# Apology

- Author: [Tertullian](https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/authors/tertullian/)
- Latin title: *Apologeticum*
- Date: ca. 197 (probable)
- Source: John E. B. Mayor and Alexander Souter, eds., Q. Septimi Florentis Tertulliani Apologeticus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1917); Latin text of Franz Oehler (Latin text: Franz Oehler's text as printed by John E. B. Mayor and Alexander Souter (Cambridge University Press, 1917); the commentary and English translation in that book are not reproduced. OCR corrected mechanically.)

- Translation: Claude, from the original text, unless a passage says otherwise; each passage below gives the translator
- Editions and translations: Tertulliani Opera, Pars 1: Opera catholica; Adversus Marcionem, CCSL 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1954); Tertulliani Apologeticum, CSEL 69 (Vienna: Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1939); Tertullian: Apology; De spectaculis, LCL 250 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931)
- Work page: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/
- Passages: 50

## Apology 1

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/1/#p-1
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 3–6
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Tertullian appeals in writing to the Roman magistrates, arguing that hatred of the Christian name rests on ignorance and that Christians, unlike real criminals, rejoice when accused.

### Latin text

Si non licet uobis, Romani imperii antistites, in aperto et edito, in ipso fere uertice ciuitatis praesidentibus ad iudicandum palam dispicere et coram examinare quid sit liquido in causa Christianorum, si ad hanc solam speciem auctoritas uestra de iustitiae diligentia in publico aut timet aut erubescit inquirere, si denique, quod proxime accidit, domesticis iudiciis nimis operata infestatio sectae huius obstruit defensioni, liceat ueritati uel occulta uia tacitarum litterarum ad aures uestras peruenire. Nihil de causa sua deprecatur, quia nec de condicione miratur. Scit se peregrinam in terris agere, inter extraneos facile inimicos inuenire, ceterum genus, sedem, spem, gratiam, dignitatem in caelis habere. Unum gestit interdum, ne ignorata damnetur. Quid hic deperit legibus in suo regno dominantibus, si audiatur? An hoc magis gloriabitur potestas eorum, quo etiam auditam damnabunt ueritatem? Ceterum inauditam si damnent, praeter inuidiam iniquitatis etiam suspicionem merebuntur alicuius conscientiae, nolentes audire quod auditum damnare non possint. Hanc itaque primam causam apud uos collocamus iniquitatis odii erga nomen Christianorum. Quam iniquitatem idem titulus et onerat et reuincit qui uidetur excusare, ignorantia scilicet. Quid enim iniquius, quam ut oderint homines quod ignorant, etiam si res meretur odium? Tunc etenim meretur, cum cognoscitur an mereatur. Vacante autem meriti notitia, unde odii iustitia defenditur, quae non de euentu, sed de conscientia probanda est? Cum ergo propterea oderunt homines, quia ignorant quale sit quod oderunt, cur non liceat eiusmodi illud esse, quod non debeant odisse? Ita utrumque ex alterutro redarguimus, et ignorare illos, dum oderunt, et iniuste odisse, dum ignorant. Testimonium ignorantiae est, quae iniquitatem dum excusat, condemnat, cum omnes qui retro oderant, quia ignorabant quale sit quod oderant, simul desinunt ignorare, cessant et odisse. Ex his fiunt Christiani, utique de conperto, et incipiunt odisse quod fuerant, et profiteri quod oderant, et sunt tanti quanti et denotamur. Obsessam uociferantur ciuitatem; in agris, in castellis, in insulis Christianos; omnem sexum, aetatem, condicionem, etiam dignitatem transgredi ad hoc nomen quasi detrimento maerent, nec tamen hoc modo ad aestimationem alicuius latentis boni promouent animos. Non licet rectius suspicari, non libet propius experiri. Hic tantum curiositas humana torpescit. Amant ignorare, cum alii gaudeant cognouisse. Quanto magis hos Anacharsis denotasset inprudentes de prudentibus iudicantes quam inmusicos de musicis! Malunt nescire, quia iam oderunt. Adeo quod nesciant praeiudicant id esse quod, si sciant, odisse non poterant, quando, si nullum odii debitum deprehendatur, optimum utique sit desinere iniuste odisse, si uero de merito constet, non modo nihil odii detrahatur, sed amplius adquiratur ad perseuerantiam, etiam iustitiae ipsius auctoritate. Sed non ideo, inquit, bonum, quia multos conuertit: quanti enim ad malum performantur? quanti transfugae in peruersum? Quis negat? tamen quod uere malum est, ne ipsi quidem, quos rapit, defendere pro bono audent. Omne malum aut timore aut pudore natura perfudit. Denique malefici gestiunt latere, deuitant apparere, trepidant deprehensi, negant accusati, ne torti quidem facile aut semper confitentur, certe damnati maerent. Dinumerant in semetipsos mentis malae impetus, uel fato uel astris imputant; nolunt enim suum esse, quia malum agnoscunt. Christianus uero quid simile? Neminem pudet, neminem paenitet. nisi plane retro non fuisse. Si denotatur, gloriatur; si accusatur, non defendit; interrogatus uel ultro confitetur, damnatus gratias agit. Quid hoc mali est, quod naturalia mali non habet, timorem, pudorem, tergiuersationem, paenitentiam, deplorationem? Quid? hoc malum est, cuius reus gaudet? cuius accusatio uotum est et poena felicitas? Non potes dementiam dicere, qui reuinceris ignorare.

### English translation (Claude)

Rulers of the Roman Empire, seated as you are for judgment in an open and lofty place, at almost the very summit of the state: if you are not permitted to examine openly and to inquire face to face what is clearly the truth in the case of the Christians; if in this kind of case alone your authority is afraid or ashamed to inquire in public with the care that justice requires; if, finally, as happened recently, hostility to this school, kept too busy in domestic tribunals, blocks the way to its defense, then let the truth be allowed to reach your ears at least by the hidden path of silent writing. It makes no entreaty for its cause, because it is not surprised at its condition either. It knows that it lives as a stranger on earth, that among foreigners it easily finds enemies, but that its race, its home, its hope, its favor, and its rank are in heaven. One thing only it sometimes longs for: not to be condemned unknown. What do the laws, ruling in their own realm, lose here if it is heard? Will their power boast the more because they condemn the truth even after hearing it? But if they condemn it unheard, besides the odium of injustice they will also earn the suspicion of some guilty knowledge, since they refuse to hear what, once heard, they could not condemn. This, then, is the first ground we lay before you: the injustice of the hatred of the name of Christians. And this injustice is both aggravated and refuted by the very plea that seems to excuse it, namely ignorance. For what is more unjust than for people to hate what they do not know, even if the thing deserves hatred? For it deserves it only when it is known whether it deserves it. But when knowledge of its desert is lacking, how is the justice of the hatred defended? That justice must be proved not from the outcome but from knowledge. Since, then, people hate because they do not know what kind of thing it is they hate, why may it not be the kind of thing they ought not to hate? So we refute them on both counts, each from the other: that they are ignorant while they hate, and that they hate unjustly while they are ignorant. It is a proof of an ignorance which condemns the injustice even while it excuses it, that all who formerly hated because they did not know what they hated cease to hate as soon as they cease to be ignorant. From these Christians are made, plainly on the basis of what they have found out; and they begin to hate what they had been and to profess what they had hated; and they are as many as we are said to be. People cry out that the city is besieged; that there are Christians in the fields, in the forts, in the islands; they mourn, as if it were a loss, that every sex, age, condition, and even rank is going over to this name; and yet not even so do they rouse their minds to consider whether some hidden good is there. They will not allow themselves to suspect more rightly; they do not care to examine more closely. Here alone human curiosity grows sluggish. They love to be ignorant, while others rejoice to have learned. How much more would Anacharsis have censured these, the unwise judging the wise, than the unmusical judging musicians! They prefer not to know, because they already hate. So they prejudge that what they do not know is the very thing which, if they knew it, they could not hate; whereas, if no ground for hatred is found, it would surely be best to stop hating unjustly, and if the desert is established, not only would nothing be taken from the hatred, but more would be gained for persevering in it, with the authority of justice itself. “But,” someone says, “a thing is not good just because it converts many; for how many are trained for evil! how many desert to what is perverse!” Who denies it? Yet what is truly evil not even those whom it carries away dare to defend as good. Nature has steeped every evil in fear or in shame. Evildoers, in short, long to hide; they avoid appearing; they tremble when caught; they deny when accused; not even under torture do they confess easily or always; certainly when condemned they grieve. They reckon up against themselves the impulses of a bad mind, or they blame them on fate or the stars; for they do not want it to be their own, because they recognize it as evil. But what is there like this in a Christian? None of them is ashamed, none of them repents, except of not having been one earlier. If he is pointed out, he glories in it; if he is accused, he does not defend himself; when questioned he confesses, even of his own accord; when condemned he gives thanks. What sort of evil is this, which has none of the natural marks of evil, fear, shame, evasion, regret, lament? What! is this an evil, whose defendant rejoices? whose accusation is his prayer, and whose punishment his happiness? You cannot call it madness, you who stand convicted of not knowing it.

### Scripture references

- Phil 3:20: echo, low confidence
- 1 Pet 2:11: echo, low confidence

### Translation notes

- Anacharsis, the Scythian sage; the saying about the unmusical judging musicians is attributed to him in Greek tradition (source uncertain).
- “Lives as a stranger on earth … in heaven”: compare Phil 3:20 and 1 Pet 2:11 (echo).

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 1 (Mayor-Souter, 3–6; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/1/#p-1).

## Apology 2

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/1/#p-2
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 6–12
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Christians alone are condemned for confessing the name and tortured to make them deny it; Trajan's reply to Pliny forbids seeking them out yet orders them punished.

### Latin text

Si certum est denique nos nocentissimos esse, cur a uobis ipsis aliter tractamur quam pares nostri, id est ceteri nocentes, cum eiusdem noxae eadem tractatio deberet interuenire? Quodcunque dicimur, cum alii dicuntur, et proprio ore et mercenaria aduocatione utuntur ad innocentiae suae commendationem. Respondendi, altercandi facultas patet, quando nec liceat indefensos et inauditos omnino damnari. Sed Christianis solis nihil permittitur loqui quod causam purget, quod ueritatem defendat, quod iudicem non faciat iniustum, sed illud solum expectatur quod odio publico necessarium est, confessio nominis, non examinatio criminis: quando, si de aliquo nocente cognoscatis, non statim confesso eo nomen homicidae uel sacrilegi uel incesti uel publici hostis, ut de nostris elogiis loquar, contenti sitis ad pronuntiandum, nisi et consequentia exigatis, qualitatem facti, numerum, locum, modum, tempus, conscios, socios. De nobis nihil tale, cum aeque extorqueri oporteret quod cum falso iactatur, quot quisque iam infanticidia degustasset, quot incesta contenebrasset, qui coci, qui canes adfuissent. quanta illius praesidis gloria, si eruisset aliquem, qui centum iam infantes comedisset! Atquin inuenimus inquisitionem quoque in nos prohibitam. Plinius enim Secundus cum prouinciam regeret, damnatis quibusdam Christianis, quibusdam gradu pulsis, ipsa tamen multitudine perturbatus, quid de cetero ageret, consuluit tunc Traianum imperatorem, adlegans praeter obstinationem non sacrificandi nihil aliud se de sacramentis eorum conperisse quam coetus antelucanos ad canendum Christo et deo, et ad confoederandam disciplinam, homicidium, adulterium, fraudem, perfidiam et cetera scelera prohibentes. Tunc Traianus rescripsit hoc genus inquirendos quidem non esse, oblatos uero puniri oportere. sententiam necessitate confusam! Negat inquirendos ut innocentes, et mandat puniendos ut nocentes. Parcit et saeuit, dissimulat et animaduertit. Quid temetipsam, censura, circumuenis? Si damnas, cur non et inquiris? si non inquiris, cur non et absoluis? Latronibus uestigandis per uniuersas prouincias militaris statio sortitur. In reos maiestatis et publicos hostes omnis homo miles est; ad socios, ad conscios usque inquisitio extenditur. Solum Christianum inquiri non licet, offerri licet, quasi aliud esset actura inquisitio quam oblationem. Damnatis itaque oblatum quem nemo uoluit requisitum, qui, puto, iam non ideo meruit poenam, quia nocens est, sed quia non requirendus inuentus est. Itaque nec in illo ex forma malorum iudicandorum agitis erga nos, quod ceteris negantibus tormenta adhibetis ad confitendum, solis Christianis ad negandum, cum, si malum esset, nos quidem negaremus, uos uero confiteri tormentis compelleretis. Neque enim ideo non putaretis requirenda quaestionibus scelera, quia certi essetis admitti ea ex nominis confessione, qui hodie de confesso homicida, scientes homicidium quid sit, nihilominus ordinem extorquetis admissi. Quo peruersius, cum praesumatis de sceleribus nostris ex nominis confessione, cogitis tormentis de confessione decedere, ut negantes nomen pariter utique negemus et scelera, de quibus ex confessione nominis praesumpseratis. Sed, opinor, non uultis nos perire, quos pessimos creditis. Sic enim soletis dicere homicidae Nega, laniari iubere sacrilegum, si confiteri perseuerauerit. Si non ita agitis circa nos nocentes, ergo nos innocentissimos iudicatis, cum quasi innocentissimos non uultis in ea confessione perseuerare, quam necessitate, non iustitia damnandam a uobis sciatis. Vociferatur homo: Christianus sum. Quod est dicit; tu uis audire quod non est. Veritatis extorquendae praesides de nobis solis mendacium elaboratis audire. Hoc sum, inquit, quod quaeris an sim. Quid me torques in peruersum? Confiteor, et torques: quid faceres, si negarem? Plane aliis negantibus non facile fidem accommodatis: nobis, si negauerimus, statim creditis. Suspecta sit uobis ista peruersitas, ne qua uis lateat in occulto, quae uos aduersus formam, aduersus naturam iudicandi, contra ipsas quoque leges ministret. Nisi fallor enim, leges malos erui iubent, non abscondi, confessos damnari praescribunt, non absolui. Hoc senatusconsulta, hoc principum mandata definiunt. Hoc imperium, cuius ministri estis, ciuilis, non tyrannica dominatio est. Apud tyrannos enim tormenta etiam pro poena adhibebantur: apud uos soli quaestioni temperatur. Vestram illis seruate legem usque ad confessionem necessariam, et iam si confessione praeueniantur, uacabunt: sententia opus est: debito poenae nocens expungendus est, non eximendus. Denique nemo illum gestit absoluere. Non licet hoc uelle, ideo nec cogitur quisquam negare. Christianum hominem omnium scelerum reum, deorum, imperatorum, legum, morum, naturae totius inimicum existimas, et cogis negare, ut absoluas quem non poteris absoluere nisi negauerit. Praeuaricaris in leges. Vis ergo neget se nocentem, ut eum facias innocentem, et quidem inuitum iam, nec de praeterito reum. Unde ista peruersitas, ut etiam illud non recogitetis, sponte confesso magis credendum esse quam per uim neganti? uel ne compulsus negare non ex fide negarit et absolutus ibidem post tribunal de uestra rideat aemulatione iterum Christianus? Cum igitur in omnibus nos aliter disponitis quam ceteros nocentes, ad unum contendendo, ut de eo nomine excludamur (excludimur enim si faciamus quae faciunt non Christiani), intellegere potestis non scelus aliquod in causa esse, sed nomen, quod quaedam ratio aemulae operationis insequitur, hoc primum agens, ut homines nolint scire pro certo quod se nescire pro certo sciunt. Ideo et credunt de nobis quae non probantur, et nolunt inquiri, ne probentur non esse quae malunt credidisse, ut nomen illius aemulae rationis inimicum praesumptis, non probatis criminibus de sua sola confessione damnetur. Ideo torquemur confitentes et punimur perseuerantes et absoluimur negantes, quia nominis proelium est. Denique quid de tabella recitatis illum Christianum? Cur non et homicidam? Si homicida Christianus, cur non et incestus uel quodcunque aliud esse nos creditis? In nobis solis pudet aut piget ipsis nominibus scelerum pronuntiare? Christianus si nullius criminis nomine reus est, ualde incestum, si solius nominis, crimen est.

### English translation (Claude)

Again, if it is certain that we are the most guilty of people, why do you yourselves treat us differently from our peers, that is, from the other guilty, when the same guilt ought to meet the same treatment? Whatever we are charged with, when others are charged with it they use both their own mouths and hired advocates to commend their innocence. They are free to answer and to dispute, since it is not lawful for anyone to be condemned wholly undefended and unheard. But Christians alone are permitted to say nothing that clears their cause, that defends the truth, that keeps the judge from being unjust; all that is waited for is what public hatred needs: confession of the name, not investigation of the crime. Yet if you are trying any other guilty person, you are not at once satisfied to pronounce sentence when he confesses to the name of murderer, or temple-robber, or incestuous person, or public enemy (to speak of the charges laid against us), unless you also demand the particulars: the nature of the deed, how often, where, how, when, the accomplices, the partners. Nothing of the kind with us, though whatever is falsely spread abroad ought equally to be wrung out of us: how many murdered infants each had already tasted, how many acts of incest he had committed under cover of darkness, what cooks, what dogs were present. Oh, what glory for that governor, if he had unearthed someone who had already eaten a hundred infants! And yet we find that even inquiry into us has been forbidden. For Pliny the Younger, when he governed a province, having condemned some Christians and dislodged others from their stand, was nevertheless disturbed by their sheer number and consulted the emperor Trajan, then reigning, about what he should do for the future. He reported that, apart from their obstinate refusal to sacrifice, he had found out nothing else about their rites than meetings before dawn to sing to Christ and God and to bind themselves together in a discipline that forbids murder, adultery, fraud, treachery, and the other crimes. Trajan then wrote back that people of this kind were not to be sought out, but that if they were brought in they ought to be punished. O sentence confounded by necessity! He says they must not be sought out, as innocent, and orders them punished, as guilty. He spares and rages; he overlooks and punishes. Why do you entangle yourself, judgment? If you condemn, why not also inquire? If you do not inquire, why not also acquit? A military post is assigned by lot throughout all the provinces to track down bandits. Against those guilty of treason and public enemies every man is a soldier; the inquiry is extended even to partners and accomplices. The Christian alone may not be sought out, but he may be brought in, as though an inquiry would aim at anything else than bringing him in. So you condemn a man brought in whom no one wished to have sought; he has deserved punishment, I suppose, not because he is guilty, but because, though not to be sought, he was found. In this too you do not deal with us according to the procedure for judging criminals: to others who deny you apply torture to make them confess, to Christians alone to make them deny; whereas, if it were an evil, we would deny it and you would compel us by torture to confess. For you would not think that the crimes need not be investigated by examination just because you were sure from the confession of the name that they were committed, you who today, with a confessed murderer, though you know what murder is, nevertheless extract the details of the deed. All the more perverse, then, that when you presume our crimes from the confession of the name, you force us by torture to withdraw the confession, so that by denying the name we may at the same time deny the crimes too, which you had presumed from the confession of the name. But, I suppose, you do not want us to perish, whom you believe the worst of men. For this is how you usually say to a murderer, “Deny it!” and order a temple-robber to be torn if he persists in confessing! If you do not deal with us like this as guilty, then you judge us most innocent, since, as with the most innocent, you do not want us to persist in a confession which you know you must condemn from necessity, not from justice. A man cries out, “I am a Christian.” He says what he is; you want to hear what he is not. Governors appointed to extort the truth, from us alone you labor to hear a lie. “I am,” he says, “what you ask whether I am. Why do you torture me to say the opposite? I confess, and you torture: what would you do if I denied?” Plainly, when others deny you do not readily believe them; us, if we deny, you believe at once. Let this perversity be suspect to you, lest some hidden power be at work in secret which employs you against the form, against the nature of judging, and even against the laws themselves. For, unless I am mistaken, the laws order the wicked to be brought to light, not hidden; they prescribe that those who confess be condemned, not acquitted. This the decrees of the senate, this the mandates of the emperors define. This empire, whose ministers you are, is a civil, not a tyrannical, rule. For under tyrants torture was applied even as punishment; with you it is limited to examination. Keep your law for it up to the point where confession is necessary; and if it is anticipated by confession, torture will have nothing to do: sentence is what is needed; the guilty man must be discharged by paying the penalty he owes, not exempted from it. In short, no one is eager to acquit him; it is not lawful to wish it, and so no one is forced to deny. A Christian you think guilty of every crime, an enemy of the gods, the emperors, the laws, morals, and all nature, and yet you force him to deny, so that you may acquit one whom you could not acquit unless he denied. You betray the laws. You want him, then, to deny that he is guilty, so that you may make him innocent, and that against his will, and no longer guilty of the past. Where does this perversity come from, that you do not even consider that one who confesses freely should be believed rather than one who denies under force? Or that one compelled to deny may not have denied in good faith, and, once acquitted, may at once, just behind the tribunal, laugh at your rivalry, a Christian again? Since, then, you deal with us differently from other guilty persons in everything, striving for one thing only, that we be excluded from that name (for we are excluded if we do what non-Christians do), you can understand that what is at issue is not any crime but the name, which a certain rival power at work pursues, aiming first of all at this: that people should not wish to know for certain what they know for certain they do not know. So they both believe things about us that are not proved and refuse to have them investigated, lest what they prefer to have believed be proved untrue, so that the name hostile to that rival power may be condemned, with crimes presumed, not proved, on its own confession alone. That is why we are tortured when we confess, punished when we persevere, and acquitted when we deny: because the battle is over the name. Finally, why do you read out from your tablet that so-and-so is a Christian? Why not also a murderer? If a Christian is a murderer, why not also incestuous, or whatever else you believe us to be? With us alone are you ashamed or loath to pronounce the very names of crimes? If “Christian” is the name of no crime, it is a foul thing indeed if the only crime is the name.

### Extrabiblical texts

- Pliny the Younger, Ep. 10.96 (Pliny the Younger, Letters): allusion, high confidence
- Pliny the Younger, Ep. 10.97 (Pliny the Younger, Letters): allusion, high confidence

### Translation notes

- Pliny, Letters 10.96–97 (Pliny's report and Trajan's rescript), paraphrased; Pliny writes that the Christians sang “to Christ as to a god.”
- The last sentence plays on incestum (“foul, impure,” also “incest,” one of the charges).

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 2 (Mayor-Souter, 6–12; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/1/#p-2).

## Apology 3

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/1/#p-3
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 12–14
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: People hate the very name “Christian” even in those it has reformed, though the name means “anointed” and schools are commonly named after their founders.

### Latin text

Quid? quod ita plerique clausis oculis in odium eius inpingunt, ut bonum alicui testimonium ferentes admisceant nominis exprobrationem. Bonus uir Gaius Seius, tantum quod Christianus. Item alius: Ego miror Lucium Titium sapientem uirum repente factum Christianum. Nemo retractat, ne ideo bonus Gaius et prudens Lucius, quia Christianus, aut ideo Christianus, quia prudens et bonus. Laudant quae sciunt, uituperant quae ignorant, et id quod sciunt eo quod ignorant inrumpunt, cum sit iustius occulta de manifestis praeiudicare quam manifesta de occultis praedamnare. Alii, quos retro ante hoc nomen uagos, uiles, improbos nouerant, ex ipso denotant quod laudant. Caecitate odii in suffragium inpingunt: Quae mulier! quam lasciua, quam festiua! Quis iuuenis! quam lasciuus, quam amasius! Facti sunt Christiani! Ita nomen emendationi imputatur. Nonnulli etiam de utilitatibus suis cum odio isto paciscuntur, contenti iniuria, dum ne domi habeant quod oderunt. Uxorem iam pudicam maritus iam non zelotypus, filium iam subiectum pater retro patiens abdicauit, seruum iam fidelem dominus olim mitis ab oculis relegauit; ut quisque hoc nomine emendatur, offendit. Tanti non est bonum quanti odium Christianorum. Nunc igitur, si nominis odium est, quis nominum reatus? Quae accusatio uocabulorum, nisi si aut barbarum sonat aliqua uox nominis, aut infaustum aut maledicum aut inpudicum? Christianus uero, quantum interpretatio est, de unctione deducitur. Sed et cum perperam Chrestianus pronuntiatur a uobis (nam nec nominis certa est notitia penes uos), de suauitate uel benignitate conpositum est. Oditur itaque in hominibus innocuis etiam nomen innocuum. At enim secta oditur in nomine utique sui auctoris. Quid noui, si aliqua disciplina de magistro cognomentum sectatoribus suis inducit? Nonne philosophi de auctoribus suis nuncupantur Platonici, Epicurei, Pythagorici? etiam a locis conuenticulorum et stationum suarum Stoici, Academici? aeque medici ab Erasistrato et grammatici ab Aristarcho, coci etiam ab Apicio? nec tamen quemquam offendit professio nominis cum institutione transmissa ab institutore. Plane, si qui probauit malam sectam et ita malum et auctorem, is probabit et nomen malum dignum odio de reatu sectae et auctoris, ideoque ante odium nominis conpetebat prius de auctore sectam recognoscere uel auctorem de secta. At nunc utriusque inquisitione et agnitione neglecta nomen detinetur, nomen expugnatur, et ignotam sectam, ignotum et auctorem uox sola praedamnat, quia nominantur, non quia reuincuntur.

### English translation (Claude)

What of this, that most people run blindly into hatred of the name in such a way that, even while giving someone a good testimony, they mix in a reproach for the name? “Gaius Seius is a good man, only he is a Christian.” Likewise another: “I am amazed that Lucius Titius, a wise man, has suddenly become a Christian.” No one stops to consider whether Gaius is good and Lucius prudent because he is a Christian, or a Christian because he is prudent and good. They praise what they know, they blame what they do not know, and they spoil what they know with what they do not know, when it would be more just to judge the hidden beforehand from the evident than to condemn the evident beforehand from the hidden. Others brand people whom they had known, before they took this name, as vagrant, worthless, and wicked, with the very thing they praise. In the blindness of hatred they stumble into commendation: “What a woman! how wanton, how gay! What a young man! how wanton, what a lover! They have become Christians!” So the name is blamed for the reform. Some even bargain with this hatred at the cost of their own interests, content to suffer loss so long as they do not have at home what they hate. A husband, no longer jealous, has cast out a wife now chaste; a father, once so patient, has disowned a son now obedient; a master, once mild, has banished from his sight a slave now faithful. As soon as anyone is reformed by this name, he gives offense. Good is not worth as much as hatred of Christians. Now, then, if the hatred is of a name, what guilt can there be in names? What charge can be brought against words, unless some sound of the name is barbarous, or ill-omened, or abusive, or indecent? But “Christian,” so far as its meaning goes, is derived from anointing. And even when it is wrongly pronounced by you “Chrestian” (for you do not have certain knowledge even of the name), it is formed from sweetness or kindness. So in harmless people even a harmless name is hated. “But the school is hated in the name, of course, of its founder.” What is new if a discipline gives its followers a surname from its teacher? Are not philosophers called after their founders Platonists, Epicureans, Pythagoreans? and from the places of their gatherings and stations Stoics and Academics? Likewise physicians from Erasistratus, grammarians from Aristarchus, even cooks from Apicius? Yet no one is offended by the profession of a name handed down with the teaching from its teacher. Certainly, if anyone has proved a school bad, and so its founder bad, he will prove the name too bad and worthy of hatred because of the guilt of the school and its founder; and so before hating the name it was proper first to examine the school from its founder, or the founder from the school. But as it is, both inquiry and knowledge of either are neglected; the name is seized, the name is attacked; and the mere word condemns beforehand an unknown school and an unknown founder, because they are named, not because they are convicted.

### Translation notes

- “Chrestian”: from Greek chrēstos, “good, kind,” a common confusion with Christos, “anointed.”

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 3 (Mayor-Souter, 12–14; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/1/#p-3).

## Apology 4

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/1/#p-4
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 14–18
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Tertullian challenges the law forbidding Christians to exist: human laws can err and are constantly amended, and no just law refuses examination.

