BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
—o—
WITHIN the present volume we have given two of the most interesting and important works of the days of early Christianity. The one is the great Apology of the most eloquent of the early Fathers of the Church—" the father of Latin Christianity," as Dean Milman calls him; the other is the ethical treatise of the pure- souled Stoic Emperor, the first great general persecutor of the Christian Church. A few prefatory words are needed upon each, but the reader is referred to the previous volume of this series— Bishop Kaye's account of Tertullian—for fuller details about him.
The life of Tertullian is only known to us through his writings. He was born at Carthage about A.D. 160, and died about 240; but the precise dates are uncertain. He was trained as a lawyer, but was converted to Christianity in 192, and became a priest. He was married, but childless. It was probably about ten years after his conversion that he became a Montanist, moved, as Bishop Kaye believes, by the laxity of the clergy that he saw around him, and the longing to find a stricter life. The same learned writer shows that his Montanist writings are among the most valuable, simply because, in his unsparing attacks on what he held to be faulty in the practices and discipline of the Church, he unconsciously preserves for our information what these were.
The work before us is the greatest of Tertullian's writings. The deeply religious heathen Emperor, M. Aurelius, died in 180, and was succeeded by his unworthy son, Commodus. He was followed by Septimius Severus, the first of the " Barrack Emperors." in other words, of those military adventurers who held the Roman Empire down to the days of Dioclesian, following one another rapidly, and, with hardly a single exception, dying violent deaths. The golden age of the Empire was gone, it was the iron age now. But the Christian Church, after a period of silent growth, after worship in
vii
viii
Biographical Notices.
caves and catacombs was now a recognised power in the Empire. It had a new philosophy to offer men, and a nascent literature; it boldly put forth its claims to obedience, and made converts among the rich and learned. M. Aurelius had done his utmost to crush it; Commodus had not done so, some of his courtiers were Christians, and persuaded him to leave their co-religionists alone. And Sept. Severus pursued in the main the same policy.
But the African Church was an exception to the general immunity. Much depended everywhere on the disposition of the several pro- consuls towards the faith. There had been laws in existence against it ever since the days of Nero, and it depended altogether on the various governors whether these laws should stand in abey- ance or be put in vigorous exercise. There were by this time many thousands of believers in Africa; and now heathen fanaticism, which had been long smouldering, broke out. The priestesses of the " Dea Coelestis " had raised seditious mobs, and allied heathens and Jews had destroyed Christian churches, and rilled and desecrated their burial-places. Caricatures of Christ were paraded through the streets, and the usual ridiculous charges of incest and cannibalism were brought against his disciples. It was all this which produced Tertullian's Apology.
He first addresses himself (chaps, i.-vi.) to this general argument, that the rulers at Carthage are persecuting a body of men, who are undeserving of condemnation. Trajan's counsel to Pliny, that Christians were not to be sought out, but if brought before him were to be punished, as the apologist rightly maintains, was illogical and confused. But the present action of the governing power was yet worse ; it was persecuting a religion which confessedly was a strong agent in tne reformation of popular morals. He then goes on to state what are the charges brought against Christians, and to assert their falsity (vii.-ix.), then takes them in detail. First, "sacrilege" and "treason." He meets the first by declaring that the gods of the heathen are no gods (x.-xv.), and then by demon- strating that Christians have a devout worship of their own, and profound reverence for Him whom they recognise as their God, and in doing this he refutes certain calumnies which have been brought against this worship (xvi.-xxiii.). These chapters are full of information concerning early Church customs. He goes on to say that it is the heathens and not the Christians who are really the impious, and that it is not true that Christians are enemies of the Commonwealth, seeing that the greatness of Rome owes nothing to
Biographical Notices.
ix
its heathen faith. And he retorts upon them the charge of impiety, by declaring that they hold Caesar in greater dread than they do their gods, whilst the Christians pray to their God for Csesnr's welfare, though they will not pay that Ctcsar lying honour. Then our apologist, dealing with details, argues passionately and grandly on behalf of a body of men who do not take vengeance for the wrongs that they are suffering. It has been many a time within their power to have raised the whirlwind against the government, but they have refrained; but they are strong in the knowledge of their coming victory. And he demands that therefore they should at once be admitted amongst the licensed "sects." Gathering strength as he is carried along on the stream of his majestic eloquence, and with the consciousness that he is gaining the better of his opponents at every turn, he breaks out into a magnificent peroration, partly of the deepest feeling, partly of wither'ng scorn, and ends in a climax of impassioned and confident appeal.
The author of the present translation, as I learn from a letter sent to me by the present Rector, was Rector of Cranford from 1694 to 1726.
[...]
TERTULLIAN'S1 APOLOGY
ON BEHALF OF THE CHRISTIANS.
—o—
CHAPTER I.
THAT THE GENTILES' HATRED TO THE CHRISTIANS IS NOTORIOUSLY
UNJUST.
IF you, the guardians of the Roman empire,2 presiding in the very eye of the city, for the administration of public justice ; if you must not examine the Christian cause, and give it a fair hearing in open court ; if the Christian cause is the only cause which your lordships either fear or blush to be concerned for in the public ; or lastly, if
1
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus. These several appellations suffici- ently distinguish our Tertullian from Tertullus the consul, Tertylianus the civilian, and Tertullinus the martyr, with which our apologist is sometimes confounded. The
praenomen Quintus may perhaps be given upon the account of his being the fifth child of his parents. He was called Septimius, because descended from the Gens Septimia, a tribe of quality among the Romans, being first regal, afterwards plebeian, and last of all consular and patrician ; Florens, from some particular family of that house, so called ; and Tertullianus from Tertullus, perhaps his father, as Octavianus from Octavius, Septiminus from Septimius, etc.
2
Romani Imperii Antistites in ipso fere vertice Civitatis praesidentes ad judicandum.
Baronius is of opinion, Bar. 201, that this Apology was written at Rome, and not at Carthage, wherein he is generally followed, but not by Pamclius, as the author of the notes upon Du Pin too hastily charges him, nor by Dalix, Du Pin, Dr. Cave, or Tillemont. Baronius's reason for this opinion is that Tertullian often speaks as being at Rome, and that he addresses in these words, To the Roman Senate. But these words neither prove it to be written at Rome, nor presented to the Senate of Rome, for they are with much better reason applicable to the proconsul and governors of Africa ; for he says they preside in vertice Civitatis, and our apologist never calls Rome by the name of Civitas but
A
2 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
your odium to this sect has been too much fermented by your late severities
1 at home upon your Christian servants, and you bring this domestic ferment into the courts of judicature;—if these, I say, are the bars in our way to justice, be pleased at least to tolerate thus far, to let truth wait upon you in private, and to read the Apology we are not suffered to speak.
We enter not upon defence in the popular way,2 by begging your
Urbs. He speaks likewise of Rome and the Romans as being neither in their city nor amongst them ; cap. 9, 21, 24, 35, 45. And speaking of the cruel and sanguinary devotions of the heathen in many places, especially, says he, in illa Religiosissima Urbe Aeneadarum piorum, etc., by which undoubtedly he means Rome ; and the manner of the expression plainly determines him not to be there at the time of his writing; for had he been at Rome at this time he would have said in hac Urbe, and not in illa Urbe, cap. 9. And in the same chapter, recounting the bloody rites in the Scythian worship, he urges,—But I need not go so far as Scythia, for we have now at this day as barbarous ceremonies at home, that is, at Carthage. Besides, cap. 45, he speaks of the proconsul as the sovereign magistrate, and every one knows the proconsul to have been the premier magistrate of Africa, and to have had his residence at Carthage. Moreover, it is very probable that he addressed to the governors of Africa, and not to the Senate of Rome,—firstly, because there is not one word of the senate in this whole Apology ; secondly, because, cap. 45, he lashes those to whom he wrote, for endeavouring to gain the good graces of the proconsul, by signalizing their cruelty against the Christians; and thirdly, because he con- stantly gives them the title of presides, cap. 2, 9, 30, 50, a title very much aflected by every officer under the proconsul of the province. And neither presides nor proconsul were titles that did belong to any magistrate of Rome ; for in danger of war in the provinces, the prrefecti Ccesariis were chosen by the emperor himself, and sent to reside in the metropolis, but the proconsuls were chosen by lot after their consulship, into the several provinces. And therefore Dio expresseth Claudius his restoring Macedonia into the hands of the senate, by a0pe/doken
to&te tw~| klh&rw|, he put it to the choice of the senate again. Dio, His. lib. lvii. So that we are not to understand Antistities Imperii to be the same with Pontifices, according to Zephyrus, nor by vertici Civitatis the capitol, according to Rigaltius ; though it is likely he might mean the Byrsa of Carthage, according to that of Silius Italicus :
Quaesivitque diu qua tandem ponerit
arce Terrarum fortuna caput——
1
Domesticis Judiciis. By these words I understand with Rigaltius the severities exercised at home by the presidents upon their domestics and children for turning Christians, which private severities contributed very much to prejudice and exasperate them, even in open court, against the Christians in general.
2
Deprecari. It is a law term, and properly signifies to intercede with the king for pardon, or to plead with a judge in excuse of the criminal, according to that of Tully, pro Ligario, Ignoscite Judices, erravit, lapsus est, non putavit, etc. But here the Christian advocate pleads only for rigid justice, as the martyr Justin had done before him. lie understood the Christian cause too well, to think it stood in need of oratory, and the arts of excusing. Vid. A. Gell. lib. vi. cap. 16, concerning the signification of the word Deprecor.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
3
favour, and moving your compassion, because we know the state of our religion too well to wonder at our usage. The truth we profess, we know to be a stranger upon earth, and she expects not friends in a strange land; but she came from heaven, and her abode is there, and there are all our hopes, all our friends, and all our preferments. One thing indeed this heavenly stranger warmly pleads for in arrest of judgment, and it is only this, that you would vouchsafe to understand her well before you condemn her. And what can the laws suffer in their authority by admitting her to a full hearing? Will not their power rise in glory for the justice of a hearing ? But if you condemn her unheard, besides the odium of flaming injustice, you will deservedly incur the suspicion of being conscious of some- thing that makes you so unwilling to hear—what, when heard, you cannot condemn.
First, therefore, we lay before you ignorance as the chief root of your unjustifiable bitterness to the Christian name; and this very ignorance, which you may flatter yourselves with as a title to excuse, is the very thing that loads your charge, and binds the heavier guilt upon you. For show me a grosser piece of iniquity than for men to hate what they understand not, supposing the thing in itself deserves to be hated; for then only can a thing deserve from us to be hated when we are apprised of its deserts. If not acquainted with the merits of the cause, what can we possibly urge in the defence of hatred which is not to be justified by the event, or because the passion may happen to be right, but by the principle of conscience upon which it is founded ?
When, therefore, men will thus be hating in the dark, why may not the blind passion fall foul upon virtue as well as vice ? So that we argue against our adversaries upon two articles, for hating us ignorantly, and, consequently, for hating us unjustly. And that you hate us ignorantly (which still, I say, does but aggravate your crime) I prove from hence, because all who hated us heretofore did it upon the same ground, being no longer able to continue our enemies than they continued ignorant of our religion ; their hatred and their ignorance fell together.
Such are the men you now see Christians manifestly overcome by the piety of our profession, and who now reflect upon their lives past with abhorrence, and profess it to the world; and the numbers of such professors are not less than they are given in; for the common cry is, the city is infested, town and country overrun with
4 Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
Christians. And this universal revolt in all ages, sexes, and qualities is lamented as a public loss; and yet this prodigious progress of Christianity is not enough to surprise men into a suspicion that there must needs be some secret good, some charming advantage at the bottom, thus to drain the world and attract from every quarter. But nothing will dispose some men to juster thoughts, or to make a more intimate experiment of our religion. In this alone human curiosity seems to stagnate, and with as much com- placency to stand still in ignorance as it usually runs on in the discoveries of science.
Alas! how would poor Anacharsis1 have been struck at such proceedings, to see the very judges of religion entirely ignorant of the religion they condemn, who looked upon it so absurd for the rewards of a fiddler to be adjudged by any but the masters of the science. But such are our enemies, that they choose to indulge their ignorance merely for the growth of their hatred; foreboding within themselves that what they hate without knowledge may chance to be a thing of so lovely a nature, that should they come to know it, they would be in danger of losing their hatred ; whereas hatred is not to be kept a moment longer than it has justice on its side: if so, spare not, not only give a present loose to your re- sentments, but also persevere in a passion thus seconded and strengthened by the authority of justice.
But it is objected that the number of Christians is no argument of the goodness of their cause. For how many change from better to worse ? How many deserters to the wrong side ? And who denies this ? But yet, are any of those men, who are pressed away to sin by the violence of appetites, are they hardy enough to appear in the defence of wickedness, or appeal to public justice for the patronage of notorious evil ? For every evil is by nature dyed in grain with shame and fear. The guilty hunt for refuge in darkness, and when apprehended, tremble ; when accused, deny; and are hardly to be tormented into a confession ; when condemned, they sink down in sadness, and turn over their number of sins in confusions of conscience, and charge the guilt upon the stars or destiny; -
1
Anacharsis. See his life in Diog. Laertius.
2
Fato vel Astris imputant. Guilt is an ugly, frightful, and uneasy thing ; and this it was that put men at first upon contriving an expedient how to satisfy their conscience, in spite of their sin ; and the expedient was this, to lay the blame upon fate, or the stars, or anything but themselves. Predestination in the rigid sense is not one jot better than fate in the sense of the Stoics. And though it
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
5
unwilling to acknowledge that as their own act which they acknow- ledge to be criminal.
But do you see anything like this in the deportment of Christians ? Not one Christian blushes or repents, unless it be for not having been a Christian sooner. If a Christian goes to trial, he goes like a victor, with the air of a triumph ; if he is impeached, he glories in it; if indicted, he makes no defence at bar; when interrogated he frankly confesses, and when condemned returns thanks to his judges.
What a monster of wickednessJ is this, that has not one shape or
occasioned at one time so much feud and bitterness all about us, and the con- troversy ordered by authority to die, yet it is now again revived,1 as the ramparts and bulwarks of Christianity, and the rarest contrivance in the world, to make us not only almost but altogether one kirk ; for which, no doubt, the doctor expects the thanks of the united nations. The generality of the clergy he stig- matizes apostates, for being assertors of free will ; and if so, what will become of the Fathers of the first four centuries, I cannot tell. Sure I am, poor Justin Martyr is an apostate with a witness, Apol. i. sec. 54. But if the doctor would but follow his own advice, that is, in one word, let us be moderate, and give his brethren hard reasons instead of hard names, it would make much more for union, I dare say, than his doctrine of predestination ; which should it take effect, we should not have one criminal that goes to be hanged, but, as Tertullian says, would be cursing his stars, and laying all the fault upon destiny, that is, God.
1
Quid hoc mali est, quod naturalia mali non habet? Naturalia, is the same here as Natura, for he says, Quod hoc malum est in quo natura mali cessat ? ad Nat, p. 461. But that which is more remarkable is, that here we have an admirable description, and a most sensible proof, both of the truth and the power of the Christian religion ; for did ever any impostor set up a religion so ill calculated to the passions and relish of mankind ? Did he ever propose a doctrine to the world, without one worldly motive to recommend it, without one external comfort to hope for, or one arm to defend it ? Did Judas discover the secret when he betrayed his Master ? or had it been a cheat, would the traitor have hanged himself for his treason? Was there ever such a noble army of martyrs, who died so calmly and deliberately, and expressed so much innocence, so much joy and assurance in their sufferings, as they did? So that either we must suppose Christ to have been the shallowest of impostors (which the wisdom of His precepts will not admit) to set up a religion so ungrateful to flesh and blood, without any visible force or reward to maintain it; and withal, that good part of the world, of all sorts and sizes, happened luckily to be stark staring mad for suffering, and to continue so for above 300 years together; or else we must suppose that Christ came down from heaven, and that the sufferers had all the reason imaginable to believe it, and therefore by help of divine grace, and the
_________________
1
John Edwards, D.D., his sermon upon the Union, May 1, 1707, entitled One Nation and one King.
6 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
feature of wickedness belonging to it ? Nothing of fear, or shame, or artifice, or repentance, or the desponding sighs of criminals attending on it. What a strange-natured evil or reverse of wicked- ness is this! that makes the guilty rejoice, and ambitious of accusation, and happy in punishment. Nor can you charge these odd appearances as the effects of madness, since you are altogether unacquainted with the powers of the Christian religion.
—o—
CHAPTER II.
CONCERNING THE MALICE AND PERVERSENESS OF THE JUDGES, IN
THE WAY OF CONDEMNING OR ABSOLVING THE CHRISTIANS.
BUT if it is resolved we must be guilty, pray what is your reason for treating us differently from other criminals ? For it is a rule in law that where the case is the same, there the procedure of court ought to be the same also. But when we and heathens are impeached upon the same articles, the heathen shall be allowed the privilege of the council, and of pleading in person for setting off his inno- cence,1 it being against law to proceed to sentence before the defendant has put in his answer; but a Christian is permitted nothing, not to speak what is necessary, either to justify his cause, defend the truth, or prevent the injustice of his judges. On the contrary, nothing is attended to in his trial, but how to inflame the mob, and therefore the question is about his name only, and not
power of conviction, they despised everything here below for the joy that was set before them. This argument is likewise prosecuted by Arnobius, adv. Gent, lib. ii. p. 21, as a mighty instance of the divinity of the Christian faith, that in so short a time it should be too hard for the wisdom and pleasures of the world, and work so with men of the greatest parts and learning, and of the greatest fortunes, as to make them part with their notions and estates, and submit to any torments rather than part with the Christian faith ; and that the Gentiles did not think it advisable to venture their skin for their doctrine. That Plato, in his Academy introduced a dark and ambiguous way of delivering his opinions, for fear of going the way of Socrates. And Origen tells Celsus that Aristotle quitted Athens, and left his philosophy to shift for itself, as soon as he understood that the Athenians intended to call him to an account. So little could philosophy prevail against self-preservation.
1
Quando nec liceat indefensos et inauditos damnari. He alludes to the law de Requir. Reis, made by Severus a little before the publication of this Apology.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
7
the nature of his crime : whereas if you sit in judgment upon another criminal, and he pleads guilty to the indictment, suppose of homicide, sacrilege, incest, or rebellion (to instance the common heads of your libels1 against us), upon such confession, I say, it is not your method forthwith to proceed to sentence, but you have patience to examine the nature of the fact in all its circumstances, viz.—the place, the time, the manner, and the accomplices of the action: but in the trial of a Christian, all these forms of justice are overruled. But let me tell you, would you acquit yourselves with any appearance of equity, you ought on both sides to be equally severe in the examination of fact, and see to the bottom of those reports, so frequently and so falsely thrust upon us. For instance, to bring in a true list of how many infants every Christian has killed and eaten, what incests committed in the dark, what cooks we had for the dressing these children's flesh, and what pimping dogs for putting out the candles.2
Oh ! what immortal glory would a proconsul gain among the people, could he pull out a Christian by the ears that had ate up a hundred children ! But we despair of any such glorious discovery, when we reflect upon the edict against searching after us. For Pliny the second,3 in his proconsulship of Asia, having put many Christians to death, and turned others out of their places, and being still astonished at our numbers, sends to the Emperor Trajan for orders about proceeding for the time to come; alleging withal that for his part, after the strictest inquiry, he could find nothing more in our religion, but obstinacy against sacrificing to the gods, and that we assembled before day to sing hymns to God and Christ,
1
Ut de vestris Elogiis loquar. Elogium is a civil law term which frequently occurs in this author, particularly lib. ad Scap. de cor. Mil. cap. 5, etc., and is the same among the civilians as Epistolae, Notoria, Relationes, a libel or declara- tion, setting forth the crimes of the person indicted ; it was provided by the law de custo et exhi. Reorum, ne quisquam puniatur ex Epistolis et Actis Pedanei et minoris Judicis. And therefore Pudens, who had a mind to favour the Christians, sent back a Christian prisoner because there appeared against him no witness or proof, but the Elogium, or epistle from an inferior judge. Pudens missum ad se Christianum, in Elogio concussions ejus intellecta dimisit, Scisso codem Elogio sine accusatore negans se auditurum hominem secundum mandatum. Vid. Gab. Altaspin., not. ad Scap.
2
For a fuller explication of this passage, and the foundation of this horrid slander, see my notes upon Justin Martyr's Apology, Apol. i. sec. 35. The dogs which are said to be tied to the candlesticks, and to have crusts thrown them just beyond the reach of their string, in order to make them leap and strain and pull down the candles, are by Tertullian, cap. 7, called Luminum Eversores et Lenones, which to follow his own biting way I translate pimping dogs.
3
Vid. Plin. Epist. lib. x. ep. 97.
8 Tertullian s Apology for the Christians.
and to confirm one another in that way of worship; prohibiting homicide, adultery, fraud, perfidiousness, and all other sorts of wickedness. Upon which information Trajan writes back, that such kind of men as these were not to be searched after, but yet to be punished if brought before him. Oh perplexity between reasons of state and justice! be declares us to be innocent, by forbidding us to be searched after, and at the same time commands us to be punished as criminals. What a mass of kindness and cruelty, connivance and punishment, is here confounded in one act! unhappy edict, thus to circumvent and hamper yourself in your own ambiguous answer ! If you condemn us, why do you give orders against searching after us? And if you think it not well to search after us, why do you not acquit us ? Soldiers are set to patrol in every province for the apprehending of robbers, and every private person justifies taking up arms against traitors and enemies to the commonwealth; and moreover is obliged to make inquiry after all the conspirators; but a Christian only is a criminal of that strange kind, that no inquiry must be made to find him, and yet when found may be brought to the tribunal; as if this inquiry was designed for any other purpose but to bring offenders to justice. You condemn him therefore when brought, whom the laws forbid to be searched after; not that in your hearts you can think him guilty, but only to get into the good graces of the people, whose zeal has transported them to search him out against the intention of the edict.
This also is very extraordinary in your proceedings against us, that you rack others to confess, but torment Christians to deny : whereas, was Christianity a wicked thing, we, no doubt, should imitate the wicked in the arts of concealment, and force you to apply your engines of confession. Nor can you conclude it need- less to torture a Christian into a confession of particulars, because you resolve that the very name must include all that is evil. For when a murderer has confessed, and you are satisfied as to the fact, yet you constrain him to lay before you the order and circumstances of the whole action. And what makes the thing look worse yet is, that notwithstanding you presume upon our wickedness, merely from our owning the name, yet at the same time you use violence to make us retract that confession, that by retracting the bare name only, we might be acquitted of the crimes fathered upon it. But perhaps I am to imagine your excessive tenderness to be such, that you are willing to acquit the very persons you conclude the greatest villains in the world ; and perhaps it may be your custom
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
9
to say to a murderer, " deny the murder," and to command the sacrilegious to be put to the rack for persevering in his confession of sacrilege.
But now, if your process against us and other criminals is notoriously different, it is a shrewd sign you believe us innocent; and that this very belief of our innocence is the spring which sets you at work for our deliverance, by forcing us to deny our name, which though in justice you know you cannot, yet 'or reasons of state you must condemn. A man cries out upon tne rack, I am a Christian ; you hear him proclaim to the world what really he is, and you would fain have him say what really he is not. That ever judges, who are commissioned to torture for the confession of truth, should abuse it upon Christians only, for the extortion of a lie ! You demand what I am, and I say I am a Christian; why do you torture me to unsay it ? I confess, and you rack on; if I confess not, what will you do? If other malefactors deny, it is with difficulty you believe them ; but if Christians deny, you acquit them at a word. Certainly you must think yourselves in the wrong for such proceedings, and be conscious of a secret bias upon your judgments, that makes you run thus counter to the forms of court, the reasons of justice, and the very intent of the laws themselves. For if I mistake not the laws are very express, that criminals should be discovered, and not concealed; and that upon confession they should be condemned, and not acquitted. The acts of the senate and the edicts of the emperors prescribe this. These are the maxims of that government you are ministers of, and your power is defined by these laws, and not arbitrary and tyrannical.
Tyrants indeed have no respect to the proportions of justice in the distributions of punishment, but apply tortures at pleasure. But you are restrained by law; and to apply them only for the confession of truth, preserve this law in full vigour, and for the end it was made. For if the accused confess, it is absurd to put them to the question; the law of tortures is answered, and you have nothing to do in this case but to consider the nature of the fact, and punish it accordingly. For every malefactor is a debtor to the law, and to be wiped out of the public accounts: upon paying his
1
Debito poenae nocens expungendus est. This is a very familiar phrase with our author, and the ground of it is this. The executioner had a roll of the names of the condemned, and the punishment they were to suffer; and a criminal being a debtor, when he had paid his punishment was expunged, or crossed out of the roll: and so dare Poenas is to pay the pain an offender owes to the public.
10 Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
punishment, and not discharged merely upon the confession of his fault. No judge attempts openly to acquit a criminal barely upon his pleading guilty, nor can he justify a thought of so doing; and therefore no one can be justly served with torments to deny, when the law was designed only to make him confess.
You look upon a Christian as the sum total of iniquity, a
despiser of the gods, emperors, laws, morality, and, in one word, an enemy of human nature; and yet this is the man you rack, that you may absolve, because without racking him into a denial of his name you cannot absolve him. This, or nothing, is prevaricating with the laws; you would have him plead not guilty, for you to pro- nounce him innocent, and discharge him from all past crimes, whether he will or no. But how can men be so perverse as to imagine that he who confesses a thing freely is not more to be credited than he who denies it by compulsion ? Or cannot a man speak truth, without the help of a rack ? And being absolved upon a forced denial of his religion, he must needs conclude such external applications of cruelty, very foolish things for the conversion of the mind, when in spite of all these impressions upon his body he finds himself still a Christian in his conscience.
Since therefore you treat us differently in everything from other criminals, and what you chiefly push at is the destruction of our name (and we ourselves destroy this, by doing what the heathens indulge themselves in)—since this, I say, is the main thing you con- tend for, you cannot but see that our name is the greatest crime in our indictment; in the persecution of which name, men vie hatred, and are ambitious to excel each other in malice; and this emulation is the chief reason why they are so stedfast in ignorance; therefore they devour all reports of us without chewing, and are so averse to any legal inquiry, for fear these reports should prove to be false, which they would have pass for true, that the hated name of Christian might be condemned upon presumption, without the danger of a proof; and that the confession of this name might serve for a sufficient conviction of the crimes charged against it. Hence it is that we are tortured against law for confessing, and tormented on for persisting in that confession; and against law absolved for denying, because all the dispute is about our name only.
But after all, when you proceed to judgment, and read over the table or catalogue of crimes you pass sentence against, why do you
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
11
mention the Christian only ? Why do not you mention the murder, the incest, and the rest of that train commonly imputed to us? We alone are the persons you are ashamed to condemn, without signifying the actions you condemn us for; if a Christian is accused of no crime, the name surely must be of a strange nature to be criminal in itself only !
—o—
CHAPTER III.
CONCERNING THE ODIOUS TITLE OF CHRISTIAN.
WHAT an unaccountable thing is it for so many men to blindfold themselves on purpose to fall foul upon Christianity ! And to such a degree that they cannot talk about the noted probity of any Christian without allaying his character with a dash of his religion ! Cajus Sejus (says one) is a very good man, but—he is a Christian. I will tell you what (says another), I wonder that Lucius the philo- sopher is all of a sudden turned Christian. And none has sense enough in his passion to put the question right, and argue in this manner. Is not Caius so good, and Lucius so wise, merely from the influence of their religion ? Or was it not the probity of one, and the wisdom of the other, that prepared the way, and brought them over to be Christians ?
Thus indeed they praise what they know, but vilify what they know not; they blot the fairest examples of virtue shining in their very eyes, because of a religion they are entirely in the dark about; whereas certainly, by all the rules of reason, we ought to judge of the nature of causes we see not, by the effects we see, and not pre-condemn apparent goodness for principles we understand not. Others, discoursing of some persons, whom they knew to be vagrants, and infamously lewd before they came over to our religion, drop their praises upon them in such a manner, that they stigmatize them with their very compliments; so darkened are they with prejudice that they blunder into the commendation of the thing they would condemn. For (say they) how wanton, and how witty was such a woman ! how amorous and frolicsome was such a young gentleman ! but now they are Christians : thus undesignedly they fix the amendment of their lives upon the alteration of their religion.
12 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
Some others are arrived to that pitch of aversion to the very name of Christian, that they seem to have entered into covenant with hatred, and bargained to gratify this passion at the expense of all the satisfactions of human life, acquiescing in the grossest of injuries rather than the hated thing of Christian should come within their doors. The husband, now cured of all his former jealousy by his wife's conversion to Christianity, turns her and her new modesty out of doors together, choosing to dwell with an adulteress sooner than a Christian; the father, so tender of the undutiful son in his Gentile state, disinherits him now when he becomes obedient by becoming a Christian; the master, heretofore so good to his unfaithful slave, discards him now upon his fidelity and his religion. So that the husband had rather have his wife false, the father his son a rebel, the master his servant a rogue, than Christians and good : so much is the hatred of our name above all the advantages of virtue flowing from it.
Now, therefore, if all this odium arises purely upon the account of our name, pray tell me how a poor name comes to be thus to blame, or a simple word to be a criminal ? Unless it be that the word is barbarous, or sounds ominously, reproachfully, or obscenely. But Christians is a Greek word, and means nothing more than a disciple of Christ, which by interpretation is the Anointed; and when you misname it Chrestian1 (for so far are you from under- standing our religion, that as yet you know not our true name), even then it implies nothing worse than a benignity and sweetness of temper; thus outrageous are you at the sound of a name as inoffen- sive and harmless as those who bear it. But do men use to let loose their passions at this rate against any sect merely from the name of its founder ? Is it a new thing for scholars to be named from their masters? Is it not from hence that philosophers are called Platonists, Epicureans, Pythagoreans, etc.? Do not the Stoics and academics derive their names from the porch or academy,2 the places where they meet and discourse together ? And do not
1
Sed et cum perperam Chrestianus pronunciatur a vobis. See the notes upon Justin's First Apol. sec. 3, concerning the word Chrestus ; I only add here that Marcellus Donatus conjectures this Chrestus to have been some seditious Jew called by that name, for which he produces several inscriptions wherein that name occurs, but not one wherein it is given to a Jew, which ought first to have been produced to justify his conjecture ; but the Christian apologists prove it a mistake beyond dispute. Vid, Donat. Dilucid. in Sueton. in Claud, cap. 25.
2
Stoics from Stoa\, a porch or gallery.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
13
physicians glory in the title of their Erasistratus,1 and grammarians in that of Aristarchus ?2 And are not even cooks themselves not a little proud of the name of Apicius ?3 Nor in any of these instances are you offended with the name transmitted from the founder of the sect; but if you could prove any sect to be vicious in principle, and consequently the author of it to be so too, there is reason enough to hate the name upon the account of both. In a word, before we give entertainment to hatred against any sect whatever, upon account of its name, we ought in the first place to have competently examined the nature of the institution, and traced out its qualities from the author, or the author from them ; but both these ways of inquiry are quite neglected, and our enemies storm and fire at a word only. Our heavenly Master and His heavenly religion are both unknown, and both condemned, without any other considera- tion but that of the bare name of Christian.
—o—
CHAPTER IV.
THAT HUMAN LAWS MAY ERR, AND THEREFORE MAY
BE MENDED.
THUS far I have been something severe, as it were, by way of preface, to make men sensible if I could of the injustice of the
1
Erasistratus. This physician is mentioned by our Tertullian, lib. de an. cap. 15 ; Pliny fixes his life, An. urb. cond. 450, lib. xiv. cap. 7, and mentions his school, lib. xx. cap. 9, and again, lib. xxix. cap. 2, makes him the disciple of Chrysippus, and Aristotle's daughter's son, who for the cure of King Antiochus had of his son Ptolemy a fee of an hundred talents.
2
Aristarchus. A noted grammarian of Alexandria, Aristotle's contemporary, tutor to the son of Ptolemy Philometer, celebrated by Tully, ad Appium Pulchrum, lib. iii. epist. n, for distinguishing the genuine verses of Homer, and so likewise by Ovid :—
Corrigere at res est tanto magis ardua, quanta
Magnus Aristarcho major Homerus erat.
Ov. Pont.
And so again by Horace, ad Pisones,
Arguet ambigue dictum, mutanda notabit, Fiet Aristarchus.
3
Apicius. An epicure of famous memory, styled by Pliny Nepotum omnium altissimus Gurges ; and so again by Juvenal:—
Quid enim majore cachinno Excipitur vulgi, quam pauper Apicius ?
14 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
public odium against us; and now I shall stay awhile upon the subject of our innocence. And here I shall not only refute the objections against us, but retort those very objections against the objectors themselves, to let the world see that Christians are not the men they take them to be, nor sullied with those crimes they are conscious of in themselves; and to sec also whether I can make our accusers blush, not by charging them in general, as the worst of men accusing the best, but supposing us both upon the level of iniquity. I shall touch upon all the particulars we are taxed with for committing in private, and for which we are publicly branded as immoral, superstitious, damnable, and ridiculous; these very crimes, I say, which you grant we have not the forehead to do without the protection of darkness, we find our enemies hardy enough to commit in the face of the sun.
But because we meet you with unanswerable truth at all your turnings, your last resort is to the authority of the laws, as more inviolable than truth itself; and it being so frequently in your mouths, either that nothing ought to be revoked after once con- demned by law; or that your sworn obedience is a necessity upon your actions, weightier than that of justice. I shall first enter upon the obligation due to human laws with you who are the sworn protectors of them.
First then, when you rigidly insist upon this, that Christianity is against law, and prescribe against dispensing one jot with the letter upon any considerations of equity, this, I say, is acting iniquity by law; and you sit rather like tyrants than judges of a court, willing a thing to be unlawful, because you will, and not because it is so. But if your will is regulated by the measures of good and evil, and you forbid a thing because it ought to be forbidden, then certainly, by this rule of right reason, you cannot license evil, nor forbid the obligations of doing good. If I find a prohibition issued out against the laws of nature, do not I conclude such a prohibition to be invalid? Whereas, if the matter of it be lawful, I never dispute my obedience,1 nor think it strange
1
Quod si malum esset, jure prohiberet. Here we have the measures of obedience due to human laws briefly stated byTertullian : " For," says he, " where nothing is commanded, either against the law of nature, or the positive law of God, I never dispute my obedience." Had the primitive Christians refused obedience to the civil magistrate, in matters indifferent, Christianity, humanly speaking, had never been a national religion, and if our dissenting brethren would be decided by this rule, and, according to Tertullian, comply with the magistrate's commands, in everything not unlawful in itself, or with respect to the plain
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
15
if your laws are sometimes in the wrong, since they are but the composures of men, and not the commands of God. Is it so strange to see mortals out of the way in making laws, and wiser upon experience, and repealing what they once approved ? Did not the laws even of Lycurgus suffer amendments? Was not their severity sweetened by the Spartans, and better accommodated to civil use ? And did not this alteration go so near the great law- giver's heart that he quitted his country in a pet, and pined himself to death, being his own judge and his own executioner ? Does not your experience light you every day to the mistakes and rubbish of antiquity? And have you not cut down a huge and horrid wood of old laws, and planted the new edicts and rescripts of the emperors in their stead? Did not Severus, of all the emperors least given to change, lately alter the Papian law,1 vainly solicitous about the propagation of children before the time allowed for matrimony by the Julian law without any respect to the venerableness of antiquity? And insolvent debtors, by the laws, were to be chopped in pieces by their creditors;2 but these sanguinary statutes were by succeed- ing ages repealed, and the capital punishment commuted into a mark of infamy, together with the sale of their goods, it being
Word of God, they would then, and not till then, fulfil the apostle's injunction
of doing all that is possible, and as much as lieth in them to live peaceably with all men. But if the magistrate cannot lawfully command in things where neither the natural nor the positive law of God interpose to the contrary, he can command in nothing, because such things only can be subject to his disposal.
1
Vanissinias Papias leges quae ante liberos suscipi cogunt, quam Jul. Matr. contr. Concerning these laws, see Rigaltius and Pamelius upon this place. But that which I remark is, that Scaliger would infer from the following words that this Apology was not composed till a little after the death of Severus, because it is said, heri Severus, etc., exclusit; but I confess I cannot see why lately repealing may not agree to a living prince as well as a dead one. But I shall show this opinion to be evidently a mistake of Scaliger in the sequel of this Apology.
2
Judicatos retro in partes secari a Creditoribus Leges erant. Here he evi- dently alludes to the law of the twelve tables, cap. viii. de nexis; for thus it runs, Tertiis nundinis capite poenas luito, aut trans Tiberim peregre ilo, est si plures erunt rei, tertiis nundinis. Partis. secanto. si. plus minus. ve. secuerunt. sc. fraude. esto. The meaning of which, as it is explained by A. Gellius, Noct. Att. lib. xx., is this: Debt was a captital crime by law, and the creditor might either have the life of the insolvent, or send him beyond Tibur to be sold for a slave ; but if the insolvent was indebted to more than one, the creditors might cut him into pieces in proportion to every one's debt. And this barbarity he justifies only by the end and design of the lawgivers, which was not so much to punish as to prevent men from running into debt by the severity of the punishment, for he tells us he never read of one debtor dissected, Quoniam saevitia ista Poenae contemni non quita est; but for bonds and imprisonment rogues value them not, and run in debt continually.
16 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
looked upon better to put the offender to open shame than to let out his blood for debt. And how many laws think you are still behind which want revising, that
are not valuable for their number of years, or the dignity of their founder, but upon the account of justice only? And therefore if they are found not to be according to this standard arc deservedly condemned, although we are con- demned by them. And if they punish for a mere name, they are not only to be exploded for their iniquity, but to be hissed off the world for their folly. But if the laws are to take cognizance of actions only, why are we punished for the name of our sect, when no others are so punished ? I am guilty of incest, or have killed a child, suppose, why don't you make inquiry after my crimes, and extort them from me by confession upon the rack? I have injured the gods or emperors, why am I not to be heard on these points ? Surely no law can forbid the discussion of what it is to condemn, because no judge can justly proceed to sentence before he is well apprised of the illegality of the fact; nor can a citizen justify his obedience to a law, while he apprehends not the quality of the action it is to punish ; for it is by no means sufficient that a law be good in itself, but that goodness also must be made appear to him who is to put it in execution ; and that law is much to be suspected that does not care to be looked into, but is notoriously tyrannical, if after it is looked into would reign a law still in defiance of reason.
—o—
CHAPTER V.
THAT THE WISEST OF THE EMPERORS HAVE BEEN PROTECTORS
OF THE CHRISTIANS.
BUT to see the rashness and injustice of the laws against us, let us cast an eye back upon their original, and we shall find an old decree,1 whereby the emperor himself was disabled from consecrat-
1
Vetus erat Decretum ne qui Deus ab Imperatore consecraretur nisi a Senatu probatus. Rigaltius mentions something like this extant in the fragments of Ulpian, and Pamelius gives the decree itself from Crinitus de hon. discipl. lib. x. cap. 3. Separatim nemo sit habeas Deos novos sive Advenas, nisi publice adscitos privatim colunto. By virtue of this ancient decree it was that the people, notwithstanding any edicts of the emperors to the contrary, persecuted the Christians. Vid. Euseb. Hist. lib. ii. cap. 2. Where upon the account given by Pontius Pilate, Tiberius applied to the senate to make him a god.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
17
ing a new god, without the approbation of the senate. M. Aemilius learnt this with a witness, in the case of his god Alburnus.1 And this makes not a little for the honour of Christianity, to see the heathens in consult about making gods; and if the god is not such a deity as they like, he is like to be no God for them. Strange ! That the god is first to pray the man to be propitious, before the man will allow of his godship. By virtue of this old decree it was that Tiberius,2 in whose reign Christianity came into the world, having received intelligence from Judea about the miracles of Christ, proposed it to the senate, and used his pre- rogative for getting Him enrolled among the number of their gods. The senate, indeed, refused the proposal, as having not maturely weighed His qualifications for a deity; but Caesar stood to his resolution, and issued out severe penalties against all who should accuse the worshippers of Christ.
Consult your annals,3 and there you will find Nero4 the first emperor who dyed his sword in Christian blood, when our religion was but just arising at Rome ; but we glory in being first dedicated to destruction by such a monster: for whoever knows that enemy of all goodness will have the greater value for our religion, as knowing that Nero could hate nothing exceedingly, but what was exceedingly good. A long time after, Domitian, a limb of this bloody Nero, makes some like attempts against the Christians; but being not all Nero, or cruelty in perfection, the remains of struggling humanity stopped the enterprize, and made him recall the Christians he banished. The Christian persecutors have been always men of this complexion, divested of justice, piety, and common shame;
1
De Deo suo Alburno. This Alburnus is mentioned, lib. adv. Marcion, cap. 18, and seems to have been consecrated in the consulship of M. Aemilius, an. urb. cond. 638.
He was called Alburnus from a mountain in Lucania of the same name.
Est Lucus silari circum, ilicibusq.; virentem Plurimus Alburnum volitans,
etc. Virg. Geo. 3.
2
Tiberius ergo, cujus tempore nomen Christianum in saeculum introivit. This is to be understood of the resurrection of Christ, when the Christian faith first began to be published to the Gentile world.
3
Consulite commentarios vestros. He alludes to the annals of Tacitus, lib. xv., or rather to Suetonius in the Life of Nero.
4
Caesariano gladio primum ferocisse. It is agreed upon by all writers, that the first general persecution began under Nero, as likewise that the second did under Domitian ; for that in Judea and Samaria, mentioned in the Acts, cap. viii., was but a particular persecution in some parts only, and not set on foot by the Gentiles but the Jews.
