Orations (other than the Theological Orations) 4.60

[60] But for Christians it is sweeter to suffer for piety, even if they escape everyone’s notice, than for others to win good repute along with impiety; for pleasing men is of small account with us, and our whole longing is for honour from God; or rather, for those who truly love wisdom and love God, it goes beyond even this: they love their kinship with the good for the sake of the good itself, not for the honours laid up as its reward. For this is the second rank of the praiseworthy, to do something for wages and for a return, as the third is to flee wickedness for fear of punishment. Such, then, is our case, and so it stands; and this is easily shown from many things. [61] But he, as though he were going to deprive Christians of a great honour (for most people judge the affairs of others by their own passions), pursues this before all else: to rob us of good repute. And he does not, with greatness of soul like the other persecutors, openly register his impiety; nor does he think about us, if not royally, at least altogether tyrannically, so that his impious deed might at least have some magnificence: to force the people of the whole world and tyrannize over a doctrine that stands above all doctrines; but very slavishly and ignobly he does evil to piety, and he brought into the persecution against us the twists and duplicities of his reasonings. Since, then, ruling is divided into these two, persuading and forcing, the more inhuman part, that of tyranny, he left to the peoples and cities, whose folly is the harder to restrain because of its unreason and its unconsidered rush at everything; and this not by public decree, but by an unwritten law of not checking their impulses. [62] The milder and more royal part, that of persuasion, he took upon himself, if you please; yet he did not keep even this entirely; for it was not possible by nature for the leopard to put off its spots, or the Ethiopian his blackness, or fire its burning, or the evil one his hatred of man, since he is a murderer from the beginning, or that man the wickedness with which he set out against us. But as they say that the chameleon easily becomes anything and takes on every colour except white (I pass over the Proteus of the myth, the Egyptian sophist), so he too was and became everything to Christians except gentle; and his kindness was most inhuman, his persuasion violent, and his mildness an excuse for his savagery, so that he might seem to use force with reason when he failed to persuade. [63] And this is clear from the fact that with him persuasion was brief, and force, which was greater, followed at once; so that, as in hunting, we might be caught either in the snares or by the chase, and one way or another he might master us. Having thus thought and decided, he next adopts this strategy, the only safe one, though very impious: he begins his wickedness, as all persecutors usually do, with those nearest him and his own guard; for it is not possible to attack those outside unless these have been won over, just as one cannot lead an army against the enemy when it is in revolt against its general. … by looking at the serpent that was hung up and destroyed by the sufferings of Christ: many of those in power and high places, who were more likely to be overcome, both through fear and through hopes; and many of the lowly, known only by their number, against whom he made his assault and was repulsed, like some ineffective engine by a noble wall. But what escaped him did not grieve him as much as what was captured encouraged him in his frenzy; and his desire presented what he hoped for as already won. [66] Now he dares to act even against the great standard that processes with the cross and leads the army, lifted on high, a release from toils, named, and as one might say reigning over the other standards, among the Romans: both those that glory in the faces of emperors and in hangings spread out in various dyes and letters, and those that, breathing into the fearful jaws of dragons hung on the tops of spears, and fanned through their coils of woven, many-coloured scales, present to the eyes a sight at once most pleasant and fearful. And when things near at hand went as he intended, and he had got the better of the danger in hand, as he thought, so now he tries what comes next. [67] Most foolish, most impious, most uninstructed in great things! You, against so great an inheritance, against the fruit-bearing of the whole world that has embraced all the ends of the earth through the plainness of the word and the folly, as you would call it, of the preaching, which conquered the wise, stopped the demons, and outran time, being at once old and new (as you tell marvels about one of your gods): old to the few and new to the many, old in the outline and new in the completion of the mystery, stored up for its own times? You, against the great inheritance of Christ? (You, who, and how great, and from where?) The great inheritance that will not cease, not even if some rage more than you, but will always go forward and be exalted further (for I believe the prophecies and what is seen); which he made as God and inherited as man; which the law sketched, grace fulfilled, and Christ renewed; which prophets fastened together, apostles bound together, and evangelists completed? [68] You, against the sacrifice of Christ with your pollutions? You, against the blood that cleansed the world with your bloods? You, war against peace? You, a hand against the hand that was nailed for you and because of you? You, your tasting against the gall? A trophy against the cross? Overthrow against death? Insurrection against the resurrection? Against the Martyr, not even martyrs? After Herod a persecutor, after Judas a traitor (except that you did not show repentance by a noose, as he did), a Christ-killer after Pilate, and a God-hater after the Jews? [69] Did you not respect the victims slain for Christ, nor fear the great contestants, that John, Peter, Paul, James, Stephen, Luke, Andrew, Thecla, and those who after them and before them faced danger for the truth, who readily contended against fire and sword and beasts and tyrants, and against evils present and threatened, as though in other people’s bodies, or bodiless? For what? So as not to betray piety even by a word. Theirs are the great honours and festivals; by them demons are driven out and diseases healed; theirs are the appearances, and theirs the predictions; whose bodies alone, when touched or honoured, are as powerful as their holy souls; whose very drops of blood and small tokens of their suffering do as much as their bodies. [70] These you do not revere but dishonour, you who admire the pyre of Heracles, which came from misfortune and from wrongs concerning women; and the butchery of Pelops, hospitable, or rather god-loving, from which the Pelopids are famous for their shoulder and the ivory; and the castrations of the Phrygians, charmed by the flute and outraged after the flute; and the tortures in the rites of Mithras and the mystic burnings, which are just; and the slaughter of strangers among the Taurians; and the sacrifice of the royal maiden at Troy; and the blood of Menoeceus for Thebes, and later that of the daughters of Scedasus at Leuctra; you who praise the Spartan youths flayed with whips and the blood on the altar that delights a pure and virgin goddess; who extol the hemlock of Socrates, the leg of Epictetus, and the bag of Anaxarchus, whose philosophy was compulsory rather than voluntary; and the death of Cleombrotus of Ambracia, philosophized from the dialogue On the Soul; and the Pythagorean resistance over beans, and the contempt of death of Theano, or of I know not which of those initiated into his doctrines or philosophizing them. [71] But you, if not those, at least admire the present ones, O most philosophical and most noble, you who look to those Epaminondases and Scipios for endurance, who march with the army, take improvised food, and praise generalship that does its own work. It is the mark of a noble and philosophic soul not to dishonour the virtue even of enemies, and to rate the nobility of foes above the vice and softness of one’s closest friends. Do you see these men without livelihood or hearth, almost without flesh and blood, and drawing near to God by this; with unwashed feet and sleeping on the ground, as your Homer says, so as to honour one of the demons by the fiction; below, and above things below; among men, and above the human; bound, and free; constrained, and unconstrained; who have nothing in the world, and all that is above the world; whose life is double, the one disdained, the other pursued; immortal through mortification, joined to God through their dissolution; without desire, and yet with the divine and passionless love; whose is the source of light, and whose already its radiances; whose are the angelic psalmodies, the all-night standing, and the departure