### Latin text

Atque adeo quasi praefatus haec ad sugillandam odii erga nos publici iniquitatem, iam de causa innocentiae consistam, nec tantum refutabo quae nobis obiciuntur, sed etiam in ipsos retorquebo qui obiciunt, ut ex hoc quoque sciant homines in Christianis non esse quae in se nesciunt esse, simul uti erubescant accusantes non dico pessimi optimos, sed iam, ut uolunt, conpares suos. Respondebimus ad singula quae in occulto admittere dicimur, quae illos palam admittentes inuenimus, in quibus scelesti, in quibus uani, in quibus damnandis, in quibus inridendi deputamur. Sed quoniam, cum ad omnia occurrit ueritas nostra, postremo legum obstruitur auctoritas aduersus eam, ut aut nihil dicatur retractandum esse post leges aut ingratis necessitas obsequii praeferatur ueritati, de legibus prius concurram uobiscum ut cum tutoribus legum. Iam primum cum dure definitis dicendo: Non licet esse uos! et hoc sine ullo retractatu humaniore praescribitis, uim profitemini et iniquam ex arce dominationem, si ideo negatis licere, quia uultis, non quia debuit non licere. Quodsi, quia non debet, ideo non uultis licere, sine dubio id non debet licere quod male fit, et utique hoc ipso praeiudicatur licere quod bene fit. Si bonum inuenero esse quod lex tua prohibuit, nonne ex illo praeiudicio prohibere me non potest quod, si malum esset, iure prohiberet? Si lex tua errauit, puto, ab homine concepta est; neque enim de caelo ruit. Miramini hominem aut errare potuisse in lege condenda aut resipuisse in reprobanda? Non enim et ipsius Lycurgi leges a Lacedaemoniis emendatae tantum auctori suo doloris incusserunt, ut in secessu inedia de semetipso iudicarit? Nonne et uos cotidie experimentis inluminantibus tenebras antiquitatis totam illam ueterem et squalentem siluam legum nouis principalium rescriptorum et edictorum securibus truncatis et caeditis? Nonne uanissimas Papias leges, quae ante liberos suscipi cogunt quam Iuliae matrimonium contrahi, post tantae auctoritatis senectutem heri Seuerus, constantissimus principum, exclusit? Sed et iudicatos in partes secari a creditoribus leges erant. consensu tamen publico crudelitas postea erasa est, in pudoris notam capitis poena conuersa est. Bonorum adhibita proscriptio suffundere maluit hominis sanguinem quam effundere. Quot adhuc uobis repurgandae latent leges, quas neque annorum numerus neque conditorum dignitas commendat, sed aequitas sola? et ideo cum iniquae recognoscuntur, merito damnantur, licet damnent. Quomodo iniquas dicimus? Immo, si nomen puniunt, etiam stultas: si uero facta, cur de solo nomine puniunt facta, quae in aliis de admisso, non de nomine probata defendunt? Incestus sum, cur non requirunt? Infanticidia cur non extorquent? In deos, in Caesares aliquid committo, cur non audior qui habeo quo purger? Nulla lex uetat discuti quod prohibet admitti, quia neque iudex iuste ulciscitur, nisi cognoscat admissum esse quod non licet, neque ciuis fideliter legi obsequitur ignorans quale sit quod ulciscitur lex. Nulla lex sibi soli conscientiam iustitiae suae debet, sed eis a quibus obsequium expectat. Ceterum suspecta lex est quae probari se non uult, inproba autem, si non probata dominetur.

### English translation (Claude)

Having made these remarks by way of preface, as it were, to expose the injustice of the public hatred against us, I will now take my stand on the case for our innocence; and I will not only refute what is charged against us but turn it back on those who charge it, so that people may learn even from this that there is not in Christians what they do not know is in themselves, and at the same time may blush to accuse, I do not say the worst the best, but now, as they would have it, their own equals. We will answer each of the things we are said to commit in secret, which we find them committing openly, things for which we are reckoned criminal, or vain, or worthy of condemnation, or laughable. But since, when our truth meets every point, the authority of the laws is at last set against it, so that either it is said that nothing may be reconsidered after the laws have spoken, or the necessity of obedience is, against one's will, preferred to the truth, I will first contend with you about the laws, as with their guardians. First, then, when you harshly lay down, “You are not permitted to exist!” and prescribe this without any more humane reconsideration, you avow violence and an unjust domination from the citadel, if you deny that it is lawful because you so wish, not because it ought not to be lawful. But if you do not wish it to be lawful because it ought not to be, then without doubt what is done wrongly ought not to be lawful, and by this very fact it is decided beforehand that what is done rightly is lawful. If I find that what your law has forbidden is good, does it not follow from that prior judgment that it cannot forbid me something it would rightly forbid only if it were evil? If your law has erred, it was conceived, I suppose, by a man; for it did not fall from heaven. Are you surprised that a man could err in framing a law, or come to his senses in rejecting it? Did not the amendment by the Spartans of the laws of Lycurgus himself cause their author such grief that he condemned himself to starve to death in seclusion? Do not you yourselves every day, as experience lights up the darkness of antiquity, lop and fell that whole old and rough forest of laws with the new axes of imperial rescripts and edicts? Did not Severus, most steadfast of emperors, only yesterday abolish the most futile Papian laws, which compel people to have children before the Julian laws allow a marriage to be contracted, despite the authority of their great age? There were also laws that debtors who had been condemned might be cut into pieces by their creditors; but by public consent that cruelty was later erased, and the capital penalty was changed into a mark of disgrace: the confiscation of goods, once adopted, preferred to bring the blood into a man's face rather than to shed it. How many laws still lie hidden that you need to clean up, laws commended neither by the number of their years nor by the rank of their makers, but by equity alone! And so, when they are recognized as unjust, they are rightly condemned, even though they condemn. How do we call them unjust? Indeed, if they punish a name, even foolish; but if deeds, why do they punish deeds on the name alone in our case, when in others they establish them as proved from the act, not from the name? I am incestuous: why do they not investigate? A killer of infants: why do they not extract it? I commit some offense against the gods, against the Caesars: why am I not heard, who have the means to clear myself? No law forbids the examination of what it forbids to be committed, because neither does a judge punish justly unless he knows that what is unlawful has been committed, nor does a citizen obey the law faithfully if he does not know what kind of thing it is that the law punishes. No law owes the consciousness of its justice to itself alone, but to those from whom it expects obedience. Besides, a law that does not wish to be examined is suspect, and wicked if it rules unexamined.

### Translation notes

- The Papian laws: the lex Papia Poppaea (AD 9), part of Augustus's marriage legislation with the lex Iulia; the reform by Septimius Severus is otherwise poorly attested.
- The law on cutting up debtors is the Twelve Tables (3.6).

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 4 (Mayor-Souter, 14–18; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/1/#p-4).

## Apology 5

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/1/#p-5
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 18–20
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: The laws against Christians began with bad emperors like Nero and Domitian, while Tiberius and Marcus Aurelius are said to have favored them.

### Latin text

Ut de origine aliquid retractemus eiusmodi legum, uetus erat decretum, ne qui deus ab imperatore consecraretur nisi a senatu probatus. Scit M. Aemilius de deo suo Alburno. Facit et hoc ad causam nostram, quod apud uos de humano arbitratu diuinitas pensitatur. Nisi homini deus placuerit, deus non erit; homo iam deo propitius esse debebit. Tiberius ergo, cuius tempore nomen Christianum in saeculum introiuit, adnuntiata sibi ex Syria Palaestina, quae illic ueritatem ipsius diuinitatis reuelauerant, detulit ad senatum cum praerogatiua suffragii sui. Senatus, quia non ipse probauerat, respuit, Caesar in sententia mansit, comminatus periculum accusatoribus Christianorum. Consulite commentarios uestros, illic reperietis primum Neronem in hanc sectam cum maxime Romae orientem Caesariano gladio ferocisse. Sed tali dedicatore damnationis nostrae etiam gloriamur. Qui enim scit illum, intellegere potest non nisi grande aliquod bonum a Nerone damnatum. Temptauerat et Domitianus, portio Neronis de crudelitate, sed qua et homo, facile coeptum repressit, restitutis etiam quos relegauerat. Tales semper nobis insecutores, iniusti, impii, turpes, quos et ipsi damnare consuestis, a quibus damnatos restituere soliti estis. Ceterum de tot exinde principibus ad hodiernum diuinum humanumque sapientibus edite aliquem debellatorem Christianorum! At nos e contrario edimus protectorem, si litterae M. Aurelii grauissimi imperatoris requirantur, quibus illam Germanicam sitim Christianorum forte militum precationibus impetrato imbri discussam contestatur. Sicut non palam ab eiusmodi hominibus poenam dimouit, ita alio modo palam dispersit, adiecta etiam accusatoribus damnatione, et quidem tetriore. Quales ergo leges istae quas aduersus nos soli exercent impii, iniusti, turpes, truces, uani, dementes? quas Traianus ex parte frustratus est uetando inquiri Christianos, quas nullus Hadrianus, quamquam omnium curiositatum explorator, nullus Vespasianus, quamquam Iudaeorum debellator, nullus Pius, nullus Verus inpressit. Facilius utique pessimi ab optimis quibusque, ut ab aemulis, quam a suis sociis eradicandi iudicarentur.

### English translation (Claude)

To go back a little to the origin of laws of this kind: there was an old decree that no god should be consecrated by a general unless approved by the senate. Marcus Aemilius knows this, from his god Alburnus. This too tells in favor of our cause, that with you divinity is weighed by human judgment. Unless a god has pleased man, he will not be a god; man will now have to be gracious to god! Tiberius, then, in whose time the Christian name came into the world, when news was brought to him from Syria Palestine of events that had revealed there the truth of His divinity, referred the matter to the senate with his own vote in favor. The senate, because it had not itself approved it, rejected it; Caesar held to his opinion and threatened danger to the accusers of the Christians. Consult your records: there you will find that Nero was the first to rage with the imperial sword against this school, just then rising especially at Rome. But we even glory in such a dedicator of our condemnation. For whoever knows him can understand that nothing but some great good was condemned by Nero. Domitian too, a portion of Nero in cruelty, had tried it; but, being also something of a man, he soon checked what he had begun, even restoring those he had banished. Such have always been our persecutors: unjust, impious, base men, whom you yourselves are accustomed to condemn, and whose victims you have been accustomed to restore. But of all the emperors since then down to the present, men wise in things divine and human, show us one destroyer of Christians! We, on the contrary, show a protector, if the letters of Marcus Aurelius, that most serious emperor, are looked up, in which he testifies that the great drought in Germany was dispelled by rain obtained, as it happened, through the prayers of Christian soldiers. As he did not openly remove the penalty from such men, so in another way he openly set it aside, even adding a condemnation, and a harsher one, for their accusers. What kind of laws, then, are these, which only the impious, unjust, base, savage, vain, and insane enforce against us? which Trajan partly frustrated by forbidding Christians to be sought out; which no Hadrian, though an explorer of all curiosities, no Vespasian, though the conqueror of the Jews, no Pius, no Verus enforced? Surely the worst would more readily be judged fit to be rooted out by all the best, as by their opponents, than by their own allies.

### Translation notes

- “By a general” (ab imperatore): the decree is republican, so a victorious commander is probably meant, though “emperor” is possible.
- The report about Tiberius and the senate occurs only in Christian writers; its historical value is doubted.
- The letter of Marcus Aurelius about the “rain miracle” in the German war (ca. 172) is otherwise known only from Christian sources; the surviving text of such a letter is generally regarded as spurious.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 5 (Mayor-Souter, 18–20; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/1/#p-5).

## Apology 6

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/1/#p-6
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 20–24
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: The Romans who accuse Christians of abandoning ancestral custom have themselves abandoned their ancestors' laws on luxury, women's modesty, marriage, and the gods.

### Latin text

Nunc religiosissimi legum et paternorum institutorum protectores et ultores respondeant uelim de sua fide et honore et obsequio erga maiorum consulta, si a nullo desciuerunt, si in nullo exorbitauerunt, si non necessaria et aptissima quaeque disciplinae oblitterauerunt. Quonam illae leges abierunt sumptum et ambitionem comprimentes? quae centum aera non amplius in coenam subscribi iubebant nec amplius quam unam inferri gallinam, et eam non saginatam, quae patricium, quod decem pondo argenti habuisset, pro magno ambitionis titulo senatu submouebant, quae theatra stuprandis moribus orientia statim destruebant, quae dignitatum et honestorum natalium insignia non temere nec inpune usurpari sinebant? Video enim et centenarias coenas a centenis iam sestertiis dicendas, et in lances (parum est si senatorum et non libertinorum uel adhuc flagra rumpentium) argentaria metalla producta. Video et theatra nec singula satis esse nec nuda; nam ne uel hieme uoluptas inpudica frigeret, primi Lacedaemonii penulam ludis excogitauerunt. Video et inter matronas atque prostibulas nullum de habitu discrimen relictum. Circa feminas quidem etiam illa maiorum instituta ceciderunt quae modestiae, quae sobrietati patrocinabantur, cum aurum nulla norat praeter unico digito quem sponsus obpignorasset pronubo anulo, cum mulieres usque adeo uino abstinerentur, ut matronam ob resignatos cellae uinariae loculos sui inedia necarint, sub Romulo uero quae uinum attigerat, inpune a Metennio marito trucidata sit. Idcirco et oscula propinquis offerre etiam necessitas erat, ut spiritu iudicarentur. Ubi est illa felicitas matrimoniorum de moribus utique prosperata, qua per annos ferme sexcentos ab urbe condita nulla repudium domus scripsit? At nunc in feminis prae auro nullum leue est membrum. prae uino nullum liberum est osculum, repudium uero iam et uotum est, quasi matrimonii fructus. Etiam circa ipsos deos uestros quae prospecte decreuerant patres uestri, idem uos obsequentissimi rescidistis. Liberum Patrem cum mysteriis suis consules senatus auctoritate non modo urbe, sed uniuersa Italia eliminauerunt. Serapidem et Isidem et Arpocratem cum suo cynocephalo Capitolio prohibitos inferri, id est curia deorum pulsos, Piso et Gabinius consules non utique Christiani euersis etiam aris eorum abdicauerunt, turpium et otiosarum superstitionum uitia cohibentes. His uos restitutis summam maiestatem contulistis. Ubi religio. ubi ueneratio maioribus debita a uobis? Habitu, uictu, instructu, sensu, ipso denique sermone proauis renuntiastis. Laudatis semper antiquitatem, et noue de die uiuitis. Per quod ostenditur, dum a bonis maiorum institutis deceditis, ea uos retinere et custodire quae non debuistis, cum quae debuistis non custodistis. Ipsum adhuc quod uidemini fidelissime tueri a patribus traditum, in quo principaliter reos transgressionis Christianos destinastis, studium dico deorum colendorum, de quo maxime errauit antiquitas, licet Serapidi iam Romano aras restruxeritis, licet Baccho iam Italico furias uestras immoletis, suo loco ostendam proinde despici et neglegi et destrui a uobis aduersus maiorum auctoritatem. Nunc enim ad illam occultorum facinorum infamiam respondebo, ut uiam mihi ad manifestiora purgem.

### English translation (Claude)

Now I should like those most scrupulous protectors and avengers of the laws and of ancestral institutions to answer concerning their own faithfulness, honor, and obedience toward the decrees of their ancestors: whether they have departed from none, whether they have strayed in nothing, whether they have not erased things necessary and most fitting for discipline. Where have those laws gone that restrained expense and display? which ordered that no more than a hundred asses be spent on a dinner and no more than one hen be served, and that not fattened; which removed from the senate, as a great mark of ambition, a patrician who had owned ten pounds of silver; which pulled down theaters at once as they rose to corrupt morals; which did not allow the insignia of offices and of honorable birth to be usurped lightly or with impunity? For I see dinners that must be called “hundreds” now from a hundred thousand sesterces, and silver from the mines worked into platters (it would be little if for senators, and not for freedmen or for men still breaking whips with their backs). I see too that theaters are not enough when single, nor when uncovered; for it was the Spartans who first devised the cloak for the games, lest shameless pleasure should be cold even in winter. I see also that between matrons and prostitutes no distinction of dress is left. With regard to women, indeed, even those institutions of the ancestors have fallen which protected modesty and sobriety, when no woman knew gold except on the one finger which her betrothed had pledged with the betrothal ring; when women were kept from wine to such a degree that her family starved a matron to death for unsealing the compartments of the wine cellar, while under Romulus a woman who had touched wine was killed with impunity by her husband Metennius. For that reason they were even required to offer kisses to their relatives, so that they might be judged by their breath. Where is that happiness of marriages, prospered of course by good morals, through which for nearly six hundred years from the founding of the city no household wrote a bill of divorce? But now in women no limb is light for the gold on it, no kiss is free for the wine; and divorce is now even prayed for, as though it were the fruit of marriage. Even concerning your gods themselves, you, most obedient people, have rescinded what your fathers had wisely decreed. Father Liber with his mysteries the consuls, by authority of the senate, banished not only from the city but from all Italy. Serapis and Isis and Harpocrates with his dog-headed companion were forbidden to be brought into the Capitol, that is, were expelled from the senate-house of the gods: the consuls Piso and Gabinius, certainly not Christians, cast them off, even overturning their altars, to restrain the vices of base and idle superstitions. You have restored them and conferred on them the highest majesty. Where is your religion, where the veneration you owe your ancestors? In dress, food, furnishings, feelings, and even in your very speech you have renounced your great-grandfathers. You always praise antiquity, and you live in new ways from day to day. This shows that, while you depart from the good institutions of your ancestors, you retain and guard what you ought not, since what you ought you have not guarded. Even that which you seem to guard most faithfully as handed down from your fathers, the thing in which above all you have marked out Christians as guilty of transgression, I mean zeal for worshiping the gods, in which antiquity erred most: though you have now rebuilt altars to Serapis, now made Roman, though you offer up your frenzies to Bacchus, now made Italian, I will show in its place that it is likewise despised, neglected, and destroyed by you, against the authority of your ancestors. For now I will answer that infamy of secret crimes, to clear my way to things more open.

### Extrabiblical texts

- Pliny the Elder, Pliny, Nat. 14.89 (Pliny the Elder, Natural History): allusion, low confidence

### Translation notes

- The Spartans and the theater cloak: so the text; the reference is obscure.
- Metennius: elsewhere (Pliny, Natural History 14.89; Valerius Maximus 6.3.9) the husband is called Egnatius Mecenius.
- The banishment of the Bacchic mysteries is the senate's decree of 186 BC; Piso and Gabinius were consuls in 58 BC.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 6 (Mayor-Souter, 20–24; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/1/#p-6).

## Apology 7

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/1/#p-7
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 24–28
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: The charges of ritual infanticide, cannibalism, and incest rest only on rumor, which has never been proved despite constant betrayal and surprise of Christian meetings.

### Latin text

Dicimur sceleratissimi de sacramento infanticidii et pabulo inde, et post conuiuium incesto, quod euersores luminum canes, lenones scilicet tenebrarum, libidinum impiarum in uerecundiam procurent. Dicimur tamen semper, nec uos quod tam diu dicimur eruere curatis. Ergo aut eruite, si creditis, aut nolite credere, qui non eruistis. De uestra uobis dissimulatione praescribitur non esse quod nec ipsi audetis eruere. Longe aliud munus carnifici in Christianos imperatis, non ut dicant quae faciunt, sed ut negent quod sunt. Census istius disciplinae, ut iam edidimus, a Tiberio est. Cum odio sui coepit ueritas. Simul atque apparuit, inimica est. Tot hostes eius quot extranei, et quidem proprie ex aemulatione Iudaei, ex concussione milites, ex natura ipsi etiam domestici nostri. Cotidie obsidemur, cotidie prodimur, in ipsis plurimum coetibus et congregationibus nostris opprimimur. Quis umquam taliter uagienti infanti superuenit? Quis cruenta, ut inuenerat, Cyclopum et Sirenum ora iudici reseruauit? Quis uel in uxoribus aliqua inmunda uestigia deprehendit? Quis talia facinora cum inuenisset, celauit aut uendidit ipsos trahens homines? Si semper latemus, quando proditum est quod admittimus? immo a quibus prodi potuit? Ab ipsis enim reis non utique, cum uel ex forma omnibus mysteriis silentii fides debeatur. Samothracia et Eleusinia reticentur, quanto magis talia quae prodita interim etiam humanam animaduersionem prouocabunt, dum diuina seruatur? Si ergo non ipsi proditores sui, sequitur ut extranei. Et unde extraneis notitia, cum semper etiam piae initiationes arceant profanos et arbitris caueant? Nisi si impii minus metuunt. Natura famae omnibus nota est. Vestrum est: Fama malum qua non aliud uelocius ullum. Cur malum fama? quia uelox? quia index? an quia plurimum mendax? quae ne tunc quidem, cum aliquid ueri adfert, sine mendacii uitio est, detrahens, adiciens, demutans de ueritate. Quid? quod ea illi condicio est, ut non nisi cum mentitur perseueret et tamdiu uiuit quamdiu non probat, siquidem, ubi probauit, cessat esse et quasi officio nuntiandi functa rem tradit, et exinde res tenetur, res nominatur. Nec quisquam dicit uerbi gratia, Hoc Romae aiunt factum, aut, Fama est illum prouinciam sortitum, sed, Sortitus est ille prouinciam, et, Hoc factum est Romae. Fama, nomen incerti, locum non habet ubi certum est. An uero famae credat nisi inconsideratus? Quia sapiens non credit incerto. Omnium est aestimare, quantacunque illa ambitione diffusa sit, quantacunque asseueratione constructa, quod ab uno aliquando principe exorta sit necesse est. Exinde in traduces linguarum et aurium serpit, et ita modici seminis uitium cetera rumoris obscurat, ut nemo recogitet, ne primum illud os mendacium seminauerit, quod saepe fit aut ingenio aemulationis aut arbitrio suspicionis aut non noua sed ingenita quibusdam mentiendi uoluptate. Bene autem quod omnia tempus reuelat, testibus etiam uestris prouerbiis atque sententiis, ex dispositione naturae, quae ita ordinauit, ut nihil diu lateat, etiam quod fama non distulit. Merito igitur fama tamdiu conscia sola est scelerum Christianorum. Hanc indicem aduersus nos profertis, quae quod aliquando iactauit tantoque spatio in opinionem corroborauit usque adhuc probare non ualuit, ut fidem naturae ipsius appellem aduersus eos qui talia credenda esse praesumunt.

### English translation (Claude)

We are called the most wicked of people on account of a sacrament of infanticide and the feeding on it, and of incest after the banquet, which the dogs who overturn the lamps, panderers, of course, of darkness, procure, to the shamelessness of impious lusts. We are always called so, yet you take no care to bring to light what we have so long been called. Either bring it to light, then, if you believe it, or stop believing it, since you have not brought it to light. Your own failure to look into it makes the plea against you that there is nothing there which you yourselves do not dare to bring to light. You give the executioner a very different task against Christians: not to make them say what they do, but to make them deny what they are. The origin of this discipline, as we have already stated, dates from Tiberius. Truth began with hatred of itself; as soon as it appeared, it is an enemy. It has as many enemies as there are outsiders: the Jews indeed specifically from rivalry, the soldiers from extortion, and by nature even our own households. Daily we are besieged, daily betrayed; very often we are surprised in our very meetings and assemblies. Who ever came upon a crying infant in such a way? Who kept for the judge the bloody mouths of Cyclopes and Sirens, just as he had found them? Who has detected any impure traces even in the wives? Who, having discovered such crimes, concealed them, or sold his silence while dragging the very people to court? If we are always hidden, when was what we commit betrayed? Indeed, by whom could it have been betrayed? Certainly not by the guilty themselves, since by the very pattern of all mysteries a pledge of silence is owed. The mysteries of Samothrace and Eleusis are kept silent; how much more such things as, once betrayed, would provoke even human punishment at once, while the divine is reserved? If, then, they are not their own betrayers, it follows that outsiders are. And where would outsiders get knowledge, since even holy initiations always shut out the profane and beware of witnesses? Unless the impious are less afraid. The nature of rumor is known to all. It is your own poet's saying: “Rumor, an evil than which no other is swifter.” Why is rumor an evil? Because it is swift? Because it informs? Or because it is mostly a liar? It is not free from the fault of lying even when it brings something true, taking away, adding, changing the truth. What of this, that its condition is such that it lasts only while it lies, and lives only as long as it does not prove? For once it has proved, it ceases to be and, as though it had fulfilled the office of reporting, hands the matter over; from then on the thing is held as fact and called fact. No one says, for example, “They say this was done at Rome,” or, “The rumor is that he has drawn a province,” but, “He has drawn a province,” and, “This was done at Rome.” Rumor, the name for what is uncertain, has no place where there is certainty. Would anyone but a thoughtless person believe rumor? For a wise man does not believe what is uncertain. Anyone can reckon that, however widely it has spread, however confidently it has been built up, it must have arisen at some time from one originator. From there it creeps along the branches of tongues and ears, and the flaw of the little seed so obscures the rest of the report that no one considers whether that first mouth sowed a lie, which often happens, from a jealous disposition, or from a whim of suspicion, or from a pleasure in lying that in some people is not new but inborn. But it is well that time reveals all things, as even your proverbs and sayings testify, by the ordering of nature, which has so arranged it that nothing lies hidden long, even what rumor has not spread. Rightly, then, has rumor alone so long been privy to the crimes of Christians. This is the informer you bring against us; and what it once threw out and over so long a time hardened into opinion it has not been able to prove even until now, so that I appeal to the testimony of nature itself against those who presume such things are to be believed.

### Extrabiblical texts

- Virgil, Aen. 4.174 (Virgil): quotation, high confidence

### Translation notes

- The charges (eating a slaughtered infant, incest after dogs tied to the lamps overturn them) are the accusations made against Christians, which Tertullian rejects.
- “Rumor, an evil …”: Virgil, Aeneid 4.174.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 7 (Mayor-Souter, 24–28; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/1/#p-7).

## Apology 8

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/1/#p-8
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 28–30
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Tertullian mocks the charge of ritual murder and incest by imagining what an initiate would have to do and asking whether anyone could do it.

### Latin text

Ecce proponimus horum facinorum mercedem. Vitam aeternam repromittunt. Credite interim. De hoc enim quaero, an et qui credideris tanti habeas ad eam tali conscientia peruenire. Veni, demerge ferrum in infantem nullius inimicum, nullius reum, omnium filium, uel, si alterius officium est, tu modo adsiste morienti homini antequam uixit, fugientem animam nouam expecta, excipe rudem sanguinem, eo panem tuum satia, uescere libenter. Interea discumbens dinumera loca, ubi mater, ubi soror; nota diligenter, ut, cum tenebrae ceciderint caninae, non erres. Piaculum enim admiseris nisi incestum feceris. Talia initiatus et consignatus uiuis in aeuum. Cupio respondeas, si tanti aeternitas. Aut si non, ideo nec credenda. Etiamsi credideris, nego te uelle; etiamsi uolueris, nego te posse. Cur ergo alii possint, si uos non potestis? cur non possitis, si alii possunt? Alia nos, opinor, natura; Cynopaene aut Sciapodes? Alii ordines dentium, alii ad incestam libidinem nerui? Qui ista credis de homine, potes et facere. Homo es et ipse, quod et Christianus. Qui non potes facere, non debes credere. Homo est enim et Christianus et quod et tu. Sed ignorantibus subicitur et inponitur. Nihil enim tale de Christianis asseuerari sciebant obseruandum utique sibi et omni uigilantia inuestigandum. Atquin uolentibus initiari moris est, opinor, prius patrem illum sacrorum adire, quae praeparanda sint describere. Tum ille: Infans tibi necessarius adhuc tener, qui nesciat mortem, qui sub cultro tuo rideat; item panis, quo sanguinis uirulentiam colligas; praeterea candelabra et lucernae et canes aliqui et offulae, quae illos ad euersionem luminum extendant: ante omnia cum matre et sorore tua uenire debebis. Quid, si noluerint uel nullae fuerint? quid denique singulares Christiani? Non erit, opinor, legitimus Christianus nisi frater aut filius. Quid nunc, et si ista omnia ignaris praeparantur? Certe postea cognoscunt et sustinent et ignoscunt. Timent plecti, si proclament, qui defendi merebuntur,- qui etiam ultro perire malint quam sub tali conscientia uiuere. Age nunc timeant, cur etiam perseuerant? Sequitur enim, ne ultra uelis id te esse quod, si prius scisses, non fuisses.

### English translation (Claude)

See, we set out the reward for these crimes: they promise eternal life. Believe it for the moment. For I ask you this: whether, even if you believed it, you would think it worth reaching with such a conscience. Come, plunge the knife into an infant, enemy of no one, guilty of nothing, everyone's child; or, if that is another's duty, you need only stand by a human being dying before he has lived, wait for the new soul as it flees, catch the fresh blood, soak your bread in it, eat with pleasure. Meanwhile, as you recline, count the places, where your mother is, where your sister; note them carefully, so that when the dogs' darkness falls you make no mistake. For you will have committed a sacrilege if you have not committed incest. Initiated and sealed with such things, you live forever. I want you to answer whether eternity is worth that much. Or if not, then it is not to be believed either. Even if you believed it, I deny that you would want it; even if you wanted it, I deny that you could. Why then could others, if you cannot? Why could you not, if others can? We are of another nature, I suppose: Dog-faces or Shade-feet? We have other rows of teeth, other sinews for incestuous lust? You who believe these things of a human being can also do them. You are a human being yourself, as the Christian is too. You who cannot do them ought not to believe them. For the Christian too is a human being, and what you are. “But they are imposed on the ignorant and slipped upon them.” For, they say, they did not know that anything of the kind was asserted of Christians, which they would surely have had to watch out for and investigate with all vigilance. Yet it is the custom, I suppose, for those who wish to be initiated first to go to the father of the rites and set down what must be prepared. Then he says: “You need an infant, still tender, that does not know death, that will smile under your knife; also bread, to gather up the gush of blood; besides that, lampstands and lamps and some dogs and scraps of food to make them stretch and overturn the lights; above all, you will have to come with your mother and your sister.” What if they will not, or you have none? What, in short, of Christians who are alone in the world? There will be no lawful Christian, I suppose, unless he is a brother or a son. And what if all these things are prepared for people who do not know? Surely they learn of them afterward, and they bear them and pardon them. “They fear punishment if they cry out.” People who will deserve to be protected, who would rather die of their own accord than live with such a conscience! Suppose, then, that they fear: why do they still persevere? For it follows that you would no longer wish to be what, had you known it before, you would not have become.

