1 Justin Martyr († in 165) – The first Apology

1.1 From the first Apology

8. Christians hope for the afterlife

And reck­on ye that it is for your sakes we have been say­ing these things; for it is in our pow­er, when we are exam­ined, to deny that we are Chris­tians; but we would not live by telling a lie. For, impelled by the desire of the eter­nal and pure life, we seek the abode that is with God, the Father and Cre­ator of all, and has­ten to con­fess our faith, per­suad­ed and con­vinced as we are that they who have proved to God by their works that they fol­lowed Him, and loved to abide with Him where there is no sin to cause dis­tur­bance, can obtain these things. This, then, to speak short­ly, is what we expect and have learned from Christ, and teach. And Pla­to, in like man­ner, used to say that Rhadaman­thus and Minos would pun­ish the wicked who came before them; and we say that the same thing will be done, but at the hand of Christ, and upon the wicked in the same bod­ies unit­ed again to their spir­its which are now to under­go ever­last­ing pun­ish­ment; and not only, as Pla­to said, for a peri­od of a thou­sand years. And if any one say that this is incred­i­ble or impos­si­ble, this error of ours is one which con­cerns our­selves only, and no oth­er per­son, so long as you can­not con­vict us of doing any harm.

15. Sayings of Christ about the chastity and charity

Con­cern­ing chasti­ty, He uttered such sen­ti­ments as these: “Whoso­ev­er looketh upon a woman to lust after her, hath com­mit­ted adul­tery with her already in his heart before God.” And, “If thy right eye offend thee, cut it out; for it is bet­ter for thee to enter into the king­dom of heav­en with one eye, than, hav­ing two eyes, to be cast into ever­last­ing fire.” And, “Whoso­ev­er shall many her that is divorced from anoth­er hus­band, com­mit­teth adul­tery.” And, “There are some who have been made eunuchs of men, and some who were born eunuchs, and some who have made them­selves eunuchs for the king­dom of heav­en’s sake; but all can­not receive this say­ing.” So that all who, by human law, are twice mar­ried, are in the eye of our Mas­ter sin­ners, and those who look upon a woman to lust after her. For not only he who in act com­mits adul­tery is reject­ed by Him, but also he who desires to com­mit adul­tery: since not only our works, but also our thoughts, are open before God. And many, both men and women, who have been Christ’s dis­ci­ples from child­hood, remain pure at the age of six­ty or sev­en­ty years; and I boast that I could pro­duce such from every race of men. For what shall I say, too, of the count­less mul­ti­tude of those who have reformed intem­per­ate habits, and learned these things? For Christ called not the just nor the chaste to repen­tance, but the ungod­ly, and the licen­tious, and the unjust; His words being, “I came not to call the right­eous, but sin­ners to repen­tance.” For the heav­en­ly Father desires rather the repen­tance than the pun­ish­ment of the sin­ner.

16.Concerning patience and swearing

And con­cern­ing our being patient of injuries, and ready to serve all, and free from anger, this is what He said: “To him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the oth­er; and him that taketh away thy cloak or coat, for­bid not. And whoso­ev­er shall be angry, is in dan­ger of the fire. And every one that com­pel­leth thee to go with him a mile, fol­low him two. And let your good works shine before men, that they, see­ing them, may glo­ri­fy your Father which is in heav­en.” For we ought not to strive; nei­ther has He desired us to be imi­ta­tors of wicked men, but He has exhort­ed us to lead all men, by patience and gen­tle­ness, from shame and the love of evil. And this indeed is proved in the case of many who once were of your way of think­ing, but have changed their vio­lent and tyran­ni­cal dis­po­si­tion, being over­come either by the con­stan­cy which they have wit­nessed in their neigh­bours’ lives, or by the extra­or­di­nary for­bear­ance they have observed in their fel­low-trav­ellers when defraud­ed, or by the hon­esty of those with whom they have trans­act­ed busi­ness.

And with regard to our not swear­ing at all, and always speak­ing the truth, He enjoined as fol­lows: “Swear not at all; but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay; for what­so­ev­er is more than these cometh of evil.” And that we ought to wor­ship God alone, He thus per­suad­ed us: “The great­est com­mand­ment is, Thou shalt wor­ship the Lord thy God, and Him only shall thou serve, with all thy heart, and with all thy strength, the Lord God that made thee.” And when a cer­tain man came to Him and said, “Good Mas­ter,” He answered and said, “There is none good but God only, who made all things.”

