallic man and a Gallic woman. Moreover, by the same

Romans Latiaris Jupiter was said to be appeased with the blood of a man cruelly slain. And our author holds that it came about from the example of so horrible a savagery that Catiline bound his conspiracy with human gore, that others sacrificed to Bellona with a draught of human blood, and that many cured epilepsy with that same human blood, that is, as Minucius rightly observes, with a graver disease. Finally he said that not unlike this utterly monstrous cruelty is that by which certain athletes in the arena lick up and devour wild beasts fattened on the gore and limbs of men. With what face, then, concludes Minucius, could the gentiles, guilty of so many crimes, cast against the Christians with shameless calumny the charge that an infant is killed by them, its flesh devoured and its blood drunk? But earlier Tertullian had refuted that most false accusation more sharply, in this manner: "The more to refute these things, I will show that they are done by you, partly in the open and partly in secret, which is perhaps how you have come to believe them of us too. Infants were sacrificed to Saturn in Africa openly until the consulship of Tiberius, who exposed the priests themselves on the very trees of their temple that overshadowed their crimes, as on votive crosses, as the soldiery of our country bears witness, which performed that very service for that proconsul. But even now this sacred crime is persisted in in secret.... Since Saturn did not spare his own sons, he certainly persisted in not sparing strangers, whom indeed their own parents offered, and they answered gladly, and fondled the infants, lest they be sacrificed weeping. And yet parricide differs much from homicide. Among the Gauls those of riper age were cut up for Mercury. I leave the Taurian fables to their own theatres. Behold, in that most religious city of the pious sons of Aeneas, namely Rome, there is a certain Jupiter whom at his games they drench with human blood, games dedicated, no doubt, to Latiaris Jove..... Concerning the food of blood and tragic dishes of that sort, read whether it is not related somewhere (it is in Herodotus, I think) that certain nations, having tasted from one another blood poured out from their arms, have ratified a treaty. Something of the kind was tasted under Catiline too. They say also that among certain gentile tribes of the Scythians every dead man is eaten by his own people. I run far afield. Today here blood from a thigh cut open, caught in the palm and given to be eaten, marks those consecrated to Bellona (manuscript: sacratus). Again, those who at the show in the arena carry off with greedy thirst the fresh blood of slaughtered criminals, to heal epilepsy, where are they? Again, those who dine on the beast-meats of the arena, who seek after the boar, after the stag! That boar wiped off, as it struggled, the man whom it had bloodied. That stag lay in a gladiator's blood. The very bellies of bears are sought, still undigested with human entrails. Flesh fed on man is thus belched up by man." (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 9, p. 9.) We have thought this whole passage of Tertullian worth displaying, since there he brought forward certain examples left untouched by our author, and sets out others more clearly and more fully, of which our Minucius himself seems to have made a summary.

We cannot, however, deny that the earlier words of the same Tertullian are not without certain difficulties. But we shall try, to the best of our ability, to explain and resolve them in their proper place (Dissertation on Tertullian's Apology).

Meanwhile, however, something must be said about those horrifying sacrifices of men slaughtered by other men. There is no need at all for us to heap up more on the well-known belief of the pagans, unknown to few, by which Saturn is said to have devoured his own sons. Leaving aside, therefore, Pausanias, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Lucian, Apollodorus, Theophilus of Antioch, and very many others (Pausanias, book 7, p. 242; Strabo, Geography, p. 468; Diodorus Siculus, Library, book 5, p. 235; Lucian, On Sacrifices, p. 73; Apollodorus, Library, book 1, beginning; Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, book 1, p. 75, and book 3, p. 118), let it suffice to have noted that it is recounted by Hesiod in these verses (Hesiod, v. 463 ff.):

For he had learned from Earth and starry Heaven / that it was fated for him to be overcome by his own son, / strong though he was, through the counsels of great Zeus. / Therefore he kept no blind watch, but lying in wait / he swallowed down his own children.

For he had heard from the earth and from the heaven glittering with stars / that it was fated for him to be subdued by his own son, / however strong he was, through the counsels of great Jupiter; / and therefore he kept no blind watch, but, laying snares, / he devoured his own sons.

For this reason Nonnus calls the same Saturn "the devourer of his own children," ἑῶν θοινήτορα παίδων (Nonnus, Dionysiaca, book 21, ch. 259).

Let us be allowed to add to these one witness, Tatian, who, by the examples not only of the same Saturn but of others too, convicts the pagans of cannibalism, of which they falsely accused the Christians, in these words: "Among us, he says, cannibalism is not found: you who have fabricated this charge against us have been caught out as false witnesses. Among you, however, Pelops is served up as a feast for the gods, and the boy beloved by Neptune, and Saturn devours his sons, and Jupiter Metis." Among us there is no cannibalism; you who contrive [the charge] have become false witnesses. But among you Pelops becomes a dinner for the gods, and the beloved of Poseidon too, and Kronos consumes his sons, and Zeus swallows down Metis (Tatian, Oration against the Greeks, p. 162).

The Carthaginians, however, desiring to gratify Saturn, the devourer of his own sons, sacrificed their own sons to him, as our Minucius rightly says. For Plato, although he openly denied that men had in fact been slaughtered in this barbarous manner by his own countrymen, nevertheless added in the same place: "But the Carthaginians, on the contrary, are accustomed to do it, since it is holy and lawful for them. The Carthaginians sacrifice, as being holy and lawful for them. And this is a customary rite among them, that some of them sacrifice their own sons to Saturn.... But even those Greeks who live in Lycia, and are descended from Athamas, sacrifice like victims." (Plato, vol. 2, book Politicus, p. 315.)

In Eusebius too are read these words of Diodorus Siculus concerning the Carthaginians when besieged by Agathocles, tyrant of Sicily: "They suspected that Saturn was angry with them for this reason, that whereas formerly they used to sacrifice the flower of their own children, thereafter they put forward for sacrifice only certain boys, bought secretly and brought up by themselves. And so, an inquiry having been held into this matter, they found that some of those who had been slain with sacred and solemn rite had been substitutes. When they considered these things among themselves, and saw the camp of the enemy hanging over their walls, a great religious dread fell upon them, as though they had abolished the ancestral honours of the gods. And in order to expiate this error promptly, they first publicly sacrificed outstanding youths, chosen by common vote, two hundred in all. Then, besides these, others who were commonly suspected of having violated religion offered themselves of their own accord and willingly, no fewer than three hundred (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, book 4, ch. 16, p. 161)." These, moreover, are taken from the twentieth book of the Library of the same Diodorus, and you will be able to compare his Greek words and those of Eusebius with one another. And in another book Diodorus had said of Imilcar: "Instituting supplications to the gods according to the custom of his fatherland, having slaughtered a boy to Kronos, and having drowned a multitude of priests to Poseidon. He sacrifices a boy to Saturn, and plunges a crowd of priests into the sea for Neptune (Diodorus, Library, book 20, p. 739 and following; the same, book 13, p. 377)." What, indeed, of the fact that Plutarch relates that Gelon, when the Carthaginians had been defeated by him in a great battle and were seeking peace, concluded it only on this condition, that they should no longer sacrifice their sons to Saturn? To this is added what we read written by Dionysius of Halicarnassus: "It is said that the ancients were accustomed to appease Saturn with human victims, as the Carthaginians did while their city stood, and the same is still done now among the Gauls and other nations nearest to the West (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, book 1, p. 30)." Whoever, further, will not find these things sufficient, let him read besides Justin Martyr, Origen, and Augustine, who cited Varro as his witness (Justin, Apology 2, p. 50; Origen, Against Celsus, book 5, p. 249; Augustine, The City of God, book 7, ch. 19 and 26).

But consider, I pray, what men are not capable of when deceived by the mere shadow of a false piety! "Infants," says Minucius, "were sacrificed by their parents, who stifled their wailing with caresses and a kiss, lest a tearful victim be sacrificed." Here indeed he follows Tertullian, who went before him, who, as we have already noted, had said: "Parents offered their sons, and responded willingly, and caressed the infants lest they be sacrificed weeping" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 9). But if at that time [they stifled] the wailing and tears of their sons, how were they themselves able, in killing them, to hold back their own sighs, groans, and every feeling of a father's heart? Yet with an altogether perverse fortitude they stifled the groans and tears of their children, lest a tearful and weeping victim, and therefore to the gods least

pleasing, should be slaughtered. Indeed it was a bad omen if the victim was sacrificed struggling and unwilling. If you want a witness, hear Macrobius: "It was observed by those sacrificing that if the victim being led to the altars had struggled rather violently and shown that it was being brought to the altars against its will, it was removed, because they thought it was being offered to an unwilling god." Or, as Pliny says: "Nor are the gods appeased by a victim not one's own, nor by one that pulls itself back from the altars" (Macrobius, Saturnalia book III, chapter 5; Pliny, Natural History book VIII, chapter 45, page 221). For this reason, as Ammianus Marcellinus further testifies, they judged it inauspicious that at the sacrifice of Julian the Apostate the tenth bull broke its bonds, slipped away, and was brought back with difficulty (Ammianus Marcellinus, book XXIV, chapter 6, page 409). For Pompey too, "the flight of the victims," as Valerius Maximus says, "from the very altars" seemed to portend something deadly (Valerius Maximus, book I, chapter 6, § 12); or as Lucan sang:

Brought to the gods above, the bull fled from the scattered altar, / and flung itself headlong into the Emathian fields, / and no victim was found for the deadly rites. (Lucan, book VII, line 156.)

But the gentiles were convicted of homicide and parricide not by these examples only, but by very many others besides, which we must examine.

ARTICLE III.

In what further way Minucius shows that guests were sacrificed by the Pontic Tauri and by the Egyptian Busiris, men to Mercury by the Gauls, and by the Romans a Greek man and a Greek woman, a Gallic man and a Gallic woman, and others to Jupiter Latiaris.

Just as among certain peoples of Africa it was a most inhuman custom to offer infants to Saturn, so "among the Pontic Tauri," says Minucius, "and for the Egyptian Busiris, it was the custom to sacrifice their guests to fictitious gods." About the Tauri, Clement of Alexandria committed this to Greek letters: "The Tauri, the nation that dwells about the Tauric Chersonese, whatever strangers they catch among them, namely of those who have come to grief at sea, they straightway sacrifice to the Tauric Artemis." "The Tauri people, who live around the Tauric Chersonese, whatever guests they have caught among them, of those who have gone astray at sea, they immediately sacrifice to the Tauric Diana" (Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Gentiles, page 27). You will find these words of Clement of Alexandria copied out by Eusebius. Athenagoras more briefly, Origen more clearly, and Athanasius more fully than both, record plainly the same things (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel book IV, page 157; Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians, page 29; Origen, Against Celsus book V, page 249; Athanasius, Oration against the Greeks § 25, page 2). But before all these Naso sang thus of that most monstrous credulity, of beasts rather than of men:

Those whom you hear rejoice in the blood of men / lie almost beneath the axis of the same cold. / Nor far from us is the place where the dread Tauric altar / of the quivered Goddess is sprinkled with slaughter. (Ovid, Tristia book IV, elegy IV, line 325 and following.)

ritic prefecture were said, since later men wished to slander the inhospitality of this place: whereas, by my faith, Busiris was neither any king nor a tyrant." (Strabo, Geography, book 17, p. 802.)

But although those men denied these things, Minucius nevertheless has many supporters, and above all Ovid, who sings in these verses:

Egypt is said to have lacked the rains that help the fields, and to have been dry for nine years, when Thrasius approached Busiris and showed that Jupiter could be appeased by the shed blood of a guest.

And elsewhere:

Did I, then, subdue Busiris, who defiled the temples with a stranger's gore? (Ovid, Art of Love, book 1, line 650, and Metamorphoses, book 9, line 183.)

Nor did Virgil say it less plainly:

Who does not know either the pitiless Eurystheus, or the altars of the unpraised Busiris? (Virgil, Georgics, book 3, lines 4 and 5.)

On which passage Servius observes this: "Busiris was a king of Egypt who, since he used to sacrifice the guests he had received, was slain by Hercules, when he had wished to kill him too. Isocrates wrote his praises." For this reason Statius somewhere called them:

the cruel altars of Busiris.

Eusebius, moreover, related this about Busiris: "Busiris, son of Neptune and of Libya, daughter of Epaphus, exercises tyranny in the places near the Nile, killing passing guests with cruel wickedness (Eusebius, Chronicle, at the year 546)." Augustine, among others, supported him: "At that time," he says, "namely that of Hercules, Busiris, whether king or tyrant, used to sacrifice his guests to his gods; they say he was the son of Neptune by his mother Libya, daughter of Epaphus." (Augustine, City of God, book 18, chapter 12.) You see indeed that many have given their vote to Minucius concerning that monstrous savagery of Busiris.

Very many witnesses, by no means uncertain, are also at hand for us, by whom that further point may be confirmed which he himself added afterwards: "that the Gauls slaughter human, or rather inhuman, victims to Mercury." For Cornelius Tacitus is guarantor and witness of so great an inhumanity, where, concerning the customs of the Gauls, he records this among many other things: "Of the gods they worship Mercury most of all, to whom on certain days they hold it lawful to make offering with human victims too. Caesar, moreover, to whom the nation of the Gauls was especially well known, writes that, when afflicted by more serious diseases or engaged in battles, they sacrificed men as victims, or vowed that they would sacrifice them, and used the Druids as ministers for those sacrifices." (Tacitus, On the Customs of the Germans, shortly after the beginning; Caesar, Gallic War, book 1, after the beginning.) There, however, he does not explain to which god they offered these victims: but since he asserts in the same place, as Strabo does, that the Gauls worshipped Mercury above all as their god, can it not be said with our Minucius that that cruel sacrifice was made to this god first of all, and also to Hesus, as will be said shortly (Strabo, Geography, book 4, p. 198)? The same judgement must without doubt be passed on Diodorus Siculus, Mela, Strabo, Cicero and Solinus, who

testify that men were also generally sacrificed to the gods by the Gauls." (Diodorus, Bibliotheca 5, p. 214; Mela, book 6, where he treats of Gaul; Strabo, Geography 4, p. 193; Cicero, Oration for M. Fonteius, p. 222; Solinus, ch. 21, p. 41.) Finally Lucan sang this about them, and about the Taurian Diana, of whom we treated a little earlier (Lucan, Pharsalia 1, lines 444 ff.):

And those by whom pitiless Teutates is appeased with dreadful blood, and Hesus, bristling with savage altars, and Taranis, whose altar is no gentler than that of Scythian Diana.

Lactantius, moreover, agrees with Lucan. And Suetonius further bears witness that that impious and detestable sacrificing was forbidden by the emperor Augustus and afterwards abolished by Claudius. "The religion of the Druids among the Gauls," he says, "of dreadful savagery, and under Augustus merely forbidden to citizens, he abolished entirely." (Lactantius, Divine Institutes 1, ch. 21, p. 112; Suetonius, book 5, § 25.)

No less cruel, beyond doubt, was the sacrifice of the Romans mentioned next by our Minucius, in which they buried a Greek man and a Greek woman, a Gaulish woman and a Gaulish man, alive underground in the Forum Boarium. And from Livy we have received this, committed to writing about that utterly inhuman sacrifice: "On the authority of the books of fate some extraordinary sacrifices were performed, among which a Gaulish man and a Gaulish woman, a Greek man and a Greek woman were let down alive underground in the Forum Boarium, into a place walled in with stone, already before imbued with human victims, a most Roman rite (Livy, Decade 3, book 2, p. 195)." Plutarch relates the same things, and yet added to them that those rites were performed in the month of November. Pliny, for his part, openly declares that they continued down to his own age (Plutarch, vol. 1, in the Life of Marcellus, p. 299, and vol. 2, Roman Questions, p. 283; Pliny, Natural History 28, ch. 1, p. 537).

Nay rather, as our author goes on, Jupiter Latiaris is honoured by the same Romans with homicide; or, as he wrote earlier: "Jupiter, when [he is] Latiaris, is drenched with gore." And indeed Tatian asserts that he was an eyewitness of this horrid sacrifice, and of another one performed to Diana. "When I saw these things," he says, "that among the Romans the Latiarian Jove is appeased with human gore and blood shed through homicides, and that Diana not far from Megalopolis delights in similar things." (Tatian, Oration against the Greeks, p. 165.) For this reason Theophilus of Antioch, quite rightly and deservedly, reproached the heathen with the wantonness of the mother of the gods, and the cruelty "of Jove Latiaris thirsting, dipsōntos, for human blood." (Theophilus, To Autolycus 3, p. 122.) Tertullian, moreover, not only confirms these things openly in his Apology, as has been noted, but in yet another book repeats them in these words: "It has been permitted in the world for the Diana of the Scythians, or the Mercury of the Gauls, or the Saturn of the Africans to be appeased with a human victim; and in Latium to this day human blood is given to Jove to taste in the midst of the City." (Tertullian, Scorpiace, ch. 7, p. 624.) In his time, therefore, that horrible custom persisted, and it lasted even afterwards. For Lactantius likewise also

writes: "Not even the Latins were free of this savagery, since Jupiter Latiaris is even now worshipped with human blood." (Lact., bk. 1, ch. 21, p. 113.) Who, then, will dare to refuse credence to so many and such sure witnesses? But whether so savage a sacrifice was performed long afterwards is not so well established. Certainly Athanasius did not believe so, since he speaks of it in this manner: "And the Romans of old worshipped the so-called Latiarian Zeus with human sacrifices." "The ancient Romans likewise worshipped Jupiter Latiaris, as they call him, with human victims." (Athanas. Oration against the Greeks, § 25, p. 23.)

Concerning this detestable rite and custom of slaughtering men to the gods we have disputed elsewhere. Besides the writers cited by us there, you may further read Philo the Jew, Cornelius Tacitus, Pliny, Suetonius, Porphyry, Eusebius, Cyril of Alexandria, to whom may be added Tertullian and Lactantius: but of these we [have spoken] in their proper place (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, bk. 3, dissert. 1, ch. 6, art. 2, p. 757; Philo, book On Those Who Offer Victims, p. 853; Tacitus, Annals bk. 14, about the middle; Pliny, Natural History bk. 30, ch. 1, p. 728; Suetonius, Life of Claudius, § 25; Porphyry, On Abstinence from Animals bk. 12, p. 223; Eusebius, Oration in Praise of Constantine, p. 646; Cyril of Alexandria, Against Julian bk. 4, p. 128; Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 34, art. 1, and on Tertullian, ch. 20, art. 2 and following).

Article IV.

On other crimes that sprang from that savage custom of slaughtering men, namely Catiline's conspiracy [sealed] with human blood, the rites of Bellona steeped in men's gore, the remedy for the falling sickness sought by drinking it, and beasts fattened on it being devoured by men in the arena.

Minucius surmises that from the custom, explained so far, of sacrificing men to fictitious gods, as from a most corrupt spring, three horrible crimes gushed forth: namely Catiline's wicked conspiracy by a pact of human blood; the rites of Bellona steeped in the drinking of human gore; and a remedy for the falling sickness sought from the same blood of men. Would you hear him speaking? "He himself, he says, I believe, taught Catiline to conspire by a pact of blood, and Bellona to steep her rite in the drinking of human gore, and men to cure the falling sickness with blood, that is, with a graver disease." And you have already heard the words of Tertullian cited by us, in which he had earlier handed down the same things in writing.

Not all, however, relate in the same way the conspiracy made by Catiline. Of it indeed Sallust committed this to posterity: "There were at that time those who said that Catiline, having delivered a speech, when he was binding the accomplices of his crime to an oath, carried round in a bowl the blood of human gore mixed with wine. Then, when all had tasted it after the imprecation, as is customary in solemn rites, he is said to have disclosed his plan." (Sallust.

de Conjur. Catilin., ch. 8.) He relates, therefore, that this was the opinion not of all but only of certain people, and about it he himself declares nothing with certainty. Florus, however, affirmed without hesitation that the matter was so (Florus, book 4 de Gestis Rom., ch. 1).

But Dio Cassius testifies in these words that the thing was done otherwise: "whom he brought under the compulsion of unlawful oaths; for having sacrificed a certain boy and sworn the oaths over his entrails, he then ate them together with the others." "He compelled them to bind themselves by an abominable oath. For he slaughtered a certain boy, and when the oath had been taken over his entrails, he himself then ate them with the others." (Dio Cass., book 37 Hist. Rom., p. 48 ff.) Plutarch, moreover, reported that they tasted the flesh of a slaughtered man (Plutarch, in Vit. Cic., p. 866). But to some, no doubt, the authority of these latter, as being Greeks, will perhaps seem of less weight than that of the former. Not undeservedly, therefore, and rightly, do our author and Tertullian lend their support to these Latin writers (Tertull., Apolog., ch. 9, p. 10).

Concerning the rites and festivals of Bellona, customarily celebrated in her honour, these are the words of Lactantius, in which he describes a bloody sacrifice of men: "Other rites of Virtus, whom they likewise call Bellona, in which the priests themselves sacrifice not with another's blood but with their own. For with their shoulders cut, and drawing out swords in each hand, they run, they are carried out of themselves, they rave." (Lactant., book 1, ch. 21, p. 116.) And Lampridius, concerning the emperor Commodus: "He ordered the servants of Bellona," he says, "to cut their arm in earnest, out of zeal for cruelty." (Lamprid. in Commod., p. 49.) Wherefore Lucan sang:

. . . . With how many slashed arms Bellona sets her rites in motion. (Lucan, book 1 Pharsal., after the middle.)

And again in another book:

. . . . . Wherever Bellona roams, as if shaking a bloody scourge. (The same, book 7, after the middle.)

See, if you please, Montfort's [notes on] these verses of Lucan, and Casaubon's observations on Lampridius, and the scholia of Caecilius on those verses of Juvenal

. . . . Behold, the chorus of raging Bellona and of the mother of the gods enters. (Juvenal, Satire 6, about the middle.)

You have noticed, indeed, that some report that in these mysteries the shoulders were cut, others the upper arms, others the arm. Seneca, however, mentions all these parts of the body at once and together in these words: "When someone, an artist at cutting his own upper arms, bloodies his arms and shoulders with a light hand." (Seneca, book de Vita beata, ch. 27.) And who would not see that he is there alluding to the rites of Bellona?

Why then, someone says, did Tertullian make mention only of a gashed thigh? "Today in that place," he says, "those consecrated (mss. sacratus) to Bellona, blood from a gashed thigh, caught in the little palm, given to be eaten,

...marks." (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 9, p. 10.) Why should he not have been allowed to mention the thigh alone, just as others were allowed to mention only the shoulders or the arms? For neither he nor the others thought that all the limbs that were cut in the rites of Bellona had to be counted out. But something more is to be said below about these mysteries and that passage of Tertullian (ch. 20, art. 3).

But I would have you observe that our Minucius did not indeed say that in these rites blood was drawn from the limbs of the initiates, but that these rites were steeped in the drinking of human gore. And certainly this second thing alone is noted by him, because it was the graver, and the initiates did not drink human blood unless it had first been drawn from their limbs. You have just heard Tertullian, who seems to have mentioned blood then both drawn and drunk. But we shall treat of that later (Dissertation on Tertullian, ch. 20, art. 4).

Finally our author rightly rebukes those who, suffering from the falling sickness, greedily drank the blood of gladiators wounded in the arena, by which they thought they could be healed. For Pliny himself, though a heathen, inveighs against them no less sharply. "They drink the blood of gladiators," he says, "the epileptics, as from living cups, a thing which it is horrible even to see the wild beasts do in the same arena. But, by Hercules, they think it most efficacious to suck it warm and breathing from the man himself, and with it the very soul from the mouth of the wounds, when it is not lawful to put human lips even to the wounds of wild beasts... As if indeed it could seem health for a beast to be made out of a man, and to deserve the disease in the very remedy, a fine disappointment, by Hercules, if it does no good. It is held a sin to look upon human entrails; what then to eat them? Who devised such portents? For you will have to answer for it, overthrower of human law and artificer of monsters, who first established these things, I suppose so that your life might not be forgotten. Who devised the eating of each human limb? Led by what guess? What origin can that medicine have had? Who made poisonings more innocent than remedies? Granted that barbarous and foreign rites devised these; did the Greeks too make these arts their own?" (Pliny, Natural History XXVIII, 1, p. 54.) You may moreover consult Celsus, and Tertullian already cited by us, and others (Celsus III, 23, On the Falling Sickness; Tertullian, Apology, ch. 9, p. 10).

Finally, that beasts fattened on the gore, entrails and limbs of men were devoured by other men who fought with them in the circus, anyone can easily learn from Apuleius and from Tertullian already cited, as we shall show in the following dissertation on his books (Apuleius, Metamorphoses IV, before the middle, p. 58 ff.; Dissertation on Tertullian, ch. 20, art. 4 and 5).

CHAPTER X.

On the third crime, namely the infamous debauchery, adultery and incest after the banquets, of which the Christians were said to be guilty.

ARTICLE ONE

How greatly the Christians abhorred this crime, how chaste their marriage was, and how many persevered in perpetual virginity.

The heathen attacked the Christians with another calumny, no less impudent than the first, accusing them of infamous debauchery, adultery and incest after the banquet and feast. And Caecilius applied it with a mind no fairer and no less bitter than the former. For although this crime was plainly invented and fabricated, he nevertheless tries to prove it by a twofold argument. The first he drew from the testimony and authority of Fronto; the second from the fact that "honourable things," as he said, "always rejoice in publicity," whereas the Christians always concealed their mysteries with great care.

But Octavius crushes and pounds this whole calumny and argument with a likewise twofold reply. For he boldly and openly declares that this crime of the Christians was fabricated by the customary lies of demons, and never proved by anyone. Second, he convicts the gentiles themselves of being in fact guilty of this very detestable outrage, wrongly charged against the Christians.

He declares emphatically, therefore: "A great tale has the conspiracy of demons invented against us, for a twofold reason: first, that it might stain the glory of our chastity with the aversion of a foul infamy."

But many suspect that the word aversione is corrupt, and some that aspersione should be read, others accessione. Yet who, without consulting another, more correct codex, would dare to lay down anything certain? For what if Minucius took that word aversione, or adversione, in the sense in which it is used by the jurists alone, for a thrusting off upon another, or for a matter not well looked into or examined? The sense of our advocate Minucius here, then, will be: the demons devised this tale so that, a foul infamy being thrust off upon the Christians, or one neither looked into nor examined by the heathen, they might stain the glory of Christian chastity. Whether we have hit the mark, let others judge. The second reason of our author, by which the first seems to be confirmed, is this: "That, before the truth was examined, the demons might turn men away from us and from embracing the Christian religion by the terror of an unspeakable opinion."

Next, Octavius very easily weakens the authority of Fronto that had been interposed: "Your Fronto," as he goes on, "did not bear testimony as one who affirms, but scattered abuse as an orator." And who does not see that by this word "your" it is plainly declared that Fronto, of whom we spoke above, was a heathen orator, whose testimony against the Christians could therefore be of no weight?

But, that this may appear more clearly, Octavius [turns] that impudent calumny of the gentiles, and the singular

innocence of the Christians, from their sober banquets, and above all from their supreme chastity, which he sets out, as truly as simply, in this manner: "We display modesty not in our face but in our mind. We gladly cleave to the bond of a single marriage; the desire of begetting we know either as one or as none." Such, therefore, in the time of Minucius was, and always, by the precept of Christ, ought to have been, the chastity of Christian spouses. But, from zeal for greater perfection, many, never bound by any bond of marriage, remained in perpetual virginity. But it is better again to hear our author speaking of it: "Very many," he says, "unviolated, enjoy rather than boast of the perpetual virginity of the body. So far, then, is the desire of incest from us, that to some even a chaste union is a cause of blushing." There, indeed, by these words, "They enjoy rather than boast," he glances in passing at the heathen, among whom the Vestals and the priests of the mother of the gods boasted of their virginity more than they truly enjoyed it. But of these things below.

Tertullian too answers the same most false accusation of the heathen in like manner: "Us a most diligent and most faithful chastity has fenced off from that outcome; and as far as we are safe from debaucheries and from every excess after marriage, so far are we safe also from the mishap of incest. Some, much more secure, repel the whole force of this error by virgin continence, old men who are boys (Tert. Apology, ch. 9, p. 10)." He there calls "old men who are boys" those who kept their boyhood virginity right up to the time of old age. Earlier, indeed, Justin Martyr had declared this in these words: "And many men and many women of sixty and seventy years, who from childhood were made disciples of Christ, remain uncorrupted; and I pray to show such people in every race of men." "Very many indeed of both sexes, sixty and seventy years of age, who from boyhood have followed the discipline of Christ, persevere uncorrupted and unmarried. And I glory that I can point out such people throughout every race of men." (Justin Martyr, Apology 1, p. 62.) Concerning these, moreover, not only the virgins but also the Christian spouses, the same man afterwards, and Tertullian and our Minucius, related that Christians were either joined in wedlock solely for the sake of begetting and bringing up children, or, having refused it, remained in a state of perpetual continence. In like manner also and with the same public testimony Athenagoras repels the unjust accusation of the gentiles: "Each of us regards as his wife the woman whom he has married according to the laws laid down by us, and her only for the purpose of begetting children. For as the farmer, casting the seeds into the earth, awaits the harvest and does not sow over them, so for us too the begetting of children is the measure of desire. And you would find many among us, both men and women, growing old unmarried in the hope of being more closely united with God." "Therefore the wife whom, according to the laws approved by us, each one for himself

has married, he regards as directed to no other end than the procreation of offspring. For just as a farmer, after he has entrusted the seeds to the earth, awaits the time of harvest and does not cast other [seed] on top, so for us too the measure of desire is limited by the procreation of children. But you would find many of our people of both sexes who grow old in celibacy, because they know that in this state they will be more closely joined to God." (Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians, p. 36 ff.)

Finally, to pass over others, Origen certainly, in refuting the frivolous cavils of Celsus, makes it quite plain that men and women, after giving their names to the Christian religion, became as much more chaste as they had previously been impure and unchaste. "But from the time they have received the word, they have in a certain way become more reasonable, and more dignified, and more steadfast, so that some of them, through love of surpassing purity, and through worshipping the Divine more purely, do not even touch the sexual pleasures permitted by the law." "But from the time they received the word, they have been rendered so much more equitable, more serious, more steadfast; so much so that some of them, out of love of exceptional purity and in order to approach the worship of God more chastely, do not even make use of permitted and lawful love." (Origen, bk 1, Against Celsus, p. 21.) But in another book, after he has shown that the pagan philosophers wallowed in the mire of every kind of impurity, wantonness and baseness, he adds this about the Christians: "But those who are despised by them for their lack of learning, and are called fools and slaves, if only they trust themselves to God, having received the teaching of Jesus, are so far from licentiousness and impurity and all indecency in intercourse that, in the manner of perfect priests who have turned away from all intercourse, many of them are entirely pure, not only from all union... But among Christians, not for the sake of honours among men, not for wages and money, nor for a scrap of glory, they practise complete virginity, and as they saw fit to have God in their knowledge, they are kept by God in an approved mind and in doing what is fitting, filled with all righteousness and goodness." "But men who are unlearned, held by them as nothing, and stupid and servile, if only they commit themselves to faith in God and receive the teaching of Jesus, are so far removed from all wantonness, filthiness and baseness of lusts that, in the manner of perfect priests, shrinking from all intercourse, many of them live wholly chastely and purely, strangers to union with women, even lawful union... Among Christians, not for human honours, not for monetary rewards, not for petty glories, does the zeal for virginity flourish, and as soon as they have seen fit to have God in their knowledge, they are preserved by God in this praiseworthy mind and in the duties of piety, full of all goodness and justice (the same, bk 7, p. 364 ff.)." There he sets the Christians living in chastity or perpetual virginity against the pontiff of the Athenians, who, in order to perform the solemn ceremonies chastely, used hemlock,

against certain pagan virgins, but very few, who, for the sake of religion and honour or of reward, like that pontiff, were seen to remain in virginity. We, however, have discussed in other dissertations (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, book 3; Dissertation 1, chap. 5, art. 3, p. 708; ibid., Dissertation 2, chap. 10, art. 4, p. 1021) the continence and virginity kept by very many Christians through the whole course of their life, and the most chaste use of marriage among all the rest. But concerning both those virtues of the Christians something will still have to be said below (Dissertation on Lactantius, chap. 27, arts. 5 and 6).

Furthermore, when our author said, 'We gladly cleave to the bond of one marriage,' do not, I beg you, take it into your mind that a second marriage is disapproved by him: for he added 'gladly' precisely in order to signify by it that a Christian man may indeed take a second wife, but that this is granted to him by the Apostle as an indulgence. See, if you please, what we have remarked on this matter elsewhere (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, at the place cited, p. 2015 and following).

Article II.

How Minucius turns the argument of Caecilius back against the pagans, and shows from their own records that they enter into marriage with mothers and sisters, and that their gods are defiled with debauchery, adultery and incest.

It was not enough for our Minucius to have repelled the calumny of the pagans and laid open the innocence of the Christians: for he goes on and shows by the weightiest force of reasoning that the gentiles themselves are truly guilty of the debauchery, adultery and incest of which they were spitefully accusing the Christians. For 'it is lawful among the Persians,' as he says, 'to have intercourse with mothers; among the Egyptians and Athenians marriages with sisters are legitimate.' Concerning the Persians, moreover, besides Tertullian (Apology, chap. 9, p. 11), Tatian writes that to the Greeks it seems abominable for sons to be united with their own mothers, but that among the magi of the Persians this is especially praiseworthy (Tatian, Oration against the Greeks, p. 164). Origen, again, asserts that there are many laws by which the Persians 'are not kept, neither mothers from marriage with their sons, nor fathers from marriage with their daughters: "Not preventing mothers from being married to their sons, nor their own daughters to their fathers"' (Origen, Against Celsus, book 5, p. 248). How far, furthermore, what seems plainly execrable to other men was praiseworthy and approved among the Persians, you will learn from these words of Philo the Jew: 'The Persians in authority take their own mothers, and consider those born of them the most noble, and worthy, as the saying goes, of the greatest kingship. The more honourable Persians contract marriages with their mothers and consider those born of them the most noble, and deem them worthy of the royal throne, as they say.' (Philo, book On the Special Laws, p. 778.)

For these things, moreover, after Eusebius (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, book 1, chap. 4, p. 11), Theodoret is our witness that this most impious law was enacted by Zarades, and that, after the Christian faith had been received by these same Persians, it was at once abrogated. According to the

laws of Zarades the Persians formerly lived as citizens, having intercourse with mothers and sisters and daughters, and regarding lawlessness as lawful law; after they hearkened to the legislation of the fishermen, they trampled upon the laws of Zarades as lawlessness, and loved the evangelical temperance. "The Persians," he says, "who formerly, living by the laws of Zarades, had intercourse with their mothers and sisters and also their daughters, and held a most unjust thing in the place of a just law, after they heard the laws of the fishermen, trampled underfoot the laws of Zarades as wicked, and embraced the evangelical continence." Theodoret, vol. 4, sermon 9 On Laws, p. 614.) Now we have already discussed this abominable law and custom of the Persians (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, book 3, dissertation 2, chapter 24, article 1, p. 239 and following).

If we come to the Egyptians and the Athenians, Philo the Jew declares the marriage of both to be most wicked: "It is commanded that not even a sister is to be taken in marriage; an honourable precept indeed and suited to continence, although for the Athenians Solon, permitting them to marry sisters by the same father, forbade those by the same mother; the lawgiver of the Lacedaemonians, on the contrary, permitting marriage with those from the same womb, forbade it with those by the same father; but the [lawgiver] of the Egyptians, mocking the caution of both as of men issuing half-finished ordinances, brought forth abundantly into licentiousness, lavishing upon bodies and souls an evil hard to cure, incontinence, and granting licence to marry all sisters, both those belonging to one or the other of the parents, this one or that, and those from both, and not only the younger but also the older and those of equal age; for twins too were often born, whom nature at their very birth separated and parted, but intemperance and love of pleasure summoned into a fellowship that admits no fellowship, and a harmony that is inharmonious. "Solon observes this only in the case of uterine siblings; for those born of the same father he leaves it free. On the contrary, the lawgiver of the Lacedaemonians does not forbid marriage to uterine siblings, but only to those born of the same father. But the Egyptian, laughing at the simplicity and half-perfect decrees of both, loosened lust, and increased in bodies and souls the incurable evil of intemperance, granting licence to marry sisters, whether related through one parent or through both, older and younger alike, or of equal age, not even twin sisters excepted, whom nature itself separated at birth, but intemperance joined in an unsociable fellowship and an ill-contrived union." (Philo, at the place cited, p. 779 and following.)

Diodorus Siculus, moreover, had earlier said that marriage of sisters with brothers was permitted to the Egyptians by their laws, since this had turned out happily for Isis: to marry sisters on account of the success of Isis that came about in these matters (Diodorus Siculus, book 1 of the Library, p. 16).

The same most wicked law is mentioned by Pausanias, where he speaks thus of Ptolemy: This Ptolemy, having fallen in love with Arsinoe, his sister on both sides, married her, doing what was in no way customary among the Macedonians, but was so among the Egyptians, over whom he ruled; "Ptolemy

...led by love for Arsinoe, his own sister, he joined her to himself in marriage, and he did this, indeed, not by the law of the Macedonians but by that of the Egyptians, over whom he ruled (Pausanias I, p. 6). Aemilius Probus too, or the author of the little book On Illustrious Men, to Atticus, is read to have related the same things of Cimon's marriage among the Athenians with his sister Elpinice. Plutarch, however, says that she was married by him because he had not found a bride equal to the dignity of his family (Plutarch, vol. I, Life of Cimon, p. 481). Athenaeus, indeed, asserts that this was done against the laws (Athenaeus, Deipnosophists XIII, p. 589). But we think that what our author related about these wicked and abominable marriages, both of the Athenians and of the Egyptians, has been sufficiently proved by us so far.

He presses on, however, more sharply, and disputes thus against Caecilius and the heathen: "Your memorials and tragedies glory in incests, which you gladly both read and hear. So too you worship incestuous gods." He had used the word "memorials" above: "Look into the memorials in books." And this word is used rather often by A. Gellius. For somewhere he says: "It is written in the books of memorials" (A. Gellius, Attic Nights V, 5). And elsewhere more simply: "We read it written in the old memorials" (book IV, ch. 6). "Memorials," then, mean the same as writings, commentaries and the things that had been committed to letters for the remembrance of events. In which sense Tertullian also said: "Among the other things of the memorials (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 18)"; and a little after, "the hoary memorials (ch. 19, p. 19)." And elsewhere: "According to the memorials the people of the Jews, that is, the elder, forsook God and served idols (Against the Jews, ch. 1, p. 205)." Octavius therefore rightly reproaches Caecilius with the Memorials gladly read and heard by the gentiles, that is, the writings and books of historians or of poets, in which the incests of their gods were represented in writing, and the tragedies, in which they were represented by voice and gesture. For there is no one who does not know that in the comedies and tragedies of the poets, both Greek and Latin, and in the histories of other heathens, the debaucheries, adulteries and incests of the gods are sung no less frequently than shamelessly. See, if you have leisure and inclination, what Lactantius (Institutes VI, 20, p. 619; and in the Epitome, ch. 63), Cyprian (Letter to Donatus, p. 5), Augustine (City of God II, 8 ff.) and others said about these comedies and tragedies. But we [shall say] more about them in this and our following dissertations.

Finally Octavius convicts the heathen of incest in another way, because newborn children, as he had already said and as we observed earlier (preceding chapter, art. 3), were very often exposed by their parents. For it not seldom happened that those most wicked and most lustful parents defiled themselves by abominable incest with sons grown older, or with daughters reduced to slavery or living a harlot's life, either not knowing, or pretending not to know. Hence Clement of Alexandria: Fathers, unknowing, often have intercourse with a son who has prostituted himself and with daughters who play the harlot, not remembering the children they exposed, and licence of incontinence shows those who begot them to be [their] men; these things the wise laws permit. "Fathers often lie with a son who sells himself and with daughters who are harlots. Forgetful of the children they exposed, the excessive licence of lust makes those who begot them into their lovers. These things the wise laws permit" (Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus III, 3, p. 226). Thus he pursues with sharp mockery the gentiles and their monstrous savagery and cruelty in exposing their children. And not without reason does he complain that incests often arose from it. Nevertheless Tertullian (Apology, ch. 9) and Lactantius (VI, 20, p. 618 ff.) pursue our Minucius's argument against them more expressly and more fully, and to them, so as not to be too long, we have thought fit to send you, until we undertake a new disputation on their books.

CHAPTER XI.

On the absurd worship which Caecilius most falsely charges that the Christians paid to an ass's head and to the genitals of the priest.

ARTICLE ONE.

How false this accusation is, and whether the Jews or the Gnostics gave occasion to it, and were the first of all actually to worship an ass's head.

The heathen brought against the Christians another crime, as absurdly invented as it was impious, which Caecilius throws at Octavius in these words: "I hear that they worship the consecrated head of the foulest of beasts, an ass, by I know not what persuasion." Tertullian explains this ridiculous accusation more clearly, and lays open its occasion and cause in these words: "You have dreamed," so he addresses the gentiles, "that an ass's head is our god. Cornelius Tacitus planted a suspicion of this kind. For in the fifth book of his Histories, beginning the Jewish war from the origin of the nation, and having argued what he pleased both about the origin itself and about the name and religion of the nation, he relates that the Jews, released from Egypt or, as he thought, banished, when they were wasting with thirst in the desolate places of Arabia, utterly without water, used as guides to a spring wild asses that happened to be thought to be going to seek drink after grazing, and for that favour consecrated the likeness of a similar beast. And so, I suppose, it was presumed from this that we too, as near kin of the Jewish religion, are initiated into the same image" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 16, p. 17). And he repeats this in another book (the same, To the Nations I, 11, p. 58 ff.). But how justly Tertullian

said that this absurd calumny must be traced back to Cornelius Tacitus, infer from these words of the same Tacitus in the fifth book of the Histories already cited: "But nothing distressed the Jews so much as the lack of water. And now, not far from death, they had lain down all over the plains, when a herd of wild asses went off from pasture to a rock shaded by a grove. Moses followed and, inferring it from the grassy soil, opened abundant veins of water... The image of the animal by whose guidance they had driven off their wandering and their thirst they consecrated in the inner sanctuary, slaying a ram as if in insult to Hammon" (Cornelius Tacitus, Histories book 5, beginning). But although Tertullian, at least in this matter not undeservedly, calls Tacitus "the most talkative of liars", Plutarch nevertheless subscribed to his false opinion, where he speaks thus of the same Jews: "Now it is a matter of religious scruple for them both to kill and to eat the pig. And perhaps this is consistent with reason. As they honour the ass that revealed a spring of water to them. Just as the ass, which showed them a spring of water, has its own honour among them, so they revere the pig as the teacher of sowing and ploughing." (Plutarch, vol. 2, Symposiacs book 4, p. 670.)

What, indeed, of the fact that Democritus the historian too, as Suidas relates, handed down to memory these things about the Jews: "They worshipped a golden head of an ass; every third year they caught a stranger and offered him up, and cut his flesh into small pieces, and so killed him": "They adored the head of an ass, and every third year they seized a guest and offered him, and cut up his flesh piece by piece, and so killed him" (Suidas, under the word "Judas"). Hence perhaps it came about that, in mockery of this absurd cult, though plainly a fictitious one, a certain Zeno of Alexandria, at first a Jew, as the same Suidas reports (the same, under the word "Zeno"), having renounced his religion, led a white ass through their synagogue on the sabbath day.

But Josephus, where he replies to Appion, who brought the same calumny, demonstrates its falsity by various arguments. His words, moreover, must be set out, which, although they are missing in the Greek copy, are nevertheless found thus in Latin in the printed editions: "Appion presumed to declare that the Jews had placed the head of an ass in the sanctuary, and worshipped it and held it worthy of so great reverence. And he affirms that this was disclosed when Antiochus Epiphanes both despoiled the temple and found that head, made of gold and worth much money. To this, then, I reply first that an Egyptian, even if there had been anything of the kind among us, ought by no means to have reproached us, since an ass is not worse than the ferrets and goats and others which are gods among them. Next, how did he not perceive that he is refuted by the facts concerning his incredible lie? For we always use the same laws, in which we have stood firm without end. And although various misfortunes have troubled our city, as also those of others, and Theos and Pompey the Great and Licinius Crassus, and last of all Titus Caesar, conquering in war, have taken possession of the temple, nothing of this kind did they

find" (Josephus, Against Apion, bk 2, p. 1065). To this insipid lie, then, so often both repeated and repelled, Josephus makes two replies. First, he turns the argument back against Apion himself, an Egyptian, and shows that his complaint on this charge is most unjust: for the Egyptians, with a worship no less absurd and impious, adored and venerated beasts. Second, he proves that the thing is not merely false but utterly incredible: for the Jews, who always held every kind of idolatry whatsoever, and therefore the worship of an ass's head, however golden, in the utmost hatred, have always lived under the same laws. Then, as for what Apion relates concerning Antiochus Epiphanes, Josephus shows that it is entirely at odds with the truth itself. For indeed no one, neither Pompey the Great nor other Roman commanders, who entered the temple at Jerusalem after winning victories over the Jews, ever found any image of an ass's head in it.

Nor could Tacitus deny this, whom Tertullian refutes by his very own testimony and attacks as a forgetful liar: "But indeed the same Cornelius Tacitus," these are Tertullian's very words, "truly that most talkative of liars, relates in the same History that Gnaeus Pompey, when he had taken Jerusalem and had therefore approached the temple to spy out the secrets of the Jewish religion, found no image there. And certainly, if what was worshipped was represented by some likeness, it would have been displayed nowhere more than in its own sanctuary; all the more because, however vain the worship, it had no fear of outside witnesses: for it was lawful for the priests alone to approach, and the sight of it was barred to all others by a curtain spread before it" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 16, p. 17). We read the same things handed down by him again, though in other words, written in the first book To the Nations (ch. 11). And rightly so; for Cornelius Tacitus had in fact written this in the book cited: "Gnaeus Pompey was the first of the Romans to subdue the Jews, and he entered the temple by right of victory. Thence it became widely known that there was no likeness of the gods within," painted, that is, or fashioned, "the seat empty and the sanctuary void" (Tacitus, Histories, bk 5, after the beginning).

Further, from what has been argued so far, who would not see that absolutely no credence is to be given either to this Cornelius Tacitus or to the other wicked slanderers, who most shamelessly lied that some divine worship was paid to an ass's head first by the Jews, then by the Christians?

As to where so rotten a tale arose, Bochart (Bochart, On the Animals of Sacred Scripture, vol. 1, ch. 18, p. 221 ff.) and Vossius (Vossius, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry, bk 3, ch. 75, p. 565) have given various explanations, besides the one already brought forward by us. Since these, however, can easily be read by anyone in their books, we shall add only what Tertullian records about a certain Jew, a most abandoned man. For he, after abjuring

the Jewish religion "put up a picture," says that learned African writer, "with an inscription of this kind: The God of the Christians, Onochoetes" (Tertullian, To the Nations book 1, ch. 11, p. 57 and following). Then he adds that this fictitious god was represented with ass's ears, hoofed on one foot, carrying a book and wearing a toga (the same, Apology, ch. 16, p. 17), as we shall explain in its proper place. To this, moreover, Epiphanius, where he takes up his discourse on the Gnostics, those most notorious heretics among the Christians, committed this to memory and to writing: "As regards Sabaoth, some hold that he has the form of an ass, others that of a pig" (Epiphanius, Heresies 26, § 10, p. 91). But whether this or any other invented reason gave some occasion for charging the Christians with a most wicked worship of this kind, our Minucius certainly denies plainly and thoroughly that that slander of the wicked deserter of the Jewish religion, and that most absurd worship of the Gnostics, in any way at all concerned the true Christians. Indeed he openly and steadfastly asserts that this false rumour about the worship of an ass's head was spread and broadcast by the demons, and that no man of sound mind could ever have given it credence. "For who," he says, "is so foolish as to worship this? Who is more foolish, as to believe that this is worshipped?" He therefore asserts that it is a mere calumny and a most shameless lie, utterly incredible to any man whatever unless he is altogether out of his wits. Furthermore, he does not refute it with more words, since he considered that by denying it once he had sufficiently confuted it.