### Translation notes

- The Cynopenae (“dog-faces”) and Sciapodes (“shade-feet,” who shade themselves with one huge foot) are fabulous peoples of ancient ethnography.
- The charges described are those made against Christians, which Tertullian rejects.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 8 (Mayor-Souter, 28–30; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/1/#p-8).

## Apology 9

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-9
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 30–36
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Tertullian turns the charges back on the pagans: child sacrifice, exposure of infants, drinking of blood, and the risk of incest are found among them, while Christians forbid even abortion and abstain from blood.

### Latin text

Haec quo magis refutauerim, a uobis fieri ostendam partim in aperto, partim in occulto, per quod forsitan et de nobis credidistis. Infantes penes Africam Saturno immolabantur palam usque ad proconsulatum Tiberii, qui eosdem sacerdotes in eisdem arboribus templi sui obumbratricibus scelerum uotiuis crucibus exposuit, teste militia patriae nostrae, quae id ipsum munus illi proconsuli functa est. Sed et nunc in occulto perseueratur hoc sacrum facinus. Non soli uos contemnunt Christiani, nec ullum scelus in perpetuum eradicatur aut mores suos aliqui deus mutat. Cum propriis filiis Saturnus non pepercit, extraneis utique non parcendo perseuerabat, quos quidem ipsi parentes sui offerebant et libentes respondebant et infantibus blandiebantur, ne lacrimantes immolarentur. Et tamen multum homicidio parricidium differt. Maior aetas apud Gallos Mercurio prosecatur. Remitto fabulas Tauricas theatris suis. Ecce in illa religiosissima urbe Aeneadarum piorum est Iupiter quidam quem ludis suis humano sanguine proluunt. Sed bestiarii, inquitis. Hoc, opinor, minus quam hominis? An hoc turpius, quod mali hominis? certe tamen de homicidio funditur. Iouem Christianum et solum patris filium de crudelitate! Sed quoniam de infanticidio nihil interest sacro an arbitrio perpetretur, licet parricidium homicidio intersit, conuertar ad populum. Quot uultis ex his circumstantibus et in Christianorum sanguinem hiantibus, ex ipsis etiam uobis iustissimis et seuerissimis in nos praesidibus apud conscientias pulsem, qui natos sibi liberos enecent? Siquidem et de genere necis differt, utique crudelius in aqua spiritum extorquetis aut frigori et fami et canibus exponitis. Ferro enim mori aetas quoque maior optauerit. Nobis uero semel homicidio interdicto etiam conceptum utero, dum adhuc sanguis in hominem delibatur, dissoluere non licet. Homicidii festinatio est prohibere nasci, nec refert natam quis eripiat animam an nascentem disturbet. Homo est et qui est futurus; etiam fructus omnis iam in semine est. De sanguinis pabulo et eiusmodi tragicis ferculis legite, necubi relatum sit (est apud Herodotum, opinor), defusum brachiis sanguinem ex alterutro degustatum nationes quasdam foederi conparasse. Nescio quid et sub Catilina degustatum est. Aiunt et apud quosdam gentiles Scytharum defunctum quemque a suis comedi. Longe excurro. Hodie istic Bellonae sacratus sanguis de femore proscisso in palmulam exceptus et esui datus signat. Item illi qui munere in arena noxiorum iugulatorum sanguinem recentem de iugulo decurrentem exceptum auida siti comitiali morbo medentes auferunt, ubi sunt? item illi qui de arena ferinis obsoniis coenant, qui de apro, qui de ceruo petunt? Aper ille quem cruentauit, conluctando detersit. Ceruus ille in gladiatoris sanguine iacuit. Ipsorum ursorum aluei appetuntur cruditantes adhuc de uisceribus humanis. Eructatur proinde ab homine caro pasta de homine. Haec qui editis, quantum abestis a conuiuiis Christianorum? Minus autem et illi faciunt qui libidine fera humanis membris inhiant, quia uiuos uorant? minus humano sanguine ad spurcitiam consecrantur, quia futurum sanguinem lambunt? Non edunt infantes plane, sed magis puberes. Erubescat error uester Christianis, qui ne animalium quidem sanguinem in epulis esculentis habemus, qui propterea suffocatis quoque et morticinis abstinemus, ne quo modo sanguine contaminemur uel intra uiscera sepulto. Denique inter temptamenta Christianorum botulos etiam cruore distensos admouetis, certissimi scilicet inlicitum esse penes illos per quod exorbitare eos uultis. Porro quale est, ut quos sanguinem pecoris horrere confiditis, humano inhiare credatis, nisi forte suauiorem eum experti? Quem quidem et ipsum proinde examinatorem Christianorum adhiberi oportebat ut foculum, ut acerram. Proinde enim probarentur sanguinem humanum adpetendo quemadmodum sacrificium respuendo, alioquin negandi si non gustassent, quemadmodum si immolassent, et utique non deesset uobis in auditione custodiarum et damnatione sanguis humanus. Proinde incesti qui magis quam quos ipse Iupiter docuit? Persas cum suis matribus misceri Ctesias refert. Sed et Macedones suspecti, quia, cum primum Oedipum tragoediam audissent, ridentes incesti dolorem, ἤλαυνε, dicebant, εἰς τὴν μητέρα. Iam nunc recogitate quantum liceat erroribus ad incesta miscenda, suppeditante materias passiuitate luxuriae. Imprimis filios exponitis suscipiendos ab aliqua praetereunte misericordia extranea, uel adoptandos melioribus parentibus emancipatis. Alienati generis necesse est quandoque memoriam dissipari, et simul error inpegerit, exinde iam tradux proficiet incesti serpente genere cum scelere. Tunc deinde quocunque in loco, domi, peregre, trans freta comes est libido, cuius ubique saltus facile possunt alicubi ignaris filios pangere uel ex aliqua seminis portione, ut ita sparsum genus per commercia humana concurrat in memorias suas, neque eas caecus incesti sanguinis agnoscat. Nos ab isto euentu diligentissima et fidelissima castitas sepsit, quantumque ab stupris et ab omni post matrimonium excessu, tantum et ab incesti casu tuti sumus. Quidam multo securiores totam uim huius erroris uirgine continentia depellunt, senes pueri. Haec in uobis esse si consideraretis, proinde in Christianis non esse perspiceretis. Idem oculi renuntiassent utrumque. Sed caecitatis duae species facile concurrunt, ut qui non uident quae sunt, uidere uideantur quae non sunt. Sic per omnia ostendam. Nunc de manifestioribus dicam.

### English translation (Claude)

To refute these things the more, I will show that they are done by you, partly in the open, partly in secret, which is perhaps why you have believed them of us too. In Africa infants were sacrificed to Saturn openly until the proconsulship of Tiberius, who exposed those same priests on the very trees of their temple that had overshadowed their crimes, as on votive crosses; witness the soldiery of our own country, which carried out that very task for that proconsul. But even now this sacred crime goes on in secret. Christians are not the only ones who defy you; no crime is rooted out forever, and no god changes his ways. Since Saturn did not spare his own children, he naturally persisted in not sparing others', whom their own parents offered, answering gladly and fondling the infants so that they would not be sacrificed in tears. And yet parricide differs greatly from homicide. Among the Gauls people of riper age are sacrificed to Mercury. I leave the Taurian tales to their own theaters. Look, in that most religious city of the pious descendants of Aeneas there is a certain Jupiter whom they drench with human blood at his games. “But it is a beast-fighter's,” you say. Is it, I suppose, less than a man's? Or is it more shameful because it is a bad man's? Certainly it is shed from a killing. A Jupiter who is a Christian, and his father's only son in cruelty! But since in infanticide it makes no difference whether it is committed as a rite or at will, although parricide differs from homicide, I will turn to the people. How many of these who stand round gaping for Christian blood, how many even of you yourselves, governors most just and most severe toward us, shall I knock at the conscience of, as people who kill the children born to them? For if there is a difference too in the manner of death, you surely act more cruelly in choking out their breath in water, or exposing them to cold and hunger and dogs; even an older person would prefer to die by the sword. But for us, murder being once for all forbidden, it is not lawful to destroy even what is conceived in the womb, while blood is still being drawn into a human being. To prevent birth is a hastening of murder; it makes no difference whether one takes away a life already born or destroys one that is being born. He too is a human being who is to be one; the whole fruit is already in the seed. As for feeding on blood and such tragic dishes, read whether it is not related somewhere (it is in Herodotus, I think) that certain nations sealed a treaty by tasting from each other blood drawn from their arms. Something was tasted under Catiline too. They say also that among certain Scythian tribes every dead man is eaten by his own people. I digress too far. Today, here among us, blood consecrated to Bellona, caught in the palm from a gashed thigh and given to be eaten, seals her devotees. Again, where are those who at a gladiatorial show, as a cure for epilepsy, catch and carry off with greedy thirst the fresh blood of slain criminals as it runs from the throat? Where, again, are those who dine on wild-beast meat from the arena, who seek boar, who seek venison? That boar, in the struggle, wiped off the blood of the man he had bloodied. That stag wallowed in a gladiator's blood. The very bellies of the bears are sought, still undigested with human entrails. So flesh fed on man is belched up by man. You who eat these things, how far are you from the banquets of the Christians? And do those do less who with savage lust gape after human bodies, because they devour the living? Are they less consecrated to filth by human blood, because they lick up what is to become blood? They do not eat infants, plainly, but rather grown youths. Let your error blush before the Christians, who do not even have the blood of animals among our foods, who for that reason abstain also from things strangled and things that die of themselves, lest we be in any way defiled by blood, even blood buried in the flesh. Indeed, among the tests of Christians you offer them sausages stuffed with blood, being quite sure, of course, that the very thing by which you want them to go astray is unlawful among them. Then how is it that you believe that those whom you are sure shudder at the blood of cattle gape after human blood, unless perhaps you have tried it and found it sweeter? It ought, then, to have been applied as a test of Christians, like the brazier, like the incense box. For they would be proved by craving human blood just as by refusing sacrifice; otherwise to be denied as Christians if they had not tasted it, just as if they had sacrificed; and surely you would have no lack of human blood at the hearing and condemnation of prisoners. Then again, who are more incestuous than those whom Jupiter himself taught? Ctesias reports that the Persians have intercourse with their own mothers. The Macedonians too are suspect, because, when they first heard the tragedy Oedipus, they laughed at the grief of the incestuous man and said, “He drove on into his mother!” Now consider how much room there is for mistakes that bring about incest, the promiscuity of lust supplying the material. First of all you expose your children, to be taken up by some passing kindness of strangers, or you give them up to be adopted by better parents. The memory of a family so estranged must at some time be lost, and once a mistake has occurred, from then on the line of incest will spread, the family creeping on with the crime. Then, further, in whatever place, at home, abroad, across the seas, lust is your companion, and its leaps everywhere can easily beget children somewhere unknown to the father, even from some small portion of seed, so that a family thus scattered through human dealings runs into its own kin, and the blind man does not recognize them as of incestuous blood. From that outcome a most careful and faithful chastity has fenced us off; and as far as we are safe from sexual immorality and from every excess after marriage, so far are we safe from the chance of incest. Some, much more secure, drive off the whole force of this error by virgin continence: old men who are still boys. If you considered that these things are in you, you would likewise see that they are not in Christians. The same eyes would have reported both. But two kinds of blindness easily go together, so that those who do not see what is, seem to see what is not. So I will show in everything. Now I will speak of the more open charges.

### Scripture references

- Acts 15:20: allusion, medium confidence
- Acts 15:29: allusion, medium confidence

### Extrabiblical texts

- Herodotus, Hist. 1.74 (Herodotus, Histories): allusion, medium confidence

### Translation notes

- “It is not lawful to destroy even what is conceived in the womb”: an early Christian statement against abortion.
- Abstaining from things strangled and from blood follows the apostolic decree of Acts 15:20, 29.
- Herodotus describes such blood oaths (Histories 1.74; 4.70). Ctesias's report on the Persians is not otherwise identified here.
- The Greek words of the Macedonians are corrupt in the OCR and are restored from the printed text: ἤλαυνε εἰς τὴν μητέρα, a coarse pun on Oedipus “driving” into his mother.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 9 (Mayor-Souter, 30–36; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-9).

## Apology 10

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-10
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 36–38
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Christians are charged with sacrilege and treason for not worshiping the gods, but the gods were men, as the case of Saturn shows.

### Latin text

Deos, inquitis, non colitis, et pro imperatoribus sacrificia non penditis. Sequitur ut eadem ratione pro aliis non sacrificemus, quia nec pro nobis ipsis, semel deos non colendo. Itaque sacrilegii et maiestatis rei conuenimur. Summa haec causa, immo tota est, et utique digna cognosci, si non praesumptio aut iniquitas iudicet, altera quae desperat, altera quae recusat ueritatem. Deos uestros colere desinimus ex quo illos non esse cognoscimus. Hoc igitur exigere debetis, uti probemus non esse illos deos, et idcirco non colendos, quia tunc demum coli debuissent, si dei fuissent. Tunc et Christiani puniendi, si quos non colerent, quia putarent non esse, constaret illos deos esse. Sed nobis, inquitis, dei sunt. Appellamus et prouocamus a uobis ad conscientiam uestram: illa nos iudicet, illa nos damnet, si poterit negare omnes istos deos uestros homines fuisse. Si et ipsa inficias ierit, de suis antiquitatum instrumentis reuincetur, de quibus eos didicit, testimonium perhibentibus ad hodiernum et ciuitatibus in quibus nati sunt, et regionibus in quibus aliquid operati uestigia reliquerunt, in quibus etiam sepulti demonstrantur. Nunc ergo per singulos decurram, tot ac tantos, nouos, ueteres, barbaros, Graecos, Romanos, peregrinos, captiuos, adoptiuos, proprios, communes, masculos, feminas, rusticos, urbanos, nauticos, militares? Otiosum est etiam titulos persequi, ut colligam in conpendium, et hoc non quo cognoscatis, sed recognoscatis. Certe enim oblitos agitis. Ante Saturnum deus penes uos nemo est, ab illo census totius uel potioris et notioris diuinitatis. Itaque quod de origine constiterit, id et de posteritate conueniet. Saturnum itaque, si quantum litterae decent, neque Diodorus Graecus aut Thallus neque Cassius Seuerus aut Cornelius Nepos neque ullus commentator eiusmodi antiquitatum aliud quam hominem promulgauerunt, si quantum rerum argumenta, nusquam inuenio fideliora quam apud ipsam Italiam, in qua Saturnus post multas expeditiones postque Attica hospitia consedit, exceptus a Iano, uel Iane, ut Salii uolunt. Mons quem incoluerat, Saturnius dictus, ciuitas quam depalauerat, Saturnia usque nunc est, tota denique Italia post Oenotriam Saturnia cognominabatur. Ab ipso primum tabulae et imagine signatus nummus, et inde aerario praesidet. Tamen si homo Saturnus, utique ex homine, et quia ab homine, non utique de caelo et terra. Sed cuius parentes ignoti erant, facile fuit eorum fillum dici quorum et omnes possumus uideri. Quis enim non caelum ac terram matrem ac patrem uenerationis et honoris gratia appellet? uel ex consuetudine humana, qua ignoti uel ex inopinato adparentes de caelo superuenisse dicuntur. Proinde Saturno repentino ubique caelitem contigit dici; nam et terrae filios uulgus uocat quorum genus incertum est. Taceo quod ita rudes adhuc homines agebant, ut cuiuslibet noui uiri adspectu quasi diuino commouerentur, cum hodie iam politi quos ante paucos dies luctu publico mortuos sint confessi, in deos consecrent. Satis iam de Saturno, licet paucis. Etiam Iouem ostendemus tam hominem quam ex homine, et deinceps totum generis examen tam mortale quam seminis sui par.

### English translation (Claude)

“You do not worship the gods,” you say, “and you do not offer sacrifices for the emperors.” It follows that for the same reason we do not sacrifice for others, since we do not even for ourselves, once we do not worship the gods. So we are charged with sacrilege and treason. This is the chief point of the case, indeed the whole of it, and certainly worth examining, if neither presumption nor injustice is the judge, the one despairing of the truth, the other refusing it. We stopped worshiping your gods from the time we came to know that they are not gods. This, then, is what you ought to demand: that we prove that they are not gods, and therefore not to be worshiped, because they ought to have been worshiped only if they had been gods. Then Christians too would deserve punishment, if it were established that those whom they did not worship, because they thought they did not exist, were gods. “But to us,” you say, “they are gods.” We appeal from you to your conscience: let it judge us, let it condemn us, if it can deny that all these gods of yours were men. If even it denies it, it will be refuted by its own documents of antiquity, from which it learned about them; witness to this day the cities in which they were born and the regions in which they left traces of things they did, in which their graves too are shown. Shall I now run through them one by one, so many and so great, new, old, barbarian, Greek, Roman, foreign, captured, adopted, private, common, male, female, rustic, urban, naval, military? It is idle even to pursue their titles; let me gather them into a summary, and that not so that you may learn but so that you may recall; for you certainly act as if you had forgotten. Before Saturn there is no god among you; from him dates the origin of all divinity, or at least of the more powerful and better known. So what is established about the origin will hold for the descendants too. As for Saturn, then: so far as literature teaches, neither Diodorus the Greek nor Thallus, neither Cassius Severus nor Cornelius Nepos, nor any writer on antiquities of that kind has declared him anything but a man; so far as material evidence goes, I find it nowhere more trustworthy than in Italy itself, where Saturn settled after many expeditions and after enjoying hospitality in Attica, received by Janus, or Janes, as the Salii prefer. The hill he had lived on was called Saturnius; the city he had marked out is still Saturnia; in short, all Italy, after being called Oenotria, was named Saturnia. From him first came writing tablets and coin stamped with an image, and so he presides over the treasury. Yet if Saturn was a man, he was certainly born of a man; and because from a man, certainly not from heaven and earth. But since his parents were unknown, it was easy to call him the son of those whose children we all may seem to be. For who would not, out of veneration and honor, call heaven and earth his father and mother? Or it came from human custom, by which people who are unknown, or who appear unexpectedly, are said to have come down from heaven. So it happened that Saturn, appearing suddenly everywhere, was called heavenly; for the common people also call those whose ancestry is uncertain sons of earth. I say nothing of the fact that people were then still so rude that they were moved by the sight of any new man as by something divine, when today, polished as they are, they consecrate as gods those whom a few days before they acknowledged dead with public mourning. Enough now of Saturn, though briefly. We will show that Jupiter too was as much a man as born of a man, and then the whole swarm of the family as mortal as its seed.

### Extrabiblical texts

- Diodorus Siculus (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History): allusion, low confidence
- Cornelius Nepos, Nepos (Cornelius Nepos): allusion, low confidence

### Translation notes

- Diodorus Siculus (Library 3.61; 5.66) treats Saturn (Cronus) as a man; the works of Thallus and Cassius Severus are lost.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 10 (Mayor-Souter, 36–38; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-10).

## Apology 11

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-11
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 38–42
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: There was no reason to make gods out of men: the world was complete from the beginning, and the deified men were wicked, while far better men were left in the underworld.

### Latin text

Et quoniam sicut illos homines fuisse non audetis negare, ita post mortem deos factos instituistis adseuerare, causas quae hoc exegerint retractemus. Inprimis quidem necesse est concedatis esse aliquem sublimiorem deum et mancipem quendam diuinitatis, qui ex hominibus deos fecerit. Nam neque sibi illi sumere potuissent diuinitatem, quam non habebant, nec alius praestare eam non habentibus nisi qui proprie possidebat. Ceterum si nemo esset qui deos faceret, frustra praesumitis deos factos auferendo factorem. Certe quidem si ipsi se facere potuissent, nunquam homines fuissent, possidentes scilicet condicionis melioris potestatem. Igitur si est qui faciat deos, reuertor ad causas examinandas faciendorum ex hominibus deorum, nec ullas inuenio, nisi si ministeria et auxilia officiis diuinis desiderauit ille magnus deus. Primo indignum est, ut alicuius opera indigeret, et quidem mortui, cum dignius ab initio deum aliquem fecisset qui mortui erat operam desideraturus. Sed nec operae locum uideo. Totum enim hoc mundi corpus siue innatum et infectum secundum Pythagoram, siue natum factumue secundum Platonem, semel utique in ista constructione dispositum et instructum et ordinatum cum omni rationis gubernaculo inuentum est. Imperfectum non potuit esse quod perfecit omnia. Nihil Saturnum et Saturniam gentem expectabat. Vani erunt homines, nisi certi sint a primordio et pluuias de caelo ruisse et sidera radiasse et lumina floruisse et tonitrua mugisse et ipsum Iouem quae in manu eius inponitis fulmina timuisse, item omnem frugem ante Liberum et Cererem et Mineruam, immo ante illum aliquem principem hominem de terra exuberasse, quia nihil continendo et sustinendo homini prospectum post hominem potuit inferri. Denique inuenisse dicuntur necessaria ista uitae, non instituisse. Quod autem inuenitur, fuit, et quod fuit, non eius deputabitur qui inuenit, sed eius qui instituit; erat enim antequam inueniretur. Ceterum si propterea Liber deus quod uitem demonstrauit, male cum Lucullo actum est, qui primus cerasia ex Ponto Italiae promulgauit, quod non est propterea consecratus ut frugis nouae auctor, qui ostensor. Quamobrem si ab initio et instructa et certis exercendorum officiorum suorum rationibus dispensata uniuersitas constitit, uacat ex hac parte causa adlegendae humanitatis in diuinitatem, quia quas illis stationes et potestates distribuistis, tam fuerunt ab initio quam et fuissent etiamsi deos istos non creassetis. Sed conuertimini ad causam aliam, respondentes conlationem diuinitatis meritorum remunerandorum fuisse rationem. Et hinc conceditis, opinor, illum deum deificum iustitia praecellere, qui non temere nec indigne nec prodige tantum praemium dispensarit. Volo igitur merita recensere,an eiusmodi sint, ut illos in caelum extulerint et non potius in imum tartarum merserint, quem carcerem poenarum infernarum cum uultis adfirmatis. Illuc enim abstrudi solent impii quique in parentes et incesti in sorores et maritarum adulteri et uirginum raptores et puerorum contaminatores et qui saeuiunt et qui occidunt et qui furantur et qui decipiunt et quicunque similes sunt alicuius dei uestri, quem neminem integrum a crimine aut uitio probare poteritis, nisi hominem negaueritis. Atquin ut illos homines fuisse non possitis negare, etiam istae notae accedunt quae nec deos postea factos credi permittunt. Si enim uos talibus puniendis praesidetis, si conmercium, colloquium, conuictum malorum et turpium probi quique respuitis, horum autem pares deus ille maiestatis suae consortio adsciuit, quid ergo damnatis quorum collegas adoratis? Suggillatio est in caelo uestra iustitia. Deos facite criminosissimos quosque, ut placeatis deis uestris. Illorum est honor consecratio coaequalium. Sed ut omittam huius indignitatis retractatum, probi et integri et boni fuerint. Quot tamen potiores uiros apud inferos reliquistis! aliquem de sapientia Socratem, de iustitia Aristiden, de militia Themistoclem, de sublimitate Alexandrum, de felicitate Polycraten, de copia Croesum, de eloquentia Demosthenen. Quis ex illis deis uestris grauior et sapientior Catone, iustior et militarior Scipione? quis sublimior Pompeio, felicior Sylla, copiosior Crasso, eloquentior Tullio? Quanto dignius istos deos ille adsumendos expectasset, praescius utique potiorum? Properauit, opinor. et caelum semel clusit, et nunc utique melioribus apud inferos musitantibus erubescit.

### English translation (Claude)

And since, just as you do not dare deny that they were men, so you have taken to asserting that they became gods after death, let us examine the reasons that required this. First of all, you must grant that there is some higher god, a kind of contractor of divinity, who made gods out of men. For they could not have taken divinity on themselves, since they did not have it, nor could anyone else give it to those who lacked it except one who possessed it properly. But if there were no one to make gods, you presume in vain that gods were made, while you remove their maker. Certainly, if they could have made themselves, they would never have been men, since they would have possessed the power of a better condition. If, then, there is one who makes gods, I return to examining the reasons for making gods out of men, and I find none, unless that great god wanted servants and helpers for his divine duties. First, it is unworthy of him to need anyone's help, and a dead man's at that, when, if he was going to want a dead man's help, it would have been more worthy to make some god from the beginning. But I see no room for help either. For this whole body of the world, whether unborn and unmade according to Pythagoras, or born and made according to Plato, was certainly found, once for all in its construction, arranged, equipped, and ordered with every guidance of reason. What has perfected all things could not have been imperfect. It waited for nothing from Saturn and the race of Saturn. People will be foolish unless they are sure that from the beginning rains fell from heaven, and stars shone, and lights blazed, and thunders roared, and Jupiter himself feared the thunderbolts you put in his hand; likewise that every crop sprang abundantly from the earth before Liber and Ceres and Minerva, indeed before that first man, whoever he was, because nothing provided to maintain and sustain man could have been brought in after man. In short, they are said to have discovered these necessities of life, not to have established them. But what is discovered existed, and what existed will be credited not to the one who discovered it but to the one who established it; for it was there before it was discovered. Besides, if Liber is a god because he showed the vine, Lucullus has been badly treated, who first brought cherries from Pontus to Italy, because he has not been consecrated for it as the author of a new fruit, being the one who showed it. Therefore, if the universe has stood from the beginning both equipped and arranged with fixed principles for carrying out its functions, there is on this side no reason for enrolling humanity into divinity, since the stations and powers you have assigned to them existed from the beginning just as they would have existed even if you had not created these gods. But you turn to another reason, answering that the conferring of divinity was a way of rewarding merits. And here, I suppose, you grant that the god who makes gods excels in justice, since he has not dispensed so great a reward rashly, unworthily, or lavishly. I want, then, to review their merits, whether they are such as to have raised them to heaven and not rather to have plunged them into the depths of Tartarus, which you affirm, when you choose, to be the prison of infernal punishments. For there are usually thrust down those who are impious to their parents, and incestuous with their sisters, and adulterers with wives, and ravishers of virgins, and corrupters of boys, and those who rage, and those who kill, and those who steal, and those who deceive, and all who resemble some god of yours, none of whom you will be able to prove free of crime or vice unless you deny he was a man. And yet, so that you cannot deny they were men, these marks are added too, which do not allow us to believe that they became gods afterward either. For if you preside over punishing such people, if all the upright among you reject dealings, conversation, and life in common with the wicked and base, while that god has admitted their equals to share his majesty, why then do you condemn those whose colleagues you adore? Your justice is an affront to heaven. Make gods of all the most criminal, so as to please your gods. It is an honor to them to have their equals consecrated. But to set aside further treatment of this unworthiness, suppose they were upright and blameless and good. Yet how many better men you have left in the underworld! a Socrates for wisdom, an Aristides for justice, a Themistocles for war, an Alexander for greatness, a Polycrates for good fortune, a Croesus for wealth, a Demosthenes for eloquence. Which of those gods of yours is graver and wiser than Cato, more just and more warlike than Scipio? Who is greater than Pompey, more fortunate than Sulla, richer than Crassus, more eloquent than Tullius? How much more worthily would that god have waited to take these as gods, since he certainly foreknew the better ones! He was in a hurry, I suppose, and closed heaven once for all, and now surely blushes while the better men grumble in the underworld.

### Extrabiblical texts

- Plato, Tim. 28b–c (Plato (works)): allusion, low confidence

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 11 (Mayor-Souter, 38–42; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-11).

## Apology 12

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-12
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 42–44
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: The gods are only dead men and their images mere material, which suffer in their making the very tortures inflicted on Christians.