And let those who are not found liv­ing as He taught, be under­stood to be no Chris­tians, even though they pro­fess with the lip the pre­cepts of Christ; for not those who make pro­fes­sion, but those who do the works, shall be saved, accord­ing to His word: “Not every one who saith to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the king­dom of heav­en, but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heav­en. For whoso­ev­er heareth Me, and doeth My say­ings, heareth Him that sent Me. And many will say unto Me, Lord, Lord, have we not eat­en and drunk in Thy name, and done won­ders? And then will I say unto them, Depart from Me, ye work­ers of iniq­ui­ty. Then shall there be wail­ing and gnash­ing of teeth, when the right­eous shall shine as the sun, and the wicked are sent into ever­last­ing fire. For many shall come in My name, clothed out­ward­ly in sheep­’s cloth­ing, but inward­ly being raven­ing wolves. By their works ye shall know them. And every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire.” And as to those who are not liv­ing pur­suant to these His teach­ings, and are Chris­tians only in name, we demand that all such be pun­ished by you.

1.2 From the second Apology

2. Urbicus condemns the Christians to death

A recent incident shows the injustice of judicial proceedings against the Christians

A cer­tain woman lived with an intem­per­ate hus­band; she her­self, too, hav­ing for­mer­ly been intem­per­ate. But when she came to the knowl­edge of the teach­ings of Christ she became sober-mind­ed, and endeav­oured to per­suade her hus­band like­wise to be tem­per­ate, cit­ing the teach­ing of Christ, and assur­ing him that there shall be pun­ish­ment in eter­nal fire inflict­ed upon those who do not live tem­per­ate­ly and con­formably to right rea­son. But he, con­tin­u­ing in the same excess­es, alien­at­ed his wife from him by his actions. For she, con­sid­er­ing it wicked to live any longer as a wife with a hus­band who sought in every way means of indulging in plea­sure con­trary to the law of nature, and in vio­la­tion of what is right, wished to be divorced from him. And when she was over­per­suad­ed by her friends, who advised her still to con­tin­ue with him, in the idea that some time or oth­er her hus­band might give hope of amend­ment, she did vio­lence to her own feel­ing and remained with him. But when her hus­band had gone into Alexan­dria, and was report­ed to be con­duct­ing him­self worse than ever, she–that she might not, by con­tin­u­ing in mat­ri­mo­ni­al con­nec­tion with him, and by shar­ing his table and his bed, become a par­tak­er also in his wicked­ness­es and impieties–gave him what you call a bill of divorce, and was sep­a­rat­ed from him. But this noble hus­band of hers,–while he ought to have been rejoic­ing that those actions which for­mer­ly she unhesi­tat­ing­ly com­mit­ted with the ser­vants and hirelings, when she delight­ed in drunk­en­ness and every vice, she had now giv­en up, and desired that he too should give up the same,–when she had gone from him with­out his desire, brought an accu­sa­tion against her, affirm­ing that she was a Chris­t­ian. And she pre­sent­ed a paper to thee, the Emper­or, request­ing that first she be per­mit­ted to arrange her affairs, and after­wards to make her defence against the accu­sa­tion, when her affairs were set in order. And this you grant­ed. And her quon­dam hus­band, since he was now no longer able to pros­e­cute her, direct­ed his assaults against a man, Ptole­maeus, whom Urbicus pun­ished, and who had been her teacher in the Chris­t­ian doc­trines. And this he did in the fol­low­ing way. He per­suad­ed a centurion–who had cast Ptole­maeus into prison, and who was friend­ly to himself–to take Ptole­maeus and inter­ro­gate him on this sole point: whether he were a Chris­t­ian? And Ptole­maeus, being a lover of truth, and not of a deceit­ful or false dis­po­si­tion, when he con­fessed him­self to be a Chris­t­ian, was bound by the cen­tu­ri­on, and for a long time pun­ished in the prison. And, at last, when the man came to Urbicus, he was asked this one ques­tion only: whether he was a Chris­t­ian? And again, being con­scious of his duty, and the nobil­i­ty of it through the teach­ing of Christ, he con­fessed his dis­ci­ple­ship in the divine virtue. For he who denies any­thing, either denies it because he con­demns the thing itself, or he shrinks from con­fes­sion because he is con­scious of his own unwor­thi­ness or alien­ation from it; nei­ther of which cas­es is that of the true Chris­t­ian. And when Urbicus ordered him to be led away to pun­ish­ment, one Lucius, who was also him­self a Chris­t­ian, see­ing the unrea­son­able judg­ment that had thus been giv­en, said to Urbicus: “What is the ground of this judg­ment? Why have you pun­ished this man, not as an adul­ter­er, nor for­ni­ca­tor, nor mur­der­er, nor thief, nor rob­ber, nor con­vict­ed of any crime at all, but who has only con­fessed that he is called by the name of Chris­t­ian? This judg­ment of yours, O Urbicus, does not become the Emper­or Pius, nor the philoso­pher, the son of Cae­sar, nor the sacred sen­ate.” And he said noth­ing else in answer to Lucius than this: “You also seem to me to be such an one.” And when Lucius answered, “Most cer­tain­ly I am,” he again ordered him also to be led away. And he pro­fessed his thanks, know­ing that he was deliv­ered from such wicked rulers, and was going to the Father and King of the heav­ens. And still a third hav­ing come for­ward, was con­demned to be pun­ished.