of the mind to God, snatched away beforehand; whose is the purification, and whose the being purified, knowing no measure of ascent and deification; whose are the rocks, and whose the heavens; whose is being cast down, and whose the thrones; whose is nakedness, and whose the garment of incorruption; whose is the desert, and whose the festival there; whose is tyranny over pleasures, and whose the enjoyment that cannot be undone or told; whose tear is a flood upon sin, a purification of the world; whose stretching out of hands quenches flame, lulls beasts, blunts swords, turns back battle lines, and will muzzle your impiety too, be sure of it, even if you are lifted up for a little while and play the drama of impiety with your demons? … which Croesus refuted with his Lydian gold; and of the love of beauty of Socrates (I am ashamed to call it pederasty, even if it is dignified with fine ideas); and of the Sicilian gluttony of Plato, for which he was even sold, and not ransomed by any of his disciples, nor by any Greek at all; and of the fish-eating of Xenocrates; and of the chatter of Diogenes, who lived in the jar, by which he set strangers above the tyrants of tragedy and cheap loaves above sesame cakes; and of the philosophy of Epicurus, which defines no good above pleasure. Great to you is Crates; and indeed it is philosophical to let one’s property be given over to pasture for sheep, and like our own philosophers; but he parades his freedom by proclamation, like one who loves not so much wisdom as glory. Great is he who, when his ship was storm-tossed and everything was thrown overboard, gave thanks to fortune for reducing him to his cloak. Great is Antisthenes, because, when his face was battered by some insolent and bold fellow, he merely wrote the striker’s name on his forehead, as craftsmen do on a statue, perhaps to accuse him the more hotly. You praise one of those not long before us, because he stood all day praying to the sun (perhaps watching it as it sank lower, so as to finish his prayer by ending with its setting); and the standing at Potidaea in the winter season, all night long, labouring at contemplation, so as not even to feel the cold because of his ecstasy; or Homer’s love of learning about the Arcadian riddle, and Aristotle’s philosophy and watching over the changes of the Euripus, by which they died; and the well of Cleanthes, and the strap of Anaxagoras, and the gloom of Heraclitus. [72] How many are these, and how long ago? But do you not admire the thousands and tens of thousands among us, who philosophize these things and things still more wonderful throughout their whole life and, so to speak, throughout the whole world, men and women alike, vying in courage and here alone forgetting their nature, where one must be made God’s own through purity and endurance? Not only the low-born and those used to toil from their poverty at the start, but also those once very lofty and brilliant in wealth, family, and power, who make hardship something new for the imitation of Christ; with whom, even if there is no eloquence (because they do not place piety in words, and think the fruit of the wisdom of the mouth small, as one of your poets also thought), there is more reasonableness, and education in deeds. [74] And yet, overlooking all these things, and looking to this one thing only, how he might gratify the demons who had often brought him down as he deserved, before settling any other public matter he rushes upon the Christians. Two things were his concern: the Galileans, as he insultingly called them, and the Persians, who were holding out mightily in the war; but ours was so much the greater and more eagerly pursued that the Persian matter was thought by him nonsense and child’s play. And this he did not reveal, yet did not hide; but so great was the excess of his madness that he never stopped confessing it always and to everyone. And not even this did the most intelligent of all men and the best protector of the commonwealth see: that in the former persecutions little was confounded and disturbed, since our doctrine had not yet reached many, but the truth still stood among a few and needed to shine forth; whereas now, when the saving word had been poured out and had come to prevail especially among us, to try to change and disturb Christian affairs was nothing else than to shake the Roman empire and endanger the whole commonwealth, and to suffer at our own hands what not even our enemies would pray for worse against us; and to overthrow this new and wonderful philosophy and kingship, by which we are happy and have returned to that golden age and polity, free from strife and war. [75] Or would a tolerably managed public post, relief of taxes, selection of officials, punishment of thefts, and the other things that belong to temporary and momentary happiness and show, have brought great benefit to the commonwealth, so that our ears had to be filled with their praises; while peoples and cities in faction, families torn apart, households divided, and marriages split, all of which were likely to follow that evil, and indeed followed it in full measure, were the things best suited to his good repute and to the safety of the commonwealth? Yet who is so inclined to impiety, or so far outside common reasoning, as to agree to this? For just as in bodies, when one or two members are weak, the rest bear up without difficulty, and the good of health is preserved in the greater part, by which perhaps those members too may return to a better state; but when the greater part is in revolt and in bitter condition, there is no way for the whole not to be ill, and such a state is already a clear danger: so also among subjects, the sicknesses of individuals tend to be hidden by the commonwealth, which is in better health, but when the greater number are unsound, the whole is in danger. This, it seems to me, anyone else would have seen, even of those who hate us most, at the present time and with so great a growth of the Christians; but his wickedness darkened his reasonings, and for this reason he weaves his persecution out of small and great things alike. [76] That was very boyish and frivolous, unworthy not only of an emperor but of anyone even moderately steady of mind: that, thinking our disposition would follow a change of name, or that he would at least shame us as though we were charged with something most shameful, he at once made an innovation in our name, calling us Galileans instead of Christians and legislating that we be so called; showing by his act that the name of Christ is the greatest for glory and the most precious, since he planned to deprive us of it; or else he feared the power of the name, as the demons do, and for this reason passed over to another name, one neither customary nor familiar. [77] But we will not change their names for them; for there is nothing we could change them into more ridiculous than their phalli and ithyphalli, their Black-bottoms and No-bottoms, and the goat-foot, and the august Pan, the one god sprung from all the suitors, who took his name from the outrage, as was fitting. For among them either one, and the strongest, must outrage many, or one, and the most shameful, must come from many. We will not begrudge them either the things or the names; let them enjoy their own simplicity and pride themselves on what is most shameful; and if they wish, we will leave them the Ox-feaster too, and the Three-nights’ one, to gratify them the more: who was both begotten in that way and begot magnificently, and made the fifty daughters of Thestius his thirteenth labour in one night, so as to be named a god from these. For if one wished to make such innovations, there are many names for him from his own deeds, at once more shameful and more fitting for Christians to use. What would prevent us too, playing back on equal terms at the emperor (of the Romans and of the world, as he thought, deceived by the demons), from calling him Idolian, and Pisaean, and Adonaean, and Bull-burner (as some of our wits have already named him, since the thing is very easy), and whatever else history gives us to make up, or to make from the truth? [78] But most absurd of all: the Saviour and Master of all, the maker and governor of this universe, the Son and Word of the great Father, the mediator and high priest and sharer of his throne, who for us, who had dishonoured his image and been carried down to the dust and did not know the great mystery of the union, not only came down to the form of a servant but also went up on the cross and gathered up my sin to put it to death; he, when he was called a Samaritan and, what is much worse, accused of having a demon, was neither ashamed nor brought a charge against those who insulted him, though it was easy for him to repel the wicked with angelic armies or by a word alone; but he very gently and meekly sent away those who insulted him and shed tears for those who crucified him: and we are supposed to