### Latin text

Cesso iam de isto, ut qui sciam me ex ipsa ueritate demonstraturum quid non sint, cum ostendero quid sint. Quantum igitur de deis uestris, nomina solummodo uideo quorundam ueterum mortuorum et fabulas audio et sacra de fabulis recognosco: quantum autem de simulacris ipsis, nihil aliud reprehendo quam materias sorores esse uasculorum instrumentorumque communium uel ex isdem uasculis et instrumentis quasi fatum consecratione mutantes licentia artis transfigurante, et quidem contumeliosissime et in ipso opere sacrilege, ut reuera nobis maxime, qui propter ipsos deos plectimur, solatium poenarum esse possit quod eadem et ipsi patiuntur ut fiant. Crucibus et stipitibus inponitis Christianos. Quod simulacrum non prius argilla deformat cruci et stipiti superstructa? in patibulo primum corpus dei uestri dedicatur. Ungulis deraditis latera Christianorum. At in deos uestros per omnia membra ualidius incumbunt asciae et runcinae et scobinae. Ceruices ponimus. Ante plumbum et glutinum et gomphos sine capite sunt dei uestri. Ad bestias impellimur. Certe quas Libero et Cybele et Caelesti applicatis. Ignibus urimur. Hoc et illi a prima quidem massa. In metalla damnamur. Inde censentur dei uestri. In insulis relegamur. Solet et in insula aliqui deus uester aut nasci aut mori. Si per haec constat diuinitas aliqua, ergo qui puniuntur, consecrantur, et numina erunt dicenda supplicia. Sed plane non sentiunt has iniurias et contumelias fabricationis suae dei uestri, sicut nec obsequia. impiae uoces, o sacrilega conuicia! Infrendite, inspumate! Idem estis qui Senecam aliquem pluribus et amarioribus de uestra superstitione perorantem reprehendistis. Igitur si statuas et imagines frigidas mortuorum suorum simillimas non adoramus, quas milui et mures et araneae intellegunt, nonne laudem magis quam poenam merebatur repudium agniti erroris? Possumus enim uideri laedere eos quos certi sumus omnino non esse? Quod non est, nihil ab ullo patitur, quia non est.

### English translation (Claude)

I stop here, knowing that I shall show from the truth itself what they are not, when I have shown what they are. As far as your gods are concerned, then, I see only the names of certain men long dead, and I hear stories, and I recognize rites based on the stories. As for the images themselves, I find nothing else to object to than that their materials are sisters of common vessels and implements, or come from those very vessels and implements, changing their destiny, as it were, by consecration, while the license of art transforms them, and that most insultingly and sacrilegiously in the very working; so that for us especially, who are punished on account of these very gods, it can truly be a comfort in our punishments that they themselves suffer the same things in order to come into being. You put Christians on crosses and stakes. What image is not first modeled in clay laid over a cross and a stake? It is on a gibbet that the body of your god is first dedicated. You scrape the sides of Christians with claws. But on your gods axes and planes and rasps work harder over every limb. We lay down our necks. Before the lead and glue and pegs, your gods are headless. We are driven to the beasts: certainly to those you attach to Liber and Cybele and Caelestis. We are burned with fire: so are they, from their first lump. We are condemned to the mines: that is where your gods come from. We are banished to islands: some god of yours is wont to be born or to die on an island. If any divinity is established by these things, then those who are punished are consecrated, and tortures will have to be called divine powers. But plainly your gods do not feel these injuries and insults of their manufacture, any more than they feel acts of homage. “O impious words! O sacrilegious abuse!” Gnash your teeth, foam at the mouth! You are the same people who rebuked a Seneca, of course, when he declaimed at greater length and more bitterly against your superstition! If, then, we do not adore statues and cold images, so very like their dead originals, which kites and mice and spiders understand well enough, did not the rejection of an error once recognized deserve praise rather than punishment? For can we be thought to injure those whom we are sure do not exist at all? What does not exist suffers nothing from anyone, because it does not exist.

### Extrabiblical texts

- Seneca (Seneca): allusion, medium confidence

### Translation notes

- The remark about Seneca is ironic: his attack on Roman religion (in his lost work On Superstition) went unrebuked.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 12 (Mayor-Souter, 42–44; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-12).

## Apology 13

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-13
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 44–48
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: The pagans themselves dishonor their gods by choosing among them, selling and taxing them, and treating them like the dead, and by deifying prostitutes, emperors, and court favorites.

### Latin text

Sed nobis dei sunt, inquis. Et quomodo uos e contrario impii et sacrilegi et inreligiosi erga deos uestros deprehendimini, qui, quos praesumitis esse, neglegitis, quos timetis, destruitis, quos etiam uindicatis, inluditis? Recognoscite si mentior. Primo quidem, cum alii alios colitis, utique quos non colitis, offenditis. Praelatio alterius sine alterius contumelia non potest procedere, quia nec electio sine reprobatione. Iam ergo contemnitis quos reprobatis, quos reprobando offendere non timetis. Nam, ut supra praestrinximus, status dei cuiusque in senatus aestimatione pendebat. Deus non erat quem homo consultus noluisset et nolendo damnasset. Domesticos deos, quos Lares dicitis, domestica potestate tractatis pignerando, uenditando, demutando aliquando in caccabulum de Saturno, aliquando in trullam de Minerua, ut quisque contritus atque contusus est, dum diu colitur, ut quisque dominus sanctiorem expertus est domesticam necessitatem. Publicos aeque publico iure foedatis, quos in hastario uectigales habetis. Sic Capitolium, sic olitorium forum petitur; sub eadem uoce praeconis, sub eadem hasta, sub eadem adnotatione quaestoris diuinitas addicta conducitur. Sed enim agri tributo onusti uiliores, hominum capita stipendio censa ignobiliora (nam hae sunt notae captiuitatis), dei uero qui magis tributarii, magis sancti, immo qui magis sancti, magis tributarii. Maiestas quaestuaria efficitur. Circuit cauponas religio mendicans. Exigitis mercedem pro solo templi, pro aditu sacri. Non licet deos gratis nosse; uenales sunt. Quid omnino ad honorandos eos facitis quod non etiam mortuis uestris conferatis? Aedes proinde, aras proinde. Idem habitus et insignia in statuis. Ut aetas, ut ars, ut negotium mortui fuit, ita deus est. Quo differt ab epulo Iouis silicernium? a simpulo obba? ab haruspice pollinctor? Nam et haruspex mortuis apparet. Sed digne imperatoribus defunctis honorem diuinitatis dicatis, quibus et uiuentibus eum addicitis. Accepto ferent dei uestri, immo gratulabuntur, quod pares eis fiant domini sui. Sed cum Larentinam publicum scortum, uelim saltim Laidem aut Phrynen, inter Iunones et Cereres et Dianas adoretis, cum Simonem Magum statua et inscriptione Sancti Dei inauguratis, cum de paedagogiis aulicis nescio quem synodi deum facitis, licet non nobiliores dei ueteres, tamen contumeliam a uobis deputabunt hoc et aliis licuisse quod solis antiquitas contulit.

### English translation (Claude)

“But to us they are gods,” you say. And how is it that you, on the contrary, are found impious, sacrilegious, and irreligious toward your gods, you who neglect those you presume to exist, destroy those you fear, and mock those you even avenge? Check whether I am lying. First, since you worship different gods, you certainly offend those you do not worship. Preferring one cannot proceed without insulting another, because there is no choosing without rejecting. So you already despise those you reject, and in rejecting them you do not fear to offend them. For, as we touched on above, the status of each god depended on the senate's estimate. He was no god whom a man, when consulted, did not want and, by not wanting, condemned. Your household gods, which you call Lares, you treat with household authority, pawning them, selling them, changing them sometimes from a Saturn into a cooking pot, sometimes from a Minerva into a ladle, as each was worn out and battered by long worship, or as each master found his household need holier. Your public gods you likewise defile by public law, holding them as sources of revenue at the auction. So the Capitol is bid for, so the vegetable market: under the same cry of the auctioneer, under the same spear, under the same entry of the quaestor, divinity is knocked down and leased. But fields burdened with tax are cheaper, and persons assessed for poll tax less noble (for these are marks of captivity); yet gods, the more tributary they are, the holier, or rather, the holier, the more tributary. Majesty is made a source of profit. Religion goes begging round the taverns. You demand a fee for the ground of a temple, for entry to the rite. It is not lawful to know the gods for nothing; they are for sale. What do you do at all to honor them that you do not also bestow on your dead? Temples just the same, altars just the same. The same dress and insignia on the statues. As the dead man's age, art, or business was, so is the god. How does Jupiter's banquet differ from the funeral meal? the sacrificial ladle from the jug for the dead? the soothsayer from the undertaker? For the soothsayer too attends the dead. But you do well to give the honor of divinity to dead emperors, since you assign it to them even while they live. Your gods will take it kindly, indeed will congratulate themselves, that their masters become their equals. But when you adore Larentina, a public prostitute (I could at least wish it were Lais or Phryne), among your Junos and Cereses and Dianas; when you consecrate Simon Magus with a statue and the inscription “Holy God”; when you make some boy from the palace schools a god of the assembly: then, though the old gods are no nobler, they will still count it an insult from you that what antiquity granted to them alone has been allowed to others too.

### Scripture references

- Acts 8:9: echo, low confidence

### Extrabiblical texts

- Justin, 1 Apol. 26 (First Apology): allusion, medium confidence

### Translation notes

- The statue of Simon Magus: Tertullian follows Justin (1 Apol. 26); the inscription found on the Tiber island was probably a dedication to the Sabine god Semo Sancus.
- The “boy from the palace schools” made a god is probably Antinous, Hadrian's favorite.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 13 (Mayor-Souter, 44–48; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-13).

## Apology 14

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-14
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 48–50
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: The pagans dishonor their gods in their sacrifices and in their own poets, who tell of gods wounded, chained, lustful, and punished.

### Latin text

Volo et ritus uestros recensere: non dico quales sitis in sacrificando, cum enecta et tabidosa et scabiosa quaeque mactatis, cum de opimis et integris superuacua quaeque truncatis, capitula et ungulas, quae domi quoque pueris uel canibus destinassetis, cum de decima Herculis nec tertiam partem in aram eius inponitis (laudabo magis sapientiam, quod de perdito aliquid eripitis), sed conuersus ad litteras uestras, quibus informamini ad prudentiam et liberalia officia, quanta inuenio ludibria! deos inter se propter Troianos et Achiuos ut gladiatorum paria congressos depugnasse, Venerem humana sagitta sauciatam, quod filium suum Aenean paene interfectum ab eodem Diomede rapere uellet, Martem tredecim mensibus in uinculis paene consumptum, Iouem, ne eandem uim a ceteris caelitibus experiretur, opera cuiusdam monstri liberatum, et nunc flentem Sarpedonis casum, nunc foede subantem in sororem sub commemoratione non ita dilectarum iampridem amicarum. Exinde quis non poeta ex auctoritate principis sui dedecorator inuenitur deorum? Hic Apollinem Admeto regi pascendis pecoribus addicit, ille Neptuni structorias operas Laomedonti locat. Est et ille de lyricis (Pindarum dico) qui Aescolapium canit auaritiae merito, quia medicinam nocenter exercebat, fulmine iudicatum. Malus Iuppiter, si fulmen illius est, impius in nepotem, inuidus in artificem. Haec neque uera prodi neque falsa confingi apud religiosissimos oportebat. Nec tragici quidem aut comici parcunt, ut non aerumnas uel errores domus alicuius dei praefentur. Taceo de philosophis, Socrate contentus, qui in contumeliam deorum quercum et hircum et canem deierabat. Sed propterea damnatus est Socrates, quia deos destruebat. Plane olim, id est semper, ueritas odio est. Tamen cum paenitentia sententiae Athenienses et criminatores Socratis postea afflixerint et imaginem eius auream in templo collocarint, rescissa damnatio testimonium Socrati reddidit. Sed et Diogenes nescio quid in Herculem ludit, et Romanus Cynicus Varro trecentos Ioues, siue Iupitros dicendos, sine capitibus introducit.

### English translation (Claude)

I want to review your rites too. I do not speak of how you behave in sacrificing, when you slaughter every worn-out, wasted, and mangy beast; when from the choice and sound ones you cut off all the useless parts, the heads and hooves, which at home you would have given to the slave boys or the dogs; when of the tithe owed to Hercules you do not put even a third on his altar (I will rather praise your wisdom in rescuing something from what is lost). But turning to your literature, by which you are trained in wisdom and the liberal duties, what mockeries I find! That the gods fought one another over the Trojans and the Achaeans, matched like pairs of gladiators; that Venus was wounded by a human arrow because she wanted to snatch away her son Aeneas, who had almost been killed by the same Diomedes; that Mars was almost worn away by thirteen months in chains; that Jupiter, lest he suffer the same violence from the other heavenly beings, was set free by the help of some monster; and that he now weeps for the fall of Sarpedon, now lusts foully for his sister, recalling mistresses of long ago not so dearly loved. After that, what poet is not found, on the authority of his chief, to be a dishonorer of the gods? One assigns Apollo to King Admetus to pasture his flocks; another hires out Neptune's labor as a builder to Laomedon. There is also that one among the lyric poets (I mean Pindar) who sings that Aesculapius was deservedly judged with a thunderbolt for his greed, because he practiced medicine harmfully. A bad Jupiter, if the thunderbolt is his: impious toward his grandson, jealous of a craftsman. Such things, if true, ought not to have been divulged, nor, if false, invented, among the most religious of people. Nor do the tragic or comic poets spare them either, but they set out in their prologues the troubles or wanderings of some god's house. I say nothing of the philosophers, content with Socrates, who to insult the gods swore by an oak, a goat, and a dog. “But Socrates was condemned for that very reason, because he was destroying the gods.” Plainly, long ago, that is, always, truth is hated. Yet since the Athenians later, repenting of the sentence, punished Socrates' accusers and set up a golden image of him in a temple, the rescinding of the condemnation restored Socrates' testimony. Diogenes too makes some jest or other against Hercules, and the Roman Cynic Varro brings in three hundred Joves, or Jupiters as they should be called, without heads.

### Extrabiblical texts

- Homer, Il. 5.330–343 (Homer, Iliad): allusion, high confidence
- Homer, Il. 5.385–391 (Homer, Iliad): allusion, high confidence
- Homer, Il. 1.396–406 (Homer, Iliad): allusion, high confidence
- Homer, Il. 14.312–328 (Homer, Iliad): allusion, high confidence
- Pindar, Pyth. 3.54–58 (Pindar (odes and fragments)): allusion, high confidence
- Varro (Varro): allusion, medium confidence

### Translation notes

- The episodes are from Homer's Iliad (Venus wounded, 5.330–343; Mars chained thirteen months, 5.385–391; Briareus freeing Zeus, 1.396–406; Sarpedon, 16.431–461; Zeus and Hera, 14.312–328). Pindar, Pythian 3.54–58, on Asclepius.
- Varro's “three hundred Joves” probably refers to a lost Menippean satire.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 14 (Mayor-Souter, 48–50; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-14).

## Apology 15

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-15
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 50–52
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Mimes, plays, and the arena make sport of the gods, and temples serve as places of vice, so the pagans insult their gods more than Christians do.

### Latin text

Cetera lasciuiae ingenia etiam uoluptatibus uestris per deorum dedecus operantur. Dispicite Lentulorum et Hostiliorum uenustates, utrum mimos an deos uestros in iocis et strophis rideatis: moechum Anubin, et masculum Lunam, et Dianam flagellatam, et Iouis mortui testamentum recitatum, et tres Hercules famelicos inrisos. Sed et histrionum litterae omnem foeditatem eorum designant. Luget Sol filium de caelo iactatum laetantibus uobis, et Cybele pastorum suspirat fastidiosum non erubescentibus uobis, et sustinetis Iouis elogia cantari, et Iunonem, Venerem, Mineruam a pastore iudicari. Ipsum quod imago dei uestri ignominiosum caput et famosum uestit, quod corpus inpurum et ad istam artem effeminatione productum Mineruam aliquam uel Herculem repraesentat, nonne uiolatur maiestas et diuinitas constupratur laudantibus uobis? Plane religiosiores estis in cauea, ubi super sanguinem humanum, super inquinamenta poenarum proinde saltant dei uestri argumenta et historias noxiis ministrantes, nisi quod et ipsos deos uestros saepe noxii induunt. Vidimus aliquando castratum Attin, illum deum ex Pessinunte, et qui uiuus ardebat, Herculem induerat. Risimus et inter ludicras meridianorum crudelitates Mercurium mortuos cauterio examinantem, uidimus et Iouis fratrem gladiatorum cadauera cum malleo deducentem. Singula ista quaeque adhuc inuestigare quis posset? Si honorem inquietant diuinitatis, si maiestatis uestigia obsoletant, de contemptu utique censentur tam eorum qui eiusmodi factitant quam eorum quibus factitant. Sed ludicra ista sint. Ceterum si adiciam, quae non minus conscientiae omnium recognoscent, in templis adulteria conponi, inter aras lenocinia tractari, in ipsis plerumque aedituorum et sacerdotum tabernaculis sub isdem uittis et apicibus et purpuris thure flagrante libidinem expungi, nescio, ne plus de uobis dei uestri quam de Christianis querantur. Certe sacrilegi de uestris semper adprehenduntur. Christiani enim templa nec interdiu norunt; spoliarent forsitan ea et ipsi, si et ipsi ea adorarent. Quid ergo colunt qui talia non colunt? Iam quidem intellegi subiacet ueritatis esse cultores qui mendacii non sint, nec errare amplius in eo in quo errasse se recognoscendo cessauerunt. Hoc prius capite et omnem hinc sacramenti nostri ordinem haurite, repercussis ante tamen opinionibus falsis.

### English translation (Claude)

Other wanton talents also serve your pleasures through the dishonor of the gods. Examine the elegant pieces of the Lentuli and the Hostilii, whether in their jokes and tricks you are laughing at the mimes or at your gods: Anubis the Adulterer, Luna as a Man, Diana Flogged, the Reading of the Will of the Dead Jupiter, and Three Starving Herculeses Mocked. The literature of the actors too depicts all their foulness. The Sun mourns his son thrown down from heaven, while you rejoice; Cybele sighs for a disdainful shepherd, and you do not blush; you endure the scandals of Jupiter being sung, and Juno, Venus, and Minerva being judged by a shepherd. When the image of your god covers an infamous and disgraceful head, when a body impure and trained for that art by effeminacy represents some Minerva or Hercules, is not majesty violated and divinity defiled while you applaud? You are plainly more religious in the amphitheater, where over human blood, over the filth of punishments, your gods dance in the same way, supplying plots and stories for the condemned, except that the condemned often wear the costumes of your gods themselves. We have seen at times Attis, that god from Pessinus, castrated, and a man who was being burned alive had been dressed as Hercules. Among the ludicrous cruelties of the midday show we have also laughed at Mercury testing the dead with a branding iron; we have seen Jupiter's brother, too, dragging off the corpses of gladiators with a hammer. Who could track down every one of these things? If they disturb the honor of divinity, if they wear away the traces of majesty, they are surely to be put down to contempt, both of those who do such things and of those for whom they do them. But let these be mere shows. If, however, I add what the consciences of all will recognize no less, that adulteries are arranged in temples, that pimping is done among the altars, that very often in the very lodgings of the temple-keepers and priests, under the same fillets and caps and purple, with the incense burning, lust is satisfied, I do not know whether your gods do not complain more of you than of the Christians. Certainly temple-robbers are always caught among your own. For Christians do not know the temples even by day; perhaps they too would rob them, if they too adored them. What, then, do those worship who do not worship such things? It is now open to understand that those are worshipers of the truth who are not worshipers of falsehood, and that they no longer err in that in which, by recognizing that they had erred, they have ceased to err. Take this in first, and from here draw the whole order of our religion, though only after false opinions have first been refuted.

### Translation notes

- Lentulus and Hostilius were writers of mimes; the titles are of lost farces.
- In the arena, condemned criminals were sometimes executed in mythological roles; “Jupiter's brother” is Dis (Pluto), whose attendant dragged away the dead.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 15 (Mayor-Souter, 50–52; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-15).

## Apology 16

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-16
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 52–56
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Tertullian refutes the slanders that Christians worship an ass's head, the cross, or the sun, and mocks a caricature of the Christian god displayed in Carthage.

### Latin text

Nam et, ut quidam, somniastis caput asininum esse deum nostrum. Hanc Cornelius Tacitus suspicionem eiusmodi dei inseruit. Is enim in quinta historiarum suarum bellum Iudaicum exorsus ab origine gentis etiam de ipsa tam origine quam de nomine et religione gentis quae uoluit argumentatus Iudaeos refert Aegypto expeditos siue, ut putauit, extorres uastis Arabiae in locis aquarum egentissimis, cum siti macerarentur, onagris, qui forte de pastu potum petituri aestimabantur, indicibus fontis usos ob eam gratiam consimilis bestiae superficiem consecrasse. Atque ita inde praesumptum opinor nos quoque ut Iudaicae religionis propinquos eidem simulacro initiari. At enim idem Cornelius Tacitus, sane ille mendaciorum loquacissimus, in eadem historia refert Gneum Pompeium, cum Hierusalem cepisset proptereaque templum adisset speculandis Iudaicae religionis arcanis, nullum illic reperisse simulacrum. Et utique, si id colebatur quod aliqua effigie repraesentabatur, nusquam magis quam in sacrario suo exhiberetur, eo magis, quia nec uerebatur extraneos arbitros, quamquam uana cultura. Solis enim sacerdotibus adire licitum; etiam conspectus ceterorum uelo oppanso interdicebatur. Vos tamen non negabitis et iumenta omnia et totos cantherios cum sua Epona coli a uobis. Hoc forsitan inprobamur, quod inter cultores omnium pecudum bestiarumque asinarii tantum sumus. Sed et qui crucis nos religiosos putat, consecraneus erit noster. Cum lignum aliquod propitiatur, uiderit habitus, cum materiae qualitas eadem sit, uiderit forma, dum id ipsum dei corpus sit. Et tamen quanto distinguitur a crucis stipite Pallas Attica, et Ceres Pharia, quae sine effigie rudi palo et informi ligno prostant? Pars crucis est omne robur quod erecta statione defigitur. Nos, si forte, integrum et totum deum colimus. Diximus originem deorum uestrorum a plastis de cruce induci. Sed et Victorias adoratis, cum in tropaeis cruces intestina sint tropaeorum. Religio Romanorum tota castrensis signa ueneratur, signa iurat, signa omnibus deis praeponit. Omnes illi imaginum suggestus in signis monilia crucum sunt; siphara illa uexillorum et cantabrorum stolae crucum sunt. Laudo diligentiam. Noluistis incultas et nudas cruces consecrare. Alii plane humanius et uerisimilius solem credunt deum nostrum. Ad Persas, si forte, deputabimur, licet solem non in linteo depictum adoremus, habentes ipsum ubique in suo clypeo. Denique inde suspicio quod innotuerit nos ad orientis regionem precari. Sed et plerique uestrum adfectatione aliquando et caelestia adorandi ad solis ortum labia uibratis. Aeque si diem solis laetitiae indulgemus, alia longe ratione quam religione solis secundo loco ab eis sumus qui diem Saturni otio et uictui decernunt exorbitantes et ipsi a Iudaico more, quem ignorant. Sed noua iam dei nostri in ista proxime ciuitate editio publicata est, ex quo quidam frustrandis bestiis mercenarius noxius picturam proposuit cum eiusmodi inscriptione: DEUS CHRISTIANORUM ΟΝΟΚΟΙΤΗΣ. Is erat auribus asininis, altero pede ungulatus, librum gestans et togatus. Risimus et nomen et formam. Sed illi debebant adorare statim biforme numen, quia et canino et leonino capite commixtos, et de capro et de ariete cornutos, et a lumbis hircos, et a cruribus serpentes, et planta uel tergo alites deos receperunt. Haec ex abundanti, ne quid rumoris inrepercussum quasi de conscientia praeterissemus. Quae omnia conuersi iam ad demonstrationem religionis nostrae repurgauimus.

### English translation (Claude)

For, like some others, you have dreamed that an ass's head is our god. Cornelius Tacitus planted this suspicion of such a god. For in the fifth book of his Histories, beginning the Jewish war from the origin of the nation, and arguing as he pleased about both the origin and the name and the religion of the nation, he relates that the Jews, set free from Egypt or, as he thought, expelled, were wasting away with thirst in the vast and waterless regions of Arabia, and used as guides to a spring some wild asses that were thought to be going from pasture to drink; and in gratitude for this they consecrated the likeness of that beast. And so from this, I suppose, it was presumed that we too, as near relations of the Jewish religion, are initiated into the same image. But that same Cornelius Tacitus, truly the most talkative of liars, relates in the same history that Gnaeus Pompey, when he had taken Jerusalem and had therefore entered the temple to inspect the secrets of the Jewish religion, found no image there. And surely, if what was worshiped was represented by some likeness, it would be displayed nowhere more than in its sanctuary, all the more because, however vain the worship, it had no fear of outside witnesses there. For only the priests were allowed to approach; even the sight of it was forbidden to others by a curtain drawn across. You, however, will not deny that you worship all beasts of burden and whole stables of nags, together with their Epona. Perhaps we are blamed for this, that among worshipers of all cattle and beasts we are worshipers of asses only. And whoever thinks us devotees of the cross will be our fellow-devotee. When some piece of wood is propitiated, never mind its appearance, since the quality of the material is the same; never mind its shape, so long as it is the very body of the god. And yet how far is the Attic Pallas, or the Pharian Ceres, which are set up without form as a rough stake and shapeless wood, from the stake of a cross? Every timber fixed in an upright position is part of a cross. We, if it comes to that, worship a god complete and whole. We have said that your gods take their origin from the modelers on a cross. But you also adore Victories, though in trophies crosses are the inner frames of the trophies. The religion of the Romans, a camp religion through and through, venerates the standards, swears by the standards, sets the standards before all the gods. All those masses of images on the standards are necklaces of crosses; those hangings of the banners and flags are robes of crosses. I praise your care: you did not want to consecrate crosses unadorned and bare. Others, plainly more humanely and more plausibly, believe that the sun is our god. We shall be reckoned with the Persians, perhaps, though we do not adore the sun painted on linen, having it everywhere in its own disk. In fact the suspicion comes from its being known that we pray toward the region of the east. But many of you too, affecting sometimes to adore even the heavenly bodies, move your lips toward the sunrise. Likewise, if we give the day of the sun to rejoicing, for a reason far different from worship of the sun, we stand second to those who set apart the day of Saturn for rest and feasting, themselves too departing from the Jewish custom, of which they are ignorant. But a new representation of our god has lately been published in this city, ever since a certain criminal, hired to dodge the beasts, put up a picture with an inscription of this kind: THE GOD OF THE CHRISTIANS, ONOKOITES. He had ass's ears, was hoofed in one foot, carried a book, and wore a toga. We laughed at both the name and the form. But they ought to have adored at once a two-formed deity, since they have accepted gods compounded with dog's heads and lion's heads, horned like goats and rams, goats from the loins, serpents from the legs, winged on the foot or the back. We have said these things more than was needed, lest we should seem to pass over any rumor unrefuted, as if from a guilty conscience. Having cleared all these away, we turn now to the demonstration of our religion.

### Extrabiblical texts

- Tacitus, Hist. 5.3–4 (Tacitus): allusion, high confidence
- Tacitus, Hist. 5.9 (Tacitus): allusion, high confidence

### Translation notes

- Tacitus, Histories 5.3–4 (the asses) and 5.9 (Pompey finds no image in the temple). The slander transfers to Christians a story told of the Jews.
- Christians prayed facing east and kept Sunday as a day of rejoicing; the pagans who rest on Saturday are said to imitate Jewish custom.
- ΟΝΟΚΟΙΤΗΣ (Latin letters in the OCR): its meaning is disputed: “ass-begotten,” “ass-priest,” or “one who lies with asses.”

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 16 (Mayor-Souter, 52–56; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-16).

## Apology 17

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-17
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 56
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Christians worship the one Creator, who is known both from his works and from the testimony of the soul, which naturally calls on God.

### Latin text

Quod colimus, deus unus est, qui totam molem istam cum omni instrumento elementorum, corporum, spirituum uerbo quo iussit, ratione qua disposuit, uirtute qua potuit, de nihilo expressit, in ornamentum maiestatis suae, unde et Graeci nomen mundo κόσμον accommodauerunt. Inuisibilis est, etsi uideatur; incomprehensibilis, etsi per gratiam repraesentetur; inaestimabilis, etsi humanis sensibus aestimetur. Ideo uerus et tantus est. Ceterum quod uideri communiter, quod comprehendi, quod aestimari potest, minus est et oculis quibus occupatur, et manibus quibus contaminatur, et sensibus quibus inuenitur: quod uero inmensum est, soli sibi notum est. Hoc quod est, deum aestimari facit, dum aestimari non capit. Ita eum uis magnitudinis et notum hominibus obicit et ignotum. Et haec est summa delicti nolentium recognoscere quem ignorare non possunt. Vultis ex operibus ipsius tot ac tali bus, quibus continemur, quibus sustinemur, quibus oblectamur, etiam quibus exterremur, uultis ex animae ipsius testimonio conprobemus? Quae licet carcere corporis pressa, licet institutionibus prauis circumscripta, licet libidinibus et concupiscentiis euigorata, licet falsis deis exancillata, cum tamen resipiscit, ut ex crapula, ut ex somno, ut ex aliqua ualitudine, et sanitatem suam patitur, deum nominat, hoc solo, quia proprie uerus hic unus. Deus bonus et magnus, et Quod deus dederit omnium uox est. Iudicem quoque contestatur illum Deus uidet, et Deo commendo, et Deus mihi reddet. testimonium animae naturaliter Christianae! Denique pronuntians haec non ad Capitolium, sed ad caelum respicit. Nouit enim sedem dei uiui ab illo, et inde descendit.