3 (4) – Why the Christians do not kill themselves

But lest some one say to us, “Go then all or you and kill your­selves, and pass even now to God, and do not trou­ble us,” I will tell you why we do not so, but why, when exam­ined, we fear­less­ly con­fess. We have been taught that God did not make the world aim­less­ly, but for the sake of the human race; and we have before stat­ed that He takes plea­sure in those who imi­tate His prop­er­ties, and is dis­pleased with those that embrace what is worth­less either in word or deed. If, then, we all kill our­selves, we shall become the cause, as far as in us lies, why no one should be born, or instruct­ed in the divine doc­trines, or even why the human race should not exist; and we shall, if we so act, be our­selves act­ing in oppo­si­tion to the will of God. But when we are exam­ined, we make no denial, because we are not con­scious of any evil, but count it impi­ous not to speak the truth in all things, which also we know is pleas­ing to God, and be cause we are also now very desirous to deliv­er you from an unjust prej­u­dice.

12 – The Christians proved innocent by their contempt of death.

The stead­fast­ness of the Chris­tians is the best proof for their integri­ty

For I myself, too, when I was delight­ing in the doc­trines of Pla­to, and heard the Chris­tians slan­dered, and saw them fear­less of death, and of all oth­er things which are count­ed fear­ful, per­ceived that it was impos­si­ble that they could be liv­ing in wicked­ness and plea­sure. For what sen­su­al or intem­per­ate man, or who that counts it good to feast on human flesh, could wel­come death that he might be deprived of his enjoy­ments, and would not rather con­tin­ue always the present life, and attempt to escape the obser­va­tion of the rulers; and much less would he denounce him­self when the con­se­quence would be death? This also the wicked demons have now caused to be done by evil men. For hav­ing put some to death on account of the accu­sa­tions false­ly brought against us, they also dragged to the tor­ture our domes­tics, either chil­dren or weak women, and by dread­ful tor­ments forced them to admit those fab­u­lous actions which they them­selves open­ly per­pe­trate; about which we are the less con­cerned, because none of these actions are real­ly ours, and we have the unbe­got­ten and inef­fa­ble God as wit­ness both of our thoughts and deeds. For why did we not even pub­licly pro­fess that these were the things which we esteemed good, and prove that these are the divine phi­los­o­phy, say­ing that the mys­ter­ies of Sat­urn are per­formed when we slay a man, and’ that when we drink our fill of blood, as it is said we do, we are doing what you do before that idol you hon­our, and on which you sprin­kle the blood not only of irra­tional ani­mals, but also of men, mak­ing a liba­tion of the blood of the slain by the hand of the most illus­tri­ous and noble man among you? And imi­tat­ing Jupiter and the oth­er gods in sodomy and shame­less inter­course with woman, might we not bring as our apol­o­gy the writ­ings of Epi­cu­rus and the poets? But because we per­suade men to avoid such instruc­tion, and all who prac­tise them and imi­tate such exam­ples, as now in this dis­course we have striv­en to per­suade you, we are assailed in every kind of way. But we are not con­cerned, since we know that God is a just observ­er of all. But would that even now some one would mount a lofty ros­trum, and shout with a loud voice, “Be ashamed, be ashamed, ye who charge the guilt­less with those deeds which your­selves open­ly com­mit, and ascribe things which apply to your­selves and to your gods to those who have not even the slight­est sym­pa­thy with them. Be ye con­vert­ed; become wise.”

2 Excerpts from the Apology of Athenagoras

31 Confutation of the Other Charges Brought Against the Christians.

About the Chris­tians’ account­abil­i­ty to God and their hope for eter­ni­ty

But they have fur­ther also made up sto­ries against us of impi­ous feasts and for­bid­den inter­course between the sex­es, both that they may appear to them­selves to have ratio­nal grounds of hatred, and because they think either by fear to lead us away from our way of life, or to ren­der the rulers harsh and inex­orable by the mag­ni­tude of the charges they bring. But they lose their labour with those who know that from of old it has been the cus­tom, and not in our time only, for vice to make war on virtue. Thus Pythago­ras, with three hun­dred oth­ers, was burnt to death; Her­a­cli­tus and Dem­ocri­tus were ban­ished, the one from the city of the Eph­esians, the oth­er from Abdera, because he was charged with being mad; and the Athe­ni­ans con­demned Socrates to death. But as they were none the worse in respect of virtue because of the opin­ion of the mul­ti­tude, so nei­ther does the undis­crim­i­nat­ing calum­ny of some per­sons cast any shade upon us as regards rec­ti­tude of life, for with God we stand in good repute. Nev­er­the­less, I will meet these charges also, although I am well assured that by what has been already said I have cleared myself to you. For as you excel all men in intel­li­gence, you know that those whose life is direct­ed towards God as its rule, so that each one among us may be blame­less and irre­proach­able before Him, will not enter­tain even the thought of the slight­est sin. For if we believed that we should live only the present life, then we might be sus­pect­ed of sin­ning, through being enslaved to flesh and blood, or over­mas­tered by gain or car­nal desire; but since we know that God is wit­ness to what we think and what we say both by night and by day, and that He, being Him­self light, sees all things in our heart, we are per­suad­ed that when we are removed from the present life we shall live anoth­er life, bet­ter than the present one, and heav­en­ly, not earth­ly (since we shall abide near God, and with God, free from all change or suf­fer­ing in the soul, not as flesh, even though we shall have flesh, but as heav­en­ly spir­it), or, falling with the rest, a worse one and in fire; for God has not made us as sheep or beasts of bur­den, a mere by-work, and that we should per­ish and be anni­hi­lat­ed. On these grounds it is not like­ly that we should wish to do evil, or deliv­er our­selves over to the great Judge to be pun­ished.