be pained at being so called, or ashamed, or to give up our ambition for the good on that account, and to make more of these insults than of our souls and bodies, which we know how to despise for the truth! But this, as I said, is ridiculous rather than painful, and we send it off to the stage; we would never outdo those who there easily make such jokes at the expense of the Maiden and are made the jest. [79] But this was very wicked and malicious: that, unable to persuade openly, and ashamed to use force tyrannically, hiding the fox in the lion’s skin, or, if you like, the most unjust of men (how shall I say it properly?) under the mask of Minos, he used force with a show of gentleness. The rest I will leave to those who wish to record and write history, since my discourse is hastening on; and I think many will be eager to write the tragedy (or should one call it a comedy?) of that time, who will think it a part of piety to pelt the wretch with words, so that so great a matter, least worthy of being forgotten, may be handed down to those who come after; but I myself will tell one or two things instead of all, as a sample, for those who greatly admire his doings, so that they may know that they think fit to praise one whom it is not possible to find worthy even of blame. … thrown out or killed … for they love not only the truths of the things they pride themselves on, but also … [81] And he, what does he contrive, and what snare does he set for the firmer among the Christians? Like those who mix poisons with food, he contrives to mix impiety with the customary honours paid to the emperors, and to rank the laws of the Romans and the worship of idols together; and for this reason he had the demons painted alongside his portraits, as though they were some of the customary depictions, and set out the images to peoples and cities, and especially to the governors of the provinces, so that it would be impossible for some evil not to be incurred: either the honour of the idols would be carried along with the honour of the emperors, or by refusing the idols the emperors would be insulted, since the worship was mixed. This trick, this snare of impiety sophistically devised, a few of the more pious and intelligent escaped, and they even paid the penalty for their intelligence: the pretext was that they had broken the law against the emperor’s honour, but in truth they faced danger for the true King and for piety. But many of the simpler and more guileless were caught, for whom perhaps there is pardon for their ignorance, since they were carried off by craft into impiety. Such, then, was this, which alone would suffice to expose the emperor’s intention; for we do not suppose that the same things befit emperors and private persons, since the two are not of the same dignity. To a private person we might grant that he act by craft (for since open force is not possible for him, his contrivance is pardonable); but for an emperor, since it is very shameful to be overcome by force, it is more shameful, I think, and more unbecoming, to steal by craft. [82] Another thing, which comes from the same mind and intention but is much worse in its extent and more impious, since the evil reached more people, I will add to what has been said. It was the day of the imperial bounty, whether an annual one or one devised by the emperor for his mischief, and the soldiers had to be present to be honoured, each according to his rank or station. Again the stage of meanness, again the drama of impiety: inhumanity was drugged with a show of kindness, and the unreason of soldiers, together with the greed with which they mostly live, was enticed with money. He then sat in state, celebrating splendidly against piety and priding himself on his tricks, a Melampus, I think, or a Proteus, being and becoming everything and easily changing his shapes; and what was around him, and how worthy of lamentation for those of right mind, not only for those then present but also for those who now receive that spectacle by hearing! [83] Gold lay before them, incense lay before them, the fire was near, the officers close at hand; and the arrangement was plausible: this seemed to be the custom of the imperial bounty, an old and honoured one. Then what? One had to burn incense upon the fire and receive from the emperor the wages of destruction, so small a price for so great a thing: whole souls, and impiety toward God. Alas for the transaction! Alas for the exchange! A whole army bought by a single trick; those who had subdued the world fell before a little fire and gold and smoke, most of them not even knowing their own slaughter: this was the most grievous thing. One came forward as though to make a profit, and lost himself along with the gain; he kissed the emperor’s right hand, and did not know that he was kissing his murderer. For those who did know there was nothing more to be done, once they had been seized by the evil, and considered their first folly an unbreakable law. What myriads of Persians achieved this, what archers, what slingers, what soldier clad in iron and invulnerable everywhere, what engines against the walls? … one hand, one moment, and one foul counsel accomplished … over the cold drink, looking upward with the seal. When one of their fellow diners marvelled and said, “What is this? Do you call on Christ after the denial?” “How have we denied him?” said the half-dead men, “and what is this new thing?” And when he said, “Because you burned incense upon the fire,” and explained that this was the denial, at once they leapt up from the banquet like madmen and frenzied, boiling with zeal and anger, and ran through the market place, shouting and saying: “Christians, we are Christians in our souls! Let every man hear, and before all God, for whom we live and for whom we shall die. We have not lied to you, Saviour Christ; we have not denied the blessed confession. If our hand stumbled, our mind did not follow. We were tricked by the emperor; we were not wounded by the gold. We strip off the impiety; we are cleansed with blood.” Then, running to the emperor and throwing the gold down before him very boldly, they cried: “We have not received gifts, O emperor, but we have been condemned to death; we were not called to honour, but sentenced to dishonour. Grant your soldiers a favour: slaughter us for Christ, by whom alone we are ruled; give fire in return for that fire; make ashes in place of those ashes. Cut off the hands that we wickedly stretched out, the feet with which we wickedly ran. Honour others with the gold, who will not repent of taking it; for us Christ suffices, whom we hold in place of all things.” At the same time as they said this they urged the others to recognize the deception, to sober up from the drunkenness, and to make their defence to Christ with blood. At this the emperor, angered, avoided killing them openly, so as not to make martyrs of those who, as far as it lay with them, were martyrs; but he handed them over to exile, and so took his vengeance, and conferred on them the greatest benefit: to stand far away from his pollutions and his tricks. [85] Although he had such an impulse, and used his malice for many things, yet (for the man’s mind had no firmness, nor did it belong more to his own reasonings than to the rush of the demon) he did not keep his resolve to the end, nor preserve the secret of his wickedness. But as they say that the fire of Etna is hidden in the depths of Etna, welling up from below and held down by force (whether it is something else, or the gasping of a giant being punished), and for a time it rumbles fearfully and belches smoke from the summit as a sign of the evil, but if ever it grows too much and becomes hard to restrain, it is thrown up from its own bosom, rises, and pours over the craters, and sometimes destroys part of the land below with an incredible and fearful stream: so one can find him too, for a while mastering himself and his sophistic doctrine, and harming our affairs by deceit; but if ever his uncontrolled anger boiled over, he could not hide his malice, but used open persecution against our divine and pious community. [86] … and these things were done with one of the imperial philosophers as general, who was named from these deeds alone? Who does not know the riot of the people of Heliopolis? Who does not know the madness of the people of Gaza, who were admired and honoured by him because they rightly perceived his magnificence? Who does not know the frenzy of the Arethusians, until then unknown, but from that time very well known? For not only a right deed makes people famous, but also vice, when it outdoes the renown of the wicked. [87] For some are said (I must mention one thing out of many, worthy of a shudder even from the godless) to have brought pure virgins, above the world and almost untouched even by the eyes of men, out into public, and to have stripped them of their clothing, so as first to outrage them by the sight; and