18
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
upon whose government you yourselves have set a brand, and rescinded their acts,1 by restoring those whom they condemned.
But of all the emperors down to this present reign, who under- stood anything of religion or humanity, name me one who perse- cuted the Christians. On the contrary, we show you the excellent M. Aurelius for our protector and patron ; for if you look into his letters,2 you will find him there testifying that his army in Germany being just upon perishing with thirst, some Christian soldiers which happened to be in his troops, did by the power of prayer fetch down a prodigious shower to the relief of the whole army; for which the grateful prince, though he could not publicly set aside the penal laws, yet he did as well, he publicly rendered them in- effectual another way, by discouraging our accusers with the last of punishments, viz. burning alive.
Reflect a little now, I pray you, upon the nature of these laws, which only the most consummate villains in impiety, injustice, filthiness, folly, and madness ever put in execution against us ; which laws Trajan 3 in part evacuated by his edict against searching for Christians; and neither Hadrian4 the inquisitive, whose genius
1
Quos et ipsi damnare consuestis. The edicts of Nero and Domitian both were rescinded by the senate, and Nerva their successor. But the old law was still in force, which forbade the worshipping of any new god, without the approbation of the senate.
2
Si Litere Marci Aurelii requirantur This rescript of Marcus Aurelius you will find annexed to Justin's First Apology; and though it is disputable whether that rescript be genuine, yet it is evident beyond dispute, both from Justin and Tertullian, that there was such a rescript in favour of the Christians.
3
Quas Trajanus ex parte frustratus est. It is not without good reason that Tertullian says in part evacuated, for the third persecution commenced under Trajan. It is true, indeed, he published no general edict against the Christians, but the manner of his answer to Pliny (viti. Plin. lib. x. ep. 103, p. 633, wherein, as Tertullian smartly remarks, the rescript did combat, and contradict itself, in forbidding Christians to be searched after, and yet punished when found) was abundantly sufficient to reinflame magistrate and people, who were ready to take tire upon the least encouragement against the Christians. Besides, he issued out solemn edicts to his officers to suppress all private cabals and associations; and this occasioned fresh searches after Christians, and prevented their ordinary assemblies. Vid. Plin. ep. 35, 99, 123 ; cp. 104, p. 632. In this reign, strict inquisition was made after all the descendants from David, and Simeon, bishop of Jerusalem, was therefore taken up and murdered. Euseb. lib. iii. cap. 32, p. 104. And though this was a very grievous persecution, yet was it not universal. Euseb. lib. iii. cap. 33, p. 105, cap. 32, p. 103.
4
Quas nullus Adrianus. Sulpicius Severus, and he alone, places the fourth persecution under Adrian. Vid, Sulp. lib. ii. cap. 45, p. 150. But whatever this persecution was, it is plain from Tertullian and Melito, bishop of Sardis,
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
19
no doubt led him into the curiosities of our religion, nor Vespasian,1 who must know something of it too by conquering the Jews, nor Pius,2 nor Verus 3 ever took the advantage of the laws against us; and therefore were we Christians, in truth, the worst of men, you cannot think we should have been thus spared, and protected
vid.
Euseb. lib. iv. cap. 26, p. 148, that it was not occasioned by any imperial edict. Adrian was initiated in all the Graecian rites, and especially in the Eleusinian Mysteries, which St. Jerome remarks as the principal cause of this persecution, Adr. vit. p. II. He was extremely addicted to judicial astrology, and to all sorts of divination, even to magic, Dio, lib. 69, p. 793, insomuch that he is severely censured by the heathens themselves for his extravagant supersti- tion, Amm, lib. xxv. p. 294. And if magic raised a persecution under Valeri- anus, who in the beginning of his reign was so great a friend to Christians, and whose family so abounded with men of piety, that his house seemed to be the church of God, Euseb. lib. vii. cap. 10, we need not wonder that this black art should have the same influence upon Adrian. But this persecution was happily put an end to, by the Apologies of Quadratus and Aristides, Euseb. lib. iii. cap. 37, p. 209. The eloquence and reason of these two apologists was seconded by a letter from Serenius Granianus, proconsul of Asia, Euseb. lib. iv. cap. 8, p. 122, and many other governors followed this example, Euseb. lib. iv. cap. 13, p. 127. Adrian, unable to resist these just and pressing solicitations, wrote to Minucius Fundanus, Granianus's successor, not to punish a Christian but upon good proof of some crime against the public; and to punish the false accuser just as the Christian should have been had he been found guilty. This rescript was very famous among the ancients; it is celebrated as very advantage- ous to the Christian cause, not only by Eusebius in his Chronic., but by S. Severus lib. ii. cap. 45, p. 150, by Orosius, lib. vii. cap. 12, and annexed by Justin to his Apology, and translated into Greek by Eusebius, lib. iv. cap. 9, p. 123.
1
Nullus Vespasianus. Vid. Joseph. deBell.Jud. lib. iii. iv. v. vi. vii.
2
Nullus Pius. This was Antoninus, to whom Justin Martyr addresses his First Apology, and whose rescript to the commons of Asia he annexes to it, and is translated into Greek by Euseb. lib. cap. 13. And though there was no edict of Pius out against the Christians, yet by the authority of 'he old decree, they suffered very much in many places, which occasioned Justin's First Apology.
3
Nullus Verus. It is a matter of some difficulty to determine who this emperor was, for the cognomen Verus was given to M. Aurelius as well as to Lucius. Vid. Jul. Capitol, in vit. M. Aurelii. But it is most probable that M. Aurelius was the emperor, especially if Lucius Verus was dead before the per- secution, as some imagine, Nicephor. lib. iii. cap. 14. And it is observable, that Athenagoras dedicates his Apology to M. Aurelius and Lu. Commodus, and not to Lucius Verus. However this be, certain it is that this was a most bloody persecution, in which Polycarp and Justin, and the martyrs of Vienna and Lyons were put to death ; the reading of the prophets, and the sibyls, and whatever else might serve the Christian cause was forbidden, says Justin, upon pain of death, Apol. i. sec. 59. This is counted the fourth persecution by all but S. Severus, who calls it the fifth. But then it is observed by Eusebius, lib. v. cap. I, that it was set on foot, not by any edict of Aurelius, but by popular tumult. If we read Severus instead of Verus, as Pamelius is most inclined to, then is it evident that when this Apology was written, Severus had issued out no edict against the Christians.
if)
2O
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
against law, by the best of princes, and struck at root and branch only by our brethren in iniquity.
—o—
CHAPTER VI.
THAT THE ROMANS ARE MIGHTY PRAISERS OF THE ANTIQUITY OF
THEIR RELIGION, AND YET ADMIT OF NOVELTIES INTO IT
EVERY DAY.
BUT now I would argue the case a little with these scrupulous gentlemen who are such mighty sticklers for the observation of old laws; I would know whether they themselves have religiously adhered to their forefathers in everything, whether they quitted no law, nor have gone one step out of the ancient way. Nay, whether they have not made ineffectual some of the most necessary and proper rules of government; if not, what is become of those excellent laws for the bridling luxury and ambition ? Those laws which allowed not above a noble1 for an entertainment, and but one hen, and that not a crammed one, for a supper. Those laws which excluded a senator the house, as a man of ambitious designs, for having but ten pound weight of silver plate in his family; which levelled the rising theatres - to the ground immediately, as semin- aries only of lewdness and immorality; and which under severe penalties forbade the commons to usurp the badges and distinctions of the nobility. But now I see the enormous entertainments, with
1
Centum aera non amplius This was the Lex Licinia vel Fannia called Centussis, according to that of Lucilius, Fanni Centussique, misellos. Vid. A. Gell. lib. ii. cap. 24. To what Zephirus in his paraphrase, and Pamelius in his notes, have said concerning the sumptuary laws, and against canvassing for places, I add, that C. Orchius the third year before Cato was censor, preferred a law to moderate the number of guests only. Twenty-two years after, C. Fannius being consul, enacted another for moderating the expenses of ordinary feasts, allowing not more denis assibus. Licinius Crassus revived the Fannian law. The Lex Cornelia, and the Lex Antia, were to the same purposes of frugality. Whoso- ever desires to see more de Legibus Sumptuariis ct de Ambitu, may read Stuc. conviv, lib. i. cap. 3 ; A. Gell. lib. ii. cap. 24; Macrob. Saturn, lib. iii. cap. 17 ; Alex. ab Alexan. Genial. Di. lib. iii. cap. 2, p. 685,
tom, i., and likewise cap.
17, p. 755.
1
Theatra stuprandis moribus orientia statim destruebant.
P. Cornius Nasica after the second Punic war demolished the theatre as the school of wickedness and effeminacy. Vid. Alexand. ab Alex.. tom. i. lib. iv. cap. 25, p. 1193.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
21
new names from their extravagance ; a centenarian supper, so called from the hundred
sestertias expended on it, that is about seven hundred and eighty-one pounds five shillings for a meal.; and I see mines of silver melted into dishes, not for the table of senators only, for that would be tolerable, but for such fellows as are but just made free, and hardly out of the lash of slavery. I see also theatres in abundance,1 and all indulgingly covered over. The hardy Lacedemonians, I suppose, were the first authors of this soft invention, for fear Venus should take cold in the winter without a covering; and that odious heavy cloak of frieze, which in time of war was to screen the Spartans from the injuries of weather, was chiefly designed no doubt to defend the Romans at the enjoyment of their sports. Moreover, I see now no difference in habit between a lady of quality and a common strumpet;2 all those wise institutions about women are fallen to the ground, wherein your ancestors made such provisions for modesty and temperance; when a woman was to wear no more gold about her than the wedding-ring upon her finger;3 when women were so strictly prohibited to the use of wine, that a matron was starved to
1
Video Theatra nec singula satis esse. In the time of Augustus there were hut three theatres, and one amphitheatre; but as they grew in vices, they increased in theatres; and then we read of the theatre of Marcellus, and one of Scaurus so capacious that Pliny affirms it large enough to hold 80,000 men. Plin. lib. xxxvi. cap. 15. Concerning the number of theatres, vid. Just. Lipsii Amphitheatrum, et Tertull. de Spectac. et Vitruv. lib. v. cap. 3.
2
Inter Matronas Clique Prostibulas nullum de habitu discrimen. The Stola, Flammeum, Vitta, and Reticulum were the distinctions of matrons of repute, from prostitutes who had the Toga, and were not allowed the Flammeum and Vitta. More of this you may see in Alex. ab Alexand. tom. ii. lib. v. p. 216.
3
Cum aurum nulla norat praeter unico digito quem sponsus oppignorasset pronubo annulo. The ring in matrimony has been a very general and ancient ceremony: Digito pignus fortasse dedisii, Juven. sat. 6. This nuptial ring was put upon the finger next the least, on the left hand, out of an imagination that there was a particular vein there which went directly to the bottom of the heart. Aul. Gell. lib. x. cap. 10, Macrob. lib. vii. cap. 13. And this, I sup- pose, may be the Unicus Digitus in Tertullian. The primitive Christians made no scruple of complying with this ancient ceremony of the ring in matrimony, for, says Tertullian, de Idol. de nullius Idoli honore descendit, it did not arise from any honour given to an idol. And Clemens Alexandrinus sets forth, not only the rite, but the reason of it, Clem. Alex. Paed. lib. iii. cap. 2. St. Ambrose brings in St. Agnes, mentioning the wedding-ring, Amb. lib. iv. ep. 34. In the year 611, Isidore Hispalensis, Etymol. lib. xx. and de devin. Off. lib. ii., proves it to be in use, and all the offices of the Western Churches since that time prove the same. As to the Greek Churches, we find by the Eucologicon, that they used two rings, one of gold, which was given to the man, another of silver, which was given to the woman. Vid. ord. Sponsalior. And therefore it was not without good authority that our wise reformers did retain this innocent, ancient ceremony, approved of even by Bucer himself. Buceri Censur. p. 48.
22 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
death by her friends for breaking the seals of a cellar where the wine was kept ;1 and Mecenius in the reign of Romulus was acquitted for killing his wife far the same attempt; and for the same reason parents were by law obliged to kiss their children, in order to dis- cover them by their breath. Where is now the happiness of a conjugal state, maintained of old by rugged virtue, in so long and perfect harmony, that from the foundation of the city for almost six hundred years together,2 we read not of a divorce in any family ? But now, instead of wedding-rings only, women are so begolded over, that every limb labours under the burthen; and so addicted to wine, that you shall not receive a salute without a smack of the bottle; and divorces are now become the object of your desires, and looked upon as the constant fruit of matrimony. But this is not all, for what your fathers have bravely decreed, even about the worship of the gods, you with all your obedience have rescinded. The consuls with the authority of the senate banished father Bacchus3
1
Cum mulieres usque adeo vino abstinerentur, ut matronam ob resignatos cellae vinariae loculos sui inedia necarint. This story, and almost the very words, are taken out of Pliny's Natural History, lib. iv. cap. 13, where he says likewise that Egnatius Metellus (here called Mecenius) killed his wife with a club for drinking wine. The drinking of wine was interdicted women under the severest penalty. Vid. Dionys. Halicarn. lib. ii., Polyb. lib. vi., Cicer. lib. de nat. Deor. It was as capital a crime for a woman to be taken in wine as in adultery. It was by the law of Romulus made one of the conditions for a divorce. Cneus Domitius deprived a woman of her dowry for drinking more liberally than her health required. The law mentioned here by Tertullian, which obliged relations to salute women to find whether they did not smell of wine, was overruled by an edict of Tiberius Caesar. Via. Sueton. vit. Tiber. See more to this purpose in Alexand. ab Alex. tom. i. lib. iii. cap. 2, pp. 672 and 673.
2
Per annos ferme sexcentos ab urbe condita, nulla repudium domus scripsit. P. Carvillius Ruga, or Spurius Carbilius, as he is called by Valer. Maximus, lib. ii. cap. I, was the first who divorced his wife upon pretence of barrenness, though divorces afterwards upon the most trifling occasions came to be a common practice. L. Antonius was noted by the censors, and turned out of the senate for putting away his wife upon no reason but his humour. Vid. Val. Max. lib. it. cap. 4. Tiberius Caesar degraded a censor upon the like occasion, Sueton. in vit. Tib. Q. Antistius and C. Sulpitius divorced their wives merely upon a pet. Val. Max. lib. vi. cap. 3. And Maecenas is severely taxed by Seneca upon the like occasion, Sen. lib. de Divin. Provid. So that it is not without reason that Tertullian affirms divorces in his time to be the constant fruit of matrimony. By the laws of Romulus a man could not divorce his wife, but either for adultery, for attempting to poison him, for false keys, or for drinking of wine. The form of divorces between parties only contracted was in these words—Conditione tua non utar. This was properly Repudium ; that between a married couple was called Divortium, and ran in this form—Res tuas tibi habeto.
3
Liberum Patrem cum mysteriis suis. The Bacchanalia or Nyctileia grew to that excessive lewdness, that they were forbid in all parts of Italy under a severe penalty. Vid. Alex. ab Alex. tom. i. lib. vi. cap. 7, p. 650.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
23
and his mysteries, not out of Rome only, but all Italy, and Serapis,1 and Isis, and Harpocrates, with his dog's head of a god Cynocephalus, were excluded the capitol, the palace of your deities, during the consulship of Piso and Gabinius, who were not Christians, and all their altars levelled to the ground, in order to suppress this rabble of deities, and the abominable filthincsses attending on them; but these gods you have recalled from banishment, and restored them to their original worship. Where now is your old religion, and the great veneration you pretend to have for your ancestors ? You have degenerated from them in your habit, in your modes of living, in your furniture,2 and in the riches and revenues you allow to the different ranks of men, and in the very delicacy of your language. You are eternal praisers of antiquity, and yet every day in a new fashion ; which is a plain proof that it is your peculiar talent to be in the wrong, to forsake your ancestors where you should follow, and to follow where you should forsake them. And although you may take yourselves for zealous defenders of the traditions of your fathers, especially in those things for the neglect of which you principally accuse the Christians, namely, the worship of the gods, in which point your ancestors have been the most unhappily mistaken; although you have rebuilt the altars of Serapis, and made him now a Roman god; although Bacchus now has his frantic sacrifices offered him in Italy;—notwithstanding all this, I say, I will show in its proper place that you have not in truth this warm affection for the gods of your forefathers, but that you have despised, slighted, and destroyed them, in spite of all your loud pretences to the obligations of antiquity. In the meantime, I shall return an answer to those infamous objections against our actions in secret, in order to make way for the vindication of those things we do in the face of the world.
1
Serapidem et Isidem, et Harpocratem cum suo Cynocephalo, etc. Serapis and Isis were celebrated idols of Egypt. Harpocrates is said to be born of Isis and Osiris, and coming unluckily before his time, was born mute, and for that reason made the god of silence, according to that of Ovid—Quinque premit vocem, digitoq.; silentia suadet. Cynocephalus was an Egyptian god with a dog's head, under which shape Mercury is said to have been worshipped, according to that of Virgil, Aenead. 8, Omnigenumq.; Deum monstra, et Latrator Anubis. See more of this and their expulsion out of Italy in Alex. ab Alex. tom. i. lib. ii. cap. 19, p. 431.
2
Censu. I conclude this word should be written with a c, and I have translated it accordingly; but if it is to be written with an s, as it is both in Rigaltius and Pamelius, I would translate it opinion; but Rigaltius in his Animadversions has corrected his text, and writes Censu, Vid. Rigal. Anim- adver. juxta fin.
24
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
CHAPTER VII.
THAT COMMON FAME IS BUT AN ILL EVIDENCE.
It is the common talk that we are the wickedest of men, that we murder and eat a child in our religious assemblies,1 and when we rise from supper conclude all in the confusions of incest. It is reported likewise that for this work we have an odd sort of clogs, as officious as bawds in putting out the candles, procurers of darkness for the freer satisfactions of our impious and shameless lust. This is the common talk, and the report is of long standing, and yet not a man attempts to prove the truth of the fact. Either, therefore, if you believe report, examine the grounds, or if you will not examine, give no credit to the report. And this dissembled carelessness of yours against being better informed plainly speaks that you your- selves believe nothing of it; you seem to care not to examine, only in truth because you dare not; for were you of opinion that these reports were true, you would never give such orders as you do about the torturing of Christians ; which you prescribe, not to make them confess the actions of their life, but only to deny the religion they profess. But the Christian religion, as I have already intimated, began to spread in the reign of Tiberius; and the truth pulled down a world of hatred in its very cradle ; for it had as many enemies as men without the pale of revelation, and even those within, the very Jews, the most implacable of any, out of a blind passion for the law. The soldiers from dragooning our persons, come to hate our religion, and from a baseness of spirit, our very domestics are as much bent upon our destruction as they. Thus are we continually invested on every side, and continually betrayed— nay, very often we arc surprised and taken in our public meetings and assemblies; and yet did ever any one come upon us when the infant was crying under the sacrificer's hand ? - Who ever catched
1
Dicimur sceleratissimi de Sacramento Infanticidii. That this charge of devouring a child in the sacrament was by the heathens commonly laid upon the Christians is evident, because Justin, Athenagoras, Tatian, Minutius, and the rest of the apologists insist so much upon it. The nature of the institution and the practice of Simon Magus, Menander, Basilides, Carpocrates, and other heretics, who passed under the name of Christians, most probably gave rise to this horrid story, as I have shown at large in my notes upon Justin's Apology.
2
Quis unquam taliter vagienti Infanti supervenit. The Christian sacrifice of bread and wine was never omitted in the first ages of the Church in their public
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
25
us, like a Cyclops or Siren, with mouths besmeared in human blood, and carried us in that cruel pickle before a judge? And as for incest, who ever discovered any relic of immodesty in his wife after she became a Christian ? And who can think that a heathen would connive at wickednesses of this monstrous size in any Christian, had he eyes to spy them out ? Or that he can be bribed in our favour, who seems never so well pleased as when he is hauling us to punishment? If you say that these abominations are always done in secret, pray when and by whom came you to this knowledge ? Not by the guilty themselves, for you know that the persons admitted into the mysteries of all religions are by the very form of admission1 under the severest obligations to secrecy; the Samothracian and Eleusinian2 mysteries you know are covered in profound silence, how much more reasonable is it therefore to think that such as these will be kept in the dark, which not only treasure up divine wrath against the day of judgment, but if once discovered will whet human justice to the highest pitch of vengeance ? If, therefore, Christians betray not themselves, it follows that they must be betrayed by those of another religion ; but how shall strangers be able to inform against us, when even the most pious mysteries3 are defended from the approaches of the
worship: they looked upon their service as not so perfectly Christian and acceptable without it, that the Holy Spirit did in an especial manner descend upon the consecrated elements, that God was better pleased with their prayers for this commemoration of His Son, and that this was the principle of union between a Christian and the ever Blessed Trinity; and, therefore, whenever the heathens broke into their assemblies, they would be sure to find this sacrifice of a child, was there any such thing.
1
Ex Forma omnibus Mysteriis silentii Fides debeatur. What silence was thought due to sacred rites we may understand by Horace's Favete linguis ; by Ovid's Ore favent Populi nunc cum venit aurea Pompa ; by Virgil's Fida Silentia Sacris; by Festus's Linquam pascito, i.e. coerceto ; by the Egyptians setting up the image of Harpocrates in the entrance of their temples, and by the Romans placing the statue of Angerona on the altar of Volupia. Vid. Brisson, de Formulis, lib. i. p. 8.
2
Elensinia reticentnr. Horace protests that he would not stay in the house, or sail in the ship, with a person that should divulge the mysteries of Ceres—
Vetabo, qui Cereris sacrum
Vulgarit arcanae, sub iisdem
Sit trabibus fragilemque mecum
Solvat phaselum.
Alcibiades and his companions for exposing the rites of Ceres were not only excommunicated all religious and civil intercourse at Athens, but solemnly cursed by the priests, and priestesses — a practice not unlike to the Jewish Anathema. Vid. Plutar. Alcibiad.
3
Cum etiam piae Initiationes arceant Prophanos. I know nothing more
26 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
stranger and the profane ? Unless you conclude the Christian rites to be the wickedest of any, and withal conclude that the wicked are less cautious about the divulging of such rites than those of a better religion. And thus you must be forced to acknowledge you know nothing of our profession, but by common fame; and the nature of fame is too well known by every one to be credited in haste. Your own Virgil tells you, Fama malum quo non aliud velocius ullum: Fame is an ill, the swiftest ill that flies.
Why does he call fame an ill ? Because of her swiftness ? Or because she is an informer ? Or because she is a common liar ? For the last reason without question. For she never lets even truth come out of her mouth without being sophisticated, without detracting, adding, or brewing it with one falsehood or another. Moreover, the nature of fame is such that she cannot keep herself upon the wing without the assistance of lies; for she lives by not proving; when she proves, she destroys her being. She hovers no
practised all the heathen world over, than the excommunicating profane persons from all holy mysteries. Hence that of Virgil—
Procul, o procul este Prophani Conclamat Vates,
And that of Horace also—
Odi Prophanum Vulgus et arceo.
The Flamens had a commentaculum, a kind of rod in their hands to keep off impure persons. Vid. Brisson, de Formulis, lib. i.; Selden, de Syned. lib. i. cap. 10. Among the Greeks that old form from Orpheus continued,—e3kaj
e3kaj e4ste be/bhloi. At Athens the herald cried out
tij th~de—Who is here? To which the people answered,
polloi\ kai\ a0gaqoi\—Many and good men. Vid. Suid. in
tij th~de. And we read in Livy, Decad. 4, lib, i., of two young men of Arcanania, who for not being initiated and crowded into the Eleiisinian mysteries, were slain ; for it was a capital crime to be present without due purification ; and such purifying rites were men of all ranks and qualities obliged to perform before they could approach the altars and statues. Not Nero himself could prevail with his conscience to let him be present at these rites of Ceres, after the Herald had made the usual proclamation for the wicked to depart. Vid. Sueton. Ner, cap. 34. But Antoninus the philosopher, to show his innocence, went to the temple of Ceres, and into the very Sacrarium by himself. Vid. Capitolin. in vit. Antonin. Philos. And was there but a little more of the natural reverence of heathens to holy things among Christian people, and did Christian priests exert the power that God has given them with as much vigour as the idol priests did, men even as wicked as Nero would not dare to approach our altars merely upon the invita- tion of a place. But as matters stand, it might go hard with the priest to make a notorious offender lose his preferment, by refusing him the sacrament, and the common law might go near to nail the canon.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
27
longer like fame, but being as it were out of her office, certainty succeeds in the place of report. And then it is no longer said, for example, that such a thing is famed to have been acted at Rome, or such a person to have got the government of such a province, but that such things are actually so and so. Fame is a doubtful sound, and lodges only among uncertainties; and would ever any man of common reflection build much upon this uncertain puff? For let a story be never so general and diffusive, and never so confidently asserted, it is always to be remembered that it had a beginning, and from that time has crept into a world of ears, and out of a world of mouths; and so the story very little at its first planting, and naughty perhaps in the very seed, comes at length to be so overgrown and darkened by variety of rumours, that men care not to be at the pains of tracing it up to the original mouth, and to see whether it came not first into the world a very lie ; which often happens, either from the disposition and genius of hatred, or the licence men usurp of improving suspicions, or which is no new thing, the very pleasure of lying, which some people seem marvel- lously turned for, even by nature.
Well is it, therefore, I am sure, for Christians, what is so proverbially in the mouth of heathens, that time brings everything to light, according to that order of nature which will permit nothing to lie long hid; no, not even that which never came within the lips of fame. I shall leave it to you, therefore, to judge whether you have reason to proceed with this severity against Christians merely upon the testimony of fame; for this is the only witness you produce against us, and which looks so much the worse, because of all the stories she has been sowing about the world, and been so long a-watering and nourishing up into credit, she has not to this day been able to prove one.
—o—
CHAPTER VIII.
THAT THE CRIMES CHARGED UPON THE CHRISTIANS ARE NEITHER
POSSIBLE NOR PROBABLE.
I SHALL now appeal to the testimony of nature, and argue whether it is credible that she is capable of such inhumanities as common fame charges upon Christians ; and for argument sake, I will
28
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
suppose a Christian promising you eternal life, and tying caution for the performance, upon consideration of your obedience. I will suppose likewise that you believe this promise, and the question now is, whether upon such a belief you could find in your hearts to be barbarous enough in spite of nature to accept of eternal life at this inhuman price. Imagine, therefore, a Christian addressing you in this manner: Come hither, friend, and plunge your dagger into the heart of this innocent, who can deserve no punishment, who can be no man's foe, and who may be every man's son, considering our indiscriminate embraces. Or if another is to officiate in this bloody service, suppose yourself applied to after this sort: Come hither, and stand by only while I make the sacrifice; behold me despatching an infant off the stage in the very first act of life ; see me sending the new soul flying out of the body before it was well in; do you gather up the rude indigent blood, and sop your bread liberally in that wine, and indulge freely upon the flesh ; and while you arc at supper be sure to cast a wishful eye upon your mother and sister; mark exactly where they sit, that you are guilty of no mistake when the clogs have put out the candles. For it is as much as our immortality is worth if you should miss of incest; if you are thus initiated, and continue firm in the practice of these rules, you shall live for ever. Answer me now to the question proposed, Can you purchase heaven upon these terms? If not, if you feel nature recoil, and your soul shrink at the proposal of such things, you can never think them credible in us. Did you but believe them, I am confident you would not do them ; but did you believe them, and had an inclination to do them, I am of opinion that your very humanity would not suffer you to perpetrate such facts ; and if you find too many misgivings in yourselves for the performance of such commands, why do you not conclude the same reluctance in others ? Or if you cannot be unnatural enough for these things, why should you judge others can?
But Christians, I suppose, are not men. What! do you take us for monsters like the Cynopse or Sciapodes,1 with different rows of teeth for devouring, and different instruments for incest, from all other men ? Certainly, if you believe such actions possible for others, you may believe them possible for yourselves, you being men,
1
The Cynopae, or Cynopes or Cynocephali, are reported to be a sort of wild men in the mountains of India, with heads like a dog, Plin. vii. 2 ; and the Sciapodes of Aethiopia to be a people of such a monstrous make, that in hot broiling days lie upon their backs, and cover their whole bodies from the sun with the shadow of the bottoms of their feet, Plin. vii. 1.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
29
as we Christians are ; but if you feel this impossible in nature, you ought to give no credit to the report, because Christians and heathens have the same humanity.
But you pretend that the ignorant only are decoyed and tricked into our religion, such as have not met with any of these stories against us, but are catched before they have time to consider and examine with that accuracy which every man is obliged to upon changing his religion. But allowing it possible for a man to be ignorant of common fame, yet if any one is desirous to be initiated, it is the constant custom, as I take it, for such a person to go to the chief priest, to be instructed in what is necessary for such an initiation. And then, if these stories are true, he will instruct him in this manner : Friend, in order to communicate with us you must provide a child tender and good, too young for any sense or notice of death; such a child as will smile into my face under the fatal knife. You are likewise to provide bread to suck up the blood, and candlesticks and candles, and some dogs with some morsels to throw to those dogs just out of their reach, that by striving to come at them they may pull down the candles and candlesticks to which they are tied. Above all things, you must be sure not to come without your mother and sister. But what if they will not comply, or suppose the convert has no sister or mother, nor any relation of our religion ? Why, he cannot be admitted; for to have a sister or a mother are necessary qualifications, no doubt, to make a Christian. But if you will suppose all this furniture got ready beforehand. without the knowledge of him who is to communicate, yet certainly after he has communicated he must needs know all; and yet he still con- tinues firm in our communion without a word of the imposture. But he dares not discover perhaps, for fear of punishment, when such a discovery would be meritorious. Whereas a man of probity, after he had found himself thus abused, and tricked into so horrid a religion, would rather choose to die than live longer with such a conscience. After all, I will grant that such a man dares not discover for fear of punishment; but pray then give me a reason why the same person should persevere in defiance of torments; for I think it natural to conclude that you would not continually stick close to a religion under such disadvantages, which you would never have embraced had you but known it before you embraced it,
—o—
30
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
CHAPTER IX.
THAT THE PAGANS ARE GUILTY BOTH IN PRIVATE AND PUBLIC
OF THE SAME CRIMES THEY CHARGE UPON CHRISTIANS.
BUT for a fuller confutation I come now to prove that the heathens are guilty both in the dark, and in the face of the sun, of acting the same abominations they charge upon Christians, and their own guiltiness, perhaps, is the very thing which disposes them to believe the like of others. Infants have been sacrificed to Saturn publicly in Africa,1 even to the proconsulship of Tiberius, who devoted the very trees about Saturn's temple to be gibbets for his priests, as accomplices in the murder, for contributing the protection of their shadow to such wicked practices. For the truth of this I appeal to the militia of my own country, who served the proconsul in the execution of this order. But these abominations are continued to this day in private. Thus you see that the Christians are not the only men who act in defiance of your laws; nor can all your severity pull up this wickedness by the roots, nor will your immortal alter his abominable worship upon any consideration; for since Saturn could find in his heart to eat up his own children, you may be sure he would continue his stomach for those of other people who are obliged to bring their own babes, and sacrifice them with their own hands, giving them the tenderest of words, when they are just upon cutting their throats, not out of any bowels of com- passion, but for fear they should unhollow the mystery, and spoil the sacrifice with tears. And now, in my opinion, this parricide of
1
Infantes penes Africam Saturno palam immolabantur, etc. The heathens had a notion (however they came by it is not to my present purpose to conjecture) that repentance alone was not sufficient to atone the Divine wrath without a bloody sacrifice, and therefore the blood of man and beast was brought in to supply the deficiency. Accordingly among the Phoenicians and Carthaginians it had been an ancient custom to choose by lot some children of the best quality for a sacrifice, and for those upon whom the lot fell there was no redemption. And they were likewise dressed according to their quality in the richest apparel to make the sacrifice more splendid. And having omitted these human sacrifices for some time, and during that omission being overcome by Agathocles, they offered two hundred sons of the nobility upon their altars to atone the deity for the neglect of human sacrifices. Vid. Plat. dial, entitled Minos Dionys. Halicar. lib. i., Diodor. Sic. lib. xx., Lactan. lib. i. cap. 21, Euseb. Praepar. Evang. lib. iv., and Silius Ital. at the end of the fourth book speaks thus of Carthage :—
Mos fuit in populis, quos conditit advena Dido. (Infandum dictu) Parvos iinponere
natos.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
31
yours, or slaughtering your own children, outdoes the simple homicide charged upon us by many degrees of barbarity. But infants are not the only offerings, for the Gauls cut a man to pieces upon the altars of Mercury,1 in the flower of his strength. I omit the human sacrifices at Diana's Temple2 in Taurica Chersone- sus, which are the arguments of your tragedies, and which you seem to countenance by being so often at the theatres. But behold ! in that most religious city of the pious descendants of pious
Aeneas, there is a certain Jupiter,3 whom at your religious games you pro- pitiate with human blood in abundance. But these, say you, are bestiarian men, criminals already condemned to die by beasts. Alas-a-day ! these are not men, I warrant ye, because they are condemned men; and are not your gods wonderfully beholden to you for offering to them such vile fellows ? However that be, this is certain, it is human blood. O brave Christian Jove! your father's only son and heir in cruelty, worshipped with human blood, as the God of the Christians is falsely reported to be. But because, if you kill a child, it is not a farthing difference whether you kill it for a sacrifice, or for your own will (for killing a child will be always a crime, though not always equal, parricide being worse than mere homicide), since this, I say, is so, I shall now apply myself upon this subject unto the people of all ranks and conditions. How many about me might I justly reproach upon this head, not only of the mob continually blooded with Christians, and continually
1
Major aetas apud Gallos Mercurio prosecatur. Cicero in Orat proM. Fonteio, speaking of the Gauls, has these words:—Quis enim ignorat eos usque ad hanc diem retinere illam immanent ac barbaram consuetudinem hominum unmo- landorum? And in his third book, de Divinat., he mentions five Mercurys and makes Mercury Theutates the fifth who slew Argos, and for that flew into Egypt, and there instructed the Egyptians in laws and letters, from which Theutates the first month of their year, that is September, was called Theuth. This was the Mercury the Gauls sacrifice to, and which Lucan in his first book refers to.
Ex quibus immitis placatur sanguine diro Thentates, horrensque feris Altaribus
Hesus,
See more in Lactantius, lib. i. sec. 21, 50, Liv. 3, dec. lib. vi., Caesar, lib. vi., de bell. Gall.
2
Remitto Tauricas Fabulas. Herodotus in his fourth book says it was a custom among the Tauri to sacrifice every year the hundredth captive to Diana ; and Lucan having spoken of Theutates and Hesus, adds :—
Et Taranis Scythicae non mitior ara Diana.
See P. Orosius in his preface to his fifth book, and Lactan. lib. i. sec. 21, p. 50, concerning the bloody rite of sacrificing strangers to Diana Taurica.
3
Jupiter quidam. Vid. Lactan. lib. i. sec. 21, p. 50. This was Jupiter Latiaris.
32 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
gaping for more, but also of you, presidents of cities and provinces, who have been the severest against us upon this very score? How many, I say, of both sorts might I deservedly charge with infant- murder? And not only so, but among the different kinds of death, for choosing some of the cruellest for their own children, such as drowning, or starving with cold or hunger, or exposing to the mercy of dogs, dying by the sword being too sweet a death for children, and such as a man would choose to fall by sooner than by any other ways of violence.
But Christians now are so far from homicide, that with them it is utterly unlawful to make away a child in the womb, when nature is in deliberation about the man; for to kill a child before it is born is to commit murder by way of advance; and there is no difference whether you destroy a child in its formation, or after it is formed and delivered. For we Christians look upon him as a man, who is one in embryo; for he is in being, like the fruit in blossom, and in a little time would have been a perfect man, had nature met with no disturbance.
As for the inhuman customs of banqueting upon blood, and such tragical dishes, you may read (for it is related by Herodotus,1 I think) how that certain nations having opened a vein in their arm, solemnly drank of each other's blood for the confirmation of treaties ; and something like this Catiline2 put in practice in his conspiracy.
1
Est apud Herodotum opinor, etc. Herodotus in his first book reports that it was the solemn way among the Medes and Lydians in making of leagues to strike each other on the shoulders with a naked sword, and then for the parties mutually to lick up the blood ; and in his fourth book he tells us that the Scythian rite of entering into league was to fill a large cup of blood and wine mixed together (the blood of both the parties confederating), and having dipped their swords and arrows into it, to pledge each other in it, and so by turns drink it off. And Possidonius, and from him Athenaeus, lib. ii. cap. 2, relates that the Germans at their banquets opened a vein in their face, and the parties mutu- ally drinking up each other's blood, mixed with wine, was the ratification of the treaty. So much human blood was there spilt, especially in sacrificing to devils, till Christ came and redeemed us from the powers of darkness, and put an end to all bloody sacrifices, by that of Himself once made upon the cross.
2
Nescio quid et sub Catilina degustatum est. The words of Sallust concerning Catiline are these—Fuere ea Tempestate, qui dicerent Catilinam oratione habitu, cum ad jusjurandum Populares sceleric sui addicerent, Humani Corporis sanguinem vino permistum in pateris circumtulisse ; inde cum post execrationem omnes degustas- sent, sicuti in solemnibus sacris fieri consuevit, dicitur aperuisse consilium, etc. I have set down this of Sallust at large, because as it stands in the notes of Pamelius it is printed or quoted false in two places, and the last part quite omitted, which shows it to be a customary rite in some countries.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
33
It is likewise reported that in some Scythian families the surviving friends eat up the dead ones.1 But I need not go so far as Scythia, for we have now at this day as barbarous ceremonies at home; Bellona's priests 2 lancing their thighs, and taking up their own sacred blood in the palms of their hands, and giving it their communicants to drink. Those epileptic persons also who flock to the amphi- theatres for the cure of their disease, intercept the reeking blood as it comes gushing from the gladiators' throats, and swill it off with greediness. What shall we say of those who gorge themselves with the beasts they kill upon the stage, who demand a piece of the boar, or the stag that is covered over with their own blood in the combat ? Nay, the very paunches3 of boars stuffed with the crude indigested entrails of men are dishes much in vogue ; and so man belches up man by surfeiting upon beasts fed with men. You who eat thus, bless me, how differently do you eat from Christians ? But what can we think of men so perfectly brutish as to lick up the very first principles of life and blood, and so diet upon child and parent both at the same time ? For shame therefore blush when you meet a Christian, who will not endure a drop of the blood of any animal among his victuals, and therefore for fear any should be lodged among the entrails, we abstain from things strangled, and such as die of themselves.
Lastly, among other experiments for the discovery of Christians this is one, to present them with blood puddings, as very well knowing our opinion about the unlawfulness of eating blood. This, I say, is the stumbling-block and offence you lay in the way of Christians; and what a strange thing is it, that you who are confi- dent that the Christians are so religiously averse to the blood of beasts, should imagine them so sharp set upon the blood of men ?
1
Apud quosdam gentiles Scytharum. Vid. Alex. ab Alex. tom. i. lib. iii. cap. 2. And the notes of Tiraquell upon him.
2
Hodie isthic Bellonae sacratus sanguis de femore proscisso. In allusion to which Lucan, lib.
i.—
Diraque per populum Cumanae; Carmina vatis Vulgantur, tum quos sectis Bellona lacertis Saeva monet,
etc.
See more upon this in Beroaldus, and Lactan. lib. i. sec. 21.
3
Ursorum alvei appetuntur crudit antes adhuc de visceribus humanis. To such a degree of luxury, or rather bestiality, were the Romans grown, that a bear's paunch stuffed with the reeking viscera or guts of gladiators was reckoned a rare dish, and by the sumptuary laws against luxury I find that Verrina and Abdomina (which I take to be the same with these alvei} were forbidden at feasts. Vid. Plin. lib. viii. cap. 51.
B
34 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
This could never be, unless you had tasted the blood of both, and found that of men to be the sweeter temptation; which therefore you should make like the censer of incense, to be another touch- stone of a Christian; and so he might be detected as well by accepting the blood as refusing the sacrifice, and in like manner be put to death for tasting as he is now for sacrificing. And you the judges of life and death, need never fear the want of human blood to make the experiment. As for incest, where can you look to find such human monster? so likely as among the worshippers of an incestuous Jove ? We have the authority of CtesiasJ for the Persians mixing with their mothers. And the Macedonians are suspected, because when they first heard the tragical lamentations of Oedipus for this sin with his mother Jocasta, they cried out in ridicule—e1laune
ei0j th_n mhte&ra,—Courage, noble warrior, and go on bravely against your mother.
Recollect now with yourselves, and you will see what a licence there is for incest, from some errors which must necessarily seduce into it, by the help and fuel of lust and luxury. For, first, you expose your sons to be taken up by the next passenger who happens to come by with more bowels than yourselves, or you emancipate them from all relation to you, in order to be adopted into nobler families; and by both these kinds of alienation it cannot well be, but that the knowledge of your children in some time must wear out and vanish ; and for want of this knowledge, when the un- natural mixture has once taken root, it spreads continually, and the original stain diffuses itself from generation to generation. And then also you have an inseparable companion of your lust in every place; it sticks to you at home, and travels with you by land, and takes shipping with you at sea; and by this ubiquitarian lust, brothers and sisters may easily come together like the scattered seed in a wide field, and as travellers often do by the help of commerce, nnd mix in strange confusions, without the parties knowing anything of the relation. But as for Christians, their inviolable chastity is a hedge about them against such unhappy accidents; and by how
1
Persas cum Matribus misceri Ctesias refert. Some fragments of Clesias were published by Henry Stephens ; but for the incest of the Persians it is notorious. See Strabo, lib. v. ad fin., Curtius, lib. vii., and Catullus in Gellium sings thus :—
Nascatur Magus ex Gelli Matrisque nefando
Concubitu, et discat Persicum aruspicium. Nam Magus ex Matre et Nato gignatur oportet,
Si vera est Persarum impia Religio.
