Octavius

Octavius had hurried to Rome for business and to visit me. He had left behind his home, his wife, his children, and what is most charming in children when they are still innocent and can only form half-spoken words, a speech made even sweeter by the very weakness of their stumbling tongues. When he arrived, I cannot express in words how great and eager my joy was. The unexpected presence of a man so very dear to me greatly increased my happiness. Therefore, after one or two days, when our constant time together had satisfied the longing of our affection, and when by talking together we had learned what each of us did not know about the other during our separation, we agreed to go to the very pleasant city of Ostia. My body could find a gentle and fitting remedy there by sea bathing to dry out its humours, especially since the court holidays at vintage time had freed me from my duties. For at that time, after the summer days, the autumn season was turning to milder weather. So, early in the morning, we were walking toward the sea along the shore of the Tiber, so that the fresh air might gently refresh our bodies, and the soft sand might sink under our easy steps with great pleasure. Then Cæcilius, noticing an image of Serapis, raised his hand to his mouth, as superstitious common people usually do, and pressed a kiss upon it with his lips.

Then Octavius said, "It is not the part of a good man, my brother Marcus, so to desert a man who abides by your side at home and abroad in this blindness of vulgar ignorance, that you should allow him, in broad daylight like this, to give himself up to stones, however they may be carved into images, anointed, and crowned. Since you know that the disgrace of this error brings no less discredit on you than on himself." With this speech of his, we passed over the distance between the city and the sea, and we were now walking on the broad and open shore. There the gently rippling wave was smoothing the outer sands as if it would level them for a promenade. And as the sea is always restless, even when the winds are calm, it came up on the shore, not with crested and foaming waves, but with waves crisped and curling. Just then we were greatly delighted by its vagaries, as on the very threshold of the water we were wetting the soles of our feet. Now it came forward and broke upon our feet, and now the wave, retreating and retracing its course, drew itself back into itself. And so, going along slowly and quietly, we followed the coast of the gently bending shore, beguiling the way with stories. These stories were related by Octavius, who was speaking about navigation. But when we had spent a fair amount of our walk in conversation, we turned back and retraced our steps. And when we came to that place where the little boats, drawn up on an oak framework, were lying at rest, raised above the risk of ground-rot, we saw some boys eagerly gesturing as they played at throwing shells into the sea. This game is as follows: to choose a shell from the shore, rubbed and made smooth by the tossing of the waves; to take hold of the shell in a flat position with the fingers; to whirl it along at a slant, and as low down as possible, upon the waves, so that when thrown it may either skim the back of the wave, or swim as it glides along with a smooth impulse, or spring up as it cleaves the top of the waves, and rise as if lifted up with repeated springs. That boy claimed to be the conqueror whose shell both went out farthest and leaped up most frequently."

And so, while we were all enjoying this spectacle, Caecilius was paying no attention and was not laughing at the contest. Instead, he was silent, troubled, and standing apart. His face clearly showed that he was grieving over something, though I did not know what. So I said to him, "What is the matter? Why do I not see, Caecilius, your usual liveliness? And why do I look in vain for that joy which usually shows in your eyes even in serious matters?" Then he said, "For some time now, our friend Octavius's speech has bitterly upset and troubled me. In it, by attacking you, he accused you of negligence, so that under cover of that charge he might more seriously condemn me for ignorance. Therefore I will go further. The matter is now completely and entirely between me and Octavius. If he is willing for me, a man of that way of thinking, to argue with him, he will at once see that it is easier to argue among his companions than to engage in close conflict in the manner of the philosophers. Let us sit down on those rocky barriers placed there to protect the baths, and stretching far out into the deep, so that we may both rest after our journey and argue more carefully." And at his word we sat down, so that, by sitting on each side of me, they sheltered me in the middle. This was not a matter of courtesy, rank, or honor, because friendship always either accepts or makes equals. Rather, it was so that, as an arbitrator, and being near to both, I might give my attention, and being in the middle, I might separate the two. Then Caecilius began in this way:

Cæcilius begins his argument by first reminding them that, in human affairs, everything is doubtful and uncertain. Therefore, he says, it is regrettable that Christians—who are for the most part untrained and uneducated people—should dare to decide anything with certainty about the highest matters and the divine majesty. From this he argues that the world is governed by no providence, and he concludes that it is better to remain with the accepted forms of religion.

Although the subject on which we are especially inquiring is not doubtful to you, Marcus my brother, since you have been carefully instructed in both ways of life and have rejected the one and assented to the other, still, in this matter, your mind must be shaped so that you keep the balance of a completely just judge. Do not lean in your attitude to one side more than the other, lest your decision may seem to come not so much from our arguments as from your own perceptions. So then, if you sit in judgment on me as a person who is new, and as one ignorant of either side, it is not hard to show that all things in human affairs are doubtful, uncertain, and unsettled, and that all things are matters of probability rather than truth. Therefore it is less surprising that some people, worn out from thoroughly searching for the truth, quickly give in to some opinion of whatever kind, instead of continuing to explore it with steady diligence. And so all men should be indignant, all men should feel pain, that certain persons—and these untrained in learning, strangers to literature, and without knowledge even of lowly arts—dare to make definite judgments about universal nature and the divine majesty, of which so many of the multitude of sects in all ages still doubt, and philosophy itself still deliberates. And not without reason. For human understanding is so limited in relation to divine inquiry that it is neither given to us to know, nor permitted to us to search out, nor religious for us to seize, the things suspended above us in heaven, or the things deeply sunk below the earth. We may rightly seem happy enough and wise enough if, according to that ancient saying of the wise man, we know ourselves well. But even if we give ourselves to a foolish and useless labor, and wander beyond the limits proper to our humility, and although bent toward the earth we rise in daring ambition above heaven itself and the very stars, still let us at least not entangle this error with empty and fearful opinions. Suppose the seeds of all things were at the beginning compressed together by a nature that combined them within itself. What God would be the author here? Suppose the parts of the whole world were joined, ordered, and formed by accidental meetings. What God would be the contriver? Even if fire lit up the stars, even if the lightness of its own material hung the sky in place, even if its own material fixed the earth by its weight, and even if the sea flowed together out of moisture, from where comes this religion? From where this fear? What is this superstition? Man, and every animal that is born, inspired with life, and nourished, is a voluntary concretion of the elements. Into those same elements man and every animal is again divided, dissolved, and scattered. So all things return again to their source and turn back into themselves, without any artificer, judge, or creator. In this way the seeds of fires, gathered together, make other suns, and then others again, always shine forth. In this way the vapors of the earth, rising up, make the mists continually grow. When these are condensed and gathered together, they make the clouds rise higher. And when they fall, they make the rains pour, the winds blow, and the hail rattle down. Or when the clouds crash together, they make the thunder roar, the lightning grow red, and the thunderbolts flash forth. Therefore these things fall everywhere. They rush upon the mountains. They strike the trees. Without any distinction, they blast sacred places and profane places alike. They strike wicked men, and often religious men too. Why should I speak of storms, so varied and uncertain, in which ruin attacks everything without order or discrimination? Why speak of shipwrecks, where the fates of good and bad men are mixed together and what they deserve is confused? Why speak of fires, where the destruction of the innocent and the guilty is joined together? Why speak of times when a whole region is stained by the plague of the sky, so that all die without distinction? And when the heat of war is raging, it is usually the better men who fall. Even in peace, wickedness is not only placed on the same level as the lot of better people, but is even held in such honor that, in the case of many, you cannot tell whether their depravity is more to be hated or their happiness more to be desired. But if the world were ruled by divine providence and by the authority of some deity, Phalaris and Dionysius would never have deserved to reign, Rutilius and Camillus would never have deserved exile, and Socrates would never have deserved the poison. Look at the fruit-bearing trees. Look at the harvest already white. The vintage, already dropping, is ruined by rain and beaten down by hail. So either the truth is uncertain, hidden from us, and kept back, or else, which is more likely, in these varied and wandering chances, fortune rules over us, unchecked by laws.

Therefore, since the agreement of all nations concerning the existence of the immortal gods remains established, although their nature or their origin remains uncertain, I tolerate nobody swollen with such boldness, and with I know not what irreligious wisdom, who would strive to undermine or weaken this religion, so ancient, so useful, so wholesome, even if he is Theodorus of Cyrene, or one before him, Diagoras the Melian, to whom antiquity applied the surname of Atheist. By declaring that there were no gods, both of them took away absolutely all the fear by which humanity is ruled, and all veneration. Yet they will never prevail in this discipline of impiety, under the name and authority of their pretended philosophy. When the Athenians both expelled Protagoras of Abdera and burned his writings in public assembly, because he disputed concerning the divinity deliberately rather than profanely, why is it not something to be lamented that men—for you will bear with my making pretty free use of the force of the plea that I have undertaken—that men, I say, of a reprobate, unlawful, and desperate faction, should rage against the gods? Having gathered together from the lowest dregs the more unskilled, and women, credulous and, by the readiness of their sex, yielding, they establish a herd of a profane conspiracy, joined together by nightly meetings, solemn fasts, and inhuman meats—not by any sacred rite, but by that which requires expiation. They are a people skulking and shunning the light, silent in public, but garrulous in corners. They despise the temples as dead-houses. They reject the gods. They laugh at sacred things. Wretched, they pity, if they are allowed, the priests. Half naked themselves, they despise honors and purple robes. Oh, wondrous folly and incredible audacity! They despise present torments, although they fear those which are uncertain and future. And while they fear to die after death, they do not fear to die for the present. So a deceitful hope soothes their fear with the comfort of a revival.

