Second Apology 9

And so that no one may say what is said by those who are thought to be philosophers, that our saying that the unjust are punished in eternal fire is mere boasting and a bogey, and that we want people to live virtuously through fear and not because it is good and pleasing, I will answer this briefly: if this is not so, either there is no God, or, if there is, he does not care for men, and neither virtue nor vice is anything, and, as we said before, lawgivers unjustly punish those who transgress good ordinances. But since these are not unjust, nor is their Father, who teaches them through the Word to do the same things as himself, those who agree with them are not unjust. And if anyone brings up the different laws of men, saying that among some men these things are thought good and those shameful, while among others what is shameful to the first is good, and what is good is thought shameful, let him hear what is said to this too. We know that the wicked angels laid down laws like their own wickedness, in which men who have become like them take pleasure; and right reason, when it came, shows that not all opinions nor all teachings are good, but some evil and some good; so that to such people I will say the same things and things like them, and will say more if there is need. But now I return to the subject.