Tertullian's Apology for the
Christians.
35
much the purer they keep themselves from fornication and adultery, by so much the more, no doubt, are they preserved secure from the chance of incest. Nay, some among us, for fear of such disorders, have put themselves beyond the possibility of this sin, by a perpetual virginity, by preserving the innocence of a child to the extremity of age. If now, therefore, you would turn your eyes inward, and see the guilt in yourselves, you would see innocence in us, for contraries are best seen together; but you labour under a twofold blindness, which is, not to see things that are, and to seem to see things which really are not; the truth of this I will show in its proper place by an induction of particulars, but at present I shall pass to matters of more notorious evidence.
—o—
CHAPTER X.
THAT THE GODS OF THE GENTILES ARE NO GODS.
You say we are atheists, and will not be at the expense of a sacrifice for the life of the emperors ; and if the first be true, the consequence is just, for if we will not offer to the gods for our- selves, it is not likely we should do it for others. It is upon this account, therefore, that we are convened as guilty of sacrilege and treason ; this I take to be the main article, and may be looked upon as the sum of the charge against us, and therefore deserves a particular discussion; and we doubt not to acquit ourselves in this point, if prejudice and injustice be not our judges ; prejudice, I say, which presumes things that are false to be true, and injustice, which rejects evident truth when heard.
We profess, then, to have laid aside the worship of your gods, from the time we knew them to be no gods ; that therefore which you are to expect from us is, that we disprove them to be gods, and consequently not to be worshipped ; for if they are gods, devotion no doubt is their due, and the Christians ought to be punished for deserting the gods, out of an opinion that they are not gods, if it can be made appear that they are. But gods they are, say you ; for the truth of this we appeal from your words to your conscience, let that be our judge, and let that condemn us, if
36
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians,
you can deny all those you now worship for gods once to have been men. If you can be hearty in this denial, you shall be con- vinced of the mistake from your own antiquities testifying against them to this day, from the cities where they were born, and the countries where they left impressions of frailty; and alas! where the very tombs of the immortals are shown.
But I will not presume to run over the whole inventory of deities, their numbers are formidable; there are your new and old gods,1 Greeks and Barbarians, Romans, strangers, captives, adoptives, proper, common, male and female, country, city, sea and camp gods. A man must have wondrous little to do with his time to give out their titles by retail, and so I shall lump them together, and speak of them only in gross; and this not to improve your knowledge, but only to quicken your memories, for you seem much inclined to forget many of your gods.
First, then, Saturn with you is the eldest deity in worship ; from him we are to begin our reckoning of all your gods, of the most noted especially, and most in vogue, and he being the original god, we may judge of all his posterity from him. As much therefore as we can learn from history, we find that neither Diodorus the Greek, or Thallus, or Cassius Severus, or Cornelius Nepos, or any other commentator of antiquities speak of Saturn any otherwise than as of a man. And if you would argue from things, I cannot think of a place that can supply you with arguments so well as Italy; for there you may trace Saturn in the most expressive prints of man. After many expeditions from Greece, you will find him landed in your own country, and there by the consent of Janus or Janes (as the Salii call him) taking up his seat, the hill he inhabited called after his own name Saturninus, and the city he founded, Saturnia, to this day; and at length all Italy succeeded to this title, after that of (Enotria. The invention of writing,2 and coining the
1
Novos Veteres, Barbaros, etc. After the most diligent collection, Varro has mustered up an army of gods to the tune of above thirty thousand. The explanation of the titles, and some instances of each of the sort of gods mentioned, you may see in Pamelius upon this place; but for a fuller and more distinct account I refer to Alex. ab Alex. lib. ii. p. 379, and lib. vi. cap. 4, pp. 433 and 436.
2
Ab ipso primum Tabulae, et Imagine signatus nummus et inde Aerario praesidet. This Aerarium or treasure-house, of which Saturn was president, was not only the public exchequer, but in it likewise were kept the Acts of the Senate, the books of records, and the Libri Elephantini, so called from their bigness, in which all the names of the citizens were registered, and from these books,
Tertullian s Apology for the Christians.
37
money with the king's image, you ascribe to Saturn; and for that reason you make him patron of the public treasury, which is placed in his temple. But now if Saturn was a man, and consequently the son of a man, he could not properly be the son of heaven and earth. And it was very natural for a person of an unknown race to be fathered upon these two, whose children in some sense we may be all said to be; for, considering how much our lives are all owing to the concurrent influences of heaven and earth, who does not by way of respect honour them with the title of common parents? Or it might come to pass from a custom of saying a person dropped from the skies, when he stepped in, unknown and unexpected by those about him. And so Saturn, from his surprising appearance in Italy, might be said to come from heaven. Besides, a person of an uncertain family had usually the denomination of a son of earth;1 not to mention the rudeness of those times when the people were struck with the sight of a stranger as at the presence of a god; since the refined spirits of this polished age have made improvements of the folly, and raised them up into gods whom the other day they solemnly attended to the funeral. This is enough in reason to say about Saturn, though it is but little. I shall now do as much for Jove, and show him to be a mere man, as well as
entituled Tabula publica, the treasury was called Tabularium. See Servius upon that of Virgil, lib. ii.
Georg.
————Aut Populi Tabularia vidit.
Imagine Signatus.
Macrobius, Saturn, lib. i. cap. 7, reports that Janus having entertained Saturn, who came to him by ship, and having made him co-partner of his kingdom for the good instructions he received from him, the first money he stamped (which was brass) he impressed on one side the image of himself, and on the other the fore-deck of a ship, in memory of Saturn, according to that of Ovid. i. fast.
Multa quidem didici; sed cur navalis in aere Altera signata est, altera Forma biceps ?
At bona Posteritas puppem formavit in aere Hospitis adventum testificata Dei.
Pliny in lib. xxxiii. cap. 3, says that Servius Tullius was the first who stamped brass money with the image of beasts, and so from pecude the word pecunia. Afterwards the images of the Caesars, with inscriptions and titles, were impressed upon the coin ; so Nero in the habit of a harper. Sueton. in vit. Ner. and Alex- ander Severus in the habit of Alexander the Great, etc.
1
Terra filios vulgus vocat, quorum genus est incertum. Thus is Tytius called both by Homer and Virgil,
1Hgon e0poyo&menon tituo_n gaih&ion ui9o&n. Odyss. lib. vii.,
and so again, lib. xi., Kai\ tituo_n
ei9don gai/hj e0riku&deoj ui9o&n.
Nec non et Tytium Terrae omnipotentis Alumnum.
Id est, filium,
according to Servius. Virgil, Aeneid, lib. vi.
38 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
the son of a man, and consequently the whole swarm of divinities mortal, and like father like son.
—o—
CHAPTER XI
THAT THE FANCY OF MAKING GODS OF DEAD MEN IS A VERY
FOOLISH FANCY.
AND because you have not the hardiness to deny but that your gods were once men, and yet stand up for posthumous divinities, or dead men turned into gods, I shall now consider the reasons for such an imagination. In the first place, then, you will be forced to grant some superior God who auctions1 out His divinity, and upon good consideration makes gods of men ; for men cannot naturalize themselves into gods; nor can any one else bestow the divine nature upon them, but him who is the proprietor of it. But now, if the supreme power itself cannot make gods, you then presume in vain upon made gods without a maker. Certainly if men could deify themselves, they would never have taken up with a human being, when a divine one was in their power. Upon supposition, therefore, that there is one who is able to make gods, I will examine the reasons for making them; and upon consideration I can find none, unless it be that the supreme God has too much business upon His hands to manage as it should be, without some sub-gods to assist Him. But, first, it is the most unbecoming idea of Almighty power, to think it wants the help of a man, much less of a dead one. And it is as unbecoming infinite wisdom, which could not but foresee its wants, not to have made an assistant deity from the beginning, rather than to tarry to the end of a man's life before he can supply his necessities.
But I can see no room for any help-meet for God; for whether you consider this great machine of the world as eternal with Pythagoras, or made in time with Plato, you will find it from its structure framed with all materials and movements necessary for the order and government of this vast body; and He who gave this
1
Mancipem quendam Divinitatis. These mancipes were the chief among the publicans, or the principal farmers of the public revenues. Vid. Cic. de Arusp. respons., et Alex. ab Alex. lib, ii, p. 520.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
39
perfection to everything could not want it Himself, or stand in need of an assistant. He did not wait for a Saturn, or any of the Saturnian race, to work under Him in the ordering of His world. For men must be vain to the last degree to think that it did not always rain, and the stars dart their rays, and the sun and moon shine perpetually in their orbs, and the thunder bellow, and poor Jove himself, in whose hands now you put the bolts, tremble at the clap; and likewise that the fruits of the earth were not in being before Bacchus, and Ceres, and Minerva, and even the first man was formed out of it; because the world must be made and pro- vided with all the necessaries of life before man can come to live in it. Lastly, your gods are reputed to be the inventors, and not the creators of these supports of life; but that which is found out must have a being before it can be found, and that which is thus in being cannot properly be said to be his who found it, but his who made it; because it was in existence before it was found out. But if Bacchus was consecrated for the discovery of vines, Lucullus, methinks, had hard usage to miss of a consecration for the planta- tion of cherry-trees in Italy; for he is celebrated as the author of this new fruit, because he first brought it over with him from Pontus.
Wherefore, if the universe was well appointed with all its furniture from the beginning, and everything was posted in its proper station, and adjusted with proper powers for the execution of its office, without any foreign assistance, this reason of yours for making of gods falls to the ground; because the places and functions you assign to them are supplied by nature, and all things would have always been just as they are, whether you had created any gods or no. But you turn over to another reason, and say that this confer- ring of godships was intended for the rewarding of virtue. From hence, I suppose, you will grant the god-making God Himself to be virtuous in perfection, and consequently not to dispense these divine honours at sixes and sevens, without having any respect to the merits of the persons. I desire you therefore to sum up the merits of those you worship for gods, and judge whether they are likely to lift men up into heaven, or not rather press them down to the very bottom of hell, which when the fit is upon you, you call the prison of the damned. This is the dungeon where you thrust the undutiful and incestuous, the adulterers, and ravishers of virgins, and abusers of themselves with mankind, the savage and the murderer, thieves and cheats, and whoever resembles some one god or other of yours; for you cannot name one without a fault, unless you disown him to have been a man. But they have left too
40
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
many prints of human frailty to deny them to be men, and such as not only prove them men, but such also as prove it incredible they should be made gods in another world.
If you sit upon the bench to punish such miscreants, and men of honour spit at such nasty acquaintance, and the supreme God takes up such fellows to associate with His Majesty, why then do you condemn them whose colleagues in wickedness you adore? This justice of yours is mere lampoon and satire upon heaven. If you would get into the good graces of your deities, I would advise you to consecrate the greatest rakes you can find, for certainly a conse- cration of such rakes is doing honour to those they are like.
But not to dwell longer upon things so unbecoming the divine nature, I will suppose your gods to have been good honest men, yet how many better and more noted have you left in hell ? For there have you not left the wise Socrates, the just Aristides, the excellent General Themistocles, and Alexander the Great, Poly- crates the fortunate, Croesus the rich, and Demosthenes the eloquent? Which of your gods had more gravity and wisdom than Cato, more justice and conduct, with courage, than Scipio, more magnanimity than Pompey, more success than Sylla, more wealth than Crassus, and more eloquence than Tully ? How much more becoming had it been for him who had a foresight of these worthier personages to have stayed till their death before his creation of gods? But he was in haste, I suppose, for company, and having taken up those you worship, he made fast the door, and so heaven lies blushing now to see braver souls repining in hell.
—o—
CHAPTER XII.
CONCERNING THE VANITY OF IMAGE-WORSHIP.
BUT I shall push these things no further, and take another course to set you right in the notions of your gods; for by demonstrating what they are not, I shall show what they are. And as much as I can learn of your gods, they have nothing of the venerable but merely their names, imposed by some old people dead and gone. I meet with no account of their lives but what is blended with
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
41
fables, and I find the whole fabric of your religion built upon a pack of human inventions. As for your images, I shall only observe that they are material, and often of the same matter with your common utensils; and it is ten to one but the holy image has some sister-vessel about the house, the pots and kettles being frequently of the same metal and piece with the gods. Nay, oftentimes the vessels themselves have the good luck to change their fate, and be turned into gods, by the help of consecration, which alters the property, and by the help of art, which alters the form, though not without great sacrilege and contumely to any of the gods in their very making. So that it is, indeed, a mighty consolation to us who are punished for these gods, to find them suffer the like with us, before they come to be worshipful; for Christians are fastened to crosses and stumps of trees; and have you ever an image that has not been so applied in its formation ? It is upon a frame of wood in the form of a gibbet where the body first takes its degree of divinity. Our Christian sides are torn with nails; but how is every member of your poor gods mauled with hatchets, saws, and files ? We lose our heads, and your gods have none, before the lead, and the glue, and the nails set them on. We are drawn about by wild beasts, and so Bacchus is drawn by tigers, Cybele by lions, and Ceres by serpents. We are cast into the fire, and your gods are cast and founded there also. We are condemned to the mines, and are not your gods dug out from thence? We are banished into islands, and there is not an island but is famous for the birth or burial of some god or other. If these are the ways of deifying, then while you are plaguing Christians you are only hammering them into gods, and your punishing ought properly to be called a consecra- tion. But in truth your gods have not the sense to feel the hard- ships they undergo in making, nor the honours you pay them when made. And here I expect you should cry out, O blaspemy! O sacrilege ! but you may gnash and foam as you please ; yet remem- ber that you yourselves are the admirers of that Seneca, who in his book of superstition has been much severer against you upon this head than I. If, therefore,1 we will not adore your statues and
1
Igitur si Statuas et Imagines frigidas mortuorum suorum simillimas non adoramus. This passage the Magdeburgenses, says Pamelius, have wrested against the use of images in the Church, and takes it ill of Zephyrus for conclud- ing that the Christians in Tertullian's time had only the sign of the cross above the altar, and is so unfortunate in his zeal as to take occasion even from hence to justify, not only the use of images, but the worship of them too, in a very long note upon this place. But I shall not pretend to answer a person of such hardiness, only leave it to any impartial reader, whether he can think it possible that Tertullian would have been so merrily severe for this whole chapter together
42
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
images as cold as death, and in this so very like the bodies they represent, do not we deserve panegyric rather than punishment for leaving an acknowledged error? and which the very kites and mice and spiders know to be dead as well as we.1 Is it possible we can hurt those we are certain are not ? For that which is not, is not capable of suffering, because it is not.
—o—
CHAPTER XIII.
CONCERNING THE IRREVERENCE OF THE HEATHEN TO THEIR GODS.
BUT gods they are in your opinion, say you; and if so, how comes it to pass that you use them so scurvily, with such profaneness, sacrilege, and irreverence? How dare you despise what you presume to be divine, and pull down the altars of them you fear, and ridicule the deities you defend? Examine the charge, and show where I falsify ; for if you worship, some one god, and some another, how can it be but you must offend the god you overlook ? For you cannot give the preference to one, without postponing another; for in the election and reprobation of gods, as well as men, honour and dishonour are inseparable relations. It is now, therefore, evident that you must put a slight upon the deities you reprobate, and that you cannot be afraid of offending those whom you have the boldness to reprobate. For as I sharply observed before, the fate of every god depends upon the vote of the senate, he must pass the house before he comes to be a god, and the house ungods him at pleasure. As for your domestic deities called Lares,2 you
upon the heathens for the worship of images, had the Christians of his time done the like, by virtue of the Romish distinction between Dulia and Latria, without saying one word of such a distinction.
1
Quas Milvi et Mures et Araneae intelligunt. Horace himself takes the liberty of jesting in the like manner.
Mentior at si quid, merdis caput inquiner albis Corvorum.
2
Domesticos Deos quos Lares dicitis. These Lares were painted in the form of a dog, as having charge of the house committed to their custody, according to that of Ovid. Fast. 5.
Pervigilantque Lares, pervigilantque Canes.
The custom in sacrificing to these domestic deities was to eat up all that was offered. Hence that phrase, Lari Sacrificat, when a fellow eats up all before him, he sacrifices to his household god.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
43
treat them I am sure but very homely; for these household gods are pawned and sold and trucked like other household goods. Satura is forced sometimes to serve in the kitchen, and Minerva in the laundry; for when these images are worn out, or much battered by long worshipping, they make a great many good implements; or if the master is in want, he strips his Lares ; for necessity is the most sacred and soonest served of any god about the house.
The gods of the public, by public order, are profaned just like these gods of the house, for they are bought and sold at market auctions, and entered into your books of account, and pay duties for their deityships; for if the capitol and the herb-market are to be leased out to farm, they are both proclaimed by the same crier, and the prices of both adjudged under the same standard, and the farm of the god registered by the treasurer, like any other public rent. But the lands which are clogged with the greatest duties are the least valuable, and the heads which pay capitation are most ignoble, because these are marks of servitude. But among the gods I find it otherwise, for they who pay most tribute are looked upon as the most holy; or rather they have the most devotion paid them who return the most custom. Your divine majesties are your mer- chandize, and their worships are carried about to taverns and ale- houses a-begging.1 You demand money for entrance, and money for a place in your temple; it is not possible to serve your gods gratis; you turn the penny with them all. Besides, what honours do you confer upon your gods that you confer not upon dead men ? You give to both, chapels, and altars, and images, habited and adorned alike. The human image is dressed out to give an idea of the age, the art, and profession of the person deceased, and the divine one is apparelled with the same design, and in the same manner to exhibit the god. How does a funeral banquet2 differ from a feast
1
Circuit cauponas Religio mendicans. Here Tertullian no doubt alludes to the practice of the Corybantes, who with the picture of their goddess Cybele in their hands went dancing about the streets with pipes and cymbals playing before them, and keeping time to the thumps upon their breasts, and in this posture they begged all they met; and from hence were called Cybeles circu- latores, the beggars or jugglers of Cybele, and in Greek—[f/irpKyvprai, from ftfatif, which in this place signifies Cybele, the great mother of the gods, and xyvprns, an alms-gatherer or beggar.
2
Quo differt ab epulo Jovis silicernium ? Silicernium was a funeral banquet to which the oldest sort were invited, and it being the custom to celebrate this feast upon a stone, the supper was termed Silicernium quasi Silicaenium, that is, caena super silicon ; and hence this word came to signify an old man ready for the grave, or a funeral banquet, or rather, as our own proverb has it, To give the crow a pudding.
44 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
to Jove, or the vessels you make use of to pour out wine to the gods above, from those you use for the shades below? What difference between a soothsayer and an embalmer, for they are both employed about the entrails of the dead? Nevertheless, I must own you act consistently with yourselves in performing divine honours to the dead emperors, because you did it to them living ; and no doubt but the gods will acknowledge the favour, and thank you for putting them and their masters, the emperors, upon the level.
But when I see you adore Larentina,1 a public strumpet, with the same honours as you do Juno, Ceres, and Diana, methinks I could wish you had taken into your roll the more noted Lais and Phryne ;2 when you inaugurate Simon Magus3 with a statue and inscription, To the most Holy God; when you canonize a certain
Ganymede4 (I know not who), nursed up in apartments at court, although, indeed, your old gods are not of a better family, yet they cannot but take it very ill that you should offer to make gods at this rate, now-a-days, as much as your forefathers did of old.
1
Larentinam publicam Scortum, etc. This Larentina I take to be the same with Larentia in Lactantius, the wife of Faustulus, the nurse of Romulus, a noted prostitute among the shepherds, afterwards worshipped by the Romans with divine honours, as Faula, the mistress of Hercules, likewise was. Vid. Lactant. lib. i. sec. 20.
2
Laidem. This same Lais was a celebrated strumpet of Corinth, of whom A. Gellius tells this story : That Demosthenes went privily to her to know her price, she asked him a thousand drachmae, or a talent, at which Demosthenes, being astonished, replied,
ou0k w0nou~mai muri/wn draxmw~n metame/leian, I will not buy repentance at so dear a rate. Vid. A. Gell. lib. i. cap. 8. And hence that of Horace—
Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum.
3
Simonem Magum Statua et Inscriptione Sancti Dei inauguratis. Concerning this statue and inscription to Simon Magus, for which the Fathers have suffered so unjustly from some critics, I have spoken at large in my notes upon Justin's
Apology.
4
Nescio quem, etc. This nameless person struck at by Tertullian, Justin Martyr speaks out: it was Antinous, Hadrian's Ganymede, and by his order consecrated for this service.
—o—
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
45
CHAPTER XIV.
THAT THE HEATHENS DO BUT MOCK THEIR GODS IN OFFERING
THE REFUSE AND THE VILEST PARTS OF THE SACRIFICE.
I SHALL now take a review of the rites of your religion, but will not insist upon the quality of your sacrifices, which you know to be the oldest and scabidest beasts you can find; if they happen to be fat and good, you chop off the hoofs and some outside bit?, and such pieces only you vouchsafe your gods, which you bestow upon your dogs and slaves. Instead of offering Hercules the tenth of your goods,1 you hardly lay one third of it upon his altar; not that I blame you for this, for believe me, I take it for a great instance of your wisdom, to save some of that which otherwise would be all lost.
But I shall turn to your writings; and, bless me! what strange stuff about your gods do I find, even in your institutions of prudence, and such books as are designed to polish a gentleman, and form him to all the offices of a civil life ! Here I find your gods engaged by pairs like gladiators, one against another, helter skelter, some for Greeks, and some for Trojans. Venus wounded with a human
1
De Decima Herculis. Pliny in his Natural History, lib. xii. cap. 14, mentions a law in Arabia which obliged every merchant to offer the tenth of his frankincense, the product of that country, to the god Sabis. We find also in Justin, lib. xviii. cap. 7, that the Carthaginians sent the tenth of their spoils, taken in the Sicilian war, to Hercules of Tyre. The Ethiopians paid the tenth to their god Assabinus. Vid. Plin. lib. xii. cap. 19. The Roman general Sylla dedicated the tenth of all his estate to Hercules, and so likewise did M. Crassus. Vid. Plutarch in Sylla et Crasso. Instances in abundance of this kind are to be seen in Selden's Hist, of Tithes, cap. 3, Mountag. diatrib. p. I, cap. 3, and in Spencer de leg. Hebr. lib. iii. cap. 10. Now from hence will arise a question, how it is possible that nations so remote, and who never seem to have had the least commerce or acquaintance with each other, should come to hit upon the same notion as to dedicate an exact tenth, no more nor no less. This proportion is certainly in itself a thing indifferent, and consequently not discover- able by the light of nature, and the practice was too constant, regular, and universal to be ascribed to humour or fancy ; nor can it with any probability be thought to have spread over the world from the Jewish nation, a nation debarred from corresponding with the Gentile world, and morally hated for the singularities of their religion, and besides the custom of dedicating a tenth, was a custom long before the Jews were an established people ; it seems therefore most reasonable to believe that this custom-like sacrifice, priesthood and marriage, was derived from Adam to Noah ; and from him continued by his posterity to the confusion at Babel, and by means of that universal dispersion spread over all the world.
46
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
shaft in rescuing her son Aeneas1 from Diomedes, just upon the point of killing him. The god of war in chains for thirteen months, and in a very lamentable pickle ; and Jove by the help of a monster narrowly escaping the like treatment from the rest of the celestial gang. One while he is represented crying for his Sarpedon, another while in the arms of his grunting sister, recounting his amours, and protesting that of all his mistresses she is the darling. Besides, which of your poets takes not the liberty to disgrace a god for a compliment to his prince ? One makes Apollo King Admetus's shepherd; another makes Neptune bricklayer to Laomedon; and the man of lyrics, Pindar, I mean, sings of Aesculapius's being thunderstruck for abusing his skill in physic out of covetousness. But I must needs say that Jove did ill, if Jove was the thunderer, in being so unnatural to his nephew, and so envious to so fine an artist. However, these things, if true, ought not to be divulged; nor invented, if false, by any who pretend so much zeal for the gods and their religion. But neither tragedians nor comedians are one bit more tender of the reputation of your deities ; for you shall not meet a prologue that is not stuffed with the disasters and excesses of the family of some god or other. I shall say nothing of the philosophers—let the instance of Socrates serve for all—who in derision of your gods swore by an oak, a goat, and a dog. But Socrates, you say, was put to death for thus denying the gods ; it must be confessed, indeed, that truth has always been on the suffer- ing side, but yet since the Athenians repented of the sentence, and revenged his death with that of his accusers, and erected to him a statue of gold in their very temple; this, I say, is argument enough that upon second thoughts they came over to Socrates, and ap- proved his testimony against the gods. But Diogenes also rallies very merrily upon Hercules, and the Roman cynic Varro2 as waggishly introduces three hundred Joves or Jupiters without heads.
1
Quod filium suum Aeneam pene interfectum, etc. These words are not in Rigaltius's edition, but being in that of Pamelius, and an illustration of the story, I have translated them ; and the following fables, which the poets have told to the eternal disgrace of the heathen gods, are so common, and so frequently occur in all the Apologists, that I will not presume the reader ignorant.
2
Romanus Cynicus Varro. He reckons up forty-three Hercules, as well as three hundred headless Joves. Vid. Tiraquell upon Alex. ab Alex. lib. ii. p. 379.
—o—
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
47
CHAPTER XV.
CONCERNING THE SHAMEFUL REPRESENTATION OF THE GODS
UPON THE STAGE AND AMPHITHEATRE.
THE profane wits are continually at work to raise you pleasure at the disgrace of the gods; when you see the farces of Lentulus or Hostilius acted, tell me whether it be the mimics or the gods you laugh at. You can sit out Anubis the adulterer,1 and see Luna- masculus played, or Diana whipped, or the last will and testament of dying Jove, or the three hunger-starved Hercules. But besides these pieces of buffoonery, all your comedies and tragedies2 are chiefly freighted with the uncleanness of your gods. It is a public pleasure to behold Sol in sadness for the fall of his son Phaeton. You can see without a blush the mother of the gods, old Cybele, sighing after a coy shepherd. You can bear to hear all the titles of Jove's adventures sung upon the theatre; and see with patience Paris sit in judgment upon Juno, Venus, and Minerva. What a lewd and infamous head is that which is masked over to personate a god! What a prostitute body, formed for the stage by a long
1
Moechum Anubim, Lunam Masculum, etc. We may easily conjecture from the several arguments of these farces, that they were a lampoon and public mockery of the gods then in worship ; but none of those mentioned are extant as I know of. The titles of all, but that of Luna Masculus, do in some measure explain them ; and if it may be forgiven in a matter of no moment, and where the commentators are silent, to put in my opinion, it is this,—There was in Assyria among the Carrae a temple dedicated to Luna, in which whoever offered his supplications to Luna was sure to be under petticoat government ; but he who sacrificed to Lunus should continue master of his wife. Vid. Al. Spartian. in Antonin. Caracalla. This no doubt was a subject comical enough for the wits of the time to make merry with the goddess Luna, and the god Lunus, which I take to be the Luna Masculus; though there may be another meaning not fit to be mentioned.
2
Sed et Histrionum literae omnem foeditatem eorum designant. An. Urb. Cond. 400, there happened a great sickness, and the Romans superstitiously conceiting that the wrath of the gods could no otherwise be propitiated than by the institu- tion of some new games, sent for certain stage-players from Hetruria, which they called Histriones, from the Hetrurian word hister, which signifies such a player. Vid. Polydor. de Invent, lib. iii. cap. 13. These plays in time, especially the Mimicae, grew to that excessive lewdness, that the pantomimi were put down by Domitian. Vid. Sueton. in vita ejus, cap. 7. Afterwards expelled by Trajan ; and the Histriones by Tiberius. Vid. Tacit, lib. iv., and even by Nero, Tacit, lib. xiii., and Sueton. in vita ejus, cap. 13. And had Tertullian lived in our day, and seen the heathenish freedoms of the stage in a Christian commonwealth, he would have passed a severer censure upon the authors, players, and spectators, who countenance them without a blush, than he did upon those in the age in which he lived.
48
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
course of effeminacy, is that which plays Minerva or Hercules! What profanation and violence is this to divine majesty! While you applaud the actors, do you not hiss your gods out of the world ? But may be I am to think you more religious in the amphitheatre, where the gods are brought in dancing upon human blood, and upon the dead bodies of criminals; the gods, I say, which supply the fable, unless it be when the poor actors are forced to suffer to the life, and be the very gods themselves. For we have seen an actor truly suffer castration in personating the god Atys of Pessinus ; and another playing Hercules in real flames; and among the ludi- crous barbarities1 which are exhibited at noonday, for the entertain- ment of those who are more greedy of them than dinner. I could not forbear smiling to see Mercury going about with a rod of iron red hot, probing the bodies to fetch out the souls, and Jove's brother Pluto, in like manner, with his mallet in his hand to finish those that were not quite dead, and make them ready for the ferry-boat. But now if every one of these things, and many more of the same complexion I could produce, notoriously tend to the disquiet of your gods in possession, and to lay their divine honours in the dust,
1
Inter Ludicras meridianorum crudelitates. To understand this, we must remember that in the morning men were brought forth upon the theatre to fight with wild beasts, and these morning combatants were allowed arms offensive and defensive. Another sort were brought forth about noon (called therefore Meridiani) naked, with swords only in one hand cutting, and with the other hand empty, grasping and tearing each other's flesh. Vid. Sueton. Claud. 34 ; so that Seneca, Ep. 7, comparing these two sorts of combats, sayeth, Quicquid antea pugnatum est, misericordia fuit. But that which I think more material to remark (especially since Pamelius and Rigaltius have not) is, the peculiar light that this custom of Meridian cruellies lets into the 9th verse of the 4th chapter of St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. The words are these, "I think God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed unto death ; for we arc a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men." This verse runs all in terms agonistical,
e0sxa&touj, hath set forth us last, or as the Meridian gladiators, the word
a0pe/deicen is properly Ostendit. which signifies the author or exhibitor of these inhuman sights ; and Lipsius makes Ostendere Munus in Tully to be the same with Proponere Munus in Suetonius, both signifying the setter forth or donor of these combats, Vid. Lips, in sat. lib. ii. cap. 18. God hath set forth us the apostles last,
e0piqanati/ouj, as men appointed unto death, just as the last gladiators were; and
qe/atron e0genh&qhmen, we are made a spectacle. All which evidently relate to the Meridianorum crudelitates ; and Tertullian, lib. de pud. p. 566, cites the aforementioned verse thus, Puta nos Deus Apostolos novissimos elegit, velut Bestiarios; "I think God has chosen out us apostles last, as the bestiarii, or men condemned to be torn in pieces by wild beasts." These being the last and bloodiest spectacles, which for that day ap- peared upon the theatre, and for which many were so fond that they would stay out noon and lose their dinner ; for this likewise Rigaltius would have included in this expression, though I think without much reason. However, I have translated it with this intimation.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
49
why then they cannot be looked upon as acted upon a public stage, but merely in ridicule of religion, both by the actors and spectators also, who delight in such plays. But these you will say are ludicrous and pastimes only; but now if I give you an appendix of some serious debaucheries, which your consciences will testify to be as true as what I have just now spoken of with relation to the theatre, how that adulteries are become a merchandise in the very temple, and women picked up at the altars, and the lust fulfilled in the apartments of the sacristans, and under the same pontific vestments, the very incense still smoking before their eyes. If these, I say, are abominations in vogue among the heathen, I do not see but the heathen gods have more reason to put in their complaints against them than against Christians.
The sacrilegious profaners of temples are only among yourselves ; for Christians never enter your temples while you are serving your idols ; if they worshipped your gods, they might serve them perhaps as you do. But if Christians do not worship the things you worship, pray what is it, say you, that they do worship ? This then is the subject now under examination, that we Christians are the wor- shippers of the true God, who do not worship your false ones, nor go any longer astray after them, when our eyes have been opened to see our error. Here then I shall present you with the whole series of our religion, having first returned an answer to some groundless objections against it
—o—
CHAPTER XVI.
CONCERNING THE ASS'S HEAD, AND OTHER SUCH LIKE VANITIES
CHARGED UPON THE CHRISTIANS.
FOR some of you have dreamed yourselves into a belief that an ass's head is the Christian's God. This was insinuated first by Cornelius Tacitus,1 who in his fifth book, entering upon the Jewish
1
Cornelius Tacitus hanc suspicionem inseruit. This story concerning the ass's head, and the ground of worshipping it, is not only reported confidently by Tacitus, but also by Plutarch. Vid. Plut. Sympos. lib. iv. Quest. 5, p. 670, and so likewise by Appio the Alexandrian many years before, in his books against the Jews. And this fable has been as confidently taken up, and as
50
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
war under Vespasian, begins with the history of that nation, their original, name, and religion, and giving a loose to his invention, reports that the Jews being delivered, or as he will have it, banished from Egypt, and being in great want of water in the deserts of Arabia, put themselves under the conduct of some wild asses they met by chance, concluding that they were going to drink after pasture, and being in the very article of necessity thus luckily revived, out of gratitude to their benefactors, consecrated a head resembling that of the beasts who had befriended them in extremity. This account I take to have bred the opinion about the ass's head; because we, deriving our religion from the Jews, might well be thought to be initiated in the worship of the same idol.
But yet this same author Cornelius Tacitus, in truth a great broacher of lies, in the very same history relates that Cn. Pompey having sacked Jerusalem, to gratify his curiosity in discovering the mysteries of the Jewish religion, went into the temple, and found not one statue or image therein ; whereas, had they worshipped any graven image, he had certainly found it in the most holy place; and so much the rather because there the vanity had been in no danger of a discovery from strangers, that being a place which the high priests alone were permitted to enter, and which was covered with a veil that kept it from every other eye. As for the objection of the ass's head, I cannot but admire you should insist upon it against Christians, you who cannot deny but that you pay divine honours to all the beasts of burthen, to asses' heads and bodies both, together with their goddess Epona.1 But here, perhaps, lies the crime, that among the worshippers of every animal we should
ridiculously improved by some modern atheists, to discredit the miracle of Moses in making the waters flow out of the rock, who content themselves to solve this mighty work only by saying with an air of assurance that Moses did all lie did in this by the help of a wild ass, which he made to follow him. by the sagacity of which thirsty ass he discovered a secret spring in the rock.
1
Cum sua Epona. This Epona was the goddess of stables, and is likewise taken notice of, and read by Minutius Felix just as Rigaltius reads it. Though there is a terrible dispute among the critics, a great cry, and very little wool, about the spelling and quantity of this goddess's name; some spelling it Ilippona, and making the middle syllable long ; others spelling it as Rigallius does, and making the middle syllable short, and thus Prudentius in his Apotheosi makes it,
Nemo Cloacinae aut Eponae super astra Deabus.
Whoever thinks it worth while may see this point fully cleared by Dr. Holyday in his note upon that passage in the 8th Sat. of Juvenal. Jurat solam Eponam.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
51
be the ass-worshippers only. I come now to another calumny, which blackens us with the adoration of a cross;1 and here I shall prove the calumniator himself to be a fellow-worshipper or sharer in the scandal; for he that worships any piece of timber is guilty of the thing charged upon us; for what signifies the difference of dress and figure, while the matter and substance is the same—they are wooden gods at best ? Yet where is the difference between a plain cross and your Athenian Pallas, and Pharian Ceres, which
1
Sed et qui Crucis Religiosos nos putat. The primitive Christians (as I have already observed upon Justin Martyr), from signing themselves in baptism with the sign of the cross, and the constant use of it almost in the most common actions of life in honour of their crucified Master, were defamed by the heathens as worshippers of a cross. Tertullian therefore in this place sets himself to wipe off this scandal from the Christians, and does it as effectually, I think, as words can do it. And yet Pamelius is so very sanguine as to affirm that this passage, however understood, most certainly makes for the worship of the cross. That is, let Tertullian speak what he will against the worship of the cross, yet he most certainly speaks for it; but let us consider the case. Our author is here not only answering but retorting the objection of worshipping a cross upon the objectors themselves, and to this purpose makes use of the argument ad hominem ; and says that they of all men had the least reason to charge the worship of a cross upon Christians, because there was not an image they erected but what resembled a cross in part; and then with his usual smartness concludes that we who worship an entire cross, if we do worship it, methinks have much the better on it of you, who worship it only by halves. "If we do worship it," says this commentator, is only a wise and wary expression, frequent with the primitive Fathers ; for fear, had he confessed the worship of the cross freely, it might have confirmed the heathen in their old idolatry. And this is so true, says Pamelius, that in the 21 cap. Tertullian durst not speak out that the Christians worshipped Christ, but God only through Christ. But wise reserves and wary expressions, and such pious frauds, were strange things to primitive Christians. Idolatry was the reigning sin of these times, and what all the Christian apologists you will find labour most of all to expose and ridicule out of the world. Justin Martyr spends great part of his First Apology in doing so, plainly and publicly affirming that the Christians worshipped one God only in the Trinity of Persons, and argues at the same rate against worshipping of crosses as Tertullian here does, Minulius Felix does the very same likewise, and says in the person of Octavius, Cruces etiam nec colimus, nec optamus; "as for crosses, we neither desire nor worship them," p. 89. And our Tertullian is so bold a writer, so free and open in his confessions, and so liberal of his satire upon all occasions, that he would be the last man I should charge with reserve and caution. The useful distinction between Latria and Dulia never entered into his head ; nor did any of the first Fathers ever imagine that there was anything in the Christian religion which if discovered might confirm the heathens in their idolatry. And in the very chapter referred to by Pamelius, our author makes it his business to vindicate the Christians from the charge of idolatry, by proving Christ to be the Logos, the Son of God, and truly and properly God, and that this hypostatic union of the divine with the human nature was the foundation of that divine worship which Christians paid to Christ; to which excellent chapter I recommend the reader.
52
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
are but rude, unpolished posts exposed without a stroke or im- pression of the artist upon them ? There is not an image you erect but resembles a cross in part; so that we who worship an entire cross, if we do worship it, methinks have much the better on it of you who worship but half a cross.
I have already mentioned how all your earthen gods derive their divinity from a cross, the image-maker putting the clay upon crosslike engines before he forms it; but you likewise adore your goddess Victoria in this form, for crosses are the inward part of this deity, your trophies being only poles laid across, and covered over with the spoils of the enemy. For indeed the Roman religion is entirely martial; they worship their standards, and swear by their standards, and pay diviner respects to their standards more than to any other god whatever. All the rich embossments and embroidery of images upon your colours are but necklaces to a cross, and the flags and streamers are but the robes of crosses; and really I cannot but commend your care and tenderness in not letting your crosses go naked, and not consecrating them till they are in the best apparel. Others with a greater show of reason take us for worshippers of the sun.1 These send us to the religion of Persia, though we are far from adoring a painted sun, like them who carry about his image everywhere upon their bucklers. This suspicion took its rise from hence, because it was observed that Christians prayed with their faces towards the east. But some of you likewise out of an affectation of adoring some of the celestial bodies wag your lips towards the rising sun; but if we, like them,
1
Alii plane humanius et verisimilius solem credant Deum nostrum. Here again it is very observable (though Pamelius thought it his best way not to observe it) that those who objected the worship of the sun to Christians, did it with greater appearance of truth than those who objected the worshipping a cross. The ground of this slander you have in the text; but that which I think worthy our notice is this, that Tertullian in this place expressly says that the Christians in his time worshipped towards the east; he says the same likewise in his book ad Nat. lib. i. cap. 13, and so does Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. 7. And also Origen, Hom. 5, in Numer. cap. 4, p. 210. Their altars were usually placed to the east, and when they worshipped they always turned to the altar. And therefore when Socrates mentions the church of Antioch, in which he says the altar stood towards the west, he withal adds that the situation of the altar was inverted. Vid. Socrat. Hist. lib. v. cap. 22. As the Jews therefore bowed themselves down towards the mercy-seat, so did the Christians in like manner bow their faces towards the holy table, praying with the publican, "God be merciful to me a sinner ;" as is evident from the liturgies of St. Chrysostom and St. Basil. So little knowledge of antiquity, or so much wilful disrespect to the best Christians in the purest ages, do some men show in condemning the most primitive and reverential ceremony of bowing towards the table of the Lord.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
53
celebrate Sunday as a festival and day of rejoicing, it is for a reason vastly distant from that of worshipping the sun; for we solemnize the day after Saturday in contradistinction to those who call this day their Sabbath, and devote it to ease and eating, deviating from the old Jewish customs, which they are now very ignorant of.
But there is a strange edition of our God now exposed about the city; the picture was published first by a rascally gladiator, very notable for his dodging tricks in combating with beasts, and published, I say, with this inscription—Onochoetes the God of the Christians.1 He had the ears of an ass, with a hoof on one foot, and holding a book in another, and clothed in a gown. We could not forbear smiling both at the name and the extravagance of the figure. But they certainly ought to fall down before this biformous deity, upon his first appearance, who are used to worship such monstrous compounds, branching out into the heads of a dog and a lion, and with horns like a buck and a ram, and with haunches like a goat, and shanks like a serpent, with wings upon their feet and backs.
But this is over and above, because the world should see that I have not omitted anything industriously, and not only answered all the objections, but turned them upon our adversaries; and now having wiped ourselves clean of their aspersions, I shall proceed to the demonstration of the Christian religion.
—o—
CHAPTER XVII.
CONCERNING THE GOD OF CHRISTIANS.
THE God we worship is one God, that Almighty Being who fetched this whole mass of matter, with all the elements, bodies and spirits which compose the universe, purely out of nothing, by the word of His power which spoke them into being, and by that wisdom which ranged them into this admirable order, for a becoming image and glorious expression of His divine majesty,
1
Deus Christianorum Onochoetes. Concerning the various lections of this word, see Rigaltius upon this place, and Voss. de Idol. lib. iii. cap. 5, p. 563.
