A Plea for the Christians 1

Your empire, greatest of sovereigns, has different peoples using different customs and laws, and none of them is prevented by law or fear of punishment from cherishing their ancestral ways, even if they are ridiculous. The man of Troy calls Hector a god and worships Helen, taking her to be Adrasteia; the Lacedaemonian reveres Agamemnon as Zeus, and Phylonoe the daughter of Tyndareus; the man of Tenedos reveres Tennes; the Athenian sacrifices to Erechtheus as Poseidon; and the Athenians perform rites and mysteries for Agraulus and Pandrosus, who were thought guilty of impiety for opening the chest. In a word, among the nations and peoples, people offer whatever sacrifices and hold whatever mysteries they wish. The Egyptians even hold cats, crocodiles, snakes, asps, and dogs to be gods. And to all these both you and the laws give leave, since you consider it impious and unholy to believe in no god at all, but necessary for each to worship as gods whomever he wishes, so that through fear of the divine people may keep from wrongdoing. But why is it that with you (and do not be misled, as the many are, by hearsay) a name is hated? Names do not deserve hatred; it is wrongdoing that deserves penalty and punishment. That is why, admiring your gentleness and mildness and your peaceable and humane attitude toward all, individuals enjoy equal rights, cities share in equal honor according to their rank, and the whole world enjoys deep peace through your wisdom. But we who are called Christians: you have not taken thought for us too, but allow us, who do no wrong and, as the argument will show, are of all people the most piously and justly disposed toward God and toward your rule, to be harassed, plundered, and persecuted, the multitude making war on us for our name alone. So we have ventured to set out our case before you (you will learn from our argument that we suffer without trial and contrary to all law and reason), and we beg you to give some thought to us as well, so that we may at last cease to be slaughtered by informers. For the damage our persecutors do us is not to our property, nor is the disgrace to our civic standing, nor the harm to any other of the lesser things. These we despise, even if the many think them important, since we have learned not only not to strike back at one who strikes us, nor to go to law with those who plunder and rob us, but to those who slap us on the face to turn the other side of the head to be struck too, and to those who take our tunic to give our cloak as well. But when we have given up our property, they plot against our bodies and souls, pouring out a flood of accusations that do not touch us even in suspicion, but belong to the gossips themselves and to people like them.