### English translation (Claude)

What we worship is the one God, who by the word by which he commanded, the reason by which he arranged, and the power by which he was able, brought forth from nothing this whole mass with all its equipment of elements, bodies, and spirits, as an adornment of his majesty; whence the Greeks too gave the world the name kosmos (“adornment”). He is invisible, though he is seen; incomprehensible, though he is made present by grace; beyond reckoning, though he is reckoned by human senses. That is why he is true and so great. Whatever can be seen, comprehended, and reckoned in the ordinary way is less than the eyes by which it is taken in, the hands by which it is soiled, and the senses by which it is found; but what is immeasurable is known to itself alone. This is what makes God to be reckoned, that he cannot be grasped by reckoning. So the force of his greatness presents him to men as both known and unknown. And this is the sum of the guilt of those who will not acknowledge him whom they cannot fail to know. Do you want us to prove him from his own works, so many and so great, by which we are held together, sustained, delighted, and even terrified? Do you want us to prove him from the testimony of the soul itself? Though it is pressed down in the prison of the body, though hemmed in by perverse teachings, though enfeebled by lusts and desires, though enslaved to false gods, yet when it comes to its senses, as from drunkenness, as from sleep, as from some illness, and enjoys its health, it names God, by this name alone, because this is properly the one true God. “Good God,” “Great God,” and “May God grant it” are on everyone's lips. It also calls him to witness as judge: “God sees,” and “I commend it to God,” and “God will repay me.” O testimony of the soul naturally Christian! Finally, as it says these things, it looks not to the Capitol but to heaven. For it knows the seat of the living God; from him and from there it came down.

### Scripture references

- Rom 1:20: echo, low confidence

### Extrabiblical texts

- Tertullian, Test. 2 (The Testimony of the Soul): echo, medium confidence

### Translation notes

- The same argument is developed in Tertullian's On the Testimony of the Soul.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 17 (Mayor-Souter, 56; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/9/#p-17).

## Apology 18

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/18/#p-18
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 58–60
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: God has also revealed himself through the prophets, whose writings were translated into Greek for Ptolemy Philadelphus and are read openly by the Jews every Sabbath.

### Latin text

Sed quo plenius et inpressius tam ipsum quam dispositiones eius et uoluntates adiremus, adiecit instrumentum litteraturae, si qui uelit de deo inquirere, et inquisito inuenire, et inuento credere, et credito deseruire. Viros enim iustitiae innocentia dignos deum nosse et ostendere a primordio in saeculum emisit spiritu diuino inundatos, quo praedicarent deum unicum esse, qui uniuersa condiderit, qui hominem de humo struxerit hic enim est uerus Prometheus, qui saeculum certis temporum dispositionibus et exitibus ordinauit), exinde quae signa maiestatis suae iudicantis ediderit per imbres, per ignes, quas demerendo sibi disciplinas determinauerit, quae ignoratis et desertis et obseruatis his praemia destinarit, ut qui producto aeuo isto iudicaturus sit suos cultores in uitae aeternae retributionem, profanos in ignem aeque perpetem et iugem, suscitatis omnibus ab initio defunctis et reformatis et recensitis ad utriusque meriti dispunctionem. Haec et nos risimus aliquando. De uestris sumus. Fiunt, non nascuntur Christiani. Quos diximus praedicatores, prophetae de officio praefandi uocantur. Voces eorum itemque uirtutes, quas ad fidem diuinitatis edebant, in thesauris litterarum manent, nec istae latent. Ptolemaeorum eruditissimus, quem Philadelphum supernominant, et omnis litteraturae sagacissimus, cum studio bibliothecarum Pisistratum, opinor, aemularetur, inter cetera memoriarum, quibus aut uetustas aut curiositas aliqua ad famam patrocinabatur, ex suggestu Demetri Phalerei grammaticorum tunc probatissimi, cui praefecturam mandauerat, libros a Iudaeis quoque postulauit, proprias atque uernaculas litteras, quas soli habebant. Ex ipsis enim et ad ipsos semper prophetae perorauerant, scilicet ad domesticam dei gentem ex patrum gratia. Hebraei retro qui nunc Iudaei. Igitur et litterae Hebraeae et eloquium. Sed ne notitia uacaret, hoc quoque a Iudaeis Ptolemaeo subscriptum est septuaginta et duobus interpretibus indultis, quos Menedemus quoque philosophus, prouidentiae uindex, de sententiae communione suspexit. Adfirmauit haec uobis etiam Aristaeus. Ita in Graecum stilum exaperta monumenta reliquit. Hodie apud Serapeum Ptolemaei bibliothecae cum ipsis Hebraicis litteris exhibentur. Sed et Iudaei palam lectitant. Vectigalis libertas; uulgo aditur sabbatis omnibus. Qui audierit, inueniet deum; qui etiam studuerit intellegere, cogetur et credere.

### English translation (Claude)

But so that we might approach more fully and more forcefully both him and his dispensations and will, he added the provision of writings, for anyone who wishes to inquire about God, and having inquired to find, and having found to believe, and having believed to serve. For from the beginning he sent into the world men worthy, by their righteousness and innocence, to know God and to make him known, flooded with the divine Spirit, so that they might proclaim that God is one, who created all things, who formed man from the ground (for he is the true Prometheus), who ordered the world with fixed dispensations and ends of the times; and then what signs of his judging majesty he has given through floods and fires; what disciplines he has laid down for winning his favor; what rewards he has appointed for those who ignore and abandon them and for those who keep them; seeing that at the end of this age he will judge his worshipers for the reward of eternal life, and the profane for a fire equally perpetual and unceasing, when all who have died from the beginning have been raised, re-formed, and reviewed for the settling of either desert. These things we too once laughed at. We are from among you. Christians are made, not born. Those whom we have called preachers are called prophets, from their office of foretelling. Their words, and likewise the miracles they performed to win faith in the Godhead, remain in the treasuries of literature, and these are not hidden. The most learned of the Ptolemies, whom they surname Philadelphus, and most skilled in all literature, when in his zeal for libraries he was emulating Pisistratus, I suppose, among other records that antiquity or some curiosity commended to fame, at the suggestion of Demetrius of Phalerum, the most esteemed scholar of the time, to whom he had entrusted the charge, asked the Jews too for their books, their own native literature, which they alone had. For it was from among them and to them that the prophets had always spoken, namely to the household nation of God, by the favor shown to the fathers. Those who are now Jews were formerly Hebrews; hence both the Hebrew literature and speech. But lest the knowledge of it be lacking, this too was granted to Ptolemy by the Jews: seventy-two translators were provided, whom Menedemus too, the philosopher who championed providence, admired for their agreement in meaning. Aristaeus too has affirmed this to you. So he left these records opened up in the Greek language. Today the libraries of Ptolemy at the Serapeum display them, together with the Hebrew texts themselves. The Jews too read them openly. Their liberty pays a tax; they are visited by the public every Sabbath. Whoever listens will find God; whoever also takes pains to understand will be compelled to believe as well.

### Scripture references

- Gen 2:7: allusion, medium confidence

### Extrabiblical texts

- Let. Aris. (Letter of Aristeas): allusion, high confidence

### Translation notes

- The story of the seventy-two translators comes from the Letter of Aristeas (“Aristaeus”).
- “Their liberty pays a tax”: the Jews' freedom to practice their religion was tied to the special tax paid to the Roman treasury after AD 70.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 18 (Mayor-Souter, 58–60; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/18/#p-18).

## Apology 19

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/18/#p-19
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 60–64
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: The Scriptures are older than all pagan literature and religion, since Moses lived long before Danaus, the Trojan war, and Homer.

### Latin text

Primam instrumentis istis auctoritatem summa antiquitas uindicat. Apud uos quoque religionis est instar, fidem de temporibus adserere. [Auctoritatem litteris praestat antiquitas summa. Primus enim prophetes Moyses, qui mundi conditionem et generis humani pullulationem et mox ultricem iniquitatis illius aeui uim cataclysmi de praeterito exorsus est, per uaticinationem usque ad suam aetatem et deinceps per res suas futurorum imagines edidit, penes quem et temporum ordo digestus ab initio supputationem saeculi praestitit. Superior inuenitur annis circiter trecentis quam ille antiquissimus penes uos Danaus in Argos transuenisset, Troiano denique proelio ad mille annos ante est, unde et ipso Saturno. Secundum enim historiam Thalli, qua relatum est bellum Assyriorum et Saturnum Titanorum regem cum Ioue dimicasse, ostenditur bellum cccxx et duobus annis Iliacum exitum antecessisse. Per hunc Moysen etiam illa lex propria Iudaeis a deo missa est. Deinceps multa et alii prophetae uetustiores litteris uestris. Nam et qui ultimo cecinit, aut aliquantulo praecucurrit aut certe concurrit aetate sapientiae auctoribus, etiam latoribus legis. Cyri enim et Darii regno fuit Zacharias, quo in tempore Thales, physicorum princeps, sciscitanti Croeso nihil certum de diuinitate respondit, turbatus scilicet uocibus prophetarum. Solon eidem regi finem longae uitae intuendum praedicauit non aliter quam prophetae. Adeo respici potest tam iura uestra quam studia de lege deque diuina doctrina concepisse. Quod prius est, hoc sit semen necesse est. Inde quaedam nobiscum uel prope nos habetis. De sophia amor eius philosophia uocitatus est, de prophetia affectatio eius poeticam uaticinationem deputauit. Gloriae homines si quid inuenerant, ut proprium facerent, adulterauerunt. Etiam fructibus a semine degenerare contigit. Multis adhuc de uetustate modis consisterem diuinarum litterarum, si non maior auctoritas illis ad fidem de ueritatis suae uiribus quam de aetatis annalibus suppetisset. Quid enim potentius patrocinabitur testimonio earum, nisi dispunctio cotidiana saeculi totius, cum dispositiones regnorum, cum casus urbium, cum exitus gentium, cum status temporum ita omnibus respondent, quemadmodum ante milia annorum praenuntiabantur? Unde et spes nostra, quam ridetis, animatur, et fiducia, quam praesumptionem uocatis, corroboratur. Idonea est enim recognitio praeteritorum ad disponendam fiduciam futurorum. Eadem uoces praedicauerunt utramque partem, eadem litterae notauerunt. Unum est tempus apud illas quod apud nos separari uidetur. Ita omnia quae supersunt improbata, probata sunt nobis, quia cum illis quae probata sunt tunc futuris praedicabantur. Habetis, quod sciam, et uos Sibyllam, quatinus appellatio ista uerae uatis dei ueri passim super ceteros qui uaticinari uidebantur usurpata est. Sunt uestrae Sibyllae nomen de ueritate mentitae, quemadmodum et dei uestri.] Omnes itaque substantias omnesque materias, origines, ordines, uenas ueterani cuiusque stili uestri, gentes etiam plerasque et urbes insignes historiarum et canas memoriarum, ipsas denique effigies litterarum, indices custodesque rerum et (puto adhuc minus dicimus) ipsos inquam deos uestros, ipsa templa et oracula et sacra unius interim prophetae scrinium saeculis uincit, in quo uidetur thesaurus collocatus totius Iudaici sacramenti et inde iam nostri. Si quem audistis interim Moysen, Argiuo Inacho pariter aetate est. Quadringentis paene annis (nam et septem minus) Danaum, et ipsum apud uos uetustissimum, praeuenit, mille circiter cladem Priami antecedit, possem etiam dicere quingentis amplius et Homerum, habens quos sequar. Ceteri quoque prophetae etsi Moysi postumant, extremissimi tamen eorum non retrosiores reprehenduntur primoribus uestris sapientibus et legiferis et historicis? Haec quibus ordinibus probari possint non tam difficile est nobis exponere quam enorme, nec arduum, sed interim longum. Multis instrumentis cum digitorum supputariis gesticulis adsidendum est, reseranda antiquissimarum etiam gentium archiua, Aegyptiorum, Chaldaeorum, Phoenicum, aduocandi municipes eorum per quos notitia subministrata est, aliqui Manethon Aegyptius et Berosus Chaldaeus, sed et Hieromus Phoenix, Tyri rex, sectatores quoque ipsorum Mendesius Ptolemaeus et Menander Ephesius et Demetrius Phalereus et rex Iuba et Apion et Thallus et si quis istos aut probat aut reuincit, Iudaeus Iosephus, antiquitatum Iudaicarum uernaculus uindex, Graecorum etiam censuales conferendi, ut quae quando sint gesta aut concatenationes temporum aperiantur, per quae luceant annalium numeri; peregrinandum est in historias et litteras orbis. Et tamen quasi partem iam probationis intulimus, cum per quae probari possint aspersimus. Verum differre praestat, uel ne minus persequamur festinando uel diutius euagemur persequendo.

### English translation (Claude)

Supreme antiquity first claims authority for these writings. With you too it is almost a matter of religion to establish credibility from dates. [Their supreme antiquity gives these writings authority. For Moses was the first prophet; he began from the past with the founding of the world, the sprouting of the human race, and soon the avenging force of the flood upon the wickedness of that age; by prophecy he set out events down to his own time, and then, through his own history, images of things to come; and with him the order of times, arranged from the beginning, furnished a reckoning of the world's age. He is found to be about three hundred years earlier than the time when that most ancient of yours, Danaus, crossed over to Argos; and he is about a thousand years before the Trojan war, and so before Saturn himself. For according to the history of Thallus, in which it is related that the Assyrians' war took place, and that Saturn, king of the Titans, fought with Jupiter, that war is shown to have preceded the fall of Ilium by three hundred and twenty-two years. Through this Moses also that law proper to the Jews was sent by God. After him many other prophets too are older than your literature. For even the one who prophesied last either preceded a little or at least was contemporary with your authors of wisdom, and even with your lawgivers. For Zechariah lived in the reign of Cyrus and Darius, at which time Thales, the first of the natural philosophers, gave Croesus no certain answer about divinity when asked, disturbed, no doubt, by the words of the prophets. Solon told the same king to look to the end of a long life, just as the prophets did. So it can be seen that both your laws and your studies were conceived from the law and from divine teaching. What is earlier must be the seed. Hence you have certain things in common with us, or near to us. From sophia (wisdom), love of it was called philosophia; from prophetia, the imitation of it produced poetic soothsaying. Men eager for glory, if they found anything, adulterated it to make it their own. Even fruits come to degenerate from their seed. I would still dwell in many ways on the antiquity of the divine writings, if they did not have a greater authority for belief from the power of their truth than from the annals of their age. For what will plead more powerfully for their testimony than the daily fulfillment throughout the whole world, when the dispositions of kingdoms, the falls of cities, the ends of nations, the states of the times all correspond just as they were foretold thousands of years before? From this our hope, which you mock, is enlivened, and our confidence, which you call presumption, is strengthened. For the recognition of the past is a fit basis for confidence about the future. The same voices foretold both parts; the same writings recorded them. With them there is one time, which with us seems to be divided. So all that remains unproved has been proved to us, because it was foretold together with what has been proved, when that was still future. You too, so far as I know, have a Sibyl, inasmuch as this name of a true prophet of the true God has been usurped here and there for others who seemed to prophesy. Your Sibyls have falsely borne a name taken from the truth, just as your gods have.] So all the substances and all the materials, origins, orders, and veins of every ancient writing of yours, even most nations and cities famous in history and hoary in memory, the very forms of letters themselves, the guides and guardians of things, and (I think we still say too little) your very gods, I say, your very temples and oracles and rites, are surpassed by ages by the book-chest of a single prophet, in which seems to be stored the treasure of the whole Jewish religion, and from it of ours too. If you have heard of Moses meanwhile, he is of the same age as Inachus of Argos. By nearly four hundred years (seven fewer, in fact) he precedes Danaus, himself the most ancient among you; he comes about a thousand years before the fall of Priam; I could even say five hundred more before Homer, having authorities to follow. Are not the other prophets too, though later than Moses, found, even the last of them, to be no later than your first wise men, lawgivers, and historians? By what lines of proof these things could be shown is not so much difficult for us to set out as enormous; not hard, but for now long. One would have to sit down with many documents, with gestures of finger-reckoning; the archives of even the most ancient nations would have to be unlocked, of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Phoenicians; their own citizens through whom the knowledge has been supplied would have to be called on, such as Manetho the Egyptian and Berosus the Chaldean, and also Hieromus the Phoenician, king of Tyre; their followers too, Ptolemy of Mendes, Menander of Ephesus, Demetrius of Phalerum, King Juba, Apion, and Thallus; and, whoever proves or refutes these, the Jew Josephus, native champion of Jewish antiquities; the Greek registers too would have to be compared, so that what was done when, and the links of the times, might be laid open, through which the numbers of the annals might shine; one must travel through the histories and literature of the world. And yet we have already brought in part of the proof, as it were, in sprinkling in the means by which it could be proved. But it is better to defer it, lest either we pursue it less fully by hurrying or wander too long in pursuing it.

### Extrabiblical texts

- Josephus, Ag. Ap. 1 (Josephus (works)): allusion, medium confidence
- Sib. Or. (Sibylline Oracles): allusion, low confidence

### Translation notes

- The passage in square brackets is printed by the edition in brackets: it is an alternative text of this chapter found in only part of the manuscript tradition (the Fulda manuscript known from old collations). It is translated here and kept marked; the public-domain English (ANF 3) omits it.
- Tertullian's chronology follows earlier Christian and Jewish apologists (e.g. Josephus, Against Apion, on Manetho, Berosus, Menander of Ephesus); his dates are not those of modern historians.
- Hieromus: Hiram, king of Tyre, so named in the text.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 19 (Mayor-Souter, 60–64; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/18/#p-19).

## Apology 20

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/18/#p-20
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 64–66
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: The fulfillment of prophecy in present events proves the Scriptures divine and grounds Christian confidence about the future.

### Latin text

Plus iam offerimus pro ista dilatione maiestatem scripturarum, si non uetustate diuinas probamus, si dubitatur antiquitas. Nec hoc tardius aut aliunde discendum. Coram sunt quae docebunt, mundus et saeculum et exitus. Quicquid agitur, praenuntiabatur; quicquid uidetur, audiebatur. Quod terrae uorant urbes, quod insulas maria fraudant, quod externa atque interna bella dilaniant, quod regnis regna conpulsant, quod fames et lues et locales quaeque clades et frequentiae plerumque mortium uastant, quod humiles sublimitate, sublimes humilitate mutantur, quod iustitia rarescit, iniquitas increbrescit, bonarum omnium disciplinarum cura torpescit, quod etiam officia temporum et elementorum munia exorbitant, quod et monstris et portentis naturalium forma turbatur, prouidenter scripta sunt. Dum patimur, leguntur; dum recognoscimus, probantur. Idoneum, opinor, testimonium diuinitatis ueritas diuinationis. Hinc igitur apud nos futurorum quoque fides tuta est, iam scilicet probatorum, quia cum illis, quae cotidie probantur, praedicebantur. Eaedem uoces sonant, eaedem litterae notant, idem spiritus pulsat, unum tempus est diuinationi futura praefanti. Apud homines, si forte, distinguitur, dum expungitur, dum ex futuro praesens, dehinc ex praesenti praeteritum deputatur. Quid delinquimus, oro uos, futura quoque credentes, qui iam didicimus illi per duos gradus credere?

### English translation (Claude)

In return for this postponement we now offer something more: the majesty of the Scriptures, if we do not prove them divine by their age, if their antiquity is doubted. Nor is this to be learned slowly or from elsewhere. Before your eyes are the things that will teach it: the world, the age, and events. Whatever happens was foretold; whatever is seen was heard before. That the earth swallows cities, that seas rob us of islands, that foreign and civil wars tear things apart, that kingdoms clash with kingdoms, that famine and plague and local disasters of every kind and frequent heaps of deaths lay waste, that the lowly are exchanged for exaltation and the exalted for lowliness, that justice grows rare and iniquity increases, that care for all good disciplines grows sluggish, that even the duties of the seasons and the functions of the elements go astray, that the form of natural things is disturbed by monsters and portents: all this was written with foresight. While we suffer it, it is read; while we recognize it, it is proved. A fit testimony to divinity, I suppose, is the truth of its foretelling. Here, then, among us faith in future things too is secure, as things already proved, because they were foretold together with those that are proved daily. The same voices sound, the same writings record, the same Spirit drives them; one time belongs to the prophecy that foretells the future. Among men, perhaps, time is divided as the prophecy is fulfilled, as the future is reckoned present, and then the present past. What wrong do we do, I ask you, in believing also the future, we who have already learned to believe in it by two steps?

### Scripture references

- Matt 24:7: allusion, medium confidence
- Luke 21:10: allusion, medium confidence
- Matt 24:12: allusion, low confidence
- Luke 1:52: echo, low confidence

### Translation notes

- The list of disasters recalls Jesus' sayings about the end (Matt 24:6–12; Luke 21:10–11) and Mary's song (Luke 1:52).

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 20 (Mayor-Souter, 64–66; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/18/#p-20).

## Apology 21

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/18/#p-21
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 66–74
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Tertullian explains the relation of Christians to the Jews and sets out who Christ is: the Word and Son of God, God from God, born of a virgin, crucified, risen, and ascended.

### Latin text

Sed quoniam edidimus antiquissimis Iudaeorum instrumentis sectam istam esse suffultam quam aliquanto nouellam, ut Tiberiani temporis, plerique sciunt, profitentibus nobis quoque, fortassean hoc nomine de statu eius retractetur, quasi sub umbraculo insignissimae religionis, certe licitae, aliquid propriae praesumptionis abscondat, uel quia praeter aetatem neque de uictus exceptionibus neque de solemnitatibus dierum neque de ipso signaculo corporis neque de consortio nominis cum Iudaeis agimus, quod utique oporteret si eidem deo manciparemur? Sed et uulgus iam scit Christum ut hominum aliquem, qualem Iudaei iudicauerunt, quo facilius quis nos hominis cultores existimauerit. Verum neque de Christo erubescimus, cum sub nomine eius deputari et damnari iuuat, neque de deo aliter praesumimus. Necesse est igitur pauca de Christo ut deo. Dudum Iudaeis erat apud deum gratia ubi et insignis iustitia et fides originalium auctorum; unde illis et generis magnitudo et regni sublimitas floruit et tanta felicitas, ut de dei uocibus, quibus edocebantur, de promerendo deo et non offendendo praemonerentur. Sed quanta deliquerint, fiducia patrum inflati ad declinandum, deriuantes a disciplina in profanum modum, etsi ipsi non confiterentur, probaret exitus hodiernus ipsorum. Dispersi, palabundi, et soli et caeli sui extorres uagantur per orbem sine homine, sine deo rege, quibus nec aduenarum iure terram patriam saltim uestigio salutare conceditur. Cum haec illis sanctae uoces praeminarentur, eadem semper omnes ingerebant fore uti sub extimis curriculis saeculi ex omni iam gente et populo et loco cultores sibi adlegeret deus multo fideliores in quos gratiam transferret pleniorem quidem ob disciplinae auctioris capacitatem. Venit igitur qui ad reformandam et inluminandam eam uenturus a deo praenuntiabatur, Christus ille filius dei. Huius igitur gratiae disciplinaeque arbiter et magister, inluminator atque deductor generis humani filius dei adnuntiabatur: non quidem ita genitus, ut erubescat in filii nomine aut de patris semine. Non de sororis incesto nec de stupro filiae aut coniugis alienae deum patrem passus est squamatum aut cornutum aut plumatum, amatorem in auro conuersum Danaidis. Iouis ista sunt numina uestra. Ceterum dei filius nullam de impudicitia habet matrem; etiam quam uidetur habere, non nupserat. Sed prius substantiam edisseram, et ita natiuitatis qualitas intellegetur. Iam ediximus deum uniuersitatem hanc mundi uerbo et ratione et uirtute molitum. Apud uestros quoque sapientes ΛΟΓΟΝ, id est sermonem atque rationem, constat artificem uideri uniuersitatis. Hunc enim Zeno determinat factitatorem, qui cuncta in dispositione formauerit; eundem et fatum uocari et deum et animum Iouis et necessitatem omnium rerum. Haec Cleanthes in spiritum congerit, quem permeatorem uniuersitatis adfirmat. Et nos autem sermoni atque rationi itemque uirtuti, per quae omnia molitum deum ediximus, propriam substantiam spiritum inscribimus, cui et sermo insit pronuntianti et ratio adsit disponenti et uirtus praesit perficienti. Hunc ex deo prolatum didicimus et prolatione generatum et idcirco filium dei et deum dictum ex unitate substantiae. Nam et deus spiritus. Et cum radius ex sole porrigitur, portio ex summa; sed sol erit in radio, quia solis est radius nec separatur substantia sed extenditur. Ita de spiritu spiritus et de deo deus ut lumen de lumine accensum. Manet integra et indefecta materiae matrix, etsi plures inde traduces qualitatis mutueris: ita et quod de deo profectum est, deus est et dei filius et unus ambo. Ita et de spiritu spiritus et de deo deus modulo alternum numerum, gradu non statu fecit, et a matrice non recessit sed excessit. Iste igitur dei radius, ut retro semper praedicabatur, delapsus in uirginem quandam et in utero eius caro figuratus nascitur homo deo mixtus. Caro spiritu instructa nutritur, adolescit, adfatur, docet, operatur et Christus est. Recipite interim hanc fabulam, similis est uestris, dum ostendimus quomodo Christus probetur et qui penes uos eiusmodi fabulas aemulas ad destructionem ueritatis istiusmodi praeministrauerint. Sciebant et Iudaei uenturum esse Christum, scilicet quibus prophetae loquebantur. Nam et nunc aduentum eius expectant, nec alia magis inter nos et illos conpulsatio est quam quod iam uenisse non credunt. Duobus enim aduentibus eius significatis, primo, qui iam expunctus est in humilitate conditionis humanae, secundo, qui concludendo saeculo imminet in sublimitate diuinitatis exertae, primum non intellegendo secundum, quem manifestius praedicatum sperant, unum existimauerunt. Ne enim intellegerent pristinum, credituri, si intellexissent, et consecuturi salutem, si credidissent, meritum fuit delictum eorum. Ipsi legunt ita scriptum mulctatos se sapientia et intellegentia et oculorum et aurium fruge. Quem igitur hominem solummodo praesumpserant de humilitate, sequebatur uti magum aestimarent de potestate, cum ille uerbo daemonia de hominibus excuteret, caecos reluminaret, leprosos purgaret, paralyticos restringeret, mortuos denique uerbo redderet uitae, elementa ipsa famularet compescens procellas et freta ingrediens, ostendens se esse uerbum dei, id est ΛΟΓΟΝ, illud primordiale, primogenitum, uirtute et ratione comitatum et spiritu fultum, eundem qui uerbo omnia et faceret et fecisset. Ad doctrinam uero eius, qua reuincebantur magistri primoresque Iudaeorum, ita exasperabantur, maxime quod ingens ad eum multitudo deflecteret, ut postremo oblatum Pontio Pilato, Syriam tunc ex parte Romana procuranti, uiolentia suffragiorum in crucem Iesum dedi sibi extorserint. Praedixerat et ipse ita facturos; parum si non et prophetae retro. Et tamen suffixus multa mortis illius propria ostendit insignia. Nam spiritum cum uerbo sponte dimisit, praeuento carnificis officio. Eodem momento dies medium orbem signante sole subducta est. Deliquium utique putauerunt qui id quoque super Christo praedicatum non scierunt. Et tamen eum mundi casum relatum in arcanis uestris habetis. Tunc Iudaei detractum et sepulchro conditum magna etiam militari manu custodiae diligentia circumsederunt, ne, quia praedixerat tertia die resurrecturum se a morte, discipuli furto amoliti cadauer fallerent suspectos. Sed ecce tertia die concussa repente terra, et mole reuoluta quae obstruxerat sepulchrum, et custodia pauore disiecta, nullis apparentibus discipulis nihil in sepulchro repertum est praeterquam exuuiae sepulti. Nihilominus tamen primores, quorum intererat et scelus diuulgare et populum uectigalem et famularem sibi a fide reuocare, subreptum a discipulis iactitauerunt. Nam nec ille se in uulgus eduxit, ne impii errore liberarentur, ut et fides, non mediocri praemio destinata, difficultate constaret. Cum discipulis autem quibusdam apud Galilaeam, Iudaeae regionem, ad quadraginta dies egit docens eos quae docerent. Dehinc ordinatis eis ad officium praedicandi per orbem circumfusa nube in caelum est receptus, multo uerius quam apud uos adseuerare de Romulo Proculi solent. Ea omnia super Christo Pilatus, et ipse iam pro sua conscientia Christianus, Caesari tunc Tiberio nuntiauit. Sed et Caesares credidissent super Christo, si aut Caesares non essent necessarii saeculo, aut si et Christiani potuissent esse Caesares. Discipuli quoque diffusi per orbem ex praecepto magistri dei paruerunt, qui et ipsi a Iudaeis insequentibus multa perpessi utique pro fiducia ueritatis libenter Romae postremo per Neronis saeuitiam sanguinem Christianum seminauerunt. Sed monstrabimus uobis idoneos testes Christi ipsos illos quos adoratis. Multum est si eos adhibeam ut credatis Christianis propter quos non creditis Christianis. Interim hic est ordo nostrae institutionis, hunc edidimus et sectae et nominis censum cum suo auctore. Nemo iam infamiam incutiat, nemo aliud existimet, quia nec fas est ulli de sua religione mentiri. Ex eo enim quod aliud a se coli dicit quam colit, negat quod colit, et culturam et honorem in alterum transfert, et transferendo iam non colit quod negauit. Dicimus, et palam dicimus, et uobis torquentibus lacerati et cruenti uociferamur: Deum colimus per Christum. Illum hominem putate, per eum et in eo se cognosci et coli deus uult. Ut Iudaeis respondeamus, et ipsi dominum per hominem Moysen colere didicerunt: ut Graecis occurram, Orpheus Pieriae, Musaeus Athenis, Melampus Argis, Trophonius Boeotiae initiationibus homines obligauerunt: ut ad uos quoque dominatores gentium adspiciam, homo fuit Pompilius Numa, qui Romanos operosissimis superstitionibus onerauit. Licuerit et Christo commentari diuinitatem, rem propriam, non qua rupices et adhuc feros homines multitudini tot numinum demerendorum attonitos efficiendo ad humanitatem temperaret, quod Numa, sed qui iam expolitos et ipsa urbanitate deceptos in agnitionem ueritatis ocularet. Quaerite igitur si uera est ista diuinitas Christi. Si ea est qua cognita ad bonum quis reformatur, sequitur ut falsae renuntietur, conperta inprimis illa omni ratione quae delitiscens sub nominibus et imaginibus mortuorum quibusdam signis et miraculis et oraculis fidem diuinitatis operatur.