And now, as more wicked things spread more successfully, and corrupt behavior creeps on day by day, those hateful shrines of an ungodly assembly are growing throughout the whole world. Certainly this alliance ought to be rooted out and cursed. They recognize one another by secret signs and marks, and they love one another almost before they know one another. Everywhere among them there is also mixed a kind of religion of lust, and they call one another indiscriminately brothers and sisters, so that even ordinary sexual immorality, by the use of that sacred name, may become incestuous. In this way their empty and foolish superstition glories in crimes. Nor would an intelligent report speak of things so great and so varied, and needing an apology before they are told, unless truth were at the bottom of it. I hear that they worship the head of a donkey, the basest of creatures, made sacred by I do not know what foolish belief—a religion worthy and fitting for such behavior. Some say that they worship the sexual organs of their chief and priest, and adore, as it were, the nature of their common parent. I do not know whether these things are false. Certainly suspicion applies to secret and nighttime rites. And he who explains their ceremonies by referring to a man punished with extreme suffering for his wickedness, and to the deadly wood of the cross, assigns fitting altars to reprobate and wicked men, so that they may worship what they deserve. Now the story about the initiation of young novices is as detestable as it is well known. An infant, covered with meal so that it may deceive the unwary, is placed before the one who is about to be stained by their rites. This infant is killed by the young pupil, who has been urged on, as if to harmless blows on the surface of the meal, with dark and secret wounds. Thirstily—O horror!—they lick up its blood. Eagerly they divide its limbs. By this victim they are bound together. By this consciousness of wickedness they are pledged to mutual silence. Sacred rites like these are more foul than any sacrileges. And it is well known that all men speak everywhere of their feasting. Even the speech of our Cirtensian bears witness to it. On a solemn day they gather at the banquet, with all their children, sisters, mothers, people of every sex and every age. There, after much feasting, when the company has grown warm, and the heat of incestuous lust has grown hot with drunkenness, a dog tied to the chandelier is provoked, by throwing a small piece of offal beyond the length of the line by which he is bound, to rush and leap. And so the lamp is overturned and extinguished. In the shameless darkness, the connections of abominable lust entangle them in the uncertainty of fate. Even if not all are incestuous in fact, yet in awareness they are all alike incestuous, since by the desire of all of them, everything is sought that may happen in the act of each individual.

I deliberately pass over many things, because the things I have already mentioned are already too many. And that all these things, or the greater part of them, are true, the obscurity of their vile religion declares. For why do they work so hard to conceal and cloak whatever they worship, since honorable things always rejoice in publicity, while crimes are kept secret? Why do they have no altars, no temples, no acknowledged images? Why do they never speak openly, never gather freely, unless it is because what they adore and conceal is either worthy of punishment or something to be ashamed of? Moreover, from where or who is he, or where is that one God, solitary and desolate, whom no free people, no kingdoms, and not even Roman superstition, have known? The lonely and miserable nation of the Jews worshiped one God, one peculiar to itself. But they worshiped him openly, with temples, altars, victims, and ceremonies. And he has so little force or power that he, with his own special nation, is enslaved to the Roman deities. But the Christians, moreover, what wonders, what monstrosities do they imagine! They say that he who is their God, whom they can neither show nor behold, diligently inquires into the character of all, the acts of all, and, finally, into their words and secret thoughts; that he runs about everywhere, and is everywhere present. They make him out to be troublesome, restless, even shamelessly inquisitive, since he is present at everything that is done and wanders in and out in all places, although, being occupied with the whole, he cannot give attention to particulars, nor can he be sufficient for the whole while he is busy with particulars. What! Because they threaten conflagration to the whole world, and to the universe itself, with all its stars, are they meditating its destruction? As if either the eternal order established by the divine laws of nature would be disturbed, or the league of all the elements would be broken up, and the heavenly structure dissolved, and that fabric in which it is contained and bound together would be overthrown.

And, not content with this mad opinion, they add to it and join with it old women's fables. They say that they will rise again after death, and ashes, and dust. With some confidence that I do not understand, they believe, one after another, in one another's lies. You would think that they had already lived again. It is a double evil and a twofold madness to announce destruction to heaven and the stars, which we leave just as we find them, and to promise eternity to ourselves, who are dead and extinct, who, as we are born, so also perish. No doubt this is also why they denounce our funeral pyres and condemn burial by fire, as if every body, even if it is kept from the flames, were not nevertheless reduced to the earth by the passing of years and ages, and as if it did not matter whether wild beasts tore the body to pieces, or the sea consumed it, or the ground covered it, or the flames carried it away. For every kind of burial is a penalty to dead bodies, if they feel it. If they do not feel it, then there is relief in the quickness of their destruction. Deceived by this error, they promise to themselves, as being good, a blessed and perpetual life after their death; to others, as being unrighteous, eternal punishment. Many more things come to mind for me to say, if the limits of my speech did not hurry me along. I have already shown, and I make no further effort to prove, that they themselves are unrighteous. Yet even if I were to grant that they are righteous, your own agreement also joins the opinion of many, that guilt and innocence are assigned by fate. For whatever we do, just as some assign it to fate, so you assign it to God. Thus, according to your sect, men are believed to will, not of their own accord, but as elected to will. Therefore you imagine an unjust judge, who punishes in men not their will, but their destiny. Yet I would gladly be told whether you rise again with bodies or not, and if so, with what bodies: with the same bodies, or with renewed bodies? Without a body? Then, as far as I know, there will be neither mind, nor soul, nor life. With the same body? But that has already been destroyed. With another body? Then a new man is born, not the former one restored. And yet so long a time has passed, innumerable ages have flowed by, and what one person has returned from the dead, either by the fate of Protesilaus, with permission to remain even for a few hours, or so that we might believe it by example? All such inventions of an unhealthy belief, and vain sources of comfort, with which deceiving poets have trifled in the sweetness of their verse, have been shamefully reshaped by you, believing without doubt on your God.

Nor do you even learn from present things how fruitless expectations of a vain promise deceive you. Consider, miserable creatures, from your condition while you are still living, what threatens you after death. Look: a part of you, and, as you say, the larger and better part, are in want, are cold, and are worn out by hard labor and hunger. And God allows it. He feigns. He is either unwilling or unable to help His people. And so He is either weak or unjust. You, who dream of an immortality after death, when you are shaken by danger, when fever consumes you, when pain tears you apart, do you not then feel your true condition? Do you not then admit your weakness? Poor wretch, are you unwillingly convinced of your weakness, and do not confess it? But I pass over matters that are common to all alike. Look, for you there are threats, punishments, tortures, and crosses, no longer as objects of adoration, but as tortures to be endured. There are also fires, which you both foretell and fear. Where is that God who is able to help you when you come to life again, since He cannot help you while you are in this life? Do not the Romans, without any help from your God, govern, reign, enjoy the whole world, and have dominion over you? But in the meantime, in suspense and anxiety, you abstain from respectable enjoyments. You do not go to exhibitions. You take no part in public displays. You reject public banquets, and abhor the sacred contests. You reject meats previously tasted by, and drinks made a libation of upon, the altars. Thus you stand in dread of the gods whom you deny. You do not crown your heads with flowers. You do not grace your bodies with odors. You keep ointments for funeral rites. You even refuse garlands to your sepulchres, pale and trembling creatures, worthy of the pity even of our gods. Thus, miserable as you are, you neither rise again, nor do you live in the meantime. Therefore, if you have any wisdom or modesty, stop prying into the regions of the sky, and the destinies and secrets of the world. It is enough to look before your feet, especially for untaught, uncultivated, boorish, rustic people. Those who have no ability to understand civil matters are much more denied the ability to discuss divine things.

So far Cæcilius had spoken. Then, smiling cheerfully, since the force of his long speech had relaxed the heat of his indignation, he added: “And what does Octavius dare to reply to this, a man of the race of Plautus, who, while he was chief among the millers, was still the lowest of philosophers?” “Restrain your self-approval against him,” said I, “for it is not worthy of you to exult in the harmony of your speech before the matter has been more fully argued on both sides, especially since your reasoning is striving after truth, not praise. And however much your speech has delighted me by its subtle variety, I am very deeply moved, not concerning the present discussion, but concerning this whole kind of disputation: that, for the most part, the condition of truth is changed according to the powers of argument, and even the faculty of clear eloquence. This is well known to happen because of the readiness of hearers. Being distracted by the allurement of words from attention to things, they assent without distinction to everything that is said, and do not separate falsehood from truth. They are unaware that even in what is incredible there is often truth, and in what seems likely, falsehood. Therefore, the more often they believe bold assertions, the more frequently they are convinced by those who are more clever, and so are continually deceived by their rashness. They transfer the blame of the judge to the complaint of uncertainty, so that, condemning everything, they would rather leave all things in suspense than decide about doubtful matters. Therefore we must take care that we do not suffer in this way from hatred of all arguments, just as many of the simpler sort are led to cursing and hatred of men in general. For those who are carelessly credulous are deceived by those they thought worthy. Then, by a similar error, they begin to suspect everyone as wicked, and dread even those whom they might have regarded as excellent. Now therefore we are concerned, because in everything there may be argument on both sides. On the one hand, the truth is for the most part obscure. On the other hand, there is a marvelous subtlety which sometimes, by its abundance of words, imitates the confidence of acknowledged proof. Therefore let us weigh each point as carefully as possible, so that, while ready to applaud acuteness, we may still choose, approve, and adopt those things which are right.”

"You are withdrawing," says Caecilius, "from the office of a religious judge; for it is very unfair for you to weaken the force of my pleading by the interpolation of a very important argument, since Octavius has before him everything that I have said, sound and unimpaired, if he can refute it." "What you are reproving," said I, "unless I am mistaken, I have brought forward for the common advantage, so that by a careful examination we might weigh our decision, not by the pompous style of eloquence, but by the solid character of the matter itself. Nor must our attention, as you complain, be called away any longer; but with absolute silence let us listen to the reply of our friend Januarius, who is now beckoning to us."