Article II.

How Minucius proved that the heathen, who impiously worshipped and venerated asses together with Epona and Isis, and the heads of oxen and wethers, were guilty of this crime, and of one like it or worse.

How great was the madness of the heathen who accused the Christians of the worship of an ass, our author makes plain from this: that they themselves were most certainly convicted, not once but very often, of the same or a similar outrage. And this is proved by him with so many examples that the heathen dared make no reply at all, or even open their mouths. He therefore begins with the very worship which they paid to asses and to Epona, thus: "You consecrate even whole asses together with your (the Royal codex has added or) Epona." But very many hold that a scribal error lurks there, which each has tried to correct according to the sharpness of his own wit. For some threw out that or, and wanted it written in the printed editions simply "with your Epona." Of these, however, some suspected that someone had noted in the margin "with Hippona." But these are mere conjectures, supported by no authority or testimony. Others, again, ordered it to be written in their edition "with your or his Epona." This conjecture, though against the faith of the manuscript, they strive to confirm, but wrongly, by words of Tertullian to be cited shortly. Finally, some think it should be emended to "with Vesta, or Epona;" because the gentiles as a firm conviction

held that the ass was the darling of Vesta. But surely, even if it had really been among Vesta's darlings, it still remained to be proved that asses were consecrated to her, and why Minucius said "or Epona." Moreover, he ought to have written "and Epona," and all the more because he immediately added that asses were sacrificed to Isis. What then if the particle vel is taken by our author, as by many others, for etiam ("also")? Will not his expression be Latin and clear, and nothing need be changed in his text?

Who, further, Epona was, Plutarch, following Agesilaus (Ages. III Italic.), explains in these words: "Fulvius Stellus, being averse in mind to women, had intercourse with a mare. In due time she bore a very beautiful daughter, to whom the father gave the name Epona, 'he named her Hippona'; and this is the goddess who has charge of the breeding of horses" (Plutarch, vol. 2, in the Parallels, p. 312).

That her image, moreover, was customarily placed in stables they gather from these words of Juvenal:

He swears / by Hippo alone, and by the faces painted at the reeking stalls. (Juvenal, Satires 8, line 157.)

There, however, some would have Eponam read instead of Hippo. Concerning this same image of Epona, or Hippona, set up in stables, these are the words of Apuleius: "I look back and see, on the middle pillar which held up the beams of the stable, almost in its very centre, an image of the goddess Hippona, or Epona, sitting in a little shrine, which had been carefully crowned with wreaths of roses, and fresh ones at that" Apuleius, Metamorphoses book 3, near the end ).

For the rest, our Minucius, while he reproaches the heathen with that impious worship of Epona, seems to be treading in the footsteps of Tertullian, who had argued against them in like manner thus: "You, however, will not deny that all beasts of burden, and whole geldings together with their Epona, are worshipped by you. This perhaps is what we are condemned for, that among worshippers of all cattle and beasts we are only ass-worshippers" (Tertullian, Apology ch. 16, p. 17, and To the Nations ch. 11, p. 58). He repeats the same things, in mostly the same words, in another book also. Therefore Prudentius hisses this senseless divinity off the stage in these verses:

No one gives the goddesses Cloacina or Epona a throne above the stars, / though he pay out a whole box of incense, / and with sacrilegious hands search through the sacrificial meal and the entrails. (Prudentius, Apotheosis, § 2.)

After this Octavius goes on to rebuke Caecilius and the other heathen thus: "The same asses together with Isis you religiously devotatis," in the royal manuscript "devoratis," but this seems to nearly everyone a copyist's error. Some therefore thought one should read "devotatis," that is, you show them to be devoted. But they ought to have proved where the verb devotare is taken in that sense. Others guessed that "denotatis" was written. But what has that to do with Octavius's purpose? Others held that it should be emended to "devocatis," in the sense in which Socrates is said by good authors to have called philosophy down from heaven. But to what end, pray, a calling-down of asses together with Isis? Others, finally, judge that it should be corrected

"decoratis," because they venerated together both the image of the ass carrying the goddess Isis and that of Isis herself, decorated with varied adornment. Nor does this conjecture seem altogether unfitting; for we have already heard Apuleius saying that the statue of the goddess Epona was carefully crowned with fresh little garlands of roses. In another book, moreover, he declares no less clearly that the image of Isis was customarily carried about by her priests through cottages, villages and camps, covered with a silken mantle, and was worshipped by all the gentiles who met it (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, book 6, near the end). Weigh, then, whether this is the meaning of our Minucius, and whether "decorated" should be read in his text. For we think that nothing should be settled with certainty without the authority of a sound manuscript.

Let us pass, then, to other matters: "Of oxen," he adds, "the heads, and the heads of wethers, you both sacrifice and worship." But concerning the worship and sacrifice of oxen Herodotus speaks thus: "All the Egyptians sacrifice (thuousi) male oxen, and those clean ones, and calves. But it is not lawful for them to sacrifice (thuein) the females, inasmuch as they are consecrated to Isis. For the statue of Isis is a woman's, furnished with cow's horns, just as the Greeks depict Io. And all the Egyptians alike revere female cattle most of all livestock: and the same Egyptians, all of them, venerate female cattle far the most of all beasts; and for this reason no Egyptian man or woman would kiss a Greek man on the mouth, or use his knife, or spit, or pot, or eat the clean flesh of an ox cut with a Greek knife" (Herodotus, book 2, § 41).

What then? someone will object. Is it not altogether false that any veneration was shown to the ox by the Egyptians, seeing that they sacrificed it to the gods? Eusebius indeed most openly denied that oxen were held as gods by those same Egyptians, since they sacrificed those very oxen to them. And these are his words: That they do not consider even the animals gods is shown by the fact that in many places oxen are offered to the gods at the sacred festivals: "That they, the Egyptians, by no means thought brute animals to be gods is plain even from this, that in very many places they were accustomed to sacrifice oxen consecrated to the gods at solemn festivals and in the rites of the gods" (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, book 3, chapter 12, page 117). Let him nevertheless consider whether, once Herodotus's distinction between the ox, male and female, has been made, the knot of this difficulty is not untied.

For no one will deny that the Egyptians at times showed reverence and honour to the ox, since, besides very many others, Philo the Jew has left this written about them: Forgetting their piety towards Him Who Is, they become zealots for the Egyptian fictions, and then, having fashioned a golden bull, an imitation of the animal held to be most sacred in that country, they offered unholy sacrifices. "The Israelites, forgetting the true God, began to emulate the Egyptian fictions, having made a golden calf in imitation of that most sacred animal of theirs, to which they performed profane rites and led dances, etc." (Philo.

book 3 On the Life of Moses, p. 677). And Jerome likewise: "It seems to me that the people of Israel made for themselves in the wilderness the head of a calf to worship, and that Jeroboam the son of Nebat fashioned golden calves, for this reason: that what they had learned in Egypt, that Apis and Mnevis, who are worshipped under the form of oxen, are gods, they might keep in this superstition" (Jerome, on chapter 47 of Hosea, v. 15). But earlier Lactantius too says of the same Israelites: "Having slipped into luxury," he says, "they turned their minds to the profane rites of the Egyptians. For when Moses their leader had gone up into the mountain and was staying there for 40 days, they fashioned the golden head of an ox, which they call Apis, to go before them as a standard" (Lactantius, book 4, chapter 10, p. 576). But of the ox Apis we shall treat a little below.

Nor, further, should it trouble anyone that both Lactantius and Jerome said "the head of a calf," just as our Minucius said heads of oxen. For by that manner of speaking they signify nothing other than the calf or the oxen themselves, whole. On this matter you may consult Bochart, if you please (Bochart, book 2 On the Animals of Sacred Scripture, chapter 34, p. 346).

In plainly the same sense our author added: and "the heads of wethers." But there is no one, without doubt, who does not know that a wether is a castrated male sheep. We, moreover, have noted elsewhere that the Samians did in fact pay worship to the sheep, and for what reason (Vol. 1 of the Apparatus, book 3, dissertation 1, chapter 9, article 3, p. 768). But this did not prevent sacrifice being made by others to the Lares, as Cicero witnesses: "Nor is it necessary," he says, "for us to set out . . . what kind of sacrifice is made to the Lar with wethers" (Cicero, book 2 On the Laws, p. 340). This Lambinus indeed confirms, in his observations on this passage of Cicero, by this inscription of the Arval Brethren:

To the Lares, wethers, number 2; to the Mother of the Lares, sheep, number 2.

Then indeed he relates that, on account of the name of Augustus being conferred on Octavius Caesar, and in memory of this event, a "wether" was sacrificed by the flamen in the temple of Jupiter on the Ides of January. For which reason Ovid sang these lines:

On the Ides, in the temple of great Jupiter, the chaste priest offers to the flames the entrails of a half-male sheep. / And every province was restored to our people, / and your grandfather was called by the name Augustus.

(Ovid, Fasti book 1, v. 346 and following.

Article III.

How Minucius further proved that gods compounded of goat and man, and bearing the faces of lions and dogs, were worshipped and adored by the gentiles, likewise the ox Apis, serpents, crocodiles, and other birds and beasts, and even the onion, and the breaking of wind.

Minucius goes on, so that the heathen might be ashamed of the utterly witless calumny by which they falsely accused the Christians of the worship of an ass: "Gods compounded," he says, "of goat and man, and gods with the faces of lions and dogs, you dedicate." Such as he describes the first, such without doubt was Pan, whom thus by painters and

sculptors Herodotus relates to have been represented: "The painters and the image-makers paint and carve the image of Pan, just as the Greeks do, goat-faced and goat-legged." "The likeness of Pan both the painters paint and the sculptors carve, as the Greeks do, with a goat's face and he-goat's legs" (Herodotus, book 2, § 46). He adds, however, that they thought Pan was like the other gods, but was depicted by them in that manner for certain reasons, which he declares it is not at all agreeable to him to relate. The Satyrs too were imagined with a human head indeed, but horned, with goat's feet and a shaggy body. Lucian, moreover, says that these, like Pan and Silenus, were remarkable for a monstrous form: "Of whom the one, having horns, and from the half downwards resembling a goat, and letting a deep beard hang down. . . . and the satyrs, sharp in the ears, themselves too bald, horned, such as the horns that sprout on newly born kids." "Of whom this one indeed, bearing horns, resembling a goat in half of his body, and growing a deep beard, differs little from a he-goat. . . . The Satyrs with sharp ears, and themselves bald, horned, with horns such as generally grow on kids newly born" (Lucian, in the Banquet of the Gods, p. 1096). Hence Propertius, book 3, Elegy 16:

The goat-footed Pans will sing on the gaping reed.

And Lucretius, book 4, before the middle:

These places, the neighbours imagine, are held by goat-footed Satyrs and Nymphs, and they say there are Fauns.

If you want other witnesses to a matter by no means unknown, you may consult Eusebius, Servius, Vossius, Natalis Comes, and not a few others (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, book 3, ch. 4, p. 124; Servius on Virgil, Eclogue 2, v. 31; Vossius, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry, book 1, ch. 8, p. 31, and book 7, ch. 3, p. 359).

Of those gods, moreover, who bore the faces of lions and dogs, and of other monstrous figures of gods, mention has not infrequently been made by various writers. For first we read these things handed down by Porphyry in Eusebius: "In fashioning the images of the divinities they made use of every kind of animal, sometimes mingling wild beasts together with men, sometimes joining the bodies of birds and likewise of men." "For among them one is represented as man-shaped up to the neck, but having the face of a bird, or of a lion, or of some other animal; and again a human head, and parts of certain other animals, in some cases placed beneath, in others placed above." "You may see among them certain images of human form as far as the neck, but in the face resembling now a bird, now a lion, or any other animal you please; and others again like men indeed in the head, but in the remaining parts of the body, now the lower, now the upper, showing the form of other living creatures" (in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, book 3, ch. 4, p. 93). He had, moreover, borrowed these things from the fourth book of Porphyry On Abstinence from Animal Food, and thence, fighting against the heathen,

the weapon hurled by them against the Christians he turns back upon them, in the same way as Minucius (Porphyry, book 4, before the middle, p. 372.)

But Tertullian, arguing in like manner against the same gentiles, had carried the torch before our author in these words: "But they ought at once to have worshipped a two-formed deity, since they have accepted gods mixed with a dog's and a lion's head, 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" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 16). And again in another book: There are among you, the gentiles that is, gods with a goat's head, and with a lion's, and from the ox and the ram, and goat-gods from the he-goat, goat-born, or snake-formed, and winged on foot, brow and back" (the same, To the Nations, book 1, ch. 14).

These things can moreover be confirmed by the words of others, but above all by these very words of Macrobius: "The city adjoining that same Egypt, which glories in Alexander the Great of Macedon as its founder, observes Serapis and Isis with a worship of almost awestruck veneration. Yet it testifies that it pays all that veneration to the sun under his name; or when they add to the image a three-headed creature, which in its middle and largest head represents the likeness of a lion; on the right side a dog rises up with the gentle appearance of one fawning; but the left part of the neck ends in the head of a ravening wolf; and a serpent links these animal forms with its coil, its head returning to the god's right hand, where the monster is seen" (Macrobius, Saturnalia, book 1, ch. 20).

But let us, if you please, follow our author: "Do you not," he says, "both worship and feed the ox Apis with the Egyptians?" For the feeding and worship of this monstrous deity, if you seek a witness, you will find Strabo, who relates that Memphis was the royal city of the Egyptians, where there was a temple of Apis, who is the same as Osiris: "And the ox Mnevis, kept in a certain enclosure, which is regarded among them as a god, just as Apis is at Memphis." "And the ox Mnevis, which is fed in a certain enclosure and is held as a god by them, the Heliopolitans, as Apis is by the Memphites" (Strabo, Geography, book 17, p. 803 ff.). He adds that it is indicated by certain signs which other [ox], when he has died, is fit for the succession. If you want more still, go to Diodorus Siculus, who also relates how that ox Apis was customarily committed to burial after death and another put in his place, by whom he was fed, and where he was installed and honoured. You may moreover consult Herodotus, Aelian, Mela, Porphyry as cited by Eusebius, Cicero, and, if you wish, what we have reported in the first volume of our Apparatus (Diodorus Siculus, Library, book 1, p. 53 ff.; Herodotus, book 2, § 27; Aelian, On Animals, book 10, ch. 28; Mela, On the Situation of the World, ch. 9; Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, book 3, ch. 13, p. 117; Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book 1, p. 207; Apparatus, vol. 1, p. 1090 ff.).

Minucius moreover imputes it to the Romans as a vice and a crime that not only did they worship the ox Apis with the Egyptians, but also had not condemned what those people, concerning beasts, birds, crocodiles and serpents, had thus established;

so that if anyone had killed any of them, he would be punished with death. Very many writers have made mention of this impious custom of the Egyptians. But to select some out of their great number, let Cicero come forward first, who sets out in these few words how great the superstition of those peoples was: "The Egyptians have consecrated almost every kind of beast" (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book 2, p. 245, line 25; ibid., book 1, p. 207, line 18). And elsewhere he records that this superstition had gone so far that it was not even heard of by report that a crocodile or an ibis or a cat had been harmed by them. Indeed: "Even if they have done anything to these unwittingly," as he says in another book, "they refuse no punishment" (Tusculans, book 5, p. 189, line 25). Furthermore, Herodotus speaks no less plainly of this penalty for harming an animal: "Of these beasts," he says, "if anyone kills one, if willingly, he is punished with death; if unwillingly, he is fined with whatever penalty the priests have fixed" (Herodotus, book 2, § 65). Tertullian, moreover, in whose footsteps our author still seems to stand, reports this about the same Egyptians: "No one will wish to be worshipped by one who is unwilling, not even a man; and therefore the Egyptians too have been granted the liberty of so vain a superstition, of consecrating birds and beasts, and of condemning to death anyone who has killed a god of this kind" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 24, p. 26).

We ourselves have touched somewhat on this ridiculous worship of the Egyptians in the earlier volume of our Apparatus. But if this does not suffice you, we shall send you to Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Aelian, who gave Plutarch as his surety, Cyril of Jerusalem, Jerome and Theodoret (Apparatus, vol. 1, pp. 496 and 636; Herodotus, book 2, § 65 ff.; Diodorus Siculus, Library, book 1, pp. 52, 54 ff.; Strabo, Geography, book 17, p. 811 ff.; Aelian, On Animals, book 10, ch. 13, and book 17, ch. 5; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 6, p. 61; Jerome, Against Jovinian, book 2, p. 59; Theodoret, Discourse on Angels and Demons, p. 521). As for Minucius' addition that these superstitions of the Egyptians were not condemned by the Romans, anyone will readily grant it who remembers that the religions of all other peoples, however absurd, were either adopted or tolerated by them. For, as Caecilius himself said: "While they take up the rites of all nations, they have also earned dominion."

Still more absurd was what Minucius adds, that the Egyptians, together with most of the Romans, feared the pungency of onions and the rumblings of the belly. Yet that this too, no less than the foregoing, was true and certain you will be able to learn from these verses of Juvenal:

Who does not know, Volusius of Bithynia, what monsters mad Egypt worships? This part adores the crocodile, that one dreads the ibis gorged with serpents; the golden image of a sacred long-tailed ape gleams, . . . these [worship] the sea-blue ones, here a river fish, there whole towns venerate flesh, no one Diana. It is sacrilege to violate the leek and onion and break them with a bite. O holy peoples, for whom such deities grow in their gardens! (Juvenal, Satire 15, beginning.)

We read similar things sung afterwards by Prudentius, thus:

Do you pray to Venus? Pray also to the ape.

Does the sacred asp of Aesculapius please you?

Why do crocodiles, the ibis and dogs displease you?

Set holy little altars on the couches,

venerate the bitter onion, the biting garlic.

(Prudentius, Hymn in Honour of St Romanus, line 256 ff.)

For this reason Pliny had said without hesitation of the onion: "Egypt holds garlic and onions among the gods in the swearing of oaths" (Pliny, Natural History 19.6, p. 593). If you ask the causes of this ridiculous veneration and worship, we shall give them in Plutarch's words: "The priests avoid and loathe the onion, guarding against it, because it alone naturally thrives and flourishes while the moon is waning. Nor is it suitable either for those keeping themselves pure or for those keeping a feast: for the former because it makes those who take it thirsty, for the latter because it makes them weep." "The priests shun the onion and beware of it, because this plant alone is wont to thrive and grow while the moon is decreasing; and the use of the onion is suitable neither for those practising chastity nor for those celebrating feast days: for the one because it causes thirst, for the other because it draws forth tears" (Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, p. 853). Aulus Gellius indeed related that first cause from the same Plutarch, but he asserts that the Egyptian priests said it of the Pelusiots (Gellius, Attic Nights 20.8). And not undeservedly, but quite rightly. For Lucian related that these Pelusiots were devoted to this ridiculous and absurd worship, just as others were to another: "For the Memphites the ox is a god, for the Pelusiots the onion, and for others the ibis or the crocodile, and for others the dog-headed ape, or the cat, or the monkey." "For the Memphites indeed the ox is a god, but for the Pelusiots the onion, then for others the stork or the crocodile, for others the dog-headed ape, or the cat, or the monkey" (Lucian, Dialogue Zeus the Tragedian, p. 699 ff.). Wherefore Jerome: "Drive, he says, if you can, a Pelusiot to eat an onion (Jerome, Against Jovinian, p. 59).

Elsewhere, however, the same Jerome speaks thus both of the same onion and of the breaking of wind from the belly, which our author mentions in the second place: "Most of their towns, those of the Egyptians, from beasts... to say nothing of the dreadful and horrible onion, and the breaking of wind from a swollen belly, which is the religion of Pelusium" (the same, on Isaiah chapter 46). Pseudo-Clement supports Jerome; concerning these and other things of which our author treats, he spoke these words: "Of the Egyptians, some handed down that the ox, which is called Apis, was to be worshipped, others the he-goat, others cats, some the ibis, certain ones the serpent, also the fish and onions, and the breakings of wind from the belly, and sewers, and the members of brute animals, and they subjected themselves to a thousand other most hateful foulnesses" (Pseudo-Clement, Recognitions book 5, §20, p. 466). He mentions similar things elsewhere, which you will be able to consult if you have leisure (the same, Homily 10, p. 657). What then is to be said of the Romans, who, as we have said, either did not disapprove of those insane rites or followed them, and yet patiently bore their being derided by the poets?

Article IV.

That it is false that the virile members of a priest are adored by Christians, and that the heathen are convicted of fouler shameful deeds; and what was the occasion for accusing the Christians of that most shameful veneration.

Caecilius charges the Christians with yet another deed, full indeed of disgrace and dishonour, but in such a way that he does not dare to accuse them of so great a shamelessness with certainty: 'Others,' he says, 'report that they worship the genitals of their very bishop and priest, and adore, as it were, the nature of their parent.' Nothing indeed is more futile than this calumny or less founded in truth. Caecilius says, moreover, that it was put about not by all, but only by some, who peddled by false rumour what they did not dare to assert.

Octavius therefore, as is his custom, washes away with a twofold reply this plainly fictitious charge, most unjustly branded upon the Christians. For first he denies that it was ever done by them, and declares that it is a ridiculous fable and sheer calumny. Then he asserts that the heathen are defiled by far fouler obscenities, which it was not lawful either to name or to hear with chaste ears But it is better that this be stated in his words rather than ours: 'He who tells tales against us about the adored virile members of a priest is trying to transfer to us what is his own. For these may perhaps be the sacred rites of the Shamelessness of those among whom every sex prostitutes itself with every member, among whom all shamelessness is called refinement; who envy the licence of harlots, who lick men in the middle, who cling with lustful mouth to the groin, men of foul tongue even if they were silent; who grow weary of their shamelessness sooner than they are ashamed of it. O horror! They commit upon themselves a deed of the worst crime, which neither a softer age can endure nor a harsher servitude be forced to. These and suchlike shameful things we may not even hear; it is shameful even to defend [ourselves] at greater length.' Although he said that it was wrong for these most shameful outrages of the heathen to be set out more clearly, or to be heard by any Christian, or to be defended by any other man whatever, they were none the less true and known to all. For besides the various testimonies of the poets and others, and above all of Martial, about them, the most holy Apostle, in his Epistle to the Romans alone, reproached the gentiles with several things, and these most grave, with all the stronger right as he knew more certainly than certain that they were true (Rom. 1:6).

Rightly, therefore, does our author turn the argument of the heathen back upon them. For no one was ever able to prove that the Christians were guilty of so great a crime, of which they were suspected. Nay rather, their most pious manner of life plainly and utterly removed so ridiculous a suspicion. On the contrary, the gentiles were certainly convicted of this and of still greater crimes by their own authors, as has been said, and by other witnesses worthy of all credence.

But, someone will say, although utterly from the truth

it was far removed that the genitals of the priest were worshipped by Christians; yet it is not credible that a public rumour of that horrible crime was spread unless at least some occasion had been given. Whoever, then, wishes to know what that occasion was, to him we shall answer that the Christians who, in the earlier centuries of the Church, were doing public penance for their offences and graver crimes prostrated themselves outside the doors and threshold of the church at the feet of all, especially of the priests, so that they might obtain their pardon; but the Gentiles, when they had picked this up from vague and uncertain report, thence concocted the tale that the genitals of the priest were worshipped by them. For concerning penitents of this kind, of whom we [have spoken] more fully elsewhere, Tertullian writes these words above all: « Exomologesis is a discipline of prostrating and humbling a man..... Very often to nourish prayers with fasts, to groan, to weep, and to cry out day and night to the Lord his God, to roll oneself at the feet of the presbyters, and to kneel before the dear ones of God, to enjoin upon all the brethren embassies of his supplication » (Tertullian, book On Penance, ch. 6, p. 146). And again he, although, entangled at that time in the errors of the Montanists, he had fallen away from the true doctrine of the Church: « And you indeed, » he says, « bringing the penance of the adulterer into the church to entreat the brotherhood, set him forth prostrate in the midst, clad in haircloth and covered in ashes, composed in disgrace and horror, before the widows, before the presbyters, grasping at the hems of all, licking the footprints of all, clasping the knees of all « (the same, book On Modesty, ch. 13, p. 729).

Eusebius also relates that Natalius the confessor, thoroughly deceived by the heretics Asclepiodotus and Theodotus the banker, was, on accepting a salary, made bishop of their sect. But, though often warned of so great a crime by visions in the night, since he disregarded them, he was most severely beaten with whips by holy angels through the whole night: « So that, rising at dawn and putting on sackcloth and sprinkling himself with ash, with much haste and with tears he fell down before Zephyrinus the bishop, rolling under the feet not only of those in the clergy but also of the laity, and with his tears moved the compassionate Church of the merciful Christ. « So that, rising at first dawn, he put on sackcloth and, sprinkled with ash, at once threw himself with tears at the feet of Zephyrinus the bishop, prostrate at the footprints not only of the clergy but also of the laity, and with his weeping moved and shook the Church of the merciful Christ, itself merciful too. » Who, then, will deny that it is most likely that the heathen, from this pious and holy custom, which they either had not sufficiently understood or maliciously misinterpreted, seized a handle for falsely accusing the Christians of that shameful adoration of which our author speaks.

CHAPTER XII.

Other accusations of Caecilius, and Octavius's replies to them, are examined.

ARTICLE ONE.

How undeservedly Caecilius condemns the synaxes and fasts of the Christians, and says that they are men of a desperate faction, a light-shunning nation, recognizing one another by secret signs, and loving one another before they know one another.

The heathen tried to defame the Christians with other abuse rather than lawful accusations. For what they charged as sins and crimes, the Christians contended were most excellent, to be approved, and rightly instituted. Such beyond doubt is the charge of which Caecilius accuses the Christians as of some crime, namely that by nocturnal assemblies and solemn fasts they are bound together "not by some sacred rite but by an act of guilt." But they gladly confessed that this was as true as it was false that in those synaxes, which they used to hold on "a solemn day," as Caecilius says, anything but what was most holy was performed. And this is certainly proved most evidently by what was drawn by us elsewhere about them from the Apology of Justin Martyr, and will be brought forward below from Tertullian. But surely this has already been sufficiently demonstrated from what we have so far brought forward against the shameless calumnies of Caecilius, by which he wrongly alleged that crimes no less abominable than incredible were committed in them.

Do you want yet another witness given you, in this matter above all exception? We shall produce Pliny, a heathen man to be sure, to whom the task of diligently inquiring into the crimes with which the Christians were charged had been entrusted by the emperor Trajan. He, having investigated everything with the greatest diligence he could, wrote to him that Christians who, as he says, had fallen away from the Christian faith had affirmed "that the sum of their fault, or of their error, had been this: that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before light and to sing a hymn to Christ as to a God among themselves in turn; and to bind themselves by an oath not to some crime, but not to commit thefts, robberies or adulteries, not to break faith, not to deny a deposit when called upon. When this was done, their custom had been to depart, and to come together again to take food, but ordinary and harmless food" (Pliny, Letters X, to Trajan, p. 376). What is clearer and more effective than this testimony, which we shall see transcribed by Tertullian, for proving the holiness of the Christian synaxes (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 2)?

No Christian, therefore, was ashamed of these not only assemblies but also "solemn fasts," worthy of all praise; rather he gloried in them. Therefore Gregory Nazianzen, in one of his orations against Julian the Apostate, said: "This we, worn out by long fasts and half-dead. This we, who keep vigil in vain and trifle in nocturnal stations, and yet we lay you low" (Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 4, p. 299).

Someone will therefore doubtless wonder at Gronovius, who in the text of Minucius, instead of "solemn fasts,"

suspects that "foul-smelling fasts" should be read. For were not the fasts of the Christians, and above all those of Lent, solemn then? Did not Tertullian write of them: "On the day of the Pasch the religious observance of the fast is common and as it were public" (Tertullian, On Prayer, ch. 14)? And if common and public, why was the observance not also solemn? But these fasts of the Christians, Gronovius goes on, are taken in a bad sense by Caecilius, who plays the part of the heathen. But what prevents that heathen man from having called them Solemn, either in mockery or in speaking the truth? Whoever wants more about these and other fasts of the Christians, let him go to Irenaeus, cited by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History V, 24, p. 192; to Tertullian, just cited, To his Wife II, 4, On Baptism, ch. 20, On Flight, ch. 1, On Fasting, chs. 13 and 14; to Athanasius, Apology to the Emperor Constantius, p. 310, and Apology for his Flight, p. 334; to Cotelier's notes on Hermas, p. 72 ff.; and on the Apostolic Constitutions V, 15, p. 245 ff. We ourselves have discussed the Vigils of the Christians in vol. I of the Apparatus, book III, dissertation 1, ch. 6, art. 3, p. 712 ff.; and the Fasts in the same place, book I, dissertation 4, art. 5, p. 53, and art. 23, p. 67; and also book II, dissertation 1, ch. 7, art. 2, p. 330; and book III, dissertation 1, ch. 1, art. 7, p. 884; ch. 11, art. 7, p. 1038 ff.; and ch. 12, art. 4, p. 1049.

Utterly intolerable, then, was the shamelessness of Caecilius and the other gentiles, who dared to call Christians, adorned with the most chaste morals and devoting diligent effort to the virtues, men of a lost, unlawful and desperate faction, a lurking and light-shunning nation, mute in public and chattering in corners, who recognized one another by secret marks and signs before they knew one another, and who utterly despised present torments and death itself. For "for this reason," said Tertullian, because we can at once escape every kind of punishment and death by repudiating our name of Christians alone, "we are reckoned desperate," as Lactantius also said, "and lost" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 50, p. 44; Lactantius, Institutes V, 9, p. 463).

But the more shameless that petulance and insolence of Caecilius and the other gentiles was, the greater certainly was the moderation of Octavius in replying for the Christians. For what, pray, is more moderate than this reply of his? "Nor are we disdainful," he says, "if we all savour one good, gathered together with the same quiet as when alone; nor chattering in corners, if you either blush or fear to hear us in public." Thus he makes light of and refutes each head of the accusation. For first he denies that the Christians are men of an unlawful faction, because, he says, they all savour one good. But an unlawful faction cannot exist without divided parties, which [plot] something against the public good

For this reason some suspect that "factiosi" (factious) should be read instead of "fastidiosi" (disdainful). Not a bad suggestion indeed, if this emendation were confirmed by the authority of some manuscript. For who knows whether Minucius did not relate the word "factiosi" to the words "we have good sense"? What if he refutes the charge of an unlawful faction with these words, "all of us gathered together with the same quiet as each one alone"? But even if there is some room for doubt about that true reading, our author nonetheless declares most openly, and proves, that the Christians cannot be called men of an unlawful faction.

Moreover, he here follows in the footsteps of Tertullian, who shows more plainly, and in these words, that the unlawful faction is by no means that of the Christians but that of the Gentiles themselves: "This gathering of the Christians would indeed rightly be unlawful, if it were like unlawful ones; rightly to be condemned, if it were not unlike those that are to be condemned, if anyone complains of it on the same ground on which complaint is made about factions. For whose ruin have we ever come together? We are the same when gathered as when dispersed; the same all together as each one singly, harming no one, grieving no one. When upright men, when good men come together, when the pious, when the chaste assemble, it is not to be called a faction but a council. On the contrary, the name of faction is to be applied to those who conspire in hatred of the good and upright, who clamour against the blood of the innocent, that is, of the Christians" (Tertullian, Apology, chapters 39 and 40, page 36). But more on these matters where we shall discuss this book of Tertullian.

If the sect of the Christians could not be called an unlawful faction, much less certainly could it be called "desperate", since indeed, as Minucius says, "we are animated, free from care, by the hope of future happiness and by faith in the present majesty of God." It was therefore not in any desperation but in the most certain hope of eternity that they endured most steadfastly any torments whatever for the profession of their religion; indeed, as we have said, they gloried in them. Lactantius presses more sharply that it was by no means the Christians, who "do not spare their own body", but the Gentiles themselves who ought to have been called desperate, since "nothing can be more desperate than to torture and tear to pieces one whom you know to be innocent" (Lactantius, Institutes, book 5, chapter 9, page 485). But something more must be said about these matters later.

With no better right did the heathen object that the Christians were a skulking and light-shunning people, mute in public, talkative in corners. For they preached their doctrine openly, and it was easy for the heathen to "hear them in public", unless they had either been ashamed to have their impiety and their crimes laid bare, or had feared to have the true religion demonstrated to them.

Next, to Caecilius's objection that the Christians recognize one another by secret marks and signs, he replies as truly as simply: "We easily recognize one another not by a mark on the body, as you think, but by the sign of innocence and modesty." We have, however, observed that the Carpocratians impressed a certain mark on the back part of the right ear of their followers, by which they no doubt distinguished them from other men (Vol. 1, Apparatus, book 2, Dissertation, chapter 3, article

3, § 12, p. 293). But neither Caecilius nor Octavius is speaking of these or other heretics, but of all Christians generally, who, as our author says, recognized one another by no other sign than that of innocence and modesty. Concerning their innocence the matter is clear from what has been said so far and from what is yet to be said below, as it is also concerning the modesty of those same people, especially when standing in the Church or coming to it, from what we have noted on the books of Clement of Alexandria (Vol. I, Apparatus, book III, Dissertation 1, ch. 6, art. 4, p. 713).

Finally, to the last reproach of Caecilius, concerning the mutual love of the Christians, Minucius answers that the Christians loved one another with a mutual and sincere love, both because they did not know how to hate others and also because they were brothers of one parent, as Tertullian too had said, and partners in faith and co-heirs of hope. But Octavius presses the point that this mutual love, which is surely to be valued most highly, is reproached by the heathen, because, as he asserts in addressing them, "you rage in mutual hatreds; nor do you acknowledge yourselves brothers except for the purpose of parricide," or, as Tertullian, just cited by us, says, "readier to kill one another.... because among them every name of blood-kinship is a feigned show of affection" (Tertullian, loc. cit.). But on these matters more fully in our dissertation on this book of Tertullian (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 39, p. 35). Meanwhile, on that brotherly charity of the Christians and the name of brothers, see Lucian, On the Death of Peregrinus, p. 996, and, if you please, what we have observed in the preceding volume, p. 473 and p. 999.

Article II.

On what grounds Caecilius said that temples are despised by the Christians as tombs, and that they have no temples, no altars, no known images; and the foolish cavils of the more recent Iconoclasts are refuted.

Most grave indeed did that charge seem to Caecilius, that the Christians despised the temples dedicated to the gods of the gentiles no differently than tombs: "Temples," he said, "as tombs," that is, as the sepulchres of dead men, "they spurn." For although the word bustum is derived from the verb uro [I burn], and originally signified the place in which the bodies of the dead used to be burned, yet it is customarily used by good authors for a sepulchre, as here by our author. Should you ask for some witness. We shall at once bring before you Tertullian, from whom Minucius appears to have drawn his material, who had earlier said to the heathen: "We despise temples no less than tombs" (Tertullian, On the Shows, ch. 13). You see indeed that the meaning of "busta" is clearly explained by Tertullian, and that it is confirmed by him that the temples of the gods were despised by the Christians as the sepulchres of dead men. Why should they not have despised them in this way, since Clement of Alexandria and others, as we have noted elsewhere, demonstrated that the temples of the gods were in reality the sepulchres of dead men? (Vol. I, Apparatus, book III, dissert. 1, ch. 7, art. 3, p. 723 ff.)

The second complaint and charge of Caecilius was that the Christians not only despised the temples of the gods, but also that they themselves, in order to hide their mysteries the more safely, had no temples, no altars and no images. Hear, I pray, how he himself complains of these things: "Why do they have no altars, no temples, no known images..... Unless what they worship and keep suppressed is either to be punished or to be ashamed of?" And is not the same the complaint of the heathen Celsus in Origen, who accuses the Christians of shunning the dedications, or rather the setting up and placing, of altars, statues and temples? "They shun setting up altars and images and temples" (Origen, book 8, Against Celsus, p. 389).

What, then, do you think Minucius replied to this accusation? He freely grants that the Christians had no altars, no images, indeed not even any temples or shrines. And why they had none of these things, he gives this reason: "You think that we hide what we worship if we have no shrines and altars. For what image am I to fashion for God, when, if you judge rightly, man himself is the image of God? What temple am I to build for Him, when this whole world, fashioned by His work, cannot contain Him? And when I, a man, dwell more spaciously, am I to shut up the power of so great a majesty within a little shrine?" These last words about the temple Cyprian copied from this passage of the author, and thereby approved them (Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols, p. 15).

Now an aedicula, to note this in passing, was a kind of small sanctuary, or an annex of some sacred building, or a niche, where the image and likeness of some god was placed. Hence Cicero: "What," he says, "when Licinia, a Vestal virgin.... had dedicated an altar, and a shrine, and a couch on the sacred rock?" (Cicero, Oration 29, On His House, p. 427). And Apuleius: "In the very middle, an image of the goddess Hippona seated in a shrine" (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, book 3, near the end). Finally, to pass over Pliny, Tertullian certainly, like our author, distinguished temples or shrines, altars and the aedicula in these words: "For it makes no difference whether you build or adorn, if you have furnished his temple, his altar, his shrine" (Tertullian, On Idolatry, chapter 8, p. 107). Nevertheless each of them designates any temple whatever by the name aedicula, which he uses for this reason, that he may better show how much smaller and narrower it is than the infinite majesty of God.

Minucius therefore testifies that the Christians had other and far more excellent temples, shrines, altars, sacrificial altars and victims than the heathen, and other, far holier sacrifices: "Is not God," he says, "better dedicated in our mind, consecrated in our inmost breast? Am I to offer to the Lord sacrificial beasts and victims which He has brought forth for my use, so that I throw His own gift back at Him? That is ungrateful, since the acceptable offering is a good spirit and a pure mind and a sincere conscience. Therefore he who cultivates innocence makes supplication to the Lord; he who cultivates justice pours libation to God; he who abstains from frauds propitiates God; he who snatches a man from danger, the choicest

victim he slays. These are our sacrifices, these are the sacred rites of God."

And just as Octavius answered Caecilius, so Origen answers Celsus, likewise a pagan, who raised the same objections, as we were saying a little before, that he does not see that "altars" for each of us are "his own mind, from which" truly intelligible and sweet-smelling incense rises upwards, and prayers from a pure conscience: "And images fitting for God, not made by vulgar craftsmen." "But the images to be dedicated to God are not the works of artisans, but those hewn and formed in us by the Word of God, namely the virtues, in imitation of the firstborn of all creation, in Whom are the patterns of justice, temperance, fortitude, wisdom and the other virtues. These are the statues, the agalmata, to be dedicated to God in the souls of those who, according to the precept of God, practise justice, and fortitude, and piety, and the remaining virtues" (Origen, book 8, Against Celsus, p. 389).

In the same way, therefore, our Minucius, and Origen, and other writers of ours of the same age openly assert that the Christians had no temples and shrines, no sacred buildings, no altars, no images. But they speak of all these in one and the same manner; indeed, if there is any difference, it is this, that Minucius added "known" to the word "images", as though he meant to signify that the Christians did indeed have some images, but ones that were not known and were kept secretly and in hiding.

But see, I pray, the foolish quibbles of the Calvinists and the other Protestants, who in the writings of the most ancient Fathers admit whatever has pleased them and reject what has displeased them. For they openly confess, with Daillé, that in the time of our Minucius, and from the first centuries of the Church, the Christians did indeed have their own temples, but no altars and no images. But with what rashness they have distinguished things which are not distinguished by those most ancient writers, let us, I beg, consider for a little while.

It is well indeed that Daillé and the other Protestants grant that in the first age of the Church the Christians had their own temples. But with what face could they have denied what is asserted most certainly by those Fathers of the Church? For Tertullian, as we see elsewhere, expressly declares that they had temples, which, following the Apostle, he called by the name of churches, a name nevertheless rejected by the Calvinists. Do you want another testimony of his, written even when he was writing against the Catholic Church? "The other frenzies of lusts," he says, "impious both against bodies and against the sexes beyond the laws of nature, we remove not only from the threshold but from every roof of the Church." Moreover, we have already noted that these too are called by the Greek name ekklesia by Clement of Alexandria (Apparatus p. 741; Tertullian, On Idolatry ch. 7, p. 107; and On the Veiling of Virgins ch. 13, p. 201; and On Modesty ch. 4, p. 718; vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 713; Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus book 3, ch. 11, p. 255).

No less evidently is this proved from the synaxes of the Christians, which, as we have quite often seen, they were accustomed to hold in buildings and temples; and moreover from the public penance of offenders, who, prostrate at the doors of the church, implored the prayers of the faithful and the clemency of the priests. Finally, this is proved most manifestly by the authority of Arnobius and Lactantius, who reproach the heathen precisely because they had demolished or burned the meeting-places and churches of the Christians. Eusebius, moreover, relates more about that overthrow and restoration of the churches, and calls them "the houses of prayer", "sacred buildings", and "churches", "churches"; but elsewhere "the houses in which they assembled", "their buildings, in which they held their assemblies", and finally "houses of the churches", "buildings of the churches" (Arnobius, Against the Gentiles, book 4, p. 152; Lactantius, Institutes, book 5, ch. 11; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book 8, ch. 2, pp. 293 and 294; ibid., ch. 17, p. 316; ibid., book 9, ch. 9, p. 362).

But what need is there for that to be proved by more arguments, which is most certain and could never be denied by our adversaries? I would like you, then, to take note of their shifty and crafty cast of mind. They admit that the Christians did indeed have their own temples, yet not in the form of ours, but only of their own. If you do not believe us, here are Daillé's words exactly: "For Minucius' statement is not to be taken as if there were at that time no buildings in which men of the Christian communion held sacred assemblies, so that they might both be instructed in divine matters and make supplication to God in common, such as are those which today are called the temples of the Protestants" (Daillé, On Images, book 1, ch. 3, p. 52). But by what reasoning, pray, have he and other men of the same sect ever proved that the temples of the most ancient Christians were like theirs and not like ours? Not even the slightest. Is it then because, just as they have taken away the sacrifice of the Mass, so they have entirely removed from their temples the altars of offering and the altars, the statues and the images, that they therefore peddle the claim that the most ancient temples of the Christians were like their own?

But with the very ease with which it has been proved that temples were built by them, with the same plain evidence it can be shown that altars of offering were placed and altars erected in those ancient temples and churches. For Tertullian declares it most expressly in these words: "Will not your station be solemn if you have stood at the altar of God?" (Tertullian, On Prayer, ch. 14, p. 155). Cyprian, indeed, writing not only of the altar but also of the sacrifice, which our adversaries so insolently reject, wrote to the people of Furni in these words: "It was long ago decreed in a council of bishops that no one should appoint any of the clergy and ministers of God as guardian or trustee in his will, since each one, honoured with the divine priesthood and appointed to the clerical ministry, ought to serve nothing but the altar and the sacrifices, and to be free for prayers and supplications." Then he goes on to say that it was decreed by the bishops his predecessors: "That no brother, departing from this life, should name a cleric to the guardianship or care [of his estate]; and if anyone had done this,

no offering would be made for him, nor would a sacrifice be celebrated for his falling asleep. For he does not deserve to be named at the altar of God in the prayer of the priests, who wished to call priests and ministers away from the altar. And therefore, since Victor dared to appoint a presbyter as guardian, there is no reason why an offering should be made among you for his falling asleep, or any intercession be repeatedly made in the Church in his name" (Cyprian, Letter 1, To the Presbyters). You surely see that by him the altar and the sacrifice are distinguished from the prayers, intercessions and supplications of Christians. In their churches, therefore, there were altars truly and properly so called, and sacrifice for the dead was customarily made at that time.

In another letter, to Pope Cornelius, he writes that the book of the Novatianists, who were falsely accusing him, was rejected "with the priests of God sitting together and the altar set up" (the same, Letter 45, p. 87). And, to pass over a great many other things in his writings that lie open to anyone, he congratulates Pope Lucius on his return from exile, since "the priestly authority has grown the more, in that the bishop stands at the altar of God." But this has already been proved by us, which even the most celebrated man placed in charge of the edition of these works of Cyprian, though a follower of the Anglican Church, freely and openly admits. It is therefore as certain that altars were set up in the churches or temples of Christians as that churches were built by them, in which, as Daillé admits, they held their sacred assemblies. For, as he says, "it is well established not only from the History of Eusebius but from some other monuments of the ancient Church that the Christians already then had sacred [buildings] of this kind; and if anywhere they lacked them, this came about through the force and injury of the pagans, who against right begrudged pious men that opportunity and freedom, and not through any religious scruple of the Christians themselves" (Daillé, book 1, On Images, chapter 3, pp. 52 ff.).

But tell me, I beg you, my Daillé: you admit what you could no longer conceal, that the Christians had their own sacred buildings; you deny the altars, you deny the images: where is the consistency? Did not Minucius say in exactly the same way: Why do they have no altars, no temples, no known images?" Why then do you grant the one and deny the other? Was there ever, "to use your own words, any violence greater or more unjust than for you to take to yourself the right and authority to change at will the thoughts of men, and indeed of men dead many centuries ago" (Daillé, On Images, book 1, p. 52)? For Minucius seems less to deny that the Christians had temples and altars than images. For Caecilius did not add "known images" without consideration, that is, as we have said, images which were public and known to others. And it has been sufficiently demonstrated by us that temples and altars were built by the Christians, in which they were accustomed to offer true sacrifice. Now let us see by what reasoning the same Daillé contends that they had no images and likenesses.

He replies that "it may be" that Caecilius, like

any other gentile, remained in doubt whether the Christians "worshipped in secret a deity of base and shameful form." For in the same place Caecilius himself said: "Whatever it is that they worship, they strive greatly to conceal it." Is it so, then, that because you think that this "could happen," you take upon yourself the right to conclude from it that neither this gentile nor the Christian Minucius denied that the Christians had their own temples and altars, but only images, of which they speak in one and the same manner? But whence did you learn that the images of the Christians were less known to the heathen than the sacred buildings, which they had been accustomed to approach only in secret?

Daillé nevertheless insists that it would have been easy and ready for Octavius to reply that the Christians had certain images and altars, but far different from the images and altars of the heathen. So far, however, is he from having replied thus that on the contrary he says that no temple is to be built for God, Whom the whole world cannot contain, much less one small shrine: but that a good spirit, a pure mind and a sincere conscience are the best and most acceptable offerings and victims for God, and finally that man is the image of God.

But nothing at all is more trivial and futile than this reply. For the Jews and the Gentiles, among whom no one is unaware that so many altars, victims and sacrifices were made, use the same manner of speaking as Minucius. For in the book of Philo the Jew "on victims" we read this: "The altar of God is the grateful soul of the wise man, compacted of perfect numbers, uncut and undivided." "The altar of God is understood as the grateful soul of the wise man, compacted of solid and indivisible numbers." And he had written far more on that matter a little before (Philo, book On Victims, page 851).

And the gentile Seneca, cited by Lactantius: "The benefit itself," he says, "is not that which is counted out or handed over. Just as the honour of the gods does not lie even in victims, though they be fat and glitter with gold, but in the pious and upright mind of those who worship." (Seneca, book 1, On Benefits, chapter 6; Lactantius, book 6, Institutes, chapter 25, page 938). Indeed, earlier still Cicero: "The best worship of the gods," he used to say, "and likewise the most chaste and the fullest of piety, is that we always venerate them with a pure, whole and uncorrupted mind and voice" (Cicero, book 2, On the Nature of the Gods, page 224, line 42). If you want more, go to Porphyry and the many others cited by Lescalopier on this passage of Cicero. But who would ever say that the Jews or the gentiles, by these words, denied that there were true altars, altars of sacrifice, victims and sacrifices among them? (Porphyry, book 2, On Abstinence from Animal Food, near the end; Lescalopier, on book 2 of On the Nature of the Gods, § 72, page 347.)

And what will you do with Tertullian, whom Minucius follows so closely in his footsteps? Did he not also write: "We despise temples no less than tombs; we know neither altar, we adore neither image"? (Tertullian, book On the Spectacles, chapter 15, page 96.) Does he not there, as openly as Minucius, [deny] that the Christians had any temples, altars and images at all

deny? Does he not also elsewhere reply to the heathen Scapula: 'We sacrifice for the welfare of the emperor, but to our God and his, but in the way God has commanded, with pure prayer'? (The same, book To Scapula, ch. 2, p. 86.) Did he for that reason deny that the Christians had been wholly without any temples, altars and high altars? Not at all, as has been proved by other words of his cited a little before, and has been conceded by Daillé himself.

