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 XV.228    Comp. The Apology, c. ix.—The Charge of Infanticide Retorted on the Heathen.

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,229    Sacri. if I may be allowed to make good our comparison from another sort of evidence. We begin our religious service, or initiate our mysteries, with slaying an infant. As for you, since your own transactions in human blood and infanticide have faded from your memory, you shall be duly reminded of them in the proper place; we now postpone most of the instances, that we may not seem to be everywhere230    He refers in this passage to his Apology, especially c. ix. handling the selfsame topics. Meanwhile, as I have said, the comparison between us does not fail in another point of view. For if we are infanticides in one sense, you also can hardly be deemed such in any other sense; because, although you are forbidden by the laws to slay new-born infants, it so happens that no laws are evaded with more impunity or greater safety, with the deliberate knowledge of the public, and the suffrages231    Tabellis. of this entire age.232    Unius ætatis. This Oehler explains by “per unam jam totam hanc ætatem.” Yet there is no great difference between us, only you do not kill your infants in the way of a sacred rite, nor (as a service) to God. But then you make away with them in a more cruel manner, because you expose them to the cold and hunger, and to wild beasts, or else you get rid of them by the slower death of drowning. If, however, there does occur any dissimilarity between us in this matter,233    Genere. you must not overlook the fact that it is your own dear children234    Pignora, scil. amoris. whose life you quench; and this will supplement, nay, abundantly aggravate, on your side of the question, whatever is defective in us on other grounds. Well, but we are said to sup off our impious sacrifice! Whilst we postpone to a more suitable place235    See Apology, c. ix. whatever resemblance even to this practice is discoverable amongst yourselves, we are not far removed from you in voracity.  If in the one case there is unchastity, and in ours cruelty, we are still on the same footing (if I may so far admit our guilt236    Si forte.) in nature, where cruelty is always found in concord with unchastity. But, after all, what do you less than we; or rather, what do you not do in excess of us?  I wonder whether it be a small matter to you237    Parum scilicet? to pant for human entrails, because you devour full-grown men alive? Is it, forsooth, only a trifle to lick up human blood, when you draw out238    Elicitis. the blood which was destined to live? Is it a light thing in your view to feed on an infant, when you consume one wholly before it is come to the birth?239    Infantem totum præcocum.

15. Plures Onocoetae penes vos deprehenduntur. Si in deis aequalitate concurrimus, sequitur, ut sacrificii vel sacri quoque inter nos diversitas nulla sit, ut ex alia specie comparationis satis fiat. Nos infanticidio litamus sive initiamus? Vos, si de memoria abierunt, quae caede hominis, quaeque infanticidiis transegisse, recognoscetis suo ordine; nunc enim differimus pleraque, ne cadem videamur ubique retractare. Interim, ut dixi, ex alia parte non deest adaequatio. Nam etsi nos aliter , amen non aliter vos quoque infanticidae, qui infantes editos enecantes legibus quidem prohibemini, sed nullae magis 0580B leges tam impune, tam secure sub omnium conscientiae unius ae . . . . . . . tabellis eluduntur. Sed nec eo distant, si vos non ritu sacri, neque deo necatis. Atquin in hoc asperius, quod frigore et fame, aut bestiis . . . . . . . . . . . tis, aut longiore in aquis morte demergitis. At et si quo . . . . . . . . dissimilius penes vos fit, eo addicite, quo vestra pignora ex. . . . . . . . . . s, et supplebitur. Imo superacervabitur in vobis quidquid. . . . . ratione defecerit. Sed de ea impietatis hostia dicimur. . . . . dum ita quoque in vobis recognoscitur, ubi opportunius positum est, non multo secernimur a vestra voracitate, si illa impudica est, nostra vero crudelis, conjungimur si forte natura, qua semper saevitia cum impudicitia concordat.