Then Octavius began: I will indeed speak as well as I can, to the best of my ability, and you must work with me to soften the very offensive strain of these recriminations by the stream of truthful words. Nor will I hide at the outset that the opinion of my friend Natalis has shifted back and forth in such a wandering, uncertain, and slippery way that we are compelled to doubt whether your information was confused, or whether it wavered backward and forward simply by mistake. For at one time he believed in the gods, and at another time he was hesitant on the subject. So the direct purpose of my reply was made more uncertain because his argument was uncertain. But in my friend Natalis—I will not allow, I do not believe, any deceit. Crafty trickery is far from his simple character. What then? As one who does not know the right road, when one road happens to divide into many, because he does not know the way, remains anxious and dares neither choose any particular road nor try them all; so, if a man has no firm judgment of the truth, then just as his unbelieving suspicion is scattered, so his doubtful opinion is unsettled. Therefore it is no wonder if Caecilius is likewise driven about by the tide and tossed here and there among things opposed and contrary to one another. But so that this may no longer be the case, I will convict and refute all that has been said, however different it is, confirming and approving the truth alone. And from now on he must neither doubt nor waver. And since my brother burst out with such words as these—that he was grieved, that he was vexed, that he was indignant, that he regretted that uneducated, poor, and untrained people should argue about heavenly things—let him know that all men are begotten alike, with the capacity and ability to reason and to feel, without any preference of age, sex, or rank. Nor do they gain wisdom by fortune; rather, they have it planted in them by nature. Moreover, the philosophers themselves, or any others who became famous as discoverers of the arts, before they gained an honored name by their mental skill, were thought to be common people, untaught, and half-naked. So it is that rich men, attached to their wealth, have been accustomed to look more at their gold than at heaven, while our sort of people, though poor, have both discovered wisdom and delivered its teaching to others. From this it is clear that intelligence is not given to wealth, nor gained by study, but is begotten with the very formation of the mind. Therefore there is nothing to be angry or grieved about if anyone should inquire, should think, or should speak his thoughts about divine things, since what matters is not the authority of the speaker, but the truth of the argument itself. And the less skilled the speech is, the more evident the reasoning is, since it is not colored by the pomp of eloquence and grace, but, as it is, is upheld by the rule of what is right.

I do not refuse to admit what Caecilius earnestly tried to maintain among the chief matters: that a man ought to know himself, and to look around and see what he is, where he comes from, and why he is; whether he was gathered together from the elements, or harmoniously formed of atoms, or rather made, formed, and animated by God. And this is the very thing that we cannot seek out and investigate without inquiry into the universe. Since things are so coherent, so linked and associated together, that unless you diligently examine the nature of divinity, you must be ignorant of the nature of humanity. Nor can you rightly perform your social duty unless you know that community of the world which is common to all. Especially since in this respect we differ from the wild beasts: while they are prone and tending to the earth, and are born to look upon nothing but their food, we, whose countenance is erect, whose look is turned toward heaven, as is our converse and reason, whereby we recognize, feel, and imitate God, have neither right nor reason to be ignorant of the celestial glory which forms itself into our eyes and senses. For it is as bad as the grossest sacrilege to seek on the ground for what you ought to find on high. Therefore, those who deny that this furniture of the whole world was perfected by the divine reason, and assert that it was heaped together by certain fragments casually adhering to each other, seem to me not to have either mind or sense, or, in fact, even sight itself. For what can possibly be so plain, so admitted, and so evident, when you lift your eyes up to heaven and look into the things that are below and around, than that there is some Deity of most excellent intelligence by whom all nature is inspired, is moved, is nourished, and is governed? Behold heaven itself, how broadly it is expanded, how rapidly it is whirled around, whether it is distinguished in the night by its stars or lightened in the day by the sun, and you will know at once how the marvelous and divine balance of the Supreme Governor is at work in it. Look also at the year, how it is made by the circuit of the sun. And look at the month, how the moon drives it around in her increase, her decline, and decay. What shall I say of the recurring changes of darkness and light? How there is thus provided for us an alternate restoration of labor and rest? Truly, a longer discourse concerning the stars must be left to astronomers, whether as to how they govern the course of navigation, or bring on the season of plowing or of reaping. Each of these things not only needed a Supreme Artist and a perfect intelligence to create, construct, and arrange them; but moreover, they cannot be felt, perceived, and understood without the highest intelligence and reason. What? When the order of the seasons and of the harvests is distinguished by steadfast variety, does it not attest its Author and Parent? The spring with its flowers, the summer with its harvests, the grateful maturity of autumn, and the wintry olive-gathering are all needful. And this order would easily be disturbed unless it were established by the highest intelligence. Now, how great is the providence needed, lest there should be nothing but winter to blast with its frost, or nothing but summer to scorch with its heat, to interpose the moderate temperature of autumn and spring, so that the unseen and harmless transitions of the year, returning on its footsteps, may glide by. Look attentively at the sea: it is bound by the law of its shore. Wherever there are trees, look how they are animated from the bowels of the earth. Consider the ocean: it ebbs and flows with alternate tides. Look at the fountains, how they gush in perpetual streams. Gaze at the rivers: they always roll on in regular courses. Why should I speak of the aptly ordered peaks of the mountains, the slopes of the hills, and the expanses of the plains? Why should I speak of the many kinds of protection provided by animated creatures against one another? Some are armed with horns, some hedged with teeth, and shod with claws, and barbed with stings, or with freedom obtained by swiftness of feet, or by the capacity of soaring furnished by wings. The very beauty of our own figure especially confesses God to be its artificer: our upright stature, our upward-looking countenance, our eyes placed at the top, as it were, for outlook; and all the rest of our senses as if arranged in a citadel.

It would take a long time to go through each example in particular. There is no member in man that is not made both for necessity and for ornament. And what is still more wonderful, all have the same form, but each has certain features altered. Thus each of us is found to be unlike one another, while all of us appear alike in general. What is the reason for our being born? What does the desire of begetting mean? Is it not given by God? And is it not also from God that the breasts become full of milk as the offspring grows to maturity, and that the tender progeny grows up by the nourishment supplied through the abundance of milky moisture? God does not have care only for the universe as a whole, but also for its parts. Britain lacks sunshine, but it is refreshed by the warmth of the sea flowing around it. The river Nile tempers the dryness of Egypt. The Euphrates cultivates Mesopotamia. The river Indus makes up for the lack of rains, and is said both to sow and to water the East. Now if, on entering a house, you should see everything refined, well arranged, and adorned, you would certainly believe that a master was over it, and that he himself was much better than all those excellent things. So in this house of the world, when you look upon heaven and earth, its providence, its ordering, and its law, believe that there is a Lord and Parent of the universe far more glorious than the stars themselves and the parts of the whole world. Unless perhaps, since there is no doubt about the existence of providence, you think that it is a matter for inquiry whether the heavenly kingdom is governed by the power of one or by the rule of many. And this matter itself does not involve much trouble in explaining, for one who considers earthly empires, since their examples certainly are taken from heaven. When has an alliance in royal authority ever begun with good faith or ended without bloodshed? I pass over the Persians, who took the omen for their chief rule from the neighing of horses. And I do not mention that completely lifeless fable of the Theban brothers. The story of the twins, Romulus and Remus, concerning the rule of shepherds and of a cottage, is very well known. The wars of the son-in-law and the father-in-law were scattered over the whole world, and the fortune of so great an empire could not receive two rulers. Look at other matters. The bees have one king. The flocks have one leader. Among the herds there is one ruler. Can you believe that in heaven there is a division of the highest power, and that the whole authority of that true and divine empire is split apart, when it is clear that God, the Parent of all, has neither beginning nor end? He who gives birth to all gives perpetuity to Himself. He who was before the world was Himself to Himself instead of the world. He orders everything, whatever it is, by a word. He arranges it by His wisdom. He perfects it by His power. He can neither be seen, for He is brighter than light, nor can He be grasped, for He is purer than touch, nor can He be estimated, for He is greater than all perceptions. He is infinite, immense, and how great He is is known to Himself alone. But our heart is too limited to understand Him. Therefore we are rightly estimating Him when we say that He is beyond estimation. I will speak out in the way that I feel. He who thinks that he knows the greatness of God is diminishing it. He who does not want to lessen it does not know it. Neither should you ask for a name for God. God is His name. We need names when a multitude is to be separated into individuals by the special characteristics of names. To God, who is alone, the name God is the whole. If I were to call Him Father, you would judge Him to be earthly. If I called Him King, you would suspect Him to be carnal. If I called Him Lord, you would certainly understand Him to be mortal. Take away the added names, and you will behold His glory. What? Is it not true that in this matter I have the agreement of all men? I hear the common people, when they lift up their hands to heaven, say nothing else but Oh God, and God is great, and God is true, and if God permits. Is this the natural speech of the common people, or is it the prayer of a confessing Christian? And those who speak of Jupiter as chief are mistaken in the name indeed, but they agree about the unity of the power.

"... The neighing of horses." This is a reference to the case of Darius Hystaspes. As all who have ever read it will remember, Herodotus tells the story. It is certainly one of the most extraordinary stories in history, when one reflects that a horse elected a great monarch, and one whose life affected the fortunes of mankind not a little. A knavish groom was indeed the engineer of this election, as often, in such events, the secret springs of history are hidden. But if the story is not wholly a fable, the thunder in the heavens is most noteworthy. It seemed to signify the overruling of Providence, and the power of God to turn the folly of men, no less than their wrath, to God's praise. See Herodotus, book 3, chapter 86.

