A Plea for the Christians

Contents

1. 0The address: the plea is presented to the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus.
2. 1Every people may worship as it likes under the emperors' tolerant rule, yet Christians alone are persecuted for their name; they do not resist, but ask for a hearing.
3. 2Christians ask not to be punished for their name but to be tried on real charges, as philosophers are.
4. 3The three charges against Christians are atheism, cannibalism, and incest; if true, destroy us; if false, examine our lives and treat us as others are treated.
5. 4Christians are not atheists: unlike Diagoras, they believe in one God, uncreated and distinct from matter, who made all things through his Word.
6. 5The poets Euripides and Sophocles saw that the gods of popular belief are mere names, and pointed to one God known through his works.
7. 6Pythagoreans, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics all in effect teach one God; the Christian God is the one who made all things by his Word and holds them together by his Spirit.
8. 7The philosophers reached toward the one God by guesswork; Christians rely on the prophets, who spoke by the Spirit of God.
9. 8A philosophical proof that there can be only one uncreated God: a second god would have no place to be and nothing to do.
10. 9The prophets, speaking by the Spirit like a flute played by a musician, confirm that God is one.
11. 10Christians worship one God, together with his Son, the eternal Word, and the Holy Spirit, distinct in order yet one in power; there are also angels who serve God.
12. 11Christian teaching is shown by its fruit: even uneducated Christians love their enemies, do not retaliate, and love their neighbors, as the philosophers do not.
13. 12Christians live pure lives because they expect God's judgment and know the Father, Son, and Spirit; those who deny judgment are called pious, but Christians are not.
14. 13Christians do not offer animal sacrifices because God, the Creator, needs nothing; the sacrifice he wants is knowledge of him, prayer, and a bloodless, reasonable worship.
15. 14The cities themselves worship different gods, many of them deified men; if disagreeing with them is impiety, every nation is impious.
16. 15God is to matter as a potter is to clay; honoring statues made of matter would put the perishable on a level with the eternal God.
17. 16The beautiful world is an instrument, not the musician: Christians worship its Maker, not the world or the elements.
18. 17The names of the gods come from the poets, and their images from recent sculptors whose names are known; such gods are younger than their makers.
19. 18As the two emperors, father and son, rule all things, so God rules all through his Son, the Word; the pagan gods, by their own poets' account, were born, like human beings.
20. 19Gods that came into being must perish; neither water nor matter can be the origin of all things, for the Maker must precede what is made.
21. 20The poets' gods have monstrous bodies and commit parricide, incest, and rape; such beings are no better than beasts and cannot be gods.
22. 21The gods of Homer rage, grieve, are wounded, commit adultery, and serve men for hire; beings with such passions are not gods.
23. 22Allegorical explanations of the gods as elements or seasons fail: elements and seasons change, while God is unchangeable; the elements need their Maker as a ship needs its pilot.
24. 23The effects produced through idols are real but come from demons, not gods; Plato himself distinguished the uncreated God from the created gods of myth.
25. 24As there are Father, Son, and Spirit, so there are angels; some angels fell, among them the ruler of matter and those who lusted after women and fathered the giants.
26. 25The fallen angels and the souls of the giants are the demons; the injustice in human affairs comes from the ruler of matter and the demons, not from a lack of providence.
27. 26The demons, greedy for sacrificial blood, work through the statues of dead men such as Neryllinus and Proteus; the bronze itself and the men portrayed have no such power.
28. 27Idolatry begins in the soul's irrational fancies; the demons exploit these and take the credit for what the soul itself does.
29. 28Herodotus and the Egyptian priests show that the Egyptian gods, from whom the Greeks took the names of theirs, were ancient kings whose tombs and sufferings are still shown.
30. 29The poets themselves show that Heracles, Asclepius, and other deified heroes were mortals with human vices who died.
31. 30Rulers, heroes, and even the emperor Hadrian's favorite Antinous were deified by their subjects; if the poets' stories of the gods are true, the gods were mortal. So ends the answer to the charge of atheism.
32. 31Answering the charges of cannibalism and incest: virtue has always been slandered; Christians, who expect God's judgment and eternal life, would not even think of such sins.
33. 32Christians are forbidden even lustful looks and keep their “brothers and sisters” chaste, even in the kiss of greeting.
34. 33Christians marry only for children, many remain celibate, and marriage is for life: divorce and remarriage, and even remarriage after a spouse's death, are condemned as adultery.
35. 34Those who accuse Christians of vice practice prostitution and pederasty themselves; the real cannibalism is their violence against defenseless Christians.
36. 35Christians cannot be murderers: they will not even watch gladiatorial shows, and they condemn abortion and the exposure of infants as murder.
37. 36Belief in the resurrection of the body and in judgment makes cannibalism unthinkable for Christians; the full argument on the resurrection is postponed.
38. 37Athenagoras asks the emperors for their favor: Christians pray for them and their succession, so that they may live quiet and peaceful lives.