Chapter Xxvii
_ Tertulhian's Apology for the Christians.
pulls down cities, under whom mankind once sojourned without any cities at all, Why will you thus persist in error?
For ancient uncultivated Rome! 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 kingdoms, 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.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THAT THE GENTILES ARE SET AGAINST CHRISTIANS
BY THE
INSTIGATION OF EVIL SPIRITS.
Tus 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, 7. 8— :
Hine ad Tarpeiam Sedem, et Capitolia ducit, Aurea nunc, olim Sylvestribus horrida dumis.
2 Federibus.
Concerning the alliance and frequent leagues of the Romans with the Jews, vd. 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. iis 5-7
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians. religion, that we should be such blockheads as to prefer our opiniatreté 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 interval' 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 Fruende tterum malignitatd de Pene moré.
'* 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.
Tertullian's A pology for the Christians.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THAT THE ROMANS HAVE THEIR EMPERORS
IN GREATER
VENERATION THAN THEIR GODS.
Bur because it seems manifestly wrong to drag men to sacrifice against the natural freedom of their wills, since, as I have elsewhere 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 rigat 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 sacrifice! for the safety of the emperor; and so Ceesar'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 Cesar -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 i 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 Czesar 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 Czesar.?
1 Pro salute Imperatoris sacrificare.
When Herod and his father Nicetes took up Polycarp into their coach, they attempted to persuade him off of his resolution to suffer, in this form of words, r/ yap xanty tori cisely, xupie Kasoup, xo bios na) dicowlecbes, 'Where is the harm to say, O Lord Cesar, 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 Cesar, imocoy rol Kalowpos Tux ny, mercevincoy, eimov wips Tous abeovs, that is, swear by Czesar'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 Jouis Genium pejerare, quant Regis It
" i
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THAT THE EMPERORS MAINTAIN THE GODS RATHER THAN THE
GODS THE EMPERORS.
r 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 Cezesar's
— guards, who keep watch and ward for their security.
But the materials of these I think, come from Czsar's mines; and the temples depend on Czesar's nod; and lastly, many of the gods have felt Czesar'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 Ceesar's/ >. nod, as they all entirely are, should be the guardians of Cesar'? [ life?
Is it not more likely that the gods should be in Czesar'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, concluding 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 hew 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. se 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 Cesar was severely bastinadoed, and exposed into the bargain.
For . thus says Ulpian, lib, xiii., de Jwrejurando.
- Siquis juraverit m re pecuniarid per _ Genium Ceasaris, et pejeraverit, etc.
Imperator noster cum Patre rescripsis, fustibus eum castigandum dimittere, et ita ec superdici, xporevas wn ouyuz, petulanter ne jurato.