then, having cut them open and divided them (O Christ, how shall I bear your long-suffering at that time?), some of them feasted wickedly with their own teeth, worthily of their own misery, gorging themselves on the raw livers, and after that food took another, the common and customary one; while others, scattering pigs’ food over the still-quivering entrails and letting loose the fiercer of the pigs, made that theatre see flesh devoured and torn together with barley, a mixed food, then first seen and heard of, with which only the author of these things deserved to feed his demons; as indeed he fed them well from that blood and from the wound that he received in his own entrails, even if the wretches are insensible to such things and, because of their impiety, have not even understanding. [88] As for the affair of the admirable Mark and the Arethusians, who is so far outside our world as not to know it, and not to anticipate in the telling the one who mentions it? Under Constantius the great, by the licence then given to Christians, he had pulled down a dwelling of demons, and had brought many over from the Greek error to salvation, not less by the brightness of his life than by the power of his word; and for a long time he had been an object of anger to the Arethusians, or rather to the demon-loving among the Arethusians. When affairs turned against the Christians and those of the Greeks began to flare up, he did not escape the power of the time. For peoples tend, even if for the present they restrain their anger, like fire smouldering in timber or a stream held back by force, to be kindled and to break out if they get an opportunity. Seeing, then, the movement of the people against him, since they thought and threatened nothing moderate, at first he planned flight, not from cowardice so much as because of the commandment that bids us flee from city to city and give way to persecutors; for Christians must not consider only their own interests, even if they are very brave and enduring, but must also spare the persecutors, so as, so far as it lies with them, to contribute nothing to their enemies’ danger. But when he perceived that many were being dragged and led off because of him, and many were running for their lives because of the cruelty of the persecutors, he could not bear to overlook others in danger for the sake of his own safety; and for this reason he took a most excellent and philosophical counsel: he returns from his flight, gives himself up to the people to do with him whatever they wished, and sets himself against the hardship of the times. Then what dreadful thing was absent? What heavier thing was not devised? Each contributed something to the harmony of a single evil; those who pressed upon him did not respect even the man’s philosophy, if nothing else, but were rather the more angry on this account, because they thought the man’s presence a contempt of them rather than courage in the face of dangers. [89] An old priest was led, a voluntary athlete, through the middle of the city, venerable in age, more venerable in his way of life, to all except the persecutors and tyrants; and he was led by every age and condition, not by some and not by others, but by all alike, men, women, young, old, those who administered the city and those in office. There was a contest among all to outdo one another in insolence toward the old man; and it was thought by all a part of piety to do him as much evil as possible and to conquer an old athlete contending against the whole city. He was dragged through the streets, thrust into sewers, pulled by the hair and by every part of the body there is, with insult mixed with torture, at the hands of those who deserve to be punished thus in the rites of Mithras; he was tossed in the air from boys to boys, who caught the noble body on their styluses and made the tragedy a game; his legs were crushed in presses down to the very bones; his ears were cut through with threads, the strongest and thinnest; raised aloft in a basket, smeared with honey and fish sauce, he was stung by wasps and bees at midday, while the sun blazed fiercely, melting his flesh and making the more eager for those creatures the eating of that blessed flesh (for I would not call it wretched). Then it is said (let this too be thought worthy of writing) that the old man, young for the contests (for he did not lose his cheerfulness even in terrible things, but even revelled in the tortures), uttered that saying which is remembered and celebrated: that he welcomed the omen, seeing himself on high and them low and lying beneath; so far did he rise above those who held power, and so far was he from the pains, as if he were present at another man’s danger, and making the thing a procession rather than a calamity. [90] Yet who of those even moderately decent and humane would not have respected these things? But the time did not allow them, nor did the emperor’s impulse, which demanded inhumanity from peoples and cities and officials, even if it did not seem so to the many who did not know the depth of his malice. Such were the doings of the steadfast old man. And for what? That he might not give a single gold coin to the torturers; by which it was clear that he endured for piety. For as long as, having assessed the temple at a very heavy price, they demanded the whole sum in gold, or ordered him to rebuild the temple himself, it seemed that the impossibility of the order, rather than the piety of his soul, caused his resistance; but when, conquering them little by little by his endurance and always reducing something of the assessment, he finally brought it to this, that what was asked was quite small and very easy to pay, and the contest was equal, for them to win by taking anything at all, for him not to be overcome by paying nothing at all (though many were eager to contribute even more, not only for piety’s sake but also because of the man’s being uncapturable and unconquered), then it was clearly shown that he made the contest not about money but about piety. [91] Are these, then, marks of decency and gentleness, or, on the contrary, of rashness and inhumanity? Let those who admire the philosopher-emperor tell us. I think no one at all is at a loss for the just and true answer. And I add that of those who saved the accursed man, when his whole family was in danger, and smuggled him away by stealth, this man was one; for which alone, perhaps, he justly suffered these things, and deserved to suffer still more, because without knowing it he saved so great an evil for the whole world. They say, indeed, that for this reason the prefect of that time too (a man Greek in religion but above a Greek in character, like the best of those praised of old and now), unable to bear the varied tortures and the endurance of the man, said this to the emperor with frankness: “Are we not ashamed, O emperor, to be so far defeated by all the Christians that we cannot master even one old man who has gone through every torture? And to master him is no great thing; but how is it not the last misfortune to come away defeated?” And so, it seems, prefects were ashamed of the very things in which emperors prided themselves. What could be more wretched for the doers than these things, or for the sufferers? Such, then, were the affairs of the Arethusians, so that the inhumanity of Echetus and Phalaris is small compared with their cruelty, or rather with the cruelty of the one who persuaded and arranged these things; if indeed the shoots belong to the seed, and the shipwrecks to the wind. [92] And the rest, of what kind and how many? Who would give me the leisure and tongue of Herodotus and Thucydides, so that I might hand down the man’s wickedness to future time also, and the narratives of that time might be inscribed for those who come after? I will pass over the Orontes and the corpses by night which this river hid for the emperor, “crowded with corpses” and killing secretly (for here it is more fitting to quote the epic). I will pass over too the innermost and most remote parts of the palace, and all that was in pits and wells and ditches, full of evil treasures and mysteries: not only of boys and virgins cut open for necromancy and divination and unlawful sacrifices, but also of those who faced danger for piety. Let us concede these things, if you like, since he too was ashamed of them, doing at least this much with moderation; for it is clear from his attempt to hide them that the pollution was not seemly to be made public. As for the affairs of our Caesareans, those great-natured men, hot in piety, who were so harried and insulted by him, perhaps they are not worth reproaching him for; for he seemed, being justly angry on behalf of Fortune, whose temple met misfortune in the time of good fortune, to have proceeded to this retaliation; since one must make some concession even to injustice in power. [93] But who does not know that, when a certain people raged against the