Chapter Xxii, ;
Tertullian's Apology Jor the Christians,
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.
- —_9—_—_-
CHAPTER XXII,
; E
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.)
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 ie pala ksi ia \S _ 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 7 heages, and elsewhere,
__. is this: the directions of this demon were only dehortatory, but not from good,
CNR = as Tertullian thinks, but from evil.
The demon never advised him to do, but )
oe ns aoe
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,! 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 race? of only to forbear an action ; when it would be 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 Jarge 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 thisdemon.
'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, ef 7: péaaroms pn bpbas mxpa%eyv, 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, ob yap tod drws obx jrvavriadn dy oi 70 siwbos onesiov, ti wh Ts Eusrrov iyo ayaboy xpaéev 3 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 70d; when Justin Martyr in his Mirs¢ Afology, 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 pronunctiat, etc.
1 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.
» Sed quomodo de Angelis quibusdam sua sponte corruptis, corruptior Gens Demonum evaserit, etc.
This odd 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
Tertulhan's Apology for the Christians.
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. 1. cap. 4, Toad) dyysror Oca, 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 éyyero where we read of vio} rod @:04, 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 be led into this mistake.
However, St. Chrysostom, flom.
22 upon Gen., St.. Ambrose, 4b. 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 we chiefly depend upon them ; for is there any consequence in this way of reasoning?
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.
v2 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
1 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,! what dexterity they have showed in tempering their 1 Im oraculis autem, quo ingenio ambiguitates temperent im eventus, sciurt Cresi, sciunt Pyrrhi.
The notorious ambiguity of~the heathen oracles in general, and particularly in the cases of Croesus and Pyrrhus,®
Ato te ALacide Romanos vincere posse, ae Intrepidus st Cresus 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 better and more universally 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
Te ertullian's Apology for the Christians.
responses with a convenient ambiguity for anyquestion, 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 Crcesus was boiling a tortoise with the flesh of a lamb.!
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 fora cure.
But why should I give more instances of their wiles and strength in delusion, or mention the phantoms of Castor and Pollux,' or a sieve holding water,? 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 a _ 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 C/zo.
* The phantoms of Castor and Pollux are said to have acquainted the Romans of the victory of the Macedonic war the same hour it was obtained.
® 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, > a
74.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians. or a beard turned red with a touch?!
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.
CHAPTER.
2200.
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 ;? if they throw children into convulsi|.74°
1 It was Domitian's black beard, which is here said to be turned red Ps touch of Castor and Pollux, to make him give credit to the news of the ¥¢ / of they told him of, and from hence he was surnamed A®nobarbus or Rusty Uiathe
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, Afo/. 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, 1 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 querit, Protinus astrictus caluit Cruor, atrag. ; fovit
Vylnera.
Hence that of Horace— Animas responsa daturas.
And in allusion to the same practice is that of Virgil— Nec jam exaudire vocatos.
3 Sz pueros in eloguium Oraculi elidunt.
Concerning this kind of divination, see Apuleius, Ago/. i., and Spartian, z et, Ful.
Hence that of Propertius, — ~ Rectulit in trivits omnia certa Puer.
Lertullian's Apology for the Christians.
Wry 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,' by first invoking the assistance of their angels and demons, by whose sophistry even goats and groaning boards? are wont to divine: if then these evil
LA et Somnia imittunt.
These are the same with those called by Justin, in the section aforesaid, svsiporouaro).
As the God of Israel was pleased sometimes to communicate Himself to His prophets by dreams, so likewise the devil, in imitation, had his dreamer of dreams among the Gentiles.
The Lacedemonians 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 — _ Non Delubra Detim, nec ab ethere Numina merttunt,
Sed stbi quisque factt.
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 Fompeto, concerning a dream of Mithridates, and Fulgent. AZitholog. lib. i.
- ® Per quos et Capre, et Mense divinare consueverunt.
Of goats trained up to divination we find mention in Eusebius, from a quotation out of Clemens Alex., aiyes ix) pavrixhy noxnutver, Euseb.
Prepar. 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 zerre 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, ixaénutyn +@ rpixods, etc.
These belly-prophets, who delivered themselves in a tone like a speaking trumpet, were called tyyerrpinvdos, 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, Cusjoure robs tyyucrpmibovs, nal rods ard ris ys. Puvovyras, Tous xwohoyaurrus, of tx Tis xoirius Qwvirovor, And more expressly yet, xxix. 4, "Thou shalt 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, xa} rarcwabjcovras cis chy yhy of Abryor cov, xa
¢ PRS PA SONA ch Eee aa , _ tis ray yay ob rbyor cov Bdcovre, nul tora ws of Quveryres tx THs as h Ouvh cov, xa) mpes To tdapos 1 Quy cov aobevtce:.
Now the Mensz in this place of Tertullian I take to be the Tripodess, called by Virgil Mensx, 2 4x.
Huc undigue Troia Gaza, Lncensts erepta adytis, Menseqg. ; Daorum.
Sozomen in his sixth book, cap. 35, tells us that the Gentile philosophers, being
STAY
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 whete 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 ; 1 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 denominations.
-Let a demoniac! 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 be 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 c plete answer.
1 kdatur 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 moré\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 A®sculapius, 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, wpon the same subject: O sz 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 Divind flagella et veriera sentientes, venturum Judicium confitentur ; vent, et cognosce vera esse que dicimus.
And a little after, Videbis sub mani nostra stare vinctos, et tremere captivos guos tu suspicts, et veneraris ut Deminos.
Not to mention Lactantius, who speaks to the same purpose, de Just.
¥ a ey OL See i eH a il hee Sl
_ fi ¥ * bis eae * :
' f
; Z $ —.
: yTi ertullian's Apology for the Christians. a7 Fog 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 A®sculapius, 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 themselves 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 are 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 i, 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.
; \
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians. 7
On the other hand, if they are demons or angels, how comes 1t 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 acknowledgment 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 worship.
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
vo '
Lertullian's Apology for the Christians,
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 representation of future flames, they go out of the bodies they possess at our command, but sore against their will, and gnashing and redhot 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.
——_J)—_—