32 Elevated Morality of the Christians.

(About the puri­ty in atti­tude)

It is, how­ev­er, noth­ing won­der­ful that they should get up tales about us such as they tell of their own gods, of the inci­dents of whose lives they make mys­ter­ies. But it behoved them, if they meant to con­demn shame­less and promis­cu­ous inter­course, to hate either Zeus, who begat chil­dren of his moth­er Rhea and his daugh­ter Kore, and took his own sis­ter to wife, or Orpheus, the inven­tor of these tales, which made Zeus more unholy and detestable than Thyestes him­self; for the lat­ter defiled his daugh­ter in pur­suance of an ora­cle, and when he want­ed to obtain the king­dom and avenge him­self. But we are so far from prac­tis­ing promis­cu­ous inter­course, that it is not law­ful among us to indulge even a lust­ful look. “For,” saith He, “he that looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath com­mit­ted adul­tery already in his heart.” Those, then, who are for­bid­den to look at any­thing more than that for which God formed the eyes, which were intend­ed to be a light to us, and to whom a wan­ton look is adul­tery, the eyes being made for oth­er pur­pos­es, and who are to be called to account for their very thoughts, how can any one doubt that such per­sons prac­tise self-con­trol? For our account lies not with human laws, which a bad man can evade (at the out­set I proved to you, sov­er­eign lords, that our doc­trine is from the teach­ing of God), but we have a law which makes the mea­sure of rec­ti­tude to con­sist in deal­ing with our neigh­bour as our­selves. On this account, too, accord­ing to age, we recog­nise some as sons and daugh­ters, oth­ers we regard as broth­ers and sis­ters, and to the more advanced in life we give the hon­our due to fathers and moth­ers. On behalf of those, then, to whom we apply the names of broth­ers and sis­ters, and oth­er des­ig­na­tions of rela­tion­ship, we exer­cise the great­est care that their bod­ies should remain unde­filed and uncor­rupt­ed; for the Logos again says to us, “If any one kiss a sec­ond time because it has giv­en him plea­sure, [he sins];” adding, “There­fore the kiss, or rather the salu­ta­tion, should be giv­en with the great­est care, since, if there be mixed with it the least defile­ment of thought, it excludes us from eter­nal life.”

33 Chastity of the Christians with respect to marriage.

There­fore, hav­ing the hope of eter­nal life, we despise the things of this life, even to the plea­sures of the soul, each of us reck­on­ing her his wife whom he has mar­ried accord­ing to the laws laid down by us, and that only for the pur­pose of hav­ing chil­dren. For as the hus­band­man throw­ing the seed into the ground awaits the har­vest, not sow­ing more upon it, so to us the pro­cre­ation of chil­dren is the mea­sure of our indul­gence in appetite. Nay, you would find many among us, both men and women, grow­ing old unmar­ried, in hope of liv­ing in clos­er com­mu­nion with God. But if the remain­ing in vir­gin­i­ty and in the state of an eunuch brings near­er to God, while the indul­gence of car­nal thought and desire leads away from Him, in those cas­es in which we shun the thoughts, much more do we reject the deeds. For we bestow our atten­tion; not on the study of words, but on the exhi­bi­tion and teach­ing of actions,–that a per­son should either remain as he was born, or be con­tent with one mar­riage; for a sec­ond mar­riage is only a spe­cious adul­tery. “For whoso­ev­er puts away his wife,” says He, “and mar­ries anoth­er, com­mits adul­tery;” not per­mit­ting a man to send her away whose vir­gin­i­ty he has brought to an end, nor to mar­ry again. For he who deprives him­self of his first wife, even though she be dead, is a cloaked adul­ter­er, resist­ing the hand of God, because in the begin­ning God made one man and one woman, and dis­solv­ing the strictest union of flesh with flesh, formed for the inter­course of the race.

