Ad Nationes.

 Book I.

 In this case you actually conduct trials contrary to the usual form of judicial process against criminals for when culprits are brought up for trial,

 Since, therefore, you who are in other cases most scrupulous and persevering in investigating charges of far less serious import, relinquish your care

 But the sect, you say, is punished in the name of its founder. Now in the first place it is, no doubt, a fair and usual custom that a sect should be m

 As to your saying of us that we are a most shameful set, and utterly steeped in luxury, avarice, and depravity, we will not deny that this is true of

 Whenever these statements and answers of ours, which truth suggests of its own accord, press and restrain your conscience, which is the witness of its

 Whence comes it to pass, you will say to us, that such a character could have been attributed to you, as to have justified the lawmakers perhaps by it

 We are indeed said to be the “third race” of men. What, a dog-faced race? Or broadly shadow-footed? bread

 But why should I be astonished at your vain imputations?  Under the same natural form, malice and folly have always been associated in one body and gr

 Pour out now all your venom fling against this name of ours all your shafts of calumny: I shall stay no longer to refute them but they shall by and

 In this matter we are (said to be) guilty not merely of forsaking the religion of the community, but of introducing a monstrous superstition for some

 As for him who affirms that we are “the priesthood of a cross,” we shall claim him all cross

 Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact

 Report has introduced a new calumny respecting our God. Not so long ago, a most abandoned wretch in that city of yours, a man who had deserted indeed

 Since we are on a par in respect of the gods, it follows that there is no difference between us on the point of sacrifice, or even of worship, if I ma

 I am now come to the hour for extinguishing the lamps, and for using the dogs, and practising the deeds of darkness. And on this point I am afraid I m

 As to your charges of obstinacy and presumption, whatever you allege against us, even in these respects, there are not wanting points in which you wil

 The rest of your charge of obstinacy against us you sum up in this indictment, that we boldly refuse neither your swords, nor your crosses, nor your w

 Here end, I suppose, your tremendous charges of obstinacy against the Christians. Now, since we are amenable to them in common with yourselves, it onl

 Chapter XX.—Truth and Reality Pertain to Christians Alone. The Heathen Counselled to Examine and Embrace It.

 Book II

 Chapter I.—The Heathen Gods from Heathen Authorities. Varro Has Written a Work on the Subject. His Threefold Classification. The Changeable Character

 Chapter II.—Philosophers Had Not Succeeded in Discovering God. The Uncertainty and Confusion of Their Speculations.

 Chapter III.—The Physical Philosophers Maintained the Divinity of the Elements The Absurdity of the Tenet Exposed.

 Chapter IV.—Wrong Derivation of the Word Θεός. The Name Indicative of the True Deity. God Without Shape and Immaterial. Anecdote of Thales.

 Chapter V.—The Physical Theory Continued. Further Reasons Advanced Against the Divinity of the Elements.

 Chapter VI.—The Changes of the Heavenly Bodies, Proof that They are Not Divine.  Transition from the Physical to the Mythic Class of Gods.

 Chapter VII.—The Gods of the Mythic Class. The Poets a Very Poor Authority in Such Matters. Homer and the Mythic Poets. Why Irreligious.

 Chapter VIII.—The Gods of the Different Nations. Varro’s Gentile Class. Their Inferiority. A Good Deal of This Perverse Theology Taken from Scripture.

 Chapter IX.—The Power of Rome. Romanized Aspect of All the Heathen Mythology. Varro’s Threefold Distribution Criticised. Roman Heroes (Æneas Included,

 Chapter X.—A Disgraceful Feature of the Roman Mythology. It Honours Such Infamous Characters as Larentina.

 Chapter XI.—The Romans Provided Gods for Birth, Nay, Even Before Birth, to Death. Much Indelicacy in This System.