I hear the poets also announcing, "the One Father of gods and men," and that such is the mind of mortal men as the Parent of all has appointed His day. What does the Mantuan Maro say? Is it not even plainer, more fitting, and more true? "In the beginning," he says, "the spirit within nourishes, and the mind infused stirs the heaven and the earth," and the other parts "of the world." From there arises the race of men and of cattle, and every other kind of animal. The same poet in another place calls that mind and spirit God. For these are his words: "For that God pervades all the lands, and the tracts of the sea, and the profound heaven, from whom are men and cattle, from whom are rain and fire." What else is God announced to be by us, but mind, and reason, and spirit? Let us review, if it is agreeable, the teaching of philosophers. Although they speak in different kinds of discourse, yet in these matters you will find them united and in agreement in this one opinion. I pass over those untrained and ancient men who deserved to be called wise men for their sayings. Let Thales the Milesian be first of all, for he was the first of all to dispute about heavenly things. That same Thales the Milesian said that water was the beginning of things, but that God was that mind which formed all things from water. Ah, a higher and nobler account of water and spirit than could ever have been discovered by man. It was delivered to him by God. You see that the opinion of this original philosopher completely agrees with ours. Afterward Anaximenes, and then Diogenes of Apollonia, decide that the air, infinite and without measure, is God. The agreement of these also about the Divinity is like ours. The description of Anaxagoras also is that God is said to be the motion of an infinite mind. And the God of Pythagoras is the soul passing to and fro and intent throughout the whole nature of things, from whom also the life of all animals is received. It is a known fact that Xenophanes delivered that God was all infinity with a mind, and Antisthenes, that there are many gods of the people, but that the one God of Nature was chief of all. Xeuxippus acknowledged as God a natural animal force by which all things are governed. What does Democritus say? Although he was the first discoverer of atoms, does he not especially speak of nature, which is the basis of forms, and intelligence, as God? Strato also says that God is nature. Moreover, Epicurus, the man who invents either idle gods or none at all, still places Nature above all. Aristotle varies, but nevertheless assigns a unity of power. For at one time he says that Mind is God, at another that the World is God, and at another time he sets God above the world. Heraclides of Pontus also, although in different ways, ascribes a divine mind to God. Theophrastus, and Zeno, and Chrysippus, and Cleanthes indeed have many forms of opinion, but they are all brought back to the one fact of the unity of providence. For Cleanthes spoke of God now as a mind, now as a soul, now as air, but for the most part as reason. Zeno, his master, wants the law of nature and of God, and sometimes the air, and sometimes reason, to be the beginning of all things. Moreover, by interpreting Juno to be the air, Jupiter the heaven, Neptune the sea, Vulcan to be fire, and in the same way by showing the other gods of the common people to be elements, he forcefully denounces and overcomes public error. Chrysippus says almost the same. He believes that a divine force, a rational nature, and sometimes the world, and a fatal necessity, is God. And he follows the example of Zeno in his physiological interpretation of the poems of Hesiod, of Homer, and of Orpheus. Moreover, the teaching of Diogenes of Babylon is that of explaining and arguing that the birth of Jupiter, and the origin of Minerva, and things of this kind, are names for other things, not for gods. For Xenophon the Socratic says that the form of the true God cannot be seen, and therefore ought not to be inquired after. Aristo the Stoic says that He cannot be comprehended at all. And both of them were aware of the majesty of God, while they despaired of understanding Him. Plato has a clearer discourse about God, both in the matters themselves and in the names by which he expresses them. And his discourse would be altogether heavenly, if it were not sometimes polluted by a mixture of merely civil belief. Therefore in his Timaeus Plato's God is by His very name the parent of the world, the artificer of the soul, the fabricator of heavenly and earthly things, whom he declares both to discover is difficult, because of His excessive and incredible power, and, when you have discovered Him, impossible to speak of in public. These opinions also are almost the same as ours. For we also know and speak of a God who is parent of all, and we never speak of Him in public unless we are asked.

But if the world is ruled by providence and governed by the will of one God, then blind hostility should not carry us away into the error of agreeing with it. Although it delights in its own fables, it has brought in ridiculous traditions. It is also shown just as clearly that the worship of the gods has always been foolish and impious, because the most ancient people honored their kings, their famous generals, and the inventors of arts for their outstanding deeds, just as if they were gods.

I have set forth the opinions of almost all the philosophers whose more illustrious glory is that they pointed out that there is one God, although with many names. So that anyone might think either that Christians are now philosophers, or that philosophers were already Christians then. But if the world is governed by providence, and directed by the will of one God, the antiquity of unskilled people ought not, however delighted and charmed with its own fables, to carry us away into the mistake of mutual agreement, when it is rebutted by the opinions of its own philosophers, who are supported by the authority both of reason and of antiquity. For our ancestors had such an easy faith in falsehoods that they rashly believed even other monstrosities as marvelous wonders: a manifold Scylla, a Chimera of many forms, and a Hydra rising again from its auspicious wounds, and Centaurs, horses entwined with their riders. And whatever Report was allowed to feign, they were entirely willing to listen to. Why should I mention those old wives' fables, that men were changed from men into birds and beasts, and from men into trees and flowers? If these things had happened at all, they would happen again. And because they cannot happen now, they never happened at all. In like manner, with respect to the gods too, our ancestors believed carelessly, credulously, with untrained simplicity. While worshipping their kings religiously, desiring to look upon them when dead in outward forms, and anxious to preserve their memories in statues, those things became sacred which had been taken up merely as consolations. Thereupon, and before the world was opened up by commerce, and before the nations confounded their rites and customs, each particular nation venerated its Founder, or illustrious Leader, or modest Queen braver than her sex, or the discoverer of any sort of faculty or art, as a citizen of worthy memory. And thus a reward was given to the deceased, and an example to those who were to follow.

Read the writings of the Stoics, or the writings of wise men, and you will acknowledge these facts with me. On account of the merits of their virtue, or of some gift, Euhemerus says that they were considered gods. He lists their birthdays, their countries, and their burial places. Throughout various provinces he points out these details of Dictaean Jupiter, Delphic Apollo, Pharian Isis, and Eleusinian Ceres. Prodicus also speaks of men who were taken up among the gods because they were helpful to the uses of men in their wanderings by the discovery of new kinds of produce. Persaeus also argues to the same result. He adds that the fruits discovered, and the discoverers of those same fruits, were called by the same names, as the line of the comic writer says: Venus grows cold without Bacchus and Ceres. Alexander the Great, the famous Macedonian, wrote in a remarkable document addressed to his mother that, out of fear of his power, a priest had revealed to him the secret that the gods had been men. To her he makes Vulcan the first of all, and then the race of Jupiter. And you behold the swallow and the cymbal of Isis, and the empty tomb of your Serapis or Osiris, with his limbs scattered about. Then consider the sacred rites themselves, and their very mysteries. You will find mournful deaths, misfortunes, funerals, and the griefs and wailings of miserable gods. Isis bewails, laments, and seeks after her lost son, with her Cynocephalus and her bald priests. The wretched worshipers of Isis beat their breasts and imitate the grief of the most unhappy mother. Then, when the little boy is found, Isis rejoices, and the priests exult, and Cynocephalus the discoverer boasts. And year by year they do not cease either to lose what they find, or to find what they lose. Is it not ridiculous either to grieve over what you worship, or to worship what you grieve over? Yet these were once Egyptian rites, and now they are Roman ones. Ceres, with lighted torches and surrounded by a serpent, with anxiety and care tracks the footsteps of Proserpine, stolen away in her wandering, and of her corrupter. These are the Eleusinian mysteries. And what are the sacred rites of Jupiter? His nurse is a she-goat, and as an infant he is carried away from his greedy father so that he may not be devoured. A clanging uproar is dashed out of the cymbals of the Corybantes so that the father may not hear the infant's wailing. Cybele of Dindymus—I am ashamed to speak of it—could not entice her adulterous lover, who unhappily pleased her, to lewdness, because she herself, as the mother of many gods, was ugly and old. So she mutilated him, no doubt so that she might make a god of the eunuch. Because of this story, the Galli also worship her by the punishment of their emasculated bodies. Certainly these things are not sacred rites, but tortures. And what about the very forms and appearances of the gods? Do they not show the contemptible and disgraceful character of your gods? Vulcan is a lame and crippled god. Apollo is smooth-faced after so many ages. Aesculapius is well bearded, although he is the son of Apollo, who is ever youthful. Neptune has sea-green eyes. Minerva has bluish-gray eyes. Juno has ox-eyes. Mercury has winged feet. Pan has hoofed feet. Saturn has feet in fetters. Janus indeed wears two faces, as if he might walk with looks turned back. Diana sometimes is a huntress, with her robe girded up high. And as the Ephesian, she has many fruitful breasts. And when she is shown as Trivia, she is horrible with three heads and many hands. And what is Jupiter himself? Sometimes he is shown in a statue without a beard, and sometimes he is set up with a beard. When he is called Hammon, he has horns. When he is Capitolinus, he wields thunderbolts. When he is Latiaris, he is sprinkled with gore. When he is Feretrius, he is not approached. And not to mention any further the multitude of Jupiters, the monstrous appearances of Jupiter are as numerous as his names. Erigone was hanged from a noose so that, as a virgin, she might glow among the stars. The Castors die by turns so that they may live. Aesculapius, so that he may rise into a god, is struck with a thunderbolt. Hercules, so that he may put off humanity, is burned up by the fires of Oeta.