It is necessary, therefore, that we say that by our Minucius, by Tertullian and by others speaking in the same way, that thing is granted in one sense and denied in another. But since they were disputing against the heathen, they therefore denied that the Christians had temples after the manner of the gentiles, in which these worshipped fictitious gods and supposed them to dwell, or altars and high altars for slaughtering and offering victims to them; but [they did not deny] that they had sacred buildings and altars, in which they worshipped the true God by Christian rite and performed an unbloody sacrifice. Nothing, then, is more absurd to say than that by the cited words of Minucius, as Daillé prattled, the altars of 'Roman' (so odiously does the heretic call the Catholics) 'men' were excluded, because it pleased him and his associates to reject the Eucharistic sacrifice on their own authority. For we have already shown by the most certain testimony of the ancient Fathers that in Minucius's time altars were set up in the temples or churches of the Christians, and that the sacrifice of the holy Eucharist was performed. Which indeed Augustine afterwards most explicitly asserts (Augustine, book 8 of The City, ch. 27, p. 217; and book 10, ch. 20, p. 255).

Furthermore, since the words of Minucius and Tertullian about temples and altars and about images are the same, they are certainly to be explained in the same way. They deny, therefore, that there were any images among the Christians, such, that is, as the heathen had made of their gods. And that this was the mind of Minucius is gathered not only from what has been said so far, but also from the whole disputation between him and Caecilius. For Caecilius objected that the Christians had none: as no temples, so no images, in the way the gentiles had them of false gods. And Minucius admits that the matter was indeed so. But just as he does not deny that they had temples other than those of fictitious gods, so too he does not deny images other than those made by them of those [gods].

Nor should you press that all images and likenesses whatever are excluded by Minucius, since he replies: 'What image should I fashion for God, when, if you judge rightly, man himself is the image of God?' For about temples, as we have noted, he had said likewise: 'What temple should I build for Him, when this whole world, fashioned by His work, cannot contain Him?' Yet Daillé and other men of the same sect are forced to confess that by these latter words the true temples of the Christians are not excluded. Therefore they must likewise admit that by the former words of the same Minucius nothing is excluded other than the images, statues and likenesses of false gods, which could not be borne by Christians without idolatry. Furthermore, concerning these images and likenesses of the Christians, and their use, in earlier

dissertations of ours we have dealt with, and you will be able to read more, handed down by Petavius, Thomassin and very many others (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 747 ff.; Petavius, vol. 5, Dogmatic Theology, book 15, ch. 11, and Thomassin, book 12; Dogmatic Theology on the Incarnation, ch. 7 ff.). But what our author laid down concerning the worship and honour shown by the Christians to the cross of Christ is to be investigated in the fourth article following.

Article III.

How Octavius refutes Caecilius when he objects that a man fastened to a cross for a crime is worshipped by the Christians, where [he treats] of the supreme divinity of Christ: how clearly the same Octavius shows that a wicked man was honoured with divine worship by the Egyptians, and kings and emperors by the Romans, and that oaths were sworn by their genii; but whether it was lawful for Christians to swear by their welfare.

Caecilius charges the Christians with a twofold crime besides: Those who tell the tale, he says, that a man punished with the extreme penalty for a crime, and the deadly wood of the cross, are their ceremonies, or rather, he who tells it, assigns to the lost and wicked the altars befitting them, so that they worship what they deserve.” You hear indeed how the gentiles condemned the Christians for a twofold worship besides, unholy as they thought it: first, that they worshipped a man subjected to the punishment of the cross on account of his crimes; second, that they worshipped and venerated the cross, the deadly instrument of that punishment.

But Minucius shows, one by one, that both those charges are false. For as regards the first, he openly and steadfastly asserts that the gentiles are utterly deceived and stray from the whole road, who had persuaded themselves that an earthly man, fastened to a cross for his crimes, had deserved or been able to be believed God by the Christians, and that on that ground divine honour was paid to him by them. For the same Christians were wholly persuaded that those are utterly wretched who place their hope in a mortal man, at whose death all the help that they could expect from him comes to an end.

But Minucius himself must be heard: “As for your ascribing to our religion a guilty man and his cross, you stray far from the neighbourhood [of the truth], you who think that a guilty man could deserve, or an earthly man could be able, to be believed God. Wretched indeed is he whose every hope rests upon a mortal man; for all his help comes to an end with the man's death.” He therefore flatly denies that a guilty man, justly punished with death, was worshipped by the Christians.

What then? Could Minucius affirm so certainly that all worship whatever and veneration were denied to Christ the Saviour by the Christians, and that they had no hope at all in Him? Surely no man would ever believe that. Since therefore it is certain and established that the Christians both worshipped Christ and placed their hope in Him Who had died for them, what would you infer from this, except that Minucius held as settled and fixed that Christ is truly worshipped by His followers, not indeed as a man, from whom

when dead, nothing more was to be hoped for, but as God, in Whom, as being the true and immortal God, they always placed the greatest hope? But may it not rightly be inferred from this, to note it in passing, that Minucius was wholly persuaded that Christ was the true and supreme God, and of the same substance with His eternal Father? For he, as we showed above, taught most consistently that there is only one God. Where, therefore, he acknowledged Christ as God, there he certainly confessed Him to be one and the same God with His Father.

Petavius, then, attempts to prove from the same words of Minucius, but by another line of reasoning, that the supreme divinity of Christ was acknowledged by him (Petavius, vol. 2, Dogmatic Theology, preface, ch. 5, § 3). For the learned man judges that he confesses Christ to be true God, and to be worshipped by the Christians under that name, just as the heathens venerated their gods. But with the leave of that most learned man let us be permitted to say that it ought to be explained a little more clearly how this can be inferred from the few words of Minucius which we have quoted in full. Now this seems to be his argument: You err, heathens, who think that a man, merely earthly and guilty, is believed by us to be God. For we believe that Christ was not only a guiltless man, but also true God, on Whom our hope most firmly rests.

For indeed the Christians, when questioned by heathen judges, and not deterred by fear of the punishments hanging over them, steadfastly answered, as Pliny wrote to the emperor Trajan, that they "sang a hymn to Christ as to a God among themselves in turn", that is, to Christ, Whom they asserted to be true God, and such as, in Petavius's view, the heathens judged their gods to be (Pliny, Letter 101).

Then next Minucius turns the heathens' argument back upon themselves and shows that this very religious worship, with which they falsely reproached the Christians, was in fact offered by them to a mere man. For the Egyptians, he says, consulted one man chosen out of all, "they propitiated him", and to him, whom they called a god, they slaughtered victims. How true this is, Porphyry will teach you, who, as Eusebius reports, wrote to Anebo in these words: "They also pay divine honours to a man near the village which they call Anabis, and offer sacrifice to him, and burn the victims laid upon the altars. They worship a man at the village of Anabis, in which sacrifice is also offered to him, and the sacred offerings are burned upon the altars. But he afterwards eats only what has been prepared and set before him from his private store, as for a private man" (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, book 3, ch. 3, p. 94). He repeats the same things without citing any authority, as did Theodoret afterwards, who indeed cites the Letter of Porphyry and presents its sense, but not its words (Theodoret, vol. 4, discourse 3, On Angels and Demons, p. 516).

By yet another argument Minucius convicts the heathens, and above all the Romans, of the same impiety. For not only upon their princes and kings, as

gods, did they fawn shamefully: but they also invoked their divinity, made supplication before their images, implored their daemon, and it was safer for them to swear by the genius of Jupiter than by that of their king.

Concerning that wicked flattery by which the Romans enrolled their dead emperors among the number of the gods, we read the following in Justin Martyr: "For what of the fact that you think fit to immortalize the emperors who die among you, and bring forward someone who swears that he has seen the burnt Caesar ascending from the pyre into heaven." "You always think fit to consecrate to immortality the emperors who die among you, producing someone who is to confirm on oath that he saw the burning Caesar ascend from the pyre into heaven." And afterwards: "And those who die among you, you consecrate in that form as images of the emperors, and you name them gods in inscriptions" (Justin Martyr, Apology 1, pp. 67-90). But this impious apotheosis of the Roman emperors can be unknown to no one at all who has touched on any history of them even with the tips of his lips. Yet the utterly detestable flattery of the heathen did not stop there, but for these same emperors of theirs, while still alive, such as Julius Caesar, Octavian Augustus and others, they built temples and altars, and appointed priests (Suetonius, Life of Julius Caesar, § 76; and Life of Augustus, § 52; Cornelius Tacitus, Annals, book 3, about the middle).

Moreover, they feared their own emperors, whether still living or proclaimed gods by them after death, more than the older gods, consecrated by their fathers a long time before. Why so? Because, says Octavius, it was "safer" for them "to swear falsely by the genius of Jupiter than by that of the king." Here, beyond doubt, he followed Tertullian, who had gone before him, whose very words he seems to have read: "Among you, gentiles, one more readily swears falsely by all the gods than by the single genius of Caesar" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 28).

It is more certain than certain that already from the time of the emperor Augustus the custom had grown strong that they swore by the name or genius of the emperor. For Horace, addressing that same Augustus, sang thus:

On you, while present among us, we bestow timely honours,

and we set up altars to be sworn upon by your name,

(Horace, Epistles 2.1.15-16.)

You certainly hear that, as we said just now, altars were set up to Augustus while he was still living, and that the heathen swore by his name, that is, his genius. And after he had died, Claudius Caesar, on the testimony of Suetonius, "established no oath as more sacred for himself, nor more frequent, than the one by Augusta" (Suetonius, Life of Claudius, § 11), that is, by his genius and name. And if you still wish to have it proved to you how sacred and religious this oath was, you will certainly learn it from these words of Tacitus: "It was laid as a charge against Aubrius that he had violated the name of Augustus by perjury. When these things became known to Tiberius, he wrote to the consuls... the oath

should be reckoned just as if he had deceived Jupiter" (Tacitus, Annals, book 1, near the end).

Moreover, the gentiles had been accustomed to swear not by the genius of Augustus alone but also by that of other emperors. Of this most perverse custom Apuleius is a most ample witness for us. For when the magistrates were seeking a certain gardener and inquiring where he was: "The soldiers," he says, "swearing by the genius of the prince, insisted that he was hiding neither there nor anywhere" (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, book 9, near the end). Caligula, besides, on the testimony of Suetonius, inflicted heavy punishments on many "because they had never sworn by his genius" (Suetonius, book 4, § 27). Finally, to pass over more, Tertullian relates that the rebels who stood on the side of Cassius and Albinus had sworn falsely by the genii of the emperors (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 35, and the book To Scapula, ch. 2, p. 85).

But the Christians detested that impious oath. For this reason Polycarp, as Eusebius said, could never be compelled by the tyrant to swear by the genius of Caesar (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book 4, ch. 15, p. 131 and following). Other Christians, as the same Tertullian testifies, were proclaimed irreligious and enemies of the people for this reason, that they refused to propitiate the images of the Caesars and to swear by their genii. But something more must still be said about Tertullian in its proper place (Tertullian, Apology, ch. ⟨ ⟩2, p. 31, and To the Nations, book 1, ch. 17, p. 61).

Some, moreover, will perhaps ask of us why Minucius declares so confidently that the heathen swore "more safely," or, as Tertullian says, "more readily," by Jupiter than by the genius of the emperor (the same, Apology, ch. 28). We shall therefore give them a twofold reason. The first, which Tertullian suggests to us, is that the gentiles feared their gods less than the present power of the emperors. The second, because, says Zosimus, the remission of an oath sworn to God had been left to the divine kindness (Zosimus, Histories, book 5, at the end). But whoever swore falsely by the genius of the prince, even in some matter of lesser moment, for example a pecuniary one, was, as Ulpian noted, ordered to be punished with cudgels (Ulpian, book 2, title 2, law 13, § Si quis). Whoever wants more, let him consult Brisson, Hansen of Trier [?], and others who have written on the oath of the ancients, and Taffin, who has written on the cult of the genius and the custom of swearing by it (Brisson, On Formulas, book 8, p. 809; Hansen, On the Oath of the Ancients, ch. 16; Taffin, On the Secular Year, etc., ch. 13).

Article IV.

In what sense Minucius said that crosses are neither worshipped nor desired by Christians.

To Caecilius's second reproach, concerning the worship of the cross, Octavius likewise replies in two ways. His first answer is contained in these words and no more: « Crosses we neither worship nor

desire. » But this, the briefer it is, the more obscure it will seem to many: Did the Christians then, you will say, really worship neither the very cross of Christ itself nor any image of it at all? Is not the cross of Christ called by Cyril of Jerusalem « the saving wood of the cross, the salutary wood of the cross; and by Eusebius, the saving sign, the salutary sign, saving and life-giving, salutary and life-giving; and also, the saving trophy, the salutary trophy, » the protection of the city of Rome, of the empire, and of the whole world, whose divine power the heathen emperor Licinius acknowledged? Cyril of Jerusalem, Letter to the Emperor Constantius, p. 247.) And who doubts that such a sign of the cross was honoured by Christians with sincere worship? If anyone nevertheless resists, let him hear Eusebius, who extols Constantine the Great with the highest praises precisely because he worshipped that triumphal sign, as he says, he honoured the victory-bringing sign, in which he had very often experienced the power of the Godhead and the wonderful effects recorded there by the same Eusebius (Eusebius, Life of Constantine, book 1, ch. 31, p. 423; book 2, ch. 16, p. 451; book 4, ch. 21, p. 535; and Oration in Praise of Constantine, pp. 627 and 628). Ambrose, moreover, declares without hesitation that the cross of Christ was placed by Helena, the mother of that same Constantine, on the head of kings, « that it might be adored in kings » (Ambrose, Oration on the Death of Theodosius, § 46, p. 1211). Jerome, moreover, says that Paula, « prostrate before the cross, adored as though she beheld the Lord hanging there, » (Jerome, Letter 86, or Epitaph of Paula, p. 675).

What more? Julian the Apostate, like Caecilius, rebuked the Christians because, while mocking and despising the shield of Jupiter and Mars that had fallen from heaven, they venerated the sign of the cross. But Cyril of Alexandria answers him that the saving wood, « the salutary wood of the precious cross, the cross to be honoured, » renews the memory of all the benefits conferred upon us by the death of Christ (Cyril of Alexandria, Against Julian, book 6, p. 194 and following.) And who would doubt that it is far fairer and more just to worship the images of this salutary sign than images painted on walls of the horrible and most shameful crimes committed by the gods?

But if the matter stood thus, on what reasoning could Minutius say: « We neither worship crosses nor desire them »? Some, moreover, have wrongly read there « we pray to. » Others, not having sufficiently grasped the meaning of our author, judged that it should be corrected, and in fact wanted it written « we shudder at. » But all these are against the authority of the manuscript codex, and give no better sense.

What then, you will say, did Minucius mean by these words: « We neither worship crosses nor desire them, » or how can they be explained? It seems certain, however, that they cannot be understood of the very true stake and wood of the cross of Christ, of which Ambrose and Jerome, already cited by us, speak. For in his time that true cross of the Lord had not yet been found by Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great.

Therefore he is there speaking, without doubt, either of the sign and image of this sacred cross, or of the crosses of other, criminal men. Yet that his words can be taken in this second sense one may, not unreasonably, infer from this: just as "the heathen," on the testimony of Origen, "reading" the history of Christ, supposed that the Christians showed some veneration to all who had been put on the cross, so too they falsely believed that they revered any crosses whatever (Origen, Against Celsus, book 2, p. 87). Moreover, both Caecilius's reproach and Minucius's answer seem to favour this explanation. For each of them spoke not of some one cross in particular, but of crosses in general. And Minucius could quite rightly say that Christians neither worship nor desire the crosses of men condemned to death for their crimes.

But if anyone should judge that these words of his are to be explained of images of the true cross of Christ, he will without doubt reckon this to be his mind and meaning: We do not worship crosses, whether of wood or of any material whatever, because we do not honour the wood itself or any other such material; but in seeing the cross we refer all our worship to Christ Himself, Who hung on the cross. Nor will that explanation be thought too forced by some. For Ambrose, who, as we have observed, said that the true cross of Christ is adored in kings, had written a little before about that very cross as follows: Helena "found the title" of the cross; "she adored the King, not the wood, assuredly, for this is the error of the heathen and the vanity of the impious; but she adored Him Who hung on the wood, written in the title" (Ambrose, Oration on the Death of Theodosius, § 46, p. 1211).

But if that is our author's mind, by what right did he add "nor do we desire [them]"? For what is more desirable to Christians than to see the likeness of the cross of Christ, or to undergo the punishment of the cross for Christ? It can be answered that Minucius's word "we worship" refers to Caecilius's earlier "to be adored," and "we desire" to "crosses to be undergone," so that this is the sense: We do not desire or seek crosses; but if, seized by tyrants, we are compelled to undergo them, we suffer them with a willing mind, and we desire to end our life by the punishment of the cross. In the same sense Tertullian: "Plainly we wish to suffer, but in the way in which no one suffers war willingly, since he must both tremble and be in danger; yet he fights with all his strength, and, conquering in battle, he rejoices who was complaining about the battle" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 50). But we cannot hide that by this second interpretation some violence is done to Minucius's words. For one and the same word will signify at once merely the sign of the cross and the true cross. See, therefore, on what ground the other explanation is to be preferred to this one.

However, whatever may be pronounced about the sense of these words of Minucius, it certainly cannot be denied that Christians in his time rendered some worship to the sign of the Lord's cross. For they very often placed it on their foreheads, and the virgin Eustochium

is urged by Jerome: "At every act, at every step, let the hand trace the cross of the Lord," and another virgin also: "Fortify your forehead often with the sign of the cross, so that the destroyer of Egypt may find no place in you, but the firstborn, who perish among the Egyptians, may be saved in your mind" (Jerome, Letter 18 to Eustochium, p. 46; and Letter 97 to Demetrias, p. 790). That this custom of the Christians was in fact far older we shall demonstrate in our following dissertations, and also that demons were very often put to flight by Christians by this same sign of the cross, as we shall note later in another dissertation (Dissertation on the book of Lucius Caecilius On the Deaths of the Persecutors, ch. 5, arts. 2 and 3). Who, then, of sound mind will deny that honour was paid by the Christians to the sign of the cross of Christ, with which they signed themselves very frequently and almost every hour, and by whose power they marvelled that so many and such great miracles were done? Away, therefore, with Gronovius's foolish remark on this passage of Minucius, in which he witlessly asserts that no honour is to be paid to the cross of Christ. But of this we must treat further later; meanwhile you may consult on it Petavius, Thomassin, Gretser and other theologians, whether scholastics or writers on controversies (Petavius, vol. 5, Dogmatic Theology, bk. 15, ch. 8; Thomassin, bk. 12, Dogmatic Theology, On the Incarnation, ch. 8; and Theology on the Master of the Sentences, bk. 3, diss. 9; and on St Thomas, part 3, question 25.)

Article V.

How Minucius turns back the weapon of the heathen, who reproached the Christians with the worship of the cross, against them, since they honoured crosses in the images of the gods, in the cantabra, the standards and the trophies, and the sign of which is represented in the swelling sails of ships, in the yoke, and in a man praying with arms outstretched.

It was not enough for Minucius to have refuted the heathen who reproached the Christians with the worship of the cross; rather, the very weapon that they hurled from that quarter he thus turns back against them: "You plainly consecrate wooden gods; wooden crosses you perhaps worship as parts of your gods. For the standards themselves too, and the cantabra" (some wrongly want it written labara) "and the banners of the camps, what else are they but gilded and adorned crosses? Your victorious trophies imitate not only the appearance of a simple cross but also that of a man fastened to it." Our author seems, moreover, to have drawn this from Tertullian, who in exactly the same way refutes that empty argument of the heathen concerning the worship paid by the Christians to the cross: "Whoever thinks us devotees of the cross," he says, "will be our fellow-follower when he propitiates some piece of wood. Never mind the shape, so long as the quality of the material is the same. Never mind the form, so long as it is the very body of a god. And yet how much does the Attic Pallas differ from the stake of a cross, or the Pharian Ceres, who stands exposed without likeness as a rough stake and a shapeless piece of wood? Every timber that is fixed in an upright position is part of a cross; we, if anything, worship a God whole and entire. We have said that the origin of your gods is brought in by the modellers from a cross. But you also worship victories, since in trophies crosses are the inner parts

of the trophies. The whole religion of the camp venerates the standards, swears by the standards, sets the standards before all the gods. All those notable mountings of images are necklaces of crosses; those hangings of the banners and the robes of the cantabra are robes of crosses. I praise your diligence: you did not wish to consecrate bare and unadorned crosses" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 16, p. 17). In another book, moreover, the same things, repeated in other words, can be read by all. (The same, bk 1, To the Nations, ch. 12, p. 58).

But why Minucius said that wooden crosses were adored by the heathen as parts of their gods, you will understand from these words of the same Tertullian. "The image of any god," he says, "clay first shapes, built up upon a cross and a stake. On the gibbet," that is, the cross, "the body of your god is dedicated" (The same, Apology, ch. 12, p. 14; the same, bk 1, To the Nations, ch. 12, p. 58 ff.). This indeed he explains more plainly and clearly in another book; but because he is lengthy there, we have thought it better to send you to his book. Yet the adverb "perhaps", added by Minucius before "you adore", is not to be passed over without some remark. Did he perhaps not wish to assert it absolutely, because the heathen, in adoring the images of their gods, paid no attention to the crosses placed beneath them? But what if he said it ironically, and therefore affirmatively, as Tertullian did?

Before both of them, moreover, Justin Martyr had likewise objected to the heathen that "the banners of the camps and the victorious trophies" are crosses, as Minucius says, or, as Tertullian said, "robes of crosses" (Justin, Apology 1, p. 90). But since this is well enough known to all, we shall add nothing further, except those words of Jerome to Laeta: "The banners of soldiers are the insignia of the cross" (Jerome, Letter 57, To Laeta, p. 591).

The "cantabra" mentioned by our author and by Tertullian were standards which, adorned with purple and gold, were carried through the city in processions and solemnities together with the figures of the gods. Nor was there any other difference between cantabra and vexilla except that the latter were only cloths, very well known by their colour, whereas the cantabra were distinguished from them both by their colour and by some verse or name by which something pleasing and delightful was signified.

"Trophies", moreover, were the captured spoils of enemies, which were customarily set upon a double spit, one upright and the other transverse, and therefore presenting the likeness of a cross. Those placed in charge of carrying the trophies were called cantabrarii, of whom mention is made in the Theodosian Code, on which the notes of Gothofredus should be read, and the remarks of Bullinger On Gallic Spoils. (Theodosian Code, law 2, On the Collegiati, vol. V, p. 192; Bullinger, On Greek Spoils, ch. 3).

Minucius goes on, and says that the sign of the cross is seen naturally in a ship, which is carried along with swelling sails, and in the yoke by which the earth is customarily ploughed. But Justin Martyr explains these things still more fully. That the yard of a ship is a sign of the cross, Tertullian and Jerome

...observed. (Tertullian, Against the Jews, ch. 11; Jerome, Letter to Heliodorus.)

Another natural sign of the cross, moreover, is a man "with hands," as Tertullian says, "spread out," or, as our Minucius puts it: "a man who, with hands stretched forth, worships God with a pure mind" (Tertullian, To the Nations II, 12).

But to what end, you say, did he argue from this example against the heathen? Did these heathens too pour out prayers with hands spread out? Yes indeed; and not only prayers, but they also made their vows by this rite, as is very easy to prove by the testimonies of very many writers of every kind. For Virgil sang of Anchises:

But father Anchises joyfully raised his eyes to the stars, / and stretched his palms to heaven with these words: / Almighty Jupiter, if you are moved by any prayers, etc.

(Virgil, Aeneid II, 687 ff.)

And in the following book:

I snatch my body from the couch, and stretch my upturned / hands to heaven with my voice, and pour unmixed offerings / upon the hearth.

(Virgil, Aeneid III, 176 ff.)

A little later he says that the divinity was invoked by the same Anchises with hands spread, that is, stretched out:

But father Anchises, palms spread out from the shore, / calls upon the great divinities.

(Ibid., 263.)

What more? He sang elsewhere of another:

He looks back, ignorant of what has happened and ungrateful for his safety, / and stretches both hands with his voice to the stars: / Almighty father, etc.

(The same, X, 666 ff.)

Ovid too, of a ship's master in time of storm:

The helmsman himself, raising his palms to the stars, / forgetful of his skill, sought help in vows.

(Ovid, Tristia I, Elegy 10.)

And elsewhere:

. . . . . This one worships the divinity with vows, / and, raising his arms in vain to the heaven which he does not see, / asks for help.

(The same, Metamorphoses II, 58.)

CHAPTER XIII.

Other heads of Caecilius's most unjust accusations are weighed.

ARTICLE ONE.

With what great injustice Caecilius imputes it as a fault to the Christians that they abstained from honourable pleasures, shows, processions, circus games and gladiatorial contests, and the shameful scenes of the theatre.

Caecilius charges the Christians with other things as disgraces and crimes, which ought the less to have been imputed to them as a reproach and fault, the more they made their piety and holiness manifest to all. Yet no one will wonder at the singular insolence of an accusation of this kind, if he notices that impious men have always borne it ill that their depraved and most shameful works should be rebuked and condemned by the signal and exceptional holiness of the Christians. But come, let us see what Caecilius dared to reproach them with.

The Christians, he said, abstain from honourable pleasures. O great crime! But what, I pray

will perhaps have something, but of usefulness certainly nothing." (Cicero, On Duties, book 3, p. 404 ff.)

But our Minucius, so as not to provoke Caecilius's mind too much, answered him modestly: that Christians "abstain from evil pleasures," in which the heathen indulged as though they were honourable and lawful.

Tell us, then, Caecilius, what are those honourable pleasures from which you contend it is wrong for Christians to abstain: "You do not visit the shows," so he addresses them, "you do not attend the processions, public banquets [go on] without you, you shrink from the sacred contests, the foods taken off beforehand, and the drinks poured as offerings on the altars." But that new and singular kind of charge did not strike or disturb Minucius in the least. For he freely confesses that Christians flee and turn away from all these things as harmful, wicked, and opposed to modesty and chaste morals.

As regards the shows and processions, indeed: "We," he says, "who are judged by our modesty and morals, abstain from evil pleasures, and from your processions and shows; for we know their origin from sacred rites, and we condemn their harmful allurements." Earlier, indeed, Tertullian had said in a quite similar way: "Equally we renounce your shows just as far as we renounce their origins, which we know to have been conceived from superstition. Indeed we pass by the very things with which they are carried on (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 38, p. 34)." What, moreover, those origins of the shows were, and how they arose from idolatry and the impious worship of false gods, he set forth clearly in his book On the Shows (Tertullian, On the Shows, ch. 5 ff., p. 91 ff.), where you will be able to read more about these same shows and their prohibition, as also here and there in other works of the holy Fathers.

Well and good, someone will say. But what are the "processions," mentioned afterwards by Minucius, which Christians fled no less than the shows? Pompa is called in Greek πομπή, from the verb πέμπω, which in Latin means I send, I lead forth, I convey across. It was a solemn and public leading forth and conveying through the streets of cities, which used to take place at triumphs, thanksgivings and other solemnities, and especially at the circus games. In it chosen men, each in his own rank, and flute-players and others went forward, and by the last the images of the gods were carried down. Hence Macrobius: "On a litter the images of the gods are carried in the procession of the circus games" (Macrobius, Saturnalia, book 1, ch. 23). Tertullian also: "The somewhat more showy apparatus of the circus games, to which this name properly belongs, the procession going before, proves in itself whose it is, by the series of images, by the column of likenesses, by the chariots, by the thensae, by the armamaxae, by the seats, by the crowns, by the spoils. How many sacred rites besides, how many sacrifices go before, come between, follow after, how many colleges, how many priesthoods, how many offices are set in motion, the men of that city know in which the assembly of demons has taken its seat." (Tertullian, On the Shows, ch. 7, p. 93). Certain other things besides he reported elsewhere. But all these things, one by one and vividly, by Dionysius

of Halicarnassus you will find described. (The same, book On Idolatry, ch. 11, p. 110; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, book VII of the Roman Antiquities, p. 475 and following.) On these things, however, we have added some notes on certain books of Ambrose (Exposition of Ps. 118, sermon 5, and book 1 On Duties, ch. 18, § 73, p. 21).

But although from this, and above all from the words of Tertullian, it is easily understood why those spectacles of the heathen were forbidden to Christians, our author nevertheless gave certain particular reasons for this prohibition: "For in the chariot games," he says, "who would not shudder at the madness of a people quarrelling among themselves, in the gladiatorial games at the training in homicide? In the stage plays too there is no less frenzy, a more drawn-out shamefulness." In the royal manuscript codex is read "no less than frenzy," and not in an altogether absurd sense. However that may be, Tertullian had gone before our author in his Apology, where we read it written in like manner: "We have nothing to do with the madness of the circus, with the shamelessness of the theatre, with the savagery of the arena, with the vanity of the xystus." And again elsewhere: "Why do you not frequent, he said, the so solemn pleasures of the raging circus, and of the savage amphitheatre, and of the wanton stage?" Finally in yet another book: "The believer too perishes, having slipped into the spectacle of the charioteer's frenzy, and of gladiatorial gore, and of stage foulness, and of the vanity of the xystus, into the games and banquets of worldly festivity, into the service, into the ministry of foreign idolatry." (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 38, p. 34. The same, book 1 Against Marcion, ch. 27, p. 451; book On Modesty, ch. 7, p. 722). Therefore Jerome writes these things to Marcella: "Let Rome have its tumults to itself, let the arena rage, let the circus run mad, let the theatres revel in luxury." For "one believing in the Lord Jesus," as he said elsewhere of Saint Hilarion, "takes no delight in the frenzies of the circus, in the blood of the arena, in the luxury of the theatre (Jerome, letter 45, to Marcella, p. 554, and in the Life of Hilarion, p. 75).

Moreover Tertullian, in the book On the Spectacles already cited by us, after he had made plain to all what the circus is, why it is so named, and what was done in it, then afterwards clearly explained what these words of our author mean: "the madness of a people quarrelling among themselves": When frenzy, he says, is forbidden to us, we are withdrawn from every spectacle, even from the circus, where frenzy properly presides. Look at the people coming to the spectacle already with frenzy, already tumultuous, already blind, already roused over their wagers. The praetor is too slow for them; their eyes are ever rolling in his urn along with the lots. Then they hang anxious upon the signal; of one madness there is one voice. I recognize their madness from its vanity: "He has let it fall," they say, and they announce to one another what was seen by all at the same moment. I hold the testimony of their blindness. They do not see what it is that is let fall: they think it a napkin; but it is the figure of the devil cast down from on high (otherwise, gullet). From that, therefore, one goes into furies, and passions, and discords, and whatever is not lawful for the priests of peace. Thence curses, insults without justice, and also votes of hatred without the merit of love" (Tertullian, book On the Spectacles, ch. 8, p. 95.

Ibid. ch. 19, p. 97). To these he adds more, which you will not regret reading. You will also be able to see what he added about the same spectacles, where he, like Martial, Suetonius and others, made mention of the napkin which, as some say, used to be sent by the praetor to the victor, or, as others prefer, which was the signal for starting the games (Juv. at the end of Satire 11; Martial, book 12, Epigram 29; Suet. in Life of Nero, § 22). But the author of the iambic poem published among the works of Gregory Nazianzen describes in detail the frenzy of the circus, its angers, brawls, insults, hatreds, fights, wounds and slaughters (Greg. Naz., Iambic Poem 3, p. 292).

But what Minucius next notes, "in the gladiator's games the training in homicide", is set out more clearly by Cyprian: "A gladiatorial game is prepared," says that most holy martyr, "so that blood may delight the lust of cruel eyes. The body is filled out to fullness of sap with stronger foods, and the robust mass of the limbs grows fat with brawn of lard, so that, fattened for punishment, he may perish at a dearer price. A man is killed for a man's pleasure; and that one may be able to kill, it is a skill, it is a practice, it is an art. Crime is not only committed but also taught. What more inhuman and more bitter thing can be said? It is a training, that one may be able to perish; and a glory, that he kills." (Cyprian, book To Donatus, p. 5). See further, if you please, Tatian, Arnobius, Lactantius, Prudentius, and what we have observed elsewhere about those contests of gladiators." (Tatian, Oration against the Greeks, p. 161; Arnob. book 2, p. 72; Lactant. book 6, ch. 20, p. 617; Prudent. book 2 Against Symmachus, p. 429, in the hymn on Saints Fructuosus and Augurius, etc., p. 429, and Hamartigenia, p. 322, vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 800).

Finally, concerning the shameful things of the stage, the same Cyprian also sets forth somewhat more fully what was said by our author: "In the theatres," he says, "you will behold what may be both a grief and a shame to you. The tragic buskin is to recount in verse the crimes of old: the ancient error of parricides and incests is unfolded again in a performance shaped to the likeness of truth, lest with the passing ages the crime once committed should fade away. Every assembly is reminded by hearing that what has been done can be done. . . Then it delights, in the mimes, under the tutelage of shameful things, either to recognize what one has done at home or to learn what one could do. Adultery is learned while it is watched, and with the evil sanctioned by public authority pandering to vice, the matron who had perhaps gone chaste to the spectacle returns from the spectacle unchaste. . . They portray an unchaste Venus, an adulterous Mars, and that Jupiter of theirs, foremost not more in kingship than in vices. . They imitate their gods, whom they venerate; for the wretched even crimes become religious." (Cypr. ibid., p. 5 and following.)

But earlier Tertullian: "We separate ourselves from the theatre," he says, "which is the private assembly-house of unchastity. . . its chief charm is for the most part contrived out of filth, which the Atellan actor acts out in gesture, which the mime presents even through women, the sex

of modesty, banishing it, so that they blush more easily at home than on the stage; which, finally, the pantomime suffers in his body from boyhood, so that he may be an artist. Even the very prostitutes, victims of public lust, are brought forth on the stage, etc." (Tert. On the Spectacles, ch. 17, p. 78). Before both of these, moreover, Theophilus of Antioch and Clement of Alexandria, and afterwards Lactantius, Jerome, the author of the iambic poem ascribed to Gregory Nazianzen, and others inveigh with full justice against these obscenities of the stage. Who, moreover, does not know that the tragedies and comedies of the heathen poets, Greek as well as Latin, teem with them, which, to the ruin of many, have survived in print far longer than many very useful works of the ancient Fathers of the Church? (Theoph. To Autolycus, bk 3, p. 126 ff.; Clem. Alex. Paedagogus, bk 2, ch. 6, p. 169, and bk 2, ch. 11, p. 254; Lactant. Institutes, bk 6, ch. 20, p. 619 ff.; Jerome, Letter 18 to Marcella. In Greg. Nazianz. vol. 2, p. 191.)

Article II.

How Minucius answers Caecilius's other disparagements, that the Christians do not take part in public banquets and sacred contests, and abstain from things offered to idols; where it is shown what those public banquets of the heathen were, and how far they differed from the Christians.

For a threefold reason besides, Caecilius rebukes the Christians: that they refused to celebrate public banquets with the heathen, to attend their sacred contests, and to taste beforehand foods and drinks offered to the gods. But what those banquets of the heathen were, and why they were instituted, if you wish to know, these words of Tertullian will teach you: "A great duty, to be sure, to bring hearths and couches out into public, to feast street by street, to make the city vanish under the guise of a tavern, to make mud with wine, to run about in troops to outrages, to shameless acts, to the enticements of lust! Is public joy thus expressed through public disgrace? Do these things befit the solemn days of princes which do not befit other days? Those who observe discipline out of respect for Caesar will abandon it on account of Caesar; and the licence of bad morals will be piety, the occasion of luxury will be reckoned religion." (Tertull. Apology, ch. 35).

From these and other words of his anyone may easily understand that those banquets were celebrated with the utmost disgrace on the solemn days of the emperors and Caesars, namely their birthdays, as he relates elsewhere, likewise on their quinquennial festivals, on which we have touched briefly, on the decennial and vicennial festivals, and at the beginning of each year, as will be explained in its place, and at the very great solemnity of triumphs. (Tertull. To His Wife, bk 2, ch. 6; On the Spectacles, ch. 6; Dissertation on Lucius Caecilius, ch. 8 and 13, art. 7 and 3.)

With no less depravity of morals, indeed, the heathen held still other banquets on certain festivals of the gods. Such indeed were those of which

the same Tertullian: "I do not recline at table in public at the Liberalia," he says, "as is the custom for beast-fighters eating their last supper." (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 42, p. 38). For this reason the Christians utterly detested those [banquets] as impious and defiled with the vice of idolatry. And indeed Martialis the bishop, on the testimony of Cyprian, was convicted of idolatry because he had frequented the shameful and filthy banquets of the gentiles (Cyprian, Letter 67, p. 173).

Minucius, therefore, since he well knew that these things could be unknown to no pious man, judged that nothing else need be answered to the unjust reproach of Caecilius than by showing to him and to all the other heathen how far our banquets differ from theirs: "We keep banquets," he says, "not only chaste but also sober. For we do not indulge in feasts, nor prolong the banquet with neat wine, but we temper cheerfulness with gravity." But we have already touched on something of these matters, and we shall discuss more in the following [treatise] on Tertullian's apologetic discourse (vol. I of the Apparatus, book 2, dissertation 1, ch. 6, art. 4, p. 715). Of the sacred contests, moreover, as that Caecilius calls them, we have treated in the first volume of our Apparatus, and in the preceding article, where we dealt with gladiators and spectacles (vol. I of the Apparatus, pp. 771 and 800). Minucius, further, seems to have replied to this disparagement with nothing more than what has been observed by us in the cited passage of that same Apparatus of ours. But it is clear enough from what has been said how horrible their cruelty was.

The third head of Caecilius's censure is that the Christians refused to taste food offered to the gods. But Minucius readily admits this, and at the same time gives the reason for this abstinence: "That we despise the remains of sacrifices," so he speaks, "and cups poured in libation, is not a confession of fear but an assertion of true freedom. For although everything that is born, as an inviolable gift of God, is corrupted by no act, we nevertheless abstain, lest anyone should think either that we yield to the demons to whom the libation has been made, or that we are ashamed of our religion."

Now although Minucius nowhere, as we have already noted, fought against the heathen who spurned it with the express authority of our sacred Scripture, and for that reason is entirely silent about the law laid down by the Apostles on abstaining from things sacrificed to idols, he nevertheless seems to allude to what Paul handed down concerning that [law] and the reason for this abstinence in the First Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 8:1; 10:19 ff.). Tertullian, indeed, did not hesitate to cite the very words of Paul to precisely the same effect: "But neither," he says, "do we eat of what has been sacrificed or offered to the dead, because I cannot eat the supper of the Lord and the supper of demons (Tertullian, On the Spectacles, ch. 13). Finally, Clement of Alexandria had earlier handed down many things fully in agreement with these which our author said (Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, book 2, ch. 10, p. 213).

On the other hand, however, Celsus, in Origen, the Christians more sharply

pressed with this, as they say, argument ad hominem: "If idols are nothing," as the Christians maintained, "what harm is there in enjoying the feasts?" But Origen utterly overturns that futile argumentation with the words of Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians already cited by us, and adds: "Even if there are demons, to whom victims are sacrificed, we ought not to become partakers of their sacrifices: knowing the difference between the table of the Lord and the table of demons; and because we know it, doing everything so that we may always partake of the table of the Lord, while guarding ourselves in every way so that we may never become sharers in the table of demons; since we know the difference between the table of the Lord and the table of demons; and knowing this, let us leave nothing undone so that, always partaking of the table of the Lord, we may in every way beware of communion with the table of demons" (Origen, book 8, Against Celsus, p. 394). See Cyril of Alexandria, replying to a similar argumentation put forward by Julian the Apostate, and Cyril of Jerusalem, Oecumenius, Estius and other interpreters of Scripture on the cited words of the Apostle" (Cyril of Alexandria, book 7, Against Julian, p. 233; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 4, p. 34).

Article III

The other reproaches of Caecilius are examined, by which he censures the Christians on the ground that they did not adorn the head with flowers or the body with perfumes, that they reserved unguents for funerals, and that they refused garlands to the dead, whose bodies they did not cremate but buried; where [it is treated] of the custom of burying bodies and of its antiquity.

Caecilius censures other things in the Christians which were far more worthy of praise than of blame: "You do not," he says, "bind your head with flowers, you do not adorn your body with perfumes, you reserve unguents for funerals, you even deny garlands to tombs." That accusation is threefold, as you see. Minucius, however, replies to the first that it is not the lawful use of flowers but the abuse of garlands that is rightly and deservedly rejected by the Christians. Hear, I pray, his words: "Who is he who doubts that we indulge in spring flowers, since we pick both the rose of spring and the lily, and whatever else among flowers is of pleasing colour and scent? For we use these both scattered, soft and loose, and we entwine our necks with garlands. Indeed, that we do not crown the head, pardon us. We are accustomed to draw in the breath of a good flower with the nostrils, not to take it in with the back of the head or the hair."

Here, indeed, he seems to follow Tertullian, who went before him, who had refuted this absurd accusation of the gentiles with a plainly similar reply: "I do not care," he says, "for a garland on the head; what concern is it of yours? How then do I use the flowers I have nevertheless bought? More pleasingly, I think, [when they are] free and loose and straying everywhere; but even if they are gathered into a garland, we know a garland by the nostrils. Let those see to it who smell through the hair" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 42, p. 38). But he pursued these things more fully in another book, and shows that the use of flowers is lawful, provided that their colour and scent by no other than sight

and smell, senses destined by divine Providence for this end, may be perceived: "Use," he says, "flowers and the sense of smell, of which senses this is the fruit. But on the head what taste is there of a flower? What sense of a crown, except only that of a bond, by which neither is colour discerned, nor scent drawn in, nor softness commended? It is as much against nature to pursue a flower with the head as food with the ear, or sound with the nostril. But everything that is against nature deserves the mark of a monstrosity among all men, and among us moreover the charge of sacrilege against God, the Lord and author of nature (the same, book On the Crown, chapter 6, page 123)." Indeed even in Lucian, although a pagan, those are rebuked who wore crowns, "because they did not know the place of the crown," where it was to be put (Lucian, Dialogue on the Manners of the Philosophers, page 24).

Yet Justin Martyr gave another reason for the use of crowns being disapproved by the Christians, namely that it was customary among the heathen to bestow them on the images of the gods, which lack a soul (Justin, Apology 2, page 57). Indeed Tertullian, whom we cited just now, proves by various arguments that the origin of that custom derives from that impious worship of the gods. Afterwards he added this: "By which we may be sufficiently instructed how foreign we ought to judge the practice of the crowned head, approved by them and thereafter dispensed in their honour," as he further shows in another book, "whom the world has believed to be gods (Tertullian, book On the Crown, chapter 7 and following, page 124 and following; and book On the Shows, chapters 7, 11 and 12, pages 93 and 95)." Wherefore Cyprian, his follower, congratulated the confessors of Christ in these words: "From the impious and wicked veil with which there the captive heads of those sacrificing were veiled, your head has remained free. The brow pure with the sign of God could not bear the crown of the devil; it has reserved itself for the crown of the Lord" (Cyprian, On the Lapsed, page 122). Consult further, if you please, Mader's singular book On Crowns, and, if you wish, what we have said about them in the previous volume of our Apparatus, and what is still to be said later (volume 1 of the Apparatus, page 801 and following, and below, chapter 19, article 2).

But Caecilius and the other pagans blamed the Christians not only on the ground that they refused crowns to living men, but also to the dead: "Crowns," he said, "you refuse even to tombs." What then does Octavius say to this? He readily grants that this is plainly true, and wonders that the dead are crowned by the heathen: "I," he says, "wonder at you rather in this, how you bestow on a lifeless man either not a torch, or on one not feeling not a crown, since the blessed man does not need flowers, and the wretched man does not rejoice in them (ibid., page 341)." But to very many this text of our author seems corrupt, and in some editions the particle non and the noun exanimi have been omitted. But this correction is contrary to the manuscript codex, and increases rather than removes the difficulty. For it appears contrary to the mind of Minucius, since it is not strange that a torch is given "to one who feels," but to a dead man, who can see nothing. But keeping the

reading of the manuscript, this seems to be our author's meaning: "I wonder indeed why you bestow crowns on a man who is dead and does not feel." For that is no less absurd than if you were to bring a torch near one who is "lifeless," and therefore does not feel. For a dead man is either "blessed" or "wretched": if blessed and enjoying eternal happiness, he has no need of flowers; if wretched and tormented with eternal punishments, he cannot take delight in flowers, since he can be touched by no sense of delight.

With this argument he harries the gentiles, who not only crowned the dead by customary usage, but on whom this had even been enjoined by a most ancient law. You will have Cicero as witness, if you wish, where he discusses the laws of the Twelve Tables: "That," he says, "is already a mark of praise, that ornaments pertain to the dead, since the law orders that a crown won by valour may, without offence, be placed both on him who had won it and on his parent." (Cic., On the Laws, book 2, p. 341, line 39). Pliny, indeed, teaches when it was to be placed: "What honour was it, then," he says, "that it might be placed without offence on the dead man himself and on his parents, while he was laid out within or was being borne out of doors?" (Pliny, Natural History, book 21, ch. 3, p. 107), that is, while the dead man's body was kept at home, and when it was carried out from there and the funeral procession was held. Lucian too wrote of all the dead: "Having crowned them with beautiful flowers, they lay them out, splendidly clothed": "They lay them out crowned with most beautiful flowers, splendidly clothed." (Lucian, On Mourning, p. 810). But he mocks and hisses off this custom and the other gentile rites of burial. Why then should the Christians not have rejected that use of crowns, about which we have argued elsewhere? (Vol. 1 of the Apparatus, book 3, Dissertation 1, ch. 19, art. 6, p. 802 ff.) And why they spurned it, Minucius gave this reason: "But we adorn our funerals with the same tranquillity with which we live; nor do we bind on a withering crown, but we await one living with eternal flowers from God." (Minuc., p. 345), that is, we expect it.

But although the Christians wreathed the head of the dead with no crown, they were nevertheless accustomed to anoint their bodies with ointments (ibid., p. 98). For what is more fitting than that they should imitate the example, set before them by the Evangelist, of the anointed body of Christ (John 19:39 ff.)? Nor did Caecilius dare to condemn this custom, since, as Pliny says, when the use of ointments had spread to them in the time of Darius, "then the honour began to pertain to the dead as well" (Pliny, Natural History, book 13, ch. 1, p. 56). Let us hear, then, what Caecilius himself reproaches in the Christians: "You do not grace the body with scents, keeping ointments for funerals" (Minuc., p. 97). He rebukes them, therefore, not because they drenched the dead with ointments, but because they did not anoint themselves while they were still alive. Octavius, however, disdaining this utterly preposterous accusation, seems to have answered nothing to it, unless perhaps what he had said in the same place, that the Christians, as regards the permitted [use] indeed of flowers and so also of ointments,

had not rejected that use, but, as we have shown elsewhere (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 603 ff.), the intolerable abuse of them by the gentiles. Tertullian, moreover, handed down more about the pious and praiseworthy rite of the Christians of anointing the bodies of the dead, which must be examined by us in their proper place.

Lastly, Caecilius assails the Christians, who still kept the ancient custom of burying the dead, thus: "They execrate pyres and burials by fire, as though every body, even if it is withdrawn from the flames, were not nevertheless dissolved into earth by years and ages; and as though it made no difference whether wild beasts tear it apart, or the seas consume it, or the ground covers it, or flame takes it away: since for corpses every kind of burial, if they feel, is a punishment; if they do not feel, it is by the very speed of the dissolving a remedy" (Minucius, p. 97 ff.). We have already observed that these things were taken from Seneca (above, ch. 2, art. 5).