54
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
which world the Greeks call by a word implying beauty. This same God is invisible, though we discern His infinite majesty in all His works, and whom we cannot touch, though represented to us by divine revelation, and united to us by His Spirit; and incom- prehensible, though we come to some imperfect ideas of Him by the help of our senses.
These are the characters of the true God, but that God which is sensibly visible, palpable, and comprehensible is of less value than the very eyes that see Him, and the hands that handle Him, and the understanding that grasps Him; for that which is immense is measurable by nothing but itself, the things that are, force the knowledge of Him indeed in some measure upon us, but our capacities can never hold Him. And thus by the evidence of His works, and the immensity of His being, God becomes intelligible, and at the same time passes all understanding. And this it is that renders men without excuse, because they care not to retain that God in their knowledge, whom they cannot avoid knowing. For shall I show you Him in the vast variety of wonders which encompass our beings, and preserve them, and which serve not only to fill us with delight, but awe and wonder? Shall I show you Him from the inward testimony of your very soul; which, notwithstanding its pressure in this prison of the body; notwith- standing it has been scribbled over by vicious institutions, or inclosed by bad examples; notwithstanding it has been emasculated by lust and concupiscence, and in bondage to the worship of false gods. Yet nevertheless, I say, when the soul comes to herself, as from a debauch, or after sleep, or a fit of sickness, and recovers her health and reflection, she has recourse to the name of the God, and invokes Him by the single name of the God. This being the proper title, and emphatically expressive of the true God; the great God, the good God. the God which is the giver of all good things, are forms of speech in every one's mouth upon special occasions. This God is appealed to as the Judge of the world, by saying, God sees everything, and I recommend myself to God, and God will recompense me. Oh ! what are all these sayings but the writings of God upon the heart, but the testimonies of the soul thus far by nature Christian? And when she has these words in her mouth, she turns not her eyes to the capitol, but up to heaven, as well knowing that to be the residence of the living God, and that He is the author of her being, and heaven the place of her original.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
55
CHAPTER XVIII.
CONCERNING THE SEPTUAGINT, OR THE WRITINGS OF THE PROPHETS
TRANSLATED INTO GREEK BY THE ENDEAVOURS OF PTOLEMY
PHILADELPHIA.
BUT in order to bring men to a more perfect and powerful knowledge of the divine nature, and also of the methods of His wisdom, and the laws of His will, God has added to the light of nature an instrument in writing of these things, for the instruction of those who are willing to be at the pains of inquiring after Him,1 and desirous to find Him in their inquiries, and to believe Him when found, and serve Him when believed. For this end, the most just and innocent persons, such who have lived up most faithfully to the instructions of nature, and consequently the most becoming or the best prepared subjects for larger communications of divine knowledge, such, I say, were sent out from the beginning with mighty effusions of the Holy Spirit to preach to the world that there is but one only God, that it is He who created all things and formed man out of the earth (for He indeed is the true Prometheus), who methodized the world into this variety of seasons, and in succeeding ages published His divine majesty and vengeance by a deluge of water, and fire, and brimstone from heaven, who has positively determined the laws He will be served by, if we will serve Him with acceptance ; which laws you know not and will not learn ; but to the observers of them has destined rewards, who, when He comes to judgment at the last clay, having raised all the dead2 that have been dead from the beginning of the world, and restored to every man his body, and summoned the whole world before Him to examine and render to all according to their works, Pie will recompense His true worshippers with life eternal, but will sentence the wicked into perpetual running streams of fire everlasting.
1
Si qui velit de Deo inquirere, etc. Revelation was added for the assistance of corrupted nature, but then it was so wisely tempered with light and darkness, that those only who search the Scriptures with an honest heart, in order to believe and obey what they find, will be the better for them. Whoever reads them with such a disposition will find himself necessitated to believe them ; according to that of our Saviour, " If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself."
2
Suscitatis omnibus ab initio defunctis. Here again we find Tertullian, as well as Justin Martyr, expressly against Mr. Dodwell's notion of a limited resurrection founded upon the natural mortality of the soul.
56
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
These things were once the subject of our wit and drollery,1 as they are now of yours; we have been heathens, as you are, for men are not born, but made Christians. As to those excellent person- ages I mentioned, so extraordinarily assisted to preach the world into the notion of one only God, they were called prophets from their office of foretelling things to come. The oracles they delivered, and the miracles they wrought for the confirmation of divine truth, were con- signed to writing, and the books treasured up, and are preserved to this day ; for the most learned of the Ptolemys, surnamed Philadelphus, and the most curious man living in all sorts of literature, and rivalling Pisistratus,2 I suppose, in the glories of a library, among other choice pieces which he hunted after, famed either for their antiquity or the rarities they contained, by the advice of his library- keeper, Demetrius Phalereus, the most approved grammarian and
1
Haec et nos risimus aliquando, de vestris fuimus. From these words we find that Tertullian had been a heathen, and such a one too as had made very merry with the Christian religion. He had as quick and pointed a wit, and as good a knack at rallying and ridicule as the best of them, and his talent this way, and his course of life (which by his own confession was none of the chastest), no doubt provoked all his satire against a doctrine so new, and so cross to his inclinations. However, upon serious consideration, and weighing matters well together, he was overpowered by the goodness and evidence of divine truth, in spite of his passions. And the libertines and unbelievers of our own age (who are by no means before- hand with our Tertullian either in point of wit or reason), would they but as impartially examine the proofs of Christianity, they would find themselves as unable to withstand them as our author confesses himself to be.
2
Pisistratum opinor, etc. The libraries of Ptolemy and Pisistratus the tyrant are both mentioned by A. Gellius, lib. vi. cap. 17, but Tertullian speaks doubt- fully whether Ptolemy Philadelphus erected his library in imitation of Pisistratus or no, and not without reason, because it is probable that the king of Pergamus, in imitation of whom Ptolemy set up his library, was Eumenes. All the ancient Fathers have believed after Josephus and Philo, that the version not only of the Pentateuch but of the whole Bible commonly called the Septuagint, was com- posed by seventy-two Jews sent to Ptolemy Philadelphus, who desired to have the Jewish books in Greek to adorn his magnificent library at Alexandria, under the care and supervisal of Demetrius Phalereus, an Athenian. What the critics have since urged against this opinion of the Fathers, and against the authority of Aristaeus and Aristobulus, upon whom (say they) the Fathers took this story in trust, would be too tedious to insert here, and therefore I refer the reader to the learned Du Pin's preliminary Dissertation about the authors of the Bible, vol. i. sec. 3, p. 35. However, I cannot but say that I do verily believe that there was a Greek version of the Bible made in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus ; for to me it does not seem credible that the authors of the books which pass under the titles of Aristaeus and Aristobulus entirely forged the whole story ; much more reasonable is it to believe that these authors only dressed up a certain matter of fact with some additions of their own. F. Simon conjectures that this version was called the Septuagint, because it was approved by the Sanhedrim ; but this, like most of his conjectures, is wild, and without any foundation. See likewise B. Stillingfleet's Orig. Sac. lib. i. cap. 3.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
57
critic of his time, sent to the Jews for their sacred writings in their own mother tongue, and which were in their hands alone; for the prophets were raised up out of this nation, and the prophecies addressed to them, as a peculiar people, chosen of God out of respect to their forefathers. Those who are now called Jews went heretofore by the name of Hebrews, and from hence is the title of the Hebrew tongue. The Jews gratified the king in the request, and not only sent him their Bible, but also for fear their language should not be understood, sent seventy-two interpreters to translate it into Greek. This is attested by Menedemus, the famous assertor of a providence, who joined with the Jews in this notion, and was a great admirer of their writings. We have likewise the testimony of Aristaeus for the truth of this, who composed a book in Greek upon the same subject. And in Ptolemy's library near the temple of Serapis, among other curiosities are these sacred writings shown to this day. And besides all this, the Jews frequently and publicly on every Sabbath read the same; they are tolerated to do it, and pay a tax for the toleration. Whoever hears them will find the worship of one God, and whoever will be at the pains to under- stand them will find himself necessitated to believe them.
—o—
CHAPTER XIX.
CONCERNING THE ANTIQUITY OF THE WRITINGS OF THE PROPHETS.
ONE great argument for the authority of these sacred writings is the greatness of their antiquity;1 an argument you yourselves are pleased to make use of for the defence of your own religion. I say, therefore, that before any of your public monuments and inscrip-
1
Primam Instrumentis istis authoritatem summa Antiquitas vindicat. The strongest and shrewdest adversary Christianity ever met with was the philosopher Porphyrius. He was a man too well versed in antiquity to depend upon the vain pretences of the Graecians, and therefore made it his business to search after the most ancient records, to find something to match the antiquity of Holy Scripture. And after all his search, he could find no author to vie with Moses but Sanchoni- athon ; and yet when he had made the most of him, he was forced to allow him younger than Moses, though he made him older than the Trojan wars. Nay, he goes about to prove the truth of Sanchoniathon's history by the agreement of it with that of Moses, concerning the Jews both as to their names and places, and so this Goliath fell by his own sword, and defended the cause he designed to destroy. Vid. Euseb. Praep. Evang. lib. x. cap. 8, p. 285.
58
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
tions, before any of your forms of government, before the oldest of your books, and the original of many nations, and foundation of many famous cities, and the very greyest of historians ; and lastly, before the invention of letters 1 (the interpreters of things, and the most faithful repositories of action), and hitherto, methinks, I have said but little, I say therefore before the very being of your gods, your temples, oracles, and sacrifices, were the writings of one of our prophets extant, which are the treasury of the Jewish religion, and by consequence of the Christian. If you have heard of Moses the prophet, I will tell you his age; he was contemporary with Inachus, the first king of the Argives older by three hundred and ninety-three years than Danaus, the oldest in your histories. About a thousand years before the destruction of Troy, or as others reckon, about five hundred years before Homer ; 2 the rest of the prophets, though later than Moses, yet the latest of them fall in with some of the first of your sages, lawgivers, and historians. The proof of these things is not a matter of much difficulty, but only it would swell this
1
Ipsas denique effigies literarum, etc. Before the very use or knowledge of letters. It is generally acknowledged by Herodotus, Philostratus, and the most learned of the Greeks, that the Graecians received their very letters from the Phoenicians by Cadmus ; and Parius, the author of the Greek Chronicle in the Marmora Arundeliana, makes Cadmus's coming into Greece to be in the time of Hellen, the son of Deucalion, which according to Cappellus was Anno Mun. 2995, though Mr. Selden sets it something lower, in the eleventh generation after Moses, about the time of Samuel; and that the Greek alphabet came from the Phoenician or Hebrew, is evident from the very sound of the names of the letters, as well as their form and order. Thus the Greek
a!lfa answers to the Hebrew aleph, bh~ta
to beth, ga&mma to gimel, de/lta
to daloth, etc., all which, both as to form, order, and name, you may see in a diagram exhibited by the great Bochart. Geogr. lib. i. cap. 20. And for anything of history in Greece, we meet with nothing before the beginning of the Olympiads, when the world was above three thousand years' standing.
2
Quingentis amplius et Homerum. Five hundred years before Hom, Josephus in his first book against Apion says that the Graecians of all nations, though they boasted so much of antiquity, had the least reasons to do it; for they were but of yesterday in respect of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Phoenicians, and that notwithstanding they boasted of the invention of letters from Cadmus, yet could they not produce any inscription or sign of letters in his time, and that Homer was the most ancient book extant among them ; nor was this left in writing, but learnt only by heart like other songs, and therefore we find so many fragments and incongruities in his works when they came to be committed to writing from bare memory. But herein Josephus is thought to have strained the point too far, because of the inscription of Amphitrio at Thebes, in the temple of Apollo Ismenius in the old Ionic letters, and two others of the same age to be seen in Herodotus, and for some other reasons. Vid. Bochart. Geog. lib. i. cap. 20. But however this be, certain it is that we find no records of history in Greece till the world was full three thousand years of age and more.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
59
discourse beyond the bounds of an Apology, it is more tedious than hard; for abundance of volumes are to be carefully searched into, to make the computation by a different gesture of the fingers.1 We must unlock the archives of the most ancient people, of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Phoenicians. We must appeal to the writers of those countries who obliged posterity with the knowledge of these things, namely, Manethon the Egyptian, Berosus the Chaldean, Iromus the Phoenician, King of Tyre, and their followers, Ptolemy of Mendes, and Menander the Ephesian, and Demetrius Phalereus, and King Juba, and Apion, and Thallus, and Josephus, a Jewish writer of Jewish antiquities, who either approved these authors or discovered their errors.2 We must also compare the registers of Greece to see what things were done, and when, in order to adjust the successive periods and links of time, which is necessary to clear up history, and set actions in their proper light. And yet, methinks, I have done this already in some measure, and proved, in part, what I proposed, by giving you here a sprinkling of those authors, where you may see the proofs at large. But I conclude it better not to pursue this point further, for fear that by being in haste, either I should not say enough to set the matter beyond dispute, or else by pursuing it particularly I should deviate too far from the main design of this Apology.
—o—
CHAPTER XX.
THAT THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROPHECIES IN HOLY SCRIP-
TURES PROVE THEM TO BE OF AUTHORITY DIVINE.
IF for the reasons aforesaid I have been shorter than you might expect in my proofs of the antiquity of Holy Scripture, I shall
1
Multis instrumentis cum digitorum suppatariis gesticulis adsidendum est. Abundance; of volumes are to be searched into to make the computation by a. different gesture of the fingers. The multiplication table performed by a different gesture of the fingers is now almost known to everybody ; but whether it was in use in Tertullian's time, and referred to here by him, I will not say ; but surely he has exactly expressed it. And the reason for calling the figures from 1 to 9 digits, I believe, was from this computation by the fingers.
2
Manethon Aegyptius, et Berosus Chaldaeus, et Iromus Phoenix, Sectatores quoque eorum Mendesius Ptolemaeus, et Maenander Ephesius et Demetrius Phalerus. Concerning this passage, and the antiquity and credibility of these historians, I desire the reader to consult Bochartus, de Lingua Phoenic et Pun. lib. ii. cap. 17, and likewise B. Stillingfleet's Orig. Sac. lib. i. cap. 2, 3, etc.
60
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
make you amends now with proofs of much greater importance; I will show you the Majesty, the God that speaks in these writings; I will demonstrate the divineness of their authority, if you are still in doubt about their antiquity. Nor need I be long upon this article, or send you a great way for instruction; the world before you, this present age, and the events therein, shall be your in- structors. For there is nothing of moment now done but what has been foretold ; and what we ourselves see, our forefathers have heard from the prophets. They have heard that cities should be swallowed up of earthquakes, and islands invaded by seas, and nations torn in pieces by foreign and intestine wars, and kingdom split against kingdom, and famine and pestilence take their inarches through the world, and every country swarm with proper evils; that the beasts of the mountains should lay waste the plains, that the weak and mighty should rise and fall by turns, that justice should grow scarce and iniquity abound, that arts and sciences should lie uncultivated, and the seasons of the year be unkindly, and the elements take an exorbitant course, and the order of nature be disturbed with monsters and prodigies ;—all these things were written beforehand for our admonition. For while we suffer, we read our sufferings; while we reflect upon the prophecies, we find them a-fulfilling; and this I take to be a proper and most sensible proof of the divine authority of these writings, to feel their predic- tions verifying upon ourselves. Hence it is that we come to be so infallibly certain of many things not yet come to pass, from the experience we have of those that are; because those were presignified by the same Spirit with these which we see fulfilling every day. The very words and characters of both were indited by the impulse of the very same spirit; and this prophetic spirit sees everything always and at once, though men see only by pieces and successions of time, and arc forced to distinguish between the beginning of a prophecy, and the fulfilling it, to separate present from future and past from present.
Wherein therefore I beseech you now, are Christians to blame for believing things to come, who have two such motives to believe, or two such mighty pillars to lean upon, as the past and present accomplishment of the predictions contained in Holy Scripture ?
—o—
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
61
CHAPTER XXI.
CONCERNING THE BIRTH AND CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS CHRIST.
BUT because I have already declared the Christian religion to have its foundation in the most ancient of monuments, the sacred writings of the Jews; and yet many among you well know us to be a novel sect risen up in the reign of Tiberius, and we ourselves confess the charge; and because you should not take umbrage that we shelter ourselves only under the venerable pretext of this old religion, which is tolerated among you, and because we differ from them, not only in point of age, but also in the observation of meats, festivals, circumcision, etc., nor communicate with them so much as in name, all which seems to look very odd if we are servants of the same God as the Jews;—therefore I think it necessary to explain myself a little particularly upon this head, and especially because it is in every one's mouth that Christ was a man, and a man, too, condemned to death by the very Jews, which may naturally lead any one at first hearing into a mistake, that we are worshippers of a man, and not of the God of the Jews. However, this their wickedly ungrateful treatment of Christ makes us not ashamed of our Master; so far from it, that it is the joy and triumph of our souls to be called by our Lord's name and con- demned for it; and yet for all this we think no otherwise of God than the Jews did. To make out this, I am obliged to say something of Christ as God.
The Jews once were a people in such favour with God, upon the account of their forefathers' faith and piety, which was the root of all their greatness, both with respect to the increase of their families, and the advance of a kingdom, and their happiness was so unparalleled, that God Himself did them the honour even with His own mouth to prescribe them laws, whereby they might secure His omnipotence on their side, and never turn it against them. But how the degenerate children upon the stock of Abraham's faith, and in confidence of their forefathers' virtue, how egregiously they pro- voked God by deviating from His own positive institutions into profaneness and idolatry; although the Jews themselves will not confess this, yet the present calamities of that people are a sad and standing testimony against them. For they are now a dispersed,1
1
Dispersi, palabundi, et soli ac caeli sui Extorres, etc. Justin Martyr in his First Apology, sec. 62, takes notice that it was a capital crime for a Jew so much
62
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
vagabond people, banished country and climate, strolling about the world without any show of government, either divine or human, and so completely miserable that they have not the poor privilege to visit the Holy Land like strangers, or set a foot upon their native soil ; and while the sacred writings did forethreaten these calamities, they did likewise continually inculcate that the time would come about the last days when out of every nation and country God would choose Himself a people that should serve Him more faith- fully, upon whom He would shed a greater measure of grace in proportion to the merits of the founder of this new worship. The proprietor therefore of this grace, and the master of this institution, this Son of Righteousness and tutor of mankind, was declared the Son of God; but not so that this begotten of God might blush at the name of Son, or the mode of His generation; for it was not from any incestuous mixture of brother and sister, not from any violation of a god with his own daughter, or another man's wife, in the disguise of a serpent, or a bull, or a shower of gold. These are the modes of generation with your Jove, and the offspring of deities you worship ; but the Son of God we adore had a mother indeed, but a mother without uncleanness, without even that which the name of mother seems to imply, for she was a pure virgin. But I shall first set forth the nature of His substance in order to make you apprehend the manner of His nativity.
I have already said that God reared this fabric of the world out of nothing, by His word, wisdom, or power; and it is evident that your sages of old were of the same opinion, that the Ao'yos, that is, the Word, or the Wisdom, was the Maker of the universe, for
as to set a foot upon the Holy Land. And Eusebius from Aristo Pellaeus urges likewise that by the law and constitutions of Adrian the Jews were prohibited to cast even their eyes towards Jerusalem, Eus. lib. iv., Hist. Eccles. cap. 6. Tertullian observes the same here ; and so likewise in his book against the Jews, cap. 13, upon which you will see some remarks by Dr. Grabe in his Spicileg. Pat. see. 2, p. 131, and certainly the distinguishing inisery of this vagabond people even to this day is a strange living monument of the divine wrath ; a mark sot upon them by God for the murder of His Christ, and their obdurate infidelity. But then it ought also to be observed, that as God in judgment hath scattered them through all nations, and not suffered them to have a foot of free land in all the world, yet He hath preserved their name and nation in all places, as distinct from all other people, as if they had continued in the Holy Land ; in which His providence and goodness are conspicuous, that according to the prophecies at His appointed time the veil may be taken away from their faces, that they may look upon Him whom they have pierced, and be converted to that Jesus whom they have crucified and ever since blasphemed.
Tertullian's
Apology for the
Christians. 63
Zeno1 determines the Logos to be the creator and adjuster of every- thing in nature. The same Logos he affirms to be called by the name of Fate, God, Mind of Jove, and Necessity of all Things. Cleanthes2 will have the author of the world to be a spirit which pervades every part of it. And we Christians also do affirm a spirit to be the proper substance of the Logos, by whom all things were made, in which He subsisted before He was spoken out,3 and was the wisdom that assisted at the creation, and the power that presided over the whole work. The Logos or Word issuing forth from that spiritual substance at the creation of the world, and generated by that issuing or progression, is for this reason called the Son of God, and the God, from His unity of substance with God the Father, for God is a Spirit. An imperfect image of this you have in the derivation of a ray from the body of the sun; for this ray is a part without any diminution of the whole, but the sun is always in the ray, because the ray is always from the sun; nor is the substance separated, but only extended. Thus is it in some measure in the eternal genera- tion of the Logos ; He is a spirit of a spirit, a God of God,4 as one
1
Hunc enim Zeno determinat Factitatorum. Lactantius, lib. iv. sec. 9, p. 186, justly says that the term
lo&goj is much more expressive of the Maker of the world, than the Latin Verbum or Sermo, as signifying both the Word and Wisdom of God. And had we still continued the Logos instead of the Word in our English translation, it had, methinks, been a term more majestic and more expressive of the personality of Christ than the Word. This Logos was preached up by Zeno as the disposer of nature and the framer of the world, and was called sometimes Fate, God, Mind of Jove, etc., says Lactantius in the place above cited, just as our author speaks here. Concerning this Zeno, the praeceptor of Antigonus and founder of the Stoics, see Diog. Laer. lib. vii.
2
Haec Cleanthes in Spiritum congerit. Concerning the doctrine of Cleanthes, Zeno's disciple, viii. Lactant. lib. i. sec. 5, p.12.
3
Cui et Sermo insit Pronuncianti, etc. There is a threefold generation of the Son of God frequently mentioned by the primitive writers. The first is the true and proper generation of the Son, which was from the Father before all worlds. The second is the progression of the Logos from His Father at the creation, which they call
proe/leusij, e2reucij, etc. The third was at His incarnation in the womb of the Blessed Virgin overshadowed by the power of the Most High. The second kind of generation is that which Tertullian hints at in the words cited. For the fuller satisfaction in this point I advise the reader to consult Bishop Bull's incomparable Defence of the Nicene Faith, cap. v., concerning the co-eternity of the Son. And so likewise, cap. 7, sec. 5, where he will find several things in this place cleared, and our author vindicated beyond exception as to the doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Son.
4
De Deo Deus, ut Lumen de Lumine.
This similitude of a ray from the sun, or a light from a light, is not to be looked upon as a full and adequate illustration of the mode how the Son of God was generated by the Father, nor will anything in nature give us a perfect representation of it. It is what Justin Martyr and others have chosen to represent it by; nor do I know a better to make this incomprehensible mystery apprehended, which is all they drive at ; and it serves
64
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
light is generated by another; the original parent light remaining entire and undiminished, notwithstanding the communication of itself to many other lights. Thus it is that the Logos which came forth from God is both God and the Son of God, and those two are one. Hence it is that a spirit of a spirit, or a God of God, makes another in mode of subsistence, but not in number; in order of nature, but not in numericalness or identity of essence ; and so the Son is subordinate to the Father as He comes from Him as the principle, but is never separated. This ray of God then descended, as it was foretold, upon a certain Virgin, and in her womb was incarnated, and being there fully formed the God-man, was born into the world; the divine and human nature making up this person, as soul and body does one man. The flesh being wrought and perfected by a divine Spirit, was nursed and grew up to the stature of a man, and then addressed the Jews, and preached and worked miracles among them; and this is the Christ, the God of Christians. If you please now you may receive this great truth in the nature of a fable like one of yours, till I have given you my proofs; though it is a truth that could not be unknown to those among you who maliciously dressed up their own inventions on purpose to destroy it. The Jews likewise full well knew from their prophets that Christ was to come, and they are now in expectation of Him ; and the great clashing between us and them is chiefly upon this very account, that they do not believe Him already come. For there being two advents of Christ described in the prophets, the first which is discharged and over, namely His state of humiliation and suffering in human flesh. The second, which is at hand, too, Li the conclusion of the world, in which He will exert His majesty, and come in a full explication of divine glory. By not understanding the first, they fixed only upon the second advent, which is described in the most pompous and glaring metaphors, and which struck the carnal fancy with the most agree- able impressions. And it was the just judgment of God upon them for their sins that withheld their understandings from seeing this first coming, which had they understood, they had believed, and by believing had obtained salvation. And this judicial blindness they
sufficiently to declare their sense and notion of it, namely, that Christ from all eternity did co-exist with the Father, as light does with the sun, that lie was God of God, without any diminution of the divine substance, as one light is kindled from another, etc. It is evident likewise from this expression of God of God, as Light of Light, what the notion of the Fathers was about the divinity of Christ before the establishment of the Nicene Fathers, who make use of this expression in their creed.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
65
read of in their prophets,1 that their understandings should be darkened, and their eyes and ears of no advantage for their conversion.
Him therefore they could not see to be a God in the humble disguise of a man; yet seeing the miracles He did, they cried Him down for a conjurer, for dealing with the devil, when He was turning the devils out of all their possessions at a word speaking; and with the same word bid sight return to the blind, and it returned, and cleansed the lepers, and new braced the paralytic joints, and spoke the dead to life, and made the elements obey, stilling the storms, and walking upon the seas, and demonstrating Himself to be the Logos of God, that is, the ancient first oegotten Word, invested with power and wisdom, and supported by the Spirit, at whose doctrine the very doctors of the law stood aghast, and the chief among the Jews were so exasperated against Him, especially at seeing such numbers of people thronging after Him, that at length, by mere violence and importunity of remonstrating, they extorted sentence against Him to be crucified from Pontius Pilate, then governor of Syria under Tiberius. And all this Christ Him- self foretold they would do, which I will grant you to be an argument not so considerable for the authority of His mission, had not all the prophets long before concurred in every particular. At length being fastened to the cross, and having cried out and commended His spirit into the hands of His Father, He gave up the ghost of His own accord, and so prevented the executioner's breaking His bones, by dying in His own time, and fulfilled a prophecy by so doing. Moreover, in the same moment He dismissed life, the light departed from the sun,2 and the world was benighted at noonday, and those men who acknowledged this eclipse, but were unac- quainted with the prophecies that foretold it upon Christ's death, and finding it impossible to be solved by the laws of nature, at last roundly denied the fact; and yet this wonder of the world you have related, and the relation preserved in your archives to this day.
1
" Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed." Isa. vi. 10.
2
Diliquiunt utique putaverunt. An eclipse of the sun at a full moon (as this was) is by the known laws of nature demonstratively impossible, and this it was made it so much taken notice of by the ancient astronomers ; by Dionysius the Areopagite, Apollophanes the Sophist, by Phlegon in his Olympiads, etc. Vid. paraphrase of Zephyrus, and the notes of Pamelius, and especially the annota- tions of Grotius upon Matt, xxvii. 45, where this passage of Tertullian is taken notice of.
C
66
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
Christ then being taken down from the cross, and laid in a sepulchre, the Jews beset it round with a strong guard of soldiers, forearming them with the strictest caution that His disciples should not come and steal away the body unawares, because He had foretold that He would rise again from the dead on the third day. But lo ! on the third day, a sudden earthquake arose, and the huge stone was rolled from the mouth of the sepulchre, and the guard struck with fear and confusion; not one disciple appearing at the action, and nothing found in the sepulchre, but the spoils of death, the linen clothes He was buried in. Nevertheless, the chief priests, whose interest it was to set such a wicked lie on foot, in order to reclaim the people from a faith which must end in the utter ruin of their incomes and authority among them, gave out that His disciples came privily and stole Him away. For after the resurrection Christ thought not fit to make a public entry among the people,1 because He would not violently redeem such obstinate wretches from error, and that a faith which proposes infinite rewards should labour under some difficulties, that believing might be a virtue, and not a necessity. But with some of His disciples He did eat and drink forty days in Galilee, a province of Judea, instructing them in all they should teach,2 and then having ordained them to the office of preaching those instructions all over the world, He was parted from them by a cloud, and so received up before them into heaven, much more truly than what your Proculus's report of Romulus, and some others of your deified kings. Pilate, who in his conscience
1
Nec ille se in vulgus eduxit, etc. These and the following words give the true reason why Christ after His resurrection would not show Himself publicly to all His crucifiers. Because He would not bestow upon such obstinate offenders, who had abused all His former miracles, such an evidence as must in a manner have forced them to believe, whether they would or no ; and therefore it is said in the Acts of the Apostles, x. 40, "Him God raised up the third day, and showed Him openly ; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with Him after He arose from the dead."
2
Docens eos qua docerent, dehinc Ordinatis eis ad Officium Praedicandi, etc. It is very evident in this place that our author makes a notorious distinction between Christ teaching His apostles in what they should instruct the world, and His ordaining them to the office and authority of preaching those instructions ; and as Christ was sent by His Father, so by the same authority did He commis- sion His apostles to ordain others, and promises to be with them to the end of the world. And therefore to say that the people have a natural right to ordain their own ministers, is in effect to say they have a natural right to do a thing when Christ has determined to the contrary. And because the apostles gave the people a liberty to choose whom they would have for deacons, therefore they had a right to ordain them to that office by prayer and imposition of their own hands.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
67
was a Christian, sent Tiberius Caesar an account of all these proceedings relating to Christ; and the Caesars had been Christians too, could the ages have borne it, if either such Caesars had not been necessary and unavoidable in such times, or could Christians have come to be Caesars. The apostles, in obedience to their Master's command, went about preaching through the world, persecuted by the Jews to the last degree, but suffering victoriously, in full assurance of the truth ; but at length the infidels taking the advan- tage of the barbarous Nero's reign, they were forced to sow the Christian religion in their own Christian blood. But I shall take an occasion, by and by, to produce such witnesses as you yourselves must think authentic for the truth of the Christian religion; for I shall produce the gods you worship vouching for the God of Christians. This must needs be surprising, you will say, that I should bring in those to convert you to the faith, for whose sake it is that you are infidels. In the meantime you are to look upon this as the series and economy of the Christian religion. I have laid before you an account of the original of our sect, of our name, and of the author of it; let no man therefore now throw such dirt and infamy upon Christians, nor harbour an opinion that this account is not according to truth ; for it is not reasonable to believe that any one should think it allowable to lie for his religion ;1 for every man by saying he adores one, while in his mind he adores another, denies the very deity he adores, and translates divine honour from his own god to that other, and by such a translation unworships the god he worships. But we say we are Christians, and say it to the whole world, under the hands of the executioner,2 and in the
1
Quid nec fas est ulli de sua Religione mentiri. Pamelius brings forth this passage in great state, as if it made notably for the papists against certain heretics of his time, who justified lying for their religion. I do not know what heretics he means, and if there be any that do so, they certainly do very ill, and against the apostle's rule of not doing evil that good may
come of it ; but had he con- sidered some certain casuists of their own, he might have spared this reflection.
2
Dicimus et palam dicimus, et vobis torquentibus lacerati et cruenti vociferamur, Deum colimus per Christum. The primitive Christians were not ashamed or afraid to proclaim, to proclaim it to the whole world, and under the hands of the executioner, and weltering in their own blood, that they worshipped God through Christ. Do we ever read of any generation of men so greedy of martyrdom before, who thought it long till they were upon the rack, and so cheerful and stedfast under the most intolerable torments? What a restless posture of mind does Socrates betray, the wisest and best of heathens ! With what misgivings and fits of hope and fear does he deliver himself in that most famous discourse, supposed to be made by him a little before his death, about a future state ! Vid. Plat. Phaed. Do we find that Phaedo, Cebes, Crito, and Simmias, or any of his greatest friends, who were present at his death, condemning his murder in the
Areopagus, and asserting the worship of one god as the Christians did ? Did
68
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
midst of all the tortures you exercise us with to unsay it. Torn and mangled and covered over in our own blood, we cry out as loud as we are able to cry that we are worshippers of God through Christ. Believe this Christ, if you please, to be a man, but let me tell you He is the only man by whom and in whom God will be known and worshipped to advantage. But to stop the mouth of Jews, I have this to answer, that they received every tittle of their religion from God by the meditation and ministry of the man Moses ; and as to the Greeks, did not Orpheus upon Mount Pieria, and his disciple Musaeus at Athens, and Melampus at Argos, and Trophonius in Boeotia, were not all these men who initiated these several countries in their religion? And to turn my eyes upon you, who are the masters of the world, was it not the man Numa Pompilius, who bound on these heavy burdens of ceremony and superstition upon the Romans ? Why then, I pray you, must not Christ be tolerated to give the world a commentary of that divinity 1 which is His own, properly His and His alone ? He who did not begin His govern- ment upon a wild uncultivated people, and astonish them into subjection and civility by a multitude of imaginary gods, after the example of your Numa, but addresses the most polished and
not Plato afterwards dodge about, and disguise himself under feigned names, and say and unsay the most excellent truths for the security of his skin? And did not all the academics afterwards keep much upon the reserve, for fear that dogmatizing should send them after their master Socrates ? How then comes it to pass that Christians, and Christians only, should dare to suffer at this rate above all the philosophers in the world, and that the same generation of men should hold on suffering for four hundred years together, till they had subdued the world by dying for their religion? Had not Christians the same flesh and blood, the same sense and feeling as other men ? and did they not desire happiness as much as other men? If so, then nothing hut the clearest, the most powerful and convincing arguments could possibly engage such numbers of men in a particular worship, and support them under it in defiance of death in the most shocking circumstances. And with what face could a Christian offer to persuade a heathen to embrace such a persecuted religion, without the clearest convictions imagin- able ? This argument from the primitive sufferings, and from the manner of them, for the truth of Christianity I insist upon the longer, not only because it is strong in itself, and so often appealed to in these Apologies, but because to me it is more moving, and apter to take hold of the heart, than all the speculative proofs in nature.
1
Licuerit et Christo commentari Divinitatem, rem propriam. Here it is observable that Tertullian calls the divinity of Christ, Rein propriam, an expres- sion which denotes our Saviour to be as truly and really God, as man can be said to be the proprietor of anything in the sense of the law. Thus when our Saviour said, " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," the Jews sought to kill Him, because ga.-rify. 'Kmi 'iX'.y- TO* 0so>, He said God was His own proper Father in a sense incommunicable to any creature, making Himself equal to God, John v. 17, 18.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
69
brightest people in the world, a people blinded and lost in their own philosophy and wisdom, and helps them to eyes to see their folly and the way of truth.
Inform yourselves carefully, therefore, whether the divinity of Christ is not the true divinity you ought to worship, and which, if once entertained, new makes the old man, and forms him to every virtue, and consequently all divinities but Christ ought to be renounced as false, and those especially, in the first place, which lie lurking under the names and images of dead men, and by lying signs and wonders and oracles pass for gods, when in truth they are but devils, as I am now going to prove.
—o—
CHAPTER XXII.
CONCERNING DEMONS, THEIR POWER, AND THEIR WAYS OF
OPERATION.
WE say then that there are a certain kind of spiritual substances existing in nature, which go by the name of demons, and the name is not of a modern stamp; the name and the thing being both well known to the philosophers, for Socrates undertook nothing without the privy council of his demon. And no wonder, when this familiar is said to have kept him close company from his childhood to the conclusion of his life, continually, no doubt, injecting dissuasives from virtue.1 The poets likewise talk of demons, and even the illiterate vulgar
1
Dehortatorium plane a bono. The words immediately before concerning this demon of Socrates are almost exactly transcribed by Lactantius, lib. ii. p, 105. However, I cannot but say that this character contradicts all the accounts we have concerning the practice of this demon, from such persons as were best able to understand the matter of fact, who represent it quite contrary to this character of Tertullian. Nothing occasioned more speculations and amusement in the time of Socrates than his demon, insomuch that one of his friends went to consult the oracle about it. Vid. Plutarch of the demon of Socrates. Nor would Socrates make Simias any answer upon the question, and therefore the rest of his friends desisted for the future from asking him any more about it. But Xenophon and Plato, who certainly were two of his nearest friends, and best understood this matter, were far from imagining, as some since have done, that this demon was nothing more than his natural sagacity or understanding. The sum of the story, as we have it in the Dialogue entitled Theages, and elsewhere, is this : the directions of this demon were only dehortatory, but not from good, as Tertullian thinks, but from evil. The demon never advised him to do, but
70
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
frequently apply to them when they are in the cursing mood; for by a secret instigation on their minds when they invoke these demons in their imprecations, they do in effect invoke Satan,1 who is the prince of the evil spirits. Plato himself is express for the being of angels, and the magicians are ready to attest the same when they have recourse to the names of angels and demons both, in their enchantments. But how from a corrupted stock of angels, corrupted by their own wills, another worse and more degenerate race2 of
only to forbear an action ; when it would he of ill consequence either to Socrates or his friends, he heard a voice, which was the sign to forbear; when he heard it not, it was always his warrant to proceed ; so that one would be apt from hence to conclude that the voice was not articulate, but a bare sign only. And Xenophon reports that of all the numberless predictions (of which, according to Tully, Antipater collected a large volume) of disasters that would befall his friends, not one of them failed in the event. But Plato's Apology of Socrates, Camb. Edit. sec. 21, is very remarkable, where we have a very plain and strange account of the operations and nature of this demon. " It is very strange " (says Socrates, addressing his judges with incomparable calmness just before his execution) "that the prophetic voice of the demon, which never failed before of dissuading me in matters of the smallest moment, where the consequence would be ill,
ei ti me/lloimi mh_ o0rqw~j pra&cein, etc., should now in the worst of evils, according to your opinion, be silent, and neither when I left my house in the morning, nor when I went to the bar, nor all the time I have been pleading here, should ever give me the wonted signal,
ou0 ga_r e1sq o3pwj ou0k h0nantiw&qh a3n moi to_
ei0wqo_j shmeion, ei0 mh& ti
e3mellon e0gw_ a0gaqo_n pra&cein ; for it could not be but that I should hear his usual dissuasive was I not upon doing my duty, or that which would turn to my advantage." Now when I read the character of Socrates from those who certainly were best acquainted with him, when I find him employing all his reason to bring men off from barren speculations to the knowledge of themselves, and the practice of substantial virtue, when I find him the greatest master of his passions, the most judicious despiser of riches within his reach, the most temperate, humble, courteous, inoffensive man living in the Gentile world, when I find him encouraged by his demon to die for the profession of the one true God; when Justin Martyr in his First Apology, sec. 5, says that the evil demons contrived his death for his attempts to rescue mankind from the worship of devils; that he, by his share of reason, did among the Greeks what the Logos Himself did among the Barbarians, and that both were condemned for the same good designs ;—who, after this, I say, can think Socrates possessed and governed by an evil spirit? Why not rather divinely assisted to preach down idolatry, and bring moral righteousness into practice, and by such means to prepare and qualify the heathen world for the revelation of the Messiah ?
1
Nam et Satanam—execramenti voce pronunciat, etc. I do not find that the Romans ever cursed expressly by the name of Satan, but by making use of the word Malum or a mischief, take you, as we say ; and Satan being the prince of mischief and virtually included in every such curse, they might be said in this sense to pronounce Satan in their imprecations.
2
Sed quomodo do Angelis quibusdam sua sponte corruptis, corruptior Gens Daemonum evascrit,
etc. This Old opinion we find in both the Apologies of Justin Martyr, as well as in this of Tertullian, and so likewise in Athenagoras, etc. The ground of it I take to be this : the Fathers were generally of opinion
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
71
demons arose, condemned by God, together with those they descended from, and Satan the prince of them, whom I just now mentioned, for the history of this, I say, I must refer you to the Holy Scriptures.
But not to insist upon their generation, it will be sufficient to my purpose to explain their operations, or their ways of acting upon the sons of men. I say, then, that the ruin of mankind is their whole employment; these malicious spirits were bent upon mischief from the beginning, and fatally auspicious in their first attempt, in undoing man as soon as he was made; and in like manner they practise the same destructive methods upon all his posterity, by inflicting diseases upon their bodies, and throwing them into sad disasters, and stirring up sudden tempests and preternatural emotions in the soul; and they are fitted by nature for both these kinds of evil, the subtilty and fineness of their substance giving them an easy access to body and soul both. These spirits certainly have great abilities for mischief, and that they do it is apparent, though the manner of effecting it is invisible, and out of the reach of human senses; as, for instance, when a secret blast nips the fruit in the blossom or the bud, or smites it with an untimely fall just upon its maturity, or when the air is infected by unknown causes, and scatters the deadly potions about the world; just so, and by a contagion that walketh in the like darkness, do demons and evil angels blast the minds of men, and agitate them with furies and
that evil spirits were clothed with a finer sort of body, which was fed and refreshed from the nidours and steams of the sacrifices. They found these spirits had a prodigious power over the bodies they possessed, and could not certainly tell but this power might extend even to generation. And finding in Josephus, lib. i. cap. 4,
polloi\ a!ggeloi Qeou~, etc., that many angels of God mixing with women begot a devilish wicked offspring, and perhaps meeting likewise an ancient edition of the Septuagint, which read
a!ggeloi where we read oi9
ui9oi\ tou~ Qeou~, the angels of God, instead of the sons of God, went in to the daughters of men, Gen. vi. 4. And meeting perhaps with something of the same nature in that supposititious piece which went under the name of Enoch's prophecy, they might by these means lie led into this mistake. However, St. Chrysostom, Hom. 22 upon Gen., St. Ambrose, lib. de Noe et Arca, cap. 4, have set this matter right, by interpreting the sons of God to be the posterity of Seth. And though some men, who think themselves well employed in raking this, and all they can, to invalidate the authority of the Fathers, in order to serve their cause, may think it reasonable not to depend upon such mistaken men, yet such mistakes, in my opinion, do not in the least affect their authority in such cases, for which w:e chiefly depend upon them ; for is there any consequence in this way of reason- ing? Because the Fathers have sometimes been mistaken in matters of pure reasoning, as the wisest and best of men may sometimes be, therefore they are not to be credited in plain matters of fact, wherein they cannot be mistaken.
