An Address to Demetrianus.

 

 1. I had frequently, Demetrianus, treated with contempt your railing and noisy clamour with sacrilegious mouth and impious words against the one and t

 2. In consideration of this, I have frequently held my tongue, and overcome an impatient man with patience since I could neither teach an unteachable

 3. You have said that all these things are caused by us, and that to us ought to be attributed the misfortunes wherewith the world is now shaken and d

 4. You impute it to the Christians that everything is decaying as the world grows old. What if old men should charge it on the Christians that they gr

 5. Moreover, that wars continue frequently to prevail, that death and famine accumulate anxiety, that health is shattered by raging diseases, that the

 6. In fine, listen to Himself speaking Himself with a divine voice at once instructing and warning us:  “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,” says H

 7. Behold, the Lord is angry and wrathful, and threatens, because you turn not unto Him. And you wonder or complain in this your obstinacy and contemp

 8. You complain that the fountains are now less plentiful to you, and the breezes less salubrious, and the frequent showers and the fertile earth affo

 9. And therefore with reason in these plagues that occur, there are not wanting God’s stripes and scourges and since they are of no avail in this mat

 10. You who judge others, be for once also a judge of yourself look into the hiding-places of your own conscience nay, since now there is not even a

 11. So great a terror of destruction cannot give the teaching of innocency and in the midst of a people dying with constant havoc, nobody considers t

 12. Look what that very matter is of which is chiefly our discourse—that you molest us, although innocent that, in contempt of God, you attack and op

 13. What is this insatiable madness for blood-shedding, what this interminable lust of cruelty? Rather make your election of one of two alternatives.

 14. Why do you turn your attention to the weakness of our body? why do you strive with the feebleness of this earthly flesh? Contend rather with the s

 15. Oh, would you but hear and see them when they are adjured by us, and tortured with spiritual scourges, and are ejected from the possessed bodies w

 16. What, then, is that sluggishness of mind yea, what blind and stupid madness of fools, to be unwilling to come out of darkness into light, and to

 17. For this reason it is that none of us, when he is apprehended, makes resistance, nor avenges himself against your unrighteous violence, although o

 18. Nor let anybody think that Christians are not avenged by those things that are happening, for the reason that they also themselves seem to be affe

 19. Do you think that we suffer adversity equally with yourselves, when you see that the same adverse things are not borne equally by us and by you? A

 20. There flourishes with us the strength of hope and the firmness of faith. Among these very ruins of a decaying world our soul is lifted up, and our

 21. Let no one, however, flatter himself, because there is for the present to us and to the profane, to God’s worshippers and to God’s opponents, by r

 22. And how great, too, are those things which in the meantime are happening in that respect on our behalf! Something is given for an example, that th

 23. Look, therefore, while there is time, to the true and eternal salvation and since now the end of the world is at hand, turn your minds to God, in

 24. What will then be the glory of faith? what the punishment of faithlessness? When the day of judgment shall come, what joy of believers, what sorro

 25. Provide, therefore, while you may, for your safety and your life. We offer you the wholesome help of our mind and advice. And because we may not h

25. Provide, therefore, while you may, for your safety and your life. We offer you the wholesome help of our mind and advice. And because we may not hate, and we please God more by rendering no return for wrong, we exhort you while you have the power, while there yet remains to you something of life, to make satisfaction to God, and to emerge from the abyss of darkling superstition45    “From the deep and darkling night of superstition” is another reading. into the bright light of true religion. We do not envy your comforts, nor do we conceal the divine benefits. We repay kindness for your hatred; and for the torments and penalties which are inflicted on us, we point out to you the ways of salvation. Believe and live, and do ye who persecute us in time rejoice with us for eternity. When you have once departed thither, there is no longer any place for repentance, and no possibility of making satisfaction. Here life is either lost or saved; here eternal safety is provided for by the worship of God and the fruits of faith. Nor let any one be restrained either by his sins or by his years from coming to obtain salvation. To him who still remains in this world no repentance is too late. The approach to God’s mercy is open, and the access is easy to those who seek and apprehend the truth. Do you entreat for your sins, although it be in the very end of life, and at the setting of the sun of time; and implore God, who is the one and true God, in confession and faith of acknowledgment of Him, and pardon is granted to the man who confesses, and saving mercy is given from the divine goodness to the believer, and a passage is opened to immortality even in death itself. This grace Christ bestows; this gift of His mercy He confers upon us, by overcoming death in the trophy of the cross, by redeeming the believer with the price of His blood, by reconciling man to God the Father, by quickening our mortal nature with a heavenly regeneration. If it be possible, let us all follow Him; let us be registered in His sacrament and sign. He opens to us the way of life; He brings us back to paradise; He leads us on to the kingdom of heaven. Made by Him the children of God, with Him we shall ever live; with Him we shall always rejoice, restored by His own blood. We Christians shall be glorious together with Christ, blessed of God the Father, always rejoicing with perpetual pleasures in the sight of God, and ever giving thanks to God. For none can be other than always glad and grateful, who, having been once subject to death, has been made secure in the possession of immortality.46    [Compare the Octavius of Minucius Felix with this treatise, and also the other apologists, e.g., vol. ii. 93.]

XXV. Securitati igitur et vitae, dum licet, providete. Offerimus vobis animi et consilii nostri salutare 0562C munus. Et quia odisse non licet nobis, et sic Deo plus placemus dum nullam pro injuria vicem reddimus, hortamur, dum facultas adest, dum adhuc aliquid de saeculo superest, Deo satisfacere et ad verae religionis candidam lucem de profundo tenebrosae superstitionis emergere. Non invidemus commodis vestris, nec beneficia divina celamus. Odiis vestris benevolentiam reddimus, et pro tormentis ac suppliciis quae nobis inferentur 0563A salutis itinera monstramus. Credite et vivite; et qui nos ad tempus persequimini, in aeternum gaudete nobiscum. Quando istinc excessum fuerit, nullus jam poenitentiae locus est, nullus satisfactionis effectus. Hic vita aut amittitur aut tenetur; hic saluti aeternae cultu Dei et fructu fidei providetur. Nec quisquam aut peccatis retardetur aut annis quominus veniat ad consequendam salutem: in isto adhuc mundo manenti poenitentia nulla sera est; patet ad indulgentiam Dei aditus, et quaerentibus atque intelligentibus veritatem facilis accessus est. Tu, sub ipso licet exitu et vitae temporalis occasu, pro delictis roges et Deum, qui unus et verus est, confessione et fide agnitionis ejus implores, venia confitenti datur, et credenti indulgentia salutaris de divina pietate conceditur, et 0563B ad immortalitatem sub ipsa morte transitur. Hanc 0564A gratiam Christus impertit, hoc munus misericordiae suae tribuit, subigendo mortem trophaeo crucis, redimendo credentem pretio sanguinis sui, reconciliando hominem Deo Patri, vivificando mortalem regeneratione coelesti. Hunc, si fieri potest, sequamur omnes, hujus sacramento et signo censeamur. Hic nobis viam vitae aperit, hic ad paradisum reduces facit, hic ad coelorum regna perducit. Cum ipso semper vivemus, facti per ipsum filii Dei; cum ipso semper exultabimus, ipsius cruore reparati. Erimus Christiani cum Christo simul gloriosi, de Deo Patre beati, de perpetua voluptate laetantes semper in conspectu Dei, et agentes Deo gratias semper. Neque enim poterit nisi laetus esse semper et gratus , qui, cum morti fuisset obnoxius, factus est immortalitate 0564B securus.