Chapter VII.

If the scorpion, swinging his tail in the air, still reproach us with having a murderer for our God, I shall shudder at the altogether foul breath of blasphemy which comes stinking from his heretical mouth; but I will embrace even such a God, with assurance derived from reason, by which reason even He Himself has, in the person of His own Wisdom, by the lips of Solomon, proclaimed Himself to be more than a murderer: Wisdom (Sophia), says He has slain her own children.42    Prov. ix. 2: “She hath killed her beasts.” The corresponding words in the Septuagint are ἔσφαξε τα εαυτῆς θύματα. Augustine, in his De Civ. Dei, xvi. 20, explains the victims (θύματα) to be Martyrum victimas.—Tr.Sophia is Wisdom. She has certainly slain them wisely if only into life, and reasonably if only into glory. Of murder by a parent, oh the clever form! Oh the dexterity of crime! Oh the proof of cruelty, which has slain for this reason, that he whom it may have slain may not die! And therefore what follows? Wisdom is praised in hymns, in the places of egress; for the death of martyrs also is praised in song. Wisdom behaves with firmness in the streets, for with good results does she murder her own sons.43    Prov. i. 20, 21; see the Septuagint version. Nay, on the top of the walls she speaks with assurance, when indeed, according to Esaias, this one calls out, “I am God’s;” and this one shouts, “In the name of Jacob;” and another writes, “In the name of Israel.”44    Isa. xliv. 5. O good mother! I myself also wish to be put among the number of her sons, that I may be slain by her; I wish to be slain, that I may become a son. But does she merely murder her sons, or also torture them? For I hear God also, in another passage, say, “I will burn them as gold is burned, and will try them as silver is tried.”45    Zech. xiii. 9. Certainly by the means of torture which fires and punishments supply, by the testing martyrdoms of faith. The apostle also knows what kind of God he has ascribed to us, when he writes: “If God spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for us, how did He not with Him also give us all things?”46    Rom. viii. 32. You see how divine Wisdom has murdered even her own proper, first-born and only Son, who is certainly about to live, nay, to bring back the others also into life. I can say with the Wisdom of God; It is Christ who gave Himself up for our offences.47    Rom. iv. 25. Already has Wisdom butchered herself also. The character of words depends not on the sound only, but on the meaning also, and they must be heard not merely by ears, but also by minds. He who does not understand, believes God to be cruel; although for him also who does not understand, an announcement has been made to restrain his harshness in understanding otherwise than aright. “For who,” says the apostle, “has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been His counsellor, to teach Him? or who has pointed out to Him the way of understanding?”48    Rom. xi. 34. But, indeed, the world has held it lawful for Diana of the Scythians, or Mercury of the Gauls, or Saturn of the Africans, to be appeased by human sacrifices; and in Latium to this day Jupiter has human blood given him to taste in the midst of the city; and no one makes it a matter of discussion, or imagines that it does not occur for some reason, or that it occurs by the will of his God, without having value. If our God, too, to have a sacrifice of His own, had required martyrdoms for Himself, who would have reproached Him for the deadly religion, and the mournful ceremonies, and the altar-pyre, and the undertaker-priest, and not rather have counted happy the man whom God should have devoured?

CAPUT VII.

Incutiat adhuc scorpius, homicidam Deum ventilans: horrebo plane spurcum blasphemiae statum de haeretico ore foetentem; sed et talem Deum de fiducia rationis amplectar, qua ratione etiam ipse se plus quam homicidam pronuntiavit ex Sophiae suae persona, voce Salomonis: Sophia, inquit (Proverb., IX, 2), jugulavit filios suos. Sophia, sapientia est. Sapienter utique jugulavit, dum in vitam; et rationaliter, dum in gloriam. O parricidii ingenium! o sceleris artificium! o argumentum crudelitatis, quae idcirco occidit, ne moriatur quem occiderit! Et ideo 0136A quid sequitur? Sophia in exitibus cantatur hymnis, (Prov., I, 20); cantatur enim et exitus martyrum. Sophia in plateis de constantia agit, bene enim filios suos jugulat. Super summos autem muros confisa dicit, cum quidem secundum Isaiam hic exclamat: Ego Dei sum; et hic vociferatur: In nomine Jacob; et alius scribit , In nomine Israelis (Is., XLIV, 5). O bonam matrem! Opto et ipse in filios ejus redigi, ut ab ea occidar. Opto occidi, ut filius fiam. Solum autem jugulat filios suos; an et torquet? Audio enim et alibi dicentem Deum: Uram illos sicuti uritur argentum , et probabo illos sicuti probatur aurum (Zach., XIII, 19). Utique per tormenta ignium et suppliciorum, per martyria fidei examinatoria. Scit et Apostolus qualem Deum adscripserit, cum scribit: 0136B Si Deus Filio suo non pepercit, sed pro nobis tradidit illum, quomodo non et cum illo omnia condonavit nobis? Vides quomodo etiam proprium suum Filium primogenitum et unigenitum Sophia divina jugulaverit; utique victurum, imo et caeteros in vitam redacturum. Possum dicere cum Sophia Dei: Christus est qui se tradidit pro delictis nostris. Jam et semetipsam Sophia trucidavit. Verba non sono solo sapiunt, sed et sensu: nec auribus tantummodo audienda sunt, sed et mentibus. Crudelem Deum, qui non intelligit, credit. Quamquam et non intelligenti posita sententia est, quae temeritatem cohibeat aliter intelligendi. Quis enim, inquit (Rom., XI, 32), cognovit sensum Dei? aut quis illi consiliarius fuit, qui eum instruat? aut viam intelligentiae quis demonstravit illi? Sed enim Scytharum Dianam, 0136C aut Gallorum Mercurium, aut Afrorum Saturnum, hominum victima placari apud saeculum licuit . Et Latio ad hodiernum Jovi media in urbe humanus sanguis ingustatur; nec quisquam retractat, aut non rationem praesumit aliquam, aut inaestimabilem Dei sui voluntatem. Si noster quoque Deus propriae hostiae nomine martyria sibi depostulasset, quis illi exprobrasset funestam religionem, et lugubres ritus, et aram rogum, et pollinctorem sacerdotem? et non beatum amplius reputasset, quem Deus comedisset?