But to so frigid a mockery what does Minucius reply? "Nor do we, as you believe, fear any loss from the manner of burial, but we keep to the old and better custom of interring in the earth" (Minucius, p. 255). And indeed that the custom of burying corpses was in reality the most ancient and the best, Cicero, if you doubt it, will teach you in these words: "But to me the most ancient kind of burial seems to have been that which Cyrus uses in Xenophon. For the body is returned to the earth, and, so placed and laid, is covered as if by the covering of its mother. And by the same rite, we have received, our king Numa was laid in that tomb which lies out by the altars of Fons; and we know that the Cornelian clan was interred with this kind of burial down to our own memory. Sulla the victor ordered the buried remains of Gaius Marius by the Anio to be scattered.... And perhaps fearing that this might happen to his own body, he was the first of the patrician Cornelii who wished to be burned with fire" (Cicero, On the Laws, book 2, p. 340, line 45 ff.).

And concerning Numa Plutarch also handed this down to memory: "His body, by his own instruction, as the report goes, they did not give the corpse to fire, since he forbade it; but having made two stone coffins, under the Janiculum, the one holding the body, they did not cremate; but they made two stone chests, which they buried under the Janiculum; in one of which his corpse was placed" (Plutarch, vol., in the Life of Numa, p. 74). From these things, therefore, it is clear that the custom of burying corpses was most ancient. Pliny also subscribed to this opinion, as is evident from these words of his: "Cremation itself was not an ancient institution among the Romans: they were laid in the earth. But after they learned that those buried in distant wars were dug up, then it was instituted. And yet many families kept the ancient rites, as in the Cornelian family no one is reported to have been cremated before Sulla the dictator; and he wished it, fearing retaliation, since the corpse of Gaius Marius had been dug up. Let 'buried' be understood of one laid away in any manner whatever; but 'interred' of one covered with earth" (Pliny, book 7 of the Natural Epist., ch. 54, p. 91 ff.). He follows Cicero, as you see, step by step, and how burial

and inhumation differ from each other, he clearly explains.

The same Cicero bears witness, moreover, that this custom prevailed not only among the Romans but among other nations as well. Concerning the Egyptians, the Persians and the Magi, indeed, he committed this to writing and to memory: "The Egyptians embalm the dead and keep them at home. The Persians also embalm them smeared all over with wax, so that the bodies may last as long as possible. It is the custom of the Magi not to inter the bodies of their own people unless they have first been torn by wild beasts" (Cic. Tusculans book 1, p. 133, line 23). He adds that the Hircani judged it the best burial when the corpses of the dead were torn apart by dogs.

Concerning the Athenians, however, he records the following in the second book On the Laws, cited by us: "At Athens that custom has remained from Cecrops, as they say, this right of burying in the earth; and when the nearest kin had performed it and the earth had been drawn over, it was sown with crops, so that the bosom and lap, as it were, of a mother might be given to the dead; and the ground, purified by the crops, was given back to the living" (ibid., On the Laws book 2, p. 342, line 9). Nor should Servius be passed over, who in his commentaries on the sixth book of the Aeneid observes as follows: "Those who have written on the kinds of piety held that the first place lies in burial. Hence, although it was forbidden for the pontiffs to see a corpse, it was yet more forbidden if they left one they had seen unburied. Now one kind of burial was the casting of dust. Hence it is said: Or cast earth upon me, for you can. Horace: The delay is not long; when dust has been thrown three times, you may run on" (Servius on Aeneid book 6, v. 175 ff., p. 409, and on book 2, pp. 618 and 619). But he speaks further on this matter elsewhere, which you may consult, as also Macrobius, who testifies openly that in his age there was no practice of burning the bodies of the dead (Macrob. Saturnalia book 7, ch. 7). In another book, moreover, he wrote that it was established by the institutions of very many nations or regions that the bodies of the dead were not to be carried to burial without song (and the book On the Dream of Scipio, ch. 3). Further, Lilius Gyraldus discusses more on the various rites of burial in a special book written on that subject; Alexander ab Alexandro in the sixth book of the Genial Days; and Tiraquellus in his annotations on that book.

Article IV.

That the morals of the Christians were as holy as those of the pagans were corrupt: why their discipline is called lesser by Caecilius: how far these same Christians surpassed the gentile philosophers in piety and learning: that pagans and Christians were nevertheless friends, and addressed one another by the name of brothers.

From what has been said so far it can be obscure to no one how falsely Caecilius boasted, as he himself afterwards rightly acknowledged, that in his whole speech he had proved the Christians to be men not only rough and unskilled, but also impious and defiled by the greatest crimes, unheard of until then; Octavius, however, refutes so great a calumny, already more than sufficiently confuted, with these further words: "If with you," that is, with the pagans,

we "Christians are compared, although in some respects our discipline is lesser, we shall nevertheless be found much better than you." With these words he certainly asserts without hesitation that the morals of the Christians were far purer and holier than those of the gentiles.

But, someone will say, what does Octavius mean when he says, "In some respects our discipline is lesser" than that of the heathen? The sense of these words can be twofold: first, that although in some Christians who are slothful and idle our discipline is lesser, these are nevertheless better than the heathen. In the other sense: Christians are found to be better than the heathen, although in some matters their discipline is lesser than that of the gentiles, for instance in the multitude of laws, in the ceremonies pertaining to the worship and religion of the gods, in temples, altars, sacrifices, processions, the use of garlands and other rites, which we have discussed above. But consider whether this sense may seem better than the former, because Minucius compares the Christians with the heathen, and not with themselves.

How upright, chaste and religious the morals of the Christians were, and how corrupt, depraved and wicked those of the gentiles, Minucius, or Octavius in his name, shows by a brief comparison, which Tertullian pursues at greater length (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 46, p. 39 ff.): "For you," he says, "forbid adulteries, and commit them: we are born husbands to our own wives alone." This Tertullian, whom we have just cited, confirms by the example of Speusippus thus: "I hear," he says, "that a certain Speusippus of the school of Plato perished in adultery: the Christian is born a male for his own wife alone" (Tertullian, loc. cit., p. 40). But concerning the chastity of the Christians and the infamous impurity of the heathen we have already related some things above (above, ch. 10, art. 1 and 2, and ch. 16, art. 2), and we shall say more below.

Then Minucius: "You consider crimes committed, with us even to think is to sin: you fear accomplices, we fear even our conscience alone, without which we cannot exist." And Tertullian: "Democritus, by blinding himself, because he could not look upon women without desire and was pained if he had not possessed them, professes his incontinence by the correction. But the Christian, with his eyes unharmed, does not see women; in mind he is blind towards lust" (Tertullian, loc. cit., p. 40). But this needs no proof. For who does not know the law laid down by Christ: Everyone who has looked upon a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matt. 5:28)? And from this Tertullian concludes that the divine law is more perfect than the human: "Which is more perfect," he says, "to forbid adultery, or also to restrain from the solitary desire of the eyes?" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 44, p. 36.) But more on these things in the following dissertations (Dissertations on Tertullian, ch. 12, art. 4).

Finally, concerning the accused thrust into prison, this the author

of ours added: "The prison seethes with your number; there is no Christian there, unless either as one accused on account of his religion or as a fugitive [from it]." These things indeed agree so closely with the words of Tertullian that they seem to have been excerpted and carried over from him. For he says thus: "So many guilty persons are listed by you under various entries of crimes: who there is a murderer, who a pickpocket, who a sacrilegious man, or a seducer, or a robber of bathers, who is also enrolled as a Christian? Or, when Christians are brought forward under their own title, who among them is even such as so many guilty persons are? It is from your people that the prison always seethes, from your people that the mines always sigh, from your people that the beasts are always fattened, from your people that the givers of shows always feed their herds of criminals. No one there is a Christian, unless only as this; or if also as something else, then he is no longer a Christian" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 45, p. 39): that is, no Christian was thrust into prison on account of any crime whatever, but solely for the name of Christian and the profession of the Christian law. But if on account of some crime, then he was no longer a Christian, that is, he had fallen away from the Christian profession. And this is the very thing that we have seen said by our Minucius. In another dissertation, moreover (Dissertation on Tertullian, ch. 12, arts. 3, 4), we shall show how much more fully the same Tertullian pursues this comparison of Christians and heathens. Meanwhile you will be able to read what has been committed to writing in confirmation of these things by him and by Lactantius and Eusebius (Tertullian, To Scapula, ch. 2; Lactantius, Institutes book 5, ch. 9, p. 383; Euseb. Ecclesiastical History book 5, ch. 2, p. 169).

Our Minucius continues, and sets up another comparison of Christians with heathen philosophers in this manner: "We despise the haughty brows of the philosophers, whom we know to be seducers and adulterers and tyrants, and always eloquent against their own vices. We display wisdom not in our dress but in our mind; we do not speak great things, but we live them. We glory that we have attained what they sought with the utmost effort and were not able to find." Cyprian, moreover, without doubt borrowed this very comparison from this passage of our author, and also many of his words, which have been set out by us above (above, ch. 2, art. 39, p. 4).

But this had earlier been treated far more copiously by Tertullian: "The philosophers," he says, "affect the truth, and by affecting it they corrupt it, as men who seek after glory. Christians both seek it of necessity and present it whole, as men who care for their salvation. So far are we from being equal, as you suppose, either in knowledge or in discipline" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 46, p. 40). He argues many more things on this matter there, which are to be examined by us in their place (Dissertation on Tertullian, ch. 12, arts. 3 and 4; and ch. 13, arts. 2 and 3).

Moreover, says Minucius, the gentile philosophers, while they spoke great things with the varnish of vain eloquence, were eloquent against their own vices. But earlier they had been called by the same Tertullian "men lustful for glory and eloquence" (Tertullian, ibid., ch. 47, p. 41), because they misused these for lust. Nothing

...[the preaching of our Prophe]ts, handed down whether in writing or by word, pursued a shadow of the truth, inasmuch as they corrupted it, once found there, by their various errors. This has been demonstrated by us more than once in our other dissertations clearly enough, unless we are mistaken (vol. I of the Apparatus, pp. 327, 423, 1104, 1112), and will be demonstrated further in those that follow.

Moreover, the very great difference in doctrine and morals between Christians and gentiles did not prevent them from sometimes living in the same house and addressing one another by the name of brothers. For we saw that Caecilius, a heathen, lived at Rome with Minucius Felix, and that he was called brother by Octavius as much as Octavius by him (above, ch. 3, art. 2, pp. 11 and 12).

Nor should you say that Caecilius and Octavius were not real but feigned persons; for even if that were the case, it must nevertheless be certain that these things would not have been said by Minucius unless the custom and practice of this form of address and of living together had prevailed in his time.

CHAPTER XIV.

The arguments of Caecilius are examined by which he tries to prove that his gods really exist, and therefore that the religion of the gentiles is true.

ARTICLE ONE.

...to follow the rites and worship of the gods, than to be enslaved with blind fickleness to a new religion, defiled by secret but most corrupt crimes. The same is the conclusion of Cotta the Academic in Cicero, of Celsus in Origen, of Symmachus in Ambrose, and of other gentiles, as Arnobius and Lactantius witness (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods III, beginning, p. 240; Origen, Against Celsus V, p. 254 ff.; Symmachus, Relatio, in Ambrose, §§ 3, 5 and 8, p. 829; Arnobius, Against the Gentiles II, p. 30 ff.; Lactantius II, 6, p. 171).

But since Caecilius believed that all the things he brought forward about his gods, which we have reviewed, were unknown to no one, he did not trouble to prove them one by one. But if anyone should wish to know something of them, perhaps now unknown to him, we shall observe that Eleusis was a city of Attica, situated not far from Athens, where Ceres, mentioned by Caecilius, while seeking her daughter, was most kindly received in hospitality by Eleusius, who ruled there. And the Eleusinians, in memory of these things, celebrated rites which are called the Eleusinia, of which we have treated elsewhere (vol. I of the Apparatus, book III, dissertation 1, ch. 9, art. 2, p. 789 ff.). Herodotus testifies that a temple of Eleusinian Ceres was founded there by Philistus, son of Pasicles. You will be able to read more in Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Mela, Pausanias, and, if you wish, what we have noted elsewhere (Herodotus IX, §§ 64 and 96; Diodorus Siculus, Library I, p. 117, and V, p. 200; Strabo, Geography IX, p. 395; Mela, On the Situation of the World, ch. 3; Pausanias VI, p. 103, and VIII, pp. 249 and 256; vol. I of the Apparatus, p. 759 ff.).

You will learn from Pausanias, already cited, why "Aesculapius," as Caecilius says, was worshipped by the Epidaurians, and where his temple was situated. Livy indeed writes: "Epidaurus, not equal in wealth to Sicyon and Argos, but famous for the noble temple of Aesculapius, which, standing five miles from the city, is now rich in the traces of gifts torn away, but was then rich in the gifts which the sick had consecrated to the god as the fee for healing remedies." Something about the inscription of this temple has been remarked by us elsewhere (Pausanias, book II, page 68; Livy, book XLV, § 18; volume I of the Apparatus, page 1093).

The Phrygians, Caecilius further says, venerated the Mother, as Strabo attests in these words: "The Berecyntes, a Phrygian people, and the Phrygians in general, and those of the Trojans who dwell around Ida: they too honour Rhea and celebrate orgies for her, calling her Mother of the gods. They too worship Rhea and perform orgies for her, calling her Mother of the gods, and Agdestis, and the Phrygian, the Great goddess; and from the places, Idaean, Dindymene, Bylene, Pessinuntis, Cybele" (Strabo, Geography book X, page 469). See besides what has been noted by us elsewhere (volume I of the Apparatus, book III, dissertation I, chapter 9, page 758).

With how great observance the Chaldaeans revered Bel you may easily gather from the size of the temple built in his honour. For of it Herodotus related this, as of Babylon: "In the other [part] is the bronze-gated sanctuary of Zeus Belus, which still existed in my time, of two stadia, square on every side. In the middle of the sanctuary a solid tower has been built. . . . Nor does any human being spend the night there, except one woman alone of the natives, whom the god chooses out of all, as the Chaldaeans, who are priests of this god, say." "In the other is the temple of Jupiter Belus with bronze gates, which exists even now in my own time, two stadia in extent every way, square in shape. In the middle of the sanctuary is a solid tower... Nor does anyone sleep here by night except one woman of the natives, whom the god has chosen out of all, as the Chaldaeans, the priests of this god, relate" (Herodotus, book I, § 181). Diodorus Siculus also [says] more about this temple; he states that it was built by Semiramis but had collapsed from age (Diodorus, Library, book, page 69). Pliny, however, asserts that the same temple still remained in his own time (Pliny, Natural History book V, chapter 26, page 712). But whatever be the truth about that temple's destruction, we have shown elsewhere that Theophilus of Antioch, praised by Lactantius, wrote that the Assyrians and the Babylonians offered worship and veneration to Bel. Read again Herodotus, book III, § 153, page 223; Jerome on chapter XXVI of Ezekiel, verse 11, and on chapter II of Hosea, verse 16; Claudian, Panegyric 1 in praise of Stilicho; Vossius, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry book I, chapter 24, page 93; Giraldus, History of the Gods, syntagma 2, page 108 and following (volume I of the Apparatus, book II, dissertation 4, chapter 2, § 1, page 502).

But whether they earned the empire of the whole world by this pious worship, as Caecilius puts it and contends, we shall weigh a little later.

From all these things, moreover, he thinks it can be concluded that the gods of the Gentiles really exist, that the traditions about them which arose from the beginning of the world are by no means to be abandoned, and that one must persevere steadfastly in this religion of our ancestors. But in what way, and with what weight of reasons, Minucius attacks and refutes him must be examined in our usual manner.

Article II.

How Octavius refutes the argument of Caecilius, and shows that the worship of the gods is not of such great antiquity, and that the impious and superstitious traditions of the ancestors, such as those about Scylla, the Chimaera, the Hydra and the Centaurs, are not to be followed.

There are two parts of Caecilius's argumentation, which the other Gentiles also never failed to use. The first concerns all the Gentiles without exception, the second the Romans in particular. Each, however, is utterly overthrown by as many replies of Minucius, and by various and most weighty reasons. Therefore, so that everything may be treated in proper order, we shall take the beginning of our discussion from the first, and afterwards come to the rest.

First, then, it ought not to be unclear to anyone who considers what has been said so far with a mind not wholly unfair, that each part of Caecilius's disputation has already been thoroughly weakened and broken by those arguments with which Minucius, as we have seen, most invincibly demonstrated that there are not many gods but one alone, and that He provides for each and every thing by His divine providence.

Therefore, after he had fortified each of those foundations of true religion with an impregnable bulwark of reasons, drawn for the most part from the opinions of the Gentile philosophers themselves, he then proceeds to refute the first part of Caecilius's reasoning. Now Caecilius had said that one must cling most steadfastly to the most ancient traditions, coeval with the world, of our ancestors, who worshipped their gods from the beginning of the world.

But our Minucius shows most clearly that this is absurd and wholly contrary to right reason: « For if the world is ruled by providence, he says, and governed by the will of one God, antiquity, delighted or captivated by its own little fables of the unlearned, ought not to sweep us into the error of a shared consent, since it is refuted by the opinions of its own philosophers, on whose side stands the authority both of reason and of age. » With a double battering-ram, as you see, he here strikes and overturns the antiquity of their religion and of the worship of the gods, so vaunted by the heathen. For first, by the authority of the philosophers, which no Gentile could oppose, he makes the falsity of this antiquity plain. And towards the confirmation of this assertion those things certainly contributed not a little which we have seen handed down and approved by him and by Clement of Alexandria, that the same

philosophers, namely, drew most of their doctrines from our sacred Scriptures, though these were afterwards distorted and corrupted by them.

Then, however ancient the religion of the heathens might be, all ought nonetheless to renounce it, because it was wholly made up of fables, utterly absurd lies, monstrous opinions and the dreams of raving men. For, as Ambrose excellently teaches in refuting this same argument of Symmachus: Let old age blush that cannot amend itself; it is not the grey hair of years that is praised, but that of character; there is no shame in passing over to better things (Ambrose, Letter 18, § 7, p. 834). You will be able to read more on this matter in Clement of Alexandria, in Arnobius, of whom we [treat] in his proper place, and in Prudentius (Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Gentiles, p. 57; Arnobius, Against the Gentiles, book 2, p. 90 and following; Prudentius, Against Symmachus, book 2).

But we cannot pass over Tertullian, who, going still further, shrewdly and sharply rebukes the heathens because they threw up against the Christians, to the point of nausea, the traditions of their ancestors, boasted of with loud and oft-repeated clamour, while they themselves were trampling on and despising them: « Where, he says, is your religion, where the veneration owed by you to your ancestors? In dress, in food, in furnishing, in property, and finally in speech itself, you have renounced your forefathers. You are always praising the ancients, yet you live in a new way from day to day, whereby it is shown that, while you depart from the good institutions of your ancestors, you retain and keep the things you ought not, since the things you ought, you have not kept. » But of these things we [shall say] more in their proper place, where we shall discuss his books (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 6, p. 7; Dissertation on Tertullian, ch. 18, p. 15).

That the ancient opinions of the gentiles were ridiculous and plainly absurd, although this could be unknown to no one, Minucius nevertheless, in order to satisfy everyone fully, demonstrates by many examples. For the gentiles believed, he says, that there existed a manifold Scylla, a many-formed chimaera, a Hydra reborn from its wounds, and Centaurs, horses intertwined with men. Scylla indeed Virgil described in these verses:

But Scylla a cave confines in its hidden lairs, thrusting out her mouths and dragging ships onto the rocks. Above, she has a human face, and is a maiden with a fair breast down to the groin; below, a sea-monster of huge body, with dolphins' tails joined to a belly of wolves. (Virgil, Aeneid, book 3, line 424 and following.)

Otherwise, however, but no less monstrous, she is represented by Homer, whom you will be able to consult, as also Ovid, Ausonius, Natalis Comes and Vossius (Homer, Odyssey, book 12, p. 172; Ovid, Metamorphoses, book 4, fable 1; Ausonius, Idyll 4; Natalis Comes, Mythology, book 8, ch. 12; Vossius, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry, book 4, ch. 17, p. 34). The chimaera, moreover, was depicted by the same Homer, by Hesiod, Lucretius and Ovid; and if these do not suffice you, you will further be able to consult Virgil and Natalis Comes (Homer, Iliad 6, p. 106; Hesiod, Theogony

...p. 469; Lucretius V, p. 57; Ovid, Metamorphoses IX, § 11; Virgil, Aeneid IV, 28; Natalis Comes, Mythology IV, ch. 4).

There were various opinions about the Centaurs, which Diodorus Siculus reports in these words: "Ixion, inflamed with love for Juno, did not hesitate to solicit the goddess to debauchery. Jupiter (that Zeus, having made a cloud into an image of Hera, sent it forth; and that Ixion, having lain with the cloud, begot the so-called Centaurs, of human form) put a phantom of a cloud in Juno's place for him, and having had intercourse with it he begot the Centaurs, men in part... Others relate that the Centaurs, brought up on Pelion by the Nymphs, when they were of grown age, by mounting mares produced the two-formed race of the Hippocentaurs, as they call them. Some affirm that the Centaurs born of Nephele and Ixion, because they were the first to take up the practice of riding, got from this the name of hippocentaurs, and that from this the fiction of a double nature passed into fable" (Diodorus Siculus, Library IV, p. 189; the same, p. 153). Earlier he had related how Hercules is said to have vanquished these same Centaurs in his fourth contest. And Cotta in Cicero notes the first of these opinions, where he says: "A single cloud too is said to have given birth to the Centaurs" (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods III, p. 247).

The author of the Eusebian Chronicle says: "The war of the Lapiths and Centaurs [falls] about this time; Palaephatus writes in his book On Incredible Things that they were noble horsemen of the Thessalians" (Eusebius, Chronicle, at the year 772). Scaliger, however, in his remarks on these words, freely and boldly rebukes him,

CHAPTER XV.

The arguments are weighed by which Minucius shows that the gods of the gentiles are false.

ARTICLE ONE.

With what foolishness the gentiles proclaimed that men had been made gods for the merits of their virtue, or for benefits conferred on other men.

A richer source and origin of the false worship of the gods was the insane persuasion of the heathen, in that they not only proclaimed but even gloried that their gods had indeed been men, but men who, for benefits conferred on other men and for outstanding deeds, had obtained the reward of divinity, or, as Minucius says, "were held to be gods for the merits of their virtue or of their gifts." Our witness to this origin of the gods, above all exception, is Cicero, who confirms it wonderfully in these words, cited by Lactantius: "The life of men and common custom have adopted the practice of raising to heaven, by fame and goodwill, men excelling in benefits. Hence Hercules, hence Castor and Pollux, hence Aesculapius, hence Liber too" (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods II, p. 223, line 13; Lactantius, Institutes I, chs. 8 and 45, pp. 43 and 80). And again in another book we read his words, also copied out by Lactantius: "In most cities it can be understood that, for the sake of increasing virtue, so that every best man might more willingly for the commonwealth's

But what Minucius reported about Persaeus had also been drawn, like the preceding, from the same book of Cicero already cited by us, where we read this: "Persaeus, the hearer of Zeno," as Laertius also says, or, as Athenaeus says, his servant, "says that those were held to be gods by whom some great benefit for the conduct of life had been discovered; and that the useful and salutary things themselves were called by the names of gods, so that he did not even say that these were the discoveries of gods, but that they were themselves divine" (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book 1, p. 201, line 18; Laertius, book 7, Life of Zeno, § 13 and 54; Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, book 6, ch. 17, p. 162). Now from the cited verse of the Latin and Greek poet it is easily understood that our Minucius, following Cicero, designates chiefly Ceres and Bacchus, who were reputed to have discovered the things most useful of all to human life. For this reason Athenagoras rebukes these same heathens, who deify the elements and their parts, "They make gods of the elements and their parts," and call the fruit of the vine Bacchus, and the vine itself Semele, and the heat of the Sun the thunderbolt, "and the fruit of the vine Dionysus, and the vine itself Semele, and the blaze of the sun the thunderbolt" (Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians, p. 24). How boldly indeed the heathens attributed to Ceres the discovery of grain and to Bacchus that of wine, as Diodorus Siculus relates, and to others the discovery of other things useful to men, we shall show in our following dissertations (Diodorus Siculus, Library, book 3, p. 142, and book 5, p. 232; Dissertation on Arnobius, ch. 9, art. 2; on Lactantius, ch. 30, art. 5; on Tertullian, ch. 25, art. 3). Nor shall we demonstrate less clearly how rightly our most ancient writers, such as our Minucius, proved that by no man of sound mind could it be concluded, from these or any other benefits whatever conferred upon him, that those by whom such things were found, not created, are gods, or have merited divinity. For Cicero himself, after the words about Prodicus cited by us a little before, immediately added: "What religion, then, does he," that Prodicus, "leave?" (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book 2, p. 212, line 34.) For when the true God has been rejected and false ones introduced, there can be no religion at all, but only vain superstition. But if the discoverers of things useful to men cannot be gods, much less can the things discovered by them. "For what," Cicero further says, "is more absurd than either that sordid and unsightly things should be called by the names of gods, or that men already destroyed by death should be placed among the gods, whose whole worship would consist in mourning" (ibid., p. 201, line 21). Nothing, moreover, is truer than that opinion, since before any things were discovered, and before any of their discoverers, they had beyond doubt been created by Him Who founded the world and all creatures, and Who therefore alone can be God. Who, then, will not marvel that this is, above all others, one of the most corrupt sources, from which idolatry flowed forth and the impious worship of false gods flooded the whole circle of the earth?

Article II.

The argument of Minucius is examined by which he proves that the gods of the gentiles are false from their birth, homeland, death and tombs, and especially those of Dictaean Jupiter, Delphic Apollo, Pharian Isis and Eleusinian Ceres.

By yet another argument Minucius utterly overthrows the divinity of all their deities boasted of by the gentiles. And this he drew, once more, from them, from the things which they themselves handed down about the births, homeland and tombs of these same gods of theirs, and never ceased to parade. Beyond doubt it was not necessary for him to undertake to prove what they gloried in so wonderfully. Nevertheless he gave Euhemerus as a most sure witness and surety in these very words: « Euhemerus sets out and enumerates their births, homelands and tombs, and points them out province by province. » Here, in his usual way, he seems to follow Cicero as his forerunner, who says: « By Euhemerus both the deaths and the burials of the gods are pointed out » (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book 1, p. 112, line 37). This Euhemerus, should you wish to know it, was a Greek writer, whom some believed to be by homeland of Agrigentum, others of Messene, certain people of Cos, and also of Tegea. He composed several volumes of histories, in which he committed to writing the things that are mentioned by Cicero and Minucius. Read Plutarch, Athenaeus, Aelian, Augustine, Theodoret and the others cited by us in the preceding volume of our Apparatus (Plutarch, book On Isis and Osiris, p. 360; Athenaeus, book 14, Deipnosophists, p. 658; Aelian, book 2, Varia historia, ch. 32; Augustine, book 1 On the Gospels, ch. 23; Theodoret, sermon 3, On the Angels, p. 506). There we observed that this Euhemerus was by many reckoned among the number of atheists, no doubt on account of those histories of the gods. But that did not prevent Ennius, as Cicero and afterwards Augustine say, from translating his books, and the things being true which he had narrated about the births, deeds, deaths and tombs of those gods (Cicero, loc. cit.; Augustine, book 7 On the City, ch. 17, § 1, p. 183).

Further, of the things which that Greek writer had said about the birth, homeland and tombs of the gods, Minucius touches only on a few, namely « of Dictaean Jupiter, Delphic Apollo, Pharian Isis and Eleusinian Ceres. » Dicta, or Dicte, is a mountain on the island of Crete, in whose cave Ops, or Rhea, the wife of Saturn, gave birth to Jupiter and secretly handed him over to the Curetes, or Corybantes, and the Idaean Dactyls to be guarded, lest, newly born, he should be devoured by his father like the other sons (Strabo, Geography, book 20, p. 478). Hence Virgil:

Come now, I will unfold the natures which Jupiter himself gave to the bees, the reward for which, having followed the tuneful din of the Curetes and the clashing bronze, they fed the king of heaven beneath the Dictaean cave. (Virgil, Georgics, book 4, line 149 ff.)

If you want another Latin poet, we shall quickly bring forward for you Lucretius, who sang in like manner:

They represent the Dictaean Curetes, who are said once to have hidden that wailing of Jupiter in Crete, when, boys around a boy, in a swift dance,

armed, in measured time, struck bronze upon bronze, lest Saturn should seize him and consign him to his jaws, and deal his mother an everlasting wound beneath her breast. (Lucretius, book 2, line 637 and following.)

Read further, if you have leisure, Servius on the verses of Virgil cited and on his other verses, Ovid, Diodorus Siculus, Lucian, Strabo, Theophilus of Antioch, Athanasius, and what we have touched on elsewhere (Servius, on the cited verses and on book 3 of the Aeneid, p. 270; Ovid, Fasti book 4; Diodorus, Library book 5, p. 253; Lucian, On Sacrifices, p. 183; Strabo, Geography book 10, p. 468; Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus book 1, p. 75; Athanasius, Oration against the Greeks, § 10, vol. 1; Apparatus vol. 1, p. 1164). Nor should it trouble you that some assert that Jupiter was brought up not on Dicte but on Mount Ida. For the two mountains were very near each other, as Aratus testifies; although Strabo reckoned them to be a thousand stades apart (Strabo, Geography book 10, p. 478).

Moreover, from the Diodorus Siculus already cited we learn how true is what our author related later, that a she-goat was the nurse of this same Jupiter as an infant, or as he himself puts it: "Jupiter's nurse is a she-goat." For the nymphs, as Diodorus himself says, "fed the infant on a mixture of honey and milk, and offered him the udders of the goat called Amalthea for fuller nourishment... And to the goat his nurse, besides bestowing other honours on her, he took from her the surname Aegiochus, that is, Goat-holder" (Diodorus, Library book 5, p. 233). For which reason Ovid says:

The rainy star of the Olenian she-goat rises; she has heaven as the reward for the milk she gave. The Naiad Amalthea, renowned on Cretan Ida, with lofty horns curved back over her own back, with an udder such as the nurse of Jupiter might have, gave milk to the god. (Ovid, Fasti book 5, § 2.)

As for his tomb, which is mentioned by our Minucius and by his follower Cyprian, the Cretans, as Lucian testifies, affirmed "that Jupiter not only lived among them and was nursed there, but they even show his tomb": and they show a tomb. Tully, indeed, distinguished three Jupiters, of whom, he says, the Cretans reckoned "the third," "the Cretan, the son of Saturn, whose tomb is shown in that island." Varro, moreover, as Solinus notes, "in the work which is about coastal matters, affirms that the tomb of Jupiter was visited there even in his own times." Callimachus, however, sings that the matter is doubtful, and accuses the Cretans of lying; but since he says in that place that Jupiter always existed, he lies foully. Read further Theophilus of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Arnobius, Lactantius, Eusebius and Epiphanius. Vossius, however, thinks that there were two Cretan Jupiters: one a most ancient king of Crete, from whom Crete took its name; the other younger, who carried off Europa, of whom he supposes Cicero and Lactantius to be speaking, Cyp On the Vanity of Idols, p. 11; Lucian, On Sacrifices, p 185, line 49; Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods book 3, p

lumns, set up in honour of both, on one of which this inscription, engraved in sacred letters, was read: "I am Isis, queen of this place, instructed by Mercury. What has been sanctioned by law through me, no one can undo. I am the daughter of Saturn, the youngest god, the last-born. I am the wife and sister of King Osiris. I am she who first found crops for mortals. I am the mother of King Horus. I am she who rises in the star of the Dog. For me the city of Rubastos was built. Farewell, rejoice, Egypt my nurse." But he plainly does not conceal that he did not place much faith in these things.

And indeed the Egyptians, as Herodotus witnesses, held crowded assemblies not once a year, and first of all "to the city of Bubastis for Artemis, in the city of Bubastis in honour of Diana. Second, to the city of Busiris for Isis. In the second place, in the city of Busiris in honour of Isis. In which city there is a very great sanctuary, a temple of Isis, the city itself being situated in the middle of the Delta of Egypt. And Isis is she who in the Greek tongue is called Demeter, that is, Ceres" (Herodotus, book 2, § 59).

From Strabo, moreover, we learn that Busiris is a city of the Busiritic province, which has a harbour near Pharos guarded by the Herdsmen (Strabo, Geography, book 17, p. 802). Can it not therefore be gathered from this that this is the Isis who is named by our author Pharia, or Paria? For so you will see her called on the coins displayed by Federico Ubaldini (Ubaldini, On the Symbols of the Statue of Diana of Ephesus, p. 365, vol. 7 of the Greek Antiquities).

Moreover, since Isis, as Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, cited a little earlier, and very many others have recorded, is the same as Ceres, Tertullian without doubt made mention of her in these words: "By how much are Attic Pallas and Pharian Ceres distinguished from the stake of the cross" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 17).

Pharian Isis was distinguished from Eleusinian Ceres only by surname, or rather by the places where she was worshipped; of the latter our author, following Euhemerus, still makes mention. Strabo has left us this in writing: "Then the city of Eleusis, in which is the sanctuary of Eleusinian Demeter and the mystic enclosure, which Ictinus built, able to hold a theatre's crowd." "Next follows the city of Eleusis, in which is the temple of Eleusinian Ceres and the mystic shrine, capable of holding a crowd as great as is usually in a theatre, the work of Ictinus" (Strabo, Geography, book 9, p. 395). Let Cicero also be added, whose words are these: "I pass over that holy and august Eleusis,

Where the nations of the furthest shores are initiated."

(Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book 2, p. 12, line 38.)

But who, with our Minucius, would not laugh at and hiss off those fictitious divinities of Ceres and Isis and the others, whom the heathen admitted to be dead and buried?

Article III.

The argument of Minucius is examined by which he proves that the gods of the gentiles are invented, from the letter of Alexander the Great to his mother, in which he testified that a secret about the gods had been disclosed to him, and made Vulcan the first of them;

and there is discussion of the sistrum of Isis in relation to the swallow, and of the empty tomb of Serapis, or Osiris.

Someone will no doubt be surprised that Alexander the Great is cited by Minucius as a witness to the fictitious divinity of the gods of the gentiles, Alexander "who," he says, "in a notable volume wrote to his mother of the secret about the gods having been men, which had been betrayed to him by a priest out of fear of his power." But Cyprian, as we have already seen, transferred this as entirely true, in as many words, into his book on the Vanity of Idols (Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols, p. 12; above, ch. 2, art. 4, p. 35).

Earlier Athenagoras had said: "Herodotus, and Alexander son of Philip in the letter to his mother (both of them are said to have come into conversation with the priests at Heliopolis, and Memphis, and Thebes), say that they learned from them that the gods had been men." "Herodotus and Alexander son of Philip in the letter to his mother (both of whom are said to have come into conversation with the priests in various cities of Egypt, Heliopolis, Memphis and Thebes) say that they learned from them that the gods had been men" (Athenagoras, Embassy for the Christians, p. 31). Thus what Minucius, and after him Cyprian, calls a notable volume, Athenagoras calls a letter. So too Augustine, who teaches that he, as the same Minucius says, was a priest Egyptian by birth, and surnamed Leo" (Augustine, City of God 8.5, p. 194, and last chapter, p. 218, and 12.10, p. 309, and On the Agreement of the Evangelists 1.3).

Rigaltius and Cellarius, however, protest against this, and contend that Minucius and the other writers cited by us erred, and that by them Alexander the Great of Macedon was substituted for Alexander Polyhistor. They try to establish their opinion on two grounds: first, because Polyhistor published Aegyptiaca; second, because Tertullian said: "Grant now from your own [writings] what the Egyptians relate, and Alexander sets in order, and his mother reads" (Tertullian, On the Pallium, ch. 3, p. 134).

But, besides its being improbable that Polyhistor, through fear of his power, could have extorted from an Egyptian priest the secret about the gods having been men, and have written to his mother a book or letter on that matter, Plutarch at any rate, in whom Rigaltius and Cellarius perhaps placed greater trust than in the Fathers of the Church, relates the same things in the Life of Alexander the Great: "Alexander himself, in a letter to his mother, says that certain secret oracles were given to him, which on his return he would tell to her alone.... It is said also that, having heard the philosopher Psammon in Egypt, he approved most of all of the things said that all men are ruled by God; for that which rules and holds power in each thing is divine." "Alexander himself in the letter to his mother says that certain secret oracles were handed down to him, which on his return he would report to her alone... It is related also that, when he had heard the philosopher Psammon in Egypt, he approved above all, among his sayings, that all mortals are ruled by God, since what rules in each thing

...[a sound like that of a swal]low with its rattle, just as weavers' shuttles and rods are said in a Greek epigram to be "swallow-voiced" (Salmasius, on Solinus, p. 343). And from this he thinks the text of our author should be corrected thus: "You will see the sistrum of Isis [likened] to a swallow." But if Minucius read any work of a Greek writer, it seems to have been none other than the letter of Alexander the Great cited by him, or the books of Plutarch or of others. And who can divine what was written about this matter in them? The text, therefore, ought not to be emended by so uncertain a conjecture against the authority of the very ancient manuscript and of all the editions.

If you ask us what Minucius meant there, we shall frankly confess that we have nothing certain. But if you ask what we may conjecture, then, to humour you, it is well first to observe what Plutarch related, that Isis was changed into a swallow (Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, p. 356; ibid., p. 376). Then he depicts the sistrum as round in its upper part, and says that on the top of its curve a cat with a human face is fashioned, and on the lowest part, below the things that are shaken, sometimes the face of Isis, sometimes that of Nephthys. But sistra were not of one kind only, but of various kinds and different forms, as Tollius rightly shows against Vossius (vol. VI of Greek Antiquities, p. 411 ff.), and others. Moreover, the figure of Isis was represented carrying a sistrum in her right hand. And she, as we have seen, is the same as Ceres, who was said to have discovered the crops. These things being thus explained, consider, I beg you, whether it can be said that this is the meaning of our author: Alexander wrote in his letter that Isis, or Ceres, was represented with ears of the grain discovered, as they said, by her on her head, below them the swallow into which she had been changed, and carrying a sistrum in her right hand. If, however, better ideas come to your mind and you suggest them to us, we shall at once, and without the least reluctance, subscribe to your opinion. But it will have to be admitted that Minucius rightly concludes from this that this divinity of Isis is altogether ridiculous and to be hissed off.

Finally, in the same letter of Alexander, or, as our author puts it, "volume," it was written that "the tomb of Serapis, or Osiris, with its limbs scattered" or "sprinkled, is empty." And not at all without reason. For Diodorus Siculus relates that some have handed down that Typhon cut the body of his brother Osiris, whom he had cruelly killed, into twenty-six parts, which he distributed to as many accomplices of his fratricide (Diodorus Siculus, Library I, p. 12; and in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel II, 1, p. 46). Afterwards Isis found them, and enclosed each one in a fashioned likeness of a man. Then, having summoned the priests of all Egypt, she divided the parts among them tribe by tribe, for each to bury in its own place. Therefore each tribe of Egypt thought it had the tomb of Osiris among them, but, as our author says, empty and void. Plutarch, more simply and briefly, says that Isis, pretending to give up the body of Osiris, gave only images, one to each city, or, as others think, buried the individual parts of his body as they had fallen (Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, p. 358).

"So be it," someone will say; "I grant that the tomb of Osiris was empty. But why did Minucius add: 'or of your Serapis'?" To him who asks this we shall answer in the words of Plutarch (the same, ibid., p. 362): "It is better to make Osiris the same as Bacchus, and Serapis the same as Osiris, so called after he changed his nature, because Serapis is common to all." Then he observes that most of the priests taught that Osiris and Apis are the same, and that the latter "is to be understood as the beautiful image of the soul of Osiris." We have shown elsewhere how the name of Serapis was formed from Apis (vol. I of the Apparatus, book III, dissertation 2, ch. 4, art. 1, p. 1090). Therefore Lactantius undoubtedly subscribed to Plutarch where he says: "It is Osiris, whom the common people call Serapis and Serapides. For the names of the dead who are deified are usually changed; I suppose so that no one may think they were men (Lactantius I, 21, p. 118)." To both let us add Diodorus Siculus, who ought to have been cited first, whose words we read thus: "They think that Osiris is now Serapis, now Dionysus, sometimes Pluto, sometimes Ammon, at times Jupiter, not seldom Pan: Osiris, whom some have held to be Sarapis...." (Diodorus, Library I, p. 15).

Why Minucius added "your" you will easily understand if you notice that he is disputing against Caecilius, who was still a heathen and had saluted with impious worship the image of Serapis he met, as is related at the beginning of this book. Yet whether the tomb was full of the bones of Osiris or Serapis, or empty, it follows most certainly from this that neither they nor others who died in like manner share in divinity. For God is eternal, who has life from Himself alone, and therefore can never lose it.

CHAPTER XVI.

How strong are the other arguments by which Octavius proves against Caecilius that the gods of the gentiles are false and nothing.

ARTICLE ONE.

How clearly Octavius shows from the first origin of the gods that they were not gods but mere men; and first their chief, Saturn, a fugitive from Crete, received by Janus in Italy, where he taught men many things, and especially to stamp coins and to impress letters, and after whose name it was called Saturnia.

To suppress for ever the utterly intolerable boasting of Caecilius and the other gentiles about their gods, Minucius [shows that] they were by no means gods, but

mere men from their first origin, he demonstrates in this manner: "Saturn, the chief of this," namely of the gods, "race, all the writers of antiquity, Greek and Roman, have set down as a man. Nepos and Cassius know this in their history, and Thallus and Diodorus say this."

In entirely the same way Tertullian lays low and vanquishes the same enemies of the Christian religion: "Before Saturn," he says, "there is no god among you. From him is reckoned the whole, or the more powerful, or the better known divinity. Therefore what has been established about the origin will hold also for the posterity. Saturn, then, as far as letters teach, neither Diodorus the Greek nor Thallus, neither Cassius Severus nor Cornelius Nepos, nor any commentator on antiquities of that kind, has published as anything other than a man" (Tertullian, Apology ch. 10, p. 12). He repeats the same things in another book, except that by someone or other Tacitus has been written in place of Thallus, as we shall note in its place (Same, book 2 To the Nations ch. 12, p. 75; Dissertation on Tertullian ch. 27, art. 4). For Lactantius, who follows both him and our Minucius, said this about the same Saturn in just as many words: "Not only the poets, but also the writers of histories and of antiquities all agree that he was a man, who have handed down to memory his deeds done in Italy: among the Greeks Diodorus and Thallus; among the Latins Nepos, and Cassius, and Varro" (Lactantius book 1, ch. 13, p. 76).

To the four writers cited by Minucius, however, as by Tertullian, he added a fifth, Varro. Thus indeed those vigorous champions, having turned the enemies' own forces against them, utterly destroy and rout them.

But why, you will say, did those writers dare to affirm with such insistence that Saturn was the first and chief of all the gods? Did not Alexander, instructed by a priest, write in the letter cited by us a little before that the chief of the gods was Vulcan, and after him the race of Jupiter? But what wonder if the opinions of the straying Gentiles about the first origin of their false gods were various? Then too, this was the view of a single priest, or, as Minucius says, a secret. Who then would say that he should be believed rather than so many most celebrated writers cited by our author? Finally, from what is to be said below it will surely be clear enough that Vulcan could not be called either the first or the chief of all the gods (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 755).

Then next Minucius, beyond doubt from the same writers, relates that Saturn, as we have noted elsewhere, a fugitive from Crete, took refuge in Italy for fear of his son. And there, received by Janus, he taught "rude men," as Diodorus Siculus also, cited by Minucius, testifies, many things, and especially to imprint letters, to stamp coins, and to make implements. Moreover, he wished the place in which he lay hidden to be called Saturnia, just as Janus [called his] Janiculum. But all these things Tertullian before, and afterwards

Cyprian, and Lactantius have handed down in writing (Diodorus, Bibliotheca book 3, p. 136, and book 5, pp. 231 and 233; Tertullian, Apology, ch. 10, p. 12, and To the Nations book 2, ch. 12, p. 75; Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols, p. 11; Lactantius, book 1, ch. 13, p. 76).

Of the city of Saturnia and of the Janiculum, moreover, Virgil sang this:

These two towns besides, with their walls thrown down, you see as the relics and memorials of men of old; this city father Janus founded, that one Saturn; Janiculum was the name of this, Saturnia of that.

(Virgil, Aeneid book 8, v. 354 ff.)

But concerning these things and the stamped coin Ovid, who is also cited by Lactantius (Divine Institutes book 1, ch. 13, p. 76), questioned Saturn thus:

Many things indeed I have learned, but why is one side of the bronze stamped with a ship, the other a two-headed form?

And he brought in Saturn answering thus:

"You could recognize me in the double image," he said, "if long age itself had not worn the work thin. The cause of the ship remains: on a ship the sickle-bearing god came to the Tuscan river, after first wandering over the world. I remember Saturn received in this land; he had been driven by Jove from the heavenly realms. Thence the name Saturnia long remained with the people; the land too was called Latium, from the god's lying hidden. But a good posterity shaped a stern on the bronze, bearing witness to the arrival of its guest. I myself dwelt on the ground whose left side the most gentle wave of the sandy Tiber grazes. Here where Rome now is, a steep forest then flourished, and so great a domain was pasture for a few cattle. My citadel was the hill which the common people call by my name, and this age calls Janiculum."

(Ovid, Fasti book 1, v. 231 ff.)

But on what ground, someone will argue, is Saturn said to have taught the art of stamping coins? Does not Servius, on the cited verses of Virgil, ascribe it to Janus alone in this comment: « Janus lived on the Janiculum, and because he came as an exile in a single ship, the head of Janus was stamped on one side of his money and a ship on the other (Servius, p. 509). But there Servius speaks of Saturn as much as of Janus, just as his author Virgil does. Since therefore it was Saturn, and by no means Janus, who « came as an exile in a single ship, » is he not to be understood as speaking of money stamped in the name of both?

Granted, another will press: but surely Draco of Corcyra, in Athenaeus, whom Macrobius supports, expressly asserts « that he first stamped a coin of bronze, that a golden coin was first stamped by that Janus, » and that this is the reason why many cities in Greece, Italy and Sicily struck money impressed on one side with a two-headed face and on the other with a raft, or a ship, or a crown (Athenaeus, Deipnosophists book 15, ch. 18, p. 692; Macrobius, Saturnalia book 1, ch. 7). But why, I ask, was the image of a raft or of a ship struck on this money? Is it not because, as we have said and as Plutarch says, « in honour of Kronos, who crossed over to Italy in a ship, in honour of Saturn brought to Italy by ship? » (Plutarch, vol. 2, Roman Questions, p. 274.) What then if Janus struck one coin in honour of Saturn, and Saturn another in memory of his host? Be that as it may, Minucius certainly to have had as a guarantor going before him

seems the Ovid cited by us, and more expressly Tertullian, who without hesitation committed this to writing about the same Saturn: "From him first came writing-tablets, and coinage stamped with an image; and hence he presides over the treasuries." (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 10, p. 12.) Cyprian, for his part, follows close behind his master, as he does our Minucius, in these words: "He first instituted in Italy the printing of letters, he the stamping of coins; whence the treasury is called Saturn's." (Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols, p. 11.) Let us add, if you please, Polydore Vergil, who strives to confirm this opinion by the authority of Eutropius (On Inventions, book 2, ch. 20).

Rightly, therefore, does Minucius conclude from what has been said: "A man, then, certainly" was Saturn, "who fled: a man certainly who hid." The same is Lactantius's conclusion: "Does anyone think," he says, "that he is a god who fled, who hid? No one is so foolish. For he who flees and hides must necessarily fear both violence and death." (Lactantius, Divine Institutes, book 1, ch. 13, p. 176.)

Article II.

How preposterously the heathen said that Saturn sprang from heaven and earth: whence this opinion arose: whether the explanation of it given by Minucius is rightly refuted by Lactantius, and that nonetheless it follows from it that Saturn was not a god but a mere man.