We learn these fables and errors from ignorant parents. What is even more serious, we develop them in our very studies and lessons, especially in the verses of the poets, who have harmed the truth as much as possible by their authority. For this reason Plato rightly drove out from the state he had founded in his discourse the famous Homer, whom he had praised and crowned. For Homer especially, in the Trojan story, allowed your gods to interfere in the affairs and actions of men, although he made jokes about them. He brought them together in conflict. He wounded Venus. He bound, wounded, and drove away Mars. He says that Jupiter was set free by Briareus so that the rest of the gods would not bind him fast. He says that Jupiter wept showers of blood for his son Sarpedon because he could not snatch him from death. And, enticed by the girdle of Venus, he lay with his wife Juno more eagerly than he was accustomed to do with his adulterous loves. Elsewhere, Hercules threw out dung, and Apollo feeds cattle for Admetus. Neptune also builds walls for Laomedon, and the unfortunate builder did not receive the wages for his work. Then Jupiter's thunderbolt is forged on the anvil along with the arms of Aeneas, although heaven, thunderbolts, and lightning existed long before Jupiter was born in Crete. Neither could the Cyclops imitate, nor could Jupiter himself help fearing, the flames of the real thunderbolt. Why should I speak of the exposed adultery of Mars and Venus, and of Jupiter's violence against Ganymede, a deed consecrated, as you say, in heaven? All these things were put forward with this purpose, that some authority might be gained for the vices of men. By these fictions, and others like them, and by lies of a more attractive kind, the minds of boys are corrupted. And with these same fables clinging to them, they grow up to the full strength of mature age. Poor wretches, they grow old in the same beliefs, although the truth is plain, if they will only seek it. For all the ancient writers, both Greek and Roman, have declared that Saturn, the founder of this race and multitude, was a man. Nepos knew this, and Cassius in his history. Thallus and Diodorus say the same thing. This Saturn, driven from Crete by fear of his raging son, came to Italy. Received by the hospitality of Janus, he taught those unskilled and rustic men many things, since he was somewhat Greek and refined. For example, he taught them to form letters, to coin money, and to make instruments. Therefore he chose that his hiding place should be called Latium, because he had been safely hidden there. He gave a city the name Saturnia from his own name, and Janus gave Janiculum from his, so that each of them left their names to the memory of posterity. Therefore he was certainly a man who fled, certainly a man who was hidden, the father of a man, and descended from a man. Yet he was said to be the son of earth or of heaven because among the Italians his parents were unknown. Even to this day, we call those who appear unexpectedly, as if sent from heaven, and those who are low-born and unknown, sons of the earth. His son Jupiter ruled in Crete after his father was driven out. There he died. There he had sons. To this day the cave of Jupiter is visited, his tomb is shown, and by those very sacred rites of his he is proved to have been human.

There is no need to go through each individual case and trace the whole line of that race, since in their first parents their mortality is proved, and by the very law of succession it must have passed down to all the rest, unless perhaps you imagine that they became gods after death. By the false oath of Proculus, Romulus became a god. By the favor of the Mauritanians, Juba is a god. And other kings are called divine when they are consecrated, not in the belief of their divinity, but in honor of the power they exercised. Moreover, this name is given to those who are unwilling to bear it. They want to remain in their human condition. They fear that they may be made gods. Although they are already old men, they do not want it. Therefore, gods are not made from dead people, since a god cannot die; nor from people who are born, since everything that is born dies. But what is divine has neither rising nor setting. For why, if they were born, are they not born even now? Unless perhaps Jupiter has already grown old, childbearing has failed in Juno, and Minerva has grown gray before she has borne children. Or has that process of generation ceased because no assent is any longer given to fables of this kind? Besides, if the gods could create, they could not perish. We would have more gods than all men together. Then neither heaven would contain them, nor the air receive them, nor the earth bear them. From this it is clear that those were men whom we read were born and know to have died. Who, then, doubts that the common people pray to and publicly worship the consecrated images of these men? The belief and mind of the ignorant are deceived by the perfection of art, blinded by the glitter of gold, and dimmed by the shining of silver and the whiteness of ivory. But if anyone would consider with what instruments and with what methods every image is formed, he would be ashamed that he had feared matter shaped by the craftsman, to make a god. For a god of wood, perhaps part of a pile or of an unlucky log, is hung up, cut, hewn, and planed. A god of bronze or of silver, often from an unclean vessel, as was done by the Egyptian king, is melted, hammered, and forged on anvils. And the god of stone is cut, sculptured, and polished by some abandoned man, and it does not feel the injury done to it in its birth, any more than afterward it feels the worship flowing from your reverence, unless perhaps the stone, or the wood, or the silver is not yet a god. When, then, does the god begin to exist? Look, it is melted, it is worked, it is sculptured, and it is not yet a god. Look, it is soldered, it is built together, it is set up, and even yet it is not a god. Look, it is adorned, it is consecrated, it is prayed to. Then at length it is a god, when a man has chosen it to be so, and has dedicated it.

Nevertheless, you will say that this very superstition gave, increased, and established the empire of the Romans, since they prevailed not so much by their valor as by their religion and piety. No doubt the famous and noble justice of the Romans had its beginning from the very cradle of their growing empire. Did they not, in their beginning, when they were gathered together and fortified by crime, grow by the terror of their own fierceness? For the first people were assembled as to an asylum. Abandoned people, profligate people, incestuous people, murderers, and traitors had flocked together. And so that Romulus himself, their commander and ruler, might excel his people in guilt, he committed fratricide. These are the first auspices of the religious state! Soon afterward they carried off, violated, and ruined foreign virgins, already betrothed, already destined for husbands, and even some young women from their marriage vows, a thing unexampled. Then they made war with their parents, that is, with their fathers-in-law, and shed the blood of their own relatives. What could be more irreligious? What could be more audacious? What could be safer than the very confidence of crime? To drive their neighbors from the land, to overthrow the nearest cities with their temples and altars, to drive them into captivity, to grow by the losses of others and by their own crimes, this is the course of training common to the rest of the kings and the latest leaders with Romulus. Thus, whatever the Romans hold, cultivate, and possess is the spoil of their audacity. All their temples are built from the spoils of violence, that is, from the ruins of cities, from the spoils of the gods, and from the murders of priests. This is to insult and scorn, to yield to conquered religions, to adore them when captive, after having vanquished them. For to adore what you have taken by force is to consecrate sacrilege, not divinities. Therefore, as often as the Romans triumphed, so often they were polluted. And as many trophies as they gained from the nations, so many spoils they took from the gods. Therefore, the Romans were not so great because they were religious, but because they were sacrilegious with impunity. For in the wars themselves, the gods against whom they took up arms were not able to help them. And they began to worship those, when they had triumphed over them, whom they had previously challenged. But what use were such gods on behalf of the Romans, when they had had no power on behalf of their own worshipers against Roman arms? For we know the indigenous gods of the Romans: Romulus, Picus, Tiberinus, Consus, Pilumnus, and Picumnus. Tatius both discovered and worshiped Cloacina; Hostilius, Fear and Pallor. Later, Fever was dedicated by I do not know whom. Such was the superstition that nourished that city: diseases and ill states of health. Certainly also Acca Laurentia and Flora, infamous harlots, must be counted among the diseases and the gods of the Romans. Such as these, no doubt, enlarged the dominion of the Romans, in opposition to others who were worshiped by the nations. For against their own people neither did the Thracian Mars, nor the Cretan Jupiter, nor Juno, now of Argos, now of Samos, now of Carthage, nor Diana of Tauris, nor the Idæan Mother, nor those Egyptian—not deities, but monstrosities—assist them; unless perhaps among the Romans the chastity of virgins was greater, or the religion of the priests more holy. Yet among very many of the virgins, unchastity was punished, because they, no doubt without the knowledge of Vesta, had intercourse too carelessly with men. And for the rest, their impunity arose not from the better protection of their chastity, but from the better fortune of their immodesty. And where are adulteries better arranged by priests than among the very altars and shrines? Where are more panderings debated, or more acts of violence concerted? Finally, burning lust is more often gratified in the little chambers of the keepers of the temple than in the brothels themselves. And still, long before the Romans, by the ordering of God, the Assyrians held dominion, the Medes, the Persians, the Greeks also, and the Egyptians, although they had no Pontiffs, nor Arvales, nor Salii, nor Vestals, nor Augurs, nor chickens shut up in a coop, by whose feeding or abstinence the highest concerns of the state were to be governed.

And now I come to those Roman auspices and auguries which you have gathered with great effort. You have testified that they were neglected with bad results, and observed with good fortune. Certainly Clodius, Flaminius, and Junius lost their armies for this reason, because they did not think it right to wait for the very solemn omen given by the greedy pecking of the chickens. But what about Regulus? Did he not observe the auguries and get taken captive? Mancinus kept his religious duty, and was sent under the yoke and handed over. Paulus also had greedy chickens at Cannae, yet he was overthrown with the greater part of the republic. Caius Caesar despised the auguries and auspices that opposed his voyage into Africa before winter, and so he more easily both sailed and conquered. But what more, and how much more, shall I go on to say about oracles? After his death, Amphiaraus answered about things to come, though while he was alive he did not know that he would be betrayed by his wife because of a bracelet. The blind Tiresias saw the future, although he did not see the present. Ennius invented the replies of the Pythian Apollo concerning Pyrrhus, although Apollo had already ceased to make verses. And that cautious and ambiguous oracle of his failed just when men began to be both more educated and less gullible. Demosthenes also, because he knew that the answers were made up, complained that the Pythia was taking Philip's side. But sometimes, it is true, even auspices or oracles have touched the truth. Although among many falsehoods chance may seem as if it imitated forethought, yet I will come to the very source of error and perverseness, from which all that obscurity has flowed. I will dig more deeply into it and lay it open more clearly. There are certain insincere and wandering spirits, degraded from their heavenly vigor by earthly stains and lusts. After these spirits lost the simplicity of their nature by being weighed down and immersed in vices, they do not stop ruining others as a comfort in their calamity, now that they themselves are ruined. Being depraved themselves, they infuse into others the error of their depravity. And being themselves alienated from God, they separate others from God by bringing in degraded superstitions. The poets know that those spirits are demons. The philosophers speak of them. Socrates knew it too. At the nod and decision of a demon beside him, he either declined actions or undertook them. The Magi also not only know that there are demons, but whatever miracle they claim to perform, they do it by means of demons. By their aspirations and communications, they display their wondrous tricks, making things appear which are not, or making things not appear which are. Of those magicians, Sosthenes, first both in eloquence and in deed, not only describes the true God with fitting majesty, but also the angels who are the ministers and messengers of the true God. And he knew that it enhanced His veneration, that they trembled in awe at the very nod and glance of their Lord. The same man also declared that demons were earthly, wandering, and hostile to humanity. What did Plato say, he who believed that finding God was difficult? Does he not also plainly speak of both angels and demons? And in his Symposium, does he not also try to explain the nature of demons? For he says that a demon is a substance between mortal and immortal—that is, between body and spirit—compounded by mingling earthly weight and heavenly lightness. For this reason also he warns us about the desire of love, and says that it is molded and slips into the human breast, stirs the senses, molds the affections, and infuses the ardor of lust.