Christians, committing much murder and threatening more, the governor of the province, who steered a middle course between the times and the laws (for he thought he must serve the one, and was moderately ashamed before the others), and for this reason arrested many Christians but rebuked a few of the Greeks, was then brought up to the emperor on an accusation, tried dishonoured and seized on these charges; and when he put forward the laws according to which he had been entrusted to judge, was almost led away to death, but at last, obtaining kindness, was condemned to exile? And how wonderful and kind the sentence! “For what great matter is it,” says the just judge, “even for one who does not persecute Christians, if one Greek hand has done away with ten Galileans?” Is this not open cruelty? Is this not a proclamation of persecution, and much more manifest and fearful than those set out publicly? For what difference is there between proclaiming danger to Christians and appearing pleased with the persecutors of Christians and making moderation a great crime? For the will of an emperor is an unwritten law, backed by power, and much stronger than written laws that are not supported by force. [94] “No,” say those who revere his doings and fashion a new god for us, the sweet and kind one, “he did not decree publicly: Let the Christians be persecuted and suffer everything the persecutors please”; and so they acquit him of the charge of persecuting. But no one ever called the hydra gentle because it put forth nine heads instead of one, if the myth is to be believed; nor the Chimaera of Patara, because it had three, and unlike, so as to be more fearful; nor Cerberus in Hades, because his were so many and alike; nor the sea monster Scylla, because hers were six around her and most to be fled; and yet, they say, her upper parts were kind and humane and not unpleasant to see, for she was a maiden with something akin to us, but the dog-shaped and bestial heads that grew from her were of no good, snatching whole fleets and no different in danger from Charybdis opposite. Or will you blame the arrows and stones of archers and slingers, and not the slingers and archers? Or the dogs of hunters, the poisons of poisoners, the horns and claws of beasts that gore and tear, while those who use them stand outside and share no blame for what they dare? These things are full of unreason and truly need a sophist, pleading for his own evils and covering up the truth by the power of speech. But there is no way he will hide himself, not even if he twists much and becomes all sorts in his devices, not even if, putting on the cap of Hades, as the saying is, or using the ring of Gyges and the turn of its bezel, he steals himself away. On the contrary, the more he tries to flee and escape, the more he is caught by the truth, which judges him, and by judges more intelligent than these men, as doing and daring things which he himself could not defend as justly done. So easy to catch is wickedness, ensnaring itself on every side. [95] And it was not that what he was already doing was such, and so far from imperial nobility and magnificence, while what he intended to do was milder and more royal. That would have been worth much, if it were not far more inhuman than what has been said. For just as with the scales of a dragon in motion, some are already bristling, others are beginning to bristle, others are about to, and others cannot fail to be moved, though for the moment they are at rest; or, if you like, as with a thunderbolt, some things are already seized and others are blackened beforehand, until it reaches them too, as the evil prevails: so with him, some things were already being done against the law, and others were sketched out in his hopes and his threats against us; and these so outlandish and so far from what was customary, that it belonged to his mind alone to plan them and to wish to bring them into action, though there had been many persecutors and enemies of Christians before him. For what neither Diocletian, the first to outrage the Christians, nor Maximian, who succeeded and surpassed him, ever thought of, nor Maximinus, the persecutor after them and beyond them (whose images, still set up in public, bear the marks of the blow that struck him for this, and pillory the outrage done to his body), these things he intended, as those who shared and witnessed his secrets say; but he was held back by the love of God for mankind and by the tears of Christians, which were shed in abundance and by many, since they had this as their only remedy against the persecutor. These were his plans: that Christians should be deprived of all freedom of speech, and shut out of all assemblies, markets, festivals, and the law courts themselves; for no one was to be allowed to use these who did not burn incense on the altars set before them, and so pay a great price for so great a thing. O laws and lawgivers and emperors, who, as the beauty of heaven, the light of the sun, and the outpouring of the air are set before all, a common and ungrudging kindness, so have set the sharing of the laws before all free men, equal and of equal honour! Of this he intended to deprive the Christians: so that it should not be lawful for them, when tyrannized, to obtain justice, nor when fined in money, nor when suffering any other forbidden thing, small or great, to be helped by the laws; but that they should be outlaws, and be killed, and be all but barred from the very air … which for the sufferers would have brought more honour and boldness toward God, but for the doers greater lawlessness and disgrace. [97] And how all-wise was the reasoning against our doctrine of the murderer and protector, the lawbreaker and lawgiver, or, to speak more properly, the enemy and avenger! For it is the law of our religion, he says, neither to retaliate, nor to go to law, nor to possess anything at all, nor to consider anything one’s own, but to live elsewhere and despise present things as though they did not exist; not to return evil for evil (it is not even allowed); nor, when struck on the cheek, to spare the other, but to offer it too to the one who strikes, and to strip off the tunic as well as the cloak. He will perhaps add that we must also pray for those who wrong us and wish the best for those who persecute us. And why should he not know these things accurately, he who was once a reader of the divine oracles, and was thought worthy of the honour of the great bema, and honoured the martyrs with shrines and sacred precincts? [98] At this I marvel first: how he studied these things accurately but did not read, or willingly passed over, this: that “the wicked shall perish wickedly,” everyone who has denied the divine, and, what is greater, who drives out those who abide in the confession and throws around them such evils as he himself deserved to fall into. If, then, as he lays down the law that we are such and must abide by our precepts, he can show that the worst has been enjoined on him too, or that this is honourable among his gods, and that, the habits being divided into these two, virtue, I mean, and vice, the better portion has been allotted to us and the worse thrown to them: let him say this, and so we shall win with our enemies and the persecutors of our cause as witnesses. But if they too lay claim to some nobility and gentleness, in word at least if not in deeds, and are not so shameless, however wicked they are and however much they delight in wicked gods, as to claim that vice belongs to them like some special inheritance, let them show how or where it is just that we should endure when we suffer, while they do not spare even those who spare them. For consider it this way: of the times when power has been ours, and when it has been yours, these going round and changing now one way and now another, what such thing ever happened to your people from Christians, as has often happened to Christians from you? Of what freedom of speech did we deprive you? Against whom did we stir up boiling crowds? Against whom governors who did more than they were ordered? On whom did we bring danger of life? Or rather, whom did we drive from offices and from the other honours that are owed to the best? And, to sum up, on whom did we bring any such thing as the many things that were dared or threatened by you? Not even you yourselves would say so, who charge us with gentleness and kindness. [99] Then how do you not reckon this, O wisest and most intelligent of all, you who would confine Christians to the summit of virtue: that of our legislation some things are binding on those to whom they are commanded, and there is danger for those who do not keep them; while others are not binding but a matter of choice, which bring honour and reward to those who keep them, but no danger at all to those who do not? For if it were possible for all to be most excellent and to reach the summit of virtue, that would be the best and most perfect thing; but since