It has been shown abundantly enough in the preceding article that Saturn was not a god, inasmuch as he was "born," as Minucius says, "of a man." Nay more, says Tertullian, "because [he was born] of a man, certainly not of heaven and earth," was he begotten, as the heathen everywhere, both by word and in writing, at home and abroad, and where did they not, boasted? (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 10, p. 12, and To the Nations, book 2, ch. 12, p. 75.) But why, with such empty boasting, they said that he sprang from heaven and earth, if you ask the reason of our author, he will give you this one: "For Saturn is called the son of earth and heaven because among the Italians he was published as of unknown parents; just as to this day we call those seen unexpectedly 'sent from heaven', and the low-born and unknown 'sons of the earth'." But this explanation did not please Lactantius, and is refuted by him thus: "Minucius Felix, in that book which is entitled Octavius, argued thus: that Saturn, when he had been put to flight by his son and had come into Italy, was called the son of heaven because we are accustomed to say of those whose virtue we admire, or who have arrived suddenly, that they have fallen from heaven; and [son] of earth, because we call those born of unknown parents sons of the earth. These things are indeed like the truth, yet not true; because it is established that even then, while he was reigning, he was so regarded. He could also have argued thus: that, since he was a most powerful king, in order to preserve the memory of his parents he gave their names to heaven and earth, whereas these had previously been called by other words: in which way we know that names were imposed on mountains and rivers." (Lactantius, Institutes, book 1, ch. 11, p. 67.) Then, having reviewed the names of certain rivers, he concludes thus: "It is evident therefore that he was not born of heaven, which cannot

happen, but from that man whose name was Uranus: that this is true, Trismegistus is the authority." He adds, moreover, that these things were unknown to Minucius, who for that reason turned the story in another direction. Finally he thinks it truer that Jupiter, when he had surveyed earth and heaven from a high mountain, gave to the ether which is above the world the name of heaven, or Uranus, Οὐρανοῦ, by which his grandfather was called. But he had to prove that the father of Saturn, while he was still living, was in fact called by the name of Heaven by the Italians. But of this opinion of Lactantius we must speak in its proper place.

He therefore thinks the argument of Minucius faulty. For he ought rather to have said that Saturn was called the son of heaven and earth because, being a most powerful king, in order to preserve the memory of his parents he gave them the name of heaven and earth. And he tries to prove this by the authority of Trismegistus, who had recorded that the father of Saturn was surnamed Uranus, or Heaven. But he does not show whether Trismegistus said when and from whom Uranus received his name. He could therefore more truly have written that rude men, struck with awe by the supreme and kingly power of Saturn, believed that he had drawn his origin from heaven and earth. For indeed the Sibyl, in these verses quoted by Athenagoras (Legation for the Christians, p. 14), sang this:

And King Cronus and Titan, and Iapetus, whom men called the noblest children of Earth and heavenly ones, giving them the name of earth and heaven, because they were the very first of mortal men.

Then Saturn and Titan, and Iapetus, reigned, whom men said were born of heaven and earth, calling them by the name of earth and heaven, because they surpassed all men in valour. (Sibylline Oracles 3, v. 48 ff.)

But Minucius seems not to have passed over this explanation altogether. For he distinguished noble men from the lowborn and said that the latter were surnamed sons of earth, the former sons of heaven, by the Italians, to whom their parents were not known.

To Lactantius, however, it seems more plausible than true that men born of unknown parents, and arriving unexpectedly, were called by the names of heaven and earth, from which they were believed to have sprung. Yet this is proved by other writers, both pagan and Christian. The first of them who can be cited is Titus Livius, who relates that Romulus, in founding the city of Rome, used "the old device of founders of cities, who, drawing to themselves an obscure and humble multitude, falsely claimed that an offspring born from the earth had come to them." (Livy, book 1, 58.) But how could they have made this false claim, unless their offspring had been unknown to the obscure multitude? And who will deny that the same must be said of parents and of sons? If, however, anyone is difficult and peevish and wants this proved to him concerning parents, let him hear the words of Servius on Achelous: "He is called son of Earth, as is usually said of those whose parents lie hidden through antiquity." (Servius, on Virgil, Georgics book 1, v. 9.) More truly, concerning Saturn himself, to our

purpose [speaks] Aurelius Victor, or whoever is the author of the book On the Origin of the Roman People: "Saturn," he says, "is believed to have come first into Italy.... But so great, it is reported, was the simplicity of the men of old up to that time, that strangers coming to them, provided they were endowed with counsel and wisdom and contributed something towards ordering life and forming morals which their own parents did not know, they not only themselves believed to be born of heaven and earth, but even affirmed it to posterity, as for instance this very Saturn, whom they called the son of heaven and earth." (Aurel. Vic., Orig. gent. Rom., beginning.

Let Tertullian also be added, who, not in one book only but in two, has left this written concerning Saturn: "One whose parents were unknown could easily be called the son of those whose sons we all may also seem to be. For who would not call heaven and earth mother and father out of veneration and honour, or else from the human custom by which those who are unknown, or who appear unexpectedly, are said to have come down from heaven? Hence it befell Saturn, appearing suddenly, to be called everywhere a heavenly one. For the common people also call those whose lineage is uncertain sons of the earth." (Tertull., Apologet., ch. 10, p. 12, and book 2 To the Nations, ch. 75.) Whether these things suffice to establish the opinion of our Minucius, and whether he is not quite rightly refuted by Lactantius, we shall await the judgement of those more skilled. For we gladly confess that it is not ours to settle disputes among men so great and of such venerable antiquity. But whatever is decided, it is certainly concluded from this most irrefutably that this Saturn, whom the heathen prattled was the parent of their other gods, was by no means a god, but merely a man, who was begotten of a man no differently from other men.

Article III

By what weight of reasons Caecilius shows to be false the divinity of Jupiter and of others who had been begotten of men, or who were proclaimed gods at the pleasure and will of others, as Romulus and Juba.

From Saturn Minucius Felix comes to his son Jupiter, and likewise shows that he was a man and by no means a god. For "Jupiter, the son of Saturn," he says, "having shut out his parent, reigned in Crete; there he died, there he had sons; the cave of Jupiter is still visited, and his tomb is shown, and in his very rites he is convicted of his humanity." But we have already discussed these matters a little before, and they must be dealt with further in our following dissertations. Of the rites of Jupiter, moreover, which still showed that he had been a man, we shall treat below.

Since, therefore, this Jupiter cannot be a god, because he was begotten of another man, it necessarily follows from this that the others sprung from him and from other men were by no means gods, but mortal men, infinitely removed from the divine nature. Wherefore Minucius declares that the genealogies of these, as described by the heathen, which it would be as lengthy as it would be useless to set out, are passed over by him in silence. For "it is idle

he says, to go through them one by one and set out the whole line of that race, since mortality, proved in the first parents, has flowed down into the rest in the order of succession." But did he not take this from Tertullian, who had said earlier: "It is idle even to pursue the titles..... what has been established about the origin will hold also for the posterity." (Tertull., Apology, ch. 10, p. 12. That is to say, that these were invented gods and mere men.

But Minucius presses the heathen more sharply, and assails them with these words, which Cyprian copied out almost entire: Why, if they were born, are they not born today as well? unless perhaps Jupiter has by now grown old, and child-bearing has failed in Juno, and Minerva went grey before she gave birth." (Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols, p. 12.) Earlier Theophilus of Antioch had refuted the heathen with the same argument: "For if at that time they begot and were begotten, it is plain that begotten gods ought to have come into being up to the present too; for either they have grown old, and for that reason no longer beget, or they have died and no longer exist." "If at that time they begot and were begotten, their generation ought to have extended right up to now. If the matter stands otherwise, the race of the gods will certainly be reckoned weak. For either, worn out with old age, they have ceased to beget, or they have been wholly removed from the number of the living and reduced to nothing." (Theoph., To Autolycus, bk 1, p. 81.) Tatian more briefly indeed, but no less wittily: "If you recount the generation of the gods, he says, you show them to be mortal; for why is Hera not pregnant now? Has she grown old? Or do you lack someone to inform you? Why does Juno no longer give birth? Has she grown old? Or have you no one to disclose the matter?" (Tatian, Oration against the Greeks, p. 160.)

So too Seneca, who is praised by Lactantius, argues by mocking his fellow pagans: "What then is the reason, he says, why among the poets the most lecherous Jupiter has stopped raising children? Has he turned sixty, and has the Papian law fastened a clasp on him? Or has he obtained the right of three children? Or has it at last come into his mind: Expect from another what you have done to another; and is he afraid that someone may do to him what he himself did to Saturn?" (Lact., bk 1, ch. 16, p. 88.) That is, lest, as he had despoiled his father Saturn of his kingdom, so his sons should despoil him. But something is to be said below about Lactantius and these words of Seneca. Finally, to dismiss the rest, Juvenal too sang:

Yet who would affirm that nothing was done on the mountains or in / caves? So far have Jupiter and Mars grown old.

(Juvenal, Satires 6.62 ff.)

Minucius presses on, and utterly demolishes the false opinions about the gods by yet another argument. "If gods, he says, could be created and could not perish, we should have more gods than all mankind; so that by now neither would the sky contain them, nor the air hold them, nor the earth bear them." But with this weapon, a very sharp one indeed, which the Sibyl also uses, Theophilus of Antioch, already cited by us, had run the heathen through completely. For from this, he says, the gods ought rather to be more numerous than men, as the Sibyl says, "it is gathered that there are more

gods than men, as the Sibyl too declares." The rest, which are set out at greater length in him, as well as other things similar to these, anyone will be able without difficulty to read in Arnobius, in Lactantius (of whom we [speak] in their own place), and in Eusebius (Arnob., bk. 3 Against the Nations, p. 104 ff.; Lactant., bk. 1, ch. 16 ff.; Euseb., Oration of Constantine to the Assembly of the Saints, ch. 4, p. 570).

Meanwhile we wish you to be advised that there is so much force and weight in this argument that Pliny, plainly overwhelmed by it, admits either that the number of the heavenly beings must be greater than that of men, or that the marriages of the gods were not real. But it is a pleasure to hear the man himself speaking. "The population of the heavenly beings," he says, "can even be understood to be greater than that of men, since individuals also make out of themselves as many gods, by adopting Junos and Genii for themselves; while certain nations hold animals as gods, and some obscene things too, and many things more shameful to speak of, swearing by stinking foods and other things. Indeed, to believe that there are marriages among the gods, and that in so long an age no one is born of them, and that some are aged and always grey, and others youths and boys, winged, lame, born from an egg, and living and dying on alternate days, is close to childish ravings." (Plin., Natural History, bk. 2, ch. 7, p. 142 ff.) What argument, then, I ask you, could have been brought forward more effectively for the abolishing of the religions of the gentiles than that sincere and public confession of Pliny and of other heathens as well?

Nor should you say that those opinions of the unlearned and rude common people are rejected as old wives' tales by Pliny, as by those most learned of heathen men. For this plainly sufficed Minucius and the other defenders of the Christian religion for utterly overthrowing the impious worships of all the heathens, which rested upon these monstrous errors. For who could bear the vain superstitions of those who denied the one and eternal God, and worshipped and venerated very many other mortal gods, either begetting or begotten? Yet the learned no less than the unlearned gentiles, having rejected the true God, worshipped those ridiculous gods; or, while pretending to worship them, admitted none; or [admitted] something else, all the more remote from true divinity in that it was created or even deprived of reason itself.

Did not those, then, likewise stray from the right path of truth, who foolishly proclaimed that certain mortal men had been made gods, either by their birth or by the perjury, the caprice and the decision of others? Such nevertheless, "through the perjury of Proculus," as Minucius says, was "the god Romulus," as we shall explain a little later. Such too, he continues, is "Juba, a god by the will of the Moors, and the other kings, who are consecrated, are deified, not for belief in their divinity, but in honour of the power they have discharged." Lactantius subscribed to our author, and handed down in writing: "Privately, the individual

peoples worshipped with the highest veneration the founders of their nation or city, whether they were men outstanding in fortitude or women admirable for chastity, as the Egyptians did Isis, the Moors Juba (Lactantius, Institutes book 1, ch. 15, p. 81)." Earlier, however, Tertullian [said] more generally, with Juba's name suppressed but understood: "Each province and city has its own god... as Mauritania has its petty kings." There Cyprian follows Tertullian in his usual way, and says: "The Moors openly worship kings, and do not cover this name with any veil." (Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols, p. 12.)

But Cellarius suspects that some error underlies the text of our Minucius. For Juba, he says, was king not of the Moors but of the Numidians. Nor indeed can we deny that this was handed down in writing by Dio Cassius and Plutarch. But did Minucius, or his copyist, or the writers cited by us, err on that account (Dio, Roman History, p. 193; Plutarch, Life of Caesar, p. 732)? Had not Cellarius rather turned over the books of Strabo with too little care? For there he could have read these words of his: "Now Mauritania has passed to Juba, and many parts of the rest of Libya, because of his goodwill and friendship towards the Romans." "Now Juba holds Mauritania and many other parts of Africa, having obtained this because of his zeal and friendship towards the Romans." (Strabo, Geography book 6, near the end, p. 288.)

Why then, you will say, is Juba called king of the Numidians by Dio and Plutarch? Herodian unties the knot of this difficulty, who testifies that Mauritania, where Juba ruled and which was subject to the Romans, was called Numidia by its inhabitants: "There was a certain man named Capellianus, of the senate, who governed the Moors who are under the Romans and are called Nomads." "A certain Capellianus, a man of senatorial rank, procurator of the Mauritania subject to the Romans, which is called Numidia by the people themselves." (Herodian, History book 7, p. 280.)

Cellarius, however, insists that it is not likely that Juba, who, defeated by Caesar, laid hands willingly on himself, was placed among the number of the gods by the Moors. But this argument is of the slightest weight. For who does not know that the custom spread among the Romans of enrolling their emperors, however wicked and criminal, on the register of the gods by a solemn rite and apotheosis? Nor did they very often wait for their death; but while they were still living, they conferred divine honours on them even against their will and in spite of their resistance. Therefore Minucius, after the words cited by us, immediately added: "Finally, this name is ascribed to them against their will: they wish to remain in the human state, they fear being made gods, and even if already old, they do not want it." But Tertullian presses these things more sharply, as we shall see in our dissertation on his Apologetic books. What wonder is it, then, if the Moors, after the manner of the Romans, wished their king Juba to be a god?

CHAPTER XVII.

Of what weight is another argument of Minucius against the gods of the gentiles, drawn from their ridiculous forms and figures, and from their unworthy and shameful deeds and outrages.

ARTICLE ONE.

How absurdly Vulcan is represented by the heathen as lame, Apollo as beardless, Aesculapius as bearded and sometimes beardless, Neptune with grey eyes, Minerva with blue-grey, Juno with ox-eyes, Mercury with winged feet, Pan hoofed, Saturn in fetters, Janus two-faced and four-formed.

The ridiculous forms and figures of the gods supply Minucius with another most invincible argument for hissing off their fictitious divinity. "For what of their very forms and attire," says Minucius? "Do they not prove the mockeries and disgraces (mss. 'ornaments', but wrongly) of your gods?" If you wish to know what these were, hear Gregory Nazianzen, recounting them in these few verses:

Ithyphallic, horned, neckless, half-serpent, / beasts, and beast-mingled things having a ridiculous form.

Which have been rendered into Latin thus:

. . . . . . . Horned, half-serpents, / obscene ithyphallics, without necks, and beasts / and likewise things mingled with various beasts, bearing laughable / faces.

(Gregory Nazianzen, Poem LXI, p. 142, vol. II.)

But our author pursues this much more fully, and, so that the heathen might at last be ashamed to worship such gods, he reviews almost all their monstrous forms and sets them before their eyes. And although he follows no order of their feigned age or rank, yet since that contributes little or nothing to the strength and conclusiveness of the argument, we have thought it better to keep to his footsteps.

He begins with Vulcan thus: "Vulcan is a lame and crippled god." With the same argument Cotta in Cicero, keeping more closely, however, to the order of his gods, refutes Velleius the Epicurean, and throws Vulcan at him in these words: "And indeed at Athens we praise the Vulcan made by Alcamenes, in which, standing and clothed, a slight limp appears that is not unsightly. We shall therefore have a lame god, since we have received this tradition about Vulcan" (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods I, p. 207, line 27).

Lucian relates that he went lame when he was thrown headlong from heaven by Jupiter: If the Lemnians, doing well, had not caught him while still falling, our Hephaestus would have died, like Astyanax falling from the tower. "What? Had not the Lemnians in their kindness caught him while he was being carried through the air, our Vulcan would have perished, just like Astyanax thrown from the tower" (Lucian, On Sacrifices, p. 184; Homer, Iliad I, 390 ff.; the same, Iliad XVIII, 304 ff.). There he doubtless alludes to one and another book of the Iliad of Homer, who is cited also by Clement of Alexandria, where Vulcan is said to have been hurled from heaven onto Lemnos and to have been made lame by it. And Athanasius, where he attacks the heathen as our author does, throws at them Hephaestus thrown down and limping: "that Vulcan was cast out of heaven and became lame by that fall." Arnobius, moreover, related that he was lame in one foot, Gregory in both. Nor are there lacking those who think he was thrown out of heaven twice, first by Juno, then by Jupiter (Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Gentiles, p. 18; Athanasius, Oration against the Gentiles, § 12, p. 13, vol. I; Arnobius, Against the Gentiles IV, p. 134; Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 3 against Julian, p. 259, and Oration 4, p. 308).

The second brought in by our author is "Apollo, smooth through so many ages, and Aesculapius always bearded." For that reason, certainly, they say that the beard was pulled off Aesculapius by Dionysius, tyrant of Sicily, since he was the son, as Cicero says, of Apollo, who is always beardless. On this matter see further Cicero, Valerius Maximus, Arnobius, Lactantius and many others. Cicero himself and others assert that the beard was taken not from any Aesculapius, but from the Epidaurian (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods I, p. 107, line 26; the same, ibid., III, p. 252, line 40; Valerius Maximus I, 1, foreign examples, § 3; Arnobius, Against the Gentiles VI, p. 206; Lactantius, Institutes II, 4, p. 157; Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods III, p. 252, line 45). And Pausanias, where he treats of the Phliasians, records this about the image of Aesculapius: As one comes down from the acropolis there is a temple of Asclepius on the right, and a statue without a beard. "Where one goes down from the citadel, there is a shrine of Aesculapius on the right, in which there is a beardless statue" (Pausanias II, Corinthiaca, p. 56).

But if any credit is given to Lucian, Apollo was represented as beardless by all, the Assyrians alone excepted. For all the others think Apollo young and make him in his first youth; these alone display a statue of a bearded Apollo. "For all the others," as he says, "think Apollo a youth and portray him with the first down: but these alone fashion an image of a bearded Apollo" (Lucian, On the Syrian Goddess, p. 1071). Macrobius, however, relates that this was done not by all the Assyrians but by the Hieropolitans. "The Hieropolitans," he says, "who are peoples of the Assyrians, reduce all the effects and powers of the sun to the appearance of one bearded image, and call it Apollo. Its face is shaped with a long beard running to a point" (Macrobius, Saturnalia I, 17).

Third, Minucius: "Neptune with grey-green eyes, Minerva with blue-grey" (Minucius, p. 181). And Cicero, already cited by us: "It will be permissible," he says, "to say that the eyes of Minerva are blue-grey, those of Neptune sea-blue" (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods I, p. 207, line 24). Although Diodorus Siculus rejects this as a silly fiction, and thinks that Minerva is represented as glaucopis because the air is grey-green in appearance (Diodorus

book 1 of the Library, p. 68), yet Lucian calls her γλαυκῶπις [grey-eyed], the epithet by which she is everywhere named by Homer, and his Latin interpreter rendered it now "of grey-blue [eyes]," now "with gleaming eyes." (Lucian, Dialogue of Vulcan and Jupiter, p. 74, and On Sacrifices, p. 185.) And certainly for Latin writers the colour caesius, or caeruleus, is the same as glaucus, such, they say, as the eyes of cats are.

But what of the fact that Pausanias testifies that Neptune, of whom Minucius speaks, had grey eyes just as Minerva did? "As to the statue of Minerva," these are his words, "having grey eyes, γλαυκοὺς ἔχον τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς, I find a Libyan tale on the matter: that Minerva is the daughter of Neptune and of the Tritonian marsh, and that therefore her eyes are grey just like Neptune's: καὶ διὰ τοῦτο γλαυκοὺς εἶναι ὥσπερ καὶ τῷ Ποσειδῶνι ὀφθαλμούς [and for this reason her eyes are grey, as are Poseidon's too]." But if anyone should contend, and prove, that he is there speaking of a Minerva other than the one the writers cited by us speak of, we shall not oppose it. Yet no one will deny that some distinction was drawn by Cicero, and by our Minucius, between the eyes of Neptune and of Minerva, perhaps because the eyes of the one were greener than those of the other. But on these eyes of Minerva Arnobius, concerning whom we [have spoken] in his place (Dissertation on Arnobius, ch. 14, art. 1).

Juno, moreover, as our author next says, was called by the heathen "ox-eyed" (Homer, Iliad 4:5). But he undoubtedly followed Homer, by whom she is called βοῶπις πότνια Ἥρη, "ox-eyed venerable Juno" (Iliad 14:159). This the poet's interpreter expresses in Latin as: "Juno, venerable with beautiful eyes." If you ask the reason, we shall answer that the Greek name was rendered thus by him because the eyes of oxen were thought the most beautiful of all. For by Lucian (Images, p. 590) that painter is held to be most skilled, βοῶπίν τινα ποιήσας αὐτῶν, who "painted that Juno with ox-like eyes."

Minucius continues (p. 184): "Mercury with winged feet, Pan with hoofed ones, Saturn with fettered ones." There is surely no one who does not know that Mercury is represented as the messenger of the gods, and therefore as bearing wings on his head and feet. Hence Homer sang these lines of him when he was sent by Jupiter:

So he spoke, and the guide, the slayer of Argus, did not disobey; / at once he bound beneath his feet his fair sandals, / immortal, golden, which carried him both over the wet sea / and over the boundless earth, together with the blasts of the wind.

So he speaks: nor did Mercury the go-between refuse; / then at once he bound the beautiful winged sandals to his feet, / immortal, golden, which carried him whether over the sea / or over the immense earth, even with the stream of the wind. (Homer, Odyssey 5:43 ff.).

Pan, on the other hand, was said to have had hoofed or goat's feet, as Eusebius relates in these words: "Indeed they themselves even describe the appearance and shape of their own bodies, as Pan himself does, of what sort he was we learn from his oracles: Since then I am mortal, I offer vows Πανὶ συμφύτῳ θεῷ, δισσοκέρατι, διποδὶ τραγοσκελεῖ [to Pan, the kindred god, two-horned, two-footed, goat-legged]. To Pan, the native god, with twin horn,

with a twin foot and shaggy legs, a conspicuous voluptuary." (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, bk. 3, ch. 14, p. 124.) Herodotus indeed admits that he is represented by painters and sculptors with a goat's face and goat's legs; but for what reason this was done, he frankly confesses he does not find it pleasant to explain (Herodotus, bk. 2, § 46). But you may consult Servius' notes on Virgil, and others (Servius, on Virgil).

Next, concerning the "feet" of Saturn, "fettered," as our author says, we read these words committed to writing by Cicero: "An old belief filled Greece, that Caelus was castrated by his son Saturn, and that Saturn himself was bound by his son Jupiter." And our own authors Athenagoras and Athanasius support the Latin orator, and, besides a good many others, Epiphanius, who argues from this in line with the thought of our Minucius: "But he who is held in custody is not only subject to someone more powerful, but is usually restrained in bonds on account of some crime." (Eclogue 2, line 31; Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, bk. 2, p. 223; Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians, pp. 19 and 20; Athanasius, Oration against the Gentiles, § 11, p. 12; Epiphanius, Ancoratus, § 106, p. 107.)

Further, in Lucian, when a priest had asked Saturn himself whether he had really been cast down into Tartarus by his son Jupiter, with chains put on him, he replies: "Since I was already old and gouty on account of my age, whence it also came about that most people imagined I had fetters, in short, being already an old man and gouty, for which reason the many supposed that I had been fettered, I was unequal in strength to punishing so many crimes of this age... And so, looking after myself, I gave way to Jupiter." Finally, Cicero and Macrobius put forward other reasons why he was conquered by Jupiter (Lucian, Saturnalia, p. 1022 and following; Cicero, in the place cited; Macrobius, Saturnalia, bk. 1, ch. 8).

Then afterwards Minucius: "Janus, indeed, bears two foreheads, as if so that he might walk backwards." For, to pass over Athenaeus (Deipnosophists, bk. 15, p. 592) and very many others, these are Ovid's verses about him:

Now, two-headed source of the silently gliding year, the only one of those above who sees your own back. . . . . . Yet what god shall I say you are, two-formed Janus, for Greece has no deity equal to you.

Ovid, Fasti, bk. 1, § 4, line 65.)

But if you ask why they called him two-fronted, Plutarch, Macrobius, Cyprian and Vossius will give you various reasons (Plutarch, Roman Questions, p. 279; Macrobius, Saturnalia, bk. 1, chs. 7 and 9; Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols, p. 12; Vossius, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry, bk. 1, ch. 18, p. 71 and following). Finally, we shall add to these that this Janus, on the testimony of the same Macrobius and also of Augustine, is proclaimed by the heathen not only two-fronted but also four-fronted and four-formed (Macrobius, Saturnalia, bk. 1, ch. 9; Augustine, City of God, bk. 7, ch. 4). Who, then, will not deplore that dreadful heathen

blindness of those who believed to be gods not so much men as monsters of men, and paid them divine honours? Yet their insane superstition did not stop there, but they worshipped besides many no less infamous figures of other gods, and how these are expounded and exploded by our author must now be examined.

Article II.

With what great madness the heathen sang of Diana, girt up high, a huntress, with many breasts, the Ephesian and Trivia with three heads and many hands: of Jupiter, now bearded, now beardless: Ammon with horns, Capitolinus bearing thunderbolts, Latiaris drenched in gore, Feretrius not heard, who has as many monstrous forms as names.

Minucius pursues his argument, and assails the threefold form of Diana. "Diana," he says, "girt up high, a huntress, and the Ephesian, built up with many breasts and teats (the codex has 'spits'), and Trivia, frightful with three heads and many hands." Who does not know that Diana was a huntress? Pausanias (book 7, pp. 230 and 234) and others mention her more than once. That she is therefore rightly and deservedly called girt up high for hunting, gather from these verses of Ovid:

Over ridges, through forests and thorny rocks she roams, / her knee bare, her garment girt up after the manner of Diana. (Ovid, Metamorphoses, book 10, fable 12.)

And again elsewhere:

Such are the legs of girt-up Diana as she is painted, / when, braver herself, she pursues brave wild beasts. (Amores, book 5, Elegy 22.)

There is no need to cite other poems or testimonies of the same Ovid, of Prudentius (epist. 4, Hymn to Romanus, v. 257), and of others on a matter well enough known to all.

To some, however, the following words in our manuscript codex seem corrupt: "the Ephesian, built up with many breasts and spits." For certain people could not bring themselves to believe that Diana, being a virgin, had many breasts. They therefore think that the word "Ceres" must be added, who was called the many-breasted. Others, again, maintain that instead of "spits" one should read "teats", or "swellings". But these conjectures are very slight, or rather false, and the reading of our old codex is not to be changed. For Jerome, in his commentary on Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, has handed down this about both Dianas, the one girt up high and the many-breasted one: "He was writing to the Ephesians, who worshipped Diana, not this huntress who holds a bow and is girt up, but that many-breasted one whom the Greeks call polymastos; so that, namely, by the very image too they might feign that she is the nature of all beasts and living things." (Jerome, preface to the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians.)

Nor should you press the point that Jerome there follows our Minucius in error, and has struck upon the same rock of error. For it is certain that neither erred, since it is established that the Ephesian Diana is mentioned by many, and nobody is unaware that her most celebrated temple was among

the Ephesians. Yet her effigy was represented there with many breasts, as is clear from the various statues and images of her which are displayed by Federico Ubaldini in his treatise set out on the symbolic statue of Diana of Ephesus (vol. 7, Greek Antiquities, p. 364).

No less is it established that these statues of Diana, like the other statues of the gods as well, were held up by upright and transverse spits, which were supports and props, or iron rods. For Lucas Holstenius proves this most clearly in his letter to Francesco Cardinal Barberini "on the props attached to the statue of Diana of Ephesus." (Ibid., p. 396.) There, moreover, he displays certain images of the same Diana with her props and many breasts, engraved on coins. From these things, then, it is plainly gathered that the text of our author, and the testimony of Jerome, are attacked by some without good reason.

Further, Diana Trivia, frightful, as Minucius says, with three heads, Virgil sings in these verses:

With his mouth he thunders forth three hundred gods, and Erebus and Chaos, and triple Hecate, the three faces of the virgin Diana. (Virgil, Aeneid 4:510–511.)

On these verses Servius observes that she is called not only Diana but also Lucina and Hecate, and that on account of her threefold power she is portrayed as threefold and three-formed, and that for this reason her temples were built at places where three roads meet. Varro, moreover, following Ennius, notes that she is called Trivia, either because she is set up at a meeting of three roads, generally in Greek towns, or because she is said to be the moon, which moves in the sky by three paths, in height, breadth and length (Varro, On the Latin Language 6, p. 74). Without doubt it was on account of the first reason that Ovid said:

You see the faces of Hecate turned towards three forms, so that she may guard the crossroads cut into three ways.

For this very reason she is called by him "three-headed Hecate," and by Horace and others "the three-formed goddess." See, if you please, Orpheus, Pausanias, and what Eusebius reported from Porphyry, and, if you wish, Prudentius too (Ovid, Fasti 1, § 3, and Metamorphoses 7, fable 3; Horace, book 2, Ode 22; Orpheus, Argonautica and Prayer to Musaeus, Greek Poets vol. 1, pp. 494 and 501; Pausanias, book 2, p. 72; Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 4, ch. 23, p. 174; Prudentius, Against Symmachus 1, § 174).

It is no wonder, then, that since she was three-formed she is also reported to have had several hands. And indeed Rigault, on this passage of Minucius, testifies that he saw such a figure on a bronze coin in the possession of Giovanni Battista Altini. Consult further, if you wish, Caelius Rhodiginus, Vossius, Verderius, Giraldi, and others who discuss this same Diana (Rhodiginus, Ancient Readings 20, ch. 6; Vossius, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry 2, ch. 25, p. 216 ff.). Who, then, would not laugh at and detest such gods along with our Minucius?

With no lighter blow does that heathen strike those who made a show of Jupiter's countenances being various and his faces different. "For what of your Jupiter himself," he said? "Now he is set up beardless, now he is placed bearded." Earlier

Cotta, in Cicero, pressed Velleius thus: "In that way it will be permissible to say that Jove is always bearded." (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book 1, p. 207, line 26.) But Lucian asks where the heathen ever saw this bearded Jove (Lucian, On Sacrifices, p. 185). If you too demand this, Prudentius will answer:

An art effective in sowing errors, / while it wraps about the stiff beard of Jove. (Prudentius, On the Roman Martyr, v. 243.)

In Virgil, however, he is called Anxur:

and the Circaean ridge, the fields over which Jupiter Anxurus / presides. (Virgil, Aeneid, book 7, v. 799.)

Now the name anxur means the same as beardless, as Servius has taught us on these verses of Virgil: "Around this tract of Campania," he says, "the boy Jupiter was worshipped, who was called Anxurus, as it were ἄνευ ξυρᾶς, that is, without a razor, because he had never shaved his beard," and he was beardless. And not only in the tract of Campania, but elsewhere too Jupiter was represented in youthful form. Pausanias [ ] moreover records two images of Jove of this kind set up by the Eleans at the temple of Pelops, of which one, "Jupiter is a beardless youth, not having a beard, among the gifts of Smicythus... A little way on from here, for those going straight ahead, there is another statue of the beardless Jove: the Eleans dedicated it (Pausanias, Eliaca, book 5, p. 173)." To these Naso also adds his voice, by whom the young Jupiter is described thus:

Jupiter is young: look at his youthful features; / look then at his hands: he holds no thunderbolts. (Ovid, Fasti, book 3, § 6, v. 437.)

Besides these, Minucius lists other ridiculous figures of the same Jove, which the heathen were not ashamed to worship. "When he is called Ammon," he says, "he has horns, and when Capitoline, then he carries thunderbolts." And Cicero had already said: "And indeed the appearance of the Capitoline Jove is one thing for us, that of Ammon another for the Africans." (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book 1, p. 207, line 23.) But why Jupiter Ammon was thought to have horns, Herodotus explains in these words: "The Thebans and all who on this account [ ] spare sheep [say that], when Hercules wished to see him and he did not wish to be seen, at last, prevailed upon, he devised this: that, having cut off a ram's head and put on himself the very fleece which he had stripped from it, he showed himself to him thus; and that for this reason the Egyptians established the making of the image of Jove with a ram's face, from this they make the statue of Zeus ram-faced, and that from the Egyptians the Ammonians received it, who are colonists of the Egyptians and Ethiopians and use a language between the two. They also seem to me to have taken the name Ammonians from this, that the Egyptians call Jove Ammon." (Herodotus, book 2, § 42.) Hence [ ] he is called by the Greeks κερατοφόρος, horn-bearing, and by Lucian κριοπρόσωπος, ram-faced, by Macrobius and Arnobius "[having] ram's horns," and by the poets Ovid, Claudian and others horned Ammon (Lucian, On Sacrifices, p. 186; Macrobius, Saturnalia, book 1, ch. 2; Arnobius, Against the Nations, p. 197).

Concerning the same Ammon, moreover, and also concerning the Capitoline, we read these verses of Lucan:

They had come to the temple, which alone among the Libyan peoples the uncultivated Garamantes hold; there stands a horned Jupiter, as they relate, but not as he brandishes thunderbolts, or like ours, but Ammon with twisted horns. (Lucan, book 9, line 517 and following.)

Very frequent is the mention of Jupiter Capitolinus among various writers, and above all among the writers of Roman history. He was called by that name because his temple and image were placed on the Capitol. Titus Livy, Suetonius, Dio Cassius, Plutarch, Pliny and Valerius Maximus mention him. Finally, his likeness is seen on a very ancient coin of Aurelia Quirina, a Vestal, on which he sits naked in the upper half of his body, clothed below, bearing a thunderbolt in his right hand and a sceptre in his left, and it has the name written around: Jup. Opt. Max. Capitolinus [Jupiter Best and Greatest Capitolinus] (Livy, book 2, § 21; Suetonius, book 2, page 344; Cassius, book 54 of the Roman History, page 398 and following; Plutarch, in the Life of Publicola, page 104; Pliny, book 3 of the Natural History, chapters 2 and 8, pages 91 and 125; Valerius, book 1, chapter 2, § 2; Lescalopier on book 1 of Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods, § 83, page 118).

Two further Jupiters are mentioned by our author. "Latiaris," he says, "is drenched with gore," because, namely, human victims, as we have shown, were sacrificed to him; "and Feretrius is not heard." Plutarch reports various explanations of this surname and sets them out in these words: "Zeus Feretrius, as some say, from the trophy being carried on a litter, after the Greek tongue, which was then still much mixed with that of the Latins. But as others say, the appellation is that of Zeus hurling the thunderbolt, for the Romans call striking 'ferire'; others say that the name arose from the blow of war; for even now in battles, when they pursue the enemy, they urge one another constantly with 'feri', that is, 'strike'." "Jupiter is called Feretrius from the trophy, because it was borne on a litter, the name being derived from the Greek tongue, which was also mixed everywhere into the Latin speech. Others affirm that it is the surname of one hurling thunderbolts, so called from striking. There are those who would have it derived from the blows that are dealt in war. For even now in conflicts, when they press upon the enemy to strike, they frequently exhort one another." (Plutarch, in the Life of Marcellus, page 302.) He adds that it is the opinion of some that Numa ordered that the first and the spoils of honour be consecrated to Jupiter Feretrius.

Titus Livy, however, attests that this surname was given to him by Romulus, who, having conquered and slain Acron, king of the Caeninenses, "bearing" his spoils "on a litter made fit for the purpose" (these are Livy's own words), "went up to the Capitol; and there, when he had laid them down at an oak sacred to the shepherds, together with the offering he marked out the bounds of a temple of Jupiter and added a surname to the god: 'Jupiter Feretrius,' he said, 'I, Romulus, a victorious king, bring to you these royal arms, and within these regions which I have just now measured out in my mind I dedicate a temple, a seat for the spoils of honour, which, when kings and generals

of the enemy have been slain, posterity, following me as their originator, will bring.'" (Livy, book 1, § 10.) The same history was committed to memory not only by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Dio Cassius, Florus, Messala Corvinus and others (Dion. Hal., book 2, p. 182; Dio Cass., book 44 of the Roman History, p. 274; Florus, book 1, ch. 1; Mess. Corv., book on the Progeny of Augustus, p. 531), but Plutarch himself too, already cited by us, plainly indicates that from this arose the custom that the spolia opima of slain commanders should be carried to the same Jupiter Feretrius (Plutarch, in the Life of Romulus, p. 27). Hence Propertius also sang:

. . . . . . . The reason for "Feretrius": because with sure omen leader strikes leader with the sword; or because they bore these conquered arms on their shoulders, hence the proud altar of Feretrian Jove is named. (Propertius, book 4, elegy 10.)

Some, however, think that in this text of Minucius, "Feretrius is not heard," the last word "auditur" is corrupt, and that "aditur" [is approached] should be read. For Numa Pompilius after the death of Romulus ordered the spolia opima of enemies to be brought to Mars or to Quirinus, not to Jupiter Feretrius. Then again, what can the expression "is not heard" mean? Is Jupiter Feretrius mute? But was not Jupiter Latiaris likewise mute too? Others, however, judge that "non auditur," as written in our manuscript codex, should be retained, and that the adverb "non" is there taken for the word "nomen" [name]: just as if Minucius had said that the name of Feretrius, of whom there was no image, "is not heard" any longer. They try to prove this by certain examples, but these are not of great weight. What then if you take these words "non auditur" in their native sense, for "is abandoned, is spurned, is despised"? Will not the meaning of Minucius be plain and clear enough, that Jupiter Latiaris was still in his own time drenched with blood, but that Feretrius was no longer heard? For the rest, whether you read "auditur" or "aditur," their meaning will not seem very different, nor greatly foreign to the mind of Minucius.

Finally, "as many monsters of Jupiter," says Minucius further, "as names." And for this reason, surely, Theophilus in his book to Autolycus said: "I should like to ask you, O man, how many Joves are found after all. For first Zeus is called Olympian, and Zeus Latiaris, and Zeus Cassius, and Zeus Thunderer, and Zeus Forefather, and Zeus All-night, and Zeus Guardian of the City, and Zeus Capitoline. Jupiter first Olympian, then Latiaris, Cassius, Thunderer, Forefather, All-wakeful, Defender of cities, Capitoline. And indeed Jupiter, son of Saturn, king of the Cretans, is buried in Crete." (Theophilus, book 2 to Autolycus, p. 76.) The other Joves, however, he judges to have been worthy of no burial.

Moreover, concerning the almost infinite crowd and multitude of those Joves, whom some imagined to be three hundred, or, as our author rightly said, concerning the monsters and portents, see Lilius Giraldus, and, if you please and have leisure, what we have argued elsewhere (Giraldus,

Hist. deor. syntag. 2, p. 72 ff.; vol. 1, Apparat. book 3, dissert. 1, ch. 9, p. 752).

Article III.

Another argument of the same weight is set out, which Minucius drew from the unworthy and most shameful deeds of the gods, by which Erigone was said to have been hanged by a noose, Castor and Pollux to live and die by turns, Aesculapius to have been struck by a thunderbolt, Hercules to have been burned in the fires of Oeta.

From the most absurd and plainly ridiculous forms of the gods Minucius passes to their most shameful and abominable crimes, by which he most clearly demonstrates that they are wholly unworthy not only of the name of gods, but even of that of men endowed with reason. To prove this, moreover, he reviews several of them one by one, and we shall follow him in this argument, as in the preceding one.

He takes the beginning of his discourse from Erigone: "who, as he says, was hanged from a noose, so that as a virgin she might be set aflame among the stars." There is, however, a twofold opinion, or rather fable, of the heathen writers about that Erigone. By some she is said to be the daughter of Icarius the Athenian, and when drunken rustics had killed him, she, warned of her father's murder by a dog and having seen his corpse, hanged herself with a noose. After death the virgin herself and the dog that warned her are feigned to have a seat among the stars under their own name.

Others relate that Erigone was the daughter of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, who, having set out for Athens with Tyndareus her grandfather to accuse Orestes, took her own life with a noose when she was informed of his acquittal.

Minucius, however, seems to have had the first opinion more in view, which prattled that Erigone and that dog were reckoned among the stars, as Statius had sung:

. . . . The stars grant force to my undertakings, and the summer-bringing dog of my Erigone foams.

(Statius, Thebaid 4, line 538.)

If you want more, you may consult Nonnus, Servius and others (Nonnus, Dionysiaca 47, line 600 ff.; Servius on Virgil, Georgics 2, line 388). For this reason Tatian had reproached the heathen: "The dog of Erigone is shown in heaven." "The dog of Erigone is shown in heaven." (Tatian, Oration against the Greeks, p. 149.)

It is helpful, moreover, to observe here that in our manuscript codex one reads "ut in astra ignata sit," without doubt by a slip of the copyist. Therefore in the printed editions it is written "ignita sit," that is, that Erigone was placed among the fiery stars. Nor is this emendation to be rejected outright, since it can be established not unfittingly by the cited words of Statius and Tatian; yet it did not please Gronovius, and he preferred to correct it to "signata sit," that is, "placed." But he ought first to have shown where Minucius uses this manner of speaking. However, whatever his genuine reading may be, it shows most plainly that the opinion of the gentiles about their gods was utterly absurd, since they seriously proclaimed Erigone, after she had ended her life with a noose, both a goddess and placed among the stars.

-red. » (Plato, Republic book 3, vol. 2, p. 408). Or as Virgil sang: That he recalled to life Hippolytus, who had been killed by the craft of his stepmother. (Virgil, Aeneid book 7, line 765 ff.) Pindar said the same, as cited by Tertullian, by Arnobius, and by Athenagoras, who called in Hesiod as a second witness, by whom, however, the name of the man raised from the dead is passed over in silence (Tertullian, Apology ch. 14, and To the Nations book 2, ch. 41; Arnobius book 4, p. 143; Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians, p. 33; Pindar, Ode 3). Read besides Lucian, Origen, Arnobius, Lactantius, Theodoret, and, if it is not burdensome, what we noted in the preceding volume (Lucian, Dialogues of the Gods, p. 78; Origen, Against Celsus book 3, p. 123; Arnobius, book 4, p. 143; Lactantius, Institutes book 1, ch. 17, p. 84; Theodoret, sermon 8, On the Martyrs, p. 595; vol. 1 of the Apparatus, book 3, dissertation 1, ch. 7, art. 1, p. 754). Rightly, therefore, do Plato, Tertullian and Lactantius, as we shall see in its place, conclude from this, together with our author, that Aesculapius cannot be called the son of God.

Why say more? « Hercules, » these are still the words of our author, and likewise of Cyprian, « in order to put off the man, is burned up in the Oetaean fires (the Royal manuscript has Henneis, but wrongly). « The whole affair, or rather this fable, is narrated by Diodorus Siculus, whom Servius follows, in this manner. After Hercules had put on the undershirt smeared by Dejanira with the centaur's love-potion, which had been prepared for his ruin, he at once fell into a deadly disease, or, as Arnobius relates, into the falling sickness. Then, as the disease grew worse and all hope of recovering his health had been cast aside, he mounted a pyre in order to obey the Delphic oracle. Philoctetes set fire to it, and soon, struck by thunderbolts, it was reduced to ashes together with the body of Hercules. But afterwards, when Iolaus had searched for his bones in vain, the report spread that he had flown away to the gods. Augustine, however, indicates where and at what time this took place, and who that Hercules was. Then from this, and aptly to the mind of our author, he argues thus: « As things now stand, I do not see in what way that Hercules, to whom torches were brought on Mount Oeta, as Accius says, came from that burning into the eternal house of his father Jupiter. » Consult Ovid, Metamorphoses book 9, fable 3; Sophocles in the Women of Trachis, vol. 2 of the Greek Poets; Cicero, Tusculan Disputations book 2, p. 138; Seneca in the Hercules on Oeta; Justin Martyr, Apology 1, p. 76; Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians, p. 53; Theodoret, sermon 3, On the Angels, p. 510, and more fully sermon 8, On the Martyrs, p. 591 ff.; Lactantius, Divine Institutes book 1, ch. 9; and Hyginus and Apollodorus, who have handed down in writing a good deal about these and other recorded opinions of the gentiles.

Article IV.

Why and how Minucius shows that the gods of the gentiles are false, from the books of Homer, read by everyone for the shaping of life and morals, in which are sung Venus wounded, Mars bound and wounded, Jupiter

freed by Briareus, weeping for Sarpedon, and enticed by the girdle of Venus. Hercules carting out dung, Apollo pasturing the flock of Admetus, Neptune rebuilding the walls of Laomedon, the thunderbolt of Jove forged together with the arms of Aeneas, the adultery of Mars and Venus, Ganymede carried off by Jove, and how deservedly Homer was cast out by Plato from his city.

Minucius laments the utterly wretched and unhappy condition of the heathen, who, having been taught by their parents old wives' tales about their gods, had sucked them in almost with their milk. Indeed, when they had grown older, they had learned them "through their very studies and disciplines" from the songs of the poets, and above all of Homer. For drinking poisons in what seemed to them delightful, they corrupted their morals by hearing of the shameful deeds of their gods. For what would they not have done, when they heard that Homer, "renowned, praised, crowned," as Minucius says, by all peoples, who "in the Trojan war, though he makes sport of them, nevertheless mixed the gods into the affairs and acts of men? He matched them in pairs, wounded Venus, bound, wounded and put to flight Mars. He relates that Jupiter was freed by Briareus, lest he be bound by the other gods, and that he wept showers of blood for his son Sarpedon, because he could not snatch him from death, and that, enticed by the girdle of Venus, he lay with Juno his wife more ardently than is usual with adulteresses." Tertullian had written plainly the same things, but in other words: "But when I have turned to your literature, by which you are formed for prudence and the liberal duties, what mockeries do I find? That the gods, on account of the Trojans and the Achaeans, met and fought it out among themselves like pairs of gladiators; that Venus was wounded by a human arrow; that Mars was almost wasted away in chains for thirteen months; that Jupiter, lest he suffer the same violence from the other heaven-dwellers, was freed by the help of some monster; and that now he weeps for the fall of Sarpedon, now lies foully with his sister, while recalling mistresses not so beloved long since." (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 14.) We have quoted the passages of our Minucius and of Tertullian entire together, both because they mutually shed light on each other, and because they are so similar that Minucius seems to have borrowed his from Tertullian.

What Tertullian says only in general terms from the literature of the heathen, our Minucius declares to have been drawn from Homer. And from this we understand why they and other defenders of the Christian religion set these most absurd fables, scarcely credible to any man of sound mind, before all the heathen in order to destroy their false religions. For Homer was in such honour among them that they taught boys the mockeries of the gods sung by him, and others were formed by his songs "for prudence," as Tertullian says, "and the liberal duties." And so, steeped in these things from their earliest age, and thinking it a sin to withhold belief from so great a man, as they supposed, they readily believed that their gods were such as they had been feigned by him and by other poets, and were afterwards publicly represented in the theatres and the mysteries, as we shall show below. "Therefore," says Minucius, "by these and suchlike fictions and sweeter lies the minds of boys are corrupted,"

and clinging to the same fables, they grow old even into the strength of their fullest age, although the truth lies ready to hand, but for those who seek it." Moreover, although Homer and the other poets composed such abominable and shameful poems about the gods, they themselves were nevertheless, as Augustine says, called the theologians of the heathen (Augustine, book 18, On the City [of God], chapter 14, page 498). It is no wonder, then, if our Minucius and the other most ancient Fathers of the Church earnestly and quite often overthrew this authority of Homer and the rest of the poets, founded though it was on such ridiculous fables.

But since Minucius and Tertullian cited neither the books nor the places of Homer where the things they relate are written, we have therefore thought it our duty to point them out one by one, and to call upon others by whom they are likewise quoted or confirmed. Now concerning Venus wounded, namely by Diomedes, which Minucius mentions first, we read it in the fifth [book] of Homer's Iliad, line 335 and following, and it was cited by Plato, book 9 of the Symposium, question 4, page 739; by Virgil, book 2 of the Aeneid, line 277; by Justin Martyr, Exhortation to the Greeks, page 3; by Athenagoras, Embassy for the Christians, page 2; by Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, page 23; by Athanasius, Oration against the Greeks, § 12, page 142.