To sum up the argument: without doubt, here is a source of error. Demons hide under statues and images. They haunt temples. They stir the inner parts of sacrificed animals, direct the flight of birds, control lots, and give oracles wrapped in false answers. These things are not from God. But when they are commanded in the name of the true God, they are forced to confess, and they are driven out of possessed bodies. So they quickly flee from the neighborhood of Christians, and they stir up hatred against them in the minds of the Gentiles, who begin to hate Christians before they know them.

Therefore, these impure spirits—the demons—as is shown by the Magi, by the philosophers, and by Plato, consecrated under statues and images, lurk there. By their afflatus they gain the authority of a deity that seems present. Meanwhile, they are breathed into the prophets. They dwell in shrines. Sometimes they animate the fibers of the entrails, control the flights of birds, direct the lots, and cause oracles tangled with many falsehoods. For they are both deceived, and they deceive, since they are ignorant of the simple truth, and for their own ruin do not confess what they know. Thus they weigh men down from heaven and call them away from the true God to material things. They disturb life and make all men unquiet. They also creep secretly into human bodies. With subtlety, because they are spirits, they feign diseases, alarm minds, and wrench limbs, so that they may force men to worship them. Then, after being glutted with the fumes of altars and the sacrifices of cattle, by loosening what they had bound they seem to have cured it. These raging maniacs also, whom you see rushing about in public, are themselves prophets without a temple. Thus they rage, thus they rave, thus they are whirled around. In them too there is the same instigation of the demon, but the occasion for their madness is different. From the same causes also come those things you spoke of a little while ago: that Jupiter demanded in a dream that his games be restored, that the Castors appeared with horses, and that a small ship followed the leading of the matron's girdle. Very many people, even some of your own people, know all those things that the demons themselves confess about themselves, whenever they are driven by us out of bodies by the torments of our words and by the fires of our prayers. Saturn himself, and Serapis, and Jupiter, and whatever demons you worship, when overcome by pain, declare what they are. And surely they do not lie to their own disgrace, especially when some of you are standing by. Since they themselves are witnesses that they are demons, believe them when they confess the truth about themselves. For when they are adjured by the only and true God, the wretched beings shudder unwillingly in their bodies, and either leap out at once or vanish little by little, as the faith of the sufferer helps or the grace of the healer inspires. Thus they flee from Christians when nearby, whom at a distance they had harassed by your means in their assemblies. And thus, introduced into the minds of the ignorant, they secretly sow hatred of us there by means of fear. For it is natural both to hate one whom you fear, and to injure one whom you have feared, if you can. Thus they take possession of minds and block hearts, so that men begin to hate us before they know us, lest, if they come to know us, they should either imitate us or not be able to condemn us.

They stir up not only hatred against Christians, but also charges of terrible crimes that no one has ever proved against them up to this time. This is the work of demons. By them, a false rumor is both started and spread. Christians are falsely accused of sacrilege, incest, adultery, and parricide. And besides this, it is certain and true that these very same crimes, or crimes like them or even worse, are actually committed by the Gentiles themselves.

But how unjust it is to form a judgment on things unknown and unexamined, as you do! Believe us ourselves when penitent, for we also were once the same as you. Formerly, while still blind and dull, we thought the same things as you: that Christians worshiped monsters, devoured infants, and mingled in incestuous banquets. And we did not understand that fables like these were always spread abroad by those newsmongers, and were never either inquired into or proved. Nor did we understand that, in so long a time, no one had appeared to betray their doings, and so obtain not only pardon for his crime, but also favor for its discovery. Moreover, we did not understand that it was so far from evil that, when a Christian was accused, he neither blushed nor feared, and only repented that he had not been one before. We, however, when we undertook to defend and protect sacrilegious and incestuous persons, and even parricides, did not think that these Christians were to be heard at all. Sometimes even, when we pretended to pity them, we were more cruelly violent against them. We tortured them when they confessed, so that they might deny, that is, so that they might not perish. We used a perverse inquisition against them, not to draw out the truth, but to compel a falsehood. And if anyone, because of greater weakness, overcome by suffering and conquered, should deny that he was a Christian, we showed favor to him, as if by forswearing that name he had at once atoned for all his deeds by that simple denial. Do you not acknowledge that we felt and did the same as you feel and do? When, if reason and not the instigation of a demon were to judge, they should rather have been pressed not to disavow themselves Christians, but to confess themselves guilty of incests, of abominations, of sacred rites polluted, of infants immolated. For with these and such stories those same demons filled the ears of the ignorant against us, to the horror of their execration. Nor yet was this wonderful, since the common report of men, always fed by the scattering of falsehoods, is wasted away when the truth is brought to light. Thus this is the business of demons, for by them false rumors are both sown and cherished. From there arises what you say you hear: that an ass's head is esteemed among us as something divine. Who is such a fool as to worship this? Who is so much more foolish as to believe that it is an object of worship? Unless perhaps you yourselves also consecrate whole asses in your stables, together with your Epona, and religiously devour those same asses with Isis. Also you offer up and worship the heads of oxen and of wethers. And you dedicate gods mingled also of a goat and a man, and gods with the faces of dogs and lions. Do you not, with the Egyptians, adore and feed Apis the ox? And you do not condemn their sacred rites instituted in honor of serpents, and crocodiles, and other beasts, and birds, and fishes. If anyone were to kill one of these gods, he is even punished with death. These same Egyptians, together with very many of you, are no more afraid of Isis than they are of the pungency of onions, nor of Serapis than they tremble at the basest noises produced by the foulness of their bodies. He also who invents fables against us about our adoration of the members of the priest tries to lay upon us what really belongs to himself. For perhaps these are the sacred rites of their shamelessness, among those with whom every sex is exposed in all its members; among whom utter indecency is called refinement; who envy the license of prostitutes; who lick men in the middle; who cling with lustful mouth to groins; men of evil tongue even if they were silent; men whom their shamelessness disgusts before it shames them. Abomination! They suffer on themselves such evil deeds as no age is so effeminate as to be able to bear, and no slavery so cruel as to be compelled to endure.

These and other shameful things like them are things we are not free even to hear. It is disgraceful even to defend ourselves against such charges with more words. You claim that chaste and modest people do these things. But we should not believe that such things are done at all, unless you proved that they were true of yourselves. For when you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross, you wander far from the neighborhood of truth. You think either that a criminal deserved to be believed God, or that an earthly being was able to be believed God. Miserable indeed is the man whose whole hope depends on a mortal man, for all his help comes to an end with that man's death. The Egyptians certainly choose a man for themselves to worship. Him alone they propitiate. They consult him about all things. They slaughter victims for him. And he who is a god to others is certainly a man to himself, whether he wants to be or not. For he does not deceive his own conscience, even if he deceives that of others. Moreover, false flattery shamefully flatters princes and kings, not as great and chosen men, as is right, but as gods. Yet honor is more truly given to an illustrious man, and love is more pleasantly given to a very good man. Thus they call on their deity. They beg before their images. They appeal to their Genius, that is, their demon. And it is safer to swear falsely by the genius of Jupiter than by that of a king. We neither worship crosses nor wish for them. But you, who consecrate gods made of wood, perhaps worship wooden crosses as parts of your gods. For your standards, your banners, and the flags of your camp, what else are they but crosses gilded and adorned? Your victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man fastened to it. We certainly see the sign of a cross naturally in a ship, when it is carried along with swelling sails, and when it glides forward with outspread oars. It is there also when the military yoke is lifted up, and when a man adores God with a pure mind and with hands stretched out. Thus the sign of the cross either is sustained by a natural reason, or your own religion is formed with respect to it.

And now I should wish to meet him who says or believes that we are initiated by the slaughter and blood of an infant. Do you think it can be possible for so tender, so little a body to receive those deadly wounds, for anyone to shed, pour forth, and drain that fresh blood of a little child, of a human being scarcely come into existence? No one can believe this, except one who would dare to do it. And I see that you at one time expose your begotten children to wild beasts and birds. At another, you crush them, strangled in a miserable kind of death. There are some women who, by drinking medical preparations, extinguish the source of the future man in their very wombs, and thus commit parricide before they bring forth. And these things surely come down from the teaching of your gods. For Saturn did not expose his children, but devoured them. With reason, infants were sacrificed to him by their parents in some parts of Africa, caresses and kisses repressing their crying, so that a weeping victim might not be sacrificed. Moreover, among the Tauri of Pontus, and to the Egyptian Busiris, it was a sacred rite to sacrifice their guests, and for the Galli to slaughter to Mercury human, or rather inhuman, sacrifices. The Roman sacrificers buried alive a Greek man and a Greek woman, a Gallic man and a Gallic woman. And to this day, Jupiter Latiaris is worshipped by them with murder. And, what is worthy of the son of Saturn, he is gorged with the blood of an evil and criminal man. I believe that he himself taught Catiline to conspire under a compact of blood, and Bellona to steep her sacred rites with a draught of human gore, and taught men to heal epilepsy with the blood of a man, that is, with a worse disease. They also are not unlike him who devour the wild beasts from the arena, besmeared and stained with blood, or fattened with the limbs or entrails of men. To us it is not lawful either to see or to hear of homicide. And so much do we shrink from human blood, that we do not use the blood even of eatable animals in our food.