### English translation (Claude)

But since we have stated that this school rests on the very ancient writings of the Jews, whereas most people know it to be rather new, as dating from the time of Tiberius (and we ourselves admit it), perhaps on this ground a question may be raised about its standing, as though it were hiding some presumption of its own under the shelter of a most distinguished religion, one at any rate permitted by law; or because, apart from age, we have nothing in common with the Jews in the restrictions on food, or the solemnities of days, or the very sign on the body, or in sharing their name, which surely ought to be the case if we were in service to the same God. But the common people too already know of Christ, as some man, such as the Jews judged him, so that anyone may the more easily have thought us worshipers of a man. But we are neither ashamed of Christ, since we rejoice to be reckoned under his name and condemned for it, nor do we think otherwise about God. We must therefore say a few things about Christ as God. Long ago the Jews enjoyed favor with God, when there was outstanding righteousness and faith in the founders of their race; from this there flourished for them both the greatness of their race and the loftiness of their kingdom, and so great a happiness that by the words of God by which they were taught they were warned beforehand how to win God's favor and not offend him. But how greatly they sinned, puffed up by confidence in their fathers to the point of turning aside, departing from the discipline into a profane way, their present outcome would prove, even if they did not themselves confess it. Scattered, wandering, exiled from their own soil and sky, they roam the world without a man or God as king, not allowed even by the right of strangers to greet their native land with so much as a footstep. When the holy voices threatened them with this beforehand, all of them always pressed the same point: that in the last courses of the age God would choose for himself, from every nation and people and place, worshipers much more faithful, to whom he would transfer his favor, and that more fully, because of their capacity for a fuller discipline. He came, then, who was foretold as coming from God to reform and enlighten it: that Christ, the Son of God. Of this favor and discipline, then, the Son of God was announced as the arbiter and teacher, the enlightener and guide of the human race; not, however, born in such a way that he need blush at the name of son or at his father's seed. It was not through incest with a sister, nor the violation of a daughter or another man's wife, that he had for father a god scaled or horned or feathered, or a lover turned into gold for Danaë. These divinities of yours are Jupiter's doings. But the Son of God has no mother from unchastity; even the one he seems to have had never married. But first I will explain his substance, and so the nature of his birth will be understood. We have already said that God fashioned this universe of the world by word and reason and power. Among your wise men too it is agreed that the Logos, that is, word and reason, seems to be the craftsman of the universe. For Zeno defines him as the maker who formed all things in their arrangement; the same, he says, is called fate and god and the mind of Jupiter and the necessity of all things. Cleanthes gathers these into spirit, which he affirms pervades the universe. And we too ascribe to the word and reason, and likewise to the power, through which we have said God fashioned all things, spirit as their proper substance: in it is the word when it speaks, reason is present when it arranges, and power presides when it accomplishes. This, we have learned, was brought forth from God, and in being brought forth was generated, and is therefore called Son of God and God, from unity of substance. For God too is spirit. When a ray is extended from the sun, it is a portion from the whole; but the sun will be in the ray, because it is the sun's ray, and the substance is not separated but extended. So from spirit comes spirit and from God God, as light is lit from light. The source of the material remains whole and undiminished, even if you borrow from it many offshoots of its quality: so too what has come forth from God is God and God's Son, and both are one. So also, spirit from spirit and God from God, he made a second in mode, in number, in rank, not in condition, and he did not withdraw from the source but went out from it. This ray of God, then, as was always foretold in the past, descended into a certain virgin and, formed as flesh in her womb, is born man mixed with God. The flesh, furnished with spirit, is nourished, grows up, speaks, teaches, works, and is Christ. Accept this story for now (it is like yours) while we show how Christ is proved, and who those are among you who put about rival stories of this kind beforehand to destroy the truth of this one. The Jews too knew that Christ would come, being those to whom the prophets spoke. For even now they await his coming, and there is no greater clash between us and them than that they do not believe he has already come. For two comings of his were signified: the first, already fulfilled in the lowliness of the human condition; the second, which hangs over the close of the age, in the loftiness of divinity made manifest. Not understanding the first, they thought that the second, which they hope for as more clearly foretold, was the only one. That they should not understand the former was the desert of their sin; for if they had understood it they would have believed, and if they had believed they would have obtained salvation. They themselves read that it is written that they are punished by the loss of wisdom and understanding, and of the use of eyes and ears. Since, then, they had presumed him only a man from his lowliness, it followed that they should think him a magician from his power, when with a word he cast demons out of men, gave light again to the blind, cleansed lepers, braced up paralytics, finally restored the dead to life with a word, and made the very elements serve him, calming storms and walking on the sea, showing that he was the Word of God, that is, the Logos, that primordial, first-begotten Word, accompanied by power and reason and supported by spirit, the same who by his word both made and had made all things. But at his teaching, by which the teachers and leaders of the Jews were refuted, they were so exasperated, especially because a huge multitude turned aside to him, that at last they brought him before Pontius Pilate, then governing Syria on behalf of Rome, and by the violence of their votes extorted that Jesus be handed over to them to be crucified. He himself had foretold that they would do this; that would be little, if the prophets had not also done so long before. And yet, fastened to the cross, he showed many signs proper to that death. For he dismissed his spirit with a word, of his own accord, anticipating the executioner's office. At the same moment the daylight was withdrawn, while the sun was marking the middle of its circuit. Those who did not know that this too had been foretold about Christ certainly thought it an eclipse. And yet you have that world-portent recorded in your archives. Then the Jews, when he had been taken down and laid in a tomb, surrounded it with great care, even with a large military guard, lest, since he had foretold that he would rise from death on the third day, his disciples should remove the corpse by stealth and deceive those already suspicious. But see, on the third day the earth was suddenly shaken, the mass that had blocked the tomb was rolled back, the guard was scattered in terror, and, with no disciples appearing, nothing was found in the tomb but the wrappings of the one buried. Nevertheless the leaders, whose interest it was both to spread a crime abroad and to recall from the faith a people tributary and subservient to them, put it about that he had been stolen by the disciples. For he did not show himself to the crowd, lest the impious be freed from their error, so that faith too, destined for no small reward, might stand firm through difficulty. But with certain disciples he spent forty days in Galilee, a region of Judea, teaching them what they were to teach. Then, having appointed them to the office of preaching throughout the world, he was enveloped in a cloud and taken up into heaven, much more truly than your Proculuses are wont to assert of Romulus. All these things about Christ Pilate, himself already a Christian in his conscience, reported to Tiberius, then Caesar. And the Caesars too would have believed in Christ, if either Caesars had not been necessary to the world, or Christians could also have been Caesars. The disciples too, spread through the world, obeyed the precept of their divine master; they too suffered much from the Jews who pursued them, and gladly, out of confidence in the truth, at last at Rome, through Nero's cruelty, sowed Christian blood. But we will show you as fit witnesses of Christ those very beings whom you adore. It is much if I call on those to make you believe the Christians on whose account you do not believe the Christians. Meanwhile, this is the order of our institution; we have set out the origin of both the school and the name, together with its founder. Let no one now cast infamy on it; let no one think otherwise, for it is not right for anyone to lie about his own religion. For by saying that he worships something other than he worships, he denies what he worships, and transfers worship and honor to another, and by transferring it no longer worships what he has denied. We say, and say openly, and while you torture us, torn and bloody, we cry out: We worship God through Christ. Think him a man, if you like; through him and in him God wills to be known and worshiped. To answer the Jews: they too learned to worship the Lord through a man, Moses. To meet the Greeks: Orpheus in Pieria, Musaeus at Athens, Melampus at Argos, Trophonius in Boeotia bound men by initiations. To look to you too, rulers of the nations: Numa Pompilius was a man, and he loaded the Romans with most laborious superstitions. Let Christ too have been allowed to set forth a divinity, a thing his own, not to soften rude and still savage men into civilization by stunning them with the multitude of so many divinities to be won over, as Numa did, but to open the eyes of men already polished, and deceived by their very refinement, to the knowledge of the truth. Inquire, then, whether this divinity of Christ is true. If it is the one by whose knowledge a person is reformed to the good, it follows that the false one should be renounced, once all that system is found out which, lurking under the names and images of the dead, produces belief in divinity through certain signs and miracles and oracles.

### Scripture references

- John 4:24: allusion, high confidence
- John 1:3: allusion, medium confidence
- Isa 6:9: allusion, medium confidence
- Isa 6:10: allusion, medium confidence
- Matt 27:45: allusion, high confidence
- Matt 27:50: allusion, medium confidence
- Matt 27:62: allusion, high confidence
- Matt 28:2: allusion, high confidence
- Matt 28:11: allusion, high confidence
- Acts 1:3: allusion, high confidence
- Acts 1:9: allusion, high confidence
- Matt 28:19: allusion, medium confidence
- Luke 1:35: allusion, medium confidence

### Extrabiblical texts

- Zeno of Citium, Zeno (Zeno of Citium): allusion, medium confidence
- Cleanthes (Cleanthes (fragments)): allusion, medium confidence

### Translation notes

- “Unity of substance” (unitas substantiae) and the images of ray and sun, and light lit from light, are central to Tertullian's teaching on the Son; the text read “imitate,” an OCR slip for “unitate.”
- On the Jews: Tertullian's account of their dispersion as a judgment for sin, and of their leaders' role in Christ's death, is translated as he wrote it.
- The report of Pilate to Tiberius and Pilate's being “a Christian in conscience” come from Christian tradition and are not historically attested.
- Zeno and Cleanthes on the Logos and the pervading spirit are Stoic doctrines, cited loosely.
- The loss of eyes and ears: Isa 6:9–10 (compare Isa 29:14).

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 21 (Mayor-Souter, 66–74; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/18/#p-21).

## Apology 22

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/18/#p-22
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 74–78
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Demons, fallen angels, cause disease and madness, steal knowledge of the future from the prophets, and work false marvels so that idols are worshiped instead of the true God.

### Latin text

Atque adeo dicimus esse substantias quasdam spiritales. Nec nouum nomen est. Sciunt daemones philosophi, Socrate ipso ad daemonii arbitrium exspectante. Quidni? cum et ipsi daemonium a pueritia adhaesisse dicatur, dehortatorium plane a bono. Omnes sciunt poetae; etiam uulgus indoctum in usum maledicti frequentat. Nam et Satanan, principem huius mali generis, proinde de propria conscientia animae eadem execramenti uoce pronuntiat. Angelos quoque etiam Plato non negauit. Utriusque nominis testes esse uel magi adsunt. Sed quomodo de angelis quibusdam sua sponte corruptis corruptior gens daemonum euaserit, damnata a deo cum generis auctoribus et cum eo quem diximus principe, apud litteras sanctas ordo cognoscitur. Nunc de operatione eorum satis erit exponere. Operatio eorum est hominis euersio. Sic malitia spiritalis a primordio auspicata est in hominis exitium. Itaque corporibus quidem et ualitudines infligunt et aliquos casus acerbos, animae uero repentinos et extraordinarios per uim excessus. Suppetit illis ad utramque substantiam hominis adeundam subtilitas et tenuitas sua. Multum spiritalibus uiribus licet, ut inuisibiles et insensibiles in effectu potius quam in actu suo appareant, si poma, si fruges nescio quod aurae latens uitium in flore praecipitat, in germine exanimat, in pubertate conuulnerat, ac si caeca ratione temptatus aer pestilentes haustus suos offundit. Eadem igitur obscuritate contagionis adspiratio daemonum et angelorum mentis quoque corruptelas agit furoribus et amentiis foedis aut saeuis libidinibus cum erroribus uariis, quorum iste potissimus quo deos istos captis et circumscriptis hominum mentibus commendat, ut et sibi pabula propria nidoris et sanguinis procuret simulacris imaginibus oblata. Et quae illi accuratior pascua est, quam ut hominem e cogitatu uerae diuinitatis auertat praestigiis falsis? Quas et ipsas quomodo operetur expediam. Omnis spiritus ales est. Hoc angeli et daemones. Igitur momento ubique sunt; totus orbis illis locus unus est; quid ubi geratur tam facile sciunt quam adnuntiant. Velocitas diuinitas creditur, quia substantia ignoratur. Sic et auctores interdum uideri uolunt eorum quae adnuntiant. Et sunt plane malorum nonnunquam, bonorum tamen nunquam. Dispositiones etiam dei et tunc prophetis contionantibus excerpunt et nunc lectionibus resonantibus carpunt. Ita et hinc sumentes quasdam temporum sortes aemulantur diuinitatem, dum furantur diuinationem. In oraculis autem quo ingenio ambiguitates temperent in euentus sciunt Croesi, sciunt Pyrrhi. Ceterum testudinem decoqui cum carnibus pecudis Pythius eo modo renuntiauit quo supra diximus; momento apud Lydiam fuerat. Habent de incolatu aeris et de uicinia siderum et de commercio nubium caelestes sapere paraturas, ut et pluuias, quas iam sentiunt, repromittant. Benefici plane et circa curas ualitudinum. Laedunt enim primo, dehinc remedia praecipiunt ad miraculum noua siue contraria, post quae desinunt laedere, et curasse creduntur. Quid ergo de ceteris ingeniis uel etiam uiribus fallaciae spiritalis edisseram? phantasmata Castorum, et aquam cribro gestatam, et nauem cingulo promotam, et barbam tactu inrufatam, ut numina lapides crederentur, ut deus uerus non quaereretur?

### English translation (Claude)

And so we say that there exist certain spiritual substances. Nor is the name new. Philosophers know of demons, Socrates himself waiting on the decision of his daimonion. Why not? since a daimonion is said to have clung to him from boyhood, one that plainly dissuaded him from good. All the poets know of them; even the unlearned crowd uses the word often in cursing. For it also pronounces Satan, the prince of this evil race, with the same word of execration, from the soul's own awareness. Even Plato did not deny angels. The magicians too are at hand as witnesses to both names. But how from certain angels, corrupted of their own will, a more corrupt race of demons arose, condemned by God together with the authors of their race and with that prince we have named, is learned in order from the holy writings. For now it will be enough to set out their activity. Their activity is the ruin of man. So spiritual malice began from the first with the destruction of man. Therefore on bodies they inflict diseases and certain bitter mishaps, and on the soul sudden and extraordinary violent derangements. Their subtlety and fineness give them access to both parts of man's substance. Spiritual powers can do much, so that, being invisible and imperceptible, they appear in their effect rather than in their action: as when some hidden blight in the air casts down fruit or grain in flower, kills it in the bud, wounds it in its ripening, and as when the air, tainted by some unseen cause, pours out its pestilential breaths. With the same obscurity of contagion, then, the breath of demons and angels also works corruption of the mind, with frenzies and foul madness, or savage lusts together with various errors, the chief of which is the one by which it commends these gods to the captured and deceived minds of men, so as to procure for itself its own food of savor and blood offered to statues and images. And what more choice pasture is there for it than to turn man from the thought of the true divinity by false deceptions? How it works these too I will explain. Every spirit is winged: angels and demons are so. So in a moment they are everywhere; the whole world is one place to them; what is done where they know as easily as they report it. Their speed is believed to be divinity, because their substance is unknown. So they sometimes want to be thought the authors of what they report. And they plainly are sometimes the authors of evils, but never of goods. They even picked up the dispositions of God when the prophets preached them, and they glean them now as the readings resound. So, taking from here certain fortunes of the times, they imitate divinity while they steal divination. As for oracles, with what skill they adjust their ambiguities to the outcome the Croesuses know, the Pyrrhuses know. Besides, the Pythian reported that a tortoise was being boiled with the flesh of a sheep in the way we have described: in a moment he had been in Lydia. From living in the air, near the stars, and in contact with the clouds, they can know the preparations of the sky, so that they promise rains they already feel. They are plainly beneficent too in the care of health. For first they injure, then they prescribe remedies, new or contrary, to produce a miracle, after which they stop injuring and are believed to have cured. Why should I go on about the other tricks, or even the powers, of spiritual deceit? the apparitions of the Castors, water carried in a sieve, a ship drawn along by a girdle, a beard turned red by a touch, so that stones might be believed gods and the true God not be sought?

### Scripture references

- Gen 6:2: allusion, medium confidence

### Extrabiblical texts

- 1 En. 6–16 (1 Enoch): allusion, low confidence
- Herodotus, Hist. 1.47–48 (Herodotus, Histories): allusion, high confidence

### Translation notes

- The fall of angels and the origin of demons: Gen 6:1–4 as read in Jewish and Christian tradition (compare 1 Enoch 6–16).
- Croesus's test of the Delphic oracle (the tortoise and lamb): Herodotus, Histories 1.47–48; “as we have described” refers to a passage not in this work (perhaps To the Nations).
- Water carried in a sieve (the Vestal Tuccia), the ship drawn by a girdle (Claudia Quinta), and the beard turned red (Domitius Ahenobarbus) are Roman marvel stories.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 22 (Mayor-Souter, 74–78; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/18/#p-22).

## Apology 23

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/18/#p-23
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 78–84
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Tertullian challenges the magistrates to test it: before a Christian, the spirits worshiped as gods confess that they are demons and fear Christ the judge.

### Latin text

Porro, si et magi phantasmata edunt et iam defunctorum infamant animas, si pueros in eloquium oraculi elidunt, si multa miracula circulatoriis praestigiis ludunt, si et somnia immittunt habentes semel inuitatorum angelorum et daemonum adsistentem sibi potestatem, per quos et caprae et mensae diuinare consuerunt, quanto magis ea potestas de suo arbitrio et pro suo negotio studeat totis uiribus operari quod alienae praestat negotiationi! Aut si eadem et angeli et daemones operantur quae et dei uestri, ubi est ergo praecellentia diuinitatis, quam utique superiorem omni potestate credendum est? Non ergo dignius praesumetur ipsos esse qui se deos faciant, cum eadem edant quae faciant deos credi, quam pares angelis et daemonibus deos esse? Locorum differentia distinguitur, opinor, ut a templis deos existimetis quos alibi deos non dicitis; ut aliter dementire uideatur qui sacras turres peruolat, aliter qui tecta uiciniae transilit, et alia uis pronuntietur in eo qui genitalia uel lacertos, alia qui sibi gulam prosecat. Compar exitus furoris et una ratio est instigationis. Sed hactenus uerba; iam hinc demonstratio rei ipsius, qua ostendemus unam esse utriusque nominis qualitatem. Edatur hic aliqui ibidem sub tribunalibus uestris quem daemone agi constet. Iussus a quolibet Christiano loqui spiritus ille tam se daemonem confitebitur de uero quam alibi dominum de falso. Aeque producatur aliquis ex his qui de deo pati existimantur, qui aris inhalantes numen de nidore concipiunt, qui ructando curantur, qui anhelando praefantur. Ista ipsa Virgo Caelestis pluuiarum pollicitatrix, ipse iste Aesculapius medicinarum demonstrator, aliam diem morituris Socordio et Tenatio et Asclepiodoto sumministraturi, nisi se daemones confessi fuerint Christiano mentiri non audentes, ibidem illius Christiani procacissimi sanguinem fundite! Quid isto opere manifestius? Quid hac probatione fidelius? Simplicitas ueritatis in medio est. Virtus illi sua adsistit; nihil suspicari licebit. Magia aut aliqua eiusmodi fallacia fieri dicitis? Non dicetis, si oculi uestri et aures permiserint uobis. Quid autem inici potest aduersus id quod ostenditur nuda sinceritate? Si altera parte uere dei sunt, cur sese daemonia mentiuntur? An ut nobis obsequantur? Iam ergo subiecta est Christianis diuinitas uestra, nec diuinitas deputanda est quae subdita est homini et, si quid ad dedecus facit, aemulis suis. Si altera parte daemones sunt uel angeli, cur se alibi pro deis agere respondent? Nam sicut illi qui dei habentur daemones se dicere noluissent, si uere dei essent, scilicet ne se de maiestate deponerent, ita et isti, quos directo daemonas nostis, non auderent alibi pro deis agere, si aliqui omnino dei essent, quorum nominibus utuntur. Vererentur enim abuti maiestate superiore sine dubio et timendorum. Adeo nulla est diuinitas ista quam tenetis, quia, si esset, neque a daemoniis adfectaretur in confessione neque a deis negaretur. Cum ergo utraque pars concurrit in confessionem deos esse negans, agnoscite unum genus esse, id est daemonas, uerum utrobique. Iam deos quaerite. Quos enim praesumpseratis, daemonas esse cognoscitis. Eadem uero opera nostra ab eisdem deis uestris non tantum hoc detegentibus quod neque ipsi dei sint neque ulli alii, etiam illud in continenti cognoscitis, qui sit uere deus, et an ille et an unicus quem Christiani profitemur, et an ita credendus colendusque, ut fides, ut disciplina disposita est Christianorum. Dicent ibidem: Et quis ille Christus cum sua fabula? si homo communis conditionis? si magus? si post mortem de sepulchro a discipulis subreptus? si nunc denique penes inferos? si non in caelis potius, et inde uenturus cum totius mundi motu, cum orbis horrore, cum planctu omnium, sed non Christianorum, ut dei uirtus et dei spiritus et sermo et sapientia et ratio et dei filius? Quodcunque ridetis, rideant et illi uobiscum; negent Christum omnem ab aeuo animam restituto corpore iudicaturum, dicant hoc pro tribunali, si forte, Minoem et Rhadamanthum secundum consensum Platonis et poetarum hoc esse sortitos; suae saltim ignominiae et damnationis notam refutent. Renuntiant se immundos spiritus esse, quod uel ex pabulis eorum, sanguine et fumo et putidis rogis pecorum, et impuratissimis linguis ipsorum uatum intellegi debuit: renuant ob malitiam praedamnatos se in eundem iudicii diem cum omnibus cultoribus et operationibus suis. Atquin omnis haec nostra in illos dominatio et potestas de nominatione Christi ualet et de commemoratione eorum quae sibi a deo per arbitrum Christum imminentia exspectant. Christum timentes in deo et deum in Christo subiciuntur seruis dei et Christi. Ita de contactu deque afflatu nostro, contemplatione et repraesentatione ignis illius correpti etiam de corporibus nostro imperio excedunt inuiti et dolentes et uobis praesentibus erubescentes. Credite illis, cum uerum de se loquuntur, qui mentientibus creditis. Nemo ad suum dedecus mentitur, quin potius ad honorem. Magis fides proxima est aduersus semetipsos confitentes quam pro semetipsis negantes. Haec denique testimonia deorum uestrorum Christianos facere consuerunt; quam plurimum illis credendo in Christo domino credimus. Ipsi litterarum nostrarum fidem accendunt, ipsi spei nostrae fidentiam aedificant. Colitis illos, quod sciam, etiam de sanguine Christianorum. Nollent itaque uos tam fructuosos, tam officiosos sibi amittere, uel ne a uobis quandoque a Christianis fugentur, si illis sub Christiano, uolente uobis ueritatem probare, mentiri liceret.

### English translation (Claude)

Further, if magicians too produce apparitions and dishonor the souls of the dead, if they strike down boys to make them utter oracles, if they perform many marvels by juggling tricks, if they even send dreams, having the assisting power of angels and demons once invited, through whom even goats and tables are accustomed to divine, how much more would that power strive with all its strength to do of its own will and for its own business what it provides for another's trade! Or if angels and demons do the same as your gods, where then is the superiority of divinity, which must surely be believed higher than every power? Will it not, then, be more worthily presumed that it is they who make themselves gods, since they produce the same things that cause gods to be believed in, than that the gods are equal to angels and demons? They are distinguished by a difference of place, I suppose, so that because of their temples you think those gods whom elsewhere you do not call gods; so that one who flies over the sacred towers seems mad in one way, and one who leaps over the roofs of the neighborhood in another, and one power is declared in the man who cuts his genitals or his arms, another in the man who cuts his own throat. The outcome of the frenzy is the same, and the method of instigation is one. But enough of words; from here on, a demonstration of the thing itself, by which we will show that the quality of both names is one. Let someone be brought forward here, right before your tribunals, who is agreed to be driven by a demon. Ordered by any Christian to speak, that spirit will confess himself a demon as truly as elsewhere he calls himself a god falsely. Likewise let one be brought forward of those thought to be possessed by a god, who, breathing over the altars, conceive the deity from the fumes, who are cured by belching, who prophesy by panting. That very Virgin Caelestis, the promiser of rains, that very Aesculapius, the discoverer of medicines, who supplied another day to Socordius and Tenatius and Asclepiodotus when they were about to die: if they do not confess themselves demons, not daring to lie to a Christian, then and there shed the blood of that most impudent Christian! What is clearer than this deed? What more trustworthy than this proof? The simplicity of truth is in the open. Its own power stands by it; there will be no room for suspicion. Do you say it is done by magic or some such deceit? You will not say so, if your eyes and ears allow you. And what can be objected against what is shown with naked sincerity? If on the one side they really are gods, why do they lie that they are demons? Is it to oblige us? Then your divinity is already subject to Christians, and that cannot be counted divinity which is subject to man, and, if it adds anything to the disgrace, to its rivals. If on the other side they are demons or angels, why do they answer elsewhere that they act as gods? For just as those who are held to be gods would not have wished to call themselves demons if they were really gods, lest they depose themselves from their majesty, so too those whom you know outright as demons would not dare elsewhere to act as gods, if those whose names they use were gods at all. For they would fear to abuse the majesty of beings undoubtedly superior and to be feared. So this divinity that you hold is nothing, because, if it existed, it would neither be claimed by demons in confession nor denied by gods. Since, then, both parties agree in confessing, denying that they are gods, recognize that there is one kind, namely demons, truly on both sides. Now look for gods; for those you had presumed to be gods you know to be demons. And by the same work of ours, since these same gods of yours reveal not only that neither they themselves are gods nor any others, you learn at once also who is truly God, and whether it is he, and whether he alone, whom we Christians profess, and whether he is to be believed and worshiped as the faith and discipline of Christians are arranged. They will say then and there: “And who is that Christ with his story? Was he a man of the common condition? A magician? Was he stolen from the tomb by his disciples after death? Is he, in short, now among the dead below? Is he not rather in heaven, and coming from there with the shaking of the whole world, with the horror of the globe, with the lamentation of all, but not of Christians, as the power of God and the Spirit of God, the Word and Wisdom and Reason and Son of God?” Whatever you laugh at, let them laugh at it with you; let them deny that Christ will judge every soul from the beginning of time, with its body restored; let them say before the tribunal, if they like, that Minos and Rhadamanthus have been allotted this task, as Plato and the poets agree; let them at least refute the mark of their own disgrace and condemnation. They declare that they are unclean spirits, which ought to have been understood even from their foods, blood and smoke and the stinking pyres of cattle, and from the most impure tongues of their prophets themselves; let them deny that for their wickedness they are condemned in advance to that same day of judgment with all their worshipers and works. But all this mastery and power of ours over them is effective from naming Christ and from recalling what they expect to come upon them from God through Christ the judge. Fearing Christ in God and God in Christ, they are subjected to the servants of God and of Christ. So at our touch and breath, seized by the contemplation and representation of that fire, they depart even from bodies at our command, unwilling and grieving and blushing in your presence. Believe them when they speak the truth about themselves, you who believe them when they lie. No one lies to his own disgrace, but rather for his honor. Credibility is nearer to those who confess against themselves than to those who deny in their own favor. Such testimonies of your gods, in short, are wont to make Christians; by believing them as fully as possible we believe in Christ the Lord. They themselves kindle faith in our writings; they themselves build up the confidence of our hope. You worship them, so far as I know, even with the blood of Christians. They would not, then, wish to lose you, so profitable, so dutiful to them, nor to be put to flight some day by you when you become Christians, if they were allowed to lie under questioning by a Christian who wishes to prove the truth to you.