What Minucius related about Mars bound and wounded, you will find sung in the same [book] of Homer, Iliad 5, 385 and following; concerning which also Clement of Alexandria and Athanasius in the places cited, and Gregory Nazianzen, oration 3 against Julian, page 358, and oration 4, page 308.

Homer, whom Minucius repeatedly censures, further sang of Jupiter set free by Briareus, Iliad 1, line 399 and following; concerning which afterwards Justin Martyr, Exhortation to the Greeks, page 3; and Servius on book 6 of the Aeneid, page 415.

Next, in the same Homer, Iliad 16, line 667 and following, you will find what is related about the same Jupiter and Sarpedon not only by Minucius but also by Athenagoras, Embassy for the Christians, page 21, and Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks; by whom two verses of Homer have been copied out.

Finally, concerning the strap or girdle with which Venus, as our author says, enticed Jupiter, you will hear Homer singing in Iliad 14, line 204 and following. Gregory Nazianzen, moreover, turned it against the heathen just as Minucius did, oration 3 against Julian, page 258. See there the notes of Billius, who rendered this poet's verses about that girdle of Venus in Latin verse.

Come now, let us look at other things no less absurd, described without doubt likewise in other verses of Homer, which Minucius did not specify: "Hercules," he says, "carries out dung, and Apollo pastures the flock for Admetus, Neptune builds walls for Laomedon." Now Diodorus Siculus reports as the fifth labour of Hercules that by which he cleansed the stable of King Augeas of its dung. He explains this at some length, just as do Pausanias, Natalis Comes and a good many others (Diodorus Siculus, book 4 of the Library, page 154 and following; Pausanias, book 5, page

...148). See, however, whether our author meant to aim at Homer, Iliad II, 695 ff.

Much more clearly did he sing of the Apollo mentioned by our author, who pastured the flock of Admetus, and of Neptune, who built the walls for the Trojan Laomedon. The first occurs in Iliad II, 760 ff.; the second in Iliad XXI, 443, which Pausanias is read to have cited (Pausanias VII, p. 226). On both Apollo and Neptune, see Lucian, On Sacrifices, p. 188; Arnobius, Against the Gentiles IV, p. 144; Lactantius I, 10; Tertullian, Apology, ch. 14; Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols, p. 11; Augustine, City of God III, 2, and XVIII, 13; Servius on Virgil's Georgics III, 2, and on Aeneid I, 554; Vossius, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry II, 15, p. 16, and II, 12, p. 167. On Apollo, finally, Callimachus, Ode 2, to Apollo; Euripides, prologue to the Alcestis; Nonnus, Dionysiaca I, 323; Ovid, Art of Love II, p. 447; Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians, p. 22; Tatian, Oration against the Greeks, p. 159; Eusebius, Chronicle I, p. 19. And from the passage of Augustine already cited and another, some light can be shed on what we have noted elsewhere as handed down in the writings of Clement of Alexandria about this same servitude of Apollo (vol. I of the Apparatus, book III, dissertation 2, ch. 14, art. 1, p. 1098).

Minucius goes on and reproaches the heathen with "the thunderbolt of Jupiter forged on the anvil together with the arms of Aeneas." He is doubtless speaking of the anvil of Vulcan. But Homer relates how on it the same Vulcan forged the arms not of Aeneas but of Achilles (Homer, Iliad XVIII, 454 ff.). Consider, therefore, whether our author there looked not only to Homer but also to Virgil, who indeed sang that Vulcan ordered the Cyclopes, who were forging thunderbolts for Jupiter, to leave them and make for Aeneas the arms that Venus was asking for (Virgil, Aeneid VIII, 442 ff.).

But the adultery of Mars and Venus, "caught," as our Minucius further says, "by Vulcan," Homer and Ovid had sung (Homer, Odyssey VIII, 267; Ovid, Art of Love II, before the end). And if we believe Lucian, a certain dancer by himself, without noises and pipes, expressed that abominable adultery of the gods by dance and gesture alone (Lucian, On Dancing, p. 515). Hence too Clement of Alexandria said: Aphrodite disgraced over Ares, "Venus was visited with shame and disgrace on account of Mars." Arnobius and Lactantius [speak] of it, as we shall note below (Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Gentiles, p. 21; Dissertation on Arnobius, ch. 10, art. 1, and on Lactantius, ch. 31, art. 1).

Finally, there is read in Homer what Minucius says: "Ganymede, Jupiter's debauchery, consecrated in heaven." And certainly Pausanias: It is composed by Homer that Ganymede was carried off by the gods to pour wine for Zeus. "Homer committed to his songs that Ganymede was carried off by the gods to serve Jupiter's cups, and that in exchange horses were given to Tros," that is, to his father (Minucius, p. 208; Homer, Iliad XX, 231 ff., and the Hymn to Venus; Pausanias V, p. 173). But you may, if you please, go to the Greek itself in the poet at the place cited by us, and to Ovid, Metamorphoses X, fable 5; Theocritus, Idyll XII, 35 ff.; Apollonius, Argonautica III, 174 ff., and Nonnus, Dionysiaca I, 316.

From that whole argument of our author, moreover, you see how justly he approves the view of Plato, who, on account of those execrable and detestable fictions, cast Homer, "renowned," as we have said, "praised and crowned," a word Tertullian too used, out of his city as a master of licence and impiety, as Theodoret says, or as a plague to youth, as Origen rightly argues. But Plato himself and all the heathen without exception ought to have cast out these wicked gods sung by Homer, and the other gods of the gentiles, not from one city but from every city and part of the world (Tertullian, To the Nations II, 7; Theodoret, Discourse 2, On the Principle, p. 486; Origen, Against Celsus IV, p. 186).

CHAPTER XVIII.

The argument of Caecilius is examined by which he tries to prove that the gods of the gentiles exist, on the ground that the Romans earned the empire of the whole world by their pious worship of them.

ARTICLE ONE.

That argument of Caecilius is set out.

Caecilius contends that the empire of the Romans was extended "beyond the paths of the sun and the bounds of Ocean itself" because they worshipped not some only, but all the gods and all the divinities with ever-pious worship and true religion. Nor did Caecilius alone assert and vaunt this, but almost all the other heathen too, and above all Valerius Maximus. For these are his very words: "No wonder if the persistent indulgence of the gods has always kept watch over the increase and safeguarding of that empire which is seen to weigh even the smallest points of religion with such scrupulous care; for our city must be thought never to have taken its eyes from the most exact observance of ceremonies" (Valerius Maximus, Memorable Examples, ch. 1, § 8, p. 8). And the Romans could not have received so great a reward for their piety towards the gods unless these gods really existed and their power was supreme.

But what, you will say, did Caecilius mean, who, while too insolently proclaiming the various duties of that Roman piety, asserts without hesitation that these same Romans [won the empire] not by their piety alone, but also by warlike valour

benefit from their gods? But you will understand his meaning and sense with no great difficulty, beyond doubt, if you will first observe that "in the sieges" of cities, as Pliny writes following Verrius Flaccus, "it was customary for the Roman priests to call forth the god under whose protection the town was, and to promise him the same or a more ample worship among the Romans. And that rite endures," he continues, "in the discipline of the pontiffs, and it is agreed that for this reason it was kept hidden under whose protection Rome was, lest any of the enemy should act in a similar way" (Pliny, Natural History book 28, chapter 2, page 559). Macrobius relates the same things, and sets out the formula by which the Romans, in the sieges of cities, were accustomed to call forth their tutelary gods and to vow temples and games to them (Macrobius, Saturnalia book 3, chapter 9). Therefore Caecilius asserts that the Romans obtained from the gods the empire of the whole world beyond doubt on account of this custom of war. But let us attend, if you please, to how he tried to prove it. First, "while they exercise," he says, "a religious valour in arms", namely by the pious calling forth of the gods, as we have said, and by solemn vows, prayers and sacrifices performed. Secondly, "while they fortify the city of Rome with the observances of sacred rites," both their own and those of other nations conquered by them. For when these had been subdued, they carried off to Rome both their gods and their sacred, or rather profane and abominable, worship. And for the same reason Caecilius added: "While they seek out guest gods from every side and make them their own."

He goes on, and says that the Romans fortified their city not only with these pious and sacred rites, but also "with chaste virgins, namely the Vestals, and with many honours and titles of priests," that is, with stipends, revenues, immunities and privileges. And that this is indeed the sense of our author, which has been very little grasped by some, can be confirmed by the authority of Symmachus, likewise a pagan, and of Ambrose replying to him. For in his Relation to the emperor Valentinian Symmachus addresses him in these words: "The law of our forefathers had honoured the Vestal virgins and the ministers of the gods with a modest maintenance and just privileges." (Symmachus, in Ambrose, Relation § 14, page 831.) To which Ambrose replies: "They complain that public sustenance is not owed to their priests and ministers ..... Yet no one has refused gifts to the shrines and legacies to the haruspices; only the estates have been taken away, because they did not use religiously those things which they defended by the right of religion." (Ambrose, Letter 18, §§ 13-16.)

Boldly still Caecilius protests that the gods brought the Romans most certain help, "while, besieged, and taken all but the Capitol, they worship the gods whom another would already have spurned as angry, and through the battle lines of the Gauls, who marvelled at the boldness of their superstition, they go forward unarmed with weapons but armed with the worship of religion, while, when the enemy's walls have been taken, with victory still raging, they venerate the conquered deities." He is speaking beyond doubt of the Senones, who, after the city of Rome had been taken, were besieging the Capitol. Nor

did Symmachus hesitate still to hurl that dull and blunted weapon against the Christians in these few words: "These rites drove Hannibal from the walls, the Senones from the Capitol." (Symmachus, Relatio, § 9, p. 830, and Ambrose, Letter 18, § 4, p. 834.)

But Gronovius, following some others, thinks that in our author's text, and against the authority of our manuscript codex, "iratus" should be read instead of "iratos". For the Romans, he says, "did not despise angry gods, by whom they felt themselves chastised." He therefore thinks this is the sense of Minucius: the Romans worship their gods, whom another man, "angry" when they denied him their help, would already have spurned. But the sense will beyond doubt be better if you read: "whom another would already have spurned as angry", and therefore as bringing him no help. For what if the term "iratos" (angry) is set against "propitious gods", about whom more can be read in Brisson? (Brisson, book 1 On Formulae, p. 120 and following.) Further, what Caecilius relates about the Capitol besieged by the Senones and about the religious devotion of the Romans towards the gods, you will find set out by Titus Livy, Valerius Maximus, Florus and others (Livy, book 5, § 46 and following; Valerius Maximus, book 1, ch. 1, §§ 10 and 11; Florus, book 1, ch. 13; ibid. p. 51).

Besides these things, Caecilius thinks it a further sure proof of the religion of the Romans "that they build altars to unknown deities and to the Manes." Concerning the former, these are the words of Tertullian: "I do indeed find altars prostituted to unknown gods. But that is Attic idolatry. Likewise to uncertain gods, but that is Roman superstition. Further, uncertain gods are less known, as being less certain; and therefore unknown, because less certain (Tertullian, book against Marcion, ch. 9). With what words those unknown gods were invoked, if you are eager to know, Gellius, Macrobius and Brisson will teach you (Gellius, book 2 of the Attic Nights, ch. 28; Macrobius, book 3 of the Saturnalia, ch. [ ]; Brisson, book 1 On Formulae, 120).

You will perhaps be surprised that it has occurred to some that this word of Caecilius, "Manibus", has been corrupted, and that "inanibus" (empty) should be written in its place. Nothing, indeed, could have been devised more contrary to the authority of the Royal manuscript codex and to the author's meaning. For who, even in a dream, has supposed that Caecilius, who there plays the part of a pagan against the Christian, said in earnest that altars had been built by the Romans to "empty" gods?

But to what purpose, they say, is the mention of the "Manes" there, or to whom could they have been unknown? What then if the adjective "unknown" is referred to the substantive "deities" alone? Caecilius, moreover, mentions the Manes there because the pagans quite often invoked them and offered sacrifices to them. Nor indeed were they, as these people would have it, so well known to everyone. For some, as Servius observes, considered them heavenly gods, others infernal gods, others nocturnal ones, and believed that they wandered between heaven and earth. On these matters Servius and Lilio Gregorio Giraldi say more (Servius, on book 3 of Virgil's Aeneid, p. 266; Giraldi, Syntagma 7, On the History of the Gods, p. 205). Nothing, therefore, is to be changed in our author's text, whether you call the Manes known or unknown.

these things are confirmed by the testimony of Cyprian, who drew all of them, as recounted so far, from this very passage of the author (Cypr., On the Vanity of Idols, p. 16). Since, moreover, these things are most certain, with no one objecting, Minucius rightly concludes from them against Caecilius that nothing is "more irreligious" than these beginnings of the Romans, nor more wicked and impious.

He goes on, and shows that the Romans extended their empire by the same impiety with which they had begun, namely by overthrowing the neighbouring cities together with their temples and altars, by compelling captured enemies to be made partners in their crimes, and by "constructing all their temples from the booty, that is, from the ruins of cities," these are the words of Minucius, "from the spoils of the gods, from the slaughter of priests." Therefore, "as often," as he says further, "as the Romans have triumphed, so often have they committed impiety. As many spoils taken from the gods as trophies also from the nations." Whence with the fullest right he draws this conclusion: "Therefore the Romans are not so great because they are religious, but because they are sacrilegious with impunity."

I should like you, however, to consider whether Minucius, when he wrote these things, did not have regard to the Apologeticum of Tertullian. For in that book, after he has assailed and crushed the same boast of the heathen, he completes his argument with this similar conclusion: "Therefore the Romans were not religious before they were great, and so they are not great on this account, because they were religious. And indeed how are they great on account of religion, whose greatness has come from irreligion? For, unless I am mistaken, every kingdom or empire is acquired by wars and extended by victories. Moreover, wars and victories consist for the most part in cities captured and overthrown. That business is not without injury to the gods. The same destruction of walls and of temples, equal slaughter of citizens and of priests, and not dissimilar plundering of sacred riches and of profane. As many sacrileges of the Romans, therefore, as trophies; as many triumphs over gods as over nations; as many spoils as there still remain images of captive gods." Tertull., Apol., ch. 25, p. 28.)

But that which Minucius reports, that temples of the gods were built by the victorious Romans from the booty of enemies and of captured cities, is splendidly confirmed by the testimony of Florus. For concerning Tarquinius Superbus we read these things committed to record by him: "From the booty of captured cities he erected a temple." (Florus, book 1 of the Deeds of the Romans, ch. 7.) And we heard Tertullian just now saying that the booty of the Romans was the images of captive gods. This indeed is asserted no less plainly in these verses of Prudentius:

Countless gods thereafter, when cities had been subdued by valour, Rome procured for herself from her famous triumphs; amid the smoking ruins of temples the armed right hand of the victor seized the enemy's images, and carried them home as captives, venerating them as deities.

As often as glorious Rome received with applause the chariot of a triumphing general, so often did she add altars of the gods, and made for herself new deities from the spoils.

(Prudentius, [Against] Symmachus 1, § 2.)

But Lactantius, more briefly, to have signified both the temples and the images

seems. For where he records the cities of enemies overthrown by the arms of the Romans, he there immediately adds: "They consecrate to the gods their spoils and plunder." (Lact., Inst. book 1, ch. 6, p. 170; Dissert. on Lactantius, ch. 33, art. 4.) For from the manubiae, that is, from moneys collected from the sale of the booty of their enemies, as we shall explain elsewhere, they built new temples of the gods; and the images of the gods that they had seized and carried away with them to Rome and set up in their own temples they consecrated anew and adorned.

Cicero is also our witness that the tyrant Dionysius pulled off the cloak with which the tyrant Gelo had adorned Jupiter from the spoils of the Carthaginians. Moreover, in a certain speech: Fulvius, he says, who made war on the Aetolians with Ennius as his companion, did not hesitate to consecrate the spoils to the Muses (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods book 3, p. 252, line 87, and Speech for Archias, p. 390, line 25).

Octavius goes on, and in his own name and that of the Christians asks of his opponent and the other heathen which gods were favourable to the Romans and came as helpers in their wars for extending the bounds of their empire: were they foreign and newcomers, or their own and native? But none of them was able to bring aid to the Romans. Not the former, certainly. For how could they have been favourable to the Romans and their helpers, who were never able to protect their own clients and worshippers against the assaults of their enemies? "For neither Mars of Thrace," says Minucius, "nor Jupiter of Crete, nor Juno of Argos, now the Punic [goddess], now Diana of Tauris, nor the Idaean mother, nor those Egyptian things, not deities but monsters, had helped their own people, by whom they were worshipped, against these men." For there is no one who does not know that those peoples were conquered and routed by the arms of the Romans. Wherefore Cyprian, who repeats [this] in the same way from this author of ours, immediately added: "These, surely, if they had had any power, would have preserved their own kingdoms and those of their people." (Cypr., book, On the Vanity of Idols, p. 13.)

But if anyone wishes to know who those are whom Minucius called monsters of deities, we shall say that Mars is surnamed Thracian because some thought that he came from Thrace, as we have observed elsewhere (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, book 3, dissertation 1, ch. 9, art. 1, p. 753). Further, Ammianus Marcellinus (Ammian., book 27, ch. 4, p. 482) testifies that Mars was held in the highest honour and worship among the Thracians.

Concerning the Cretan Jupiter, namely the one whom they reported to have been born and buried in Crete, as also concerning Juno, both the Argive and the Samian, we have argued more than once (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, book 3, ch. 7, art. 4, p. 730, and ch. 8, art. 1, p. 735, and ch. 14, art. 5, p. 827).

To this may be added Cicero (On the Nature of the Gods book 1, p. 207), who handed down this to posterity about the first Juno: "But the Argive Juno is not such as the Saviour [Juno], nor is the Roman Juno. Therefore the Argives have one form of Juno, the Latins another." And concerning this Juno we read that verse of Virgil:

To Argive Juno we burn due honours.

See Pausanias (book 2, page 59, and book 3, page 95), Lucian (On Sacrifices, page 185), and Strabo (book 5, page 215, and book 6, page 252), who have made mention of her more than once, as have a good many other more recent writers.

Concerning the Samian Juno, Aethlius relates the following in Clement of Alexandria (Exhortation to the Gentiles, page 30): "[The image] of the Samian Hera, as Aethlius says, was at first a plank, but afterwards, when Procles was archon, it was made in the form of a statue." "[The image] of the Samian Juno was at first indeed a plank, but afterwards, when Procles was archon, it was fashioned into the form of a statue." From this it is clear how ancient was the veneration paid to her among the heathen. Read further, if you wish, Pausanias (book 7, page 209) and Origen (book 4, Against Celsus, page 196). Moreover Virgil mentions both of these Junos, and a third, who was called the Punic or Carthaginian, in these verses:

There was an ancient city (Tyrian settlers held it),

Carthage. . . . . . . . . . . / . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

which Juno is said to have cherished alone more than all lands,

even Samos being placed second: here were her arms,

here was her chariot: that this should be the kingdom over the nations,

if in any way the fates allow, the goddess even then both strives and cherishes the hope. / . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

which she had waged first at Troy on behalf of her dear Argos.

(Virgil, Aeneid book 1, line 16.)

Finally, the Idaean Mother will be spoken of below, just as we have discussed the monstrous deities of the Egyptians above. And these indeed are the gods and goddesses who, like any other, brought no help whatever to the Romans, as Minucius has rightly asserted. Not very differently did Ambrose later argue against Symmachus: "Let them choose which they will. If the rites conquered among the Romans, then among the Carthaginians they were overcome; if they triumphed among the Carthaginians, then they certainly did not profit the Romans." (Ambrose, Letter 18, § 6, page 834.)

Rightly, therefore, does Minucius conclude from what has been said that nothing is more absurd to say than that their worshippers were abandoned and crushed by gods and goddesses of this kind so that the bounds of the Roman empire might be extended. In just the same way the same Ambrose argued against Symmachus: "For what shall I say of the Senones" (who were indicated above by Minucius, as we have seen, though without being named), "whom the Roman remnant could not have withstood as they penetrated the secret places of the Capitol, had not a goose betrayed them with its frightened cackling? See what guardians the Roman temples had. Where was Jupiter then? Was he speaking in the goose?" (The same, § 5, above, article 1.) In like manner he pressed the gentiles with the victories of Hannibal: "Hannibal long insulted the Roman rites, and, while the gods fought against him, he came right up to the walls of the city to conquer them. Why did those for whom the arms of their gods were fighting allow themselves to be besieged?" (Ambrose, ibid., § 4.) Consult, if it pleases you and you have leisure, what we have noted in that place. The Romans, therefore, could neither procure nor hope for any help by which their empire might be enlarged from foreign gods, nor indeed from their native and proper ones, which must now be examined.

Article III.

That the native gods were of no help to the Romans in extending the bounds of their empire: Romulus, enrolled among the gods on Proculus's perjury, Picus, Tiberinus, Pilumnus, Picumnus, Consus, Cloacina, Pavor, Pallor, Febris, Morbus, Acca Laurentia and Flora; where [we treat] of the Larentalian rites, and of the Consualian and Floral games.

Minucius passes over to the native gods of the Romans, and plainly asserts that these were at hand as no greater protection to those same Romans than the foreign ones. He thought this so certain that it needed no proof, and that nothing else was to be done than to call those gods by their names. First, therefore, by him, and afterwards by Cyprian, though without observing the order of time, are reviewed Romulus, Picus, Tiberinus, Consus, Pilumnus and Picumnus (Cyprian, book On the Vanity of Idols, p. 11).

Now Romulus, founder, as no one is unaware, of the Roman nation and of the City, Ennius in Cicero celebrated in this one verse as enrolled among the number of the gods:

Romulus in heaven passes his age with the gods.

(Cicero, Tusculan Disputations book 1, p. 119, line 33.)

But Romulus was a god only "on Proculus's perjury," as our author had said before. Titus Livy narrates the matter thus: when various rumours were spreading about Romulus's death, and some were sowing it abroad in a quiet murmur that he had been torn to pieces by the hands of the senators, "Proculus Julius," as he says, "while the city was troubled with longing for the king and hostile to the Fathers, a man of weight, as it is related, as voucher for a matter however great, came forward into the assembly: 'Romulus,' he said, 'Quirites, the father of this city, at the first light of this day, gliding suddenly down from heaven, presented himself before me. When, overcome with awe and full of reverence, I had stood there, begging with prayers that it might be lawful to look upon him face to face, "Go," he said, "announce to the Romans that the heavenly ones so will it, that my Rome be the head of the world. Therefore let them cultivate the art of war, and let them know, and so hand it on to posterity, that no human strength can withstand the Roman arms." Having said this,' he said, 'he departed on high.' It is wonderful how much credence was given to that man announcing these things, and how the longing for Romulus among the common people and the army was soothed once belief in his immortality had been created." (Livy, Decade 1, book 1, § 16.) But Ovid (Fasti book 2, p. 492 and following), Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Roman Antiquities book 2, pp. 118 and 124) and Plutarch in the Life of Romulus, p. 55) related these things somewhat more fully, and more briefly Florus (book 1, ch. 1), Lactantius (book 1, ch. 15, p. 67) and Augustine (City of God book 3, ch. 15, p. 70). Cyprian On the Vanity of Idols, p. 13) as usual follows the footsteps of our author. Wherefore Tertullian Apology, ch. 21), speaking of Christ's ascension into heaven, says: "Much better than your people are accustomed to assert about their Proculuses." For which reason Tatian (Oration against the Greeks, p. 149), suppressing the name of Romulus, said: "Someone who mocks the gods, having declared for a fee or through perjury that kings have ascended into heaven, is believed." "That certain kings of old, someone, hired of course for a fee,

and perjuring himself (that they had ascended into heaven), found men who would believe it."

As for the other gods of the Romans, we learn from Augustine that Picus and Tiberinus were later added to their false and fictitious order (Augustine, City of God book 4, ch. 23, p. 104; book 6, ch. 10, p. 159; book 18, ch. 15, p. 499). This indeed is afterwards confirmed by him with these words of Varro: "Romulus consecrated Picus and Tiberinus." But who Picus was, and at what time he reigned and was entered on the roll of the gods, he himself relates in another book in this manner: "At Laurentum Picus, son of Saturn, first received the kingdom, while the woman Deborah was judging among the Hebrews. Concerning the father of this Picus, Saturn, let the worshippers of such gods see what they think, who deny that he was a man; of whom others have written that he himself reigned in Italy before his son Picus (ibid.)." He also informs us that this second opinion is approved by its champions, and by Virgil, who will shortly be cited by us. Finally he added this: "Picus begot Faunus, the second king of Laurentum: he too is a god to them, or was. These divine honours they conferred on dead men before the Trojan War."

And Virgil, cited by Augustine, sang this of Picus:

Picus was father to Faunus, and he names you, Saturn, as his parent. (Virgil, Aeneid 7.48.)

And again:

He himself sat with the Quirinal augur's staff, girt in a short trabea, and bore the sacred shield in his left hand, Picus the tamer of horses, whom his wife Circe, seized by desire, struck with her golden wand and, changed by her potions, made a bird, and sprinkled his wings with colours. (The same, v. 187 ff.)

More on this transformation of Picus into a bird is in Ovid, whom you can read, as also Servius on those verses of Virgil (Ovid, Metamorphoses book 14, § 7, p. 517 ff.; Servius on Virgil, p. 457).

Of Tiberinus too the same poet made these verses:

To him the god of the place himself, Tiberinus of the pleasant river, an old man, [seemed] to raise himself among the poplar leaves. (Virgil, Aeneid 8.31 ff.)

Whoever desires more about him, let him consult Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities book 1, p. 57; Livy, book 1, p. 2; the author of the book On the Origin of the Roman People, and others.

But concerning Pilumnus let us hear Virgil further, singing this:

Turnus then by chance was sitting in the grove of his ancestor Pilumnus, in the hallowed valley. (Aeneid 9.3-4.)

And again in the following book:

It is a shameful thing that Italians should surround the nascent Troy with flames, and that Turnus should take his stand on his native soil, whose grandfather is Pilumnus, whose mother the goddess Venilia. (Book 10, v. 74 ff.)

Further, Servius on the former of these verses notes that Pilumnus, who is without doubt the same as Picumnus, and by our author with a little

change is so called, was the brother of Pithumnus. This one, says the same Servius, is reported to have discovered the practice of manuring fields, and for that reason the name Sterquilinius was given him. He is also said to have been the first to devise the art of "pounding grain", and therefore to be worshipped by the millers. Servius, however, added that by some both Pithumnus and Pilumnus are reckoned to be the same as Castor and Pollux, but by others gods of praises, whom Varro too suspects to be conjugal gods. Then, on the later verses of the poet, Servius again observes that both are called by the same Varro gods of infants, and that a couch is spread for them on behalf of the woman in childbed, while it is being tested whether the child who has been born is viable. Finally he advises us that some think the name was given to Pilumnus for the reason that he drives away the ills of infancy: but he opposes this naming as openly as he more readily subscribes to the other.

As for the god Consus, finally, we read it handed down in writing by Plutarch that the solemn games, in which the Sabine maidens were carried off, were proclaimed by Romulus after he had found, buried under the earth, the altar of a certain god whom they called Consus. And he thinks that this god is either the guardian of counsels, so named from consilium or from the consuls, or else the equestrian Neptune (Plutarch, Life of Romulus, p. 25). And Livy indeed declares that the same games, which are called the Consualia, were prepared by Romulus in honour of Neptune the Equestrian (Livy, book 1, § 9). Varro, however, says: "The Consualia are so called from Consus, because then there is a public holiday for that god, and in the circus at his altar the priests hold those games at which the Sabine Maidens were carried off (Varro, On the Latin Language, p. 50.)" Yet you should not so readily persuade yourself that there was great disagreement among these writers. For Dionysius of Halicarnassus is our witness that he whom the Romans called Consus is named by the Greeks Poseidon seisichthon, Neptune the shaker of the earth, and that he is the very one in whose honour Romulus instituted the games mentioned above (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, book 2, p. 100.)

Tertullian, however, reconciles these same writers with one another still better in these words: "Thereafter the games were called the Consualia, which at the beginning honoured Neptune.... They ascribe the Consualia to Romulus, on the ground that he dedicated them to Consus, the god, as they would have it, of counsel, namely of that counsel by which he then devised the carrying off of the Sabine maidens as wives for his soldiers.... And even now an altar to that Consus is buried in the circus at the first turning-posts under the earth, with an inscription of this kind: Consus mighty in counsel, Mars in war, the Lares in the gathering. The public priests sacrifice at it on the Nones of July, and on the twelfth day before the Kalends of September the flamen of Quirinus and the virgins (Tertullian, On the Shows, chap. 5, p. 92)." Read further, if you please, Arnobius, Against the Nations, book 3, p. 113; Jerome in the Life of Hilarion, p. 81; Augustine, City of God, book 4, chap. 11, p. 97; and Servius on book 8 of Virgil's Aeneid, p. 525.

Come now, and let Tertullian come forward again,

who adds to Consus other gods of the Romans named by Minucius: "Thus," he says, "will man devise a god, as Romulus [devised] Consus, and Tatius Cloacina, and Hostilius Pavor." (The same, book 1 Against Marcion, chap. 18.) Minucius indeed said: "Tatius both found and worshipped Cloacina, Hostilius Pavor and Pallor; presently Febris was dedicated by someone or other." These words were indeed transcribed in just as many words by Cyprian (Cyprian, book On the Vanity of Idols, page 10). Of these ridiculous deities, and also of Picus and Tiberinus mentioned above, Varro (book 4, On the Latin Language, page 18 and following), as found in Augustine (book 4 of the City, chap. 10, page 159), makes mention. But concerning Cloacina by name Lactantius says: "Tatius consecrated the image of Cloacina, found in the Cloaca Maxima, and because he did not know whose effigy it was, he gave it a name from the place." (Lactantius, book 1 On False Religion, chap. 20, page 104.) Consult besides, if you wish, Tertullian (in the place cited just now, and book On the Pallium chap. 3, and in another book) and Augustine (book 4 of the City, chap. 8, page 93, and chap. 23, page 104), who discusses not only Cloacina but also Pavor, Pallor and Febris, noted by our Minucius.

Moreover, there are those who think that this Cloacina is the same as the one called Venus Cloacina by Pliny in these words: "It is related that the Romans and Sabines, when they had wished to fight on account of the abducted maidens, laid down their arms and were purified with myrtle branches in that place which now holds the statues of Venus Cloacina. For the ancients used to say cluere for 'to purify' (Pliny, book 15 Natural History, chap. 29, page 212)." But since this Venus was a purifier, Cloacina, of whom we are treating, seems to be wrongly confused with her.

Of the other monstrous deities recorded by Minucius and Lactantius in the same place, Pavor, Pallor, Febris and Morbus, we have treated elsewhere (vol. 1, Apparatus, book 3, dissertation 1, chap. 9, art. 4, page 764 and following), and we have shown that they were counted by the heathen, not without the greatest absurdity, among the flock of the Averruncan gods, or averters of evil.

The whole column of such ridiculous gods is closed by "Acca Laurentia and Flora, shameless harlots," as our author says, "to be counted among the diseases and the gods of the Romans." For these words to be understood, it must be observed, or recalled to memory, that the ancients related that Romulus and Remus were born of the Vestal Rhea Sylvia by an adulterous union with Mars, and, as some say, were reared by a she-wolf, or, as others relate more truly, by Laurentia, who, says Livy, they supposed was called "she-wolf" among the shepherds because she prostituted her body (Livy, Decade 1, book 1, § 4). For this reason she is called a public harlot by Tertullian (Tertullian, Apology, chap. 13, page 15). But that did not prevent her from being added to the number of the goddesses, and a festival and rites, which were called the Laurentalia, from being instituted in her honour. If you demand that witnesses of all these things be produced, besides Livy we shall give you

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, pages 26 and 70; Plutarch in the Life of Romulus, page 19, and Roman Questions, page 272; Ovid, Fasti book 2, at the beginning; Servius on Virgil's Aeneid book 1, line 278 and following; and Virgil himself, Aeneid book 8, line 630 and following; Pliny, book 8, chapter 17, page 163, and book 15, chapter 18, page 197; Macrobius, Saturnalia book 1, chapter 10; Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights book 6, chapter 7; Lactantius, book 2, chapter 20, pages 101 and 102, as we shall show in its proper place; Augustine, City of God book 18, chapter 21, page 503; Aurelius Victor, or the author of the book On the Origin of the Roman People, towards the end, and On Illustrious Men, chapter 1.

Flora, says Minucius, was the other, a shameless harlot, who, on the testimony of Marcus Cato in Gellius, "openly sought money with her body" (Gellius, Attic Nights book 9, chapter 20, page 485). And when by that most shameful trade, says Lactantius, she had amassed great wealth, she made the Roman people her heir to it on the condition that from its revenue her own birthday should be celebrated every year by the putting on of games, which they called the Floral Games, or Floralia (Lactantius, Institutes book 1, chapter 10, page 103). But since with the passage of time this origin of the games seemed most shameful and infamous, they invented that she was a goddess who presided over flowers, or, as Augustine says, over flowering grain, and, her former name Chloris being changed, they called her Flora (Augustine, City of God book 4, chapter 8, page 94). And since they could not wholly abolish the memory of that harlot's trade, they devised that she had been violated not by some man but by the god Zephyrus. As if, indeed, the violation of a god could be called less disgraceful than that of a man! Yet by Ovid these things, no differently from other things most worthy of his gods, are sung:

I was Chloris, who am called Flora; the Greek letter of our name has been corrupted by the Latin sound. / I was Chloris, a nymph of the blessed plain, where, you hear, / fortunate men once had their wealth. / What my beauty was, it is hard for a modest woman to tell: / but it found my mother a god for a son-in-law. / It was spring: I was wandering. Zephyrus caught sight of me: I was going away: / he pursues; I flee: he was the stronger.

(Ovid, Fasti book 5, line 195 and following.)

Nor should you doubt that that notorious harlot was numbered by the gentiles among the company of goddesses, and her help implored, so that the crops might never be spoiled. For Varro committed this to writing about himself: "Fourthly I invoke Robigus and Flora, by whose favour rust does not spoil grain and trees, and they do not fail to flower in due season. Accordingly the public festival of the Robigalia was instituted for Robigus, and the games of the Floralia for Flora" (Varro, On Agriculture book 1, at the beginning); of which we must treat in the following dissertation. Finally Cornelius Tacitus recorded that there was dedicated by Tiberius Caesar, near the Circus Maximus, "a temple of Flora, built by Lucius and Marcus, the public aediles" (Tacitus, book 2, past the middle).

Who, then, if he has any soundness of mind, having heard of that utterly ridiculous and infamous crowd of gods and goddesses, will not at once acknowledge how rightly Minucius concludes his enumeration of them with this not inelegant irony? "These, of course, extended the Roman empire against the others who were worshipped among the gentiles?" But come, and let us see with what other weighty arguments he tears up and scatters this absurd opinion of these same Romans.

Article IV.

How false it is that the boundaries of the Roman empire were enlarged by the gods on account of the honours granted and the privileges given to the Vestals and priests: how great were the incontinence and the shameful deeds of both, and the adulteries and sacrileges in the very temples.

With no gentler arm does Minucius repel that claim which we have noted was paraded by Caecilius, that the gods came to the aid of the Romans and gave them the empire of the whole world on account of the honours granted and the privileges given to the Vestals and priests. For by what title, Minucius argues, did the Vestals or priests merit this? Was there among the former a chastity greater than among others, or among the latter a holier religion? Not in the least. For indeed very many Vestals paid the penalty for violated chastity, a penalty which others of their companions, no less unchaste indeed but more secretly so, escaped.

For the Vestal Rhea Sylvia, as we observed a little earlier, and as Augustine shrewdly records after others, was said to have borne Remus and Romulus by a shameful adultery (Augustine, City of God, bk 18, ch. 21, p. 503). Why then should other Vestals not have believed that they could imitate her depraved example with impunity? Suetonius indeed relates that Domitian punished the unchastity of the Vestals, which had been neglected by his father and his brother, in various and severe ways, the earlier cases by capital punishment, the later ones according to the ancient custom. "For when," he adds, "he had allowed the Ocellatae sisters, and likewise Varonilla, free choice of their death, and had banished their seducers, he afterwards ordered Cornelia, the chief virgin," that is, the one set over the other Vestals, "who had once been acquitted, and then after a long interval had been accused again and convicted, to be buried alive, and her violators to be beaten to death with rods in the Comitium." (Suetonius, bk 8, Life of Domitian § 8.) Hence Eusebius notes that, in the reign of Domitian, "three Vestal virgins were condemned for unchastity." (Eusebius, Chronicle, at the year 2099.) Of Cornelia, moreover, Pliny writes to Minucianus: "Whether innocent I do not know, but certainly she was led to punishment as one guilty." (Pliny, Letters, bk 4, letter 11.) But Suetonius had no doubt whatever about her unchastity and her just condemnation. Plutarch records three other Vestals, namely Aemilia, Licinia and Martia, who he states paid the penalty for unchastity after they had long had a wicked intercourse with men. (Plutarch, Roman Questions, p. 284.) But, besides, if you have leisure, Lipsius

you can consult (Lipsius, Syntagma on Vesta and the Vestals, ch. 3, vol. III, p. 606).

Let us add, if you please, Ambrose, who, answering Symmachus as he argued against the Christians and for the heathen in the same manner as Caecilius, replies that in his time only seven Vestals remained, of whom "that is not virginity," he says, "which is bought for a price, not possessed through zeal for virtue (Ambrose, Letter 18, Against Symmachus, p. 836).

Nor does our author assert that the unchastity of the heathen priests was less than that of the Vestals. "For where," he says, "are debaucheries bargained for, procurings negotiated, adulteries plotted more by priests than among altars and shrines? More often in the cells of the temple-wardens than in the brothels themselves does burning lust find its fulfilment." But consider, I pray, whether he did not there have in view what we read said by Tertullian: "That in temples adulteries are arranged, among the altars procurings are negotiated, for the most part in the very lodgings of the temple-wardens and priests, under the same fillets, and caps and purple robes, with incense burning, lust is discharged." (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 15, p. 16.) For this reason in another book he introduced idolatry itself speaking thus: "I, idolatry, very often supply the occasion for adultery. My groves know it, and my mountains, and the living waters and the very temples in the cities, how much we bring about the overthrow of chastity." (Tertullian, book On Modesty, ch. 5, p. 719.) What of the fact that the Phoenician women, as Athanasius says, thought that by prostituting their bodies before the idols the gods would be propitious to them (Athanasius, Oration against the Gentiles, § 26, p. 24)? But of Tertullian we must speak further in its proper place (Dissertation on Tertullian's Apology, ch. 24, art. 3).

Nor should you say that these things were perhaps either fabricated without grounds or maliciously exaggerated by Christian writers, led by an implacable hatred of the heathen. For they can be proved by almost countless testimonies of the gentiles themselves, which for brevity's sake we omit. Let it therefore suffice to have brought a few of them in here, and first of all these verses of Ovid:

Near the temple there had been a recess of scanty light, / like a cave, roofed with native pumice, / sacred by ancient religion, where the priest / had gathered many wooden images of the old gods; / this he enters, and defiles the shrine with forbidden shame. (Ovid, Metamorphoses, book 10, penultimate section.)

More sharply, however, Juvenal inveighs thus against these most shameful outrages and sacrileges:

For lately, as I recall, the shrine of Isis, and the Ganymede / of Peace, and the secret palace of the imported Mother, / and Ceres, for in what temple does a woman not prostitute herself? / you, an adulterer more notorious than Aufidius, used to frequent, / and, what I pass over in silence, to bend the husbands themselves too. (Juvenal, Satire 4 [sic], line 22 and following.)

You can read more still in his sixth Satire, where among a great many other things he said:

. . . And now she is awaited in the gardens / or rather at the shrine of the Isiac bawd. (The same, Satire 6, line 485.)

And not only the poets, but other writers also,

pagan ones, are the most certain witnesses of such great crimes. For does not Cicero complain that Clodius is "that man" who "brought defilement" upon the couches "of the Good Goddess, and violated those rites, which it is not lawful for the eyes of a man to look upon, not even an unwitting one, not only with a man's gaze but with outrage and defilement"? (Cicero, Speech 30, On the Response of the Soothsayers, p. 429, line 34.) Did not Suetonius commit this to writing about the emperor Tiberius? "It is said too that once, while sacrificing, he was so taken with the face of the attendant carrying the incense box that he could not restrain himself, but, the divine rite scarcely yet completed, he led him aside on the spot and defiled him, and with him his brother the flute player; and soon afterwards he broke the legs of both, because they reproached each other with the outrage." (Suetonius, book 3, Life of Tiberius § 4.) We should certainly never make an end of speaking if everything had to be written out which both of these and others have handed down again and again about these detestable crimes.

But if all these things were not perpetrated by the priests themselves, as by that one, of whom we must speak below, who played the part of Hercules, then certainly nearly all of them were privy to them. See, then, how falsely and shamelessly the pagans boasted that it was on account of the honours granted and the privileges given to these priests and to the Vestals that the Romans had obtained the empire of the whole world.

Article V.

How Minucius shows that the empire of the Romans was neither founded nor increased by piety towards the gods, since the Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Greeks and Egyptians reigned before them, and before their Pontiffs, Arval brothers, Salii, Vestals and Augurs.

Minucius proceeds, and with another argument of no less weight refutes all that Caecilius and the pagan Romans foolishly boasted about the empire of the whole world having been handed to them on account of their supreme piety towards their gods. For it was not these gods, whom we have shown to be false, that either gave kingdoms to their worshippers or extended their borders: rather, the one true and almighty God bestows these on whom and when He wills. Nor is this difficult to prove. For, as Minucius rightly argues and as all know, "Before them, the Romans, by God's dispensing, the Assyrians, Medes and Persians, and the Greeks also and the Egyptians, long held kingdoms, though they had no Pontiffs, no Arval brothers, no Salii, no Vestals and no Augurs." Tertullian had said before that kingdoms are dispensed by that supreme God, and that the Romans did not receive theirs from their invented gods. For "the Babylonians reigned," he says, "before the Pontiffs, and the Medes before the Quindecimvirs, and the Egyptians before the Salii, and the Assyrians before the Luperci, and the Amazons before the Vestal virgins." (Tertullian, Apology ch. 26, p. 28; and book 2, To the Nations ch. 17, p. 79.)

Cyprian, however, puts it somewhat differently: "Kingdoms," he says, "do not come by merit, but change by lot. Moreover, before the Romans, the Assyrians and the Medes and the Persians held empire; and we know that the Greeks and the Egyptians reigned. Thus by the alternations of power to the Romans

...[in] the number of twelve, the insignia of whose priesthood are a crown of ears of grain and white fillets" (Gellius, Attic Nights I, 7, p. 377). Varro said that they were called the Arval brothers because they performed public rites so that the fields (arva) might bear crops, and that the victims sacrificed by them were therefore called, as Festus says, Ambarvales (Varro, On the Latin Language IV, p. 21; Festus, ch. 20, On the Meaning of Words, and in the Fragments).

Who the Salii were, Livy will teach you, where he has handed down in writing this about Numa Pompilius: "He chose twelve Salii for Mars Gradivus, and gave them the distinction of an embroidered tunic, and over the tunic a bronze covering for the breast, and ordered them to carry the heavenly shields, which are called ancilia, and to go through the city singing hymns with leaping and solemn dance" (Livy I, § 22). But Servius says much more about them, and among the Greeks Plutarch and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and others, whom anyone may readily consult. Another occasion for discussing them further will meet us later (Servius on Aeneid VII, p. 503; Plutarch, Life of Numa, p. 66; Dionysius of Halicarnassus II, p. 29).

By the same writers it is moreover recorded how the same Numa Pompilius instituted the Pontiffs and the Vestals, and what they were like, as also the Augurs, who falsely claimed to presage and foretell the future from food, as Cicero says, taken up or rejected by the mouth of the chickens, or falling to the ground. But this is to be explained more clearly by us in the following chapter (Cicero, On Divination II, p. 289).

It is sufficiently agreed among all that this was the first institution of those priests and pontiffs of the Romans, and therefore of their religion and of the public worship of the gods. But Minucius rightly concludes from this that it is false that the Romans earned the empire of the whole world by their piety towards these gods. For before they worshipped them, the Assyrians and other nations, named above, reigned, who likewise venerated their own gods and had set priests over their worship. Yet they did not receive their kingdoms from these gods of theirs, and they were taken from them while they still worshipped them. Therefore neither did the Romans obtain their empire by the favour or help of gods, whether their own or others', an empire which we have shown to have been founded and extended by the greatest crimes. But we shall have to treat of these things further in another dissertation.

CHAPTER XIX.

[...] the arguments by which Caecilius thought it could be proved from miracles, oracles, auspices, auguries, dreams and other predictions that the gods exist.

ARTICLE ONE.

...undertook to prove truly exist, that one certainly seems the chief which they tried to draw from their miracles, oracles, auspices, auguries and other predictions of this kind. For no one will ever rightly deny that this argument, if it rested on truth, and all the things the heathen used to vaunt, if they had surpassed the powers of a creature, would be of the greatest weight and moment. Therefore those things are to be examined carefully and in our usual way, so

that nothing at all may be passed over of the things which either the gentile Caecilius puts forward or the Christian Octavius answers, and that each of them, as far as can be done, may be both enlarged and bathed in a greater light.

Let us therefore begin with Caecilius from the miracles. By what greater miracle, he said, can it be proved that the gods exist and bring help to their own, than by that by which the Idaean Mother "by her arrival both proved the chastity of a matron and freed the City from fear of the enemy"? By these few words, which may be obscure to some, he points to the deed of Claudia Quintia, celebrated among the heathen writers. For they relate that the stone image of the Idaean, or Mother of the gods, that is, of Cybele, or of Ceres, was brought from Pessinus to Rome at the urging of a certain seer, so that Hannibal might be driven out of Italy in the Punic war. But when the ship in which the image was being carried had put in at the mouth of the Tiber, it remained so immovable that it could not be shifted from its place by any human force. Then indeed Claudia, whose reputation for chastity had until then been doubtful, proved it most evidently when, after pouring out prayers to the goddess, as they said, she alone, with her girdle only, drew the image of the goddess together with the ship itself to land, where the Romans wished. And these things Livy, Ovid and, somewhat more obscurely, Cicero handed down to posterity; and also the Christian writers Arnobius, Lactantius, Augustine and others (Livy, Decade 3, book 4, after the beginning; Ovid, Fasti book 4, § 3; Cicero, oration 30, On the Response of the Haruspices, p. 438; Tertullian, Apology, ch. 22; Arnobius, Against the Gentiles book 7, p. 253 ff.; Lactantius, book 2, ch. 7; Augustine, City of God book 2, ch. 7; book 3, ch. 12; and book 10, ch. 16).

But Arnobius answers that, if this be true, the Romans believed in vain that by the work or help of this image, or Pessinuntine stone, in which no divine power was present, victory had been won, as the heathen boasted, glory restored to the City, and the bounds of the Roman empire extended. For afterwards, when so many and such great armies of the Romans had been cut down and routed, that truly remarkable mother of the gods neither broke nor repelled the mightiest onslaughts of war. Now it has already been observed by us that Minucius said in a similar way that the guardian gods of cities and nations brought no help either to them or to the Romans against their enemies. But here he answered that these are not true but false miracles, inasmuch as they were brought about not by any divine power but by the arts, power and illusions of demons. This, as we shall show a little later, is demonstrated by him fully and clearly.

