CHAPTER XIV
% Te ertullian's Apology for the Christians.
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 bits, 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,' 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 flistory, Vib. 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 Sy//a et Crasso.
Instances in abundance of-this kind are to be seen in Selden's Hist. of Tithes, cap. 3, Mountag. diafrib. p. 1, cap. 3; and in Spencer de /eg. 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 discoverable 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.
Tertullian's Apology por the Christians. shaft in rescuing her son Aineas! 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 A'sculapius'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, anda 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 suffering 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 approved his testimony against the gods.
But Diogenes also rallies very merrily upon Hercules, and the Roman cynic Varro? 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.
- * Romanus Cynicus Varro, He reckons up forty-three Hercules, as well as' three hundred headless Joves.
Vid. Tiraquell upon Alex. ab Alex. lib. ii. Pp. 379.2:
Te ertullian's Apology for the Christians.
'CHAPTER XV.
CONCERNING THE SHAMEFUL REPRESENTATION
OF THE GODS
UPON THE STAGE AND AMPHITHEATRE.
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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,! and see Lunamasculus 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 tragedies? 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 Phaéton.
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 Mechum 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 Carree 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 litere omnem feditatem 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 institution of some new games, sent for certain stage-players from Hetruria, which they called Histriones, from the Hetrurian word Azster, which signifies such a player.
Vid. Polydor. de Invent. lib. iii. cap. 13.
These plays in time, especially the Mimicze, grew to that excessive lewdness, that the pantomimi were put down by Domitian.
Vd. Sueton. in vita ejus, cap. 7.
Afterwards expelled by Trajan; _ and the Histriones by Tiberius.
Vd. Tacit. lib. iv., and even by Nero, Tacit.
_ lib, xiii., and Sueton, in vta 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.
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Tertullian's Apology Jor 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 tothe 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 ludicrous barbarities ' which are exhibited at noonday, for the entertainment 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.
V2d. Sueton. Claud. 34; so that Seneca, £2, 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 cruelties 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 are a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men,"
This verse runs all in terms agonistical, tcyeérovs, hath set forth us last, or as the Meridian gladiators, the word éatdutev 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. zz sat. lib, ii. cap.
18, God hath set forth us the apostles last, iaiavarious, as men appointed unto death, just as the last gladiators were; and ééarpoy ivevsnuev, we are made a spectacle.
All which evidently relate to the Meridianorum crudelitates 3 and -Tertullian, lib. de pud. p. 566, cites the aforementioned verse thus, Puto 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 appeared 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.
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Te tullian' s A pology for the Christians.
_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 worshippers 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
CHAPTER XVI.
CONCERNING THE ASS'S HEAD, AND OTHER SUCH LIKE VANITIES
CHARGED UPON THE €AKisTIANS.
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,! who in his fifth book, entering upon the Jewish
1 Cornelius Tacitus hance 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
Sad,
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, 1 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.!_
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 he 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, "Tris 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 ery, and very little wool, about the spelling. and quantity of this goddess's name; soine spelling it Hippona, and making the middle syllable long; others spelling it as Rigaltius does, and making the middle -syllable short, and thus Prudentius in his A potheost makes it, :
/ Nemo.Cloacine aut Epone 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.
Surat solam Eponan.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
be the ass-worshippers only.
I come now to another calumny, which blackens us with the adoration of a cross;! 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?
Vet where is the difference between a plain cross and your Athenian Pallas, and Pharian Ceres, which \ ' Sed et gui 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 doit, 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 rst Apology in doing so, plainly and publicly affirming that the Christians worshipped one God only in the Trinity of Persons, and argués at the same rate against worshipping of crosses as Tertullian here does,
Minutius 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 com fe ' 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.
Tertullian's Apology for the Christians. are but rude, unpolished posts exposed without a stroke or impression 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 _~stheir 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.!
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 Alit 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 st St DaEFAS OF speéch tit eocks this wlace, expressly says that the ~~ 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.
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= = —-'Tertullian's Apology for the Christians.
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 _-T 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.
'eo?
CHAPTER XVIL
: femme WUE Oem pore' WIC LITE eternal, Bee the wicked into perpetual running streams of fire everlasting.
1 S% gud velit de Deo inguirere, 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.
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 incomprehensible, 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,
— 4 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; notwithstanding 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 formsOf speéch i 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 tothe 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.