And as for the charge of incestuous banqueting, the plotting of demons has falsely devised an enormous fable against us. Its purpose is to stain the glory of our modesty by the loathing stirred up by an outrageous infamy, so that before people inquire into the truth, the terror of an abominable charge may turn them away from us. This is how your own Fronto acted in this matter. He did not bring forward testimony, as one making a charge, but scattered reproaches as a rhetorician. For these things have come rather from your own nations. Among the Persians, promiscuous relations between sons and mothers are allowed. Marriages with sisters are lawful among the Egyptians and in Athens. Your records and your tragedies, which you both read and hear with pleasure, glory in incests. In the same way, you also worship incestuous gods, who have intercourse with mothers, daughters, and sisters. Therefore, with good reason, incest is often found among you and is continually allowed. Miserable men, you may even, without knowing it, rush into what is unlawful. Since you scatter your lusts everywhere, since you beget children everywhere, and since you often expose even those born in your own homes to the mercy of others, it must happen that you return to your own children and stray to your own offspring. In this way you keep alive the story of incest, even though you have no awareness of your crime. But we keep our modesty not in appearance, but in our heart. We gladly remain in the bond of a single marriage. In the desire to have children, we know either one wife or none at all. We take part in banquets that are not only modest, but also sober. For we do not indulge in entertainments or drag out our feasts with wine. But we temper our joy with seriousness, with chaste conversation, and with bodies even more chaste. Many of us, still unviolated, enjoy rather than boast of a perpetual virginity of the body. So far, in fact, are they from indulging in incestuous desire, that with some even the idea of modest intercourse between the sexes causes a blush. Nor are we at once on the level of the lowest people, if we refuse your honors and purple robes. Nor are we hard to please, if we all discern one good, and are gathered together with the same quietness with which we live as individuals. And we are not talkative in corners, although you either blush or are afraid to hear us in public. And the fact that our number increases day by day is not a reason for charging us with error, but a testimony that calls for praise. For by a fair way of life, our own number both continues and remains undiminished, and strangers increase it. In short, we are not marked out, as you suppose, by some small bodily sign, but easily enough by the mark of innocence and modesty. So we love one another, to your regret, with mutual love, because we do not know how to hate. So we call one another, to your envy, brothers, because we are men born of one God and Parent, companions in faith, and fellow-heirs in hope. But you do not recognize one another, and you are cruel in your hatred for one another. Nor do you acknowledge one another as brothers, unless perhaps for the purpose of fratricide.

But do you think that we conceal what we worship, if we have no temples and altars? And yet what image of God shall I make, since, if you think rightly, man himself is the image of God? What temple shall I build to Him, when this whole world fashioned by His work cannot receive Him? And when I, a man, dwell far and wide, shall I shut up the might of so great majesty within one little building? Would it not be better that He should be dedicated in our mind, consecrated in our inmost heart? Shall I offer victims and sacrifices to the Lord, such as He has produced for my use, that I should throw back to Him His own gift? It is ungrateful, when the victim fit for sacrifice is a good disposition, and a pure mind, and a sincere judgment. Therefore he who cultivates innocence supplicates God. He who cultivates justice makes offerings to God. He who abstains from fraudulent practices propitiates God. He who snatches man from danger slaughters the most acceptable victim. These are our sacrifices. These are our rites of God's worship. Thus, among us, he who is most just is he who is most religious. But certainly the God whom we worship we neither show nor see. Truly, for this reason we believe Him to be God, that we can be conscious of Him, but cannot see Him. For in His works, and in all the movements of the world, we behold His power ever present when He thunders, lightens, darts His bolts, or when He makes all bright again. Nor should you wonder if you do not see God. By the wind and by the blasts of the storm, all things are driven on and shaken, are agitated, and yet neither wind nor tempest comes under our eyesight. Thus we cannot look upon the sun, which is the cause of seeing to all creatures. The pupil of the eye is withdrawn from its rays. The gaze of the beholder is dimmed. And if you look too long, all power of sight is extinguished. What! Can you sustain the Architect of the sun Himself, the very source of light, when you turn yourself away from His lightnings, and hide yourself from His thunderbolts? Do you wish to see God with your carnal eyes, when you are neither able to behold nor to grasp your own soul itself, by which you are enlivened and speak? But, moreover, it is said that God is ignorant of man's doings; and being established in heaven, He can neither survey all nor know individuals. You err, O man, and are deceived. For from where is God afar off, when all things heavenly and earthly, and which are beyond this province of the universe, are known to God, are full of God? Everywhere He is not only very near to us, but He is infused into us. Therefore once more look upon the sun. It is fixed fast in heaven, yet it is diffused over all lands equally. Present everywhere, it is associated and mingled with all things. Its brightness is never violated. How much more God, who has made all things, and looks upon all things, from whom there can be nothing secret, is present in the darkness, is present in our thoughts, as if in the deep darkness. Not only do we act in Him, but also, I had almost said, we live with Him.

Neither let us flatter ourselves about our numbers. We seem many to ourselves, but to God we are very few. We distinguish peoples and nations. To God, this whole world is one family. Kings know all the matters of their kingdom only by the service of their servants. God has no need of information. We not only live in His eyes, but also in His bosom. But it is objected that it profited the Jews nothing that they themselves worshiped the one God with altars and temples, with the greatest superstition. You are guilty of ignorance if you are calling to mind later events while you forget, or do not know, the former ones. For they themselves also, as long as they worshiped our God—and He is the same God of all—with chastity, innocence, and religion, as long as they obeyed His wholesome precepts, from a few became innumerable, from poor became rich, from being servants became kings. A few overcame many. Unarmed men overcame armed men as those men fled from them, while they pursued them by God's command, and with the elements striving on their behalf. Read their Scriptures carefully. Or, if Roman writings please you more, inquire about the Jews in the books—to say nothing of ancient documents—of Flavius Josephus or Antoninus Julianus, and you will know that by their wickedness they deserved this fate, and that nothing happened that had not been predicted to them beforehand, if they should persist in their obstinacy. Therefore you will understand that they forsook before they were forsaken, and that they were not, as you impiously say, taken captive with their God, but were given up by God as deserters from His discipline.

Further, in respect to the burning up of the world, it is a common error not to believe either that fire will come upon it unexpectedly, or that the world will be destroyed by it. For what wise man doubts, or who is ignorant, that all things which have had a beginning perish, and all things that are made come to an end? Heaven also, with all things contained in heaven, will cease, just as it began. The nourishment of the seas by the fresh waters of springs will pass into the power of fire. The Stoics firmly believe that, when the moisture is dried up, this whole world will catch fire. The Epicureans hold the same opinion about the conflagration of the elements and the destruction of the world. Plato says that parts of the world are at one time flooded, and at another time burned up by alternating changes. And although he says that the world itself was made everlasting and indissoluble, yet he adds that to God Himself, the only maker, it is both dissoluble and mortal. So it is no wonder if that mass is destroyed by Him by whom it was built. You see that philosophers argue about the same things we are saying. It is not because we are following their path, but because they copied the shadow of a corrupted truth from the divine declarations of the prophets. In the same way, the most famous of the wise men, first Pythagoras and especially Plato, handed down the teaching of resurrection with a corrupted and divided belief. For they taught that when bodies are dissolved, only the souls remain forever, and that they often pass into other new bodies. To this they also add, in a misrepresentation of the truth, that the souls of men return into cattle, birds, and beasts. Certainly such an opinion is not worthy of a philosopher's inquiry, but of a buffoon's ribaldry. But for our argument, it is enough that even in this matter your wise men agree with us to some extent. But who is so foolish or so brutish as to dare deny that man, just as he could first be formed by God, can also be formed again; that after death he is nothing, and that before he began to exist he was nothing; and that, just as it was possible for him to be born from nothing, so it is possible for him to be restored from nothing? Moreover, it is harder to begin what does not exist than to repeat what has existed. Do you think that if anything is taken away from our weak eyes, it perishes to God? Every body, whether it is dried into dust, dissolved into moisture, pressed into ashes, or reduced into smoke, is hidden from us, but it is kept for God in the custody of the elements. Nor, as you think, do we fear any loss from burial, but we follow the ancient and better custom of burying in the earth. See, therefore, how all nature points to a future resurrection for our comfort. The sun sets and rises. The stars disappear and return. The flowers die and live again. After their winter fading, the shrubs put out leaves again. Seeds do not grow again unless they rot. In the same way, the body in the tomb is like the trees that in winter hide their greenness under a deceiving dryness. Why are you in a hurry for it to revive and return while winter is still harsh? We too must wait for the springtime of the body. And I am not unaware that many people, because they know what they deserve, rather wish than believe that they will be nothing after death. For they would prefer to be completely destroyed rather than to be restored for punishment. And their error is made worse both by the freedom allowed them in this life and by God's very great patience, whose judgment, the more delayed it is, is all the more just.

"...from nothing." Based on this chapter, if not on others, some have too quickly claimed that our author believed the soul dies with the body and must be made again out of nothing. But the argument is completely ad hominem, and, as I understand it, it states nothing from the author's own point of view. He gives what is enough for his argument and claims nothing more. He was not a clergyman, and his work is not a sermon to the faithful. He challenges anyone to deny that, if God could make man out of nothing, He can make him new again out of nothing. The rest of the argument is a brilliant statement of the imperishability of matter, in words that might satisfy modern science. And the implication is that the soul no more passes from God's sight than the body does when it is turned to vapor and kept in the custody of the elements.