 Now, how much further need I go in recounting your gods—because I want to descant on the character of such as you have adopted? It is quite uncertain

 Manifest cases, indeed, like these have a force peculiarly their own.  Men like Varro and his fellow-dreamers admit into the ranks of the divinity tho

 Chapter XIV.—Gods, Those Which Were Confessedly Elevated to the Divine Condition, What Pre-Eminent Right Had They to Such Honour? Hercules an Inferior

 Chapter XV.—The Constellations and the Genii Very Indifferent Gods. The Roman Monopoly of Gods Unsatisfactory. Other Nations Require Deities Quite as

 Chapter XVI.—Inventors of Useful Arts Unworthy of Deification. They Would Be the First to Acknowledge a Creator. The Arts Changeable from Time to Time

 In conclusion, without denying all those whom antiquity willed and posterity has believed to be gods, to be the guardians of your religion, there yet

Chapter VI.73    Compare The Apology, c. iv.—The Innocence of the Christians Not Compromised by the Iniquitous Laws Which Were Made Against Them.

Whenever these statements and answers of ours, which truth suggests of its own accord, press and restrain your conscience, which is the witness of its own ignorance, you betake yourselves in hot haste to that poor altar of refuge,74    Ad arulam quandam. the authority of the laws, because these, of course, would never punish the offensive75    Istam. sect, if their deserts had not been fully considered by those who made the laws. Then what is it which has prevented a like consideration on the part of those who put the laws in force, when, in the case of all other crimes which are similarly forbidden and punished by the laws, the penalty is not inflicted76    Cessat, “loiters.” until it is sought by regular process?77    Requiratur. Take,78    Lege. for instance, the case of a murderer or an adulterer. An examination is ordered touching the particulars79    Ordo. of the crime, even though it is patent to all what its nature80    Genus. is. Whatever wrong has been done by the Christian ought to be brought to light.  No law forbids inquiry to be made; on the contrary, inquiry is made in the interest of the laws.81    Literally, “holding the inquiry makes for the laws.” For how are you to keep the law by precautions against that which the law forbids, if you neutralize the carefulness of the precaution by your failing to perceive82    Per defectionem agnoscendi. what it is you have to keep? No law must keep to itself83    Sibi debet. the knowledge of its own righteousness,84    Justitiæ suæ. but (it owes it) to those from whom it claims obedience. The law, however, becomes an object of suspicion when it declines to approve itself.  Naturally enough,85    Merito. then, are the laws against the Christians supposed to be just and deserving of respect and observance, just as long as men remain ignorant of their aim and purport; but when this is perceived, their extreme injustice is discovered, and they are deservedly rejected with abhorrence,86    Despuuntur. along with (their instruments of torture)—the swords, the crosses, and the lions. An unjust law secures no respect. In my opinion, however, there is a suspicion among you that some of these laws are unjust, since not a day passes without your modifying their severity and iniquity by fresh deliberations and decisions.

6. His propositionibus responsionibusque nostris, quas veritas de suo suggerit, quotiens comprimitur et coarctatur consciencia vestra, tacitae ignorantiae suae testis, confugitis aestuantes ad arulam quamdam, 0565D id est, legum auctoritatem, quod utique non plecterent 0566A sectam istam, nisi de meritis apud conditores legum constitisset. Quid ergo prohibuit apud executores quoque legum proinde constare, cum de caeteris criminibus, quae similiter legibus arcentur ac puniuntur, nisi prius requiratur, poena cessat? verbi gratia, homicidam, adulterum lege, discutitur tamen de ordine admissi; et tamen cognitum est omnibus genus facti. Christianum puniunt leges. Si quod est factum Christiani, erui debet; nulla lex prohibet inquirere. Atquin pro legibus facit inquisitio. Quomodo enim legem observabis cavendo quod lege prohibetur, adempta diligentia cavendi per defectum agnoscendi quid observes. Nulla sibi lex debet conscientiam justitiae suae, sed eis a quibus captat obsequium. Caeterum suspecta lex est, si probari se non 0566B vult. Merito igitur tamdiu justae in Christianos et reverendae et observandae censentur, quamdiu ignoratur quod persequuntur; merito, post agnitionem iniquissimae repertae, cum suis machaeris et patibulis et leonibus despuuntur; legis injustae honor nullus est. Ut opinor autem, dubitatur de iniquitate legum quarumdam, cum quotidie novis consultis constitutisque duritias nequitiasque earum temperetis.