divine things are separate from human, and some have a share in every good thing, while for others it is much if they reach the middle, what do you mean by legislating for us things that are not for all, or that those who do not keep them are condemned? For just as whoever does not deserve punishment does not by that alone deserve public proclamation, so whoever does not deserve proclamation does not by that alone deserve punishment; but one must stay within the bounds of our philosophy and of human power, and so require what is to be achieved. … letters; for I cannot bear not to return to this often, and I must try to plead for them as far as I can. For though there are many terrible things for which that man deserves to be hated, there is nothing in which he appears to have acted more lawlessly than in this. And let everyone share my indignation who delights in letters and is devoted to this pursuit, as I myself will not deny that I am. For the other things I have left to those who want them, wealth, noble birth, fame, power, which belong to the round of things below and to dreamlike pleasure; but I cling to letters alone, and do not blame the toils by land and sea that procured them for me. May the power of letters be mine, and that of anyone who is my friend: letters, which I embraced and still embrace first after the first, I mean after divine things and the hopes beyond what is seen. So that if what is one’s own presses on everyone, as Pindar says, it is necessary for me to speak about these; and it is just, more than I know of in anything else, to repay letters with letters for the gift of letters. [101] Whence, then, did this occur to you, most frivolous and insatiable of all, to deprive Christians of letters? For this was not among his threats, but among the things already made law. Whence, and from what cause? What eloquent Hermes, as you would say, put this into your mind? What wicked Telchines and envious demons? If you like, we ourselves will give the cause of this too. You had to, attempting many lawless evils, be led at last into this, and plainly fall into your own trap, so that in the very thing in which you thought you most needed to be wise, you might unwittingly disgrace yourself most and be condemned for unreason. For answer: what does your decree mean? What is the reason for the innovation concerning letters? If you seem to say anything just, we shall be grieved, but we shall not blame you; for as we have learned to conquer with reason, so also to be conquered well. [102] “Ours,” he says, “are letters and Hellenizing, to which also belongs worshipping the gods; yours are unreason and boorishness, and your whole wisdom is nothing beyond: Believe!” Well, I think that those among you who philosophize in the doctrines of Pythagoras would not laugh at this, for whom “He himself said it” is the first and greatest of doctrines, and preferable to the Golden (or rather leaden) Verses. For after the first and much-celebrated philosophy of silence for those initiated into his doctrines, so that by keeping silent they might be trained in the measures of speech, it was lawful, he says, for those asked about any of the doctrines and then stating it, when a reason was demanded, to answer nothing else but that this had been the view of Pythagoras; and what had seemed right to him was the reason for the doctrine, unaccountable and unexamined; so that “He himself said it” comes to the same thing as our “Believe,” in other syllables and words, even if you do not stop mocking and disparaging it. For our doctrine means that it is not permitted to disbelieve what was spoken by God-inspired men, but that their trustworthiness is the proof of the doctrine, stronger than any power of argument and counter-argument. [103] But let this be one of our points that is easy to insult. How will you show that letters belong to you? And if they are yours, how do we have no share in them, according to your legislation and your unreason? For of what Hellenizing are letters, and in what sense is it said and understood? Let me distinguish for you the force of the name, since you are an expert in homonyms and their meanings, different things under one name, or the same things under different names, or different things under different names: you will say that it belongs either to the religion or, clearly, to the nation and to those who first invented the power of the language. If to the religion, show where and among which of the priests Hellenizing is prescribed, as sacrificing is for some, and to some of the demons; for neither are the same things for all, nor all things for one, nor in the same manner, as your hierophants and the experts in sacrifice think. Where, as among the Lindians, is it pious to curse the Ox-feaster, and are insults against him the god’s honour? Or, as among the Taurians, to slay strangers, or among the Spartans to be flayed at the altar, or among the Phrygians to be castrated while charmed by flutes and unmanned …, or for some to practise pederasty and for others fornication, or whatever else belongs to the other mysteries (not to name them one by one), and in this way is Hellenizing set apart for one of the gods or demons? And even if this were so, it is not yet clear that it is Greek, or that this common thing was assigned to one of your gods or demons, as it has been laid down that many other common things be offered in sacrifice. [104] But if you do not say this, but claim the language as yours, and for this reason put us far from it as from an ancestral inheritance in which we have no share, first I do not see what the reason is, or how you will attach this to the demons. For if it happens that the same people Hellenize in language and in religion, it does not follow that letters belong to the religion, and that we should for this reason reasonably be written out of them; this seems unsyllogistic even to your own logicians: for if two things concern the same subject, it does not follow that they are the same as each other; so, if we suppose the same man to be a goldsmith and a painter, goldsmithing will not turn into painting, nor painting into goldsmithing. Such things are full of nonsense. [105] Then I will ask you, you lover of the Greeks and of letters: will you bar us from all Hellenizing, including these middling and prosaic words and the usage of the many, or only from the elegant and surpassing kind, as belonging to none but those who excel in education? If from this, what is the principle of the allotment, that smerdaleon and konabizein and mōn and dēpouthen and hatta and amōsgepōs belong to the dialect alone, while the rest is thrown out into Cynosarges, like bastards of old? But if what is cheap and unadorned in speech belongs equally to Hellenizing, why do you not deprive us of this too, and simply of every Greek sound, whatever it is and however it happens to be? That would have been kinder of you, and more complete in your lack of culture. [106] For it is like this (to philosophize to you about these matters more loftily and more completely): whether there are divine voices, proceeding from vocal organs, poured through the air and flowing into ears, better and more significant than ours (for I laugh at your solemn Moly and Xanthus and Chalcis), or whether divine beings communicate with one another through naked thoughts and impressions, it is not for us to say; but our case is this. A language belongs not only to those who invented it but to all who share in it; and so does any art or pursuit you may wish to consider. As in an artful and musical harmony one sound belongs to one string, tightened or loosened, and another to another, but all belong to the one tuner and artist, and tend to one beauty of harmony; so in these things the artist and maker, the Word, set over one pursuit or art one inventor and over another another, but set all out in common for all who wish, binding our life together by fellowship and kindness and making it gentler. … Is Atticizing yours? And draughts, and counting, and reckoning on the fingers, measures and weights, and before these, tactics and warfare, whose are they? Are they not the Euboeans’, if indeed Palamedes was a Euboean, the inventor of many things, and for this reason envied, and indeed made to pay the penalty for his wisdom and condemned by those who campaigned against Ilium? What then? If Egyptians and Phoenicians and Hebrews, whom we make use of for our education, and those who hold the island of Euboea, were to claim these as belonging to them, on your premises, what shall we do? What plea shall we make against them, caught by our own laws? Must we be deprived of them all and suffer the jackdaw’s fate, stripped naked of our borrowed feathers? And whence do you have initiation, and being initiated, and religious worship? Is it not from the Thracians, as the very name may persuade you? And sacrificing, is it not from the Chaldaeans, or the Cypriots? Astronomy, is it not Babylonian? Geometry, not