By the same answer he also explodes what Caecilius next objects in this way: "Witnesses are the statues of the Horsemen brothers consecrated at the pool, just as they had shown themselves, who, breathless, with their horses foaming and steaming, announced the victory over Perseus on the same day on which they had won it." By the Horsemen brothers he means Castor and Pollux, whom others call the Tyndarids (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods book 2, p. 214; and Tusculans 1, p. 119, line 3). He boldly asserts that two miracles were performed by them, and first indeed

that by their help King Perses was conquered and captured by the Romans, and that the victory was announced to the senate at Rome on the very day on which it had been won; and finally that statues of them were erected in memory of so great a miracle. The same things are related by Valerius Maximus (book 1, chap. 8, § 1, p. 62 ff.), Florus (book 1, chap. 11), Ammianus Marcellinus (book 28, chap. 4, p. 528), Dionysius of Halicarnassus (book 6, Roman Antiquities, p. 350), Plutarch (in the Life of Coriolanus, p. 215), and many others. But some of them have handed this down to us not as entirely certain, but as something put about by public rumour. Indeed Cicero brought in two characters: Balbus the Stoic, who tries by this example to prove the presence of his gods, and then Cotta the Academic, who dismisses these things as old wives' tales (Cicero, book 2 On the Nature of the Gods, p. 214, line 28; and book 3, p. 241, line 30).

Caecilius presses another miracle. "Witness," he says, "the repetition of the games of offended Jupiter, owing to the dream of a plebeian man." But if these words seem the more obscure for being the briefer, one will find them explained in these words of Cicero: "When the great votive games were first being held during the Latin war, the city was suddenly roused to arms. And so, the games having been interrupted, games of renewal were appointed. Before these were held, and when the people had already taken their seats, a slave carrying a fork was led through the circus while being beaten with rods. Then someone appeared in sleep to a certain Roman countryman, to say that the leader of the procession at the games had not pleased him, and that he was ordered by him to announce this to the senate; but he did not dare; that he was ordered the same thing a second time, and warned not to be willing to make trial of his power, and not even then did he dare; then that his son died; that the same warning was given a third time in dreams; then that he, having also become crippled, reported the matter to his friends, on whose advice he was carried into the senate house on a litter, and when he had told the dream to the senate, he returned home on his own feet. And so it is recorded that, the dream having been confirmed by the senate, those games were renewed once more." (Cicero, book 1 On Divination, p. 264, line 49.)

Livy describes the matter still somewhat more fully (Livy, book 2, chap. 36), and the man whom the Orator and Arnobius (book 7, Against the Nations, p. 244 ff.) call merely a countryman is called by him, and by Augustine, T. Latinius (Augustine, book 4, On the City, chap. 26, p. 207), in a certain edition of the latter Tib. Atinius, a plebeian man; by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (book 7, Roman Antiquities, p. 472) and by Plutarch Titus Latinus (Plutarch, in the Life of Coriolanus, vol. 1, p. 225), a man of some wealth; by Valerius Maximus, on the other hand (book 1, chap. 7, § 4), unless there is an error in his printed editions and manuscripts, T. Atinius; by Lactantius Tib. Attinius (Lactantius, book 2, chap. 7, p. 176); and by Macrobius (book 1 of the Saturnalia, chap. 11), who writes that this happened in the year 473 from the founding of the City, Annius.

But Lactantius and Augustine, cited by us,

as Minucius does, contend that these things must be attributed to the deceits and conjuring tricks of demons: "Concerning these," says Minucius, "the things that were said a little before, that Jupiter demanded the games again in a dream, that the Castors were seen with horses, that the ship followed a matron's girdle: all these things very many, a part of you, know that the demons themselves confess about themselves, as often as they are driven out of bodies by us with the tortures of words and the fires of prayer." These things indeed we shall explain more clearly below, and we shall show how true they are.

What does Caecilius say next? "And the devotion of the Decii," he says, "was ratified." With these words, and no more, he alludes to the Decii, father and son, to whom some add a grandson: that after they had devoted themselves on behalf of the Roman armies, they rushed armed into the midst of the enemy, and by a glorious death obtained a victory that had been despaired of. And these things various writers have related, and above all Cicero, Valerius Maximus, Florus, Pliny and Livy.

But when Balbus the Stoic raised these things as an objection in Cicero, Cotta, as though he had wished to forestall all the other heathens who would later fight against the Christians, answered in these words: "But you hold that the gods were appeased by the devotions of the Decii. What was their wickedness so great that they could not be appeased towards the Roman people unless such men had perished? That was a stratagem of the commanders, who, to serve their country, did not spare their lives. For they supposed that the army would follow their commander as he hurled himself at the enemy with his horse spurred on. And that is what happened." (Cicero, De finibus 2, p. 61; Tusculans 1, p. 130; 3, p. 146; De senectute, p. 416; Paradoxa 2, p. 434; Valerius Maximus 5.6.5-6; Florus 2.14 and 17; Pliny, Natural History 22, p. 180; ch. 2, p. 557; Livy, Decade 1, book 18, p. 121; Cicero, De natura deorum 2, p. 215; and 3, p. 242.) So far, then, was he from thinking that there was anything of a miracle in this victory, or of help from gods present, that he rather, and not undeservedly, convicts them of the greatest wickedness, if they had done it. He therefore teaches that this devotion of the Decii was nothing other than a stratagem of the commanders, and the customary arts and tricks by which they routed the enemy and carried off victory over them. To this opinion of Cotta, or, if you prefer, of Cicero, Zonaras seems indeed to have subscribed (Zonaras, Annals 7, § 26, p. 362).

Lastly Caecilius added: "Curtius too is a witness, who filled up the chasm of a deep abyss with the bulk, or the honour, of his horseman." Some think that there is a double copyist's error here, and that instead of "of his horseman... honour" one should write "of his horse... weight". But in vain. For Livy writes that Curtius "mounted a horse adorned as splendidly as he could." And Servius observes that in Virgil "horseman" sometimes means the same as horse (Livy, Decade 1, book 7, p. 105; Virgil, Georgics 3, line 116.)

Further, in the same Livy we read that, when a sudden chasm of the earth in the middle of the city's forum could be filled

by no one, Marcus Curtius, a warlike young man, devoted himself to the gods and, armed and mounted on his horse, flung himself headlong into that cavern, and at once, as Valerius Maximus puts it (Val. Max., bk 5, ch. 6, § 2), the earth, once grain had been thrown in by way of honour, recovered its former state. This seemed to Livy, as to Caecilius, no ordinary prodigy. But Varro (Varro, bk 4 On the Latin Language, p. 36 ff.) states that a threefold account of this matter has been handed down by Procilius, Piso and Aelius Stilo, who tell it differently. And what of the fact that Zonaras (Zonaras, bk 7 Annals, § 25, p. 360) declares that he will by no means oppose those who judge these things to be foreign to the credibility of truth? Orosius, moreover, rebukes all, whether gods or men, who held that the chasm in the earth could not be filled unless a living man were swallowed up (Oros., bk 3 Hist., ch. 5). Finally, so as not to pass over Jerome altogether, it is worth observing that he openly taught that by these deeds of Curtius, of the Decii and of others like them, even granting they are proved true, the faith of Christians is not only not diminished but is made more certain by them. "If," he says, "we believe the histories of the gentiles, that Codrus, and Curtius, and the Decii Mures checked the pestilences of cities, and famines, and wars by their deaths, how much more must it be believed possible for the Son of God that by His blood He should purge not one city but the whole world!" (Jerome on Eph. ch. 1, v. 7.) Augustine discusses more fully these unusual effects, which seemed miracles to the heathen; you can readily consult him (Aug., City of God bk 10, p. 252; and bk 21, ch. 6 ff., p. 724 ff.)

For the rest, all those examples or arguments raised against the Christians by Caecilius or other gentiles Minucius had already overthrown from the foundations by those most invincible reasons by which he demonstrated that there is only one God, and not several. But, not content with this answer, he makes it plain to anyone that all those things, as we said a little earlier and shall show in the following chapter, were done by the fraudulent arts and illusions of demons.

Article II.

That the presence of the gods is not proved by Caecilius from oracles and the responses of seers, against which Minucius sets the examples of Amphiaraus, Tiresias and the Pythian Apollo, and the ambiguity and failure of oracles.

Although oracles, by which future things are foretold in some manner surpassing the power of created things, are of no slight weight for proving the presence of the gods, Caecilius nevertheless says, "I pass over the fates foretold by oracles." And he at once gives the reason why he omits an argument of such weight: "Lest antiquity," he says, "should seem to you excessively full of fables"; and rightly so. For the more strongly an argument for asserting the truth of the Christian religion is drawn, as we shall see elsewhere, from the true and sacred oracles of our prophets, which have obtained their fulfilment, the lighter and weaker it is if oracles are fabulous,

doubtful and full of ambiguity. But the outcome has so proved that the oracles of the heathen were of this kind that Caecilius could not deny it.

He therefore takes refuge in another bulwark, from which he thinks he will more successfully defend his gods and their superstitious worship against the attacks of the Christians. So he presses the responses which the seers used to give in the temples. For he contends that in those same temples of theirs, where they supposed the gods dwelt, the seers, full of the gods' divine inspiration and power, foretold the future and gave caution against dangers, healing for diseases, hope to the afflicted, and to others solace or relief. But how could those gods have provided these things, when Minucius had most evidently demonstrated that they were plainly fictitious and had no existence?

Yet lest Caecilius should plead that the argument drawn from the prophecies uttered, as the heathen thought, by the gods' inspiration, though already overthrown, was being evaded, he accordingly refutes one by one several of the more celebrated responses of the seers, and shows that they are wrongly urged against the Christians: "But what, and how much, shall I relate about oracles? After his death Amphiaraus gave answers about things to come, he who did not know that he would be betrayed by his wife for a necklace." Eriphyle was the name of this wife of Amphiaraus, of whom Cicero says: "We have learned from the fables that Eriphyle was of such greed that, when she had seen a necklace, made, I suppose, of gold and gems," offered by Polynices, "inflamed by its beauty, she betrayed her husband's safety." (Cicero, book 9, Against Verres, p. 167, line 3.) But we have already discussed Amphiaraus (Vol. 1 of the Apparatus, book 3, dissertation 2, chapter 20, article 2, p. 1117). To the writers cited there we shall further add Jerome, who confirms the view of Cicero and of our Minucius thus: "Eriphyle is said to have betrayed Amphiaraus and to have preferred a golden necklace to her husband's safety." (Jerome, Against Jovinian, book 1, near the end.) See further, if you please, the scholia on Homer's Odyssey, book 11, line 325, and Servius's annotations on Virgil's Aeneid, book 6, line 44.

Next, "Tiresias," says our author, "blind, saw the future, though he did not see the present." But earlier Cicero, from whom he seems to have culled his words, expressly affirms: "The augur Tiresias, whom the poets represent as wise, they never bring on stage lamenting his blindness." (Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, book 5, p. 194, line 17.) If by the name of poets he includes the Greeks, he doubtless means Homer, their chief, who sang of the blindness of Tiresias in Odyssey 10, line 492. In the commentary on him two causes of that blindness are put forward. Ovid supplies a third: that, having given a verdict about the pleasure of woman and of man contrary to Juno's opinion, he is said to have been blinded by her (Ovid, Metamorphoses, book 3, § 4, p. 106 ff.). Others give a fourth: that he had seen Minerva bathing. We have discussed him elsewhere (Vol. 1 of the Apparatus, book 3, dissertation 2, chapter 20, article 4, p. 1186). From this you will certainly understand with what right our Minucius mocks the man who boasted that he foresaw the future, though he did not see the present.

as he says, "the auspices, when scorned, bore witness to the presence of the gods more than we wished. Thus Allia is an ill-omened name." There he marks the most celebrated disaster of the Allia, in which the Roman army, over which Sulpitius, tribune of the soldiers, had been placed in command, was cut down and routed by the Gauls under the leadership of Brennus at the river Allia and the eleventh milestone, and the City was taken by them. For this reason they thereafter held that day, about which, however, not all writers are of one opinion, among the ill-omened, black and forbidden days. And indeed Cicero wrote to Atticus: "Our ancestors wished the day of the battle of the Allia to be more deadly than that of the capture of the City, because the latter evil came from the former. Whoever wants more, let him go to Livy, Decade 1, book 5, page 85 and following, and book 6, beginning, page 92; Cornelius Tacitus, book 15 of the Annals, page 193, and book 2 of the Histories, chapter 230; Gellius, book 5, chapter 17; Macrobius, book 1 of the Saturnalia, chapter 17; Plutarch, volume II, in the Life of Camillus, page 137, and volume II, Roman Questions, page 269.

Caecilius then puts forward and presses other deadly examples of auspices and auguries scorned: "The affair of Claudius and Junius against the Carthaginians is not a battle but a funereal shipwreck; and, that Trasimene might be swollen and discoloured with the blood of Romans, Flaminius scorned the auguries." All of which Cicero sets out somewhat more fully and clearly where he introduces Ballius the Stoic disputing on behalf of his gods in the same manner as Caecilius: "The rashness of Publius Claudius in the First Punic War will not move us at all, who, mocking the gods even in jest, when the chickens released from the cage would not feed, ordered them to be plunged into the water, so that they might drink since they refused to eat. That laughter, when the fleet was defeated, brought many tears to himself and a great disaster to the Roman people. What of his colleague Junius in the same war? Did he not lose his fleet in a storm, since he had not obeyed the auspices? And so Publius Claudius was condemned by the people; Junius took his own life. Caecilius writes that Gaius Flaminius, having neglected religion, fell at Trasimene with a great wound to the commonwealth. From the ruin of these men it can be understood that the commonwealth was enlarged by the commands of those who had obeyed religious observances." (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book 2, page 214, book 43.) Now, having heard these words of Tullius, in which everything said by Caecilius is contained together, will you entirely oppose one who suspects that the same Caecilius had these in view? But if you are nevertheless persuaded that he looked to other passages of the same Cicero, where he again reported on those three leaders, but more briefly, or where he narrated the same things more fully, separately about Junius and Claudius, and elsewhere about Flaminius, we shall not oppose you at all (the same, On Divination, book 2, pages 231 and 239, and book 1, page 268). These men are treated also by Valerius Maximus, as Flaminius is by Livy, Plutarch, Florus, and above all Ovid, who sang expressly on this matter:

Let Flaminius and the shores of Trasimene be your witnesses that the just gods give many warnings through birds (Ovid, Fasti, book 6, page 685.)

But about this story something more must be said by us in the following dissertation.

Lastly Caecilius: 'And that we may demand back the standards from the Parthians, Crassus both deserved and mocked the imprecations of curses.' To grasp what the sense of these words is, one must observe what Suetonius relates in the Life of Octavius Augustus: 'The Parthians,' he says, 'readily gave way to him when he laid claim to Armenia, and at his demand they returned the military standards which they had taken from M. Crassus and M. Antony.' (Suet., Life of Octavius Augustus § 21.) From these words, indeed, it can be gathered that this is the sense of our author: And so that Augustus had to demand back the military standards from the Parthians, Crassus, having spurned the imprecations of curses, had lost them. Thence Cicero had committed the same thing to memory in fewer words: 'We see what befell M. Crassus, when the announcement of curses was disregarded.' (Cic., On Divination bk 2, p. 298, line 26.) But this whole story has been described more fully by Plutarch, in the Life of Crassus vol. 1, p. 552 ff.; Dio Cassius, Roman History bk 39, p. 124 ff.; Florus, On the Deeds of the Romans bk 4, ch. 11; Eutropius, Roman History bk 6, towards the end; Velleius Paterculus, History bk 2, before the middle; and others, to whom must be added Valerius Maximus, who, like Caecilius, concludes it with these words: 'Thus the gods, when spurned, blaze with anger; thus human counsels are chastised when they set themselves above heavenly ones.' (Val. Max. bk 1, § 11.)

Article IV.

How Minucius utterly overturns Caecilius' earlier argument for the gods by the examples of Regulus, Mancinus, Paulus and Julius Caesar; where [he treats] of the solistimum tripudium.

Before Minucius refutes Caecilius' earlier argument, he restates it thus: 'Claudius and Flaminius and Junius lost their armies for this reason, that they did not think the solistimum tripudium of the chickens worth waiting for.' What the solistimum tripudium is, anyone can learn from Cicero, who rejects that kind of divination. For the Orator speaks thus: 'He brought the chickens in a cage, the man who is named pullarius from that very thing. These, then, are the birds that are messengers of Jupiter; what does it matter whether they feed or not? Nothing as far as the auspices are concerned. But because, when they feed, something must fall from the mouth and strike the ground, it was first called terripavium, afterwards terripudium; this indeed is now called tripudium. So when a morsel now falls from the chicken's mouth, then he announced a solistimum tripudium of the auspice-taking.' (Cic., On Divination bk 2, p. 289, line 33.) In vain, therefore, have some wished solemnissimum to be corrected for solistimum in our author's text. For by this name they properly signified that which fell from the chicken's mouth onto the solid ground. And not there only, but earlier Cicero had said: 'Our magistrates indeed use forced auspices; for it is necessary, when a morsel is thrown to it, that a scrap fall from the chicken's mouth while it is feeding. But as for what you have written, that a tripudium takes place if anything from it falls onto the solid ground, this too which I have called forced, a solistimum tripudium

you call.' (Ibid., p. 260, line 13.) But on these matters Brissonius says more, which you will doubtless not regret having read (bk. 1, Formulae, p. 137).

After this Minucius weakens and utterly destroys the examples brought forward by Caecilius by means of others plainly opposed to them, which were copied by Cyprian, as is his custom, in almost as many words (Cyprian, book On the Vanity of Idols, p. 13). For by these he clearly shows that, whether such auspices and auguries were observed or whether they were scorned and neglected, things turned out no less fortunately or unfortunately for certain commanders. Rightly, therefore, he argues from this that the presence of the gods cannot be demonstrated from them. And first indeed: 'What of Regulus?' he says. 'Did he not observe the auguries, and was he not captured? Now we have already shown that M. Attilius Regulus was captured by the Carthaginians, whom he had conquered more than once, and was put to death by a most cruel death. And that the auguries were observed by him before this battle in the customary manner can be gathered from these words of Valerius Maximus, in which he openly declares that he does not know whether he 'did not surpass all men in those things which pertain to the keeping of religion.' (Valerius Maximus, bk. 1, ch. 1, § 14.) Wherefore Augustine, together with our author, concludes from this that Regulus taught by his own example: 'that the gods are of no profit to their worshippers for this temporal happiness; since he, devoted to their worship, was both conquered and led away captive; and, because he would not act otherwise than he had sworn by them, he was tortured to death by a new and hitherto unheard-of and exceedingly horrible kind of punishment.' (Augustine, bk. 1 On the City [of God], ch. 15, p. 15.)

Minucius sets the second example in Mancinus: 'who kept religion,' as he puts it, 'and was both sent under the yoke and surrendered.' But indeed, the more certain it is that Mancinus, after ill-starred battles against the Numantines, was brought into servitude to them, the harder it is to say in what way he is said to have kept religion. For the heathen writers testify, and not obscurely, that he was afflicted with such great calamities for this reason, that he had undertaken the war against the will and the resistance of the auspices and of his gods. Hear, I pray, Titus Livy: 'As the consul C. Hostilius Mancinus was sacrificing, the chickens flew out of the coop; as he was boarding a ship to set out for Spain, it happened that these words were heard: Stay, stay, Mancinus; and the outcome proved that these auspices had been ill-omened.' (Livy, Epitome, bk. 55.) Valerius Maximus, moreover, relates these things somewhat more fully and in these words: 'To the consul Mancinus, when about to go to Spain, these portents occurred. When he wished to perform a sacrifice at Lavinium, the chickens, let out of the coop, fled into the nearest wood, and, though sought with the greatest diligence, could not be found. And when he was boarding a ship from the Port of Hercules, to which he had come on foot, a voice of this kind, with no one uttering it, reached his ears: Mancinus, stay. Terrified by this, when he had turned his journey about and made for Genoa, and had gone into a skiff, a snake of extraordinary size was seen and vanished from sight. Thus he matched the number of portents with the number of calamities: by an unfortunate battle, a shameful

treaty, a fatal surrender.' (Val. Max., bk. 1, ch. 6, § 7.) And so, he adds, he followed the headlong and frenzied persistence of Flaminius, whom we discussed a little earlier.

How then did he keep religion, he who "set out against the Numantines," as Aurelius Victor further relates, "though the birds forbade it and some voice or other called him back.... struck a treaty on the enemy's terms, and when this was rejected by the senate, was surrendered to the Numantines?" Aurel. Vict., On Illustrious Men, ch. 59.) For "the senate," as Paulus Orosius also testifies, "ordered the treaty to be dissolved and Mancinus to be handed over to the Numantines. He, with his body stripped and his hands bound behind his back, was exposed before the gates of the Numantines, and remaining there until nightfall, deserted by his own men yet not received by the enemy, presented a pitiable spectacle to both." (Oros., Hist. bk. 5, ch. 4.) Does not the example of so wretched a consul therefore tell rather in favour of Caecilius, who could conclude from it that Mancinus had been struck by such great blows because he had spurned the auspices and the religion of the gods?

But Orosius in the same place reminds us that he was one of those by whom, "so far as lay in their power, the prodigies were attended to according to custom," (Ibid.) and yet he was deceived by the haruspices, those contrivers of deceits. For this reason Augustine laughs at these very auguries and asks whether other chickens had gone forward against Numantia (Augustine, De civit. bk. 3, ch. 21, p. 80). Weigh, then, whether Mancinus is said to have held to religion in this sense: that he had sacrificed in the accustomed manner and, with the augurs deceiving him, believed that the auspices were favourable to him.

More certain, therefore, is the example of Paulus put forward next by Minucius, who, as he says, "had greedy chickens," and so ones foretelling a happy outcome, "yet was laid low together with the greater part of the commonwealth." He is speaking of the battle of Cannae, which all the Roman histories and other writers acknowledge to have been most disastrous both to Paulus and to the Romans, and which Livy asserts was equal in notoriety to the Allia (Livy bk. 22, § 50). So for a matter that is certain and unknown to no one there is no need for more witnesses to be produced. But Cotta must be heard, who in Cicero argues from this that there is no providence of the gods: "For if," he says, "they took thought for the human race, why did they carry off Paulus at Cannae? why was the body of Regulus, of whom we were speaking just now, handed over to the cruelty of the Carthaginians?" (Cic., De Nat. deor. bk. 3, p. 262, l. 7 ff. Indeed Cicero himself concludes from this that the auspices of the gods, which Paulus obeyed, count for nothing, and that he nonetheless fell in the battle of Cannae with his army (Idem, De divinat. bk. 2, p. 289, l. 24).

In the same way he further confirms in the same place what the author relates last about Julius Caesar, that, although the auguries and auspices opposed him and were spurned, he sailed successfully to Africa before the winter solstice and was victorious. Indeed, on this matter these are the very words of that Orator: "What of Caesar himself? When by the supreme

...[demon]strates. But since that would take too long, we have thought it better to send you to this book, and for the same reason to Eusebius and Augustine, who argue in like manner against those things (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel II, 4 ff., 13 ff.; Augustine, City of God IV, 39, p. 106 ff., and On Divination, vol. VI, p. 505 ff.). From these, and from what has been discussed so far, you will quickly and easily see how weak is the argument of Caecilius and the other gentiles, drawn from auguries and auspices, for proving the presence of their gods.

CHAPTER XX.

[...] the general reply of Minucius, by which he shows that the miracles, oracles, auspices, auguries, dreams and other extraordinary things done among the heathen proceeded not from the power of their gods, but from the frauds and illusions of demons.

ARTICLE ONE.

...[does he not] distinguish [their] nature? Does he not seem to declare clearly enough that the former, who persevered in the holiness and grace in which they had been created, had a substance altogether simple, spiritual and wholly separate from every bodily thing? For what else can be said to have been lost by the wicked, who were of the same nature as they, but the simplicity of holiness? For he still calls them "spirits" after their sin, but weighed down by earthly stains and desires. He handed down no more there about their nature, of which we [have treated] in the earlier volume of the Apparatus, and [shall treat] in the following dissertations (vol. I of the Apparatus, pp. 491–535 ff., 988 ff.). Nor did he explain more precisely what those earthly stains are by which they lost the original simplicity of their substance. Yet this should be no wonder to anyone, since, for refuting the vain arguments of the heathen, he thought it enough to point out of how great subtlety, agility and thinness the nature of demons is, and to confirm it by the testimony not only of the philosophers and poets but also of the Magi, whom they could not gainsay.

"Plato," he says, "strives in the Symposium to express the nature of demons. For he will have it to be a substance between mortal and immortal, that is, midway between body and spirit, compounded of a mixture of earthly weight and heavenly lightness." And in very truth these are his words in the Symposium cited: "Do you see that you have come to the point of thinking that Love is not a god at all? What then, I say? Is Love mortal? By no means. What then? As we said above, something intermediate between mortal and immortal. What then, Diotima? A great demon, Socrates: for everything demonic is between god and mortal: for the whole nature of demons is intermediate between god and mortal" (Plato, Symposium, vol. I, p. 202). And we learn from Augustine that demons are defined by Apuleius the Platonist as "animals passive in soul, rational in mind, aerial in body, eternal in time"; that is, after their creation, if he [follows] there Plato's

[summon]ed them with their spells, and compelled them to be at hand for them, and, as Lactantius further says, called them by their very own names, namely those by which they are named in the sacred Scriptures. But if you want witnesses other than Christians, go to Eusebius, and he will furnish you with several, from whom he shows that none other than the demons were from the beginning the teachers of the evil art (Lactantius, work cited, ch. 16, p. 233; Eusebius, book 5 of the Preparation for the Gospel, ch. 8, p. 193 and following; same work, ch. 10, p. 199).

It is now plain enough from these things with what vain and false display of eloquence Caecilius threw this at the Christians: "In sleep we see, hear and recognize the gods whom by day we impiously deny, reject and perjure ourselves by." Wherefore Octavius, in the name of Minucius and the other Christians, and afterwards Cyprian simply reply that it is not gods but demons who "disturb sleep," or as Lactantius puts it, "terrify minds with dreams," and before them Tertullian, "send dreams." (Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols, p. 13; Lactantius, book 2 of the Institutes, ch. 14, p. 219; Tertullian, Apology, ch. 23, p. 24.) Indeed Cicero himself could not bear his fellow pagans prattling that dreams were divinely inspired. For "many dreams," he says, "are brought forward from the histories: of the mother of Phalaris, of the elder Cyrus, of the mother of Dionysius, of the Carthaginian Hamilcar, of Hannibal, of P. Decius... But these are foreign, and for that reason unknown to us, and some perhaps even invented." And after a long disputation on dreams of every kind, he concludes that no god is their author, and declares that the divination drawn from them must be utterly rejected along with the rest (Cicero, book 2, On Divination, p. 299, line 25; same work, p. 301, line 10 and following). Nothing, therefore, is more futile than the reasoning of Caecilius, by which he and other pagans had dreamed that the presence of their gods could be proved from the dreams of the heathen. For if there was anything extraordinary in those things about which they dispute, Minucius and other most ancient Fathers of the Church assert without hesitation that it must be attributed to the frauds and deceits of the demons.

But by the same tricks and illusions, says Minucius, and likewise Cyprian, they "govern the lots." (Cyprian, book On the Vanity of Idols, p. 13.) But if anyone asks of us what these lots are, we shall answer him in the very words of Cicero, in which he teaches that lots "are almost the same as playing at flashing fingers, throwing knucklebones, or dice. In these rashness and chance prevail, not reason or counsel. The whole thing was invented by deceits, either for gain, or for superstitions, or for error." (Cicero, work cited, p. 291, line 17.) What greater madness, then, than to blurt out that these lots are governed by some god, who, if he is a true god, could never either lie or deceive?

But do not, I beg you, set this same Cicero against himself, who had earlier said that the lot is not to be despised, "if it both has the authority of antiquity, and those are the lots which we have received as brought forth from the earth; that these, however, when drawn, should fall aptly to the matter can happen

I believe, by divine power." (Ibid., book 1, p. 291, line 21.) For in the former book on divination he brings in his brother putting forward these things. But in the latter he refutes him, and contends that no faith is to be placed in lots. If, however, he believed that some were drawn by divine power, in this he is convicted of error together with his fellow pagans, who ascribed to false gods those things which, as has been said, were brought about by the deceits of demons. On these and other lots, moreover, you may consult Daniel Clasen and Caesar Boulenger (Clasen, book 1, Theology of the Gentiles, ch. 5; Boulenger, book On Lots, etc.).

But there are other lots, "which," as the same Cicero observes, "are poured forth by prophesying, which we more truly call oracles (Cic., loc. cit., p. 291, line 12)." These, moreover, seem above all to be those which demons, as Minucius openly asserts and Cyprian repeats in as many words, breathe into the seers; and they indeed, while they busy themselves with the making of auspices, "sometimes animate the fibres of the entrails, guide the flights of birds," and finally through the ministry of those same seers "produce oracles wrapped in a great many falsehoods." (Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols, p. 14.) Plato, moreover, teaches that the whole art of divinations proceeds from demons, whose nature is intermediate between God and mortal things. For, he says, "God does not mingle with man, but through this [nature] is all the intercourse and converse of gods with men, both waking and sleeping; and he who is wise about such things is a daemonic man." "God does not mingle with man, but through this nature of demons all commerce and conversation between gods and men is carried on, both when we are awake and when we are asleep. Whoever is skilled in these matters is called daemonic." (Plato, Symposium, vol. 3, p. 201 ff.) Nor does Plutarch depart from this opinion, nor the other writers cited by Eusebius, who nevertheless rightly and deservedly convicts them of error on this ground, that they ascribe to good demons what is brought about only by wicked and criminal ones (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, book 5, ch. 4, p. 184 ff.). Rightly, therefore, did Tertullian assert that these things are done by them through the subtlety of their substance, by which they are present everywhere in a moment, and know and report what is being done, and "imitate divinity while they steal divination." (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 23, p. 23 ff.) But how much faith the pagans themselves placed in auspices you will learn from Cicero, who notes "the Julian laws passed against the auspices." And again elsewhere: "While the consuls were sitting and looking on," he says, "a law was passed that the auspices should have no force." (Cicero, Oration 30, On the Response of the Haruspices, p. 437, line 27; and Oration 32, For P. Sestius, p. 464, line 32.)

The vanity of prophecies is also most plainly demonstrated by the seers themselves: "the raving men," says Minucius, "whom you see running out into public: they too are seers, and without a temple they rave thus, revel thus, whirl thus: in them too there is the same instigation of the demon, but a different occasion for their frenzy." But these three words of the royal manuscript codex did not please a certain person, "ipsi absque templo" (they themselves without a temple),

and wished it to be corrected to "ipsi in ipso templo" (they themselves in the temple itself). But he would have had to prove that by the authority of some manuscript. What, moreover, of the fact that Minucius speaks of those who, running out into public, foretold the fates? In short, seers driven by that frenzy, or pretending to be driven by it, prophesied even outside the temples. For where Apuleius speaks of those who carried the Syrian goddess about through the towns and crossroads: "One of them," he says, "raves more unrestrainedly in Bacchic fashion, and, drawing frequent pants from the depths of his breast, as though filled with the divine spirit of the deity, feigns a wounded madness, just as if men were wont, through the presence of the gods, not to become better than themselves, but to be made weak and sick (Apuleius, Metamorphoses, book 8, p. 141)." But why would that man have pretended to be driven by the divine spirit of the deity outside the temple, unless the gentiles had believed that any persons whatsoever, in any place whatsoever, were filled with the same spirit of frenzy? Virgil, moreover, describes this frenzy, madness and derangement of those who prophesy in these verses about the Sibyl:

But not yet submitting to Phoebus, the seer raves wildly, monstrous, in the cave, as if she could shake the great god from her breast; all the more does he weary her raging mouth, taming her wild heart, and shapes her by pressing upon her. (Virgil, Aeneid, book 6, line 77 and following.

And Lucan:

She raves, out of her mind, bearing through the cave a neck not her own, and the god's fillets and the garlands of Phoebus, shaken from her bristling hair, she whirls through the empty spaces of the temple with swaying neck, and scatters the tripods that stand in her wandering way, and seethes with a great fire. (Lucan, book 5, line 166.)

It would doubtless be useless labour to heap up more here on this matter, which is certain and known well enough. If, however, it is not burdensome to anyone, let him hear also a third poet, Statius.

A holier seer begins; silence must be kept. Lo, he both whirls his neck, and raves far and wide through new spaces, and fills the road. (Statius, Thebaid, book 4; On the Life of Domitian, line 80 and following.)

But if you inquire more closely of Cicero himself what that frenzy of those who prophesy is, he will answer you not so much in his own name as in that of others whom he cites: "There is therefore in minds a presentiment, cast in from without and shut in by divine agency. If it has blazed up more fiercely, it is called frenzy, when the mind, withdrawn from the body, is stirred by divine impulse." (Cicero, On Divination, book 1, p. 266, line 44.) Nor does he indicate that some of the lowest seers were seized by this frenzy, but rather the more illustrious ones: Bacchis the Boeotian, Epimenides the Cretan, and the Erythraean Sibyl (the same, in the same place, 261, line 20). But he himself in that place, like Apuleius just cited and other gentiles, blinded by false prejudices, attributed to the presence of their gods and to divine impulse these things which were brought about solely by the illusions and arts of demons (preceding chapter, article 4). Nevertheless Cicero undoubtedly seems to have reported the opinion of others rather than his own. For in his two books On Divination he amply refutes this error, just as Eusebius and Augustine, cited by us a little earlier, overthrow that and another error concerning the oracles of the gentiles in as many books. But to us, in our following

dissertations, an occasion for refuting it will yet be given (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, books 4 and 5, and Demonstration of the Gospel, § 5, p. 126; Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 20, art. 7; ch. 32, art. 4: on Tertullian's Apology, ch. 8, art. 5 and following).

Article III

How clearly Minucius demonstrated that demons, adjured by Christians and cast out of the possessed bodies of men, openly declared that they themselves had been the authors of the extraordinary effects among the heathen; and those are refuted who prattle that these things and the oracles of the seers were produced by other contrivances and frauds of the heathen priests.

By another argument, and that a most invincible one, Minucius further demonstrates that all those extraordinary deeds which we have so far reviewed, and all the predictions of dreaming seers and of others divining in whatever manner, proceeded from the frauds and illusions of demons. For "all these things," he says, "some of you know: that the demons themselves confess concerning themselves, as often as they are driven out of bodies by us with the torments of words and the fires of prayer." Surely no one fails to see at once of what weight this argument is, which is drawn from the public testimony of the adversaries themselves, even against their will. For the demons, tortured by the words of Christians as by the heavier torments of judicial inquiry, and racked by their prayers no otherwise than by a fiercer fire, were compelled to go out of the possessed bodies and openly to confess that they had been the authors of those unusual effects.

But what those words of the Christians are, and what the prayers, our Minucius explains thus: "For, adjured by the true and only God, unwilling, the wretches shudder in the bodies, and either leap out at once or vanish by degrees, according as the faith of the sufferer assists or the grace of the one healing breathes upon him." But Cyprian [says] these things a little more fully, who also borrowed certain of his words. "These," he says, "adjured by us through the true God, at once yield and confess, and are compelled to go out of the possessed bodies. You may see them, by our voice and by the working of the hidden majesty, beaten with scourges, scorched with fire, stretched out by the increase of a spreading punishment, howling, groaning, entreating, confessing whence they come and whither they depart, even in the hearing of those who worship them; [they] either leap out at once or vanish by degrees, according as the faith of the sufferer assists or the grace of the one healing breathes upon him." (Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols, p. 44.) The same things he repeats in other books and in other words; since these are readily available for all to read, we shall not copy them out here (the same, book To Donatus, p. 4; and book To Demetrianus, p. 191).

Lactantius follows in the footsteps of both, and said of the same demons: "They fear the just, that is, the worshippers of God, adjured in Whose name they go out of bodies; beaten by whose words as by scourges, they not only confess that they are demons, but also declare their names, those which are adored in the temples, and, as they mostly do in the presence of their own worshippers, not

certainly to the disgrace of religion, because they cannot lie either to God, by Whom they are adjured, or to the just, by whose voice they are tormented (Lactantius, book of the Institutes, chap. 14, p. 218)."

Earlier, indeed, our Minucius himself had said: "Saturn himself, and Serapis, and Jupiter, and whatever demons you worship, overcome by pain, declare what they are, and certainly they do not lie to their own shame when some of you are standing by." But Tertullian presses the heathen far more vehemently, and boldly challenges them to make any trial they please of this matter, and, unless the demons, when adjured by any Christian whatever, then openly confess who they are, he wishes and desires that the blood of that Christian be shed forthwith and in the same place (Tertullian, Apology, chap. 23, p. 24). Nor, I beg you, persuade yourself that this is the exaggeration of an African writer carried away by the too ardent impulse of his genius, or that it happened only by some chance, or only in his time. For later Athanasius again and again emphatically affirms that by the sign of the cross of Christ every magic art and all incantations vanish, and all the frauds of the demons are repelled. And he testifies that this has been so proved by experience that he challenges the heathen, no less boldly than Tertullian, to make trial of it. I would have you hear his words: [Greek, rendered in the Latin that follows] "Let whoever wishes to test what we have said come, and in the very midst of the illusions of the demons, and the deceits of the oracles, and the wonders of magic, let him use the sign of the cross, which is a laughing-stock among them, and let him name Christ alone; soon he will see how quickly through Him the demons are put to flight, the oracles cease, and every magic and poisoning art vanishes." (Athanasius, book On the Incarnation of the Word, pp. 73 and 88; ibid. p. 89.)

Minucius, moreover, and Tertullian, and others already cited by us, constantly assert that this is done not by the sign of Christ's cross alone, but also by the adjurations of Christians. And who, unless one who wishes to blind himself, would not plainly see how certain this is, and how often it has been done and attested? But it can be further confirmed from what is added by our author and by Cyprian: "according as the faith of the sufferer helps, or the grace of the one healing breathes upon him," that is, according as the faith of the one suffering the demon is greater or less, or the grace of the Christian adjuring is greater or less, the demon is cast out more quickly or somewhat more slowly. But whether the demon was cast out at once or after some short delay, then he was certainly compelled to confess publicly who he was. Wherefore Minucius, addressing the heathen themselves, concludes his argument thus: "Believe the witnesses themselves, confessing about themselves that they are demons." Earlier

...and Tertullian, disputing in like manner against the same gentiles, had addressed them in these words: "Believe them (the demons) when they speak the truth about themselves, you who believe them when they lie. No one lies to his own disgrace, but rather to his honour. Belief lies closer to those who confess against themselves than to those who deny on their own behalf" (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 23, p. 23; ibid., p. 25). So certain, so manifest and public was this confession of the demons, that in the same place Tertullian steadfastly affirms that it was by this very thing that new Christians used to be made.

Who, then, will not wonder that certain Christians of our age, and even followers of the Catholic faith, have come to the point that in books published to the world they have not hesitated to assert that not some only, which we grant them, but all the things we have reviewed, oracles, prodigies, portents and, as they called them, miracles, and all the ways of prophesying, were never wrought by any demons, but solely by the tricks, arts, frauds and illusions of the priests and ministers who served the idols? Nor are they held back by the venerable authority of the most ancient and the other Fathers of the Church, their testimony in no way doubtful, and the common consent of all (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History IX, 11, p. 367). For, they say, once it had been laid down as certain and settled that there are many demons, those credulous and simple men easily persuaded themselves that those demons were the authors of all these unusual effects.

What then? Were the most ancient Fathers of the Church and the other Christian writers through so many centuries so slow, dull and blind that they could not detect that the oracles were produced by no means by demons but by the contrivances and deceits of heathen priests, and also the other things that seemed to happen beyond the common order of nature? Was it, then, a greater labour to uncover the frauds of the gentile priests than to explain, by such laborious disputations, what the nature of demons was, what the philosophers, poets, magi and other gentiles thought and handed down about it, what were the contrivances, tricks, arts and illusions by which for so long they deluded even the sharper-eyed heathen, nay even the Christians, who investigated these things with all zeal? But tell me, I beg you, with what face did Tertullian, Athanasius and other most learned men of every age dare to challenge the heathen to test whether the demons that poured forth oracles, produced certain wonders and possessed the bodies of men, when adjured by Christians, would openly confess, either at once or a little later, who they were or by what name they were called? If it was heathen priests and not demons who did these things fraudulently, why did they allow themselves to be adjured? Why did they not mock those adjuring them? Why did they not put them to shame by their mere silence? Why did they falsely claim to be called not by their own name but by that of demons? Why did they suffer their emperors, Diocletian, of whom we [have spoken] elsewhere, and Julian the Apostate, of whom we [shall speak] below, to be terrified and put to flight when their mysteries were disturbed? Why, finally, did they utterly overturn the worship of their gods and all their religions by this false declaration? (Dissertation on Lucius Caecilius, ch. 5, art. 2; dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 9, art. 2.) Did not the Christians then imitate their divine Teacher, who, in expelling a demon from the body of a man, compelled it to declare its name (Mark 5:9; Luke 8:36)? Who would dare to answer that this was the fraud of some heathen priest, unknown to Christ Himself? There is no one who would not shudder to hear a Christian speaking so. Well done, then, by a most distinguished man of the Society of Jesus, who in a recently published book plainly and thoroughly overturned that absurd opinion, or rather paradox. It has already been refuted by us in another dissertation, where we disputed on the wonderful power of the sign of the Lord's cross, and it will be refuted again by what is to be said in our following dissertations (Baltus, Reply to the History of Oracles; Dissertation on Lucius Caecilius, ch. 5, art. 2, p. 180 ff.; Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 9, art. 2; and on Tertullian, ch. 11, art. 6).

CHAPTER XXI.

On the images and statues of the gods, lurking under which demons were believed to work certain wonders, and which were impiously worshipped by the heathen.

ARTICLE ONE.

With what great impiety the heathen worshipped and adored the images of their gods, under which demons dwelt, and sought and awaited divine help from them, though they had been made by the hands of men, sometimes out of a most filthy vessel.

The demons used another device for deceiving men. For under statues and images, says Minucius, "consecrated," Cyprian, "consecrated, they lurk" (Cyprian, On the Vanity of Idols, p. 14). The sense of each of these readings is plainly the same. For the gentiles consecrated those images of their gods by a solemn dedication. If you want a most reliable witness produced for you, we shall cite Cicero, who, after much discussion of the ancient custom and rite of consecrating and dedicating temples, relates that a statue of Concord was made by the censor Q. Marcius and set up in public. When the censor C. Cassius had moved it into the senate house, he consulted the college of pontiffs whether there seemed to be any reason why he should not dedicate it. To him M. Aemilius, the chief pontiff, answered on behalf of the college that "unless the Roman people had expressly put him in charge, and he did it at their command, it did not seem that it could rightly be dedicated" (Cicero, Oration 29, On his House, to the Pontiffs, p. 424 ff.). The image of any god was thus consecrated by various ceremonies, and so became a god. For, as our author argues:

"When is this one born? See, it is cast, fashioned, carved; it is not yet a god: see, it is soldered with lead, assembled, set up; it is not yet a god: see, it is adorned, consecrated, prayed to; then at last it is a god, when man has willed it and dedicated it." Thus he mocks the blindness of the gentiles, who foolishly supposed that these images, consecrated at the will of men, either were their gods or that their gods dwelt in them.

But the demons, lurking beneath these statues and images, as we have said, by the very great subtlety of their nature, shared their own names with them, as Athenagoras says, or, as Tertullian added, by signs, miracles and oracles, which indeed we have shown to be false or deceitful, "worked up belief in their divinity." (Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians, p. 20; Tertullian, Apology, ch. 21, p. 23.) How senseless this error of the heathen was, Minucius shows first from the origin of these same images. For our ancestors, he says, improvident and credulous, worshipped their kings, and therefore desired "to see the dead in images," or, as Cyprian puts it, "Hence images were fashioned to retain the faces of the dead by a likeness (Cyprian, book On the Vanity of Idols, p. 11)." Indeed, if we believe Lactantius, the demons themselves taught men to fashion images and statues, "and caused the counterfeited faces of dead kings, adorned (ms. r. adornment) with exquisite beauty, to be set up and consecrated." (Lactantius, Institutes, book 2, ch. 16, p. 228; vol. 1, Apparatus, pp. 432 and 736.) But we have discussed the origin of images elsewhere. What greater madness, then, than to worship and adore as true gods the images and statues of dead men, very often of wicked ones, or of wholly fictitious gods, or [to regard them as] their seat and dwelling-place?

Nor was this unknown to at least some of the more learned heathen, since Justin Martyr (Exhortation to the Greeks, p. 18), Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, book 5, p. 603) and Eusebius (Preparation for the Gospel, book 13, p. 680) quote these verses of Sophocles against that absurd opinion of nearly all the gentiles:

But many of us mortals, straying in heart, / have set up, as a consolation for our woes, / images of the gods out of stones and wood, / or likenesses of gold-wrought or ivory ones, / and, furnishing to these sacrifices and fine festivals, / we think that thus we are pious.

Most of us, but deluded in mind, have consecrated for ourselves / images of the gods, or a solace for ill, / both of stone and of wood; / and also golden and ivory images. / These we appease with victims, for these we keep festal days, / thinking ourselves pious in this way.

So if some of the shrewder heathen derided these monstrous opinions, still "no one doubts," says Minucius, "that the common people pray to the consecrated images of these and worship them publicly" as gods, by whom they believed that miracles were even worked and help brought to themselves.

But these men ought to have recognized so pernicious an error not only

from the aforesaid origin of images, but also from the manner in which they were fashioned. For "if a god," or image, "is of wood," says Minucius, "perhaps a portion of a pyre or of an ill-omened log, it is hung up, hewn, chipped, planed," that is, it is cut with larger saws, or rather, as others hold, it is levelled and polished; "if of stone, it is hewn, carved, and smoothed by an impure man. Lastly, if it is of bronze or of silver, it is melted down and shaped on anvils and with hammers, from an unclean vessel, as was rather often done for the Egyptian king," namely Amasis. For Herodotus relates that by him was made an "image of a daemon," that is, "of a demon," or of a god, out of a golden basin, in which he himself and other guests "used to vomit, urinate and wash their feet." The Egyptians, however, worshipped that image with the highest veneration, or, as Herodotus says, "revered it greatly" (Herodotus, book 2, § 172). For this reason Justin Martyr sharply rebukes the heathen, who, "from dishonourable vessels often, by craft, having merely altered the shape and given them form, name them gods," that is, "out of shameful vessels very often, merely changing and conforming the shape, and thereupon calling them gods (Justin, Apology, p. 57)."

Nor could the gentiles answer that images of this kind are not gods except after their consecration and dedication, of which we spoke a little earlier. For what is more insulting to the divinity than that a god should be made from a most foul and most dishonourable vessel, which impure men, or, as Justin, just cited, says, "because the craftsmen of these things are licentious and possess every vice," that is, "shameless workmen defiled by every depravity, had fashioned into an image" (Ibid.).

But then by what reasoning could these images and statues become gods, or their dwelling-places, after consecration? What did that consecration contribute to them towards divinity? Why afterwards are they still gnawed and befouled by spiders, swallows, kites and other animals? Why do Jupiter the almighty and the other gods suffer these things with impunity? Why are men compelled to wipe, clean and scrape them? But the heathen themselves, had they not been utterly blinded, ought to have learned from those birds and animals that these images, as Clement of Alexandria also says, are devoid of all sense, and are not worshipped and adored without the utmost impiety. But of these things [we have spoken] in our earlier dissertations, on the books of the same Clement of Alexandria, and [shall speak] again in the following ones on the books of Arnobius, Lactantius and Tertullian. You will be able to read more besides in Philo the Jew, Athanasius and Jerome (Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Gentiles, p. 34; vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 736 and following; Philo, On the Decalogue, p. 753; On Monarchy, p. 813; On the Contemplative Life, p. 890; Athanasius, Against the Gentiles, § 15, p. 15; Jerome, book 12, on chapter 49 of Isaiah). We shall therefore add nothing now, except that from this whole disputation of our Minucius against Caecilius and the heathen it is gathered not obscurely that either the same Minucius or others,

whenever they denied that any images were known to the Christians, were speaking, as we observed above, of no others than the images of the false gods which were worshipped by the gentiles.

Article II.

On the carved, anointed and crowned image of Serapis which Caecilius adored, where [we treat] of the gentiles' various rite of adoring images, and whether that image of Serapis was a Terminal one.