35 The Christians Condemn and Detest All Cruelty.

(Chris­tians detest mur­der — con­dem­na­tion of abor­tion)

What man of sound mind, there­fore, will affirm, while such is our char­ac­ter, that we are mur­der­ers? For we can­not eat human flesh till we have killed some one. The for­mer charge, there­fore, being false, if any one should ask them in regard to the sec­ond, whether they have seen what they assert, not one of them would be so barefaced as to say that he had. And yet we have slaves, some more and some few­er, by whom we could not help being seen; but even of these, not one has been found to invent even such things against us. For when they know that we can­not endure even to see a man put to death, though just­ly; who of them can accuse us of mur­der or can­ni­bal­ism? Who does not reck­on among the things of great­est inter­est the con­tests of glad­i­a­tors and wild beasts, espe­cial­ly those which are giv­en by you? But we, deem­ing that to see a man put to death is much the same as killing him, have abjured such spec­ta­cles. How, then, when we do not even look on, lest we should con­tract guilt and pol­lu­tion, can we put peo­ple to death? And when we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abor­tion com­mit mur­der, and will have to give an account to God s for the abor­tion, on what prin­ci­ple should we com­mit mur­der? For it does not belong to the same per­son to regard the very foe­tus in the womb as a cre­at­ed being, and there­fore an object of God’s care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are charge­able with child-mur­der, and on the oth­er hand, when it has been reared to destroy it. But we are in all things always alike and the same, sub­mit­ting our­selves to rea­son, and not rul­ing over it.

3 Excerpts from Minucius Felix “Octavius”

3.1 From Caecilius’ accusation

8. There­fore, since the con­sent of all nations con­cern­ing the exis­tence of the immor­tal gods remains estab­lished, although their nature or their ori­gin remains uncer­tain, I suf­fer nobody swelling with such bold­ness, and with I know not what irre­li­gious wis­dom, who would strive to under­mine or weak­en this reli­gion, so ancient, so use­ful, so whole­some, even although he may he Theodor­us of Cyrene, or one who is before him Diago­ras the Melian, to whom antiq­ui­ty applied the sur­name of Athe­ist,–both of whom, by assev­er­at­ing that there were no gods, took away all the fear by which human­i­ty is ruled, and all ven­er­a­tion absolute­ly; yet nev­er will they pre­vail in this dis­ci­pline of impi­ety, under the name and author­i­ty of their pre­tend­ed phi­los­o­phy. When the men of Athens both expelled Pro­tago­ras of Abdera, and in pub­lic assem­bly burnt his writ­ings, because he dis­put­ed delib­er­ate­ly rather than pro­fane­ly con­cern­ing the divin­i­ty, why is it not a thing to be lament­ed, that men (for you will bear with my mak­ing use pret­ty freely of the force of the plea that I have under­tak­en)–that men, I say, of a repro­bate, unlaw­ful, and des­per­ate fac­tion, should rage against the gods? Who, hav­ing gath­ered togeth­er from the low­est dregs the more unskilled, and women, cred­u­lous and, by the facil­i­ty of their sex, yield­ing, estab­lish a herd of a pro­fane con­spir­a­cy, which is leagued togeth­er by night­ly meet­ings, and solemn fasts and inhu­man meats–not by any sacred rite, but by that which requires expiation–a peo­ple skulk­ing and shun­ning the light, silent in pub­lic, but gar­ru­lous in cor­ners. They despise the tem­ples as dead-hous­es, they reject the gods, they laugh at sacred things; wretched, they pity, if they are allowed, the priests; half naked them­selves, they despise hon­ours and pur­ple robes. Oh, won­drous fol­ly and incred­i­ble audac­i­ty! they despise present tor­ments, although they i fear those which are uncer­tain and future; and while they fear to die after death, they do not fear to die for the present: so does a deceit­ful hope soothe their fear with the solace of a revival.

9. And now, as wicked­er things advance more fruit­ful­ly, and aban­doned man­ners creep on day by day, those abom­inable shrines of an impi­ous assem­bly are matur­ing them­selves through­out the whole world. Assured­ly this con­fed­er­a­cy ought to be root­ed out and exe­crat­ed. They know one anoth­er by secret marks and insignia, and they love one anoth­er almost before they know one anoth­er. Every­where also there is min­gled among them a cer­tain reli­gion of lust, and they call one anoth­er promis­cu­ous­ly broth­ers and sis­ters, that even a not unusu­al debauch­ery may by the inter­ven­tion of that sacred name become inces­tu­ous: it is thus that their vain and sense­less super­sti­tion glo­ries in crimes. Nor, con­cern­ing these things, would intel­li­gent report speak of things so great and var­i­ous, and requir­ing to be pref­aced by an apol­o­gy, unless truth were at the bot­tom of it. I hear that they adore the head of an ass, that basest of crea­tures, con­se­crat­ed by I know not what sil­ly persuasion,–a wor­thy and appro­pri­ate reli­gion for such man­ners. Some say that they wor­ship the vir­il­ia of their pon­tiff and priest, and adore the nature, as it were, of their com­mon par­ent. I know not whether these things are false; cer­tain­ly sus­pi­cion is applic­a­ble to secret and noc­tur­nal rites; and he who explains their cer­e­monies by ref­er­ence to a man pun­ished by extreme suf­fer­ing for his wicked­ness, and to the dead­ly wood of the cross, appro­pri­ates fit­ting altars for repro­bate and wicked men, that they may wor­ship what they deserve. Now the sto­ry about the ini­ti­a­tion of young novices is as much to be detest­ed as it is well known. An infant cov­ered over with meal, that it may deceive the unwary, is placed before him who is to be stained with their rites: this infant is slain by the young pupil, who has been urged on as if to harm­less blows on the sur­face of the meal, with dark and secret wounds.

