Chapter XL.

On the contrary, they deserve the name of faction who conspire to bring odium on good men and virtuous, who cry out against innocent blood, offering as the justification of their enmity the baseless plea, that they think the Christians the cause of every public disaster, of every affliction with which the people are visited.  If the Tiber rises as high as the city walls, if the Nile does not send its waters up over the fields, if the heavens give no rain, if there is an earthquake, if there is famine or pestilence, straightway the cry60    [Christianos ad leonem. From what class, chiefly, see cap. xxxv. supra. Elucidation VIII.] is, “Away with the Christians to the lion!”  What! shall you give such multitudes to a single beast? Pray, tell me how many calamities befell the world and particular cities before Tiberius reigned—before the coming, that is, of Christ? We read of the islands of Hiera, and Anaphe, and Delos, and Rhodes, and Cos, with many thousands of human beings, having been swallowed up. Plato informs us that a region larger than Asia or Africa was seized by the Atlantic Ocean. An earthquake, too, drank up the Corinthian sea; and the force of the waves cut off a part of Lucania, whence it obtained the name of Sicily. These things surely could not have taken place without the inhabitants suffering by them. But where—I do not say were Christians, those despisers of your gods—but where were your gods themselves in those days, when the flood poured its destroying waters over all the world, or, as Plato thought, merely the level portion of it?  For that they are of later date than that calamity, the very cities in which they were born and died, nay, which they founded, bear ample testimony; for the cities could have no existence at this day unless as belonging to postdiluvian times.  Palestine had not yet received from Egypt its Jewish swarm (of emigrants), nor had the race from which Christians sprung yet settled down there, when its neighbors Sodom and Gomorrah were consumed by fire from heaven. The country yet smells of that conflagration; and if there are apples there upon the trees, it is only a promise to the eye they give—you but touch them, and they turn to ashes. Nor had Tuscia and Campania to complain of Christians in the days when fire from heaven overwhelmed Vulsinii, and Pompeii was destroyed by fire from its own mountain.  No one yet worshipped the true God at Rome, when Hannibal at Cannæ counted the Roman slain by the pecks of Roman rings. Your gods were all objects of adoration, universally acknowledged, when the Senones closely besieged the very Capitol. And it is in keeping with all this, that if adversity has at any time befallen cities, the temples and the walls have equally shared in the disaster, so that it is clear to demonstration the thing was not the doing of the gods, seeing it also overtook themselves. The truth is, the human race has always deserved ill at God’s hand.  First of all, as undutiful to Him, because when it knew Him in part, it not only did not seek after Him, but even invented other gods of its own to worship; and further, because, as the result of their willing ignorance of the Teacher of righteousness, the Judge and Avenger of sin, all vices and crimes grew and flourished. But had men sought, they would have come to know the glorious object of their seeking; and knowledge would have produced obedience, and obedience would have found a gracious instead of an angry God. They ought then to see that the very same God is angry with them now as in ancient times, before Christians were so much as spoken of. It was His blessings they enjoyed—created before they made any of their deities: and why can they not take it in, that their evils come from the Being whose goodness they have failed to recognize? They suffer at the hands of Him to whom they have been ungrateful. And, for all that is said, if we compare the calamities of former times, they fall on us more lightly now, since God gave Christians to the world; for from that time virtue put some restraint on the world’s wickedness, and men began to pray for the averting of God’s wrath. In a word, when the summer clouds give no rain, and the season is matter of anxiety, you indeed—full of feasting day by day, and ever eager for the banquet, baths and taverns and brothels always busy—offer up to Jupiter your rain-sacrifices; you enjoin on the people barefoot processions; you seek heaven at the Capitol; you look up to the temple-ceilings for the longed-for clouds—God and heaven not in all your thoughts. We, dried up with fastings, and our passions bound tightly up, holding back as long as possible from all the ordinary enjoyments of life, rolling in sackcloth and ashes, assail heaven with our importunities—touch God’s heart—and when we have extorted divine compassion, why, Jupiter gets all the honour!

CAPUT XL.

Factiosos potius esse illos, qui benemeritis insidiati, publica mala christianis imputent, cum et ante sectam hanc majora et tertiora etiam orbem quassaverint, illa vero exorta, minora levioraque esse ceperint, utpotae quae precibus suis meritas Numinis poenas 0478Bdepellat, licet illi temere deos colentes veri Dei benignitatem idolis adscribant.

