Chapter XXXV.—Argument:  Righteous and Pious Men Shall Be Rewarded with Never-Ending Felicity, But Unrighteous Men Shall Be Visited with Eternal Punishment.  The Morals of Christians are Far More Holy Than Those of the Gentiles.

“And yet men are admonished in the books and poems of the most learned poets of that fiery river, and of the heat flowing in manifold turns from the Stygian marsh,—things which, prepared for eternal torments, and known to them by the information of demons and from the oracles of their prophets, they have delivered to us.  And therefore among them also even king Jupiter himself swears religiously by the parching banks and the black abyss; for, with foreknowledge of the punishment destined to him, with his worshippers, he shudders.  Nor is there either measure or termination to these torments.  There the intelligent fire113    πῦρ σωφρονοῦν is an expression of Clemens Alexandrinus, so that there is no need for the emendation of “rapiens” instead of “sapiens,” suggested by one editor. burns the limbs and restores them, feeds on them and nourishes them.  As the fires of the thunderbolts strike upon the bodies, and do not consume them; as the fires of Mount Ætna and of Mount Vesuvius, and of burning lands everywhere, glow, but are not wasted; so that penal fire is not fed by the waste of those who burn, but is nourished by the unexhausted eating away of their bodies.  But that they who know not God are deservedly tormented as impious, as unrighteous persons, no one except a profane man hesitates to believe, since it is not less wicked to be ignorant of, than to offend the Parent of all, and the Lord of all.  And although ignorance of God is sufficient for punishment, even as knowledge of Him is of avail for pardon, yet if we Christians be compared with you, although in some things our discipline is inferior, yet we shall be found much better than you.  For you forbid, and yet commit, adulteries; we are born114    “Are known as” is another reading.men only for our own wives:  you punish crimes when committed; with us, even to think of crimes is to sin:  you are afraid of those who are aware of what you do; we are even afraid of our own conscience alone, without which we cannot exist:  finally, from your numbers the prison boils over; but there is no Christian there, unless he is accused on account of his religion, or a deserter.

CAPUT XXXV.

ARGUMENTUM.---Ostendit deinde Octavius justos piosque homines sempiterna felicitate donandos, injustos vero poenis afficiendos aeternis. Tum luculenter demonstrat multo sanctiores esse Christianorum mores quam ethnicorum.

Et tamen admonentur homines, doctissimorum [impr. libris] et carminibus poetarum, illius ignei fluminis, et de Stygia palude saepius ambientis ardoris, 0348B quae cruciatibus aeternis praeparata, et daemonum indiciis et de oraculis Prophetarum cognita tradiderunt. Et ideo apud eos etiam ipse rex Jupiter per torrentes ripas et atram voraginem jurat religiose; destinatam enim sibi cum suis cultoribus poenam, praescius, perhorrescit. Nec tormentis aut modus ullus, aut terminus. Illic sapiens ignis membra urit et reficit; carpit et nutrit, sicut ignes fulminum corpora tangunt, 0349A nec, absumunt; sicut ignes Hennei montis et Lesui montis [impr. Aetnae et Vesuvii montis], et ardentium ubique terrarum flagrant, nec erogantur: ita poenale illud incendium non damnis ardentium pascitur, sed inexesa corporum laceratione nutritur. Eos autem merito torqueri qui Deum nesciunt, ut impios, ut injustos, nisi profanus, nemo deliberat, cum Parentem omnium et omnium Dominum non minoris sceleris sit ignorare quam laedere. Et quamquam imperitia Dei sufficiat ad poenam, ita ut notitia prosit ad veniam, tamen, si vobiscum Christiani comparemur, quamvis in nonnullis disciplina nostra minor est, multo tamen vobis meliores deprehendemur. Vos enim adulteria prohibetis, et facitis; nos uxoribus nostris solummodo viri nascimur: vos scelera 0349B admissa punitis; apud nos et cogitare, peccare est: vos conscios timetis, nos etiam conscientiam 0350A solam, sine qua esse non possumus. Denique de vestro numero carcer exaestuat: Christianus ibi nullus, nisi aut reus suae religionis, aut profugus.