Thirstily–O horror!–they lick up its blood; eager­ly they divide its limbs. By this vic­tim they are pledged togeth­er; with this con­scious­ness of wicked­ness they are covenant­ed to mutu­al silence. Such sacred rites as these are more foul than any sac­ri­leges. And of their ban­quet­ing it is well known all men speak of it every­where; even the speech of our Cirten­sian tes­ti­fies to it. On a solemn day they assem­ble at the feast, with all their chil­dren, sis­ters, moth­ers, peo­ple of every sex and of every age. There, after much feast­ing, when the fel­low­ship has grown warm, and the fer­vour of inces­tu­ous lust has grown hot with drunk­en­ness, a dog that has been tied to the chan­de­lier is pro­voked, by throw­ing a small piece of offal beyond the length of a line by which he is bound, to rush and spring; and thus the con­scious light being over­turned and extin­guished in the shame­less dark­ness, the con­nec­tions of abom­inable lust involve them in the uncer­tain­ty of fate. Although not all in fact, yet in con­scious­ness all are alike inces­tu­ous, since by the desire of all of them every­thing is sought for which can hap­pen in the act of each indi­vid­ual.

12. Nei­ther do you at least take expe­ri­ence from things present, how the fruit­less expec­ta­tions of vain promise deceive you. Con­sid­er, wretched crea­tures, (from your lot) while you are yet liv­ing, what is threat­en­ing you after death. Behold, a por­tion of you–and, as you declare, the larg­er and bet­ter por­tion–are in want, are cold, are labour­ing in hard work and hunger; and God suf­fers it, He feigns; He either is not will­ing or not able to assist His peo­ple; and thus He is either weak or inequitable. Thou, who dreamest over a posthu­mous immor­tal­i­ty, when thou art shak­en by dan­ger, when thou art con­sumed with fever, when thou art torn with pain, dost thou not then feel thy real con­di­tion? Dost thou not then acknowl­edge thy frailty? Poor wretch, art thou unwill­ing­ly con­vinced of thine infir­mi­ty, and wilt not con­fess it? But I omit mat­ters that are com­mon to all alike. Lo, for you there are threats, pun­ish­ments, tor­tures, and cross­es; and that no longer as objects of ado­ra­tion, but as tor­tures to be under­gone; fires also, which you both pre­dict and fear. Where is that God who is able to help you when you come to life again, since he can­not help you while you are in this life? Do not the Romans, with­out any help from your God, gov­ern, reign, have the enjoy­ment of the whole world, and have domin­ion over you? But you in the mean­time, in sus­pense and anx­i­ety, are abstain­ing from respectable enjoy­ments. You do not vis­it exhi­bi­tions; you have no con­cern in pub­lic dis­plays; you reject the pub­lic ban­quets, and abhor the sacred con­tests; the meats pre­vi­ous­ly tast­ed by, and the drinks made a liba­tion of upon, the altars. Thus you stand in dread of the gods whom you deny. You do not wreath your heads with flow­ers; you do not grace your bod­ies with odours; you reserve unguents for funer­al rites; you even refuse gar­lands to your sepulchres–pallid, trem­bling beings, wor­thy of the pity even of our gods! Thus, wretched as you are, you nei­ther rise again, nor do you live in the mean­while. There­fore, if you have any wis­dom or mod­esty, cease from pry­ing into the regions of the sky, and the des­tinies and secrets of the world: it is suf­fi­cient to look before your feet, espe­cial­ly for untaught, uncul­ti­vat­ed, boor­ish, rus­tic peo­ple: they who have no capac­i­ty for under­stand­ing civ­il mat­ters, are much more denied the abil­i­ty to dis­cuss divine.