Without doubt one of those images of the gods of which we have treated was that stone image of Serapis, carved, anointed and crowned, on noticing which, as our Minucius says, Caecilius, "moving his hand to his mouth, pressed a kiss with his lips." What was said in the preceding article about the consecration of images will easily persuade anyone that that image which represented Serapis had been anointed and crowned on the very day of its consecration and dedication. And certainly the ancient writers are no uncertain witnesses to us that images of this kind were anointed. For Augustine, after citing these words of the book of Genesis about the patriarch Jacob, "He took a stone and poured oil over the top of it," wrote: This pertains to prophecy, and Jacob did not pour oil over the stone after the manner of idolatry, as though making it a god; for he neither adored that same stone nor sacrificed to it (Gen. 28:18; Augustine, City of God, book 16, chapter 28, page 449 and following).

We also read it written by Clement of Alexandria: "But these same men, adoring every piece of wood and every stone, the anointed one, as the saying goes," "They themselves, adoring every piece of wood and every stone, anointed, as is said (Clement of Alexandria, book 17, Stromata, page 713, D)." Later, indeed, Arnobius speaks of himself, when he was still a heathen, in this manner: "If ever I had caught sight of paintings, or ribbons on aged trees, a slippery stone soiled with olive ointment, I would fawn upon it as though a present power were in it, I would address it and beg for favours from a trunk that felt nothing" (Arnobius, Against the Gentiles, book 1, page 22).

What more? Aemilianus is rebuked by Apuleius for this reason, that he had absolutely no consecrated place, nor any anointed stone: "No shrine," he says, "is situated on his estate, no place is consecrated. And why do I speak of grove and shrine? Those who have been there deny that they saw even one anointed stone or crowned bough within his bounds (Apuleius, Apology 1, page 349)." In another book too he committed to writing these words, which serve our author's purpose no less: "Nor could anything more justly set a religious halt before the traveller than an altar wreathed with flowers, or a cave shaded with foliage, or an oak laden with horns, or a beech crowned with hides, or even a hillock consecrated by a fence, or a trunk shaped into an image by the axe, or a turf moistened with libation, or a stone smeared with ointment (the same, Florida, book 1, beginning, page 217)."

That images of the gods of this kind were also crowned

we have already heard of from the writers cited. But Clement of Alexandria confirms this besides by the authority of Sophocles and Sappho, and adds in the same place: "Those who are instructed by the Word," that is, Christians, "are kept away from crowns... because this has been dedicated to images. But neither is the living image of God to be crowned after the manner of dead idols. Nor is the image of God to be crowned after the rite of dead images" (Clem. Alex. book 2, Paedagogus ch. 8, p. 181). Earlier, however, Justin Martyr, and no less clearly: "Nor do we honour with many victims, he says, and with plaitings of flowers, and worship with crowns of flowers, those whom men, having fashioned them and set them up in temples, have named gods, since we know that these are images lacking soul, dead and not having the form of God." (Justin, Apology 2, p. 57 C.) For which reason Arnobius: "Are the gods, too, affected by garlands, crowns and flowers? Eagerly, he says, they run together to the temples of the gods, to these they pour libations, to these they sacrifice, these they crown." (Arnobius, book 7 Against the Nations p. 237; Lactantius, book 2 Institutes ch. 1, p. 138.)

Let Apuleius, from the number of the heathen, be added here in turn, and we shall hear him saying: "I look back at the middle pillar, which held up the beams of the stable, and at almost its very centre an image of the goddess Epona, set in a little shrine, which had been carefully crowned with garlands of roses, and fresh ones at that." Moreover Pliny: "And already then, he says, they were the honour of the gods, and of the Lares public and private, and of tombs, and of the Manes." (Apuleius, book 3 Metamorphoses, a little before the end; Pliny, book 16 Natural History ch. 4, p. 227.) Finally, to pass over Tertullian, who published a book On the Crown, and many others, Ovid sang this of the god Terminus:

Two masters crown you from opposite sides, / and bring you two garlands and two gifts. (Ovid, book 2, Fasti, § 17.)

Such, then, was the image of Serapis, "on noticing which," Caecilius, as Minucius says, "moving his hand to his mouth, pressed a kiss on it with his lips," that is, he venerated and adored it after the rite of the heathen. But to make this plainer, it must be observed that this manner of adoring the gods was varied. For some, when adoring the images of their gods, gave them a kiss, as Cicero expressly indicates in these words: "There is a temple of Hercules among the Agrigentines... there is a bronze image of Hercules himself, than which I could not easily say that I have seen anything more beautiful... to such a degree, judges, that its mouth and chin are somewhat worn away, because in their prayers and thanksgivings they are accustomed not only to venerate it but also to kiss it" Cicero, book 4 Against Verres p. 177, line 22 and following.) Others, however, kissed only their own right hand. For where Lucian discourses on the sacrifices and victims of the heathen, he records this of poor men: "But if someone is poor, he sacrifices to the god in such a way that he merely kisses his own right hand," having kissed only his own right hand. And in another book: "Thence,

...he says, "after they have risen from bed in the morning, worship the sun, not as we, having kissed the hand, think our prayer complete." "Not as we think a prayer complete by kissing the hand" (Lucian, On Sacrifices, p. 186; the same, On Dancing, p. 505). Hence Apuleius reproaches Aemilianus with this fault, that "if he passes some shrine, he holds it a sin to put his hand to his lips in adoration" (Apuleius, Apology I, p. 349).

How they put the hand to the mouth he explains elsewhere thus: "Many citizens and strangers in abundance, whom the report of the remarkable spectacle gathered in an eager throng, stupefied with admiration of her unapproachable beauty, and putting their right hand to their mouths, with the forefinger resting on the upright thumb, worshipped her with religious adorations as though she were the goddess Venus herself (the same, Metamorphoses IV, p. 67)." And Pliny: "In adoring," he says, "we bring the right hand to the lips and turn the whole body round, which the Gauls think it more religious to do to the left" (Pliny, Natural History XXVIII, 2, p. 564). Jerome too, on these words of Hosea: "Sacrifice men, adoring calves (Hos. 13:2)," wrote: "Where, following Symmachus and Theodotion, we translate 'adoring,' Aquila rendered 'kissing,' that is, kissing devoutly. For those who adore are accustomed to kiss their own hand, which Job denies he did, saying: If I have seen the sun... if I have kissed my hand, putting it to my mouth, let this too be counted to me for iniquity" (Job 31:27; Jerome, Against Rufinus I, p. 371). Other things quite like these you will be able to read in him [and] in other interpreters of sacred Scripture on the words of Job cited.

These things being thus observed, we must inquire what the sense of our author is, about which there is no small dispute between two celebrated writers of our age, Lipsius and Salmasius. The former thinks that his words cited by us are to be understood thus: that Caecilius first stretched out his hand towards the image of Serapis, and then kissed it, as though purified by contact with the image. Salmasius, on the contrary, contends that the same words of Minucius signify that Caecilius, after the manner of the gentiles, first kissed his own hand and afterwards stretched it out towards the image he was adoring. Most lean to the opinion and explanation of Lipsius. But what if it were said that these words of Minucius declare that Caecilius both put his hand to his mouth and gave a kiss to the image of Serapis? For the gentiles were accustomed, as we saw from Cicero cited a little before, to kiss the images of their gods. Weigh each point, however, and you will always be free, as far as we are concerned, to go over to whichever opinion you judge more probable. On this custom of adoring images Brissonius has much, to whom we have thought it better to send you than to heap up more on a matter well enough known (Brissonius, On Formulas II, p. 848 ff.).

Finally, some lay it down as certain that the image of Serapis noticed by Minucius was a boundary image, that is, set up for the god Terminus. And can their opinion not be confirmed by these verses of Tibullus:

For I do reverence, whether a lonely stump in the fields / or an old stone at the crossroads bears flowery garlands.

(Tibullus I, Elegy 1.)

Yet, to confess it, these men will not easily persuade us that this can be gathered so certainly from our author's words. For there he indicates quite plainly that this image was set not in the fields but about the middle of that part of the city of Ostia which faced the seashore. Although, then, there might have been a crossroads there, Minucius nevertheless expressly called it an image not of Terminus but of Serapis. But let others judge of these things. Another place for treating the god Terminus will be given us later (Dissertation on Lactantius, ch. 32, art. 2).

CHAPTER XXII.

The argument of Minucius is weighed by which, from the very rites, mysteries and feasts which the heathen celebrated in honour of their gods, he argues that these do not exist.

ARTICLE ONE.

On the rites and mysteries of Isis, in which she was represented as seeking her lost son or husband with the Cynocephalus and, when he was found, rejoicing: how ridiculous was the pomp of these mysteries, transmitted from the Egyptians to the Romans, and how strong an argument against the gods of the gentiles is drawn from it.

Although the feasts and mysteries of their gods celebrated by the heathen ought to have made their true divinity manifest to all, Minucius nevertheless demonstrates from these very things that it is utterly false and invented. "Consider," he says, "the rites themselves and the mysteries themselves: you will find sad deaths, fates and funerals, and the mourning and lamentations of wretched gods." With what blindness, then, were the unhappy heathen struck, that they held for gods, worshipped and adored those whom every year they represented as more wretched than men themselves, and whom they pictured as mourning and lamenting their own deaths, fates and funerals? You will perhaps wonder, and will hardly at last, or not even hardly, let yourself be persuaded that the madness of the gentiles, many of whom at least ought to have been of sound mind, was so great that they seriously believed what they used to display about their gods in this celebration of the mysteries. Yet our Minucius shows it most evidently by various examples.

He begins with the rites of Isis thus: "Isis, with her Cynocephalus and her bald priests, mourns, laments and seeks her lost son; and the wretched worshippers of Isis beat their breasts and imitate the grief of the most unhappy mother. Soon, when he is found, Isis rejoices, the priests exult, the Cynocephalus glories as the finder. Nor

do they cease every year either to lose what they find or to find what they lose.” By Lactantius, moreover, these things are described thus: “The Egyptian rites of Isis turn on her having lost or found her little son. For first the priests, their bodies shaved smooth, beat their breasts and lament, as she herself had done when she lost him. Then a boy is brought forth as if found; and that grief is changed into joy. Hence Lucan:

And Osiris, never sought enough.

For they always lose, and always find. So there is represented in the rites the image of a thing that was really done, which surely, if we have any sense, declares that she was a mortal woman, and almost bereaved, had she not found her only son. » (Lactant. book 1, ch. 21, p. 117 and following.) Here either Lactantius or the copyist erred. For the verse cited by him is not Lucan's but Ovid's (book 9 of the Metamorphoses, fable 8), who sang of many things recorded by our Minucius and by the same Lactantius. But if Lactantius had wished to cite Lucan, he could certainly have brought forward these verses of his, which contribute not a little to his argument.

We have received into Roman temples your Isis, and the half-divine dogs, and the sistra that command mourning, and Osiris, whom you, by lamenting him, attest to be a man. (Lucan, book 8 of the Pharsalia, near the end.)

All these things, moreover, can be confirmed not only by the testimony of Theophilus of Antioch and of Seneca as cited by Augustine, but also by that of Julius Firmicus, who briefly explains the same mysteries of Isis thus: « This is the sum of the Isiac rite. In its inner sanctuary it has an idol of Osiris buried; this they bewail with yearly mourning, they shave their heads, so that they may weep over the pitiable fate of their king by the disgrace of a dishonoured head, they beat the breast, they lacerate their arms, they cut open the scars of old wounds, so that by the yearly mourning the destruction of a deadly and pitiable death may be reborn in their minds; and when they have done these things on fixed days, then they pretend to find the remains of the mangled body, and when they have found them, they rejoice as though their mourning were laid to rest. » (Theophilus, book 1 to Autolycus, p. 75; Augustine, book 6 of the City of God, ch. 10, p. 159; Julius Firmicus, book On the Error of Profane Religions, beginning.)

Do not these things also agree excellently with the words of our Minucius, and also with what we noted above about the body of Osiris torn apart limb by limb and afterwards found again by Isis? But he and Lactantius differ from others in this, that they call Osiris the son of Isis, who by others is called her brother and husband. Arnobius, however, without hesitation calls him husband and son, unless you should say that two persons are distinguished by him in these words of his: « Isis, darkened by Ethiopian suns, mourning her lost son and her husband torn limb from limb. » (Arnobius, book 1 Against the Nations, p. 20.)

Did our Minucius and Lactantius then err, Lactantius whose other error we have already noted in his citing of Ovid? But Diodorus Siculus, who narrated the death of Osiris in the manner we have related, these words, afterwards transcribed by Eusebius, concerning Isis and Orus,

her son and Osiris's, spoke: 'She found the drug of immortality, by which she not only brought back to life her son Orus, who had been overwhelmed by the plots of the Titans and was dead, and had been found in the waters, by restoring his soul to him, but also made him a sharer in immortality.' Moreover Herodotus and Plutarch testify that Orus was the son of Osiris and Isis; and Herodotus indeed states that he was surnamed Apollo and Orus, Plutarch however that he was surnamed Harpocrates. Yet in the mysteries of Isis, as Tertullian relates, the heathen worshipped with a plainly impious cult Serapis, Isis and Harpocrates with their Cynocephalus, whom Augustine also mentions (Diodorus, book 1, Bibliotheca, p. 15; Eusebius, book 7 Praeparatio Evangelica, ch. 1, p. 48; Herodotus, book 2, § 144; Plutarch, book On Isis and Osiris, p. 556 and following; Tertullian, Apology ch. 6, p. 7; Augustine, book 3, On the City [of God] ch. 12, p. 66). But certainly these things agree excellently, as you see, with the statements of our Minucius and of Lactantius. For not only was Orus the same as Harpocrates, but Serapis too, as Lactantius, cited a little before, and others have observed, was Osiris himself, as we too have noted elsewhere. If, however, anyone should contend, and properly prove, that the Osiris sought and found by Isis in these rites was her brother and husband, we by no means forbid him to remain in his opinion. But he must always remember not only that this history, or rather fable, is altogether obscure and confused, but also that Minucius and Lactantius had several upholders and patrons of their opinion.

Far easier to prove are all these things which our author openly complains are performed in the celebration of these impious mysteries. 'Isis,' he says, 'with her Cynocephalus, that is Anubis, whose figure used to be carried about in public, mourns, laments and searches for her lost son with her bald priests.' Apuleius indeed vividly described the altogether ridiculous procession of these ceremonies in these words: 'These, their hair shaved off completely, their crowns shining, earthly stars of a great religion, making a shrill jingling with bronze and silver, nay rather even golden sistra... That go-between of the gods above and below, lofty with a face now black, now golden, Anubis, raising high his dog's neck, bearing the caduceus in his left hand, shaking a green palm in his right.' (Apuleius, book 2, Metamorphoses, p. 201.) Hence Martial sang:

The linen-clad and the sistrum-bearing crowd flee.

(Martial, book 12, Epigrams 29.)

More expressly, however, Juvenal:

Therefore he deserves the chief and highest honour / who, surrounded by a linen-clad flock and a bald flock, / runs as Anubis, mocker of the lamenting people.

(Juvenal, Satire 6, before the end.)

Finally Ambrose wrote to Sabinus: 'They themselves shave their heads and eyebrows whenever they take up the rites of Isis.' (Ambrose, Letter 28 to Sabinus, p. 1013.) See, if you please, what we have noted on this passage, and Jerome, Prudentius and

others (Jerome, on chapter 45 of Ezekiel; Prudentius, book 2, Against Symmachus).

Nor is it any less certain that the devotees of Isis, as our Author says, beat their breasts at these festivals and imitate the grief of the most unhappy mother. For besides Lactantius and Julius Firmicus, already cited by us, Herodotus certainly, where he discusses those who kept the festival of Isis, says: "They are beaten, τύπτονται, after the sacrifice, all the men and all the women, πάντες καὶ πᾶσαι, many thousands of people indeed. But for whom they are beaten it is not lawful for me to say; but of all of them the Carians who dwell in Egypt do this most of all, so much so that they even cut their foreheads with swords, τὰ μέτωπα κόπτονται μαχαίρῃσι.." (Herodotus, book 2, § 61.) You will find these words of Herodotus copied out by Athenagoras, from which he concludes that those are not immortal gods who are displayed in their own rites beaten in so bloody a manner (Athenagoras, Embassy for the Christians, p. 32; ibid. p. 14). For what is more absurd than that gods should be lamented by the heathen, as he had said a little before, and the breast cruelly beaten for them as though they were dead, and then sacrifice offered to them as to immortal gods? But on these ridiculous rites of the gentiles more is said by Dionysius of Halicarnassus and by others whom we shall cite shortly (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, book 2, p. 91).

Minucius goes on: "These rites and mysteries, once Egyptian," which is quite right, as is clear from the passages just cited, from Herodotus as well as from Athenagoras and others, "are now," Minucius says further, "Roman rites as well." This we have also seen recorded and affirmed in the verses of Lucan cited a little before. Suetonius too is a witness that Otho, emperor of the Romans, often celebrated the rites of Isis publicly in a linen and religious garment (Suetonius, book 7, § 12). Commodus, likewise an emperor of the Romans, on the testimony of Lampridius, "worshipped the rites of Isis, so as to shave his head and carry Anubis... He also forced the devotees of Isis to beat their breasts with pine cones to the point of ruin. When he carried Anubis, he struck the heads of the devotees of Isis hard with the face of the image." And afterwards he repeats and confirms this once more (Lampridius, pp. 313 and 327).

To this is added what Valerius Maximus handed down to posterity, that the shrines of Isis were pulled down and overthrown by the consul L. Aemilius Paulus at the command of the Roman senate. "The consul L. Aemilius Paulus," he says, "when the senate had decreed that the shrines of Isis and Serapis be pulled down, and none of the workmen dared to touch them, laid aside his bordered toga, seized an axe and drove it into the doors of that temple" (Valerius Maximus, book 1, ch. 5, last §). By Tertullian too, as we shall see in its place, it is recorded that the altars of Isis were destroyed by the Romans, and her rites abolished and afterwards restored (Tertullian, Apology, ch. 6, p. 9; and To the Nations, book 2, ch. 10, p. 54).

Rightly, then, does Minucius conclude from these things: "Is it not ridiculous to mourn what you worship, or to worship what you mourn?" In quite the same way Plutarch, although a heathen, refutes Xenophanes of Colophon and his followers. "The absurdity of the matter," he says, "was in view

not only to Xenophanes of Colophon, or to those who followed him, [who] warned the Egyptians: 'If they consider them gods, not to lament them; but if they lament them, not to consider them gods', that is, either not to mourn those whom they judged to be gods, or not to hold them for gods if they believed them fit to be mourned." (Plutarch, book On Isis and Osiris, p. 379.) Heraclitus also, as Clement of Alexandria and afterwards Epiphanius relate, reproached these same Egyptians: "If you think them gods, do not mourn them nor lament them; but if you mourn them, do not think them to be gods." (Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Gentiles, p. 45; Epiphanius, Ancoratus, § 106, p. 106.) Finally, to pass over other gentiles and Christians, on exactly the same reasoning Athanasius and Julius Firmicus explode and hiss off the stage these abominable mysteries, and conclude that in them false gods are worshipped by the heathen (Athanasius, Oration against the Gentiles § 10, p. 11; Julius Firmicus, On the Error of Profane Religions, p. 21).

Article II.

On the Eleusinian mysteries and the feast day celebrated in memory of Ceres seeking her daughter Proserpina, carried off by Pluto; on the rites of Jupiter, and also of Cybele of Dindymus, or Ceres, or Rhea, or the mother of the gods, and of the castrated Atys, which were performed by galli, that is, by mutilated men.

Similar to the rites of Isis were the Eleusinia, which the heathen were accustomed to celebrate every year in honour, or rather in insult, of Ceres seeking her daughter Proserpina, or Libera, carried off by Pluto. Minucius, in few words indeed but words that sufficed, shows the ridiculous impiety of these mysteries: "Ceres," he says, "with torches lit and girt with a serpent, anxious and troubled, tracks down Libera, stolen away and defiled through her wandering." But Cicero unfolded this more plainly in the fourth oration against Verres, in these words: "This is the belief," he says, "established from the most ancient writings and monuments of the Greeks, that the whole island of Sicily is consecrated to Ceres and Libera. While the other nations think so, the Sicilians themselves are so persuaded of it that it seems implanted and inborn in their minds. For they believe both that these goddesses were born in these places and that grain was first found in that land, and that Libera, whom they also call Proserpina, was carried off from the grove of the Ennenses, a place which, being situated in the middle of the island, is called the navel of Sicily; and when Ceres wished to track her down and seek her out, she is said to have kindled torches from those fires which burst forth from the summit of Etna, and, carrying these before her, to have wandered over the whole circle of the earth... For nearby there is a certain cave, facing the north, of boundless depth, through which they say father Dis," that is, Pluto, "suddenly appeared with his chariot, seized the maiden from that place and carried her off with him, and suddenly, not far from Syracuse, went down beneath the earth, and a lake suddenly appeared in that place, where to this day the Syracusans keep annual feast days with a most crowded gathering of men and women." (Cicero, Oration

4 Against Verres, p. 179 and following.) And these things indeed fully agree with what Diodorus Siculus relates on the same matter, who, in confirmation of his view, quoted these Greek verses of the poet Corcinus:

They say that once Pluto by secret counsels carried off the unspeakable maiden of Demeter, and went down into the black-gleaming recesses of the earth; and that the mother, in longing for her vanished daughter, went searching over the whole earth round about; and that Sicily, full of streams of fire hard to approach among the crags of Aetna, groaned throughout; and that through grief for the maiden the Zeus-nurtured race, deprived of grain, wasted away; whence they honour the goddesses even to this day.

They say that the kindly daughter of Ceres was once carried off by the deceitful contrivances of Dis, and entered the blackening caverns of the earth; and that her mother, anxiously seeking her lost child, wandered over the whole circuit of the world. Then Trinacria, which beneath the hills of Aetna teems with fire and hurls up fiery balls, groaned entire; and while the maiden was mourned, the race nursed by Jove, in want of food, wasted away. Hence it is that they still worship the goddesses so lavishly

(Diodorus Siculus, beginning of book 5 of the Library, p. 201 and following.)

But Ovid describes these things still more fully in metrical speech. We shall now transcribe only two of those verses, in which he sings that Ceres, when she had come to Mount Aetna, kindled the torches mentioned:

There she kindled twin pines in place of a lamp. Hence even now a torch is given at the rites of Ceres.

(Ovid, Fasti book 4, § 6.)

Statius too, in the Silvae, wrote these two verses to Julius Menecrates:

And you, Actaean Ceres, for whom we initiates, silent, ever with panting course shake the votive torch

(Statius, Silvae book 4, the penultimate poem.)

To these, moreover, Claudian sang the rape of Proserpina in three books, and at the very beginning of the first book he mentions those torches and serpents thus:

Now a great din is heard from the depths of the earth, and the temple of the Cecropidae bellows back, and Eleusis raises its holy torches; the serpents of Triptolemus hiss, and lift their scaly necks bound to the curved yokes, and, rearing up with serene gliding, stretch their rosy crests towards the songs.

(Claudian, book [1] On the Rape of Proserpina.)

Of these mysteries of Ceres, moreover, and of her feast days, Lactantius also spoke, and we too have treated of them elsewhere, and have cited several writers, whom you may consult and read, who discussed them of set purpose (Lactantius, Divine Institutes book 1, chapter 21, p. 119; vol. 1 of the Apparatus, book 3, dissertation 1, chapter 9, article 2, p. 758; and the Notes on book 1 of Ambrose On Virgins, chapter 4, § 16).

Our Author continues: "And what," he says, "are the rites of Jupiter? His nurse is a she-goat, and the infant is withdrawn from his greedy father lest he be devoured, and a clashing is struck out on the cymbals of the Corybantes, lest the father hear his wailing." But these things, which were proclaimed by the heathen about Jupiter and his feast days, have been sufficiently explained by us above (above, chapter 14, article 3), and besides by Ovid, just praised (Ovid, Fasti book 5, p. 617 and following). Therefore we shall observe only this, that these things not only

were the rites of Jupiter, but also of his mother Rhea, which are clearly described by the same Ovid and by Lactantius, as we shall see in its place (the same, Fasti bk 4, p. 172 and following; Lactantius, bk 1, ch. 21, p. 123).

At last Minucius comes to the rites of Cybele of Dindymus. But "I am ashamed," he says, "to speak of it. Her adulterer, who unhappily pleased her, since she herself, an ugly old woman and the mother of many gods, could not entice him to debauchery, she castrated, in order, of course, to make a god a eunuch. Because of this tale the galli and half-men worship her with the punishment of their own body." Now although, as our author rightly says, Diodorus Siculus, Pausanias and Servius have related this tale in one way, and Ovid and Arnobius in another, as we shall show below, and although it does not seem to Lucian to be wholly true, yet by him it is set out in this manner, which he judges the more likely: "Attes was by race a Lydian, and he first handed down the ritual of the sacred rites by which Rhea was to be worshipped; and all those which the Phrygians, the Lydians and the Samothracians use in their rites they received from Attes. For after Rhea castrated him, he ceased to lead a man's life, took on a woman's form and put on women's clothing... He also said of the galli who are in the temple that the galli are by no means accustomed to be castrated for Juno, but for Rhea, and that they imitate Attes." Then he goes on to explain how men were made galli and how their genitals were cut off (Diodorus, Bibliotheca bk 3, p. 134; Pausanias, bk 7, Arcadica, p. 223; Servius, on Virgil, Aeneid bk 9, line 135; Ovid, Fasti bk 4, § 3; Arnobius, Against the Gentiles, p. 157 and following; Dissertation on Arnobius, ch. 26, art. 1; Lucian, On the Syrian Goddess, p. 1501 and following; the same, p. 1705). From what you have heard and from what has been handed down by him elsewhere besides, the account of our Minucius is plainly confirmed and illustrated.

Moreover, to pass over Lactantius, Prudentius and very many others, Augustine, who testifies that these mysteries were celebrated at Carthage "up to yesterday," as he says, that is, right up to his own time, committed to writing the same things about them again as our author himself did. "There are rites," he says, "of the Mother of the gods, in which Atys, a handsome youth, loved by her and cut off through a woman's jealousy, is mourned even by the misfortune of mutilated men, whom they call galli." (Lactantius, bk 1, ch. 21; Prudentius, hymn on St Romanus, near the end; Augustine, City of God bk 6, ch. 26, p. 154.) He adds further that these horrible rites, fouler than any obscenity of the stage, were observed by the Romans themselves too (the same, p. 182). For this reason Tatian had earlier made it a reproach to the heathen. "Rhea," he said, "whom in the mountains of Phrygia they call Cybele, is said to have instituted the castration of boys on account of Atys, a boy loved by her." (Tatian, Oration against the Greeks, p. 147.) No less eloquently, indeed even more clearly, Jerome, on the same matters as Minucius, while the Romans were, still in his own time, of these most shameful mysteries of Cybele

the celebrants, speaks thus: "These are those whom today at Rome the servants of the Mother not of gods but of demons call galli, because the Romans consecrated men of this nation, cut off from lust, as priests of her in honour of Atys, whom the harlot goddess had made a eunuch. And for this reason men of the nation of the Gauls are made effeminate, so that those who had taken the city of Rome might be struck with this disgrace (Jerome, on Hosea ch. 4, v. 2)."

But he is faulted by others for having supposed that these castrated priests of the Mother of the gods, or Cybele, were Gauls by nation. For to some it seems more probable that the name of galli was given to them from a man named Gallus, who, as Stephanus says, was perhaps the first priest of Cybele. Others think they were so called from the Gallus, a river of Phrygia, which flows from the Celenian mountains into the Sangarius. And this is the opinion not only of Herodian (Herodian, bk. 1, p. 476) but also of Ovid, which he expresses in these verses:

Why then do we call those who have cut themselves galli, when the Gallic soil lies so far from Phrygia? Between green Cybele and lofty Celenae, she says, there runs a river of maddening water, Gallus by name. Anyone at all goes mad from it: depart far hence, you who have care for a sound mind: whoever drinks from it goes mad. (Ovid, Fasti bk. 4, § 3.)

Pliny makes mention of that river, and you may consult him, as also Vossius and Lilius Giraldus, who discuss that fable of Cybele and Atys, their mysteries and those galli. We too have discussed these matters elsewhere, and above all the author of those mysteries (Pliny, Natural History bk. 31, ch. 2, p. 779; Vossius, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry bk. 1, ch. 20, p. 78 and following; Giraldus, History of the Gods, Syntagma 4: Apparatus vol. 1, bk. 3, dissertation 2, ch. 9, art. 2, p. 758 and following).

However, although the same goddess, as we have already noted, was called Isis, Ceres, Cybele, Rhea Dindymene and Mother of the gods, and was addressed by still other names, as Plutarch and Strabo observe, it is nevertheless established that the rites and feasts which were held in memory of Ceres seeking Proserpina, and of Cybele together with Atys, were distinct (Plutarch, Life of Caesar, p. 111; Strabo, Geography bk. 10, p. 169). But whatever they may be, they most plainly demonstrate the falsity of their divinity, and the deplorable blindness and madness of the gentiles who worshipped them.

Article III.

On other superstitious and absurd rites of the gentiles, in which many made libation with their own blood, and made supplication with wounds and the cutting off of their virile parts, and led the gods about from street to street begging; on the Luperci running about naked in the raw winter, beating those they met and striking hides; on the Salii in their caps, carrying the ancient shields about.

We think there is no one who, from what has been discussed so far, does not readily understand what Minucius means when he attacks the absurd and utterly superstitious rites of the Romans who worshipped false gods, and any one

of them he rightly rebukes, the man "who makes libation with his own blood, and supplicates with his own wounds . . . . . . or whose obscene parts have been mown off, how he who appeases in this way outrages the god; since if God wanted eunuchs, He could create them, not make them." For does he not there dispute both about the priests of Cybele, as we said just now, and also about those of Bellona, as we also noted earlier (above, ch. 9, art. 2), priests mad indeed? And certainly Juvenal sang of both:

Behold, the chorus of raving Bellona and of the Mother of the gods comes in, and the huge face of a half-man, to be revered by a lesser obscene one, who long ago cut off his soft genitals with a broken shard, to whom the hoarse band [belongs], who beat the plebeian drums, and his cheek is clothed with a Phrygian tiara.

(Juvenal, Satires 5, about the middle.)

Did not Athenagoras also speak of the same, though as obscurely about the second as plainly about the first: "Some cut off their private parts, those about Rhea... for I forbear to speak of those who torment themselves with knives and knucklebones." "Others cut out their privy parts, who are joined to Rhea: not to speak of those who torture themselves with knives and knotted scourges?" (Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians, p. 29.) But as he spoke in prose, so Martial spoke in verse:

White arms are torn by less cruel knives, when the god-possessed throng raves to Phrygian measures.

[Martial, book 2, Epigram 85.]

And of the initiates of the Mother of the gods Seneca says:

Not if, imitating the soft men, they should tear their arms with you in sorrow, the throng which, roused with hoarse breast, beats the boxwood for the turreted Mother, that it may mourn the Phrygian Atys.

[Seneca, Agamemnon, act 3, scene 2.]

Juvenal sings of both in these two verses:

Yet what are they waiting for, who it was already time to cut off their superfluous flesh with knives in the Phrygian manner?

(Juvenal, Satires 2, about the end.)

Lucian too: "Twisting the head down from the neck, they cut their forearms with swords, and each, thrusting his tongue out beyond his teeth, cut that too, so that in a moment everything was filled with soft blood." "Binding the head below the throat, they strike their arms with swords, and each moreover cuts his tongue stretched out beyond his teeth, so that in a short time everything streamed with blood." (Lucian, in Lucius or the Ass, p. 660). Apuleius for his part calls that blade with which each cut his own arms two-edged. and, as Tertullian says, these galli and their chief, the archigallus, offered impure blood in libation, gashing their arms. Wherefore Seneca, as quoted by Augustine, thence harasses the gods of his own heathen people thus: "One cuts off his male parts, another gashes his arms. Where do they fear the gods angry, who earn their favour thus? But gods ought to be worshipped in no fashion at all, if they want even this." (Apuleius, Metamorphoses book 8, before the end, p. 141; Tertullian, Apology, ch. 23 and 25, pp. 24 and 27: Augustine, City of God book 7, ch. 10, p. 159.) Rightly

therefore Minucius argues in like manner about these, and perhaps also about those consecrated to Bellona.

But the blind gentiles added another insult to so great an insult to their gods, they who, "begging," as he goes on, "lead their gods from street to street," namely the image of Cybele, or of the Mother of the gods. For then, with an utterly shameful beggary, they collected any coins whatever, gold and silver, says Apuleius (Apuleius, loc. cit.), or obols and drachmas, obols and drachmas, as Lucian says, and whatever each person lavished upon them abundantly (Lucian, loc. cit.). In one word, moreover, they are called by Dionysius of Halicarnassus mētragyrtountes (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, book 2, p. 91), and by others, as we have seen elsewhere, mētragyrtēs, "or those collecting alms for the Mother of the gods." For this reason it is called by Tertullian, as we shall see in its proper place, "a begging religion," which went round the taverns (vol. 1 of the Apparatus, p. 784). But who will not marvel that this most sordid custom was confirmed by the more sacred laws of the gentiles? Yet Cicero sets out this law among others pertaining to the worship of the gods: "Except for the servants of the Idaean Mother, and these on the proper days, let no one collect alms." It was surely for that reason that they did not dare to abolish this ridiculous custom (Cicero, On the Laws, book 2, p. 335, line 14). For a little later the same Cicero says: "We have abolished the collecting of alms, except that which we have excepted as belonging to the Idaean Mother for a few days." (The same, p. 338, line 20.) The Idaean Mother, moreover, is the same as the Mother of the gods and Cybele.

Next, concerning the Luperci, Minucius without doubt wrote this and no more: "They run about naked in the raw winter." But if you demand that this be proved to you by sure witnesses, we have several of them at hand. The first indeed to meet us is Livy, who relates that a solemn rite brought from Arcadia was instituted by Evander, "that naked young men, venerating Lycaean Pan, should run about in sport and wantonness." (Livy, book 1, § 5.) Then Aelius Tubero, cited by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, handed down the same origin of this solemnity, in which the young men were accustomed to go round the village at a run naked, "to run to and fro naked about the village, girded only about their private parts with the skins of beasts freshly slaughtered." (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, book 1, p. 67.) To this is added Plutarch also, who indeed is of the opinion that the origin of this festival, which they called the Lupercalia, and of the young men's running could have been derived not so much from Evander as from the She-wolf by which Romulus had been reared. But he admits that the young men ran about naked, struck everyone they met with white thongs, and that the women did not avoid their blows (Plutarch, Life of Romulus, p. 31, and Roman Questions, p. 280). Elsewhere indeed he relates that Mark Antony was one of those running about in this manner in the presence of Caesar (the same, Life of Antony, p. 921). The women, moreover, believed that they could be made fruitful by the stroke and blow of these Luperci. Hear, if you will, Ovid singing of these things:

Bride, what are you waiting for? Not by potent herbs, nor by prayer, nor by magic incantation will you become a mother: receive patiently the blows of the fruitful right hand, and soon your father-in-law will have the longed-for name of grandfather.

(Ovid, Fasti 2, § 9.)

But Juvenal laughs at this superstition:

Nor does it help to hold out her palms to the nimble Lupercus.

(Juvenal, Satire 2, before the end.)

But Prudentius inveighs against it more sharply:

What of that shameful procession? Surely it shows that you are base-born, when you run as Luperci. Whom of the slaves should I not reckon the vilest, if, running naked through all the streets, he were to strike girls, smitten with a slippery lash?

[Prudentius, Hymn on St Romanus.]

But why they are said by Minucius to run about naked "in raw winter" you will learn from Plutarch, who in the places already cited observes that these festivals were celebrated in the month of February, and on the very third day after the Ides, as Ovid also sang in these verses:

The third dawn after the Ides beholds the naked Luperci, and the rites of two-horned Faunus will take place.

[Ovid, Fasti book 2, § 9.]

See further Valerius Maximus and Morestellus (Valerius Maximus book 2, chapter 1, § 9; Morestellus, dialogue 6 On the Roman Festivals).

Then next Minucius: "Others," he says, "walk in felt caps and carry old shields about." But there is no room for doubt that these are the Salii, whom Livy teaches were instituted by Numa Pompilius, in these words: "He chose twelve Salii for Mars Gradivus, and gave them the distinction of an embroidered tunic, and over the tunic a bronze covering for the breast, and he ordered them to carry the heavenly arms, which are called ancilia, and to go through the City singing songs with triple-beat steps and solemn dancing." (Livy book 1, § 20.) Concerning the same Numa, Ovid also says:

He had already given to the Salii (they take their name from leaping) both arms and words to be sung to fixed measures.

(Ovid, Fasti 3, § 2)

There, moreover, he describes how those arms, which he calls "ancilia" and our author "old shields," are said to have fallen from heaven. Hence Juvenal sang:

He who, carrying the sacred objects swaying on the secret strap, sweated under the ancile shields.

(Juvenal, Satire 2, near the end.)

But concerning these, and also the Luperci just mentioned, Virgil confirms in these verses that they walked "in felt caps," as Minucius says:

Here he had hammered out the leaping Salii and the naked Luperci, and the wool-tufted caps, and the ancilia fallen from heaven.

(Virgil, Aeneid book 8, line 663 and following.)

See Servius's notes on these verses, and more in Plutarch, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Valerius Maximus and others (Plutarch, Life of Numa, page 98 and following; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities book 2, page 129; Valerius Maximus book 1, chapter 9, § 1).

Finally Minucius added this straight after: "They beat skins, begging, they lead their gods from street to street." But it is certainly agreed that the priests of the Mother of the gods, of whom we treated a little earlier, are by these latter words deno-

shrine, to use the words of Cicero against Verres: « Among the people of Catina there is a [shrine] of Ceres held in the same reverence as at Rome, as in other places, as almost in the whole world. In that shrine, in its innermost part, there was a very ancient statue of Ceres, of which men knew not only not what it was like, but not even that it existed. For entry into that shrine is not for men; the rites are customarily performed by women and virgins. » (Cicero, Oration 4 against Verres, p. 178, line 21.) For this reason Lactantius, having quoted these same words of Cicero, shows that there were certain temples which it was not permitted for men to enter (Lactantius, book 2, chapter 4, p. 159; and book 3, chapter 20, p. 307).

Concerning the shrine of Mysian Ceres and her festival days, Pausanias records these things, which can also be of some service to the purpose of our Minucius. « They keep, he says, seven festival days, on the third of which all the men go out of the temple, while the women, left inside, perform a nocturnal rite according to a custom handed down by their ancestors. And they exclude not only men, but they also drive out male dogs. On the following day the men visit the women again in the temple, and with much laughter jests and quips are thrown back and forth. » (Pausanias, book 7, at the end, p. 236.)

Why say more? Dionysius of Halicarnassus has informed us that it was unlawful for men to spend the night in the sanctuary of Vesta. Nor, as Macrobius and Plutarch testify, was any access open to them into the temple of the Good Goddess. The latter adds, indeed, that whenever women celebrated her festival in any house whatever, that house had to be wholly given up by all men, and even by the master of the house himself. For this reason Cicero, with the whole force of his eloquence, inveighs against Clodius, whom Plutarch also mentions in the passage cited, because he had looked upon and violated those rites which it was not lawful to be seen by the eyes of a man, not even an unwitting one (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, book 2 of the Roman Antiquities, p. 127; Plutarch, Roman Questions, p. 268; Macrobius, book 1 of the Saturnalia, chapter 12; Plutarch, in the Life of Caesar, p. 713; Cicero, Oration 30, On the Response of the Haruspices, p. 435, line 6 and following, and Oration 29, p. 420, line 28).

With the Greek and Latin prose writers the poets agree, and Tibullus indeed in this verse:

The rites of the Good Goddess, not to be approached by males (Tibullus 1, 1, Elegy 6.)

Propertius also, in these two verses:

The closed precincts of the women's goddess, and springs to be expiated, and rites remade with impunity by no men. (Propertius, book 4, Elegy 10.)

That not only men, but even their images were excluded from there, Seneca is our authority (book 16, letter 2, p. 404), and Juvenal in these verses:

where any picture is ordered to be veiled that imitates the figure of the other sex. Juvenal, Satire 6, line 359.)

But in turn, for women to approach certain rites of men was no less a sin. » Some rites, says Minucius again, are without women, » because « they abstain, says Aulus Gellius, from the sacrifice to Hercules. » (Gellius

...Attic Nights XI, 6, p. 586.) Macrobius gave this reason for this prohibition: "When Hercules was driving the cattle of Geryon through the fields of Italy and was thirsty, a woman answered him that she could not give him water, because the day of the women's goddess was being celebrated, and it was not lawful for men to taste anything of that provision. For this reason Hercules, when about to offer sacrifice, abhorred the presence of women, and ordered Potitius and Pinarius, the guardians of the rites, not to allow a woman to be present" (Macrobius, Saturnalia I, 12). Therefore Propertius sang:

"The Greatest Altar, vowed for the herds recovered, / the altar made greatest," he said, "by these hands: / may it never stand open to be worshipped by any girls, / so that the thirst of great Hercules may not go unavenged."

(Propertius IV, elegy

Juvenal too:

. . . . . . . But, driven far off by an ill-omened custom, / woman does not enter the threshold; / the goddess's altar is open to males alone.

(Juvenal, Satire II, 87.)

Minucius must doubtless be understood as referring to the ceremonies of the same Hercules when he continues the discourse he had begun thus: "For a slave to be present at certain ceremonies is a crime requiring expiation." And that crime was so great, and so hateful to the gods, as the gentiles had dreamed, that all the Potitii, divided into twelve families, who at Appius's instigation had transferred the rites of Hercules to the lowly ministry of slaves, perished within a year, and Appius himself was deprived of his sight some years later. And although this vengeance of the gods may rightly seem altogether false and fictitious to men of sound mind, yet that it was vaunted by the heathen as wholly true and certain is witnessed by Titus Livy, Valerius Maximus, the author of the book On the Origin of the Roman Nation, Aurelius Victor, Lactantius and others (Livy I, § 8; Valerius Maximus I, 1, § 17; author of the book on the Roman nation, p. 504; Aurelius Victor, On Illustrious Men, § 34; Lactantius, Institutes II, 7, p. 175).

Meursius thinks besides (Graecia feriata IV, p. 800, vol. VII of the Greek Antiquities) that slaves and maidservants were forbidden to approach the Thesmophoria, that is, the rites of Ceres, and in confirmation of his opinion he cites these verses of Aristophanes, without, however, indicating the place:

. . . But you, Thracian girl, get out of the way. / For slaves may not hear the speeches.

. . . . But you go away, maidservant, out of the way; / for slaves are not allowed to hear the words.

(Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusae, act 3, line 161.)

And they are found in his comedy entitled The Assemblywomen. Who, then, from what has been said so far, would not plainly see with what right Lactantius said that at Rome and in most other cities there were certain rites which it was a sin for men to look upon, and that those were held guilty who entered the temple of Vesta, or of the Good Goddess, or of Ceres, even though it had been built by men themselves? (Lactantius, Divine Institutes III, 10, p. 307.)

Finally Minucius says: "Some rites a once-married woman crowns, others a many-times-married." Rightly indeed. For in Tertullian we read: "No one but a once-married woman places the crown on Fortuna Muliebris, as also on Mater Matuta," that is, on Ino, daughter of Cadmus and wife of Athamas, whom the Greeks called Leucothea (Tertullian, On Monogamy, last chapter, p. 688). We also read it written by Dionysius of Halicarnassus that the image of this same Fortuna Muliebris was not crowned either by women twice married or by widows, but that this honour was given only to the newly married. Servius too observes that that Fortuna Muliebris, or her image, was not crowned by women twice married (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities VIII, p. 526; Servius on Virgil's Aeneid IV, 19).

But who can be so dull and obtuse as not to understand at once, from what we have set out so far, how impious, cruel and absurd were the rites, feasts and mysteries, how superstitious, ridiculous and infamous the ceremonies by which the heathen thought to worship their gods? For who but plainly fictitious gods, worse than men endowed with right reason, could suffer themselves to be honoured by so impious and absurd a worship? We think, therefore, that there is no one who does not see most clearly from this, and from all that has been discussed in this whole dissertation, how certainly and evidently Minucius has demonstrated that a bill of divorce must be sent to the abominable rites and to the whole religion of the gentiles, and that the Christian religion, which teaches nothing but what is right, pious and holy, must be embraced and taken up by all.

CHAPTER XXIII.

On a certain book which Minucius seems to have promised to write, and on certain obscure passages, and some writers and atheists mentioned by him.

ARTICLE ONE.

Whether Minucius wrote a book On Fate, or promised to publish one; and certain obscure passages of Minucius are explained, where [he speaks] of the sea baths at Ostia on the Tiber, of the court holidays and the autumn season; what the timbers laid under the ships are; what the boys' game of skimming shells over the sea, or epostracismus, is; what the "suns one after another" are; and of mists, clouds, lightning, thunderbolts, and the eclipses of the moon.

Where Minucius rejects the error of the gentiles about fate, there he promises that he will at some time dispute about it more fully. "And about fate," he says, "enough, even if little for the present; we shall dispute elsewhere both more richly and more fully."

But whether he kept his promise is not easy to say. For Jerome acknowledges that a book, or dialogue, On Fate, inscribed with the name of Minucius himself, had been published, but one which seemed to him to differ from the style of the Octavius. Who, then, will dare to assert that this is the one which our author seemed to promise he would write? And that this may become plainer, Jerome must be heard: "Another,

he says, "book, or rather dialogue, On Fate, or Against the Astrologers, is circulated under his name, which, although it too is the work of an eloquent man, does not seem to me to agree with the style of the former book," namely of the Octavius. Nor content to have said this once, he wrote this again to Magnus about the same book: "Minucius Felix, an advocate of the Roman forum, in the book whose title is Octavius, and in another Against the Astrologers, if indeed the inscription does not belie its author, what of the pagan writings did he leave untouched?" (Jerome, Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers, § 68; the same, Letter 83, to Magnus, page 665.) But if Jerome, so skilful and perceptive an investigator of books, judged that this book which he had read bore the name of Minucius falsely, on what ground shall we, into whose hands it has not come, pass a different judgement on it?

But he will certainly cause astonishment in some who contends that Minucius Felix, deterred by the very great difficulty of treating this subject, did not stand by his promises, lest he be compelled to define something rashly. For our Minucius plainly shrank from such tasteless ostentation or dissimulation, whose singular modesty and candour of mind, as we have seen, shine forth throughout the book of the Octavius.

Others, however, think that in his words quoted nothing is promised, but only that the minds of the hearers are held in suspense. For Minucius had said in a manner not at all unlike: "Much is at hand to add to this, were my discourse not hastening." For what more, they say, did Minucius promise in the one place than in the other? But we cannot conceal that the promise is expressed in the former rather than in the latter words. Further, concerning this work, whether never published or long since lost, nothing more occurs to us.

Let us come, then, to those words of Minucius which seem to have some obscurity. At the beginning of his book he calls Octavius his most faithful companion, because he lodged with him when he came to Rome, and was his guest. With him and Caecilius he testifies that he went to the sea baths at Tiberine Ostia. But afterwards Augustine bathed there, "because," he says, "the Greeks called it balaneion, since it drives out anxiety." Minucius, however, records that they are of no small use for drying the humours of the body (Augustine, Confessions, book 9, chapter 12). And can this not be confirmed from what Suetonius has handed down to memory about the emperor Augustus: "Whenever for the sake of his sinews he had to use the sea waters and the hot waters of the Albula, he was content with this." (Suetonius, book 2, Augustus, § 82.) But if sinews that are slackened and made too loose by humours can be cured by sea waters, can it not also be said that Minucius and his companions used the baths of Ostia for the same reason? Moreover, we have books on baths recently published by physicians, which anyone may readily consult.

Minucius went there to bathe, "at the time," he says, "when the vacation for the vintage had relaxed the business of the courts. For at that season, after the summer day

the autumn season was directing itself towards mildness." Of these court holidays Statius sings thus:

Surely now the Latin laws do not stir up quarrels, / and the sluggish year has peace, and the returning harvests / have dismissed the forum, nor now is there for you a crowd of defendants / at the vestibule, nor do complaining clients ask [you] to come out.

(Statius, bk. 4, Silvae, to Marcellus, line 36 and following.)