Chapter XXXV.

This is the reason, then, why Christians are counted public enemies:  that they pay no vain, nor false, nor foolish honours to the emperor; that, as men believing in the true religion, they prefer to celebrate their festal days with a good conscience, instead of with the common wantonness. It is, forsooth, a notable homage to bring fires and couches out before the public, to have feasting from street to street, to turn the city into one great tavern, to make mud with wine, to run in troops to acts of violence, to deeds of shamelessness to lust allurements! What! is public joy manifested by public disgrace? Do things unseemly at other times beseem the festal days of princes? Do they who observe the rules of virtue out of reverence for Cæsar, for his sake turn aside from them? Shall piety be a license to immoral deeds, and shall religion be regarded as affording the occasion for all riotous extravagance? Poor we, worthy of all condemnation! For why do we keep the votive days and high rejoicings in honour of the Cæsars with chastity, sobriety, and virtue? Why, on the day of gladness, do we neither cover our door-posts with laurels, nor intrude upon the day with lamps? It is a proper thing, at the call of a public festivity, to dress your house up like some new brothel.47    [Note this reference to a shameless custom of the heathen in Rome and elsewhere.] However, in the matter of this homage to a lesser majesty, in reference to which we are accused of a lower sacrilege, because we do not celebrate along with you the holidays of the Cæsars in a manner forbidden alike by modesty, decency, and purity,—in truth they have been established rather as affording opportunities for licentiousness than from any worthy motive;—in this matter I am anxious to point out how faithful and true you are, lest perchance here also those who will not have us counted Romans, but enemies of Rome’s chief rulers, be found themselves worse than we wicked Christians! I appeal to the inhabitants of Rome themselves, to the native population of the seven hills: does that Roman vernacular of theirs ever spare a Cæsar? The Tiber and the wild beasts’ schools bear witness. Say now if nature had covered our hearts with a transparent substance through which the light could pass, whose hearts, all graven over, would not betray the scene of another and another Cæsar presiding at the distribution of a largess? And this at the very time they are shouting, “May Jupiter take years from us, and with them lengthen like to you,”—words as foreign to the lips of a Christian as it is out of keeping with his character to desire a change of emperor. But this is the rabble, you say; yet, as the rabble, they still are Romans, and none more frequently than they demand the death of Christians.48    [See cap. l. and Note on cap. xl. infra.] Of course, then, the other classes, as befits their higher rank, are religiously faithful.  No breath of treason is there ever in the senate, in the equestrian order, in the camp, in the palace.  Whence, then, came a Cassius, a Niger, an Albinus? Whence they who beset the Cæsar49    Commodus. between the two laurel groves? Whence they who practised wrestling, that they might acquire skill to strangle him? Whence they who in full armour broke into the palace,50    To murder Pertinax. more audacious than all your Tigerii and Parthenii.51    Tigerius and Parthenius were among the murderers of Commodus. If I mistake not, they were Romans; that is, they were not Christians. Yet all of them, on the very eve of their traitorous outbreak, offered sacrifices for the safety of the emperor, and swore by his genius, one thing in profession, and another in the heart; and no doubt they were in the habit of calling Christians enemies of the state. Yes, and persons who are now daily brought to light as confederates or approvers of these crimes and treasons, the still remnant gleanings after a vintage of traitors, with what verdant and branching laurels they clad their door-posts, with what lofty and brilliant lamps they smoked their porches, with what most exquisite and gaudy couches they divided the Forum among themselves; not that they might celebrate public rejoicings, but that they might get a foretaste of their own votive seasons in partaking of the festivities of another, and inaugurate the model and image of their hope, changing in their minds the emperor’s name. The same homage is paid, dutifully too, by those who consult astrologers, and soothsayers, and augurs, and magicians, about the life of the Cæsars,—arts which, as made known by the angels who sinned, and forbidden by God, Christians do not even make use of in their own affairs. But who has any occasion to inquire about the life of the emperor, if he have not some wish or thought against it, or some hopes and expectations after it? For consultations of this sort have not the same motive in the case of friends as in the case of sovereigns. The anxiety of a kinsman is something very different from that of a subject.