3.2 From Octavius’ speech of defence

28. (Christians have a pure conscience)

BUT how unjust it is, to form a judg­ment on things unknown and unex­am­ined, as you do! Believe us our­selves when pen­i­tent, for we also were the same as you, and for­mer­ly, while yet blind and obtuse, thought the same things as you; to wit, that the Chris­tians wor­shipped mon­sters, devoured infants, min­gled in inces­tu­ous ban­quets. And we did not per­ceive that such fables as these were always set afloat by those (news­mon­gers), and were nev­er either inquired into nor proved; and that in so long a time no one had appeared to betray (their doings), to obtain not only par­don for their crime, but also favour for its dis­cov­ery: more­over, that it was to this extent not evil, that a Chris­t­ian, when accused, nei­ther blushed nor feared, and that he only repent­ed that he had not been one before. We, how­ev­er, when we under­took to defend and pro­tect some sac­ri­le­gious and inces­tu­ous per­sons, and even par­ri­cides, did not think that these (Chris­tians) were to be heard at all.

Some­times even, when we affect­ed to pity them, we were more cru­el­ly vio­lent against them, so as to tor­ture them when they con­fessed, that they might deny, to wit, that they might not per­ish; mak­ing use of a per­verse inqui­si­tion against them, not to elic­it the truth, but to com­pel a false­hood. And if any one, by rea­son of greater weak­ness, over­come with suf­fer­ing, and con­quered, should deny that he was a Chris­t­ian, we showed favour to him, as if by for­swear­ing that name he had at once atoned for all his deeds by that sim­ple denial. Do not you acknowl­edge that we felt and did the same as you feel and do?…

30. (Condemnation of murder and abortion)

And now I should wish to meet him who says or believes that we are ini­ti­at­ed by the slaugh­ter and blood of an infant. Think you that it can be pos­si­ble for so ten­der, so lit­tle a body to receive those fatal wounds; for any one to shed, pour forth, and drain that new blood of a youngling, and of a man scar­cley come into exis­tence? No one can believe this, except one who can dare to do it. And I see that you at one time expose your begot­ten chil­dren to wild beasts and to birds; at anoth­er, that you crush them when stran­gled with a mis­er­able kind of death. There are some women who, by drink­ing med­ical prepa­ra­tions, extin­guish the source of the future man in their very bow­els, and thus com­mit a par­ri­cide before they bring forth. And these things assured­ly come don from the teach­ing of your gods. …

31. (About chastity, modesty and brotherly love of Christians)

And of the inces­tu­ous ban­quet­ing, the plot­ting of demons has false­ly devised an enor­mous fable against us, to stain the glo­ry of our mod­esty, by the loathing excit­ed by an out­ra­geous infamy, that before inquir­ing into the truth it might turn men away from us by the ter­ror of an abom­inable charge. It was thus your own Fron­to act­ed in this respect: he did not pro­duce tes­ti­mo­ny, as one who alleged a charge, but he scat­tered reproach­es as a rhetori­cian. For these things have rather orig­i­nat­ed from your own nations. Among the Per­sians, a promis­cu­ous asso­ci­a­tion between sons and moth­ers is allowed. Mar­riages with sis­ters are legit­i­mate among the Egyp­tians and in Athens. Your records and your tragedies, which you both read and hear with plea­sure, glo­ry in inces­ts: thus also you wor­ship inces­tu­ous gods, who have inter­course with moth­ers, with daugh­ters, with sis­ters. With rea­son, there­fore, is incest fre­quent­ly detect­ed among you, and is con­tin­u­al­ly per­mit­ted. Mis­er­able men, you may even, with­out know­ing it, rush into what is unlaw­ful: since you scat­ter your lusts promis­cu­ous­ly, since you every­where beget chil­dren, since you fre­quent­ly expose even those who are born at home to the mer­cy of oth­ers, it is inevitable that you must come back to your own chil­dren, and stray to your own off­spring. Thus you con­tin­ue the sto­ry of incest, even although you have no con­scious­ness of your crime. But we main­tain our mod­esty not in appear­ance, but in our heart we glad­ly abide by the bond of a sin­gle mar­riage; in the desire of pro­cre­at­ing, we know either one wife, or none at all. We prac­tise shar­ing in ban­quets, which are not only mod­est, but also sober: for we do not indulge in enter­tain­ments nor pro­long our feasts with wine; but we tem­per our joy­ous­ness with grav­i­ty, with chaste dis­course, and with body even more chaste (divers of us unvi­o­lat­ed) enjoy rather than make a boast of a per­pet­u­al vir­gin­i­ty of a body. So far, in fact, are they from indulging in inces­tu­ous desire, that with some even the (idea of mod­est inter­course of the sex­es caus­es a blush. Nei­ther do we at once stand on the lev­el of the low­est of the peo­ple, if we refuse your hon­ours and pur­ple robes; and we are not fas­tid­i­ous, if we all have a dis­cern­ment of one good, but are assem­bled togeth­er with the same quiet­ness with which we live as indi­vid­u­als; and we are not gar­ru­lous in cor­ners, although you either blush or are afraid to hear us in pub­lic. And that day by day the num­ber of us is increased, is not a ground for a charge of error, but is a tes­ti­mo­ny which claims praise; for, in a fair mode of life, our actu­al num­ber both con­tin­ues and abides undi­min­ished, and strangers increase it. Thus, in short, we do not dis­tin­guish our peo­ple by some small bod­i­ly mark, as you sup­pose, but eas­i­ly enough by the sign of inno­cen­cy and mod­esty. Thus we love one anoth­er, to your regret, with a mutu­al love, because we do not know how to hate. Thus we call one anoth­er, to your envy, brethren: as being men born of one God and Par­ent, and com­pan­ions in faith, and as fel­low-heirs in hope. You, how­ev­er, do not recog­nise one anoth­er, and you are cru­el in your mutu­al hatreds; nor do you acknowl­edge one anoth­er as brethren, unless indeed for the pur­pose of frat­ri­cide.