72 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
extravagant uncleannesses, and dart in outrageous lusts with a mixture of various errors; the most capital of which errors is that, having taken possession of a soul, and secured it on every side from the powers of truth, they recommend to it the worship of false gods, that by the nidours of those sacrifices they may procure a banquet for themselves, the stench of the flesh and the fumes of the blood being the proper pabulum or repast of those unclean spirits; and what more savoury meat to them than to juggle men out of the notion of the true God with delusions of divination, which delusions I come now to unfold.
Every spirit, angel, and demon, upon the account of its swiftness, may be said to be winged, for they can be here and there and everywhere in a moment; the whole world to them is but as one place, and any transactions in it they can know with the same ease they can tell it; and this velocity passes for divinity among such as are unacquainted with the nature of spirits; and by this means they would be concluded the authors of those things sometimes of which they are only the relators; and verily sometimes they are the authors of the evil, but never of the good. They have collected some designs of providence from the mouths of the prophets; and to those sermons, whose sound is gone into all the earth, do they apply at present to pick out something whereby to form their conjectures about events to come; and so, by filching from hence some revolutions which have succeeded in time, they rival the divinity, and set up for gods, by stealing his prophecies. But in their oracles,1 what dexterity they have showed in tempering their
1
In oraculis autem, quo ingenio ambiguitates temperent in eventus, sciunt Croesi, sciunt Pyrrhi. The notorious ambiguity of the heathen oracles in general, and particularly in the cases of Croesus and
Pyrrhus,
Aio te Aeacide Romanes vincere posse, Intrepidus si Crasus Hylam,
etc.
This ambiguity, I say, together with the folly and flattery of the responses and the like, made some of the heathens, who were most inclined to atheism, to conclude it all pure priestcraft; and for no better reasons have some moderns, no well-wishers to the doctrine of spirits, concluded the same also, and treated the Fathers as a parcel of good-natured, easy men, who took everything upon trust. But now I would ask these men of criticism and infidelity, what kind of proofs will content them in matters of fact; was ever any fact butter and more univer- sally attested even by the heathens themselves, than oracles and the cessation of them? Was ever anything more notorious in the time of our Saviour than the possessions of private persons? Was anything more commonly appealed to than the dispossession of evil spirits, for some hundreds of years after, by the first Christians? Does not Tertullian challenge the senate upon this article, and
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
73
responses with a convenient ambiguity for any question, the Croesuses and the Pyrrhuses know with a witness. It was by virtue of the forementioned velocity that Pythian Apollo, cutting through the air in a moment to Lydia, brought back word that Croesus was boiling a tortoise with the flesh of a lamb.1 Moreover, these demons, by having their residence in the air, and by reason of their neighbourhood and commerce with the stars and clouds, come to know the dispositions of the heavens, and promise rain, which they see falling when they promise. These demons likewise are very beneficent no doubt in the cure of diseases, for they first inflict the malady, and then prescribe the remedy, but remedies marvellously strange, and contrary to the distemper; and after the patient has used the recipe, the demon omits to afflict him, and that omission passes for a cure. But why should I give more instances of their wiles and strength in delusion, or mention the phantoms of Castor and Pollux,2 or a sieve holding water,3 or a ship drawn by a girdle,
stake his life and the truth of his religion upon this proof, that upon a Christian's adjuring a person possessed, the evil spirit shall not only come out of him, but confess himself a devil in the presence of them all, as truly as before he had falsely owned himself to be a god ; if so, I would fain see a good reason why an evil spirit should not possess a Pythian priestess as well as any other person. Sure I am that the kingdom of darkness was mainly supported by keeping up the oracles; nothing therefore could hinder the devil from this but want of power ; and why he should have so much power over private persons, and not over his own priestesses, is hard to tell. That there was oftentimes much tricking and human fraud in the management of oracles, I doubt not; but that it was all pure priestcraft therefore is a consequence I can never allow, until men can prove there is no good money because there is much counterfeit; whereas there would be no counterfeit was there no reality for the ground of imitation. Had but the heathen world known that our first parents were seduced by the devil; had they but known the distinction of good and evil spirits, and that these latter had been always intent upon the destruction and delusion of mankind, and that one great reason of Christ's coming into the world was to destroy the worship of devils, they would never have questioned the existence of oracles; nor would the Fathers have been thus discredited in a matter of fact, for which they had the testimony of their senses. But finding abundance of false and foolish things reported of the oracles, and from thence justly concluding they could not come from an all-wise and good being, and not considering that they might proceed from ignorant and malicious spirits, and having no mind perhaps to such strong proofs of another state, they ran into a common extreme from believing everything to believe nothing, and to conclude the whole business of oracles to be mere trick and imposture.
1
This story about the tortoise is told at large by Herodotus in his Clio.
2
The phantoms of Castor and Pollux are said to have acquainted the Romans of the victory of the Macedonia war the same hour it was obtained.
3
Tucia is the vestal virgin, who is reported to have done this feat with a sieve ; and Claudia the other, who dragged along a ship foundered on the Tyber by the strength of her girdle.
74 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
or a beard turned red with a touch ?1 For all these are impostures only of demons to keep idolatry in countenance, to make men take stones for deities, and to detain them from any further inquiries after the true God.
—o—
CHAPTER XXIII.
CONCERNING THE SUBJECTION OF EVIL SPIRITS TO THE COMMAND
OF CHRISTIANS.
MOREOVER, if magicians do set before your eyes a scene of spectres, and, by their black arts, or direful forms in necromancy, call up the souls of the dead ;2 if they throw children into convulsions,3
1
It was Domitian's black beard, which is here said to be turned red with a touch of Castor and Pollux, to make him give credit to the news of the victory they told him of, and from hence he was surnamed Aenobarbus or Rusty Beard. One thing the reader can hardly forbear taking notice of in the conclusion of this chapter, and that is, between the tricks and amusements of evil spirits and the substantial miracles of mercy wrought by Christ and His apostles, between discolouring a beard and curing the sick or raising the dead.
2
Defunctorum animas infamant, aliter inclamant. These several species of magic you find mentioned by Justin Martyr, Apol. i. sec. 24. See more of this in our author, de Anima, cap. 57, etc. Vid. Maxim. Tyr. Dissert. 22. This kind of divination by the dead, called necromancy, was very ancient and very familiar in the Gentile world. A memorable example of which we find, I Sam. xxviii., where Saul being about to war with the Philistines, and God denying to answer him either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets, he repairs to the witch of Endor, and demands that Samuel might be raised up from the dead, to tell him the issue of the war. This was performed sometimes by the magical use of a bone of a dead body, with other black solemnities; sometimes by pouring hot blood into the carcase to make it answer a question, as Erictho does in
Lucan.
Dum vocem defuncto in corpore quaerit, Protinus astrictus caluit Cruor, atraq. ; fovit Vulnera.
Hence that of Horace—
Animas responsa daturas.
And in allusion to the same practice is that of Virgil—
Nec jam exaudire vocates.
3
Si pueros in eloquium Oraculi clidunt. Concerning this kind of divination, see Apuleius, Apol. i., and Spartian. in vit. Jul. Hence that of Propertius,—
Rectulit in triviis omnia certa Puer.
Tertullians Apology for the Christians.
75
and a while after make them vent the fury in oracles; if by their juggling wiles they delude the senses with abundance of mock miracles, and inject dreams in the dead of sleep,1 by first invoking the assistance of their angels and demons, by whose sophistry even goats and groaning boards2 are wont to divine: if then these evil
1
Si et Somnia imittunt. These are the same with those called by Justin, in the section aforesaid, ovitfivep.vo}. As the God of Israel was pleased some- times to communicate Himself to His prophets by dreams, so likewise the devil, in imitation, had his dreamer of dreams among the Gentiles. The Lacedae- monians kept men on purpose to sleep in
the temple of Pasithea to watch for dreams. The vanity of these sort of diviners Juvenal takes occasion to lash in these words —
Nan Delubra Deum, nec ab aethere Numina mittunt, Sed sibi quisque facit.
Whoever has a mind to amuse himself more upon this subject, may consult Tully, de Divinat. lib. i., Valer. Max. lib. v. cap. 7, Plin. lib. vii. cap. 50, Macrob. de Somn. Scip. lib. i. cap. 3 ; Plutarch in Pompeio, concerning a dream of Mithri- dates, and Fulgent. Mitholog. lib. i.
2 Per quos et Caprae, et Mensae divinare consueverunt. Of goats trained up to divination we find mention in Eusebius, from a quotation out of Clemens Alex.,
ai0gej e0pi\ mantikh_n h0skhme/nai,
Euseb. Praepar. Evang. lib. ii. Cap. 3, p. 62.
Why goats are particularly here specified for brutes of divination, I conjecture the reason to be this : Before the oracle of Apollo came to be fixed at Delphos, the place was nothing more than a common, and the goats which were grazing about there coming to a den, large before with a little mouth at top, and looking in, fell a-skipping and making an odd noise, not unlike perhaps the possessed swine mentioned in the gospel, though not so fatal. The goat-herd (Coretas by name, as Plutarch calls him) ran to the place to see what was the matter with his flock, and fell into the same frolic, and likewise into a fit of prophesying ; and so it fared with many others, who went afterwards to visit the place, and many were strangled (says Tully) with terrae anhelitu, with the fumes of the earth. Vid. Diodor. lib. xvi. Upon this hole of the earth therefore was the tripos, or a three-footed stool placed, and a maid upon it consecrated for a priestess, who received her inspiration from below, as the Scholiast upon Aristophanes in Avid, describes,
e0kaqhme/nh tw~| tri/podi, etc. These belly-prophets, who delivered themselves in a tone like a speaking trumpet, were called
e0ggastri/muqoii, and thus Isaiah viii. 19, " Seek unto them which have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and mutter; " which the Septuagint, more to my purpose, renders thus,
zhth&sate tou_j e0ggastrimu&qouj, kai\ tou_j a0po_
th~j gh~j fwnou~ntas, tou_j kenologou~ntaj,
oi9 e0k th~j koili/aj fwnh&sousin. And more expressly yet, xxix. 4. '' Thou shall speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be as one that hath a familiar spirit out of the ground, and thy voice shall whisper out of the dust." Which words are still more expressive of the Pythoness in the Septuagint,
kai\ tapeinwqh&sontai ei0j th_n gh_n oi9 lo&goi sou, kai\
ei0j th_n gh_n oi9 lo&goi sou du&sontai, kai\ e1stai w9j oi9 fwnou~ntej
e0k th~j gh~j h9 fwnh_ sou, kai\
tro_j ti_ e1dafoj h9 fwnh& sou a0sqenh&sei.
Now the Mensae in this place of Tertullian I take to be the Tripodess, called by Virgil Mensae·, 2 Aen.
———Huc undique Troia Gaza,
Incensis erepta adytis, Mensaeq. ; Daeorum.
Sozomen in his sixth book, cap. 35, tells us that the Gentile philosophers, being
76 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
spirits will do so much at the impulse of men, what will they not do by their own impulse, and for their own interest ? They will surely collect the whole stock of malicious power into one effort for the defence of themselves and the kingdom of darkness. Or if angels and demons act the same with your gods, pray where is the difference between them and Him you look upon as the Sovereign and supremest of powers ? Is it not therefore more becoming to presume those to be gods, who do the things which make others pass for gods, than to bring down the gods to a level with demons ? 'But perhaps I am to think that it is the difference of places only which causes the distinction of titles, and that your gods are to be looked upon as gods only in their own temples, and he who flies through a sacred turret is begodded ; but he who passes through a common house, bedeviled. Or that the priest who cuts off his privities, or lances his arms, is inspired ; but he who cuts his throat, possessed; however, the fury of both has a like event, and the instigation is the same.
Hitherto I have argued upon point of reason, and contented myself with words only; I come now to things, and shall give you a demonstration from fact to convince you that your gods and demons both are but the same beings, though of different denomina- tions. Let a demoniac1 therefore be brought into court, and the
extremely concerned at the increase of Christianity, made and consecrated a tripod of laurel, with all the letters of the alphabet fastened to it, to know who should he the man that was to succeed Valens in the empire ; a contrivance perhaps in imitation of Urim and Thummim, which (as some say) consisted of all the letters of the alphabet, which upon a question proposed did arise after a strange manner, and joined themselves into words or syllables, and so returned a complete answer.
1
Edatur hic aliquis sub Tribunalibus vestris, etc. This is the famous challenge I just now referred to, and which I would not have the reader to pass over without reflection ; for never was anything appealed to in more daring words, or more easy to be detected, if an imposture. He challenges their senses, their eyes, and their ears to be judges in the case ; he defies them to deny it if they can ; he stands ready to answer for the experiment with his own blood, that their celestial virgin, their Aesculapius, and all the rest of those they worship for gods, shall not only quit the bodies they possess, but publicly in the hearing of them all confess themselves to be devils, upon the demand of any Christian. Hear what his scholar St. Cyprian says to Demetrianus, proconsul of Africa, upon the same subject : O si audire eos velles, et videre quando a nobis adjurantur, et torquentur Spiritualibus flagris, et verborum tormentis de obsessis corporibus ejiciuntur, quando ejulantes et gementes voce humana, et potestate Divina flagella et verbera sentientes, venturum Judicium confitentur ; veni, et cognosce vera esse qua dicimus. And a little after, Videbis sub manu nostra stare vinctos, et tremere captivos quos in suspicis, et veneraris ut Deminos. Not to mention Lactantius, who speaks to the same purpose, de Just.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
77
spirit which possesses him be commanded by any Christian to declare what he is, he shall confess himself as truly to be a devil as he did falsely before profess himself a god. In like manner, let one of those be produced, who is thought to labour with a god, whom he conceived from the steams of the altar, and of which after many a belch and many a pang he is delivered in oracles. Let the celestial virgin, the great procurer of rain, or Aesculapius, the great improver of medicine, who by the help of scordian, and other sovereign and cordial medicines, recovered those who could not have lived a day longer. If all these, I say, do not declare them-, selves in court to be devils, not daring to lie in the presence of a Christian, that Christian is willing to be taken for the cheat, and stands ready to answer for it with his own blood. What now can be more glaringly evident than this demonstration from fact ? What proof more unexceptionable ? Here you have truth shining full upon you in her native simplicity, without the colouring of words, or any assistance but from her own proper virtue; suspicion itself here will find no entrance. You may say this is done by magic or some such sophistry, if your eyes and ears will give you leave to say it; but what can be objected against that which is exposed in its pure naturals, against mere naked truth ? Moreover, if on one hand they are really gods, why should they be such silly liars as to say they are devils ? What, in obedience to us ? Your gods then are in subjection to Christians; but that surely is a very sorry god which is subject to a man, and to a man too who is his professed enemy, and when such a subjection makes so much to his disgrace.
lib. v. cap. 21. All the primitive Fathers assert the same fact, with the same assurance. Let me ask then a few questions. Did ever any heathen priest or magician make such a challenge at the hazard of their lives? Did the evil spirits ever stand in awe of them, or any of the philosophers ? Will the critics say that these long quotations are foisted into the text, when they are in every primitive writer? And arc not these matters of fact, not of reason, wherein Christians and heathens could not be imposed upon ? If so, what can be urged against this demonstration of the truth of the Christian religion ? What stronger evidence, what more sensible conviction, could the heathens have, than to see and hear the gods they worshipped, howl and wail and fly, at the name of Christ, and confess themselves to be all devils in the presence of their worshippers? This kingdom of darkness was permitted to grow to its full height, and the ruin of it then providentially reserved for the coming and conquest of the Son of God ; and though the dispositions and confessions of evil spirits recorded of Him and His apostles in the New Testament do sufficiently prove Him to be sent from God, yet the exercise of the same power in their Master's name before proconsuls and tribunals for many ages, makes the argument still the stronger and more unexceptionable. For it is not possible for a miracle of three or four hundred years' continuance in public to be suspected for a cheat.
78
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
On the other hand, if they are demons or angels, how comes it to pass that they personate gods, when they give their responses to any but Christians? For as those who have the reputation of gods would not say they are devils if they are truly gods, because they would not divest themselves of their majesty, so those you know to be demons durst never aspire to the titles of gods if there were any gods of those titles they usurp, because no doubt they would be afraid of smarting for that usurpation from those superior deities they have thus affronted.
The consequence therefore is undeniable, that the deities you worship are no deities; for if they were, the devils would never presume to lay claim to the title of gods, or the gods disclaim it. Since therefore both one and the other concur to the acknowledg- ment of this truth, that the gods in worship are no gods, you must confess them to be all of the same kind, that is devils. Bethink yourselves now, and examine the gods on every side. For those you presumed to be gods you plainly see to be devils; and by the help of Christians, and by the help of your very gods, not only confessing themselves, but all the rest also not to be gods, you will presently learn which is the true God; whether it is He, and He alone whom the Christians profess, and whether He is to be believed and worshipped, according to the Christian rule of faith and wor- ship. When we conjure these evil spirits in the name of Christ, let them reply if they dare, Who is this Christ with His fable of a gospel ? Let them say that He is of the common order of men; or will they call Him a magician ? Or say that after He was buried, His disciples came and stole away His body out of the sepulchre, or that He is yet among the dead ? Or rather will they not own Him to be in heaven, and that He will come down from thence, and put the whole universe in a tremor at His coming, and all mankind, but Christians, into horror and lamentation? Shining in His native glory, as He is the power of God, and the Spirit of God, and the Logos, and the Wisdom, and the Reason, and the Son of God. Let the devils keep their votaries company in derision, and join you with their wit and drollery upon these things. Let them deny that Christ will come in judgment upon every soul from the creation, having first restored its body. Let them declare, and in open court if they think fit, that they are of a mind with Plato and the poets, that it is the lot of Minos and Rhadamanthus to be judges of the world. Let them wipe off the brand of their own ignominy and damnation. Let them renounce themselves to be unclean spirits, though this is evident from the nature of their food, from the
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
79
blood, and stenches, and putrid sacrifices of animals, and the abominable forms made use of in divination. And lastly, let them disown themselves to be in a damned state, and under dreadful expectations of the final judgment, where they shall receive the recompense of sins, together with their worshippers, and all such workers of iniquity.
But now this power and dominion of ours over these wicked spirits has all its efficacy from the name of Christ, and from our reminding them of those judgments which are dropping upon their heads from the hand of God through Christ, whom He has made Judge of the world ; and the dread they have of Christ in God, and God in Christ, is the thing which subjects them to the servants of God and Christ. Thus therefore by a touch of our hand, or the breath of our mouth, scorched as it were with the prospect and repre- sentation of future flames, they go out of the bodies they possess at our command, but sore against their will, and gnashing and red- hot with shame, to quit their possessions in the presence of their adorers.
Now then let me advise you to believe the devils when they speak true of themselves, you who are used to credit them in their lies; for no man is a fool to such a degree as to be at the pains of lying to his disgrace, but only to his reputation ; and one is a thousand times apter to believe men when they confess to their disadvantage than when they deny for interest.
These testimonies then of your gods against themselves often conduce to the making of Christians, because there is no believing them, without believing in our Master Christ. The very devils kindle in us the belief of Holy Scripture; the very devils are edifying, and raise our hope to assurance. But you worship them, and with the blood of Christians too, I well know; and therefore they would by no means lose such good clients and devoted servants as you are, not only for the sake of their honours and offerings, but for fear, should any of you turn Christians, you should dispossess and serve them as we do. They would never, I say, baulk a lie, in so grand a concern, was it in their power to lie, when a Christian interrogates them in order to give you a proof of his religion by their own confession.
—o—
80
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THAT THE ROMANS ARE THE CRIMINALS IN POINT OF
RELIGION, AND NOT THE CHRISTIANS.
THIS universal confession of the evil spirits, whereby they disclaim the title of gods, and whereby they declare that there is no other God but one, whose servants we profess to be ; this confession, I say, is argument enough with a witness to discharge Christians from the crime of irreligion, especially towards the Roman gods; for if the Roman gods for a certain are no gods, then their religion for a certain is no religion; and if theirs be no religion, because theirs be no gods, then certainly we cannot be justly charged upon the article of irreligion, with respect to the worship of the Roman deities. But this reproach rebounds upon yourselves, for you who worship a lie, and not only neglect the true religion of the true God, but moreover join all your forces to fight it out of the world, are in truth guilty of that which is most properly irreligion. For should I grant those you worship to be gods, do not you likewise subscribe to the common opinion that there is one most high and powerful Deity, who is the Author and Sovereign of the world, of infinite majesty and perfection ? For thus many among you have ranged the gods, so as to vest the supreme power in one only, and make the rest subaltern gods, and under-officers merely of this Almightiest of deities; and thus Plato 1 describes great Jove as attended above by an heavenly host of inferior gods and demons. Can you say, then, that we must pay the same honours to his procurators and prefects and presidents, as to the emperor himself? And pray now, where is the crime to be ambitious of getting into the good graces of Caesar only? and to acknowledge the title of God like that of the emperor. His due alone who has the sovereign authority ? since by your laws it is capital to call any one Caesar who is not supreme, or to hear him so called by any other. I will grant you there is a difference in the modes of worship between a worshipper of God and a worshipper of Jove. Let us then suppose that one
1
Ut Plato Jovem magnum in caelo comitum exercitu describit Deorum pariter et Daemonium. This passage we have in Greek in Athenagoras, thus—9O
de\ me/gaj h9gemw&n eu0 ou0ranw|~
Zeu_j e0lau&nwn pthno_n a3rma prw~toj poreu&etai, diakosmw~n pa&nta,
kai\ e0pimeloumenoj; tw|~ de\ e3petai
stratia_ Qew~nte kai\ daimo&nwn. Athenat. Legat. pro Christian. The supremacy of one deity is what you will find by Minutius Felix proved at large from all the philosophers,
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
81
man worships the true supreme God, another Jove; one prays with suppliant hands lifted up to heaven, another lays them upon the altar of Fides,1 another (if you will think them deities) prays looking upon the clouds,2 others upon the stately roofs of the temple; one devotes his own life to his god, another the life of a goat. But you had best see to it whether this does not concur to the making up of another article of irreligion against you—namely, to deprive men of the liberty of worshipping after their own way, and to inter- dict them the option of their deity; so that I must not worship the god I would, but am forced to worship the god I would not; and yet it is agreed upon on all hands, that forced or unwilling services are not grateful either to God or man; and for this reason even the Egyptians are tolerated in their superstition, which is the very vanity of vanities : they are permitted to make gods of birds and beasts, and to make it capital to be the death of any of these kinds of deities. Every province and city has its proper gods, as Syria the god Ashtaroth,3 Arabia has Disares, Bavaria Belinus, Africa the Celestial Virgin,4 and Mauritania their kings. Now these pro-
1
Aram Fidei. Tully in his Offices, lib. iii., has these words—Fidem in Capitolio vicinam Jovi Off. Max. Majores nostri esse voluerunt. Hence that of Silius—
Ille etiam qua prisca Fides stat Regia, nobis Aurea Tarpeia ponet Capitolia rupe.
There was likewise one Fidius, a Sabine god, whose temple was upon the Mons Quirinalis. He was the god who took care of oaths, hence that of Plautus in Asinar, Per Divum Fidium quaeris. This oath was afterwards contracted into one word, Mediusfidius, though Festus Pompeius expounds it otherwise, quasi deo&j; filius, lib. xi.
2
Nubes numeret orans. The wise and good Socrates was lashed by Aristo- phanes in his Nubibus for a worshipper of the clouds, because he worshipped the one true God with eyes lifted up to heaven like the Christians, who having in a Gentile sense neither temple, image, nor altar, as the heathen in Minutius objects, were charged, as Tertullian intimates, for adoring clouds ; but how that in Minutius is to be understood, I refer the reader to my notes upon that passage.
Scaliger understands this
of Juvenal of the Christians, and reads it thus—
Nil praeter Nubes, et Caeli Numen adorant.
3
Syriae Astartes. Eusebius from Sanchoniathon will have it to be Venus, Euseb. Praep. Evang. lib. i. cap. 10, p. 38. Suidas says this—0Asta&rth
h9 par0
3Ellhsin 0Afrodi/th legome/nh, Qeo_j Sidwni/wn. This was the goddess of the Sidonians whom Solomon himself went after, and to whom he built an house. I Kings xi. 5 ; 2 Kings xxiii. 13. And in the house of Ashtaroth called by the LXX. 0Asta&rth did the Philistines hang up Saul's armour after his death. I Sam. xxxi. 10.
3
Caelestis. This celestial virgin was peculiarly honoured at Carthage, and is supposed by some to be Juno, though there is huge controversy about it. And the rest of the idols here mentioned are so obscure, and so much disputed, that I believe the reader will thank me if I say no more about them.
82
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
vinces (if I mistake not) are under the Roman jurisdiction, and yet I do not find any of the Roman gods in worship among them ; because the gods of these countries are as little known at Rome as many of the municipal deities in several towns in Italy, as Del- ventinus of Casinum, Visidianus of Narni, Ancaria of Ascoli, Nursia of Volsinium, Valentia of Ocricoly, Nortia of Sutri, and Juno of Monte Fiasco, who was worshipped by the name of Curetis in honour of her father Cures. But we Christians, we alone are the people who are not tolerated to enjoy a separate religion proper to ourselves; we offend the Romans, and are not to be looked upon as Romans, because we do not worship the God of the Romans; however, we have this advantage, that God is the God of all, whose we are all, whether we will or no; but there is a universal toleration among you to pay divine honours to any but the true God, as if this was not emphatically the God of all, whose creatures we all are.
—o—
CHAPTER XXV.
THAT THE ROMAN GRANDEUR IS NOT OWING TO THE
ROMAN RELIGION.
I HAVE now, in my opinion, given sufficient proofs of the false and the true divinity; having not only disputed and demonstrated this point from arguments drawn from reason, but also from the very confessions of those you acknowledge for gods; so that nothing more seems necessary to be reinforced upon that head. But because the Roman greatness is an objection that comes properly in my way, I will not decline the combat I am challenged to, by the presumption of those who say that the Romans1 arrived to such a pitch of grandeur as to be masters of the world, by the pure
1
Romanos pro merito Religiositatis diligentissimae in tantum Sublimitatis elatos. That the Roman greatness war not owing to the Roman religion, Prudentius proves at large, lib. ii. adver.
Symmach.
Sed multi duxere Dii per prospera Romam, Quos colit ob meritum magnis donata Triumphis, Ergo age, Bellatrix, quae vis subjecerit,
ede.
And Minutius is very particular upon the same head, but because he has borrowed so many hints from Tertullian, and is subjoined to this Apology, I will not fore- stall the reader. However, that the Romans valued themselves as extraordinary
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
83
dint and merits of their religion ; and consequently that theirs were the right gods, inasmuch as they who served them out-flourished all others in glory, as much as they surpassed them in devotion to these deities; and this surpassing figure, no doubt, was the return your own Roman gods made you for their worship; and these proper gods, who have thus enlarged your borders must be Ster- culus, and Mutunus, and Larentina; for it is not to be imagined that strange gods should find in their hearts to be greater friends to a strange nation than to their own; and that they should make over their own native soil, in which they were bred, and born, and buried, and deified, to an outlandish people. Let Cybele see to it, whether she transplanted her affections to Rome for the sake of her beloved countrymen the Trojans, screened from the Grecian arms I warrant by her divine protection; let her say whether she went over to the Romans upon this view, as foreseeing them the people that would revenge her upon her enemies, and one day triumph over Greece, as Greece had done over Troy; and to prove that she did go over to the Romans upon this prospect, she has given a most glorious instance of her foresight in our age, for M. Aurelius being taken off at Sirmium the seventeenth day of March,1 her chief priest and eunuch on the twenty-fourth day of the same month, having lanced his arms, and let out his impure blood upon the altar, offered up his usual vows for the life of the emperor, who was dead some days before. O leaden-heeled couriers ! O drowsy dispatches ! not to give Cybele notice before the emperor was dead ; in good troth, Christians must make a little merry with such a goddess.
But had kingdoms been at Jove's disposal, Jove surely had never suffered his own Crete to have come under the Roman rod ; unmindful of the Idean cave and the never-to-be-forgotten noise the Corybantes made to drown his infant cries, and of the agreeable sweets of his fragrant nurse the Goat Amaithsea. What! would not he have preferred his own tomb before any capitol, and made the country which contained Jove's ashes2 the mistress of the
favourites of heaven upon the account of their grandeur, is evident from that of Valerius, lib. i. Non Mirum igitur si pro eo imperio augendo custodiendoq.; pertinax Deorum indulgentia semper excubuit.
1
M. Aurelio—exempto, die decimo sexto Kalend. Aprilium. Thus Dion Cassius of the same emperor says—th~
e9pta_ kai\ deka&th| tou~ Marti/on methllacen.
2
Qua cineres Jovis texit. There is hardly any one thing more talked of than Crete by the poets and historians, and the Christians apologists, where Jove was born, bred, and buried. Thus Virgil—
Dictaeo Coeli Regem pavere sub antro.
Thus St. Cyprian, de Idol. van. Antrum Jovis in Creta visitur. And in the
84
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
world ? Would Juno, do you think, could she have helped it, suffered her beloved Carthage, more beloved than Samos, to have been sacked and ruined by the detested race of Trojans; for I know her passion for this city from your own Virgil:
--Here, here, this darling place,
Immortal Juno's arms, and chariot grace ; And here to fix the universal reign The mighty goddess strove, but strove in vain, By mightier fate o'ercome.1
Poor unhappy Juno, wife and sister both to Jove, and yet not a match for fate ! For, as another poet has it,
Even Jove himself must bend to fate.2
And yet the Romans cannot afford the fates who made them masters of Carthage in spite of all the intrigues of Juno, half so much honour as they pay to the most infamous of prostitutes, Larentina. But it is certain that many of your gods reigned once upon earth : if therefore kingdoms are now at their disposal, pray tell me from whom did they themselves receive their crowns? Who was the god that Saturn or Jove worshipped ? Some dunghill-god, Sterculus I suppose; but this could not well be, for Saturn and Jupiter were both dead long before Sterculus got his immortal honour at Rome for teaching his countrymen the art of dunging their ground. But though some of your gods never arrived to the honour of being kings, yet others who were kings have not had the honour to be gods. The disposal of kingdoms therefore must be lodged else- where, and not in the kings themselves; because they are kings before they have the good luck to be gods, or the disposers of kingdoms. But how ridiculous a thing is it to ascribe the Roman grandeur to the merits of the Roman religion, when the grandeur is older than the religion ; or rather the religion increased and multi- plied in proportion to the state. For though your superstitious
Alexandrian Chronic,
we have this inscription,—ENQADE
KEITAI QANWN PIKOS KAI O ZEUS QN—HIC SITUS JACET PICUS
MORTUUS, QUI ET JUPITER, QUEM JOVEM VOCANT.
1
Hic illius arma,
Hic currus fuit, hoc Regnum Dea Gentibus esse, Si qua Puta sinant, jam tum tenditq. ; fovetq. ;
— Fato stat Jupiter ipse.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
85
curiosities had their first conception in Numa's brain,1 and yet during his reign the Roman worship was without either statue or temple, their old religion was a thrifty plain religion,2 without any pompous rites, or any capitol vying with heaven;3 their altars were rude and hasty, and of turf only; their sacred vessels of Samian clay. And from hence the moderate steams of a slender sacrifice ascended, and not the image of any god to be seen amongst them ; for as yet the Grecian and Tuscan artists had not overflowed the city with the invention of images ; and therefore it is certain that the Romans were not so exceeding religious before they were so exceeding great; and consequently their greatness cannot be owing to their religion.
But with what forehead can men entitle their greatness to religion, when their greatness stands upon the ruins of religion?
1
A Numa concepta est Curiositas Superstitiosa. It has been objected that the consent of nations, if it argues anything, argues for Polytheism, that being more universal, and consequently more natural than the worship of one god ; but this is a very foolish objection ; for there is in all mankind a propensity to religion in general, as there is an inclination to eat and drink in all; and as it is left to the direction of our appetites what we should choose to eat and drink in particular, so is it left to our reason what we should worship; but to eat and drink and worship something, we are all inclined, though often abused as to the object. It is this natural propensity to religion designing men strike in with ; and they would never apply to it so universally did they not find all mankind readily disposed for divine worship; for an atheist has been looked upon as a monster in all ages. Thus it was that Numa Pompilius worked upon his subjects, and procured an implicit veneration to all his institutions, by pre- tending an acquaintance with the goddess Aegeria. Numa Pompilius, ut Populum Romanum sacris obligaret, volebat videri sibi cum Dea Aegeria congressus esse nocturnos, ejusque monitu accepta Diis Iinmortalibus sacra instituere. Valer. Max. lib. i. cap. 2.
2
Frugi Religio, etc. Varro says that the Romans worshipped their gods one hundred and seventy years without any image, and thinks they had been better served had there been no images made ; and this frugality in religion lasted to the conquest of Asia, usque ad devictam Asiam, says Pliny, lib. xxxiv. Thus Ovid, speaking of the ancient simplicity, says—
Jupiter exigua vix totus stabat in Aede, Inque Jovis dextra fictile Fulmen erat.
In Fast. 3, and in like manner Juvenal—
Hanc rebus Latiis curam praestare solebat Fictilis, et nullo violatus Jupiter auro.
Vid. Cicer. Paradox. I.
3
Capitolia certantia coelo. Capitols vying with heaven. Agreeable to which Martial thus describes it—
Nec Capitolini summum penetrale Tonantis, Quaeque nitent Coelo proximo. Templa suo.
86
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
For, if I mistake not, kingdoms or empires are got by wars, and propagated by victories, and wars and victories for the most part conclude in the captivity and desolation of cities. And this sort of business is not likely to be despatched without treading upon religion ; for the walls of a town and those of a temple are battered both alike—priests and people slain without distinction; and the plundering soldier will no more pardon the riches of the gods than those of men. The Romans therefore may compute their sacrileges by their trophies, and tell how many gods they have triumphed over, by the nations they have conquered; and withal remember that all the statues of the captive deities now in the temple are but so many spoils of war. And yet these gods will endure to be worshipped by such enemies, and decree them a perpetual empire1 for so doing, when in honour they ought to be revenged upon their outrages, rather than be cajoled by their adoration ; but gods who have neither sensation nor knowledge may be injured with as much impunity as they are served with vanity. Certainly it cannot enter into any one's head to imagine that the Romans grew to this bulk of greatness by the influence of religion, who (as I have suggested) one way or other always mounted to their greatness by treading upon religion ; for even those whose kingdoms are melted down, as it were, into one mass of Roman empire, those, I say, when they lost these kingdoms were no more without religion than they who got them.
—o—
CHAPTER XXVI.
THAT KINGDOMS ARE ONLY AT HIS DISPOSAL WHO IS THE TRUE GOD.
CONSIDER therefore with yourselves, and see whether it must not needs be Him who is the disposer of kingdoms, who is the maker and proprietor of the world which is governed, and of the man who governs it; whether it must not be Him who orders the revolutions of empire in succeeding ages of time, who was before time itself, and who of the several parts or links of ages composed the whole body or chain of time; whether it is not He who raises up and
1
Illis Imperium sine fine decernunt. TerUillian frequently quotes Virgil expressly, wliich makes it probable that in these words he alludes to a like passage in that poet—
Imperium sine fine dedi.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
87
pulls down cities, under whom mankind once sojourned without any cities at all. Why will you thus persist in error? For ancient uncultivated Rome1 is ancienter than many of your gods. She had her kings before she had such a circumference of her ground taken up with a capitol. The Babylonians, and Medes, and Egyptians, and Assyrians, and Amazons had all their kingdoms before your Pontiffs, and Quindecemviri, and Salii, and Luperci were thought of. After all, had the Roman gods been the dispensers of king- doms, the ancient Jews had never risen to such an ascendant as to reign in defiance of all the common deities all the world over; to which god of the Jews you yourself have offered sacrifices, and to whose temple you have presented gifts ; and which nation for a long time you honoured with your alliance ; - and which, let me tell you, you had never reigned over had they not finally filled up the measure of their sins with their sin against Jesus Christ.
—o—
CHAPTER XXVII.
THAT THE GENTILES ARE SET AGAINST CHRISTIANS BY THE
INSTIGATION OF EVIL SPIRITS.
THIS I take for a sufficient answer to that article which charges us with treason against the gods, having demonstrated them to be no gods, and consequently no harm done them. When therefore we are called forth to sacrifice, we set conscience before to support us against the order, which tells us what kind of beings those are which these sacrifices are made to, that are made to the images prostituted for worship, and to the consecrated names of men. But some look upon it as madness, that when we might sacrifice occasionally, and depart in a whole skin, or without hurting our conscience, by virtue of an inward reserve to continue firm to our
1
Sylvestris Roma. Wild uncultivated Rome; in which state Virgil thus describes it, Aen. 8—
Hinc ad Tarpeiam Sedem, et Capitolia ducit, Aurea nunc olim Sylvestribus horrida dumis.
2
Foederibus. Concerning the alliance and frequent leagues of the Romans with the Jews, vid. Machab. lib. i. cap. 8, lib. ii. cap. 11, etc. ; and Joseph, lib. xiv. p. 486, lib. xvi. cap. 10, p. 562. But for offering; sacrifice to the god of the Jews I cannot find, though Heraldus affirms it, and from Josephus.
88
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
religion, that we should be such blockheads as to prefer our opiniatretè to our lives. Thus, forsooth, you give the counsel by what means we are to abuse you; but well we know from whence the suggestions come; who it is that is behind the scene and prompts all this; and how he works sometimes by persuasive wiles, and sometimes by dint of cruelty, and all to throw us off from our constancy. It is verily the devil of an angel, a spirit divorced from God, and for that reason our immortal enemy, and one who gnashes with envy at the divine graces we enjoy, and plays all his engines of destruction against us from your minds, as it were from a citadel. Which minds of yours are by his secret injections modified and suborned to that perverseness of judgment, and savage injustice against us, which I mentioned in the beginning of my Apology. For although the whole force of demons and such kind of spirits is subjected to us, yet, like other rebellious slaves, their fear is mixed with contumacy, and it is their meat and drink to be hurting those whom otherwise they are afraid of, for servile fear inspires hatred.
Besides, in this stage of rage and despair, they look upon mischief as their whole comfort; and all the lucid interval1 they have for this devilish enjoyment is but until the day of judgment; and yet when we apprehend them, they surrender and submit to their condition ; and whom they battle at a distance they beseech at hand. Therefore when by their instinct you treat us like rebels, and condemn us to workhouses, or prisons, or the mines, and such like servile punishment; when thus, I say, by you their instruments they break out against us, in whose power they are (for they know their imparity full well, and their malice is but the more enraged at their impotency), then we take another course, and engage these odious spirits, as it were, upon equal terms, and resist with patience impregnable; that being the quarter they attack us upon with all their fury, and we never come off so triumphantly as when we suffer victoriously, and resist unto death.
1
Fruendae iterum malignitati de Poenae mora. " And all the lucid interval they have for this devilish enjoyment is but until the day of judgment." In these words our author plainly alludes to the Second Epistle of St. Peter ii. 4—" For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment." And this allusion, in a point of doctrine, in some measure proves that this Epistle went for genuine in our author's time.
—o—
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
89
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THAT THE ROMANS HAVE THEIR EMPERORS IN GREATER
VENERATION THAN THEIR GODS.
BUT because it seems manifestly wrong to drag men to sacrifice against the natural freedom of their wills, since, as I have else- where declared, religion must be a pure act of the will, it must needs be very foolish to press men to the service of the gods, whom for their own sakes they ought to serve freely; and that it should not be in a man's choice, which he has a right to by the liberty of his will, to say, I will not have Jove for my god. Who are you, pray, sir, that pretend to have my will in keeping? I care not a farthing for Janus, let him turn his brows upon me from which forehead he pleases. What have you to do with me in the choice of religion ? But they which put you upon forcing us to sacrifice to the gods are the same spirits which inform you to make us sacrifice1 for the safety of the emperor; and so Caesar's safety being twisted with the honour of the gods, you are by this stratagem necessitated to compel, and we to suffer.
I come now to the second article of lese majesty, but majesty more august with you than that of your gods ; for you are more sincerely afraid and circumspect in your devotions to Caesar than to Olympian Jove; and deservedly too if you understood it; for what man alive is not preferable to a dead one ? But this difference in your devotions is not grounded so much upon reason, or the knowledge you have of your deities, as upon the consideration of the emperor's present sensible power upon you; and it is upon this account here I tax you with irreligion, because you stand more heartily in awe of Caesar than of all your gods; for, in fine, you will sooner invoke all your gods round to bear witness to a lie than swear falsely by the single genius of Caesar.2
1
Pro salute Imperatoris sacrifuare. When Herod and his father
Nicetes look up Polycarp into their coach, they attempted to persuade him off of his resolu- tion to suffer, in this form of
words, ti/ gar kako&n e0stin ei0pein, ku&rie Kai/sar,
kai\ qu~sai kai\ diaswzesqai. "Where is the harm to say, O Lord Caesar, and to sacrifice, and so save yourself? " And when the martyr was brought before the tribunal, the proconsul charges him to swear by the genius of Caesar,
o2moson tou~ Kai/saroj tuxh&n, metano&hson,
ei0pon ai0re tou~j a0qe/ouj, that is, swear by Caesar's genius, repent, say take off the atheists, that is, the Christians. These and such like were the forms upon which they tried Christians. Vid. Euseb. Ecc. Hist. lib. iv. cap. 15, p. 131.
