Chapter V.

To say a word about the origin of laws of the kind to which we now refer, there was an old decree that no god should be consecrated by the emperor till first approved by the senate. Marcus Æmilius had experience of this in reference to his god Alburnus.  And this, too, makes for our case, that among you divinity is allotted at the judgment of human beings. Unless gods give satisfaction to men, there will be no deification for them: the god will have to propitiate the man. Tiberius5    [Elucidation IV.] accordingly, in whose days the Christian name made its entry into the world, having himself received intelligence from Palestine of events which had clearly shown the truth of Christ’s divinity, brought the matter before the senate, with his own decision in favour of Christ.  The senate, because it had not given the approval itself, rejected his proposal. Cæsar held to his opinion, threatening wrath against all accusers of the Christians. Consult your histories; you will there find that Nero was the first who assailed with the imperial sword the Christian sect, making progress then especially at Rome.  But we glory in having our condemnation hallowed by the hostility of such a wretch. For any one who knows him, can understand that not except as being of singular excellence did anything bring on it Nero’s condemnation.  Domitian, too, a man of Nero’s type in cruelty, tried his hand at persecution; but as he had something of the human in him, he soon put an end to what he had begun, even restoring again those whom he had banished. Such as these have always been our persecutors,—men unjust, impious, base, of whom even you yourselves have no good to say, the sufferers under whose sentences you have been wont to restore. But among so many princes from that time to the present day, with anything of divine and human wisdom in them, point out a single persecutor of the Christian name.  So far from that, we, on the contrary, bring before you one who was their protector, as you will see by examining the letters of Marcus Aurelius, that most grave of emperors, in which he bears his testimony that that Germanic drought was removed by the rains obtained through the prayers of the Christians who chanced to be fighting under him.  And as he did not by public law remove from Christians their legal disabilities, yet in another way he put them openly aside, even adding a sentence of condemnation, and that of greater severity, against their accusers. What sort of laws are these which the impious alone execute against us—and the unjust, the vile, the bloody, the senseless, the insane? which Trajan to some extent made naught by forbidding Christians to be sought after; which neither a Hadrian, though fond of searching into all things strange and new, nor a Vespasian, though the subjugator of the Jews, nor a Pius, nor a Verus, ever enforced? It should surely be judged more natural for bad men to be eradicated by good princes as being their natural enemies, than by those of a spirit kindred with their own.

CAPUT V.

Inquirit in ejusmodi legum originem, et occasione Alburni, quem Aemilius in Deorum numerum referri volebat, ostendit, per illas divinitatem hominum placito 0290A subjectam. Inde Tiberii de Christo sententiam pronuntiat, senatusque refragationem: ostendit nullos, nisi Neronem, illique simillimos, nomen christianum afflixisse, cum contra M. Aurelius, miraculo etiam monitus, cum illo Verus, et ante illos Vespasianus, Trajanus, Hadrianus, Pius, christianos esse passi sint. Concludit denique, illos, ut a bonis probatos, a malis afflictos, bonos, non malos, ex similitudine morum, putari debere.

Ut de origine aliquid retractemus ejusmodi legum vetus erat decretum , ne qui deus ab imperatore consecraretur , nisi a senatu probatus. . Scit M. Aemilius de deo suo Alburno. Facit et hoc ad caussam nostram, quod apud vos de 0290B humano arbitratu divinitas pensitatur. Nisi homini Deus placuerit, Deus non erit ; homo jam Deo propitius esse debebit. Tiberius ergo, cujus tempore nomen christianum in saeculum introivit, annuntiatum sibi ex Syria Palaestina, quod illic veritatem illius divinitatis revelaverat , detulit ad senatum 0291A cum praerogativa suffragii sui. Senatus, quia non ipse probaverat, respuit; Caesar in sententia mansit, comminatus periculum accusatoribus 0292A christianorum. Consulite commentarios vestros; illic reperietis primum Neronem in hanc sectam cum maxime Romae orientem Caesariano 0293A gladio ferocisse. Sed tali dedicatore damnationis nostrae etiam gloriamur. Qui enim scit illum, intelligere potest, non nisi grande aliquod bonum a Nerone damnatum. Tentaverat et Domitianus, portio Neronis de crudelitate ; sed qua et homo , facile coeptum repressit, 0294A restitutis etiam quos relegaverat . Tales semper nobis insecutores , injusti, impii, turpes, quos et ipsi damnare consuestis, et a quibus damnatos restituere soliti estis. Caeterum de tot exinde principibus [usque ] ad hodiernum divinum humanumque sapientibus , edite aliquem debellatorem Christianorum. 0295A At nos e contrario edimus protectorem, si litterae M. Aurelii gravissimi imperatoris requirantur, quibus illam germanicam sitim christianorum forte militum precationibus impetrato imbri discussam contestatur. Qui sicut non palam ab ejusmodi hominibus poenam dimovit, ita alio modo 0296A palam dispersit , adjecta etiam accusatoribus damnatione, et quidem tetriore. Quales ergo leges istae, quas adversus nos soli exsequuntur impii , injusti, turpes, truces, vani , dementes? quas Trajanus ex parte frustratus est vetando inquiri christianos, quas nullus Adrianus , quanquam curiositatum 0297A omnium explorator , nullus Vespasianus, quanquam Judaeorum debellator, nullus Pius, nullus Verus impressit . Facilius utique pessimi ab optimis quibusque, ut ab aemulis, quam a suis sociis eradicandi judicarentur.