Egyptian? Magic, not Persian? Divination by dreams, whose do you hear it to be but the Telmessians’? Augury, whose but the Phrygians’, who first studied the flight and movements of birds? And, not to be long, whence did you get each of these? Was it not one from each people, all of which came together and formed one mystery of superstition? What then? Shall we accept that, when everything goes back to its first owners and inventors, we have nothing of our own except vice and this innovation concerning the divine? For you were the first of the Christians to devise an insurrection against the Master, as the slaves once did against the Scythians, as they say. It would indeed have been worth much if this wicked association had been dissolved for you, according to your rules and laws, so that we might be rid of troubles, and it might be possible to see the Roman empire again in its ancient happiness, rid of all civil strife, which is far more to be shunned and feared than war from outside, as much as consuming one’s own flesh is more to be shunned than consuming another’s. [107] But if these things seem to you to belong to a wickedness clothed in poison and far from imperial magnificence, come, I will set before you things still more to your advantage. For seeing that our doctrine is great in its teachings and in its testimonies from above, the same at once old and new, old in its prophecies and in the movements of the Godhead flashing through them, new in the final manifestation of God and in the wonders that came from it and around it, and still better known through the patterns of the church that have been handed down and kept until now, so that not even this might remain unspoiled, what does he contrive and do? He imitates Rabshakeh the Assyrian, who was general for the king of the Assyrians, Sennacherib. He, campaigning against Judaea and besieging Jerusalem with great force and power, and sitting down before the city, since he could neither take the city by force nor was anything inside betrayed to him by traitors, tried to win over the city by gentle words in its own tongue. Perceiving this, the besieged are said first to have refused it, bidding him speak to them in Syrian and not in Hebrew, lest they be stolen into slavery by the gentleness of the speech. [111] Having thought of this, he too was ready to establish schools in every city, with platforms and seats of honour and lower seats, and readings and expositions of Greek doctrines, both those that regulate character and those of the hidden kind; a form of prayers sung in turn, and a measure of rebuke for those who sin; something of preliminary rites and of initiation, and whatever else clearly belongs to our good order; and further to build lodgings and hostels, houses of chastity and houses for virgins and places of meditation, and to practise kindness to the needy, both in other ways and through letters of commendation, by which we send on the needy from nation to nation: the things of ours that he most admired. [112] These things the new dogmatist and sophist intended; but that the man’s undertaking was not accomplished nor came to action, I do not know whether it was a gain for us, who were the sooner rid of him and his schemes, or for him, who advanced no further than dreaming; for it would have been shown which are the movements of men and which the imitations of apes. For apes too are said to imitate some of the lures men set out with evil skill, and by these they are caught; for their imitation cannot reach as far as our wise man’s. For a Thessalian mare, a Spartan woman, and the men who drink of Arethusa (I mean the Sicilians, as the oracle about them says) do not have the choicest qualities of their kind more than such customs and laws are among the things most fitting for Christians, and such as would not be emulated by any of those who wish to follow us; since such things have prevailed not by human devices so much as by divine power and the firmness of time. … for it is not possible … wisely brought up; but for them, I do not know which will seem more ridiculous and weaker, since they do not have the strength of their system from divine inspiration, like roots that float on water and have no firm hold. And let us too cast into the theatre a few things from their own theology, and play along with them, as in many of the dramas; and to rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep, let there be added putting up with talking nonsense along with those who talk nonsense; poets too know of laughter in tears. [114] Let the theatre be well prepared, or whatever they will bid us call their building; let the heralds cry out; let the people assemble; let the front seats be held either by those eminent in grey hairs and age and in the choice of their way of life, or by those conspicuous in family and fame and in the wisdom woven here below, which has more of what is pleasant than of true piety; we shall leave this to them. What will … do? Let them themselves write down their own presidents. Purple will adorn them, and the fillet, and the flower and beauty of crowns; since I know that in many things they are eager for what is august and above the private person, as though what is common and plain had something despicable, while what is exaggerated and hard to reach had something credible. Or will they here too come down to our level, thinking that loftiness in character rather than in costume befits them, as we do? For to us what is visible and painted is of small account; our greater concern is with the inner man, and with drawing the spectator over to what is intelligible, and with this we rather educate the many. [115] So much for this; what next? You will furnish them, of course, with interpreters of God-inspired oracles, as you would say, and unroll books of theology and ethics. Which books, tell me, and whose? Is it fine to sing to them Hesiod’s Theogony and the wars and tumults there, the Titans, the Giants, with their fearful names and deeds: Cottus, Briareus, Gyges, Enceladus, your dragon-footed ones, the thunderbolt-bearing gods, the islands hurled at them, arrows and tombs at once for those they hit; their bitter offspring and productions, Hydras, Chimaeras, Cerberuses, Gorgons, an emulation of every evil? Let these be set before the ears from among the fine things of Hesiod. Let Orpheus come forward with his lyre and his song that draws all things after it, and let him thunder out over Zeus the great and extraordinary words and thoughts of theology: “Zeus most glorious, greatest of gods, wrapped in dung, the dung of sheep, of horses, and of mules,” so that from this, I suppose, the life-giving and life-bearing power of the god may be shown, for it could not be done otherwise; and let him not spare his other grand language either: “So speaking, the goddess drew up her two thighs,” so as to initiate her lovers, which she still does now in images. On top of all, Phanes and Ericapaeus, and the one who swallows all the other gods and then gives them up again, so as to become “father of men and gods.” Let these things be wheeled on for the wonderful hearers of theology, and then let allegories and marvels be devised for them; and let the discourse, falling out of its subject, go off into pits and precipices of a contemplation that has no firm footing. [116] And where will you put Homer, the great writer of comedy, or rather of tragedy, about your gods? For you will find both in his wonderful poems, some things worthy of calamity and others of laughter. And truly it takes no small thought to see how Oceanus is to be reconciled to Tethys through Hera adorned like a harlot, since there is danger for the universe while they remain chaste for some time; or how the dry nature and the wet must be reconciled, lest by the excess of the one the whole be confounded; or whatever else more absurd than this you can think up. And what is that wonderful union of the cloud-gatherer and the august Hera, when she persuades him to disgrace himself at midday, even if the poets flatter him with their metres, spreading dewy lotus beneath them and making crocus and hyacinth grow from the earth? Whence these things, and what is their meaning? And how is the same Hera, according to you, the sister and consort of great Zeus, now hung in the air and the clouds, weighed down with iron anvils, and honoured with golden fetters, the white-armed and rosy-fingered, so that even for the gods who wished to beg her off their kindness was not without danger; and now drawing the whole girdle of loves to herself by her adornments for Zeus, so that he confesses that all his loves for all others fell far short of this one? And what is the fear lest, when the gods are stirred up over the Laconian adulteress and heaven sounds the trumpet, the seat of earth be broken up, the sea be displaced, the realms of Hades be made public, and the things covered for a long time come into view? What is the nod of the dark brows