2
Citius denique apud vos. Tutius per Jovis Genium pejerare, quam Regis It
90
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians,
CHAPTER XXIX.
THAT THE EMPERORS MAINTAIN THE GODS RATHER THAN THE
GODS' THE EMPERORS.
FIRST therefore make it appear that those you sacrifice to can protect either kings or subjects, and then charge us with treason against gods and men; for if angels or demons, spirits essentially wicked or of the most destructive nature, can be the authors of any good; if spirits lost and undone themselves can save others, if the damned can give freedom, and lastly if the dead (as you know in your conscience your gods to be) can defend the living, pray why do they not defend in the first place their own statues and images and temples, which in my opinion are defended by Caesar's guards, who keep watch and ward for their security. But the materials of these I think come from Caesar's mines; and the temples depend on Caesar's nod ; and lastly, many of the gods have felt Caesar's displeasure; and if he has been propitious to the gods, and liberal, and bestowed privileges upon them, it still makes for our cause. Thus then how is it likely that they who are at Caesar's nod, as they all entirely are, should be the guardians of Caesar's life ? Is it not more likely that the gods should be in Caesar's keeping, than Caesar in theirs ? What! are we traitors to the emperors because we do not set them below their own possessions ? because we will not make mock addresses for their safety, con- cluding it cannot be in the keeping of hands of lead. But you are the only persons of religion who pray for their safety where it cannot be had, and overlook Him who alone has it in His power. But those who know how to ask it, and can obtain it too, because they know how to ask it; those, I say, you are persecuting out of the world.
is much safer, says Minutius, to swear falsely by the genius of Jove than Caesar.
Jurandasque tuum per nomen ponimus aras,
says Horace.
For he who swore falsely by the gods was noted only by the censors, and exposed to shame. Vid. Ciceron. lib. iv. de Repub. But one perjured by the genius of Caesar was severely bastinadoed, and exposed into the bargain. For thus says Ulpian, lib. xiii., de Jure-jurando, Siquis juravent in re pecuniaria per Genium Caesaris, et pejeraverit, etc. Imperator noster cum Patre rescripsis, fusti- bus eum castigandum dimittere, et ita ei
superdici, propetw~j mh_ o0mnuj, petulanter ne jurato.
Tertullian's Apology for the
Christians. 91
CHAPTER XXX.
CONCERNING THE GOD OF CHRISTIANS BY WHOM KINGS REIGN,
AND THE PRAYERS OF CHRISTIANS FOR THE LIFE OF THE
EMPERORS.
THE God we pray to for the life of emperors is the eternal God, the true God, the God of life, and whom above all the emperors themselves principally desire to propitiate; they know by whom they reign as kings and live as men. They are sensible that He is the only God, and in whose power alone they are; and that they themselves are, next under Him, supreme; and after Him the first in honour above all men, and all your other gods too into the bargain. And why not ? since they are above all men living, and the living surely are above the dead. They consider how far their power will go, and find it infinitely below the reach of heaven, and so come to be sensible of a God above them ; and consequently that the powers they have must be from God. Let an emperor make war upon heaven, and pride himself with the thoughts of leading captive heaven in triumph; let him set guards upon heaven, and try to reduce it to a Roman province, and he will find his weakness. He is therefore great, because he is but less than heaven; for he is a creature of His who made heaven and every creature that ever had a being. He made him an emperor who made him a man ; the author of his life is the author of his power.
To this Almighty Maker and Disposer of all Things it is that we Christians offer up our prayers, with eyes lifted up to heaven, un- folded hands in token of our simplicity,1 and with uncovered heads,
1
Illuc suspicientes Christiani manibus expansis, etc. The primitive Christians at their devotion did not only lift up their hands to heaven, for so we find the heathens did, according to that of Virgil—
Et duplices tendens ad sidera palmas,
but they laid their expanded hands transverse in the form of a cross; and so we are to understand our author here by his manibus expansis, and so likewise in his book de Orat. cap. 11—Nos vero non attollimus tantum, sed etiam expandi- mus, et Dominica Passione modulamur. Vid. Not. Vales, in Euseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. iv. cap. 14, p. 242. I cannot but take notice here of a most extraordinary objection against set forms of prayer, urged by David Clarkson in his discourse concerning liturgies, from this passage : "That the Christians then lifted up their hands and eyes to heaven in prayer, which shows they had no books." It shows it indeed just as much as our lifting up our hands and eyes shows now that we have no Common Prayer-Book in our Church; but certainly both ministers and people being constantly used to one form may have so much memory as to find time to look off from their books, and look up to heaven at proper seasons.
92
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
because we have nothing to blush for in our devotion; and without a prompter,1 because we pray with our hearts rather than our tongues; and in all our prayers are ever mindful of all our emperors and kings wheresoever we live, beseeching God for every one of them without distinction, that He would bless them with length of days and a quiet reign, a well-established family, a stout
1
Denique sine Monitore, quia de Pectore oramus. This is just such another obscure passage as the
o3dh Du&namij in Justin Martyr already mentioned; but as dark as it is, yet with some men it is as clear as the day for the use of extempore prayer in Tertullian's time. But before I enter upon this contro- verted place, I desire the reader to take notice first, that though our author does not give us the very form, because he wrote to unbelievers, yet in this chapter he gives the heads of a stated prayer for the emperor, namely, a long life, a quiet empire, a well-established family, a valiant army, a faithful senate, a virtuous people, etc. Now he could not deliver in these particulars as a proof of the Christian loyalty, unless they prayed constantly for these things, and that must be by a constant settled form ; for extempore prayer is as uncertain as the wind, and could have been no evidence in this or any other case. Secondly, by this phrase, "without a monitor," cannot possibly be meant without any one to dictate a form of words to them, because in all their public prayers the minister was always the mouth of the congregation, and whether he prayed by a form, or extempore, his words must be a form of words to the people who prayed after him. Whatever therefore this dubious expression may mean, it cannot possibly mean without a form, unless it means without a minister ; because, as I have said, the prayers of the minister must be a form to the people. And now for the phrase itself; we pray Sine Monitore, without a prompter or monitor, because de Pectore, from the heart, that is extempore, as Mr. Clarkson and the anti- formulists expound it. Bishop Bilson, in his Christian Subject, with great modesty says, "This seems to be meant of the miraculous gift of prayer, which dured in the Church unto his time." Vid. Christian Subj. part iv. p. 411. But then he supposes withal that this extraordinary gift ceased soon after, and that liturgies came into practice long before the time of St. Basil or Chrysostom ; so that, allowing this conjecture, it will by no means follow that because ministers, while divinely inspired, prayed without a form, therefore they ought to keep on praying extempore when the days of inspiration are over. But with all respect to this learned prelate, he seems not to reach the design and meaning of Tertullian in this place ; and in order hereunto, it is to be remembered that the heathen had abundance of deities, and every deity to be invoked in a several form, for such blessings as lay within his particular province. Thus, for instance, Bacchus was invoked in this wise, O Bacchus ! son of Semele, the giver of riches, etc. Vid. Casaub. Exercit. lib. xvi. p. 42. And so again for Janus, O Father Janus ! with this cake I offer thee my good wishes, etc. Vid. Fest. in verb. Signif. And so again for Jupiter, Mars, and all the rest. Now in such a swarm of deities and different invocations, a god might easily be passed over, or the invocation ill worded, or ill pronounced (which was looked upon very ominous, and hence perhaps that phrase of Bona Verba). For fear, I say, that there should be any omission or blunder in these divine addresses, these several forms of invocation were not only read out of the ritual by one priest, but there was another priest also appointed, as a public monitor, to oversee and set them right in their repetitions. And that this was the case seems very probable from that of Pliny, lib. xxviii. cap. 2—Inprecationibus, ne quid Verborum praetereatur,
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
93
army, a faithful senate, an honest people, and a peaceful world, and whatever else either prince or people can wish for.
But these are blessings I cannot persuade myself to ask of any, but Him who I know can give them, and that is my God, and my God only, who has them in His disposal; and I am one to whom He has obliged Himself by promise to grant what I ask, if 7 ask as I should do; for I am His servant, and serve Him only, and for
aut praeposterum dicatur de Scripto praeire aliquem, rursusque alium Custodem dari, qui attendat. "
In certain prayers, lest any of the words should be omitted, or preposterously repeated, there is one to dictate to the people out of a book, and another appointed as overseer, to attend how they pronounce." Now this last, whom Pliny calls the custos, or overseer, seems not unlikely to be the monitor alluded to by Tertullian. We pray then without a monitor, because de Pectore, from the heart; which may either signify that we repeat not our prayers aloud after the priest, as you do, but join with him in our soul; or else, that we can say our prayers by heart, and so have no occasion for such a monitor, and then de Pectore answers exactly to
a0posthqi/zein and such Graecisms are much affected by this writer. Vid. Thornd. Relig. Assemb. p. 237. Another learned person understands this phrase de Pectore of those prayers which every private Christian used in the solemn assemblies on the stationary days, in the intervals between the public offices of the Church, while the congregation kept silence; and considering that they stayed at these stations for nine hours together, and that all this time was not taken up in reading, expounding, singing, and in common prayers, it is not improbable but the interspaces were allowed for the exercise of mental devotion. And then this phrase de Pectore can argue nothing against set forms in public prayers. Besides, it was a custom, and taken notice of by Plutarch, that while the priest was officiating, for another to go behind him with this admonition, Hoc age quod agis, "Be sure to mind what you are about;" and this perhaps might be the monitor. But Christians who prayed de Pectore, with all their hearts and souls, had no need of such an officer. Lastly, if we consider that Tertullian is here proving the sincerity of the Christian loyally above that of the heathens, it seems most agreeable to his design in my opinion, and what the words will very well bear, to understand him thus : the heathens were obliged to offer up their vows and sacrifices in public for the life of the emperor ; and for fear they should omit to name him, either out of negligence or malice; or name him only by way of imprecation, there was a custos, or monitor, appointed to see that they rightly pronounced the form of words dictated by another priest from writing. And to this Seneca no doubt alludes in these remarkable words, lib. de Clement. cap. 19—Quid pulchrius est, quam vivere optatibus cunctis, et vota non sub Custode nuncupantibus ? " What more lovely or desirable than to live in the hearts of his subjects, and to have them all praying for him without the help of a monitor?" And therefore, says our author, we pray sine Monitore, without an overseer, because de Pectore, that is, ex animo, because we pray for emperors from our very heart and soul. Thus then we see how many ways there are of expounding this obscure passage, each of which is much more probable than that which is urged for the justifica- tion of extempore prayer. And thus likewise we see how the authority of the ancients is valued like an oracle, when they deliver themselves in agreeable ambiguity ; but when they cannot be made to speak for the party, why then the Fathers are very ordinary people.
94
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
whose service I am killed all the day long, and to whom I offer that noble and greatest of sacrifices which He has commanded, a prayer which comes from a chaste body, an innocent soul, and a sanctified spirit; not a farthing's worth of frankincense, not the tears of an Arabian tree, or two drops of wine; not the blood of a discarded bull worn out with age ; and after all these defilements, a conscience the most defiling thing of all. So that in truth, when I reflect upon the pollutions of the sacrificers who are to examine the qualifications of the sacrifice, I cannot but wonder why the entrails of the beasts should be rather inspected than the inwards of the priests.
Thus, then, while we are stretching forth our hands to our God, let your tormenting irons harrow our flesh; let your gibbets exalt us, or your fires lick up our bodies, or your swords cut off our heads, or your beasts tread us to earth. For a Christian upon his knees to his God is in a posture of defence against all the evils you can crowd upon him.
Consider this,1 0 you impartial judges, and go on with your justice, and while our soul is pouring out herself to God in the behalf of the emperor, do you be letting out her blood.
—o—
CHAPTER XXXI.
THAT CHRISTIANS ARE COMMANDED TO LOVE THEIR ENEMIES.
BUT perhaps our vows and intercessions with heaven for the life of the emperor are to be looked upon merely as the spices of flattery, and a trick only to elude the severity of the laws; but if you will have it a trick, it has had this advantage, to procure us the liberty
1
Hoc agile, boni Praesides, extorquete animam Deo supplicantem pro Impera- tore. There is a most bitter .sarcasm implied in these words, Hoc agite, that is, " be intent upon your sacrifice, and wrack out the soul of a Christian while it is praying to God for the life of the emperor; " wherein our author manifestly alludes to the custom just now mentioned from Plutarch, that while the priest was sacrificing, the crier or praeco went behind with these words, Hoc age, mind what you are about; for thus Plutarch tells us in Coriolano,
o3tan ga_r a!rxontej
h0 i9ereij pra&ttwsi ti\ tw~n qei/wn, o9 kh~|ruc pro&teisi mega&lh
fwnh~ bow~n, o9k a!ge, shma&nei ga_r
fwnh_, tou~to pra&tte, prose/xein keleu&ousa toij i9eroij, kai\ mhde\n
ergon e0mbalein metacu_
mhde\ xreian a0sxoli/aj.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
95
of proving what we proposed to do in our justification. Thou therefore that thinkest that the Christian religion expresses no concern for the life of Caesar, look into the word of God, the word we go by, and which we do not suppress in private, and which many accidents have thrown into the hands of strangers, and there you may see with what superabundant charity we are commanded to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, to do good to them that hate us, and to pray for them which despitefully use us, and persecute us, Matt. v. 44. And who such cruel persecutors of Christians as the emperors for whom they are persecuted ? And yet these are the persons we are commanded by the word of God expressly, and by name, to pray for; for thus it runs—" I exhort therefore, that first of all supplications and prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty," 1 Tim. ii. 1. For when the government is shaken, the members of it feel the shock, and we (though we are not looked upon as members by the people), yet we must be found somewhere in the calamity of the public.
—o—
CHAPTER XXXII.
CONCERNING ANOTHER REASON OF THE CHRISTIANS IN PRAYING
FOR THE EMPERORS.
BUT there is another and more prevailing reason which determines us to intercede with heaven for the emperors, and for the whole estate of the empire, and their prosperity. And it is this, that we are of opinion that the conflagration of the universe which is now at hand, and is likely to flame out in the conclusion of this century, and to be such a horrid scene of misery, is retarded by this inter- position of the Roman prosperity;1 and therefore we desire not to
1
Quod vim maximam universo orbi imminentum, etc. Tertullian in this passage alludes to that of St. Paul, 2 Thess. ii.—"And now ye know what withholdeth, that he might be revealed in his time," etc. And so likewise in his book de Resur. Carnis cap. 24—Jam enim arcanum iniquitatis agitur ; tantum ut qui tenet, teneat, donec de medio fiat. Quis nisi Romanus Status? etc. And it was the current opinon of the Fathers that Antichrist should not come until the Roman Empire
was destroyed. To this purpose Theod. Chrysost. : Tine_j
to_
kate/xon th_n 9Rwmaikh_n e0nohsqai basilei/an, tine\j de\ th_n xa&rin tou~
pneu&matoj, oi9 me\n tou~
pneu&matoj th_n xa&rin fasi\n, oi9 de\ th_n 9Rwmaikh_n a0rxh_n oi9j
e!gwge ma&lista ti/qemai. And
96
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
be spectators of dissolving nature; and while we pray for it to be deferred, we pray for the subsistence of the Roman Empire.
But then as to your other objection concerning oaths; to this I answer, that swear we do,1 and if not by the geniuses of the Caesars, yet by their life, which is of more veneration to us than all the genii put together. But you seem to be ignorant that the genii are called demons, and from thence by a diminutive word demonia, that is, little devils. We reverence the providence of God in the persons of the emperors, who has made choice of them for the government of the world. We know that the power they have, they have by the will of God; and therefore we wish well to that which God has willed to be; and we look upon that as a very sacred oath which is made by so sacred a person; but as for demons, that is genii, we are used to exercise them, and not to swear by them, for fear of giving that honour to devils which is due only to God.
—o—
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A FURTHER ACCOUNT OF CHRISTIAN LOYALTY, AND THEIR REFUSING
TO CALL THE EMPEROR BY THE TITLE OF GOD.
BUT what need I say more to show the sacred tie which binds on the duty of allegiance upon Christian subjects? It is enough to
so again St. Jerome—Nisi, inquit, fuerit Romanum Imperium ante desolatum, et Antichristus praecessarit, Christus non veniet. Hieron. Epist. ad Algas. Qu. II, f. 60.
1
Sed et juramus, sicut non per Genios Caesarum, ita per Salutem corum, etc. Here we have the lawfulness of an oath expressly asserted by our Tertullian, though now gainsaid by some new-fashioned Christians (if the Quakers may be called Christians), and an oath too by the life of the emperors ; and a very sacred oath too it is, says our author, when so sacred a person is sworn by. They would not swear by their genii indeed, because they looked upon that as swearing by the devil and his angels; and thus we find that Joseph swore by the life of Pharaoh. Some are of opinion that this custom of swearing by the safety of the emperor was introduced by Augustus, from that of Horace,
Praesenti tibi maturos largimur honores, Jurandasq. tuum per numen ponimus
aras.
However this be, it is certain from Suetonius in Vita Tiberii, and from Cornelius Tacitus, lib. i., that Tiberius forbade all such swearing either by his life or genius. Vid. Dion. Rom. Hist. lib. lvii.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
97
say that we look upon ourselves under a necessity to honour the emperor as a person of God's election; so that I may very deservedly say that we have much the greatest share in Caesar, as being made emperor by our God. And therefore it is I who more effectually recommend him to God,1 because I not only earnestly ask it of Him who can give it, or because I am such a petitioner as have the most reason to obtain it, but also because by setting Caesar below his god, I set him higher in his affection, to which God alone I subject him ; and I subject him to God, by not making him his equal.
I will not give the title of god to the emperor,3 either because I dare not speak against my conscience, nor ridicule him; or because he himself will not endure the title. If he be a man, it is the interest of a man to give place to God; let him content himself with the name of emperor, for this is the most majestic name upon earth, and it is the gift of God. He lays aside the emperor who takes upon him the God; he must be a man to be an emperor. When he is in the very prime of his glory sitting in his triumphal chariot, even then he is admonished to know himself a man, by one speaking from behind in these words, " Look back, and remember yourself to be but man ; " 3 and he is then the more contented to find
1
Plus ego illi operor in Salutem. "It is I who more effectually recommend him to God." This word operor I take to be very significative and emphatical in this place; for as facere often is used for Rem sacram facere, to sacrifice; so operari, when applied to religious matters, is the same with the Greek inpyuv, by sacrifice or prayer to work upon God with energy, or efficaciously.
2
Non enim Deum Imperatorem dicam. "I will not call the emperor God." Antiochus, king of Syria, arrived to the extravagant blasphemy of taking upon him this title of God. Vid. Appian. in Syr. So likewise among the Romans, Caligula commanded himself to be called Optimus Maximus and Jupiter Latialis. See Sueton. in vita ipsius, cap. 22, and Philo in his Legatione ad Caium. And thus Tacitus, lib. iii., speaks of Domitian, Mox imperium adeptus, Jovi Custodi templum ingens, seq, ; in sinu Dei sacravit. Vide etiam Sueton. cap. 13. Hence that of Martial, lib. v. Epigr. 8—
Edictum Domini, Deiq. ; nostri.
And so again, lib. viii. Epigr. 2—
Terrarum Domino, Deoq. ; rerum.
3
Suggeriter enim ei a tergo, Respice post te, Hominem memento te. In the same chariot, behind him who triumphed, was the public servant carried, who held up a huge heavy crown above the head of the triumpher, both to express his merits and his weakness by a glorious weight he could not bear, and with the mortifying words just now mentioned. In allusion to this is that of Juvenal, Sat. 10—
Quippe tenet sudans hanc Publicus, et sibi Consul. Ne placeat, curru Servus portatur eodem.
D
98
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
himself on such a dazzling height of glory as to make it necessary for him to be advised of his humanity. He is the weakest of princes who can feel himself a man, and would be flattered as Almighty; and he the Caesar truly great, that will bear the truth that is designed to keep him within the bounds of mortality.
—o—
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CONCERNING AUGUSTUS CAESAR.
AUGUSTUS,1 the founder of the Roman Empire, would by no means admit of the style of Dominus, or lord, for this is the surname of God. Nevertheless, I should not scruple to call the emperor lord;2 but then it must be when I am not compelled to do it in a sense peculiarly appropriated to God ; for I am Caesar's free-born subject, and we have but one Lord, the Almighty and Eternal God, who is his Lord as well as mine.
But why should you call him lord, who is styled the father of his country ? Surely that name of affection sounds sweeter much than that of power ; and they had rather be called fathers of great families, than lords of slaves. But if Augustus would never assume the title of lord, he would much less have thought it Caesar's due
1
Augustus, ne Dominum quidem dici se volebat. Suetonius in the life of Augustus writes thus of his refusing the title of Dominus, or lord, cap. 53— " Domini appellationem, ut maledictum et opprobrium semper exhorruit. Cum spectante eo ludos, pronunciatum esset in mimo, O Dominum aequum et bonum : et universi quasi de ipso dictum exultantes comprobassent: statim manu vultuque indecoras adulationes
repressit, et insequenti die gravissirno corripuit edicto, Dominumque se posthac appellari, ne a liberis quidem aut nepotibus suis, vel serio vel joco, passus est; atque hujusmodi blanditias etiam inter ipsos prohibuit."
2
Dicam plane Imperatorem Dominum. sed more communi, etc. If the Quakers would be determined by Tertullian, a person of great mortification, a mighty stickler for anything which had the least appearance of extraordinary piety, and withal an exceeding admirer of Montanus, and the false pretenders to the spirit of that age, they might hear him in this place frankly declaring that he should make no scruple to call the emperor Dominus, or lord, to own him supreme, or as he in the foregoing chapter expresses it, subject to God only, provided this term Dominus might be taken in the common sense, and noways intrench upon the prerogative of God. And this proviso he had reason to make, because the adoration of emperors was then grown into fashion.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
99
to have been styled god; a flattery not only most fulsome, but of a most destructive influence to both parties. It is just as if you should pass by the rightful emperor, and give his title to another; would not this be an unpardonable offence in you who give the title, and fatal to him who takes it ? Let me advise you therefore, as you tender Caesar's safety, not to rob God of His attributes, to bestow them upon Caesar; forbear to believe that there is any other god, and to style him god who stands in need of God every moment of his being. But if you are proof against all shame, and can daub the emperor with such a lie of a title as you do by calling such a mortal, god; at least, methinks, you should be afraid of having such an ill-boding name in your mouths, for it is a kind of imprecation against Caesar's life, to call him a god before the time of his apotheosis.
—o—
CHAPTER XXXV.
CONCERNING THE DIFFERENT OBSERVATION OF PUBLIC FESTIVALS
BETWEEN THE CHRISTIANS AND THE HEATHENS.
CHRISTIANS therefore lie under the odium of public enemies, because they join not in the public flatteries, in the false fantastic honours which are dedicated to emperors upon public festivals; because the professors of the true religion celebrated such solem- nities with sobriety of conscience, and not with the liberties of a dissolute joy.1 A mighty instance of loyalty, no doubt! to make bonfires, to bring out tables and feasts in the streets, and meta- morphose the whole city into a tavern ;2 to make the conduits run wine, and see the mob suck up dirt and liquor together, and run
1
Verae Religionis Homines etiam solemnia eorum, conscientia potius quam lascivia celebrant. Here you have another instance of the primitive Christians complying with heathen solemnities, so far as was consistent with innocence. The festival here mentioned seems to be a day of rejoicing for the suppressing the faction of Niger and his adherents. The Christians made no scruple to observe the day with a conscientious mirth, though they would not join in the public debauchery.
2
Civitatem tabernae habitu abolefacere. " To metamorphose the city into a tavern." Agreeable to this description is that of Martial, lib. vii.—
Tonsor, Caupo, Coquus, Lanius, sua limina servant, Nunc Roma est, nuper magna Taberna fuit.
100 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
about in troops like mad into all the confusions of injury, im- pudence and lust, their heated imagination prompts them to. Is such a scene of public shame a proper expression of public joy ? And are these becoming practices upon an holy day, which upon any day are abominable? Shall they who seem so mighty devout for Caesar's safety be so mighty drunk for Caesar's safety too ? Shall licentiousness pass for loyalty, and luxury for religion ? Oh the just condemnation of Christians ! For why should we dare to be so singularly sober, chaste, and honest upon Caesar's birthday, and be so unfashionably religious in discharging our vows and rejoicings for him ? When all the world has given such a loose to joy, why do we not do so too, and darken our gates with laurels,1 and put out the day with illuminations ? For certainly it is a very fine figure to see your houses upon holy days dressed up in the fashion of the stews.
But touching the religion upon these sacred festivals to Caesar, who is the second majesty next to God, and upon whose account we are convened as guilty of a second sacrilege, for not celebrating these days according to your modes of worship, which temperance, modesty, and chastity will not permit us to do. I would set this matter, I say, in a better light, and lay before you your own allegi- ance and sincerity, that we may judge whether they are not more to blame in this point than Christians, who will not have us treated as Romans, but as enemies of the State.
For the truth of this I convene the populace of Rome, the natives of the Seven Hills, and let them answer whether their tongues, as much Roman as it is, have spared any of their own Caesars? Let the pasquils fixed upon the statue of Tiberius speak, and the Circus too, that academy where beasts are sent to learn the art of killing men with a better grace.
Had nature covered our breasts with transparent matter, so that we might look into the people's heart, what heart should we see
1
Cur diu laeto non Laureis Postes obumbramus ? Juvenal, speaking in the person of the people applauding the emperor's happiness upon the overthrow of his enemy, says, Pone domi Lauros. Sat. 10. And so again, Sat. 6—
Ornentur Postes, et grandi Janua Lauro.
But this also (says our author in the words following) was the habit of the stews ; and lib. ii. ad Uxor.-—Procedit de Janua Laureat a et lucernata, ut de novo Consistorio libidinum Publicarum.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians,
101
that was not inscribed with a scene of Caesar's fresh and fresh distributing the doles to the people, which are usual at their first coming to the throne ? We should see these wishes, I say, in their hearts for Caesar's death, even in the moment that their mouths are full of cry for Caesar's life, according to that of the poet:1
Shorten my thread of life, good Jove ! from mine Take many years to lengthen Caesar's line.
But a Christian dares no more take their words in his mouth than their wishes in his heart; but this you will say is mob, and to be considered as mob only. But let me tell you, this mob are Romans, and the worst too of enemies we have; the Romans then of better rank are certainly better subjects, and their fidelity greater in proportion to their quality; not a man of the senatorian or equestrian order but is all subjection; and not a breath of re- bellion ever comes from camp or court. If so, whence came the Cassiuses, the Nigers and Albinuses ?2 Whence those who set upon the Emperor Commodus between the two laurel groves at Lauretum ? and those who got him strangled at his exercise with his wrestling- master Narcissus ? Whence those who broke into the palace, sword in hand, and murdered Pertinax, in a more audacious manner than Domitian was by the Sigeriuses and Partheniuses ? Now these parricides (if I mistake not) were men of rank, and Romans; and not a Christian among them. And these traitors just before the perpetration of this horrid impiety offered sacrifice for Caesar's life, and swore by Caesar's genius, with religion in their faces, and murder in their hearts, and branded the Christians with the character of public enemies. But the principals and abettors of this wicked conspiracy against Severus which are daily detected, and picked up as the gleanings after a vintage of rebellion.3 Bless me ! with what loads of laurel did they signalize their gates on
1
De nostris annis Jupiter augeat annos.
2
Unde Cassii, et Nigri, et Albini? Whoever has a mind to see a particular account of these Tyranni, and those that adhered to them, may read the life of Avidius Cassius in Vulcatius, the life of Niger in Spartianus, and that of Albinus in Capitolinus. See also the preface of Baldwinus before Minutius Felix.
3
Post Vindemiam Parricidarum Racematio Superstes. How this passage determines the time of this Apology, I have already mentioned ; and that relates not to the death of Plautianus, according to Baronius, tom, ii., Annal. p. 264, and according to Mr. Dodwell, Cyp. diss. xi. cap. 51, p. 282, but to the death of Pertinax, is to me most probable from the history of Zosimus, lib. i., where he gives this account—kai\
pro&ge a0pa&ntwn, etc., Ante omnia (Severus) de Militibus qui Pertinacem necaverant, et Juliano tradiderant Imperium, acerba Supplicia sumpsit.
102
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
Caesar's birthday! With what extraordinary illuminations did their porches overcast the sun !1 With what exquisite and stately tables did they take up the forum ! Not in truth to celebrate the public joy, but to take omens from hence of their own future empire, and to inaugurate this image of their hopes, even upon Caesar's festival, by calling themselves in their hearts by the name of Caesar. They likewise pay the same observances who are so officious in consulting astrologers,
and soothsayers, and augurs, and magicians about the life of the emperors;2 for these fortune-telling arts delivered by fallen angels, and interdicted by God, the Christians never apply to in any cause of theirs. For what business has a man to be so curious about Caesar's life, who has no design against it, or expecta- tions from it? For we seldom ask questions about our dearest friends, with the same intent as we do about our masters; and the solicitude of relations, and the curiosity of slaves, are generally upon very different principles.
—o—
CHAPTER XXXVI.
CONCERNING THE CHRISTIAN DUTY OF LOVING ENEMIES.
IF the case be thus, that such as are found traitors in the very fact shall be indulged the title of Romans, why are we denied the benefit of that title who are only thought traitors ? Can we not be Romans without being rebels, because so many Romans have been found guilty of rebellion? That piety, veneration, and loyalty
1
I.ucernis vestibula enubilabant. It was the manner of the Grecians to express the celebration of festival days by
fwsi\ kai\ stefanw&masi, by illuminations and coronets of flowers. And Persius, speaking of Herod's birthday, has these words—
Unctaq. ; fenestra. Disposita pinguem nebulam vomuere Lucernae.
But the Christians would not express their joy by lights and laurels; and for candles, we find an express prohibition against them in the Apostolical Canons, can. 70—Si quis Christianis oleum tulerit ad sacra Gentilium, vel Synagogam Judaeorum, Festis ipsorum diebus, aut lucernas accenderit, de Societate pellatur.
2
Qui Astrologos ct Aruspices, et Augures, et Magos de Caesarum capite consultant. Our author mentions these several sorts of conjurors, because many of them had been put to death upon this account by Severus. For thus Spartianus in his life of Severus, Multos etiam, quasi Chaldaeos, aut vates, de sua salute consulissent, interemit.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
103
therefore which is due to emperors, does not consist in the fore- mentioned shows of duty, which even rebellion cloaks herself in to pass undiscovered, but in such virtues as civil society finds necessary to be practised sincerely towards prince and people. Nor are these actions of a virtuous mind looked upon by us as a tribute due to Caesar only; for we have no respect of persons in doing good, because by so doing we do good to ourselves, who catch at no applause or reward from men, but from God only, who keeps a faithful register of our good works, and has ample rewards in store for this universal charity; for we have the same good wishes for emperors as for our nearest friends. To wish ill, to do ill, to speak ill, or to think ill of any one, we are equally forbidden with- out exception. What is injustice to an emperor is injustice to his slave; and that which is unlawful against the meanest is much more so against the greatest of men; and him too especially who came to this greatness by the appointment of God.
—o—
CHAPTER XXXVII.
A CONTINUATION OF THE UNLIMITED LOVE OF CHRISTIANS.
IF then (as I have elsewhere declared) we Christians are expressly commanded by our Master to love our enemies, whom then have we left to hate? And if when hurt we must not return the evil, for fear of being like the rest of the world, where shall we find a man to hurt? How well we practise this command of our Master, you yourselves can tell with a witness ; for how many times, partly in compliance with a brutish passion, partly in obedience to the laws, have you judges showed a most savage cruelty to Christians ! How often without your authority has the hostile mob of their own mere motion invaded us with showers of stones and fire ! The mob, I say, who acted with the furies of a Bacchanal spare not even a dead Christian, but tear him from the quiet of a tomb, the sacred refuge of death, and mangle the body, hideously deformed already, and rotting to pieces ; and in this rueful condition drag it about the streets. But now in all this conspiracy of evils against us, in the midst of these mortal provocations, what one evil have you observed to have been returned by Christians ? Whereas we could in a night's time with links and firebrands in our hands have
1O4
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
made ourselves ample satisfaction by returning evil for evil, had we not thought it unlawful to quit the score of one injury with another. But God forbid that any of this divine sect should seek revenge by fire, after the manner of men, or grudge to suffer what is sent to refine them.
But if we would not revenge ourselves, in the dark, but as professed enemies engage you in the open field, do you think we could want forces ? The Moors, and Marcomans, and Parthians, which you have lately conquered, or any other people within the bounds of a country, are more numerous perhaps than those who know no other bounds than the limits of the world. We are but of yesterday, and by to-day are grown up, and overspread your empire ; your cities, your islands, your forts, towns, assemblies, and your very camps, wards, companies, palace, senate, forum, all swarm with Christians. Your temples indeed we leave to yourselves, and they are the only places you can name without Christians. What war can we now be unprepared for ?1 And supposing us unequal
1
Cui bello non Idonaei, etc. ? In the preliminary discourse to this Apology, I have shown at large from this and the foregoing chapters that it was not for want either of strength or courage that the primitive Christians sat still and suffered ; but purely the reverence they bore to the character of God in the emperor, tied their hands and secured their passions, and perfectly got the better of self-preservation. It was the doctrine and example of their suffering Master which made them content to go this rugged way to heaven ; and 1 cannot but think this extraordinary, supernatural patience, a mighty, strong, and moving argument for the truth of Christianity, to see its professors in such numbers, and for some ages, so willingly comply with a religion which, as Tertullian says, taught men they must choose rather to be killed than to kill. But because the measures of Christian obedience to the supreme powers are no- where better argued and more clearly stated both from Scripture and antiquity, and from these passages, than by the Right Reverend and learned Bishop of Sarum himself in his four Conferences, printed at Glasgow in the year 1673, I recommend the reader for fuller satisfaction on this head to those excellent dialogues. However, for fear they should be out of print, I shall give him a taste for his encouragement to read the whole. Thus then he expresses his zeal with a justifiable primitive warmth, p. 17—"Whatever other cases allow of, certainly the defence of religion by arms is never to be admitted ; for the nature of the Christian religion is such that it excludes all carnal weapons from its defence. And when I consider how expressly Christ forbids His disciples to resist evil, Matt. xxv. 39, how severely that resistance is condemned by St. Paul, and that condemnation is declared the punishment of it, I am forced to cry out, Oh ! what times are we fallen in, in which men dare against the express laws of the gospel defend that practice upon which God hath passed this condemnation—' If whosoever break the least of these commandments, and teach men so to do, shall be called the least in the kingdom of God,' what shall their portion be who teach men to break one of the greatest of these commandments, such as are the laws of peace and subjection? And what may we not look for from such
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
105
in strength, yet considering our usage, what should we not attempt readily? we whom you see so ready to meet death in all its forms of cruelty, was it not agreeable to our religion to be killed rather than to kill.
We could also make a terrible war upon you without arms, or fighting a stroke, by being so passively revengeful as only to leave you; for if such a numerous host of Christians should but retire from the empire into some remote region of the world, the loss of so many men of all ranks and degrees would leave a hideous gap, and a shameful scar upon the government; and the very evacuation would be abundant revenge. You would stand aghast at your desolation, and be struck dumb at the general silence and horror of nature, as if the whole world was departed. You would be at a loss for men to govern, and in the pitiful remains you would find more enemies than citizens; but now you exceed in friends, be- cause you exceed in Christians.
Besides, whom would you have left to deliver you from the incursions of your invisible enemies, who lay waste both body and soul ? From the devils I mean, from whose depredations we defend you gratis; and had we a spirit of revenge, it would make the passion full amends only to abandon you freely to the mercy of those impure beings; but without the least touch of gratitude for the benefit of so great a protection, you declare a sect of men, which are not only not burdensome, but necessary, to be public enemies; as
we are indeed, but not in your sense, enemies not of human kind but of human errors only.
teachers, who dare tax that glorious doctrine of patient suffering, as brutish and irrational ; and though it be expressly said, I Pet. ii. 21, that Christ by suffering for us left us His example how to follow His steps, which was followed by a glorious cloud of witnesses, yet in these last days, what a brood hath sprung up 'of men who are lovers of their own selves, traitors, heady, high- minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof, who creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins !' It is our sins that provoked God to open the bottom- less pit, and let loose such locusts; but were we turning to God, and repenting of the works of our own hands, we might hope that their power should be taken from them, and that their folly should be made known unto all men." Thus that great prelate.
—o—
106 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THAT CHRISTIANS CAN NEVER BE JUSTLY SUSPECTED OF DESIGNS
AGAINST THE STATE.
THE Christian sect therefore for a certain ought to meet with kinder treatment than it does, and to be tolerated among other lawful societies,1 because it is a sect from whom nothing hostile ever comes, like the dreadful issue of other unlawful factions. For, if I mistake not, such a multiplicity of sects is suppressed upon reasons of State, that the city should not he split into parties, for such breaches would let in a general disorder into all your popular elections, councils, courts, assemblies, and public sights, by the ambitious clashings of the contending factions; and never more reason to provide against such disorders than now, when the parties are sure not to want violent hands for any design; if they want not money to pay them.
But for us who are stark cold and dead to all the glories upon earth, what occasion can we have for caballings? And in good truth nothing is further from our soul than the thoughts of mixing in State affairs, or in any private designs ; for we look upon ourselves as citizens of the world.
We renounce your sports as much as we condemn their original,2
1
Inter licitas Factiones. The politicians and statesmen troubled not their heads much about any religion, but only to support that which was by law established, and there being a law against the Heteriae already mentioned, they prosecuted the Christians under the notion of a society dangerous to the State, among the rest without distinction. These Christian meetings, ubi congregabantur oraturi, et verbi divini interpretationem accepturi, ac sacras Syntaxes, habituri, they called Conventicula. saith Heraldus, Vid. Observat. in. Arnob. lib. iv.
2
Spectaculis vestris in tantum renunciamus, etc. This charge of sequestering themselves from the public sports and pleasures is urged against the Christians by the heathen in Minutius ; and it is certain they thought themselves obliged so to do by their baptismal vow, vhich was an engagement upon their admission to renounce the devil and all his works, pomps, and pleasures, that is, saith St. Cyril, Cat. Myst. i. p. 510, the sights and sports of the theatre, and such like vanities. They looked in good truth upon these public pastimes, not only as scenes of folly and lewdness, but of idolatry ; as places where the devil eminently ruled, and reckoned all his own who came there ; and accordingly Tertullian, de Spect. cap. 26, p. 83, tells us of a Christian woman who, going to the theatre, was there possessed by an evil spirit, who upon his ejectment being demanded how he durst set upon a Christian, immediately replied, "I did but what was just and fitting, for I found her upon my own ground."
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
107
which we know is owing to superstition and idolatry, and never are present at any of your diversions. We have nothing to do with the madness of the Cirque, with the obsceneness of the stage, and the cruelty of the amphitheatre, and the vanity of the Xystus.1 The Epicurean sect is tolerated in the exercise of their pleasures, and why are we such intolerable offenders for non-conforming with you in point of pleasure? Nay, if mortification is the Christian pleasure, where is the harm to you ? if it be a harm, it is to ourselves only. But thus it is, your pleasures are our aversion, and ours affect not you.
—o—
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CONCERNING THE DISCIPLINE OF CHRISTIANS, AND THEIR
EMPLOYMENT AND WAYS OF LIVING.
HAVING vindicated our sect from the calumnies of rebellion, etc., I come now to lay before you the Christian way and fashion of living.
We Christians then are a corporation or society of men 2 most strictly united by the same religion, by the same rites of worship,
1
Cum Xisti vanitate. The Xystus was a gallery or portico of great length and breadth, and planted about with trees, where in the winter time the athletae performed. Vid. Alex. ab Alex. tom. ii. cap. 9, p. 659. It was certainly a place too where philosophers and men of learning met, for here it was Justin Martyr met and disputed with Trypho the Jew.
2
Corpus sumus de conscientia Religionis, et Disciplinae Unitate. "We are one body by our agreement in religion and our unity of discipline." I know nothing less understood, or less regarded, than unity of discipline, as if that was no part of Church unity ; forms of worship and government are now to be passed over with moderation, though the ancient and best of Christians reckoned unity of discipline, as well as faith, necessary to make them members of the same body. Dr. Barrow, a truly moderate and good man, in his excellent discourse concern- ing the unity of the Church, says, " That all Christians are one by a specifical unity of discipline, resembling one another in ecclesiastical administrations, which are regulated by the indispensable sanctions and institutions of their sovereign. That they are all bound to use the same sacraments, according to the forms appointed by our Lord, not admitting any substantial alteration. They must uphold that sort of order, government, and ministry, on all its substantial parts, which God did appoint in His Church." And a little after he says, " That no power ought to abrogate, destroy, infringe, or violate the main form
108 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
and animated with one and the same hope. When we come to the public service of God, we come in as formidable a body as if we were to storm heaven by force of prayer, and such a force is a most grateful violence to God. When this holy army of supplicants is met and disposed in godly array, we all send up our prayers for the life of the emperors,1 for their ministers, for magistrates, for the good of the State, for the peace of the empire, and for retarding the final doom.