### Scripture references

- 1 Cor 1:24: allusion, medium confidence
- Matt 24:30: echo, low confidence
- Matt 28:13: allusion, medium confidence

### Extrabiblical texts

- Plato, Gorg. 523e–524a (Plato (works)): allusion, medium confidence

### Translation notes

- Minos and Rhadamanthus as judges of the dead: Plato, Gorgias 523e–524a, and the poets.
- Exorcism by naming Christ, with touch and breathing, was common Christian practice; Tertullian offers it as a public test.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 23 (Mayor-Souter, 78–84; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/18/#p-23).

## Apology 24

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-24
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 84–86
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: If the gods are not gods, Christians cannot injure religion; even granting them, one may honor the supreme God above subordinates, and to forbid choice of religion is itself irreligion.

### Latin text

Omnis ista confessio illorum qua se deos negant esse quaque non alium deum respondent praeter unum, cui nos mancipamur, satis idonea est ad depellendum crimen laesae maxime Romanae religionis. Si enim non sunt dei pro certo, nec religio pro certo est: si religio non est, quia nec dei pro certo, nec nos pro certo rei sumus laesae religionis. At e contrario in uos exprobratio resultauit, qui mendacium colentes ueram religionem ueri dei non modo neglegendo, quin insuper expugnando, in uerum committitis crimen uerae inreligiositatis. Nunc ut constaret illos deos esse, nonne conceditis de aestimatione communi aliquem esse sublimiorem et potentiorem, uelut principem mundi perfectae potentiae et maiestatis? Nam et sic plerique disponunt diuinitatem, ut imperium summae dominationis esse penes unum, officia eius penes multos uelint, ut Plato Iouem magnum in caelo comitatum exercitu describit deorum pariter et daemonum. Itaque oportere et procurantes et praefectos et praesides pariter suspici. Et tamen quod facinus admittit qui magis ad Caesarem promerendum et operam et spem suam transfert nec appellationem dei ita ut imperatoris in aliquo principe confitetur, cum capitale esse iudicetur alium praeter Caesarem et dicere et audire? Colat alius deum, alius Iouem, alius ad caelum manus supplices tendat, alius ad aram Fidei, alius, si hoc putatis, nubes numeret orans, alius lacunaria, alius suam animam deo suo uoueat, alius hirci. Videte enim ne et hoc ad inreligiositatis elogium concurrat, adimere libertatem religionis et interdicere optionem diuinitatis, ut non liceat mihi colere quem uelim, sed cogar colere quem nolim. Nemo se ab inuito coli uolet, ne homo quidem. Atque adeo et Aegyptiis permissa est tam uanae superstitionis potestas auibus et bestiis consecrandis et capite damnandis qui aliquem huiusmodi deum occiderit. Unicuique etiam prouinciae et ciuitati suus deus est, ut Syriae Astartes, ut Arabiae Dusares, ut Noricis Belenus, ut Africae Caelestis, ut Mauritaniae reguli sui. Romanas, ut opinor, prouincias edidi, nec tamen Romanos deos earum, quia Romae non magis coluntur quam qui per ipsam quoque Italiam municipali consecratione censentur: Casiniensium Deluentinus, Narniensium Visidianus, Asculanorum Ancharia, Volsiniensium Nortia, Ocriculanorum Valentia, Sutrinorum Hostia; Faliscorum in honorem Patris Curis et accepit cognomen Iuno. Sed nos soli arcemur a religionis proprietate. Laedimus Romanos nec Romani habemur qui non Romanorum deum colimus. Bene quod omnium deus est, cuius uelimus aut nolimus omnes sumus. Sed apud uos quoduis colere ius est praeter deum uerum, quasi non hic magis omnium sit deus cuius omnes sumus.

### English translation (Claude)

This whole confession of theirs, in which they deny that they are gods and answer that there is no other god but the one to whom we belong, is quite sufficient to repel the charge of injuring religion, above all the Roman religion. For if they are certainly not gods, then certainly there is no religion; if there is no religion, because there are certainly no gods, then certainly we are not guilty of injuring religion. On the contrary, the reproach has rebounded on you, who, worshiping a lie, and not only neglecting the true religion of the true God but even attacking it, commit the real crime of true irreligion. Now, even supposing it were agreed that they are gods, do you not grant, by common estimation, that there is someone higher and more powerful, a kind of prince of the world, of perfect power and majesty? For most people arrange divinity so that they would have the command of supreme dominion rest with one and its offices with many, as Plato describes great Jupiter in heaven accompanied by an army of gods and demons alike. So, they say, the procurators and prefects and governors too must likewise be looked up to. And yet what crime does he commit who, the better to win Caesar's favor, directs his effort and his hope to Caesar himself, and does not grant the title of god to any subordinate chief, any more than that of emperor, since it is judged a capital offense to call anyone but Caesar by it, or to hear him so called? Let one worship God, another Jupiter; let one stretch suppliant hands to heaven, another to the altar of Faith; let one, if you think so, count the clouds as he prays, another the panels of the ceiling; let one vow his own life to his god, another a goat's. For see whether this too does not contribute to the charge of irreligion: to take away freedom of religion and forbid choice of divinity, so that I may not worship whom I will but am compelled to worship whom I will not. No one will wish to be worshiped by an unwilling worshiper, not even a man. And so even the Egyptians have been granted the right to so vain a superstition, to consecrate birds and beasts and to condemn to death anyone who kills a god of this kind. Every province and city also has its own god: Syria Astarte, Arabia Dusares, the Norici Belenus, Africa Caelestis, Mauretania its own princes. I have named Roman provinces, I think, and yet not Roman gods of theirs, because they are no more worshiped at Rome than those who are ranked as gods by local consecration throughout Italy itself: Delventinus of the Casinians, Visidianus of the Narnians, Ancharia of the Asculans, Nortia of the Volsinians, Valentia of the Ocriculans, Hostia of the Sutrians; and among the Faliscans Juno too received a surname in honor of Father Curis. But we alone are kept from a religion of our own. We offend the Romans and are not held to be Romans, because we do not worship the god of the Romans. It is well that there is a God of all, whose we all are, whether we will or not. But with you it is lawful to worship anything except the true God, as though he were not rather the God of all, whose we all are.

### Extrabiblical texts

- Plato, Phaedr. 246e (Plato (works)): allusion, high confidence

### Translation notes

- Plato, Phaedrus 246e, describes Zeus leading an army of gods and daimones.
- The argument draws an analogy: as only Caesar may be called emperor, so only the supreme God may be called God.
- This chapter contains an early plea for freedom of religion (“to take away freedom of religion”).

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 24 (Mayor-Souter, 84–86; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-24).

## Apology 25

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-25
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 86–90
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Rome's power is not a reward for its religion: its gods failed their own homelands, and Rome grew great by wars that sacked temples and captured gods.

### Latin text

Satis quidem mihi uideor probasse de falsa et uera diuinitate, cum demonstraui quemadmodum probatio consistat, non modo disputationibus, nec argumentationibus, sed ipsorum etiam testimoniis quos deos creditis, ut nihil iam ad hanc causam sit retractandum. Quoniam tamen Romani nominis proprie mentio occurrit, non omittam congressionem, quam prouocat illa praesumptio dicentium Romanos pro merito religiositatis diligentissimae in tantum sublimitatis elatos, ut orbem occuparint, et adeo deos esse, ut praeter ceteros floreant qui illis officium praeter ceteros faciant. Scilicet ista merces a Romanis deis pro gratia expensa est. Sterculus et Mutunus et Larentina prouexit imperium. Peregrinos enim deos non putem extraneae genti magis fautum uoluisse quam suae, et patrium solum, in quo nati, adulti, nobilitati sepultique sunt, transfretanis dedisse. Viderit Cybele, si urbem Romanam ut memoriam Troiani generis adamauit, uernaculi sui scilicet aduersus Achiuorum arma protecti, si ad ultores transire prospexit, quos sciebat Graeciam Phrygiae debellatricem subacturos. Itaque maiestatis suae in urbem conlatae grande documentum nostra etiam aetate proposuit, cum Marco Aurelio apud Sirmium reipublicae exempto die sexto decimo Kalendarum Aprilium archigallus ille sanctissimus die nono Kalendarum earundem, quo sanguinem inpurum lacertos quoque castrando libabat, pro salute imperatoris Marci iam intercepti solita aeque imperia mandauit. nuntios tardos! o somniculosa diplomata! quorum uitio excessum imperatoris non ante Cybele cognouit, ne deam talem riderent Christiani. Sed non statim et Iupiter Cretam suam Romanis fascibus concuti sineret, oblitus antrum illud Idaeum et aera Corybantia et iocundissimum illic nutricis suae odorem. Nonne omni Capitolio tumulum illum suum praeposuisset, ut ea potius orbi terrae praecelleret quae cineres Iouis texit? Vellet Iuno Punicam urbem posthabita Samo dilectam ab Aeneadarum gente deleri? Quod sciam hic illius arma, Hic currus fuit, hoc regnum dea gentibus esse, Si qua fata sinant, iam tum tenditque fouetque. Misera illa coniunx Iouis et soror aduersus fata non ualuit! Plane Fato stat Iupiter ipse. Nec tantum tamen honoris fatis Romani dicauerunt dedentibus sibi Carthaginem aduersus destinatum uotumque Iunonis quantum prostitutissimae lupae Larentinae. Plures deos uestros regnasse certum est. Igitur si conferendi imperii tenent potestatem, cum ipsi regnarent, a quibus acceperant eam gratiam? Quem coluerat Saturnus et Iupiter? Aliquem, opinor, Sterculum. Sed postea Romani cum indigenis suis, etiam si qui non regnauerunt? Tamen regnabantur ab aliis nondum cultoribus suis, ut qui nondum dei habebantur. Ergo aliorum est regnum dare, quia regnabatur multo ante quam isti dei inciderentur. Sed quam uanum est fastigium Romani nominis religiositatis meritis deputare, cum post imperium siue adhuc regnum religio profecerit. Age iam, rebus religio profecerit? Nam etsi a Numa concepta est curiositas superstitiosa, nondum tamen aut simulacris aut templis res diuina apud Romanos constabat. Frugi religio et pauperes ritus et nulla Capitolia certantia ad caelum, sed temeraria de cespite altaria, et uasa adhuc Samia, et nidor ex illis, et deus ipse nusquam. Nondum enim tunc ingenia Graecorum atque Tuscorum fingendis simulacris urbem inundauerant. Ergo non ante religiosi Romani quam magni, ideoque non ob hoc magni, quia religiosi. Atquin quomodo ob religionem magni, quibus magnitudo de inreligiositate prouenit? Ni fallor enim, omne regnum uel imperium bellis quaeritur et uictoriis propagatur. Porro bella et uictoriae captis et euersis plurimum urbibus constant. Id negotium sine deorum iniuria non est. Eaedem strages moenium et templorum, pares caedes ciuium et sacerdotum, nec dissimiles rapinae sacrarum diuitiarum et profanarum. Tot igitur sacrilegia Romanorum quot tropaea, tot de deis quot de gentibus triumphi, tot manubiae quot manent adhuc simulacra captiuorum deorum. Et ab hostibus ergo suis sustinent adorari et illis imperium sine fine decernunt quorum magis iniurias quam adolationes remunerasse debuerant. Sed qui nihil sentiunt tam impune laeduntur quam frustra coluntur. Certe non potest fidei conuenire, ut religionis meritis excreuisse uideantur qui, ut suggessimus, religionem aut laedendo creuerunt aut crescendo laeserunt. Etiam illi quorum regna conflata sunt in imperii Romani summam, cum ea amitterent, sine religionibus non fuerunt.

### English translation (Claude)

I think I have proved enough about false and true divinity, having shown how the proof stands, not only by disputations and arguments but even by the testimony of the very beings you believe to be gods, so that nothing further needs to be reconsidered on this question. Since, however, the Roman name in particular has come up, I will not pass over the contest provoked by the presumption of those who say that the Romans, as the reward for their most careful religiousness, have been raised to such heights that they have seized the world, and that the gods are so real that those who serve them beyond all others flourish beyond all others. This reward, of course, has been paid out by the Roman gods in gratitude: Sterculus and Mutunus and Larentina have advanced the empire! For I would not think that foreign gods wished to favor a foreign nation more than their own, and handed over to people from across the sea the native soil in which they were born, grew up, became famous, and were buried. Let Cybele see to it, if she loved the city of Rome as a memorial of the Trojan race, her own native people, protected of course against the arms of the Achaeans; if she foresaw that she would pass over to the avengers who she knew would subdue Greece, the conqueror of Phrygia. And so she gave a great proof of her majesty conferred on the city even in our own age: when Marcus Aurelius had been taken from the state at Sirmium on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of April, that most holy chief Gallus, on the ninth day before the same Kalends, as he poured out his impure blood, castrating his arms too, issued the usual commands for the welfare of the emperor Marcus, who had already been cut off. O slow messengers! O sleepy dispatches! through whose fault Cybele did not learn of the emperor's death sooner, so that the Christians might not laugh at such a goddess. But Jupiter would not at once have let his Crete be shaken by the Roman fasces, forgetting that cave on Ida, and the bronze cymbals of the Corybants, and the most delightful fragrance of his nurse there. Would he not have preferred that tomb of his to the whole Capitol, so that the land that covered the ashes of Jupiter might rather excel over the world? Would Juno wish the Punic city, loved more than Samos, to be destroyed by the race of Aeneas? So far as I know, “here were her arms, here her chariot; that this should be a kingdom for the nations, if the fates allow, the goddess even then intends and cherishes.” That wretched wife and sister of Jupiter could do nothing against the fates! Plainly “Jupiter himself stands by fate.” And yet the Romans did not give as much honor to the fates, who handed Carthage over to them against the purpose and prayer of Juno, as to that most prostituted she-wolf Larentina. It is certain that many of your gods were kings. If, then, they hold the power of conferring empire, from whom had they received that favor when they themselves reigned? Whom had Saturn and Jupiter worshiped? Some Sterculus, I suppose. But afterward, did the Romans worship, along with their native gods, even some who had never reigned? Yet these were ruled by others who were not yet their worshipers, since they were not yet held to be gods. So giving a kingdom belongs to others, since there was reigning long before these gods were carved. But how vain it is to credit the height of the Roman name to the merits of religiousness, when religion advanced after the empire, or rather the kingdom, was established! Come now, did religion advance their affairs? For although a superstitious meticulousness was conceived by Numa, yet divine worship among the Romans did not yet consist of images or temples. Religion was frugal, the rites were poor; there were no Capitols vying with heaven, but makeshift altars of turf, vessels still of Samian clay, savor rising from them, and the god himself nowhere. For the talents of the Greeks and the Etruscans had not yet flooded the city with the making of images. So the Romans were not religious before they were great, and therefore they were not great because they were religious. Indeed, how could they be great because of religion, when their greatness came from irreligion? For unless I am mistaken, every kingdom or empire is sought by wars and extended by victories. And wars and victories consist mostly of cities captured and overthrown. That business is not without injury to the gods. The same destruction of walls and of temples, equal slaughter of citizens and of priests, similar plunder of sacred and of profane wealth. So the Romans have as many sacrileges as trophies, as many triumphs over gods as over nations, as many spoils as there are images of captive gods still remaining. And so the gods allow themselves to be adored by their enemies, and decree empire without end to those whose injuries rather than flatteries they ought to have repaid. But those who feel nothing are injured as safely as they are worshiped in vain. Certainly it cannot be credible that those grew by the merits of religion who, as we have suggested, either grew by injuring religion or injured it by growing. Even those whose kingdoms were melted into the whole of the Roman empire were not without religions when they lost them.

### Extrabiblical texts

- Virgil, Aen. 1.16–18 (Virgil): quotation, high confidence
- Virgil, Aen. 1.279 (Virgil): echo, medium confidence

### Translation notes

- The quotation about Juno is Virgil, Aeneid 1.16–18; “empire without end” echoes Aeneid 1.279. The source of “Jupiter himself stands by fate” is uncertain.
- Marcus Aurelius died on March 17, 180; the high priest of Cybele's rites (archigallus) offered prayers for him on March 24.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 25 (Mayor-Souter, 86–90; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-25).

## Apology 26

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-26
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 90–92
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: It is the one God who gives and takes away kingdoms, as the empires older than Rome's gods and the history of Judea show.

### Latin text

Videte igitur, ne ille regna dispenset cuius est et orbis qui regnatur et homo ipse qui regnat, ne ille uices dominationum ipsis temporibus in saeculo ordinarit qui ante omne tempus fuit et saeculum corpus temporum fecit, ne ille ciuitates extollat aut deprimat sub quo fuit sine ciuitatibus aliquando gens hominum. Quid erratis? prior est quibusdam deis suis siluestris Roma, ante regnauit quam tantum ambitum Capitolii extrueret. Regnauerant et Babylonii ante Pontifices, et Medi ante Quindecimuiros, et Aegyptii ante Salios, et Assyrii ante Lupercos, et Amazones ante Virgines Vestales. Postremo si Romanae religiones regna praestant, numquam retro Iudaea regnasset despectrix communium istarum diuinitatum, cuius et deum uictimis et templum donis et gentem foederibus aliquamdiu Romani honorastis, numquam dominaturi eius, si deo non deliquisset ultimo in Christum.

### English translation (Claude)

See, then, whether it is not he who dispenses kingdoms, whose is both the world that is ruled and the man himself who rules; whether it is not he who has ordered the succession of dominions in the world according to their times, who was before all time and made the world a body of times; whether it is not he who raises up or casts down cities, under whom the human race once existed without cities. Why do you go astray? Rome in its woodland days is older than some of her gods; she reigned before she built so great a circuit of the Capitol. The Babylonians too had reigned before the pontiffs, the Medes before the Fifteen, the Egyptians before the Salii, the Assyrians before the Luperci, the Amazons before the Vestal Virgins. Finally, if Roman religions grant kingdoms, Judea would never in the past have reigned, despiser as she was of these common divinities of yours; Judea, whose God you Romans for some time honored with victims, and her temple with gifts, and her nation with treaties; and you would never have ruled her, had she not finally sinned against God in regard to Christ.

### Scripture references

- Dan 2:21: allusion, medium confidence

### Translation notes

- The last sentence states Tertullian's view that Judea's subjection to Rome followed from the rejection of Christ; it is translated as written.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 26 (Mayor-Souter, 90–92; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-26).

## Apology 27

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-27
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 92
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Christians refuse to sacrifice even to save their lives, recognizing that the pressure to do so comes from the demons, over whom they triumph when condemned.

### Latin text

Satis haec aduersus intentationem laesae diuinitatis, quo non uideamur laedere eam quam ostendimus non esse. Igitur prouocati ad sacrificandum obstruimus gradum pro fide conscientiae nostrae, qua certi sumus ad quos ista perueniant officia sub imaginum prostitutione et humanorum nominum consecratione. Sed quidam dementiam existimant, quod, cum possimus et sacrificare in praesenti et inlaesi abire manente apud animum proposito. obstinationem saluti praeferamus. Datis scilicet consilium, quo uobis abutamur; sed agnoscimus, unde talia suggerantur, quis totum hoc agitet, et quomodo nunc astutia suadendi nunc duritia saeuiendi ad constantiam nostram deiciendam operetur. Ille scilicet spiritus daemoniacae et angelicae paraturae, qui noster ob diuortium aemulus et ob dei gratiam inuidus de mentibus uestris aduersus nos proeliatur occulta inspiratione modulatis et subornatis ad omnem quam in primordio exorsi sumus et iudicandi peruersitatem et saeuiendi iniquitatem. Nam licet subiecta sit nobis tota uis daemonum et eiusmodi spirituum, ut nequam tamen et serui metu nonnunquam contumaciam miscent, et laedere gestiunt quos alias uerentur. Odium enim etiam timor spirat. Praeterquam et desperata condicio eorum ex praedamnatione solatium reputat fruendae interim malignitatis de poenae mora. Et tamen adprehensi subiguntur et condicioni suae succidunt, et quos de longinquo oppugnant, de proximo obsecrant. Itaque cum uice rebellantium ergastulorum siue carcerum uel metallorum uel hoc genus poenalis seruitutis erumpunt aduersus nos, in quorum potestate sunt, certi et inpares se esse et hoc magis perditos, ingratis resistimus ut aequales et repugnamus perseuerantes in eo quod oppugnant et illos nunquam magis detriumphamus quam cum pro fidei obstinatione damnamur.

### English translation (Claude)

Enough of this against the charge of injuring divinity, lest we seem to injure what we have shown does not exist. So, when called on to sacrifice, we refuse to take the step, out of loyalty to our conscience, by which we are sure to whom those services go under the prostitution of images and the consecration of human names. But some think it madness that, when we could both sacrifice on the spot and go away unharmed, keeping our resolve in our minds, we prefer obstinacy to safety. You give us advice, of course, by which we might take advantage of you; but we recognize where such suggestions come from, who is stirring all this up, and how he works, now by cunning persuasion, now by harsh cruelty, to throw down our constancy. It is that spirit, of course, of demonic and angelic make, who, our rival because of our separation from him and envious because of God's grace, fights against us from within your minds, which by secret inspiration he has tuned and suborned to all that perversity in judging and injustice in cruelty with which we began. For although the whole force of demons and spirits of that kind is subject to us, yet like worthless slaves they sometimes mix insolence with fear and long to harm those whom at other times they dread. For fear too breathes hatred. Besides, their condition, made desperate by their prior condemnation, counts it a comfort to enjoy their malice meanwhile, while the punishment is delayed. And yet, when caught, they are subdued and sink to their condition, and those whom they attack from afar they beseech close at hand. So when, like rebels breaking out of the workhouses or prisons or mines or penal slavery of that kind, they burst out against us, in whose power they are, certain that they are no match for us and all the more desperate for it, we resist them, unwillingly, as though they were equals, and we fight back by persevering in what they attack, and we never triumph over them more than when we are condemned for the obstinacy of our faith.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 27 (Mayor-Souter, 92; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-27).

## Apology 28

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-28
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 94
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Compelling free people to sacrifice is unjust; the second charge, treason against the emperor, shows that the pagans fear Caesar more than their gods.

### Latin text

Quoniam autem facile iniquum uideretur liberos homines inuitos urgeri ad sacrificandum (nam et alias diuinae rei faciundae libens animus indicitur), certe ineptum existimaretur, si quis ab alio cogeretur ad honorem deorum, quos ultro sui causa placare deberet, ne prae manu esset iure libertatis dicere: Nolo mihi Iouem propitium; tu quis es? Me conueniat Ianus iratus ex qua uelit fronte; quid tibi mecum est? Formati estis ab isdem utique spiritibus, uti nos pro salute imperatoris sacrificare cogatis, et inposita est tam uobis necessitas cogendi quam nobis obligatio periclitandi. Ventum est igitur ad secundum titulum laesae augustioris maiestatis, siquidem maiore formidine et callidiore timiditate Caesarem obseruatis quam ipsum de Olympo Iouem. Et merito, si sciatis. Quis enim ex uiuentibus quilibet non mortuo potior? Sed nec hoc uos ratione facitis potius quam respectu praesentaneae potestatis: adeo et in isto inreligiosi erga deos uestros deprehendemini, cum plus timoris humano dominio dicatis. Citius denique apud uos per omnes deos quam per unum genium Caesaris peieratur.

### English translation (Claude)

But since it would easily seem unjust that free people should be forced against their will to sacrifice (for elsewhere too a willing mind is prescribed for performing divine worship), it would surely be thought absurd that anyone should be compelled by another to honor gods whom he ought to appease of his own accord for his own sake, lest he have ready to hand the right of liberty to say: “I do not want Jupiter to be gracious to me; who are you? Let Janus meet me angry, with whichever of his faces he likes; what have you to do with me?” You have been shaped, of course, by those same spirits to force us to sacrifice for the emperor's welfare; and on you has been laid the necessity of compelling, as on us the obligation of facing the danger. We come, then, to the second charge, that of injuring a more august majesty, since you watch over Caesar with greater dread and more cunning timidity than Olympian Jupiter himself. And rightly, if you only knew it. For which of the living, whoever he is, is not better than any dead man? But you do not do this from reason so much as from regard for a power that is present: so in this too you will be found irreligious toward your gods, since you devote more fear to a human lordship. In short, among you people perjure themselves more readily by all the gods than by the single genius of Caesar.

### Translation notes

- The genius of Caesar: the emperor's guardian spirit, by which oaths were sworn.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 28 (Mayor-Souter, 94; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-28).

## Apology 29

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-29
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 94–96
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Idols, which are themselves protected and owned by Caesar, cannot protect him; Christians are accused only because they will not seek his welfare from them.

### Latin text

Constet igitur prius, si isti, quibus sacrificatur, salutem imperatoribus uel cuilibet homini inpertire possunt, et ita nos crimini maiestatis addicite, si angeli aut daemones substantia pessimi spiritus beneficium aliquod operantur, si perditi conseruant, si damnati liberant, si denique, quod in conscientia uestra est, mortui uiuos tuentur. Nam utique suas primo statuas et imagines et aedes tuerentur, quae, ut opinor, Caesarum milites excubiis salua praestant. Puto autem, eae ipsae materiae de metallis Caesarum ueniunt, et tota templa de nutu Caesaris constant. Multi denique dei habuerunt Caesarem iratum. Facit ad causam, si et propitium, cum illis aliquid liberalitatis aut priuilegii confert. Ita qui sunt in Caesaris potestate, cuius et toti sunt, quomodo habebunt salutem Caesaris in potestate, ut eam praestare posse uideantur, quam facilius ipsi a Caesare consequantur? Ideo ergo committimus in maiestatem imperatoris, quia illos non subicimus rebus suis, quia non ludimus de officio salutis ipsorum qui eam non putamus in manibus esse plumbatis. Sed uos inreligiosi, qui eam quaeritis ubi non est, petitis a quibus dari non potest, praeterito eo in cuius est potestate. Insuper eos debellatis qui eam sciunt petere, qui etiam possunt impetrare, dum sciunt petere.

### English translation (Claude)

Let it first be established, then, whether these to whom sacrifice is offered can bestow welfare on the emperors or on any man at all, and then assign us to the crime of treason: if angels or demons, in substance the worst of spirits, do any good; if the lost preserve, if the damned set free; if, finally, as you know in your own conscience, the dead protect the living. For surely they would first protect their own statues and images and temples, which, I believe, Caesar's soldiers keep safe by their watches. And I think those very materials come from Caesar's mines, and whole temples stand at Caesar's nod. Many gods, in short, have had Caesar angry with them. It helps our case if they have also had him gracious, when he confers on them some liberality or privilege. So how will those who are in Caesar's power, and wholly his, have Caesar's welfare in their power, so as to seem able to grant him what they more easily obtain from Caesar themselves? This, then, is why we are said to offend against the majesty of the emperor: because we do not subject the emperors to their own possessions, because we do not make a game of the duty of praying for their welfare, since we do not think it lies in hands soldered with lead. But you are the irreligious ones, who seek it where it is not and ask it from those who cannot give it, passing over him in whose power it is. Besides, you make war on those who know how to ask for it, who can also obtain it, since they know how to ask.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 29 (Mayor-Souter, 94–96; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-29).

## Apology 30

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-30
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 96–98
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Christians pray to the true God, from whom the emperors have their power, for the emperor's long life, safe empire, and a quiet world, even while being tortured.

