Chapter VII.

Monsters of wickedness, we are accused of observing a holy rite in which we kill a little child and then eat it; in which, after the feast, we practise incest, the dogs—our pimps, forsooth, overturning the lights and getting us the shamelessness of darkness for our impious lusts. This is what is constantly laid to our charge, and yet you take no pains to elicit the truth of what we have been so long accused.  Either bring, then, the matter to the light of day if you believe it, or give it no credit as having never inquired into it. On the ground of your double dealing, we are entitled to lay it down to you that there is no reality in the thing which you dare not expiscate. You impose on the executioner, in the case of Christians, a duty the very opposite of expiscation: he is not to make them confess what they do, but to make them deny what they are. We date the origin of our religion, as we have mentioned before, from the reign of Tiberius. Truth and the hatred of truth come into our world together. As soon as truth appears, it is regarded as an enemy. It has as many foes as there are strangers to it:  the Jews, as was to be looked for, from a spirit of rivalry; the soldiers, out of a desire to extort money; our very domestics, by their nature. We are daily beset by foes, we are daily betrayed; we are oftentimes surprised in our meetings and congregations. Whoever happened withal upon an infant wailing, according to the common story? Whoever kept for the judge, just as he had found them, the gory mouths of Cyclops and Sirens? Whoever found any traces of uncleanness in their wives? Where is the man who, when he had discovered such atrocities, concealed them; or, in the act of dragging the culprits before the judge, was bribed into silence? If we always keep our secrets, when were our proceedings made known to the world?  Nay, by whom could they be made known?  Not, surely, by the guilty parties themselves; even from the very idea of the thing, the fealty of silence being ever due to mysteries. The Samothracian and Eleusinian make no disclosures—how much more will silence be kept in regard to such as are sure, in their unveiling, to call forth punishment from man at once, while wrath divine is kept in store for the future?  If, then, Christians are not themselves the publishers of their crime, it follows of course it must be strangers.  And whence have they their knowledge, when it is also a universal custom in religious initiations to keep the profane aloof, and to beware of witnesses, unless it be that those who are so wicked have less fear than their neighbors? Every one knows what sort of thing rumour is. It is one of your own sayings, that “among all evils, none flies so fast as rumour.” Why is rumour such an evil thing? Is it because it is fleet? Is it because it carries information? Or is it because it is in the highest degree mendacious?—a thing, not even when it brings some truth to us, without a taint of falsehood, either detracting, or adding, or changing from the simple fact? Nay more, it is the very law of its being to continue only while it lies, and to live but so long as there is no proof; for when the proof is given, it ceases to exist; and, as having done its work of merely spreading a report, it delivers up a fact, and is henceforth held to be a fact, and called a fact.  And then no one says, for instance, “They say that it took place at Rome,” or, “There is a rumour that he has obtained a province,” but, “He has got a province,” and, “It took place at Rome.”  Rumour, the very designation of uncertainty, has no place when a thing is certain. Does any but a fool put his trust in it? For a wise man never believes the dubious. Everybody knows, however zealously it is spread abroad, on whatever strength of asseveration it rests, that some time or other from some one fountain it has its origin. Thence it must creep into propagating tongues and ears; and a small seminal blemish so darkens all the rest of the story, that no one can determine whether the lips, from which it first came forth, planted the seed of falsehood, as often happens, from a spirit of opposition, or from a suspicious judgment, or from a confirmed, nay, in the case of some, an inborn, delight in lying. It is well that time brings all to light, as your proverbs and sayings testify, by a provision of Nature, which has so appointed things that nothing long is hidden, even though rumour has not disseminated it.  It is just then as it should be, that fame for so long a period has been alone aware of the crimes of Christians.  This is the witness you bring against us—one that has never been able to prove the accusation it some time or other sent abroad, and at last by mere continuance made into a settled opinion in the world; so that I confidently appeal to Nature herself, ever true, against those who groundlessly hold that such things are to be credited.

CAPUT VII.

0306B Dicimur sceleratissimi de sacramento infanticidii, et pabulo inde , et post convivium 0307A incesto, quod eversores luminum canes, lenones scilicet, tenebrarum et libidinum impiarum inverecundia procurent . Dicimur tamen semper, nec vos quod tam diu dicimur eruere curatis. Ergo aut eruite, si creditis, aut nolite credere, qui non eruistis. De vestra vobis dissimulatione praescribitur, non esse, quod nec ipsi audetis eruere. Longe aliud munus carnifici in Christianos imperatis, non ut dicant quae faciunt, sed ut negent quod sunt. Census istius disciplinae, ut jam edidimus, a Tiberio est. Cum odio sui coepit veritas, simul atque apparuit, inimica esse . Tot hostes ejus, quot 0308A extranei, et quidem proprii ex aemulatione Judaei, ex concussione milites , ex natura ipsi etiam domestici nostri . Quotidie obsidemur, quotidie prodimur, in ipsis plurimum coetibus et congregationibus nostris opprimimur. Quis unquam taliter vagienti infanti supervenit? Quis cruenta, ut invenerat, Cyclopum et Sirenum ora judici reseravit ? Quis vel in uxoribus aliqua immunda vestigia deprehendit? Quis talia facinora, cum invenisset, celavit, aut vendidit ipsos trahens homines . Si semper latemus, quando proditum est quod admittimus? Imo a quibus prodi potuit? Ab ipsis enim 0309A reis non utique, cum vel ex forma omnibus mysteriis silentii fides debeatur. Samothracia et Eleusinia reticentur: quanto magis talia, quae prodita interim etiam humanam animadversionem provocabunt, dum divina servatur ? Si ergo non ipsi proditores sui, sequitur ut extranei. Et unde extraneis notitia? cum semper etiam piae initiationes arceant profanos et ab arbitris caveant, nisi si impii minus metuunt? natura famae omnibus nota est. Vestrum est: Fama malum, quo non aliud velocius ullum.Cur malum fama ? quia velox? quia index? an quia plurimum mendax? quae ne tunc quidem, cum aliquid veri affert, sine mendacii vitio est, detrahens, 0309B adjiciens, demutans de veritate. Quid? quod ea illi conditio est, ut non nisi cum mentitur perseveret, et tamdiu vivit, quamdiu non probat. Siquidem ubi 0310A probavit, cessat esse, et quasi officio nuntiandi functa, rem tradit, et exinde res tenetur, res nominatur. Nec quisquam dicit, verbi gratia: Hoc Romae aiunt factum; aut: Fama est illum provinciam sortitum; sed: Sortitus ille provinciam, et: Hoc factum est Romae . Fama, nomen incerti, locum non habet, ubi certum est. An vero famae credat, nisi inconsideratus? Qui est sapiens, non credit incerto . Omnium est aestimare , quantacumque illa ambitione diffusa sit, quantacumque asseveratione constructa. Quod ab uno aliquando principe exorta sit, necesse est exinde in traduces linguarum et aurium serpat. Et ita modici seminis vitium caetera rumoris obscurat , ut nemo recogitet, ne primum illud os mendacium seminaverit, quod saepe fit 0310B aut ingenio aemulationis, aut arbitrio suspicionis, aut non nova, sed ingenita quibusdam mentiendi voluptate. Bene autem, quod omnia tempus revelat testibus 0311A etiam vestris proverbiis atque sententiis, ex dispositione naturae, quae ita ordinavit, ut nihil diu lateat, etiam quod fama non distulit. Merito igitur fama tamdiu conscia sola est scelerum Christianorum . Hanc indicem adversus nos profertis, quae, quod aliquando jactavit tantoque temporis spatio in opinionem corroboravit, usque adhuc probare non valuit.