We meet together likewise for the reading of Holy Scriptures,2 and we take such lessons out of them as we judge suit best with the condition of the times, to confirm our faith either by
of discipline constituted by divine appointment. Hence the Meletians rejected by the Church for introducing ordinations. Hence was Aerius accounted a heretic for meaning to innovate in so grand a point of discipline as the subordina- tion of bishops and presbyters. Upon which grounds " (says he at the conclusion of his discourse) " I do not scruple to affirm the recusants in England to be no less schismatics than any other separatists ; they are indeed somewhat worse, for most others do only forbear communion, these do rudely condemn the Church to which they owe obedience, they strive to destroy it, they are most desperate rebels against it." Another person too of known learning, the Right Reverend author of the Conferences abovesaid, thus argues for unity of discipline, Conf. iii. p. 275—"If therefore the worship of God among us continue undefiled, even in the confession of all; if the sacraments be administered as before; if the persons who officiate be ministers of the gospel, then certainly such as separate from our public meetings do forsake the assemblies of the saints, and so break the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace." And page 280 he goes on—"But if separation be a sin, it must have a guilt of a high nature, and such as all who would be thought zealous watchmen ought to warn their people of. And what shall be said of those (even Churchmen) who, at a time when the Jaws are sharply looked to, do join in our worship ; but if there be an unbending in these, they not only withdraw and become thereby a scandal to others, but draw about them divided meetings ; are not those time-servers? For if concurrence in our worship be lawful, and to be done at any time, it must be a duty which should be done at all times ; and therefore such masters of conscience ought to express an equality in their ways, and that they make the rules of their concurrence in worship to be the laws of God, and not the fear of civil punishment." Whoever would see more concerning the nature of Church unity, and the sin of occasional conformity, let him read the whole Conference.
3
Oramus etiam pro Imperatoribus, pro Ministris corum, etc. This, not without good reason, is thought to be the "common prayer" mentioned by St. Justin just before the communion, and much the same with that in our Communion Service for the Church Militant; the form whereof in the Apostolical Constitutions is described at large, Const. Apost. lib. ii. cap. 57, p. 881, and so lib. viii. cap. 10, p. 1011 which is still a further proof that the passage sine monitore ought not to be understood of extempore prayer.
2
Cogimur ad Divinarum literarum Commemorationem, etc. This is just the same almost with what you had in the conclusion of Justin's Apology, and there- fore the same note may serve for both.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
109
forewarning us what we are to expect, or by bringing to our minds the predictions already fulfilled. And certainly our spiritual life is wonderfully nourished with reading the Holy Scriptures, our hopes thereby are erected, and our trust fixed and settled upon God. However, besides the bare reading, we continually preach and press the duties of the gospel with all the power and argument we are able; for it is in these assemblies that we exhort, reprove, and pass the divine censure or sentence of excommunication ;1 for the judgments in this place are delivered with all solemnity, and after the maturest deliberation imaginable, as being delivered by men who know they are pronouncing God's sentence, and act with the same caution as if God stood visibly among them; and the censures here pronounced are looked upon as an anticipation of the judgment to come, and the sinner precondemned by God, who has sinned to such a degree as to be shut out by his ministers from the fellowship of the faithful, the communion of prayers and sacraments, and the rest of that sacred commerce.
1
Ibidem etiam exhortationes, castigationes, et censura Divina,—Summumque futuri Judicii Prejudicium est, si quis ita deliquerit ut a Communicatione Orationis et conventus et omnis Sancti commercii relegetur. The Church subsisted now purely as a spiritual society independent of the State, and while it did so, and its censures were managed magno cum pondere, as our author speaks, with great gravity and judgment, they were looked upon as divine, and an anticipation of the judgment to come. And had this inherent power of the Church acted still independently of the civil power, and the people been made sensible of the necessity of the communion of the Church in order to salvation, I cannot see why excommunication should not have as good an effect, and be as much dreaded now, as in the primitive times, upon the same principles. However, thus much is observable from this passage, that men were first admonished and then reproved more severely, before the sentence of excommunication was passed. Secondly, that this sentence excluded them from all religious intercourse. And thirdly, that it was looked upon as the forerunner of future condemnation in the world to come. To the same purpose St. Cyprian speaks—ad Pomponium, Spiritali Gladio superbi, et contumaces necantur, dum de Ecclesia ejiciuntur: neque enim vivere foris possent, cum Domus Dei una sit; et nemini salus esse, nisi in Ecclesia possit. " The proud and contumacious are slain with the spiritual sword, by being cast out of the Church ; for they cannot live without (or be admitted into any other Church), since the house of God is but one, and there can be no salvation to any, but only in the Church." And thus again, de Orat. Domin. p. 192—Eucharistiam quotidie ad cibum Salutis accipimus, intercedente aliquo graviore delicto, dum abstenti et non communicantes a Coelesti Pane prohibemur; a Christi corpore separamur. " We receive the Eucharist every day, as the food that nourishes to salvation ; and while for any more grievous offence we do not communicate, but are debarred from the heavenly bread, we are separated from the body of Christ." So far was this martyr from thinking that excommunication was little more than the loss of a grace-cup, or the Church ministers refusing him that bread and wine which was not bought with his, but other men's money.
110 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
The presidents or bishops1 among us are men of the most venerable age and piety, raised to this honour not by the powers of money, but the brightness of their lives; for nothing sacred is to be had for money. That kind of treasury we have is not filled with any dishonourable sum, as the price of a purchased religion; every one puts a little to the public stock, commonly once a month,2 or when he pleases, and only upon condition that he is both willing and able; for there is no compulsion upon any. All here is a free- will offering, and all these collections are deposited in a common bank for charitable uses, not for the support of merry meetings, for drinking and gormandizing, but for feeding the poor and burying the dead, and providing for girls and boys who have neither parents nor provisions left to support them, for relieving old people worn out in the service of the saints, or those who have suffered by shipwreck, or are condemned to the mines, or islands, or prisons, only for the faith of Christ; these may be said to live upon their profession, for while they suffer for professing the name of Christ, they are fed with the collections of His Church.
But strange! that such lovely expressions of Christian charity cannot pass with some men without a censure; for look ye, say they, how these Christians seem to love each other, when in their hearts they hate each other to death ! How forward are they to
1
Praesident probati quique Seniores, honorem istum non pretio sed testimonio adepti. The presiding elders here are undoubtedly the same with the ^fout-ruTt; in Justin Martyr's foregoing Apology, that is, the bishops; for our author, speaking of the power of excommunicating where it is lodged, tells us it was in the president, ut extra Ecclesiam detur, inerat in Praesidentis officio, lib. de Pud. cap. 14. And thus his scholar St. Cyprian, de Unitate Ecclesia, Tenere firmiter, et vindicare debemus, maxime Episcopi qui in Ecclesia praesidemus. They were Probati Seniores, men of age, and publicly approved for their life and conversa- tion. For thus again, St. Cyprian in Epist. ad Felicem—Quod ad ipsum videmus divina Auctoritate descendere, uti Sacerdos plebe praesente sub omnium oculis deligatur, et dignus atque idoneus publico judicio et testimonio comprobetur. Agreeable to the practice of the apostles, who left it to the congregation as the most competent judges to choose fitting men, and then they ordained them to the office of deacon by prayer and laying on of hands.
2
Modicum unusquisque Stipem menstrua die, etc. We have St. Paul, I Cor. xvi. i, 2, giving order to the Churches of Galatia and Corinth for weekly offerings for the saints, " That upon the first day of the week " (when they never failed to receive the sacrament) " they should every one of them lay by him in store according as God had prospered him." But I have already given an account of these charities, and therefore only remark here, that according to St. Paul's order, the collections were weekly to the time of Justin Martyr, but in the age following, that of Tertullian, we find these offerings sunk to monthly, Menstrua die, etc.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
111
stake down their lives for one another, when inwardly they could cut one another's throats ! But the true reason of this defamation, upon the account of styling ourselves brethren, I take to be this, because the name of brother is found with these men to be only a gilded expression of a counterfeit friendship. But you need not wonder at this loving title among Christians, when we own even you your- selves for brethren by the right of one common nature; although indeed you have cancelled this relation, and by being inhuman brethren have forfeited the title of men; but by what diviner ties are we Christians brethren ! We who all acknowledge but one and the same God as our universal Father, who have all drunk of one and the same Holy Spirit, and who are all delivered as it were from one common womb of ignorance, and called out of darkness into His marvellous light. But maybe we cannot pass for right brothers with you, because you want a tragedy about the bloody feuds of the Christian fraternity; or because our brotherly love continues even to the division of our estates, which is a test few brotherhoods will bear, and which commonly divides the dearest unions among you.
But we Christians look upon ourselves as one body, informed as it were by one soul; and being thus incorporated by love, we can never dispute what we are to bestow upon our own members. Accordingly among us all things are in common,1 excepting wives ; in this alone we reject communion, and this is the only thing you enjoy in common ; for you not only make no conscience in violat- ing the wife of your friend, but with amazing patience and gratitude lend him your own. This doctrine, I suppose, came from the school of the Grecian Socrates, or the Roman Cato, those wisest of sages, who accommodated their friends with their own wives, wives which they espoused for the sake of children of their own begetting, as I imagine, and not of other folks.
Whether the wives are thus prostituted with their own consent, in truth I cannot tell, but I see no great reason why they should be
1
Omnia indiscreta sunt apud nos, etc. Dr. Potter observes from hence that among many other reasons why a certain proportion for the maintenance of the clergy was not fixed by the apostles, this was one, that there could be no occasion to determine the portion then, when men laid all they had at their feet; and the same reason held good to our Tertullian's time, for he says here that Christians had all things in common but their wives. Vid. Dr. Potter's Discourse of Church Government, p. 434. I only observe further, what great veneration is due to the writers of those ages, when men valued nothing but religion, and followed Christ in the highest expression of charity, in selling all they had for the support of Christians.
112 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
much concerned about that chastity which their husbands think not worth keeping. Oh, never-to-be-forgotten example of Athenian wisdom ! Socrates the great Grecian philosopher, and Cato the great Roman censor, are both pimps.
But is it any great wonder that such charitable brethren as enjoy all things in common should have such frequent love-feasts ? For this it is you blacken us, and reflect upon our little frugal suppers, not only as infamously wicked, but as scandalously excessive. Diogenes, for aught I know, might have us Christians in his eye when he said that the Megarensians feast as if they were never to eat more, and build as if they were to live for ever ; but every one sees a straw in another's eye sooner than a beam in his own ; or else you must be sensible of your own beastliness in this case; for the very air in the streets is soured with the belches of the people coming from their feasts in their several wards. The Salii cannot sup without the advance of a loan, and upon the feast of tithes to Hercules the entertainment is so very costly that you are forced to have a bookkeeper on purpose for expenses. At Athens likewise when the Apaturia, or feasts in honour of Bacchus for a serviceable piece of treachery he did, are to be celebrated, there is a proclama- tion for all the choice cooks to come in and assist at the banquet; and when the kitchen of Serapis smokes, what baskets of provisions come tumbling in from every quarter! But my business at present is to justify the Christian supper; and the nature of this supper you may understand by its name; for it is the Greek word for love. We Christians think we can never be too expensive, because we think all is gain that is laid out in doing good; when therefore we are at the charge of an entertainment, it is to refresh the bowels of the needy, but not as you gorge those parasites among you who glory in selling their liberty for stuffing their guts, and can find in their hearts to cram their bellies in spite of all the affronts you can lay upon them; but we feed the hungry, because we know God takes a peculiar delight in seeing us do it. If therefore we feast only with such brave and excellent designs, I leave you from hence to guess at the rest of our discipline in matters of pure religion; nothing earthly, nothing unclean, has ever admittance here; our souls ascend in prayer to God before we sit down to meat; we eat only what suffices nature, and drink no more than what is strictly becoming chaste and regular persons. We sup as servants that know we must wake in the night to the service of our Master, and discourse as those who remember that they are in the hearing of God. When supper is ended, and we have washed our hands, and the candles are
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
113
lighted up, every one is invited forth to sing praises to God, either such as he collects from the Holy Scriptures, or such as are of his own composing ;: and by this you may judge of the measures of drinking at a Christian feast. And as we began, so we conclude all in prayer, and depart not like a parcel of heated bullies, for scouring the streets and killing and ravishing the next we meet, but with the same tenor of temperance and modesty we came, as men who have not so properly been a-drinking as imbibing religion. This as- sembly of Christians therefore is deservedly ranked among unlawful ones, if it holds any resemblance with them ; and I will not say a word against condemning it, if any man will make good any one article against it which is charged upon other factions. Did we ever come together to the ruin of any one person ? We are the same in our assemblies as at home, and as harmless in a body as apart; in neither capacity injuring or afflicting any person whatever. When therefore so many honest and good, pious and chaste people
1
Post aquam manualem et lumina ut quisq. ; de Scripturis sanctis, vel de proprio Ingenio potest, provocatur in medium Deo canere. Pliny, lib. x. ep. 97, reports it as a main part of the Christian worship, that they met together before day to join in singing hymns to Christ as God. These hymns were taken either out of the Holy Scriptures (and the compiler of the Apostolical Constitutions mentions the 33rd Psalm, lib. viii. cap. 13, p. 1023), or else such as were de proprio Ingenio, of their own head, of their own composing ; for it was usual at this time for any persons to compose divine songs in honour of Christ, and sing them in the public assemblies, till tile Council of Laodicea ordered that no songs composed by private persons should be recited in the church, Can. 59. The dispute between us and the dissenters is about the sense of this phrase, de proprio Ingenio, which they will have to signify extempore raptures, in vindica- tion of their own effusions ; against which the Reverend Mr. Rennet argues thus : That allowing this hymn to be extempore, yet it made nothing to the purpose, unless it could be proved that the congregation joined in it. Secondly, he denies the fact that the psalm was extempore, because no such thing as an extempore psalm was ever heard of; those of David, though inspired, were notwithstanding precomposed. Nor does singing de proprio Ingenio psalms of their own composing, imply that they were extempore psalms, for psalms de proprio Ingenio are in this place opposed to psalms de Scripturis Sanctis, taken out of Scripture, and not to precomposed ones. Thus, that judicious person in his very laborious and very valuable History of Set Forms of Prayer, p. 243, which I had not the satisfaction to see till it was too late to add any improve- ments from him to my own remarks upon that passage, Sine monitore quia de Pectore, and therefore I recommend the reader to his eighth chapter, p. 95, where he will find this phrase largely and substantially treated. But after all, supposing these hymns to have been extempore, yet it is granted on all hands that the season of miracles and inspiration was not over in Tertullian's time, and therefore it is great contempt of authority and presumption in them to pray the same way, till they can prove they have the same gifts, especially since they find all such effusions censured and forbid by the Council of Laodicea already cited.
114 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
are met together, and regulated with so much discipline and order, such a meeting, I say, is not to be called factious, but as orderly an assembly as any of your courts.
—o—
CHAPTER XL.
THAT THE CAUSES OF PUBLIC EVILS ARE MOST MALICIOUSLY
THROWN UPON THE CHRISTIANS.
ON the contrary, faction is a name which belongs to those only who conspire in the hatred of the good and virtuous, and remonstrate full cry for innocent blood, sheltering their malice under this vain pretence, that they are of opinion, forsooth, that the Christians are the occasion of all the mischief in the world. If Tiber overflows,1
and Nile does not; if heaven stands still and withholds its rain,
and the earth quakes ; if famine or pestilence take their marches
through the country, the word is, Away with these Christians to the
lion ! Bless me ! what, so many people to one lion ! Pray tell me what havoc, what a mighty fall of people has been made in the world and Rome before the reign of Tiberius, that is, before the advent of Christ ? We read of Hierannape, and Delos, and Rhodes, and Co, islands swept away with many thousands of their inhabit- ants. Plato tells of a tract of land bigger than Asia and Africa together, devoured by the Atlantic Ocean. Besides, an earthquake drank up the Corinthian Sea, and an impetuous force of water tore
off Lucania from Italy, and banished it into an island, which goes now by the name of Sicily. Now these devastations of whole countries I hardly believe you will deny to be public calamities.
1
Si Tiberius ascendit in Moenia, statim Christianos ad Leones. The overflow- ing of Tibet was looked upon as an ill omen, as we see by that of Horace,
Vidimus flavum Tiberim retortis,
etc.
That it was the hard fate of the Christians to be continually charged as the cause of all the public calamities, we find by St. Cypr. ad Demetr. p. 197 ; and in the
very first page of Arnobius adv. Gent. Nay, so hot and lasting was this calumny,
that when the Goths and Vandals broke in upon the Roman empire, St. Austin
was obliged to write his books de Civil. Dei, to silence this objection. And so
likewise for the same reason did Orosius at St. Austin's request write his seven
books of history. And Melito, Bishop of Sardis, in that fragment of his oration
which we have in Eusebius, pursues the same design. Vid. Eus. H. Eccl. iv.
cap. 26, pp. 119, 120. Whoever has a mind to be more particularly acquainted
with the history of the following calamities will meet with references in abun- dance in Pamelius, and therefore I shall say nothing to them.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
115
But where now, I do not ask, were the Christians, the professed despisers of your gods ? But where, I trow, were your gods them- selves when the deluge blotted out the whole world, or, as Plato will have it, the plains only? For that your gods were not in being in the time of the deluge, the cities wherein they breathed their first and their last, as well as those they founded, are a proof with a witness; for had they existed before the flood, they had not continued to this day, but been overwhelmed in the general ruin. As yet, the Jews, the original of the Christian sect, were not gone from Egypt into Palestine when the adjacent countries of Sodom and Gomorrah were consumed by a storm of fire; the land smells of burning to this day, and the apples that grow there are agreeable to the eye only, but turn to ashes upon the touch. Besides, we have not a word of complaint against the Christians from Tuscany or Campania, when Heaven shot his flames upon Volsinium, and Vesuvius discharged his upon Pompeium. Was there any worshipper of the true God at Rome when Hannibal made such havoc of the Romans at Cannae, and computed the numbers of the slaughtered gentry by bushels of rings picked up after the battle ? Were not all your gods everywhere in worship when the Gauls surprised the capitol? And it is really worth observing that in all these public evils the towns and temples both are involved in the same misfortune; which would not be, methinks, had your gods anything to do in the matter, because they would hardly have a hand in doing themselves a mischief.
But would you know the true reason of such judgments, you must know that mankind has always served God very ill; first by a stupid neglect of Him ; for when they might have understood the divine nature in some measure, they would not pursue after it with their understanding, but let their vain imaginations go after gods of their own invention ; and secondly, because that when God had been at the expense of revelation, they would not be at the pains of inquiring after it, nor be ruled by that Master He had sent to teach them righteousness ; and to take vengeance on their sins, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to work all uncleanness with greedi- ness. But had they went on as far as the light of nature, that candle of the Lord, would have led them, they had certainly found the God they looked for, and consequently would have served Him only, whom they found to be the only God; and by this means have experienced His mercies rather than His judgments. But now they lie under His just judgments, and which too they have felt long before the name of Christian had a being in the world, and whose goods man enjoyed long before he had made himself any
116 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
gods. Why will he not be persuaded to think that the Being who has done him the good without any thanks for his blessings, is the same Being that does him the evil for his ingratitude, since every person is so far guilty as he is unthankful ?
However, if we enter into a comparison of past and present calamities, we shall find the account much abated since the coming of Christianity ; for since that time the innocence of Christians has tempered the iniquities of the age, and there have been a set of men who knew the right way of deprecating the vengeance of God. Lastly, when we are in great want of rain, and the year in anxiety about the succeeding fruits, then you are at your baths and debauches, and offering your water sacrifices to Jupiter,1 and ordering processions on barefoot for the people. You look for heaven in the capitol, and gape to the clouds upon the ceiling to dissolve in rain, without ever turning your eyes to the true heaven, and applying to the true God, who is the only help in time of need. But then in this great drought, we Christians sympathize with the world and dry up ourselves as it were with fasting, and are exceed- ingly temperate in all respects, differing the most frugal meals of life, and rolling in sackcloth and ashes; and in this pitiable posture we knock aloud for admission of our prayers with as much im- portunity as if we would bring odium upon heaven for denying our petition; and when we have, as it were, extorted pity from our God by the violence of prayer, then, forsooth, your Jove must have the honour of the grant.
—o—
CHAPTER XLI.
CONCERNING THE CAUSE AND REASON OF PUBLIC CALAMITIES.
IT is not Christians therefore but yourselves who are the bane of human affairs; you are the men who are continually drawing down judgments upon the world, you who set aside the true God, and set up images in His stead. For certainly it is more reasonable to
1
Aquilicia Jovi immolamus. These Aquilecia were the sacrifices offered to Jupiter under great scarcity of water, propter aquam eliciendam ; and thence called Jupiter Elicius, according to that of Ovid. Fast. lib. 3.
Eliciunt caelo te Jupiter, unde minores
Nunc quoq. ; te celebrant, Eliciunq. ; vocant.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
117
believe that ours is the God provoked, who is in contempt among you, and not those you have in worship. Or verily yours are very unjust kinds of deities, who revenge themselves upon their worshippers for the sake of Christians who will not worship them, and make no distinction between friends and foes. But this, say you, reflects equally upon the God of Christians, for He makes no difference between them and heathens. But would you understand the economy of His providence, you would forbear this reflection ; for He who has once determined at the end of the world to give every man his everlasting doom according to his works, will not anticipate His own appointed season, and make that difference now, which He has said He will not make till the conclusion of the world. In the meanwhile, therefore, the divine providence smiles and frowns upon all mankind without distinction, and scatters good and evil with an indifferent hand, that the pious and the impious might have both a taste of happiness and misery during this present state of things; and because we know the reason of these proceedings from God Himself, therefore we have a due sense both of His kindness and severity, but both to you are contemptible; and therefore it follows that all the evils which are sent by God upon the world are sent for our admonition and your
punishment. But we are no ways concerned with what befalls us here, because in the first place our great concern is to get out of the world as fast as we can; and because in the next place what misfortunes do fall, we know that they are your provocations which have pulled them down; and when they do fall upon us, as without a miracle they must, considering how we are blended together in this world, we rejoice and are exceeding glad to find the miseries foretold verified in ourselves; and this sensible fulfilling of divine prophecies gives new life to our faith, and wing to our hope.
But if it be as you say, that they be the gods you worship who do you all this mischief, and for our sakes too, why do you con- tinue such ungrateful and unjust gods in worship, who are so much obliged to vindicate and assist you to the utmost of their almightiness against the Christians?
—o—
118
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
CHAPTER XLII.
THAT THE CHRISTIANS ARE A VERY USEFUL SORT OF PEOPLE.
ANOTHER article we are indicted upon is this, that we are a good- for-nothing, useless sort of people to the world; but how can this possibly be, since we converse with you as men, we use the same diet, habit, and necessary furniture ? We are no Brahmins, or Indian gymnosophists, who live in woods, and as it were in exile from other men; and we act as men under the warmest sense of gratitude to God our Lord, the Creator of all things; and we reject nothing He has made for the use of man. We are indeed very temperate in our enjoyments, and cautious in transgressing the bounds of reason, and abusing the favours of His indulging pro- vidence, therefore we come to your forum,1 we frequent your shambles, your baths, your shops, your stalls, your inns, and your marts, and all other kinds of commerce; we cohabit, we sail, we war, we till, we traffic with you; we likewise communicate our arts and work for the public; and notwithstanding all this, how we should be of no service to the public is a thing quite past my understanding.
But what if I do not frequent your festivals, I hope I may be a man, and have hands and feet for the public at that time as well as any other. If I do not bathe about night at your Saturn's feasts,2
1
Itaque non sine foro, non sine macello, non sine balneis, etc. You may observe from hence that the Christians of old, as devout and religious as they were, yet they conversed and traded with the heathen world, were active and diligent in their secular professions, and refused no calling whatever that was innocent in itself and useful to the public ; for had they been never so good, and lived only to God and themselves, in woods and cloisters, they had not been shining lights, but candles under a bushel. Fishers of men must converse with multitudes, to spread their nets to greater advantage and for larger draughts; and we find by all the apologists that they caught as many by their examples, and preached as powerfully with their lives, as their sermons. And as the Jews were hated for their reservedness, selfishness, and ill-nature, and therefore made little progress, so, on the other hand, the Christians were as much admired even by their enemies, for the sweetness of their temper, their patience and unbounded charity, and therefore spread the more prodigiously.
2
Non lavor diluculo Saturnalibus, etc. The Saturnalia were noted feasts in the month December, blessed times of liberty, wherein the servants all sat at table and the masters waited. See more of this in Macrobius, Saturnal. lib. i. cap. 7. And December being a cold season, our author jeeringly tells them that he did not much like bathing so early, and that it was time enough for washing
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
119
it is because I am a better husband for the public than to wash away day and night to so little purpose ; however, I bathe at proper hours for my health's sake; it is time enough in conscience to grow stiff and pale with washing when I am dead. I do not care for feasting with you in public, upon the festivals of Bacchus, because methinks I look like one of those condemned wretches who at these feasts is supping his last, and when you have given him his bellyful you throw him to your beasts. But however at this time, somewhere or other I do eat, and of some such victuals too as you eat. I lay out no money in chaplets of flowers to crown my temples, and pray how is your interest concerned which way I dispose of my flowers ? It is more agreeable to me to see them free and loose and scattered about in a grateful confusion; but yet when they are wreathed into a garland, even then it is my way to apply them to my nose ; let them if they please apply them to their head, who smell with their hair.1 We come not to your sights, but if we want anything which is brought thither, we freely go and buy it at those places where it is ordinarily sold. We buy no frankincense, and if the Arabians complain, let the Sabaean merchants know that we take off greater quantities of more costly spices for the embalming our dead,2 than others do for incensing
and being made stiff with cold when he was dead, alluding to the custom of washing the dead which was very ancient; according to that of Ennius—
Tarquinii Corpus bona foemina lavit et unxit.
The loutra_ panu&stata (as Electra in Euripides calls it), extreme washings, or wash- ing the dead bodies, was counted so necessary a thing, that towards the conclusion of Plato's Phado, sec. 47, Edit. Cantab. Select. Dial., we find that Socrates, when he intended to drink his poison, thought it best to set about washing himself beforehand to save the women the labour.—skedo_n
ti moi w3ra trapeqai pro_j
to_ lutro_n. Dokei~ ga_r h!dh belti/on e0nai lousa&menon piei~n fa&rmakon,
kai\ mh_ pra&gmata
taij gunaici\ pare/xein nekro_n lou&ein. And we find this custom of washing the dead in the Acts of the Apostles, ix. 37—"And it came to pass in those days, that she (Tabitha) was sick and died; whom when they had washed, they laid her in an upper chamber."
1
Non emo capiti coronam—Viderint, qui per capillum odorantur. In reference to this, but in a more intelligible expression, is that of Minutius,— Sane quod caput non coronamus; ignoscite, Auram boni Flores naribus ducere, non occipitio capillisve solemus haurire.
2
Sciant Sabaei, pluris et carioris suas mercis Christianis sepeliendis, etc. Thus again we have it in Minutius, Reservatis ungucnto Funeribus. The primitive Christians were very careful about funerals, and very costly in their spices and odours for embalming their dead ; and therefore when St. Polycarp was put to death they burnt his body in spite to the Christians, who had begged it of the proconsul, in order to embalm it and give it a solemn interment, where- upon they gathered up the bones and decently committed them to the earth, and there used to meet and celebrate the memory of that holy martyr. Vid.
120 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
their gods. Certainly, say you, the rates for the temple now come to nothing, and who can brag of any collections for the gods ? And really we cannot help it; for in good truth we are not able to relieve such a parcel of beggars, both of gods and men ; we think it very well if we can give to those that ask; and I will pass my word that if Jupiter will but hold out his hand, he shall fare as well as any other beggar. For we bestow more in the streets than you with all your religion do in your temples. However, if your temple wardens have reason to complain against Christians, the public, I am sure, has not, but on the contrary very great reason to thank us for the customs we pay with the same conscience as we abstain from stealing. So that was the account fairly stated how much the public is cheated in its revenues by the tricks and lies of those of your religion, who bring in an inventory of their goods in order to be taxed accordingly; you would soon find, I say, at the foot of the account that what the temple may lose in her offerings by the Christian religion, the State sufficiently gets in her taxes by the Christian fidelity in their public payments.
—o—
CHAPTER XLIII.
A FURTHER VINDICATION OF THE USEFULNESS OF CHRISTIANS TO
THE PUBLIC.
BUT shall I tell you who the gentlemen be, if there be any in good truth, who make these heavy complaints of the unprofitableness of
Euseb. H. Eccles. lib. iv. cap. 15, p. 135. "This cost" (says Dr. Cave, Prim. Christian, part iii. cap. 2, p. 275) "the Christians doubtless bestowed upon the bodies of the dead, because they looked upon death as the entrance into a better life, and laid up the body as the canditate and expectant of a joyful and happy resurrection. Besides, hereby they gave some encouragement to suffering:, when men saw how much care was taken to honour and secure the relics of their mortality, and that their bodies should not be persecuted after death." And I take leave to add, that considering how very careful the first Christians were to follow the Scriptures even in ceremonies indifferent, I question not, but finding how Joseph was embalmed, Gen. 1. v. ult, and especially considering how the alabaster box of ointment of spikenard, very precious, was approved by our Lord Himself for His own burial, in that of St. Mark xiv. 8, "She has done what she could ; she is come beforehand to anoint my body to the burying ; "—I doubt not, I say, but this prevailed very much with the first Christians to be so expensive in their spices upon the dead.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
121
Christians to the public? Why, first they are your panders, and pimps,1 and filthy pliers about your baths;2 next, your cut-throats, poisoners, and magicians; lastly, your soothsayers, wizards, and astrologers! These the gentlemen we Christians are so useless to, and I think it is very well for the public we are so; however, if you are sufferers in anything by Christians, they make you ample recompense another way ; for what a valuable blessing is it you are in possession of, in having such a people among you who are not only your defence against devils, and always upon their Knees to the true God in your behalf; not to insist upon this, I say, what a treasure is it barely to have such people to serve you as you are sure will never do you any harm !
—o—
CHAPTER XLIV.
THAT THE CHRISTIANS ARE CONDEMNED MERELY UPON THE
ACCOUNT OF THEIR NAME.
BUT your reason is so entirely blinded with prejudice that you have not an eye left to see the public damage, a damage as visibly great as true. Not a man weighs what the common injury amounts to by thus depopulating the empire of the most just and innocent subjects in it; it is hardly credible to imagine how many Christian prisoners your judges destroy at every gaol delivery, but only their trials are upon record. Among all this number of criminals, and this variety of indictments, what Christians do you find arraigned for assassinating, or for a pickpocket,3 or for sacrilege, or for pilfering at the bath ? Do you hear at the trials any article
1
These Preductores are much the same with Lenones, according to that of Horace—
——Putasne
Perduci potent, tam frugi tamq. ; pudica?
2
Aquarioli. Filthy pliers about baths. Aquarioli, saith Festus, dicebantur Mulieram impudicarum Asseclae. And are what Martial calls Balneatores— Certe Lucerna Balneator extincta Admittat inter bustuarias moehas.
3
Manticularius. A pickpocket. Of this word Festus speaks thus : Manti- cularum usus pauperibus in nummis recondendis etiam nostro saeculo fuit, unde Manticularii dicebantur qui furandi gratia manticulas attrectabant.
122 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
against Christians, like that which other malefactors are charged withal? Does not the prison sweat with your heathen criminals continually ? Do not the mines continually groan with the load of heathens? Are not your wild beasts fatted with heathens ? And is not the whole herd of condemned wretches which some public benefactors1 keep alive for the entertainment of the amphitheatre, are not they all of your religion? Now, among all these male- factors, there is not a Christian to be found for any crime but that of his name only, or if there be, we disown him for a Christian.
—o—
CHAPTER XLV.
CONCERNING ONE GREAT REASON FOR THE INNOCENCE OF
CHRISTIANS ABOVE THAT OF ALL OTHER PEOPLE.
WE then are the only harmless people among you, and where is the wonder, if it cannot well be otherwise ? As in truth it cannot, con- sidering our education ; for the innocence we are taught, we are taught from God, and we know our lesson perfectly well, as being revealed to us by the Master of all perfection, and we observe it faithfully as the command of an all-seeing Lawgiver, who we know is not to be despised but at the hazard of eternal happiness. Whereas your systems of virtue are but the conjectures of human philosophy, and the power which commands obedience merely human; and so neither the rule nor the power indisputable, and consequently the one too imperfect to instruct us fully, and the other too weak to command us effectually, both which are abun- dantly provided for by a revelation from God. Where is the philosopher2 who can so clearly demonstrate the true good as to
1
Munerarii. Such sports and plays which were exhibited by private men at their own charges in order to ingratiate with the people, were called Ludi honorarii; and those of this nature were for the most part either fencing or stage-plays. Fencing is that which is here meant, and because freely bestowed, called Munus, and the bestowers of them Munerarii. In allusion to this is that of St. Jerome, Munerarius Pauperum, et Egentium Candidatus Epist. ad Pammach.
2
Tanta est Prudentia Hominis ad demonstrandum bonum:, quanta Auctoritas ad exigendum, tam illa falli facilis, quam ista contemni. " Where is the philo- sopher who can so clearly demonstrate the true good as to fix the notion beyond dispute? and what human power is able to reach the conscience, and bring down
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
123
fix the notion beyond dispute ? and what human power is able to reach the conscience, and bring down that notion into practice ? For human wisdom is as subject to error as human power is to contempt. And therefore let us enter a little into a comparison between your laws and ours. Tell me then, which do you take to be the fullest and completes! law, that which says, Thou shall do no murder, or that which restrains the very passion of anger? Which expresses greatest purity and perfection, the law which prohibits the outward act of adultery, or that which condemns the bare lust of the eye? Which is the wisest provision for innocence, to forbid evil-doing, or not to permit so much as evil-speaking? Which is the most instructing lesson for the good of mankind, to debar men from doing injury, or not so much as to allow the injured person the common privilege of returning evil for evil ?
But this is not all, for I must give you to understand that these very laws of yours, which are but in the way to perfection, are no more in good truth than a transcript of the old law of God, older by much than any law of your making, but I have already laid before you the antiquity of Moses.
But as our law is more perfect in its precepts, so is it more cogent in its penalties; for pray tell me what is the force of human
the notion into practice? For human wisdom is as subject to error as human power is to contempt." It is plain, in fact, from the sad state of darkness which overspread the world at the coining of our Saviour, that human reason unassisted was not sufficient for the establishment of true moral righteousness, or to make one entire and perfect system of the law of nature. But supposing such a body of ethics possible to be collected from the writings of the philosophers as we find in the gospel, how far must such a collection fall short from a complete, steady, indisputable rule of morality ! It is all at most but human wisdom, and that (as Tertullian says) is as subject to error as human power is to contempt, and both consequently subject to dispute. Had the sayings of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc., any authority ? They were only the sayings and opinions of mere men, and so might be rejected or embraced as men thought fit; or if any part of the doctrine of a philosopher must go for law, the whole must pass for such too, or else his authority ceases. Such a system therefore of morality as was not only perfectly agreeable to right reason, but also of divine indisputable authority in every point, was wanting to the world before the coming of our Saviour, allowing mere human philosophy as perfect as you please in point of truth. Such a system, I say, was wanting which was not only right in every rule, but of infallible wisdom and authority in every precept, and easy and intelligible in all things necessary to every understanding ; and the gospel, and only the gospel, is such a system, dictated by divine wisdom, and confirmed by divine authority, by such a wisdom as is not subject to error, and by such a power as cannot be disputed.
124 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
laws ? Which an offender has oftentimes a chance to escape either by lying hid in his wickedness, or else by pleading inadvertency or compulsion. Reflect likewise upon the shortness of human punish- ment, which always ends with life; for this reason you see how little Epicurus valued any kind of torment, by laying down this for his maxim of comfort, that a little pain is contemptible, and a great one is not lasting. But we who know we must account to a God who sees the secrets of all hearts; we who have a prospect of that eternal punishment He has in store for the transgressors of His laws; we, I say, may well, be looked upon under so much revela- tion, to be the only men who always take innocence in their way; and considering the omniscience of our Law-giver, and that dark- ness and light to Him are both alike, and withal weighing the heaviness of future torment, torment not lasting only, but everlast- ing, we proportion our fear and obedience accordingly, fearing Him whom those judges ought to be afraid of, who condemn Christians for standing more in awe of God than the proconsul.
—o—
CHAPTER XLVI.
THAT CHRISTIANS HAVE A BETTER RIGHT TO A TOLERATION
THAN PHILOSOPHERS.
I HAVE now, as I think, stood the whole charge, and replied to every article, for which men have been so deadly clamorous for the blood of Christians. I have likewise laid before you our whole state, and the ground of our faith, namely, the antiquity of the divine Scriptures most credibly attested, together with the testimony and confession of the very devils themselves; he therefore that will take upon him to refute me ought to disprove these facts in the same method and simplicity as I have proposed them, and not to fold himself in quirks of logic or the disguise of eloquence.
In the meantime, I cannot but take notice of the strange in- credulity of some men, who notwithstanding they are convinced of the excellency of our sect, which they are notoriously sensible of by their conversation and dealings with us, yet they will not be convinced that Christianity is of diviner original than mere human philosophy. For, say they, philosophers prescribe and profess the
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
125
same doctrine as Christians, namely, innocence, justice, patience, temperance, and chastity. But now if this comparison be just, and Christianity and philosophy be the same things, pray, what is the reason that we have not the same philosophic treatment? Why are we not equalled to those in points of privilege and impunity, to whom we are compared in points of discipline ? Why are not they who are of the like profession with us put upon the same offices with us, and which we for refusing run the risk of our lives ? But what philosopher is compelled to sacrifice or swear by your gods, or to hang out a parcel of insignificant lights at noonday upon your festivals ? And yet these philosophers destroy your gods openly,1 and write against your superstitions, and with your approbation into the bargain. Nay, many of them not only snarl, but hark aloud against the emperors, and you bear it very contentedly; and not only so, but give them statues and pensions instead of throwing them to the beasts for so doing; and all this, no doubt, with great reason, because they go by the name of philosophers, and not Christians,—a name2 which gives no disturbance to the demons, and how should it ? since the philosophers do these demons the honour as to place them next the gods. For it was a constant form in the mouth of Socrates, By my demon's leave I will do so or so. Yet even this same philosopher after he had given such an instance of his true wisdom in denying the divinity of your gods, yet notwithstanding this (such was the inconstancy of the man) he
1
Quin imo et Deos vestros palam destruunt,—laudantibus vobis. These and the following words are plainly an imitation, or rather a translation of those in
Justin Martyr, Apol. i. Sec. 4—kakei/nwn
ta_ dida&gmata oi9 meterxo&menoi ou0k ei1rgontai
pro_j u9mw~n, a}qla de\ kai\ tima_j toij eu0fwnej u9brizousi toutoij h0qele.
2
Nomen hoc Philosophorum Daemonia non fugat. When the more sober and inquisitive heathens took a stricter view of the lives of the preachers of the gospel, and of the genuine followers, instead of the common and rude name of impostors, they gave them the more civil title of philosophers, as we find from the beginning of this chapter : Sed dum unicuiq. ; manifestatur veritas nostra, quod usu jam et de commercio innotuit, non utiq. ; Divinum negotiant existimant, sed magis Philosophiae genus. They could not but own Christianity to be a more exalted kind of philosophy, when they saw the Christians live above the very notions of the philosophers. But the difference between the life of a Christian and a philosopher was not the only characteristic ; for, says our Tertullian, Nomen hoc Philosophorum Daemonia non fugat. Philosopher is a name the devils value not ; they stand in no awe of a philosopher's beard, nor will the hem of his pallium cure any diseases. But Christians did not only outlive them in virtue, but outdid them in power. For Christ was a name that made the very devils tremble ; a thing which the philosophers with all their mighty wisdom were so far from pretending to, that they worshipped those very demons next to their gods. So that Christianity and philosophy differ just as much as heaven and earth, as a name that can do everything, and a mere empty title.
126 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
ordered a cock to be sacrificed to Aesculapius1 just upon the point of expiring, in gratitude, I suppose, to his father Apollo, who had given him out for the wisest of mortals. O inconsiderate Apollo! was you bewitched thus to ungod yourself, by crying up such a one for the wisest of men, who cried down the whole race of heathen gods ?