35. (About the Christians’ purity and integrity)

And yet men are admon­ished in the books and poems of the most learned poets of that fiery riv­er, and of the heat flow­ing in man­i­fold turns from the Sty­gian marsh,–things which, pre­pared for eter­nal tor­ments, and known to them by the infor­ma­tion of demons and from the ora­cles of their prophets, they have deliv­ered to us. And there­fore among them also even king Jupiter him­self swears reli­gious­ly by the parch­ing banks and the black abyss; for, with fore­knowl­edge of the pun­ish­ment des­tined to him, with his wor­ship­pers, he shud­ders. Nor is there either mea­sure ter­mi­na­tion to these tor­ments. There the intel­li­gent fire burns the limbs and restores them, feeds on them and nour­ish­es them. As the fires of the thun­der­bolts strike upon the bod­ies, and do not con­sume them; as the fires of Mount AEt­na and of Mount Vesu­vius, and of burn­ing where, glow, but are not wast­ed; so that penal fire is not fed by the waste of those who burn, but is nour­ished by the unex­haust­ed eat­ing away of their bod­ies. But that they who know not God are deserved­ly tor­ment­ed as impi­ous, as unright­eous per­sons, no one except a pro­fane man hes­i­tates to believe, since it is not less wicked to be igno­rant of, than to offend the Par­ent of all, and the Lord of all. And although igno­rance of God is suf­fi­cient for pun­ish­ment, even as knowl­edge of Him is of avail for par­don, yet if we Chris­tians be com­pared with you, although in some things our dis­ci­pline is infe­ri­or, yet we shall be found much bet­ter than you. For you for­bid, and yet com­mit, adul­ter­ies; we are born men only for our own wives: you pun­ish crimes when com­mit­ted; with us, even to think of crimes is to sin: you are afraid of those who are aware of what you do; are even afraid of our own con­science alone, with­out which we can­not exist: final­ly, from your num­bers the prison boils over; but there is no Chris­t­ian there, unless he is accused on account of his reli­gion, or a desert­er.

36. (About poverty and endurance in afflictions)

But that many of us are called poor, this is not our dis­grace, but our glo­ry; for as our mind is relaxed by lux­u­ry, so it is strength­ened by fru­gal­i­ty. And yet who can be poor if he does not want, if he does not crave for the pos­ses­sions of oth­ers, if he is rich towards God? He rather is poor, who, although he has much, desires more. Yet I will speak accord­ing as I feel. No one can be so poor as he is born. Birds live with­out any pat­ri­mo­ny, and day by day the cat­tle are fed; and yet these crea­tures are born for us–all of which things, if we do not lust after, we pos­sess. There­fore, as he who treads a road is the hap­pi­er the lighter he walks, so hap­pi­er is he in this jour­ney of life who lifts him­self along in pover­ty, and does not breathe heav­i­ly under the bur­den of rich­es. And yet even if we thought wealth use­ful to us, we should ask it of God. Assured­ly He might be able to indulge us in some mea­sure, whose is the whole; but we would rather despise rich­es than pos­sess them: we desire rather inno­cen­cy, we rather entreat for patience, we pre­fer being good to being prodi­gal; and that we feel and suf­fer the human mis­chiefs of the body is not pun­ish­ment –it is war­fare. For for­ti­tude is strength­ened by infir­mi­ties, and calami­ty is very often the dis­ci­pline of virtue; in addi­tion, strength both of mind and of body grows tor­pid with­out the exer­cise of labour. There­fore all your mighty men whom you announce as an exam­ple have flour­ished illus­tri­ous­ly by their afflic­tions. And thus God is nei­ther unable to aid us, nor does He despise us, since He is both the ruler of all men and the lover of His own peo­ple. But in adver­si­ty He looks into and search­es out each one; He weighs the dis­po­si­tion of every indi­vid­ual in dan­gers, even to death at last; He inves­ti­gates the will of man, cer­tain that to Him noth­ing can per­ish. There­fore, as gold by the fires, so are we declared by crit­i­cal moments.