40. At e contrario illis nomen factionis ac 0479A commodandum est, qui in odium bonorum conspirant, qui adversum sanguinem innocentium conclamant , praetexentes sane ad odii defensionem illam quoque vanitatem, quod existiment omnis publicae cladis, omnis popularis incommodi christianos esse in caussa . Si Tiberis ascendit in moenia , si Nilus non ascendit in arva, si coelum 0480A stetit, si terra movit, si fames, si lues, statim CHRISTIANOS AD LEONEM. Tantos ad unum? Oro vos, ante Tiberium, id est ante Christi adventum, quantae clades orbem et urbem ceciderunt? Legimus Hieran, Anaphen et Delon et Rhodon et Co insulas multis cum millibus hominum pessum abiisse. Memorat et Plato majorem 0481A Asiae et Africae terram Atlantico mari creptam. Sed et mare Corinthium terrae motus ebibit, et vis undarum Lucaniam Italiae abscissam in Siciliae nomen relegavit. Haec utique non sine injuria incolentium accidere potuerunt. Ubi vero tunc, non dicam deorum vestrorum contemptores christiani, sed ipsi dii vestri, cum totum orbem cataclysmus abolevit, vel ut Plato putavit, campestre solummodo? 0482A Posteriores enim illos clade diluvii contestantur ipsae urbes, in quibus nati mortuique sunt, etiam quas condiderunt; neque enim alias in hodiernum manerent, nisi et ipsae postumae cladis illius. Nondum judaeum ab Aegypto examen Palaestina susceperat, nec jam illic christianae sectae origo consederat, quum regiones affines ejus Sodoma et Gomorra igneus imber exussit. Olet 0483A adhuc incendio terra, et si qua illic arborum poma conantur, oculis tenus, caeterum contacta 0484A cinerescunt . Sed nec Tuscia jam tunc atque Campania de Christianis querebatur, quum Volsinios 0485A de coelo , Tarpeios de suo monte perfudit ignis. Nemo adhuc Romae Deum verum adorabat, cum Annibal apud Cannas Romanos annulos, caedes suas, modio metiebatur. Omnes dii vestri ab omnibus colebantur, cum ipsum Capitolium Senones occupaverunt. Et bene, quod si quid adversi accidit urbibus, eaedem clades templorum quae et moenium fuerunt, ut jam hoc revincam, non a deis evenire, quia et ipsis evenit. Semper humana gens male de Deo meruit: primo quidem ut inofficiosa ejus, quem cum intelligeret ex parte , non solum non requisivit timendum, sed et alios sibi citius commenta est quos coleret; dehinc quod non inquirendo innocentiae magistrum, et nocentiae 0486A judicem et exactorem, omnibus vitiis et criminibus inolevit. Caeterum si requisisset, (sequeretur, ut) cognosceret et recognosceret requisitum, et recognitum observaret, et observatum magis propitium experiretur quam iratum. Eumdem ergo nunc quoque scire debet iratum, quem et retro semper, priusquam Christiani nominarentur. Cujus bonis utebatur ante editis, quam deos sibi fingeret, cur non ab eo etiam mala intelligit evenire, cujus bona esse non sensit? Illius rea est, cujus et ingrata. Et tamen si pristinas clades comparemus, leviora nunc accidunt, ex quo christianos a Deo orbis accepit. Ex eo enim et innocentia seculi iniquitates temperavit, et deprecatores Dei esse 0487A coeperunt. Denique cum ab imbribus aestiva hiberna suspendunt et annus in cura est, vos quidem, quotidie pasti statimque pransuri, balneis et cauponis et lupanaribus operati, aquilicia Jovi immolatis, nudipedalia populo denuntiatis, coelum apud Capitolium quaeritis, nubila de laquearibus exspectatis, aversi ab ipso et deo et coelo. Nos vero jejuniis aridi et omni continentia expressi, ab omni vitae fruge dilati, in sacco et cinere volutantes, invidia coelum tundimus, Deum tangimus, et cum misericordiam extorserimus, Jupiter honoratur a vobis, Deus negligitur.