But forasmuch as men of corrupted minds have always a burning hatred to truth, so her strictest followers must expect to meet with the severest usage; but he who adulterates truth will be sure to have the thanks of her enemies for his service. Accordingly, philo- sophers affect truth only in appearance, and this affectation puts them upon corrupting her, for the glorious vanity of a name; but Christians are heartily and violently set upon pure truth, and perform her commands sincerely, as men who have nothing to care for here, but in order to their salvation hereafter; and therefore Christians, both in respect of conscience and discipline, notwith- standing your comparison, are very different persons. And for a further proof of this difference, consider what was the answer that Thales the prince of naturalists made Croesus, when he was pressed by him plainly to declare his positive notions of the divine nature. Bid not the philosopher put off the prince from time to time with his " I will consider on it" ? But the meanest mechanic among Christians apprehends God, and can answer the question, and can assign substantial reasons, and very sensibly explain himself upon all these disquisitions about the divine nature; though Plato affirms it to be so difficult to find out the Creator of the universe, and when found, to express himself intelligibly upon that subject. But if you make a challenge between Christians and heathens, in point of morals, let us enter the lists, and begin with chastity; and in the trial of Socrates I read one article of the Athenians against him for sodomy; but a Christian keeps inviolably to one sex and one woman. I find also that Diogenes could not lie con- tentedly in his tub without his mistress Phryne ; and I hear of one Speusippus of Plato's school, slain in the very act of adultery : but a Christian is a man only to his own wife. Democritus by putting out his eyes, because he could not look upon a woman with innocence, and was not easy within the bounds of chastity, suffici- ently published his incontinence by his cure; but a Christian can
1
Aesculapio tamen gallinaceum prosecari in fine judebat. The last dying words of Socrates we have in the conclusion of Plato's Phaedo, and they are
these—]W kri/twn, h!fh, tw~|
0Asklhpiw|~ o0fei/lomen a0lektruo&na, a0lla a0po&dote kai\ mh_
a0melh&sate.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
127
look upon a woman securely, because his mind is blind to all impressions of that nature. If the question is about probity or sweetness of temper, behold Diogenes with his dirty feet treading upon Plato's stately carpets, and crying he trampled upon Plato's pride, though the sloven did it with a greater pride of his own; but the Christian expresses not the least air of haughtiness to the poorest man on earth. If we contend about moderation with respect to worldly greatness, behold Pythagoras affecting tyranny at Thurium, and Zeno at Priene! But a Christian has not the ambition to aspire even to the office of an aedile. If we compare equanimity, remember Lycurgus made away with himself because he was unable to bear the thought of the Lacedemonians correcting the severity of his laws ; but a Christian after condemnation is able to return thanks to those who have condemned him. If you vie with us in fidelity, there is your Anaxagoras who had not fidelity enough to restore the strangers the goods they had deposited in his trust; but a Christian has the name of faithful, even among the enemies of his faith. If we dispute humility, I must tell you that Aristotle could not sit easy until he proudly made his friend Hermias sit below him ; but a Christian never bears hard, so much as upon his enemy. The same Aristotle was as gross a dauber of Alexander, to keep that huge pupil under his management, as Plato was of Dionysius for the benefit of his belly. Aristippus in his purple, and under the greatest show of gravity, was an arrant debauchee; and Hippias1 was killed while he was actually in ambush against the city, a thing which no Christian ever attempted for the deliverance of his brethren, though under the most barbarous usage. But perhaps it may be replied that some Christians are far from living up to their profession, to which I reply again, that then they are as far from having the reputation of Christians among those who truly are so; but yet philosophers shall enjoy the name and honour of philosophy among you in spite of the wickedness of
1
Hippias dum Civitati insidias disponit, occiditur ; hoc pro suis omni atrocitate dissipatis nemo unquam Christianas tentavit. Concerning the several crimes charged upon the philosophers in this catalogue, the reader may find them sufficiently dilated on by the commentators; but that which I think mostly remarkable in this comparison between a philosopher and a Christian is, that he concludes the whole with the instance of rebellion in Hippias, " a thing," says he, " which no Christian was ever heard to have attempted for the rescue of his brethren, though under the most provoking and barbarous usage." This upon all occasions he shows to be the distinguishing character of Christians, this he triumphs upon, and therefore concludes the period with non-resistance like an orator who gradually rises higher and higher, and clinches all with that he thinks most likely to leave the deepest impression.
128 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
their lives. And where is now the similitude between a philosopher and a Christian ? between a disciple of Greece and of heaven ? a trader1 in fame and a saver of souls ? between a man of words and a man of deeds ? between a builder up of virtue and a destroyer of it? between a dresser up of lies and a restorer of truth? between a thief and a guardian of this sacred depositum ?
1
Famae Negotiator, et Vita. " A trader in fame, and a saver of souls." Philo- sophus Gloriae Animal, et popularis aurae vile mancipium, says Jerome ad Julianum. "A philosopher is an animal of fame, one who basely drudges for the breath of the people." Lactantius is not a little severe with Cicero upon this very score, for thus he delivers himself in his second book de Origine Erroris, sec. 3, p. 67, Cantab. Edit., intelligebat Cicero falsa esse, etc. "Cicero," says he, " was very sensible of the vanities in worship, and when he had said enough in all reason utterly to overthrow the established religions, yet he concludes that these were the truths not to be told the people for fear of unhinging the religions of the State. Now what is to be done with a man who knows himself in an error, and yet knowingly dashes upon a rock, that the people may do so too ? who pulls out his own eyes to secure others in darkness; who neither deserves well of those he permits to wander, nor of himself, whom he associates with practices he condemns; who makes no use of his wisdom for the regulation of his life, but wilfully entangles himself to ensnare others, whom as the wiser person he was obliged to rescue from error. But, O Cicero ! if you have any regard for virtue, attempt rather to deliver the people out of ignorance; it is a noble enterprise, and worthy all your powers of eloquence ; never fear but your oratory will hold out in so good a cause, which never failed you in the defence of so many bad ones. But Socrates' prison is the thing you dread, and therefore truth must want a patron. But certainly, as a wise man, you ought to despise death in competition with truth ; and yon had fallen more honourably by much for speaking well of truth, than for speaking ill of Antony. Nor will you ever rise to that height of glory by your Philippics, as you would have done by labouring to undeceive the world, and dispute the people into their senses." This I take to be a just character, Socrates excepted, of all the heathen philosophers; they were traders for fame, and enriched their heads only to fill their pockets ; they never loved truth well enough to suffer for her, nor would plead her cause before the Areopagus or Senate, at the hazard of their lives ; their notions were inactive, and lay floating only on their fancies, nor were the people nor themselves the better men for their philosophy; Socrates' prison spoiled all. How unlike to this was the carriage of the apostles and their genuine followers ! How did they engage in the defence of truth ! With what zeal did they preach their crucified Master before Sanhedrim and Senate, in the face of all the dis- couraging tortures witty malice could invent! They accounted no hazards comparable to the advantage the world would enjoy by the propagation of Christian philosophy; they rejoiced that they were accounted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ. This showed a truly noble and generous spirit, that would not be discouraged from doing the world good, though the benefactors met with such hard usage for their pains. This likewise showed the divine power of the Christian religion, that it was able to raise its professors above all considerations present, for the joy that was set before them. Such was the differ- ence between a philosopher and a Christian, between a disciple of Greece and a disciple of heaven.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
129
CHAPTER XLVII.
THAT THE HEATHEN POETS AND PHILOSOPHERS STOLE MANY OF
THEIR NOTIONS FROM THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.
THE antiquity1 of the divine writings which I have already established would be a proper topic to insist upon here, in order to convince you that those writings have been the treasury of all succeeding wisdom; and this topic I would pursue at large, was it not for fear of swelling this Apology to a volume. But, to be short, which of your poets,3 which of your sophisters have not drank from
1
Antiquior omnibus, etc. Was it not for fear of swelling this tract beyond the bounds of an Apology, Tertullian says, he would enter into a particular proof of the antiquity of the Holy Scriptures. The reader will find this largely treated by Eusebius in his Praepar. Evang., where in the fifth chapter, lib. x., you will see that the Grecians had not so much as the use of letters till Cadmus the Phoenician introduced them, which the Phoenicians had from the Syrians, that is, the Hebrews, which bordered upon them. In this chapter you will see also, not only the affinity between the Hebrew and Greek alphabet, which I have already mentioned, but how all the two-and-twenty letters in the Hebrew have their proper signification, which in the Greek have no meaning at all; which plainly proves the one to be but an imperfect copy of the other, especially when the letters are just almost the same in both, as Alph, Alpha, etc.
2
Quis Poetarum, qui non omnino de Prophetarum fonte potaverit?
The Grecian bards of old were the instructors of the people, and priests generally as well as poets ; they travelled much into Egypt and other parts most noted for antiquity and learning; and from thence freighted themselves with ancient traditions, which they ?et their fancies to work upon, and so hacked and hewed and disguised the originals, that it was hard to say from what country they came. Graecia Mendax was a true motto. I will not go about to show particularly how the poets have plundered the prophets, since Bochartus, Vossius de Idol., and Bishop Stillingfleet, Orig. Sac., have so nicely traced the plagiaries and discovered the foundation of almost the whole fabulous superstructure, in spite of all their artifice to conceal it. However, it may not be amiss just to mention some of the ways they took to conceal and colour the impostures. And one way was, to alter the Hebrew name and put a Greek one in the place of like importance. Thus Cham or Ham, who either for his minority or undutifulness had his share of government allotted him in the barren sands of Africa, and was there for many ages worshipped under the name of Jupiter Hamon, which the Egyptians by leaving out the aspirate call
0Ammou~n or 0Amou~n,
according to that of Herodotus in his Euterpe, 0Ammou~n
ga_r Ai0gu&ptioi kaleousi th_n Di/a. Thus I say, for [Hebrew]
Ham, which signifies fervidus from the radix [Hebrew]
fervere, they put Zeuj, from zew, which signifies the same in Greek with Ham in Hebrew. This Ammon had a temple in the city of No, as we find from that of Jeremiah xlvi. 25 : "Behold, I will punish the multitude of No, and Pharaoh and Egypt with their gods." That which we render the multitude of No, is in the original Amon de No,
E
130 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
the fountain of the prophets ? It is from these sacred sources likewise that your philosophers have refreshed their thirsty, in- quisitive spirits. From hence also it is that philosophy has been proscribed some countries, as Thebes, Sparta, and Argos, for the monstrous issue she produced from the adulterous mixture of divine truths with human inventions; and no wonder, since (as I have said) these philosophers were men of glory only, and driven on with the lust of eloquence. Accordingly, if they found any- thing in our divine digests1 which hit their fancies, or might serve
the God Amon, whose temple was in the city No. Vid. Bochar. Phaleg. lib. i. pp. 5; 6. Another way of disguising their thefts was by taking the Hebrew in its literal and proper sense, thus finding Noah (whom Bochartus has demonstrated to be the same with Saturn) to be called, Gen. xi. 20,
[Hebrew], vir Terrae, a husbandman, as Vir Sanguinis, Vir Pecoris, a bloody man, a shepherd, 2 Sam. xvi. 7, Gen. xlvi. 32. A most familiar phrase among the Hebrews, they take vir Terrae or husbandman in a literal sense for
a0nh_r th~j gh~j, the husband of the earth ; and so Saturn, which was Noah, is reported to have married Rhea, that is, the earth. Vid. Bochart. Phaleg. lib. i. cap. I, p. 3. And so likewise where the Oriental languages were ambiguous or equivocal, by omitting the obvious sense and following the obscure, they spun out strange stories. Thus again the great Bochartus, lib. iv. cap. 31, has traced the fable of the Golden Fleece, which was nothing but the robbing the treasury of the king of Colchis, framed from the equivocal Syriac word
[Hebrew], which signifies both a fleece and a treasury ; and so the bulls and dragons which kept it were nothing but the walls and brazen gates, for
[Hebrew] signifies both a bull and a wall, and
[Hebrew], brass and a dragon. I shall mention but one Grecian artifice more, which was by ascribing to some of their own nation what is recorded in the sacred history. Thus the Thessalians make Deucalion to be the person who escaped the flood, and from whom the world was peopled after it; and whoever compares the relation of Deucalion's flood in Apollodorus, Biblioth. lib. i. p. 19, with that of Moses, may easily turn Apollodorus's Greek into the language of Scripture by only turning Greece into the whole earth, and Deucalion into Noah, Parnassus into Ararat, and Jupiter into Jehovah. Vid. Bishop Stillingfleet's Orig. Sac. lib. iii. cap. 5.
1
Si quid in Sanctis Scripturis offenderunt,pro instituto Curiositatis ad propria opera verterunt. In the foregoing Apology, Just in Martyr gives several instances wherein Plato had stolen from Moses ; and Clemens
Alexandrinus, Strom. I, calls Plato, to_n 9Ebrai/wn
filo&sofon. See St. Austin, de Doctr, Christ, lib. ii. cap. 28, de civit. Dei, lib. xviii. cap. 41, and lib. viii. cap. n. But above all, see this philosopher hunted through all his coverts, and traced home to the prophets by Eusebius in his Praepar. Evang. lib. xi. xii. xiii., and there you will find with what good reason the Fathers charged the philosophers in general, and Plato in particular, for shirking from the Holy Scriptures, according to that of Eusebius, Praepar. Evang. lib. xi. cap. 10,
ti/ ga_r e0sti Platwn, h2 Mwsh~j a0ttiki/zwn ; Quid est aliud Plato, quam Moses Attice loquens? Origen is of opinion that Plato by conversing with the Jews in Egypt came acquainted with the history of the fall of man, which after his enigmatical way he describes in his Symposiacs, where he introduces Porus the god of plenty feasting with the rest of the gods ; after supper Penia comes to the door a-begging ; Porus being drunk with nectar, goes into Jupiter's garden, and there falls fast asleep ; Penia observing it steals to
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
131
their hypothesis, they took it and turned it and bent it to a com- pliance with their own curiosity; not considering these writings to be sacred and unalterable, nor understanding their sense, which was then under a cloud to those carnal minds, as it is at this day to the very Jews, to whom they were appropriated. For if in any place truth appeared in its native simplicity without the disguise of type or metaphor, worldly wisdom, instead of submitting her faith, blended the certainties of revelation with her own philosophic uncertainties; for having dipped in the Holy Scripture, and found there is no other God but one, they presently divided into various speculations about the divine nature, some asserting it to be incor- poreal, others corporeal, as the Platonics and Stoics; some com- posing him of atoms, and others of numbers, as Epicurus and
him, and by this cunning conceived by him. In this fable of Plato, Origen observes the resemblance between Jupiter's garden and Paradise, and between Penia and the serpent, etc. And he is the rather confirmed in his conjecture, because he knew it to be Plato's custom to wrap up his sublimest notions in fable, for fear of disobliging the fabulous Greeks, who hated the Jews, and who would have themselves pass for the wisest, if not the most ancient people ; and I may add, too, that nobody else might know from whence Plato had his notions. Vid. Orig. cont. lib. iv. And as Plato purloined his divinest discoveries from the prophets, and perplexed them on purpose to hide the theft, so is it very remark- able that the latter Platonists, such as Jamblichus, Hierocles, Simplicius, etc., talk in a kind of evangelical strain, and as much above Plato as the apostles do above the prophets ; and at the same time vilify the Christians for a blind to make believe that there was nothing in the Christian doctrine worth borrowing, just as their master Plato had done before them. For it is to be remembered that Plotinus, Porphyrius, Jamblichus, and Hierocles were brought up under the great Ammonius of Alexandria, as well as Herennius and Origen. This Ammo- nius both lived and died a Christian, as Eusebius and Jerome testify, Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. cap. 19, Hieron. de Script. Eccl., and so instructed his scholars in the Christian mysteries, as well as the pagan philosophy at the same time. The not observing therefore that the admirable discourses of these latter Platonists had their rise from a Christian master, has been the ground of two scurvy mistakes amongst some learned critics, namely, of overvaluing the Platonic philosophy, as if in their notions of the origin of evil, and the degeneracy of our souls from their primitive purity, etc., they outdid revelation, though it is evident that their noblest flights took wing from the gospel. Secondly, of charging the primitive Fathers with Platonizing, a charge (as I have proved) they utterly deny, and on the contrary tax the philosophers with Christianizing, or stealing from the doctrine of Christ; which they wrested only to serve their hypothesis, and without telling a word whence they had the notion ; and not only the philosophers, but the heretics (says Tertullian) had got a trade of blending philosophy and Christianity together. And our author complains not only here of this tampering with Scripture among Christians, but cries out in his Prescription against Heretics, cap. 7—Viderint qui Stoicum et Platonicum et Dialecticum Christianismum protulerunt. And it is notorious of late years what attempts have been made to reform religion by philosophy, instead of making philosophy bend to revelation.
132 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
Pythagoras, and some of fire, as was the opinion of Heraclitus. The Platonists likewise maintain his care and providence over his creation; on the contrary, the Epicureans make him a careless, inactive God, and, as I may say, nobody in the world. Again, the Stoics place him without the world, and turning the globe about, like a porter sitting without his wheel. The Platonists place him within the world like a pilot of a ship steering the universal vessel that contains him. In like manner we find these sages at variance about the world itself, whether it was made or unmade, and whether it would dissolve or last for ever. The same disputes we find about the state of the soul, some contending for it to be of a divine immortal nature, and others of a nature corruptible; every one inferring and reforming as the maggot bit. Nor do I wonder to find the philosophic wits play such foul pranks with the Old Testament, when I find some of the same generation among our- selves who have made as bold with the New, and composed a deadly mixture of gospel and opinion, as the same philosophizing vanity led them; and out of one plain road have cut a world of labyrinths and inextricable mazes to confound men in the way of salvation; which therefore I thought proper to advertise you of, that this noted diversity of opinions among Christians should not justify a parallel between us and philosophers, and make men condemn truth itself from the contentions about it. But this in short is my prescription 1 against these adulterers of the faith, to try all their doctrines by the gospel, that rule of truth which came from Christ, and was transmitted by His apostles, that, I say, is the
1
Expedite enim prescribimus Adulteris nostris, illain esse Regulam veritatis quae veniat a Christo transmissa per comites ipsius. I shall not here enter into the necessary qualifications of a perfect rule of faith, and prove such qualifications to be in Holy Scripture, but observe only, that supposing philosophers to be in the right, yet all their reasonings were but the reasonings of mere men, and therefore fallible. No one system of philosophy then could be collected from their writings (granting all necessary truths to lie scattered amongst them) for a standing authoritative rule in matters of controversy, for such a collection can be of no more authority than the collector, and must want a sanction more than human ; for all men have a natural right to reason for themselves, till God determines it by a rule divine : the want of such rule therefore was a great desideratum in the Gentile world ; and this was one of the great wants provided for by Christ's coming into the world, who is emphatically said to have brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. The heathens then of old, and the deists at present, vainly object against Christianity the many differences about it; for, says Tertullian, there is an infallible rule transmitted by Christ through His apostles, which we apply to upon all occasions to measure doctrines by, and which is wanting to the philosophers ; and therefore all the fundamental differ- ences which arise among Christians do not rise for any fault in the rule but in themselves.
Tertullian's
Apology for the Christians.
133
touchstone by which all the different opinions of succeeding teachers is to be proved.
All the arrows1 that are shot at truth are taken from her own quiver, for the heresies are to look with a gospel face in emulation of divine truth, and the spirits of error have a great stroke in the picture. These are they which suborn men to discolour the doctrines of salvation, and stain them with their own inventions. By the same spiritual wickednesses are fables foisted in, to invali- date the credibility of our religion, or rather to procure this credi- bility for themselves, that the doctrines of devils being dressed up like truth might have the same veneration with the word of God; so that either a man might disbelieve a Christian, because he disbelieves a poet or a philosopher, or rather conclude he has the greater reason to give credit to a philosopher or a poet, because he cannot find in his heart to believe a Christian. From this sacri- legious mixture it is that we are so ridiculed when we preach about the day of judgment, for in imitation of this the poets and philosophers have their tribunal in the infernal region; and if we threaten them with hell, which is a subterranean treasure of secret fire reserved for the punishment of the wicked, we are hooted at; for thus they ape us too with their Puriphlegeton2 or burning river among the shades below; and if we mention Paradise,3 a place of
1
Omnia adversus veritatem de ipsa veritate constructa sunt, operantibus aemulationem istam spiritibus Erroris. The Holy Scriptures being confessedly of divine authority, the most effectual way of doing mischief is not to descry them, but to put a crown on their head and a reed in their hands, and to bow- before them, and cry, " Hail King of the Jews ! " to pretend a mighty deal of reverence to the Scriptures, and then crucify them to their own sense. This was always the way of heretics and designing men, set on foot, says our author, and carried on by the agency of the spirits of darkness. And it is observable that the old serpent took the same course in tempting the second Adam with a text from Scripture ; and I know not any author that ever copied closer after the devil in this very thing than the author of the Rights of the Christian Church, who, with all the strength of delusion, has done his best to set up the kingdom of darkness, and to unchurch Christendom from Scripture.
2
Sic enim Pyriphlegeton apud mortuos amnis est. From the 7th of Daniel and the 10th verse, where it is said that " a fiery stream issued and came forth from before him ; thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand limes ten thousand stood before him, and the judgment was set, and the books were opened ; " from this passage, I say, Eusebius shows the affinity between Plato and the prophet as to the future judgment, and particularly that the Puriphlegeton or burning river in Plato,
peri\ yuxh~j, is plainly the fiery stream in Daniel. Vid. Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib.
xi. cap. 58.
3
Et si Paradisum nominemus, Locum Divina: amoenitatis recipiendis Sanct- orum spiritibus distinatum, maceria quadam ignea illius Zonae segregatum.
134 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
divine pleasure, destined for the reception of the spirits of holy men, and guarded from the notice of the common world by the torrid zone or wall of fire, immediately they trump upon us with their Elysium. From whence now, I pray, had your poets and philosophers these resemblances ? Whence, if not from the books of our sacred mysteries ? And if they copied from them, then they have the prerogative of antiquity, and consequently are the more credible; since you look upon an original of more authority than the copy. But now, if they were the founders of these inventions, then we must take our religion from them, which is as impossible in
Paradise, says Philo, de Plaut. Noae, p. 171, is sumbo&lon
yuxh~j u9po_ plh_qouj kai\\
megisqouj xara~j a0naskirtw&shj,
"The representation of a soul exulting for fulness and
excess of joy." By Paradise or Abraham's bosom, or Abraham's port, as the
Greek word ko&lpoj; truly signifies, the primitive Christians understood a place
of ease and divine happiness, next to heaven, but not heaven itself, or the
perfect fruition of the beatific vision ; they were of opinion that the departed
souls of just men in general ascended not into heaven till after the resurrection ;
which Irenaeus and Tertullian prove from the example of Christ, to which we
must be conformed ; for Christ Himself did not ascend into heaven till after His
resurrection, but as His body rested in the grave, so His soul went into the place
of departed souls, and when He rose again, then He ascended into heaven ; and
thus, say they, we must do also. Not that they affirmed no souls immediately
entered into heaven, for they believed the souls of martyrs did, and this belief
seems to have increased the passion so much for martyrdom in that age. Here
then the reader is desired to observe, that Tertullian asserts a middle state
without a Purgatory, for he asserts Paradise to be a garden of divine pleasure
prepared for the refreshment of holy souls till the resurrection ; and therefore our
author could not possibly imagine it to be a place of torment, to expiate the
temporal punishment due to sin, when the eternal punishment is remitted, which
is the popish Purgatory, an invention not only against the current doctrine of the
Fathers, but highly derogatory to the all-sufficient merits of our crucified Master,—
a most discouraging and barbarous representation of the Christian religion, and
such a one as had never been framed, had it not been a convenient engine to
make a way into the pockets of the people. This Paradise (says our author) is
guarded about with a wall of fire, like what the torrid zone is commonly
supposed to be, plainly alluding to the cherubim and the flaming sword which
turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life ; hereby intimating, as I
conceive, that as Paradise was the blissful seat of man in innocence, so Abraham's
bosom or port was such an Eden of happiness for righteous spirits ; and as that
was guarded from the re-entrance of sinful Adam and his posterity by those
ministering spirits, which the psalmist, and after him the author to the Hebrews,
calls a flame of fire, so was this blessed mansion of pure souls, this port after the
storms of life, secured by the same ministers from the incursion of evil spirits :
the devil they knew to be prince of the air, and this lower region to be filled
with his legions, who in the opinion of the Fathers stood always ready to seize
on a departed soul; and therefore as the soul of Lazarus was carried by the
angels into Abraham's bosom, so they concluded that every righteous soul in the
like manner was conducted in triumph through the dominions of the devil, and
lodged in the same port of happiness till the day of judgment.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
135
nature as for a shadow to be before the substance,1 or the image before the reality.
—o—
CHAPTER XLVIII.
CONCERNING THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY.
LET us now consider a little the different treatment of a philosopher and a Christian. If a philosopher affirms, as Laberius from Pytha- goras has done, that after death the soul of a man departs into a mule, and that of a woman into a serpent, and turns all the sails of eloquence to carry this absurd point, shall not he find credit, and harangue some of you into abstinence even from the flesh of animals ? And will not many scruple to eat a piece of beef, for fear of eating a piece of their ancestors ? But now if a Christian shall affirm that man shall be made man again after death, and Caius rise the very same Caius again, he is in danger of being mobbed, and having all the sticks and stones in the street presently about his ears. But if you can find it reasonable to believe the transmigration of human souls from body to body, why should you think it incredible for the soul to return to the substance it first inhabited ? For this is our notion of a resurrection, to be that again after death, which we were before; for, according to the Pythagorean doctrine, these souls now are not the same they were, because they cannot be what they were not without ceasing to be what they were. A man might be very merry upon this subject, had he leisure and inclination to give himself a loose, and hunt
1
Nunquam enim corpus Umbra, aut veritatem Imago praecedit. It was a mighty objection with the heathens, that Christianity was a novel upstart religion, formed out of the corruption of the heathen mythology; but this Tertullian argues to be as impossible as for the shadow to be before the sub- stance, or an imitation before the reality. This very objection we find almost continually in the mouth of Celsus the Epicurean ; for, says he, "the building of the Tower of Babel and the confusion of tongues were patched up out of the fable of the Aloidae in Homer's Odyssey ; the story of the flood, from Deucalion ; Paradise, from Alcinous's gardens; the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, from the story of Phaeton; the folly of which objection Origen answerably demon- strates by showing the far greater antiquity of those relations among the Jews, than of these or any other fables among the Greeks; and therefore the corruption of the tradition must be in them, and not in the Jews." Vid. Orig. cont. Cels. lib. iv. pp. 174, 179.
136 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
after all the animals in which all the departed souls from the beginning have taken up their lodgings.
But instead of digressing, I think it of more consequence to establish this doctrine of the resurrection; and we propose it as more agreeable to reason and the dignity of human nature to believe that man will be remade man, and every person after death himself again; so that the soul shall be habited with the same qualities it was invested with in its former union, though the man may receive some alteration in his figure. For certainly the reason of a resurrection is only in order to judgment; and therefore it is necessary that the bodies which have been instrumental to the actions should be the same bodies which are summoned from the grave to judgment, "that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or whether it be evil."
The graves then shall repay the bodies at the day of judgment,
because it is not conceivable perhaps how a mere soul should
be passible without a union with matter, I mean the flesh; but
especially because the divine justice will have souls suffer in
the body they have sinned. But perhaps you will ask how the
particles of a body dissolved to dust can be made to rally and
reunite after such a dissolution ? Reflect upon yourself, O man !
and in yourself you will find an answer. Consider what you were
before you had existence—you were nothing at all; for if you had
been a man, you might have remembered something of it. As
therefore you may be said to be nothing before you were in being,
to just such a nothing will you return again when you cease to be.
Why then cannot you be recalled from this second nothing, as you
think it, by the same Almighty word which called you from your
first ? Where now is the wonderful difference in these two cases ?
You who were not are made to be, and when you shall not be
again, God shall make you what you were. Be pleased now, if you
can, to solve me the mode of your creation, and then demand the
manner of your resurrection. And yet methinks you may easily
conceive the possibility of restoring you to a former being, since
you were with the same ease: made something out of nothing. Is
the power of that God to be disputed who raised this universe
from nothing, from nothing as it were but the death of privation or
pure void, and animated it with that spirit which is the universal
life ? And He has impressed upon this world for your conviction
many testimonials of the human resurrection. For the light which
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
137
daily departs rises again with its primitive splendour; and darkness succeeds by equal turns; the stars which leave the world revive; the seasons, when they have finished their course, renew it again; the fruits are consumed and bloom afresh; and that which we sow is not quickened except it die, and by that dissolution rises more fruitful. Thus you see how all things are renewed by corruption, and reformed by dying. And you, O man! did you but under- stand the nobility of that title, and which you might have under- stood even from Apollo's oracle, how could you imagine that man, the lord of all these dying and reviving things, should himself die for ever ? In what place soever therefore the cord of life is broken, whatsoever element has your body in destroying, in abolishing, in annihilating, it shall deliver up the pledge, and return you whole; for pure nothing is as much at the divine word as His whole creation.
But then, say you, here will be nothing but dying and rising in endless succession. If the Sovereign of the world has ordered it thus, you must have taken your destined turns whether you would or no ; but now He has established a resurrection once for all, as He has taught by His Word; that Word or Reason which composed the universe of various elements, and made it a consistent har- monious system by a due temperament of opposite principles, of vacuum and matter, animate and inanimate, comprehensible and incomprehensible, light and darkness, life and death. The same Word who thus made and preserved the world has likewise so pointed and distinguished time, that the first period from the creation shall run out the determined stage of years, but the succeeding space on which all our thoughts are fixed is endless duration. But between these two there is an isthmus or middle term of time,1 and when this period is over, and the beauty of this
1
Cum ergo finis, et limes medius qui interhiat adfuerit, etc. "Between the conclusion of this world and the commencement of the world eternal there is an isthmus or middle term of time." By which he undoubtedly means the Chiliasm, or thousand years' reign upon earth ; for this he maintains in his books against Marcion, lib. iii. cap. 23, p. 411. Now this is an error (if it be one) wherein Tertullian stands not alone, but in the good company of Papias Bishop of Hierapolis, Irrcneus Bishop of Lyons, Justin Martyr, Nepos, Apollinaris, Victorious, Lactantius, and Severus Gallus, with many others. But then it is to be remembered that this was an opinion they laid no stress upon, for Justin Martyr confesses, and without any censure, that there were many sincere and devout Christians who did not hold it, and many others also of the same mind with himself, and so leaves it as a matter indifferent. Vid. Dial, cum Tryphones, pp. 306, 307, 369. This notion seems to be first set on foot by the forementioned Papias, a very good man but of no great reach, as Eusebius remarks, Eccl, Hist.
138 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
new world likewise had its season, which is but a goodly curtain between us and eternity, then all human kind shall be restored to life, to answer for their several works, whether they be good or evil; and then consigned over to a state of immense perpetuity; and then death and resurrection shall be no more, but we shall be the same we now are, and the same for ever. The worshippers of God shall be clothed upon with a substance proper for everlasting duration, and fixed in a perpetual union with God; but the profane and the hypocrite shall be doomed to a lake of everflowing fire, and fueled with incorruptibility from the divine indefectible nature of that flame which torments them. Philosophers are not unacquainted with the difference of secret and common fire; the fire which serves for the use of man is quite of another nature from that which ministers to the justice of God; whether it be that which shoots the thunderbolts from heaven, or that which belches from the bowels of mountains, for it burns without consuming, and repairs what it preys upon; the mountains therefore burn, and maintain themselves by burning, and the man who is blasted from heaven is insured from being burnt to ashes ; and this may be a testimony of the eternal fire, an emblem of those flames which are decreed to nourish the damned in torment. The mountains burn with per- petual fire, and are mountains still; why, therefore, may not the wicked and the enemies of God bum like these ?
lib. iii. cap. 39, p. 112, who by not seeing into the mystical meaning of the apostle's discourses, ran presently away with it as an apostolical tradition ; just perhaps as we find from the misunderstanding of our Saviour's words to St. Peter : " If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me. Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple (namely John) should not die." Now from a doctrine so harmless in itself and consequences, according to the sense of the orthodox (though abused indeed by Corinthus and his followers), recommended by the venerable antiquity of an apostolical person, as Papias was, an opinion that has so much to be said for it from Scripture, from the Revelation especially, as appears by the learned Mr. Mede and others, and which we are freely left to believe or disbelieve at our discretion ; is it not, I say, very disingenuous as well as very trifling in Mr. Daille to argue from hence against the authority of the Fathers ? As if their authority was the less valuable in matters of faith wherein they are all unanimous and pressing, and in matters of fact wherein they cannot be mistaken, because, forsooth, in some cases of tradition or reasoning it is possible they may be mistaken, and wherein they expressly declare that it is no matter of consequence if they are.
—o—
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
139
CHAPTER XLIX.
THAT THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OUGHT NOT TO BE PERSECUTED,
BECAUSE THE WOULD CANNOT BE WELL WITHOUT IT.
THESE things then are decried as groundless whimsy and capricious in us alone ; but in the philosophers and poets who stole them from us are deemed prodigious attainments, the brightest discoveries and noblest flights of human wit; for the same things, tney are the sages and we the simpletons; they are laden with respect, and we with derision, and what is worse, with punishment. But allowing our tenets to be as false and groundless presumptions as you would have them, yet I must tell you that they are presumptions the world cannot be well without; if they are follies, they are follies of great use, because the believers of them, who under the dread of eternal pain, and the hope of everlasting pleasure, are under the strongest obligations possible to become the best of men. It can never therefore be a politic expedient to cry down doctrines for false and foolish, which it is every man's interest to presume true; it is upon no account advisable to condemn opinions so serviceable to the public. You, then, are the presumptuous and impertinent, and not we ; you who rashly adventure to pass sentence against principles so palpably conducing to general good ; however, if you will upbraid our religion with folly and impertinence, yet certainly you can never charge it with mischief to any person breathing; you can at most but look upon it like abundance of other romances, which by the laws are not penal, and which, though vain and fabulous, are not criminal, but as harmless stories, without accusation or punishment, pass freely among you. For errors of such inoffensive nature at worst should only be condemned to ridicule, and not to fire and sword, gibbets and beasts; at which savage executions, not only the mob are transported with insolence and cruel satisfaction, but even some of you magistrates pride yourselves in the same barbarities, the better to recommend yourselves to the populace; as if the whole of your power against us was not dependent upon our own will, and defeatable at pleasure. For instance, I am certainly a Christian because it is my will and pleasure so to be, then you shall condemn me, if I please to be condemned; and if you could not condemn me if I would not persist in my religion, it is plain your power depends upon my will. In like manner, the people show as much folly as brutishness in rejoicing at the sufferings of Christians; for these sufferings which give them only a malicious
140 Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
pleasure, a pleasure they usurp without a title, feed the Christian sufferers with just and substantial comforts, who choose to be con- demned rather than to fall from their affiance in God, and the expectations of the other world; for would these people act conse- quently who thus hate us, they ought rather to grieve than rejoice at our torments, because these torments put us in possession of our
heart's desire.
—o—
CHAPTER L.
THE CHRISTIAN TRIUMPH.
WHAT reason then, say you, have we Christians to complain of our sufferings, when we are so fond of persecution ; we ought rather to love those who persecute us so sweetly to our heart's content. It is true, indeed, we are not against suffering, when the Captain of our salvation calls us forth to suffer: but let me tell you, it is with us in our Christian warfare as it is with you in yours, we choose to suffer as you choose to fight;1 but no man chooses fighting for fighting sake, because he cannot engage without fear and hazard of life. Yet, nevertheless, when the brave soldier finds he must engage, he battles it with all his power, and if he comes off victorious is full of joy, though just before not without his complaints of a military life, because he has obtained his end, laden with glory, laden with spoil.
Thus it is with Christians we enter into battle, when we are cited to your tribunals, there to combat for truth with the hazard of our
1
Plane volumus pati, verum eo more quo et bellum miles, nemo quippe libens patitur. " We choose to suffer as you choose to fight, but no man chooses fighting for fighting's sake." Some of the blinder and perverser sort of heathens derided the primitive martyrs (as their passive followers since have been) for a sect of besotted, infatuated fellows, who did neither know nor feel what it was they underwent. But our author tells them that the flesh and blood of Christians was like other folks, that they understood natural rights and liberties, had the same aversion to suffering, the same passion for preservation and pleasure that the heathens had ; and whereas they alone were the people who seemed to have forgot humanity, by their enduring the most exquisite torments not only with patience, but with joy and thanksgiving, yet this was far from the effect of any stoical apathy, but purely the strength of their faith, which overcame the reluct- ance of nature, the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, which enabled them to despise the life present, and that light affliction which is but for a moment, and which worketh for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
141
life. To set up truth is our victory, and the victor's glory is to please his God, and the precious spoil of that victory is eternal life ; and this life we certainly win by dying for it, therefore we conquer when we are killed, and being killed are out of the reach of you and all other vexations for ever.
Give us now what names you please from the instruments of cruelty you torture us by; call us Sarmenticians and Semaxians, because you fasten us to trunks of trees, and stick us about with faggots to set us on fire;1 yet let me tell you, when we are thus begirt and dressed about with fire, we are then in our most illustrious apparel. These are our victorious palms and robes of glory, and mounted upon our funeral pile we look upon ourselves in our triumphal chariot. No wonder then such passive heroes please not those they vanquish with such conquering sufferings; and therefore we pass for men of despair, and violently bent upon our own destruction. However, that which you are pleased to call madness and despair in us are the very actions which under virtue's standard lift up your sons of fame and glory, and emblazon them to future ages. Thus Mutius Scaevola immortalized himself
1
Haec Palmata vestis, etc. This among the Romans was the triumphal robe, all over embroidered with palm branches in token of victory. A Christian then, says Tertullian, never thinks himself so fine, never so illustrious as at the stake, with fire and faggot about him ; he then is in his triumphal chariot going to heaven in state. Eusebius tells us it was a most charming sight to behold the martyrs in prison, to see how their misery became them, how they adorned their fetters, and that they looked as captivating in chains as a bride in all her glories at the day of marriage. Vid. Eus. Hist, Ecc. lib. v. cap. I, p. 160. So far were they from complaining of providence, that they blessed God the more for the honour of suffering, and gave thanks to their judges for condemning them ; so far from being ashamed of their bonds, that they gloried in them, and therefore we find that Babylas the martyr ordered the chains he wore in prison to be buried with him. Vid. Chrys. l. de S. Bab. tom. i. p. 669. Here then we see a Christian triumph, the true spirit of the first ages, nor would I interpose any cold criticisms on this last and most excellent chapter, that my reader might not be interrupted, but go off with a full impression, with all the fire and devotion of the writer ; for in the Bishop of Sarum's words, " I confess there is no piece of story I read with so much pleasure as the accounts that are given of these martyrs, for methinks they leave a fervour upon my mind, which I meet with in no study, that of the Scriptures being only excepted." I conclude all with that admirable collect of our own Church upon the festival of St. Stephen, so exactly conformable to the primitive spirit, "Grant, O Lord, that in all our sufferings here upon earth for the testimony of Thy truth, we may stedfastly look up to heaven, and by faith behold the glory that shall be revealed, and being filled with the Holy Ghost, may learn to love and bless our persecutors, by the example of Thy first martyr St. Stephen, who prayed for his murderers to Thee, O blessed Jesus, who standeth at the right hand of God to succour all those that suffer for Thee, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen. Amen."
142
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
by voluntarily sacrificing his right hand to the flames for mistaking the eneny. O exaltation of mind ! Empedocles offered his whole self to the flames of Aetna near Catana; O vigour of soul! the foundress of Carthage bequeathed herself to the fire, to avoid a second marriage; O monument of chastity ! Regulus not willing to put his country to the expense of redeeming himself alone, with the liberty of many enemies, chose to go back and suffer all the torments they could inflict upon every part of his body; O brave Regulus, in captivity conqueror! Anaxarchus while the executioner was pounding him like barley in a mill; Pound on, pound on, says he, for you pound not Anaxarchus but his budget. O notable magnanimity of the philosopher, who had presence of mind enough to pun while he was pounding! I mention not those who seem to have contracted for praise at the price of cutting their own throats, or despatching themselves by some sweeter method; for lo! you crown as meritorious even a mere spiteful contention for degrees of torture: for a strumpet of Athens having quite tired out her executioner, at length, to her immortal honour, bit off her tongue, and spit it in the tyrant's face, that so she might put it out of her power to discover the conspirators should the torments chance to get the better of her resolution. Zeno Eleates being demanded by Dionysius the use of philosophy, told him it was to raise men to a contempt of death, and by the tyrant's order was whipped to death for an experiment, and ratified his doctrine with his blood. The Lacedaimonian method, of enuring their people to hardiness, is to put them into a course of scourging, and to double their discipline in the presence of any of their friends, who read the scholars a lecture of patience while they are under the lash; and every scholar carried home a quantity of honour, according to the quantity of blood he left behind him. O true glory, because of human stamp and fashion! not one of all these contemners of death and cruelty in its several shapes have had their actions sullied with the imputation of despair and madness. A man shall suffer with honour for his country, for the empire, for a friend, what he is not tolerated to suffer for his God. Strange ! that you should look upon the patience of Christians as such an inglorious thing, and yet for the persons aforesaid cast statues, and adorn figures with inscriptions and magnificent titles, to perpetuate the memory of their actions to eternity, to such an eternity as monu- ments can bestow; and by this means give them a kind of resurrection from the dead. On the contrary, he who expects a real resurrection, and in hopes of this suffers for the word of God, shall pass among you for a sot and a madman.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
143
And now, O worshipful judges, go on with your show of justice, and, believe me, you will be juster and juster still in the opinion of the people, the oftener you make them a sacrifice of Christians. Crucify, torture, condemn, grind us all to powder if you can ; your injustice is an illustrious proof of our innocence, and for the proof of this it is that God permits us to suffer; and by your late condemnation of a Christian woman to the lust of a pander, rather than the rage of a lion, you notoriously confess that such a pollution is more abhorred by a Christian than all the torments and deaths you can heap upon her. But do your worst, and rack your inventions for tortures for Christians—it is all to no purpose; you do but attract the world, and make it fall the more in love with our religion; the more you mow us down, the thicker we rise; the Christian blood you spill is like the seed you sow, it springs from the earth again, and fructifies the more. Many of your philosophers have set themselves to write the world into patience and a con- tempt of death, as Cicero in his Tusculan questions, Seneca in his remedies against accidents, Diogenes, Pyrrhon, and Callinicus; but their pompous glitter of words has not made the tithe of disciples that our lives have done. That which you reproach in us as stubbornness has been the most instructing mistress in proselyting the world; for who has not been struck at the sight of that you call stubbornness, and from thence pushed on to look into the reality and reason of it ? And who ever looked well into our religion but came over to it? And who ever came over, but was ready to suffer for it, to purchase the favour of God, and obtain the pardon of all his sins, though at the price of his blood ? for martyr- dom is sure of mercy. For this reason it is that we thank you for condemning us, because there is such a blessed emulation and discord between the divine and human judgment, that when you condemn us upon earth, God absolves us in heaven.
|