And yet people are warned in the books and poems of the most learned poets about that river of fire, and about the heat flowing in many winding courses from the Stygian marsh. These things were prepared for eternal torments. They knew of them through the information of demons and from the oracles of their prophets, and they handed them down to us. Therefore, among them, even King Jupiter himself swears reverently by the burning banks and the black abyss. For, knowing beforehand the punishment appointed for him, along with his worshippers, he shudders. There is no measure or end to these torments. There the intelligent fire burns the limbs and restores them. It feeds on them and nourishes them. Just as the fires of thunderbolts strike bodies and do not consume them, and just as the fires of Mount Etna and Mount Vesuvius, and burning lands everywhere, glow but are not used up, so that fire of punishment is not fed by the wasting away of those who burn, but is nourished by the unexhausted eating away of their bodies. But that those who do not know God are deservedly tormented as impious and unrighteous people, no one except a profane man hesitates to believe. For it is no less wicked to be ignorant of the Parent of all and the Lord of all than to offend Him. And although ignorance of God is enough for punishment, just as knowledge of Him is useful for pardon, yet if we Christians are compared with you, although in some things our discipline is inferior, we will still be found much better than you. For you forbid adulteries, and yet commit them. We are born as men only for our own wives. You punish crimes when they are committed. With us, even to think of crimes is to sin. You are afraid of those who know what you do. We are afraid even of our conscience alone, without which we cannot exist. Finally, your great numbers make the prison boil over, but there is no Christian there, unless he is accused on account of his religion, or is a deserter.

And let no one either take comfort from, or make excuses for, what happens by fate. Let what happens be from the disposition of fortune, yet the mind is free. Therefore a man's actions are judged, not his dignity. For what else is fate than what God has spoken concerning each one of us? Since He can foresee our character, He also determines our fates for us according to each person's deserts and qualities. So in our case, it is not the star under which we are born that is punished, but the particular nature of our disposition is blamed. Enough has been said about fate. Or if, because of the time, we have said too little, we will discuss the matter more abundantly and more fully at another time. But that many of us are called poor, this is not our disgrace, but our glory. For just as the mind is weakened by luxury, so it is strengthened by frugality. And who can be poor if he is not in want, if he does not crave the possessions of others, if he is rich toward God? Rather, he is poor who, although he has much, desires more. Yet I will speak as I feel. No one can be as poor as he is when he is born. Birds live without any inheritance, and the cattle are fed day by day. Yet these creatures are born for us, and if we do not lust after these things, we possess them. Therefore, just as the man who travels a road is happier the more lightly he walks, so he is happier in this journey of life who moves forward in poverty and does not breathe heavily under the burden of riches. And even if we thought wealth useful to us, we would ask it of God. Surely He, to whom all things belong, could grant us some measure of it. But we would rather despise riches than possess them. We would rather desire innocency. We would rather ask for patience. We prefer being good to being prodigal. And that we feel and suffer the human mischiefs of the body is not punishment; it is warfare. For fortitude is strengthened by infirmities, and calamity is very often the discipline of virtue. In addition, the strength of both mind and body grows torpid without the exercise of labor. Therefore all your mighty men, whom you present as examples, have become illustrious through their afflictions. And so God is neither unable to help us, nor does He despise us, since He is both the ruler of all men and the lover of His own people. But in adversity He examines and searches out each one. He weighs every person's disposition in dangers, even at last in death. He investigates the will of man, certain that to Him nothing can perish. Therefore, as gold by the fires, so we are proved by critical moments.

How beautiful is the spectacle to God when a Christian does battle with pain; when he is drawn up against threats, punishments, and tortures; when, mocking the noise of death, he treads under foot the horror of the executioner; when he raises up his liberty against kings and princes, and yields to God alone, whose he is. Then, triumphant and victorious, he tramples upon the very man who has pronounced sentence against him. For he has conquered who has obtained that for which he contends. What soldier would not face danger more boldly under the eyes of his general? For no one receives a reward before his trial, and yet the general does not give what he does not have. He cannot preserve life, but he can make the warfare glorious. But God's soldier is neither forsaken in suffering, nor brought to an end by death. Thus the Christian may seem to be miserable; he cannot really be found to be so. You yourselves extol unfortunate men to the skies; Mucius Scaevola, for instance, who, when he had failed in his attempt against the king, would have perished among the enemies unless he had sacrificed his right hand. And how many of our people have borne that not their right hand only, but their whole body, should be burned—burned up without any cries of pain, especially when they had it in their power to be sent away! Do I compare men with Mucius or Aquilius, or with Regulus? Yet boys and young women among us treat with contempt crosses and tortures, wild beasts, and all the bugbears of punishments, with the inspired patience of suffering. And do you not perceive, O wretched men, that there is nobody who either is willing without reason to undergo punishment, or is able without God to bear tortures? Unless, perhaps, the fact has deceived you, that those who know not God abound in riches, flourish in honors, and excel in power. Miserable men! In this respect they are lifted up higher, that they may fall lower. For these are fattened as victims for punishment; as sacrifices they are crowned for slaughter. Thus in this respect some are lifted up to empires and dominations, that the unrestrained exercise of power might make a market of their spirit to the unbridled license that is characteristic of a ruined soul. For, apart from the knowledge of God, what solid happiness can there be, since death must come? Like a dream, happiness slips away before it is grasped. Are you a king? Yet you fear as much as you are feared. And however you may be surrounded with abundant followers, yet you are alone in the presence of danger. Are you rich? But fortune is ill trusted; and with a large traveling equipage the brief journey of life is not furnished, but burdened. Do you boast of the fasces and the magisterial robes? It is a vain mistake of man, and an empty worship of dignity, to glitter in purple and to be sordid in mind. Are you elevated by nobility of birth? Do you praise your parents? Yet we are all born with one lot; it is only by virtue that we are distinguished. We therefore, who are estimated by our character and our modesty, reasonably abstain from evil pleasures, and from your pomps and exhibitions. We know their origin in connection with sacred things, and condemn their mischievous enticements. For in the chariot games who does not shudder at the madness of the people brawling among themselves? Or at the teaching of murder in the gladiatorial games? In the scenic games also the madness is not less, but the debauchery is more prolonged. For now a mimic either expounds or shows forth adulteries; now a nerveless player, while he feigns lust, suggests it. The same actor disgraces your gods by attributing to them adulteries, sighs, and hatreds. The same actor provokes your tears with pretended sufferings, with vain gestures and expressions. Thus you demand murder in fact, while you weep at it in fiction.

Christians keep away from things connected with idol sacrifices, so that no one may think either that they give in to demons or that they are ashamed of their religion. They do not despise all the color and fragrance of flowers. They are used to having them scattered around loosely and simply, and also to wearing garlands around their necks. But they think it is unnecessary and useless to place a crown on the head of a dead body. Also, with the same calmness with which they live, they bury their dead, waiting with a very sure hope for the crown of eternal blessedness. Therefore, since their religion rejects all the superstitions of the Gentiles, it should be accepted by all people as true.

But that we despise the leavings of sacrifices, and the cups out of which libations have been poured, is not a confession of fear. It is an assertion of our true liberty. For although nothing that comes into existence as an inviolable gift of God is corrupted by any agency, yet we abstain, lest anyone should think either that we are submitting to demons, to whom libation has been made, or that we are ashamed of our religion. But who is there who doubts that we enjoy spring flowers, when we gather both the rose of spring and the lily, and whatever else among the flowers has agreeable color and odor? For these we both use, scattered loose and free, and we twine our necks with them in garlands. Pardon us, then, that we do not crown our heads. We are accustomed to receive the scent of a sweet flower in our nostrils, not to inhale it with the back of our head or with our hair. Nor do we crown the dead. And in this respect I the more wonder at you, in the way that you apply a torch to a lifeless person, or to one who does not feel, or a garland to one who does not smell it, when either, as blessed, he does not want flowers, or, being miserable, he has no pleasure in them. Still we adorn our obsequies with the same tranquility with which we live. And we do not bind to ourselves a withering garland, but we wear one living with eternal flowers from God, since we, being both moderate and secure in the liberality of our God, are animated to the hope of future felicity by the confidence of His present majesty. Thus we both rise again in blessedness, and are already living in contemplation of the future. Then let Socrates the Athenian buffoon see to it, confessing that he knew nothing, although boastful in the testimony of a most deceitful demon. Let Arcesilaus also, and Carneades, and Pyrrho, and all the multitude of the Academic philosophers, deliberate. Let Simonides also forever put off the decision of his opinion. We despise the bent brows of the philosophers, whom we know to be corrupters, and adulterers, and tyrants, and ever eloquent against their own vices. We who bear wisdom not in our dress, but in our mind, do not speak great things, but live them. We boast that we have attained what they sought with the utmost eagerness, and were not able to find. Why are we ungrateful? Why do we grudge if the truth of divinity has ripened in the age of our time? Let us enjoy our benefits, and let us in rectitude moderate our judgments. Let superstition be restrained. Let impiety be expiated. Let true religion be preserved.

When Octavius had finished speaking, we were silent for some time. We kept our faces fixed in attention. As for me, I was overwhelmed by the greatness of my admiration. He had so beautifully expressed things that are easier to feel than to say, using arguments, examples, and authorities drawn from reading. He had also driven back the malicious objectors with the very weapons of the philosophers by which they are armed. And he had shown that the truth is not only easy, but also pleasing.

While I was silently turning these things over in my own mind, Caecilius suddenly spoke out: “I congratulate both my Octavius and myself, as much as I can, on the peace in which we live, and I do not wait for the decision. Even so, we have won. It is not unjust for me to claim the victory for myself. For just as he is my conqueror, so I am triumphant over error. Therefore, regarding the substance of the question, I both confess providence and yield to God. And I agree about the sincerity of the way of life that is now mine. Yet even now some things still remain in my mind, not as resisting the truth, but as necessary for complete instruction. Tomorrow, since the sun is already sinking toward its setting, we will ask about them at length in a more suitable and ready way.”

But as for me, I said, I rejoice even more for all of us, because Octavius has also won on my behalf, since the great burden of making a judgment has been taken away from me. Nor can I match the worth of his words with my praise. The testimony of a man, and of only one man, is weak. He has a glorious reward from God, by whose inspiration he has argued his case, and by whose help he has won the victory.

After these things, we left glad and cheerful: Cæcilius rejoicing that he had believed, Octavius that he had succeeded, and I that the one had believed and the other had won.