and the stirring of the ambrosial locks that shake all Olympus? What is Ares, wounded, or shut up in a bronze jar; the clumsy lover of golden Aphrodite, an unwary adulterer, caught by the Lame God, gathering a theatre of the gods to watch his disgrace, and let off for a small sum? [117] All these things, and more than these, so wisely and variously put together and wholly outside what is customary: who among you is so lofty and great, and truly equal to Zeus in counsel, as to bring them into seemliness by discourses of a contemplation above the clouds and beyond our measures of comprehension? And yet, if these things are true, let them not be ashamed but be proud of them, or persuade us that they are not shameful; and why must they flee to myth as a cover for their shame? For myth is the refuge not of the confident but of those who retreat. But if they are false, first let them show us their theologians without a covering, so that our discourse may be with them; then let them say how it is not foolish to pride themselves, as on strong arguments, on things of which they are ashamed as mythical; and to publish to the eyes of all, in statues and figures, things that could have escaped the notice of the many (for education is not for all), and, most terrible of all, with what expense of money, in temples and altars, shrines and offerings and sacrifices costing many talents; and, when it was possible to be pious without loss, to choose to be impious with loss? [118] But if they say that these are the fictions and nonsense of poets, who use two things for the pleasure of poetry, metre and myth, and as it were sweeten the hearing with them, while the meaning stored up in them is for themselves more secret and deeper and passable only to a few of the wiser, consider how simply and justly I will discuss these things. First, how do they praise those who insult the gods they worship, and deem them worthy of almost godlike honours, men for whom it would have been gain enough not to pay the penalty for their impiety? For if for those who blasphemed one of their gods in private and slightly there was death or penalty from the laws, what should those have suffered who let loose their poetry against all together, publicly, and in the most shameful things, and handed down the comedy for so long a time? Then this too is worth reckoning: there are among us too some discourses in concealment, I will not deny it; but what is the manner of their double sense, and what its force? It is not that what is visible is unseemly, while what is hidden is wonderful and very brilliant to those led into the depth; but like a fair body that is not to be approached, it is veiled, and with no mean garment. For it is necessary, as it seems to me at least, that the indications and reflections of divine things should not be unseemly and unworthy of what they show, nor such that even men would be annoyed if they were said about them; but they must either have what is altogether most beautiful, or at least not what is most shameful, so that the one may gladden the wiser and the other may not harm the many. But their contemplative region is such, and so far from their subjects, that it would be easier to bring together things far apart than to combine and fit these together and say that they belong to the same man: the mythologies, I mean, and their aims. [120] And what would you say about their ethical part? Whence, and starting from what, and using what words, will they be able to mould their hearers to virtue and make them most worthy by their exhortations? Concord is best, and that cities and peoples and households and individuals should be of one mind with one another, following the law and order of nature, which divided and united all things and made this whole universe one world out of many. By what examples will they teach this? By telling of the wars of the gods, and their factions and insurrections, and the multitude of evils which they both suffer and inflict on one another, in private and in public, with which almost all prose and poetry is filled? They would sooner make warlike men out of peaceful and frantic men out of wise by such examples than, on the contrary, moderate and temperate men out of rash and uneducated. For if even without things drawing to the worse it is hard to change from vice and move from the worse portion to the better, who could persuade these men to be gentle and restrained when they use such guides and patrons of the passions; where evil is even honoured, as having one of the gods for its patron, and its passion is honoured with altars and sacrifices and has received a lawful freedom? For this is the most terrible thing, that what is punished by the laws is revered as divine; so great is your surplus of injustice. [121] Second, let honour and respect for parents be set before them, and reverence for the first cause of our being after the First Cause; let reason introduce this and theology persuade them of it. And how will Cronus not persuade them, castrating Uranus so that he might beget no more gods, and giving it to the waves to produce a goddess, the offspring of foam; and Zeus rising up against Cronus in imitation of his father, the sweet stone and bitter tyrant-slayer; or whatever else of the kind their books offer in honour of parents. Third, let them have contempt of money, and not make profit from every source, nor take evil acquisition as the earnest of misfortune. How then will their god of gain be set up, and the purse be held out, and the thieving power of the god be honoured, and the saying that “without bronze Phoebus does not prophesy,” and that nothing is more precious than the obol? For these are their august and venerable things. [122] What else? Let them teach temperance and introduce self-control; and the persuader is near at hand: Zeus, who becomes everything for the sake of women, and the dearest eagle, lover of Phrygian boys (so that the gods might banquet most sweetly, served their wine by the darlings of Zeus); and Heracles the Three-nights’ one, contending with the fifty daughters of Thestius in one night and accomplishing this thirteenth labour, which somehow is not counted with the others. Let Ares cut short anger, Dionysus drunkenness, Artemis hatred of strangers, their oblique oracle-monger deceit, the lame god excess of laughter (he who limped about when the gods were grieved, propping himself up on his thin legs); let Zeus cut short gluttony, running to a rich feast with the blameless Ethiopians along with the other demons; and the Ox-feaster, who tyrannized the farmer and gobbled up the ploughing ox and took his name from the deed; and all of them running after the savour of sacrifices and libations. [123] And how are these things near ours, for whom the rule of friendship is each person himself, and to wish the same things for one’s neighbours as for oneself; for whom a crime is not only to have done evil but almost even to have intended it, anger being punished as if it were an act; for whom temperance is so pursued that even the eye is restrained, and the murderous hand is kept so far away that even anger is chastened; and swearing falsely is so terrible and monstrous that even the oath is forbidden to us alone? As for money, many never had any; and many would gladly have had more for this reason alone, that they might despise more, philosophizing that having nothing is better than all wealth; and having thrown off the belly as a bitter and detestable mistress and the mother of all evils, it is little to say that they hardly allow themselves to be flesh, spending the mortal on the immortal; and they have one law of virtue, not to be overcome even by small things, and … in all things overlooked. For the finest thing is that, while others punish the ends according to the laws, we punish even the beginnings, checking from afar, as it were, a wicked stream that is hard to hold back. [124] Where, and among what men, tell me, is it the rule to bless when reviled, to entreat when blasphemed, as being harmed not by slander so much as by truth; to give way when persecuted; when stripped, to strip off still more; when cursed, to pray for those who curse; in a word, to conquer rashness by kindness, and to make better those who wrong us, by our endurance? And yet, even if we grant that they punish vice by the exhortations of their fictions, how can they reach the measures of our virtue and education, for whom even not to advance in the good, and not always to become new instead of old, but to stay in the same place, seems vice? It is the experience of tops, which spin round but do not advance, and move while standing still, so to speak, under the force of the whip. And we must have accomplished some good things, hold on to others, and aim at others, until the end and deification, for which we were made and toward which we hasten, those of us who have minds able to cross over and who hope for something worthy of God’s greatness of mind.