CAPUT XXXV.

Propterea igitur publici hostes Christiani, quia imperatoribus neque vanos neque mentientes neque 0452B temerarios honores dicant, quia verae religionis homines etiam solemnia eorum, conscientia potius quam lascivia celebrant. Grande videlicet officium, focos et toros in publicum educere, vicatim epulari, civitatem tabernae habitu abolefacere , vino lutum cogere catervatim cursitare ad injurias, ad impudentias, 0453A ad libidinis illecebras. Siccine exprimitur publicum gaudium per dedecus publicum? Haeccine solemnes dies principum decent , quae alios dies non decent? Qui observant disciplinam de Caesaris respectu, hi eam propter Caesarem deserent , et malorum morum licentia pietas erit, occasio luxuriae religio deputabitur? O nos merito damnandos! Cur enim vota et gaudia Caesarum casti et sobrii et probi expungimus? cur die laeto non laureis postes obumbramus nec lucernis diem infringimus? Honesta res est solemnitate publica exigente induere domui tuae habitum alicujus novi lupanaris. Velim tamen 0454A in hac quoque religione secundae majestatis, de qua in secundum sacrilegium convenimur Christiani, non celebrando vobiscum solemnia Caesarum, quo more celebrari nec modestia nec verecundia nec pudicitia permittunt, sed occasio voluptatis magis quam digna ratio persuasit, fidem et veritatem vestram demonstrare; ne forte et isthic deteriores Christianis deprehendantur, qui nos nolunt Romanos haberi, sed hostes principum Romanorum. Ipsos Quirites, ipsam vernaculam septem collium plebem convenio, an alicui Caesari suo parcat illa lingua Romana 0455A Testis est Tiberis , et scholae bestiarum . Jam si pectoribus ad translucendum quamdam specularem materiam natura obduxisset, cujus non praecordia insculpta apparerent novi ac novi Caesaris scenam congiario dividundo praesidentis (7)? etiam illa hora qua acclamant: 0456A De nostris annis tibi Jupiter augeat annos.Haec Christianus tam enuntiare non novit, quam de novo Caesare optare. Sed vulgus, inquis. Ut vulgus, tamen Romani, nec ulli magis depostulatores Christianorum, quam vulgus. Plane caeteri ordines pro auctoritate religiosi ex fide; nihil hosticum de 0457A ipso senatu, de equite, de castris, de palatiis ipsis spirat . Unde Cassii, et Nigri et Albini ? unde qui inter duas laurus obsident Caesarem? unde qui faucibus ejus exprimendis palaestricam exercent? unde qui armati palatium irrumpunt, omnibus Sigeriis atque Partheniis audaciores? De Romanis, nisi fallor, id est de non-Christianis. Atque adeo 0458A omnes illi sub ipsa usque impietatis eruptione et sacra faciebant pro salute Imperatoris, et genium ejus dejerabant, alii foris ; alii intus, et utique publicorum hostium nomen Christianis dabant. Sed et qui nunc scelestarum partium socii aut plausores quotidie revelantur, post vindemiam parricidarum racematio superstes, quam recentissimis et ramossimis laureis 0459A postes praestruebant ? quam elatissimis et clarissimis lucernis vestibula enubilabant? quam cultissimis et superbissimis toris forum sibi dividebant? non ut gaudia publica celebrarent, sed ut vota propria jam edicerent et in aliena solemnitate exemplum atque imaginem spei suae inaugurarent, nomen principis in corde mutantes . Eadem officia dependunt et qui astrologos et aruspices et augures et magos de Caesarum capite consultant, quas artes ut ab Angelis desertoribus proditas et a Deo interdictas ne suis quidem caussis adhibent Christiani. Cui autem opus est perscrutari super Caesaris salute, nisi a quo aliquid adversus illam cogitatur vel optatur, aut post illam speratur et sustinetur? Non enim ea mente de caris consulitur, qua de dominis. 0459B Aliter curiosa est sollicitudo sanguinis, aliter servitulis.