### Latin text

Nos enim pro salute imperatorum deum inuocamus aeternum, deum uerum, deum uiuum, quem et ipsi imperatores propitium sibi praeter ceteros malunt. Sciunt quis illis dederit imperium, sciunt, qua homines, quis et animam, sentiunt eum esse deum solum in cuius solius potestate sunt, a quo sint secundi, post quem primi, ante omnes et super omnes deos. Quidni? cum super omnes homines, qui utique uiuunt et mortuis antistant. Recogitant quousque uires imperii sui ualeant, et ita deum intellegunt; aduersus quem ualere non possunt, per eum ualere se cognoscunt. Caelum denique debellet imperator, caelum captiuum triumpho suo inuehat, caelo mittat excubias, caelo uectigalia imponat. Non potest. Ideo magnus est quia caelo minor est. Illius enim est ipse cuius et caelum est et omnis creatura. Inde est imperator unde et homo antequam imperator, inde potestas illi unde et spiritus. Illuc suspicientes Christiani manibus expansis, quia innocuis, capite nudo, quia non erubescimus, denique sine monitore, quia de pectore oramus, precantes sumus semper pro omnibus imperatoribus. Vitam illis prolixam, imperium securum, domum tutam, exercitus fortes, senatum fidelem, populum probum, orbem quietum, quaecunque hominis et Caesaris uota sunt, haec ab alio orare non possum quam a quo me scio consecuturum, quoniam et ipse est qui solus praestat et ego sum cui impetrare debetur, famulus eius, qui eum solus obseruo, qui propter disciplinam eius occidor, qui ei offero opimam et maiorem hostiam quam ipse mandauit, orationem de carne pudica, de anima innocenti, de spiritu sancto profectam, non grana thuris unius assis, Arabicae arboris lacrimas, nec duas meri guttas, nec sanguinem reprobi bouis mori optantis, et post omnia inquinamenta etiam conscientiam spurcam: ut mirer, cum hostiae probantur penes uos a uitiosissimis sacerdotibus, cum cuiuis praecordia potius uictimarum quam ipsorum sacrificantium examinantur. Sic itaque nos ad deum expansos ungulae fodiant, cruces suspendant, ignes lambant, gladii guttura detruncent, bestiae insiliant: paratus est ad omne supplicium ipse habitus orantis Christiani. Hoc agite, boni praesides, extorquete animam deo supplicantem pro imperatore. Hoc erit crimen, ubi ueritas dei et deuotio est.

### English translation (Claude)

For we invoke for the welfare of the emperors the eternal God, the true God, the living God, whom the emperors themselves prefer above all others to have gracious to them. They know who gave them their empire; they know, as men, who gave them their soul too; they feel that he is the only God in whose power alone they are, from whom they are second, after whom they are first, before all and above all gods. Why not? since they are above all men, who at least live and are superior to the dead. They reflect how far the forces of their empire reach, and so they understand God: against him they cannot prevail; through him they know that they prevail. Let the emperor make war on heaven, lead heaven captive in his triumph, post guards on heaven, impose taxes on heaven! He cannot. He is great because he is less than heaven. For he himself belongs to him to whom heaven and every creature belongs. He is emperor from the same source from which he was a man before he was emperor; he has his power from the same source from which he has his breath. Looking up there, we Christians, with hands spread out because they are harmless, with head bare because we do not blush, finally without a prompter because we pray from the heart, are always praying for all emperors: for a long life for them, a secure empire, a safe household, brave armies, a faithful senate, an upright people, a quiet world, whatever are the prayers of a man and of a Caesar. These things I cannot ask from any other than from him from whom I know I shall obtain them, since it is he who alone grants them, and I am one to whom it is due that I should obtain them: his servant, who alone observe him, who am put to death for his discipline, who offer him the rich and greater sacrifice which he himself commanded, prayer proceeding from chaste flesh, from an innocent soul, from the Holy Spirit; not grains of incense bought for one as, tears of an Arabian tree, nor two drops of unmixed wine, nor the blood of a rejected ox longing to die, and, after all the defilements, a filthy conscience as well; so that I wonder, when victims are approved among you by most vicious priests, why the entrails of the victims are examined rather than those of the sacrificers themselves. So, then, while we are spread out toward God, let the claws dig into us, the crosses hang us up, the fires lick us, the swords cut our throats, the beasts leap upon us: the very posture of a Christian at prayer is prepared for every punishment. Do this, good governors: wring out the soul that is praying to God for the emperor. This will be the crime, where there is the truth of God and devotion to him.

### Scripture references

- 1 Tim 2:8: echo, low confidence
- Ps 141:2 (140:2 LXX): echo, low confidence

### Translation notes

- A description of early Christian prayer: standing with hands outstretched, head uncovered (for men), praying from the heart without a set prompter.
- “Rich and greater sacrifice”: prayer as the sacrifice God asks (compare Ps 50:14, 23; Ps 141:2).

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 30 (Mayor-Souter, 96–98; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-30).

## Apology 31

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-31
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 98
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: The Christian Scriptures command prayer for enemies and persecutors and, by name, for kings and rulers.

### Latin text

Adolati nunc sumus imperatori et mentiti uota quae diximus, ad euadendam scilicet uim. Plane proficit ista fallacia. Admittitis nos enim probare quodcunque defendimus. Qui ergo putaueris nihil nos de salute Caesarum curare, inspice dei uoces, litteras nostras, quas neque ipsi supprimimus et plerique casus ad extraneos transferunt. Scitote ex illis praeceptum esse nobis ad redundantiam benignitatis etiam pro inimicis deum orare et persecutoribus nostris bona precari. Qui magis inimici et persecutores Christianorum quam de quorum maiestate conuenimur in crimen? Sed etiam nominatim atque manifeste, Orate, inquit, pro regibus et pro principibus et potestatibus, ut omnia tranquilla sint uobis. Cum enim concutitur imperium, concussis etiam ceteris membris eius utique et nos, licet extranei a turbis aestimemur, in aliquo loco casus inuenimur.

### English translation (Claude)

Now we have flattered the emperor, and lied in the prayers we have mentioned, to escape violence, of course! Plainly this deceit succeeds; for you allow us to prove whatever we defend. You, then, who think that we care nothing for the welfare of the Caesars, look into the words of God, our writings, which we ourselves do not suppress and which many chances transfer to outsiders. Know from them that we are commanded, out of overflowing kindness, to pray to God even for our enemies and to ask blessings for our persecutors. Who are greater enemies and persecutors of Christians than those against whose majesty we are charged with crime? But also by name and openly: “Pray,” it says, “for kings and for princes and powers, that all may be peaceful for you.” For when the empire is shaken, and its other members are shaken with it, we too, though we are thought to be strangers to disturbances, are surely found in some place of the calamity.

### Scripture references

- 1 Tim 2:1: quotation, high confidence
- 1 Tim 2:2: quotation, high confidence
- Matt 5:44: allusion, high confidence

### Translation notes

- “Pray for kings …”: 1 Tim 2:1–2, quoted freely; the command to pray for enemies is Matt 5:44.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 31 (Mayor-Souter, 98; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-31).

## Apology 32

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-32
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 98–100
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Christians pray for the empire because its continuance delays the end of the age, and they swear by the emperors' welfare, not by their genii, which are demons.

### Latin text

Est et alia maior necessitas nobis orandi pro imperatoribus, etiam pro omni statu imperii rebusque Romanis, qui uim maximam uniuerso orbi imminentem ipsamque clausulam saeculi acerbitates horrendas comminantem Romani imperii commeatu scimus retardari. Itaque nolumus experiri, et dum precamur differri, Romanae diuturnitati fauemus. Sed et iuramus, sicut non per genios Caesarum, ita per salutem eorum, quae est augustior omnibus geniis. Nescitis genios daemonas dici et inde diminutiua uoce daemonia? Nos iudicium dei suspicimus in imperatoribus, qui gentibus illos praefecit. Id in eis scimus esse quod deus uoluit, ideoque et saluum uolumus esse quod deus uoluit et pro magno id iuramento habemus. Ceterum daemonas, id est genios, adiurare consueuimus, ut illos de hominibus exigamus, non deierare, ut eis honorem diuinitatis conferamus.

### English translation (Claude)

There is also another, greater necessity for us to pray for the emperors, and indeed for the whole standing of the empire and for Roman affairs: we know that the mighty force hanging over the whole world, and the very close of the age, which threatens horrible afflictions, is held back by the respite granted to the Roman empire. So we do not wish to experience it, and while we pray that it may be put off we favor Rome's long continuance. We also swear, not by the genii of the Caesars, but by their welfare, which is more august than all genii. Do you not know that genii are called daemones, and from that, with a diminutive word, daemonia? We look up to the judgment of God in the emperors, who has set them over the nations. We know that there is in them what God has willed, and so we want what God has willed to be safe, and we hold that a great oath. But demons, that is, genii, we are accustomed to exorcise, so as to drive them out of people, not to swear by them, so as to confer on them the honor of divinity.

### Scripture references

- 2 Thess 2:6: allusion, medium confidence
- 2 Thess 2:7: allusion, medium confidence
- Rom 13:1: allusion, medium confidence

### Translation notes

- The belief that the Roman empire holds back the end draws on the traditional reading of 2 Thess 2:6–7 (“what restrains”).

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 32 (Mayor-Souter, 98–100; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-32).

## Apology 33

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-33
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 100
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Caesar is appointed by the Christians' God, so they honor him the more by refusing to call him a god, which would deny that he is a man and an emperor.

### Latin text

Sed quid ego amplius de religione atque pietate Christiana in imperatore? quem necesse est suspiciamus ut eum quem dominus noster elegit, ut merito dixerim: Noster est magis Caesar, a nostro deo constitutus. Itaque ut meo plus ego illi operor in salutem, siquidem non solum ab eo postulo eam qui potest praestare, aut quod talis postulo qui merear impetrare, sed etiam quod temperans maiestatem Caesaris infra deum magis illum commendo deo, cui soli subicio. Subicio autem cui non adaequo. Non enim deum imperatorem dicam, uel quia mentiri nescio, uel quia illum deridere non audeo, uel quia nec ipse se deum uolet dici. Si homo sit, interest homini deo cedere. Satis habeat appellari imperator. Grande et hoc nomen est, quod a deo traditur. Negat illum imperatorem qui deum dicit; nisi homo sit non est imperator. Hominem se esse etiam triumphans in illo sublimissimo curru admonetur. Suggeritur enim ei a tergo: Respice post te! Hominem te memento! Et utique hoc magis gaudet tanta se gloria coruscare, ut illi admonitio condicionis suae sit necessaria. Minor erat, si tunc deus diceretur, quia non uere diceretur. Maior est qui reuocatur, ne se deum existimet.

### English translation (Claude)

But why should I say more about Christian religion and piety toward the emperor? We must look up to him as the one whom our Lord has chosen, so that I might rightly say: Caesar is more ours, appointed by our God. So, as he is mine, I do more for his welfare, not only because I ask it from him who can give it, or because I who ask am such as to deserve to obtain it, but also because, by setting the majesty of Caesar below God, I commend him the more to God, to whom alone I subject him. And I subject him to one with whom I do not make him equal. For I will not call the emperor God, either because I do not know how to lie, or because I do not dare to mock him, or because he himself will not wish to be called God. If he is a man, it is in a man's interest to yield to God. Let him be content to be called emperor. This too is a great name, which is given by God. He who calls him God denies that he is emperor: unless he is a man, he is not emperor. Even when triumphing in that most lofty chariot he is reminded that he is a man. For it is whispered to him from behind: “Look behind you! Remember you are a man!” And surely he rejoices all the more that he shines with such glory that a reminder of his condition is necessary for him. He would be less if he were then called a god, because he would not truly be so called. He is greater who is called back lest he think himself a god.

### Scripture references

- Rom 13:1: echo, low confidence
- Prov 8:15: echo, low confidence

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 33 (Mayor-Souter, 100; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-33).

## Apology 34

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-34
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 100–102
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Christians may call the emperor lord in the ordinary sense, but never God, since there is one Lord of all and such flattery is both false and ill-omened.

### Latin text

Augustus, imperii formator, ne dominum quidem dici se uolebat; et hoc enim dei est cognomen. Dicam plane imperatorem dominum, sed more communi, sed quando non cogor, ut dominum dei uice dicam. Ceterum liber sum illi. Dominus enim meus unus est, deus omnipotens aeternus, idem qui et ipsius. Qui pater patriae est, quomodo dominus est? Sed et gratius est nomen pietatis quam potestatis. Etiam familiae magis patres quam domini uocantur. Tanto abest ut imperator deus debeat dici, quod non potest credi non modo turpissima sed et perniciosa adolatione. Tamquam si habens imperatorem alterum appelles, nonne maximam et inexorabilem offensam contrahes eius quem habuisti, etiam ipsi timendam quem appellasti? Esto religiosus in deum, qui uis illum propitium imperatori. Desine alium deum credere atque ita et hunc deum dicere cui deo opus est. Si non de mendacio erubescit adulatio eiusmodi hominem deum appellans, timeat saltim de infausto. Maledictum est ante apotheosin deum Caesarem nuncupari.

### English translation (Claude)

Augustus, the founder of the empire, did not even want to be called lord; for this too is a surname of God. I will indeed call the emperor lord, but in the ordinary way, and only when I am not forced to call him lord in place of God. Otherwise I am free with respect to him. For my Lord is one, God almighty and eternal, the same who is his Lord too. He who is father of the fatherland, how is he lord? A name of affection is also more pleasing than one of power. Even heads of households are called fathers rather than lords. So far is it from right that the emperor should be called God, a thing that cannot be believed except as the most shameful, and even pernicious, flattery. If, having one emperor, you called another so, would you not incur the greatest and most implacable offense from the one you had, an offense that even the one you so called would have to fear? Be religious toward God, you who want him to be gracious to the emperor. Stop believing in another god, and so also calling this one god, who has need of God. If flattery of this sort, calling a man god, does not blush for the lie, let it at least fear the ill omen. It is a curse to call Caesar a god before his apotheosis.

### Scripture references

- 1 Cor 8:6: echo, low confidence

### Translation notes

- Augustus's refusal of the title dominus: Suetonius, Augustus 53.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 34 (Mayor-Souter, 100–102; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-34).

## Apology 35

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-35
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 102–106
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Christians are called public enemies for refusing riotous imperial festivals, yet the conspirators and assassins of emperors have all come from the pagans who kept those festivals.

### Latin text

Propterea igitur publici hostes Christiani, quia imperatoribus neque uanos neque mentientes neque temerarios honores dicant, quia uerae religionis homines etiam sollemnia eorum conscientia potius quam lasciuia celebrant. Grande uidelicet officium focos et toros in publicum educere, uicatim epulari, ciuitatem tabernae habitu abolefacere, uino lutum cogere, cateruatim cursitare ad iniurias, ad inpudentias, ad libidinis inlecebras. Sicine exprimitur publicum gaudium per dedecus publicum? Haecine solemnes dies principum decent, quae alios dies non decent? Qui obseruant disciplinam de Caesaris respectu, hi eam propter Caesarem deserunt, et malorum morum licentia pietas erit, occasio luxuriae religio deputabitur? nos merito damnandos! Cur enim uota et gaudia Caesarum casti et sobrii et probi expungimus? cur die laeto non laureis postes obumbramus nec lucernis diem infringimus? Honesta res est solemnitate publica exigente induere domui tuae habitum alicuius noui lupanaris. Velim tamen in hac quoque religione secundae maiestatis, de qua in secundum sacrilegium conuenimur Christiani non celebrando uobiscum solemnia Caesarum quo more celebrari nec modestia nec uerecundia nec pudicitia permittunt, sed occasio uoluptatis magis quam digna ratio persuasit, fidem et ueritatem uestram demonstrare, ne forte et isthic deteriores Christianis deprehendantur qui nos nolunt Romanos haberi, sed ut hostes principum Romanorum. Ipsos Quirites, ipsam uernaculam septem collium plebem conuenio, an alicui Caesari suo parcat illa lingua Romana? Testis est Tiberis, et scholae bestiarum. Iam si pectoribus ad translucendum quandam specularem materiam natura obduxisset, cuius non praecordia insculpta apparent noui ac noui Caesaris scenam congiario diuidundo praesidentis? Etiam illa hora qua adclamant: De nostris annis augeat tibi Iupiter annos! Haec Christianus tam enuntiare non nouit quam de nouo Caesare optare. Sed uulgus, inquis. Ut uulgus, tamen Romani, nec ulli magis depostulatores Christianorum quam uulgus. Plane ceteri ordines pro auctoritate religiosi ex fide. Nihil hosticum de ipso senatu, de equite, de castris, de palatiis ipsis spirat. Unde Cassii et Nigri et Albini? unde qui inter duas laurus obsident Caesarem? unde qui faucibus eius exprimendis palaestricam exercent? unde qui armati palatium inrumpunt, omnibus tot Sigeriis atque Partheniis audaciores? De Romanis, nisi fallor, id est de non Christianis. Atque adeo omnes illi sub ipsa usque impietatis eruptione et sacra faciebant pro salute imperatoris et genium eius deierabant, alii foris alii intus, et utique publicorum hostium nomen Christianis dabant. Sed et qui nunc scelestarum partium socii aut plausores cotidie reuelantur, post uindemiam parricidarum racematio superstes, quam recentissimis et ramosissimis laureis postes praestruebant, quam elatissimis et clarissimis lucernis uestibula nebulabant, quam cultissimis et superbissimis toris forum sibi diuidebant, non ut gaudia publica celebrarent, sed ut uota propria iam ediscerent in aliena sollemnitate et exemplum atque imaginem spei suae inaugurarent, nomen principis in corde mutantes. Eadem officia dependunt et qui astrologos et aruspices et augures et magos de Caesarum capite consultant, quas artes ut ab angelis desertoribus proditas et a deo interdictas ne suis quidem causis adhibent Christiani. Cui autem opus est perscrutari super Caesaris salute, nisi a quo aliquid aduersus illam cogitatur uel optatur, aut post illam speratur et sustinetur? Non enim ea mente de caris consulitur qua de dominis. Aliter curiosa est sollicitudo sanguinis, aliter seruitutis.

### English translation (Claude)

So that is why Christians are public enemies: because they do not give the emperors vain or lying or reckless honors; because, as people of true religion, they celebrate even their festivals with conscience rather than with wantonness. A great service, of course, to bring out braziers and couches into public, to feast street by street, to wipe out the city under the look of a tavern, to make mud with wine, to run about in gangs to acts of violence, of shamelessness, to the allurements of lust! Is public joy expressed in this way, by public disgrace? Do these things befit the festival days of emperors, which do not befit other days? Those who observe discipline out of regard for Caesar desert it for Caesar's sake; and the license of bad morals will be piety, and an occasion for luxury will be counted religion? Oh, how rightly we deserve condemnation! For why do we, chaste and sober and upright, fulfill the vows and rejoicings for the Caesars? Why on a happy day do we not shade our doorposts with laurels nor encroach on the daylight with lamps? It is an honorable thing, when a public festival demands it, to dress your house up like some new brothel! I would like, however, in this religion of the second majesty too, in which we Christians are charged with a second sacrilege for not celebrating with you the festivals of the Caesars in a manner that neither modesty nor decency nor chastity permits, and to which the opportunity for pleasure rather than any worthy reason has persuaded you, to show up your loyalty and truthfulness, lest perhaps here too those be found worse than Christians who will not have us counted Romans, but enemies of the Roman emperors. I call the Quirites themselves, the native people of the seven hills themselves, to account: does that Roman tongue spare any Caesar of its own? The Tiber is witness, and the schools of the beasts. Now, if nature had covered our breasts with some kind of transparent material for seeing through, whose heart would not appear engraved with the scene of one new Caesar after another presiding over the distribution of a largess? and that in the very hour when they shout, “May Jupiter add to your years from ours!” A Christian no more knows how to utter these words than to wish for a new Caesar. “But that is the mob,” you say. Mob it may be, yet Romans, and none demand the death of Christians more than the mob. Plainly the other orders are religious, in proportion to their rank, out of loyalty! Nothing hostile breathes from the senate itself, from the knights, from the camp, from the palaces themselves! Where do the Cassiuses and Nigers and Albinuses come from? Where those who besiege Caesar between the two laurels? Where those who practice wrestling in order to throttle his throat? Where those who break into the palace in arms, bolder than all the Sigeriuses and Partheniuses? From among the Romans, unless I am mistaken, that is, from among the non-Christians. And indeed all of them, right up to the outbreak of their impiety, were both offering sacrifices for the emperor's welfare and swearing by his genius, some outside, some inside, and naturally were giving the name of public enemies to the Christians. And those too who are now daily being exposed as partners or applauders of the criminal faction, the gleaning left over after the vintage of parricides: with what fresh and leafy laurels they hedged their doorposts! with what lofty and brilliant lamps they clouded their porches with smoke! with what elegant and proud couches they divided the forum among themselves! not to celebrate public rejoicings, but to rehearse their own prayers already at another's festival, and to inaugurate the model and image of their hope, changing the emperor's name in their hearts. The same services are paid by those who consult astrologers and soothsayers and augurs and magicians about the life of the Caesars, arts which Christians, as revealed by the deserter angels and forbidden by God, do not use even in their own affairs. And who needs to inquire into Caesar's welfare except one who is plotting or wishing something against it, or hoping and waiting for something after it? For one does not consult about loved ones in the same spirit as about masters. The anxiety of kinship is curious in one way, that of servitude in another.

### Extrabiblical texts

- 1 En. 8 (1 Enoch): allusion, low confidence

### Translation notes

- Avidius Cassius (175), Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus (193–197) were rival claimants against emperors; the wrestler Narcissus strangled Commodus (192); Sigerius and Parthenius killed Domitian (96).
- Magic and astrology as arts revealed by fallen angels: compare 1 Enoch 8.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 35 (Mayor-Souter, 102–106; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-35).

## Apology 36

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-36
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 106
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: True loyalty to the emperors lies not in festival displays but in the conduct God requires toward everyone: never to wish, do, speak, or think ill of anyone.

### Latin text

Si haec ita sunt, ut hostes deprehendantur qui Romani uocabantur, cur nos, qui hostes existimamur, Romani negamur? Non possumus et Romani non esse et hostes esse, cum hostes reperiantur qui Romani habebantur. Adeo pietas et religio et fides imperatoribus debita non in huiusmodi officiis consistit quibus et hostilitas magis ad uelamentum sui potest fungi, sed in his moribus quibus diuinitas imperat tam uere quam circa omnes necesse habent exhiberi. Neque enim haec opera bonae mentis solis imperatoribus debentur a nobis. Nullum bonum sub exceptione personarum administramus, quia nobis praestamus, qui non ab homine aut laudis aut praemii expensum captamus, sed a deo exactore et remuneratore indifferentis benignitatis. Idem sumus imperatoribus qui et uicinis nostris. Male enim uelle, male facere, male dicere, male cogitare de quoquam ex aequo uetamur. Quodcunque non licet in imperatorem, id nec in quemquam: quod in neminem, eo forsitan magis nec in ipsum qui per deum tantus est.

### English translation (Claude)

If this is so, that those turn out to be enemies who were called Romans, why are we, who are thought enemies, denied to be Romans? We cannot be counted non-Romans just because we are counted enemies, when those turn out to be enemies who were held to be Romans. So the piety and religion and loyalty owed to the emperors do not consist in services of this kind, which hostility can perform all the more as a cover for itself, but in the conduct that divinity commands to be shown to them as truly as it must be shown to all. For these works of good will are not owed by us to the emperors alone. We do no good with respect of persons, because we do it for our own sake, seeking the payment of praise or reward not from man but from God, the exactor and rewarder of an impartial kindness. We are the same toward the emperors as toward our neighbors. For we are forbidden equally to wish ill, to do ill, to speak ill, to think ill of anyone. Whatever is not lawful against the emperor is not lawful against anyone; what is not lawful against anyone is perhaps all the less lawful against him who is so great through God.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 36 (Mayor-Souter, 106; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-36).

## Apology 37

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-37
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 106–110
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Christians, commanded to love their enemies, never retaliate, though they are now so numerous everywhere that they could resist, or empty the empire by withdrawing.

### Latin text

Si inimicos, ut supra diximus, iubemur diligere, quem habemus odisse? Item si laesi uicem referre prohibemur, ne de facto pares simus, quem possumus laedere? Nam de isto ipsi recognoscite. Quotiens enim in Christianos desaeuitis, partim animis propriis, partim legibus obsequentes? Quotiens etiam praeteritis uobis suo iure nos inimicum uulgus inuadit lapidibus et incendiis? Ipsis Bacchanalium furiis nec mortuis parcunt Christianis, quin illos de requie sepulturae, de asylo quodam mortis, iam alios, iam nec totos auellant, dissecent, distrahant. Quid tamen de tam conspiratis umquam denotatis, de tam animatis ad mortem usque pro iniuria repensatum, quando uel una nox pauculis faculis largiter ultionis posset operari, si malum malo dispungi penes nos liceret? Sed absit ut aut igni humano uindicetur diuina secta aut doleat pati in quo probatur. Si enim et hostes exertos, non tantum uindices occultos agere uellemus, deesset nobis uis numerorum et copiarum? Plures nimirum Mauri et Marcomanni ipsique Parthi, uel quantaecunque unius tamen loci et suorum finium gentes quam totius orbis. Hesterni sumus, et uestra omnia impleuimus, urbes, insulas, castella, municipia, conciliabula, castra ipsa, tribus, decurias, palatium, senatum, forum; sola uobis reliquimus templa. Cui bello non idonei, non prompti fuissemus, etiam inpares copiis, qui tam libenter trucidamur, si non apud istam disciplinam magis occidi liceret quam occidere? Potuimus et inermes nec rebelles, sed tantummodo discordes solius diuortii inuidia aduersus uos dimicasse. Si enim tanta uis hominum in aliquem orbis remoti sinum abrupissemus a uobis, suffudisset utique dominationem uestram tot qualiumcumque ciuium amissio, immo etiam et ipsa destitutione punisset. Procul dubio expauissetis ad solitudinem uestram, ad silentium rerum et stuporem quendam quasi mortui orbis. Quaesissetis quibus imperaretis. Plures hostes quam ciues uobis remansissent. Nunc enim pauciores hostes habetis prae multitudine Christianorum, paene omnium ciuitatium paene omnes ciues Christianos habendo. Sed hostes maluistis uocare generis humani potius quam erroris humani. Quis autem uos ab illis occultis et usquequaque uastantibus mentes et ualitudines uestras hostibus raperet, a daemoniorum incursibus dico, quae de uobis sine praemio, sine mercede depellimus? Suffecisset hoc solum nostrae ultioni, quod uacua exinde possessio inmundis spiritibus pateret. Porro nec tanti praesidii conpensationem cogitantes non modo non molestum uobis genus, uerum etiam necessarium hostes iudicare maluistis, quia sumus plane, non generis humani tamen, sed potius erroris.

### English translation (Claude)

If we are commanded, as we said above, to love our enemies, whom have we to hate? Likewise, if when injured we are forbidden to retaliate, lest we become equal to them by the deed, whom can we injure? For about this, judge for yourselves. How often do you rage against Christians, partly following your own feelings, partly obeying the laws? How often too does the hostile mob, passing you over, attack us on its own authority with stones and fire? In the very frenzies of the Bacchanals they do not spare even dead Christians, but tear them from the rest of burial, from a kind of asylum of death, already changed, already not even whole, cut them up and pull them apart. Yet what retaliation for injury have you ever observed from people so united, so courageous even to death, when a single night with a few little torches could work abundant vengeance, if it were lawful among us to repay evil with evil? But far be it that a divine school should avenge itself by human fire, or grieve to suffer that by which it is proved. For if we wished to act as open enemies, not merely as secret avengers, would we lack strength of numbers and forces? The Moors, no doubt, and the Marcomanni and the Parthians themselves, or any nations, however great, confined to one place and their own borders, are more numerous than those of the whole world! We are but of yesterday, and we have filled everything of yours: cities, islands, forts, towns, market-places, the camps themselves, tribes, decuries, the palace, the senate, the forum; we have left you only the temples. For what war would we not have been fit and ready, even if unequal in forces, we who are so willingly slaughtered, if in this discipline it were not more lawful to be killed than to kill? Even unarmed and without rebellion, merely by being at odds with you, we could have fought you by the odium of separation alone. For if so great a force of people as we are had broken away from you into some remote corner of the world, the loss of so many citizens, of whatever sort, would surely have shamed your dominion, indeed would have punished it by the very desertion. Without doubt you would have been terrified at your solitude, at the silence of affairs, and at a kind of stupor as of a dead world. You would have looked for people to rule. More enemies than citizens would have remained to you. For now you have fewer enemies because of the multitude of Christians, since almost all the citizens of almost all cities are Christians. But you have preferred to call us enemies of the human race rather than of human error. And who would rescue you from those hidden enemies that everywhere lay waste your minds and your health, I mean the assaults of demons, which we drive away from you without reward, without payment? This alone would have sufficed for our revenge: that from then on the possession would lie open, empty, to unclean spirits. Yet, without a thought for the recompense for such protection, you have preferred to judge as enemies a race not only not troublesome to you but even necessary; for we are plainly enemies, not of the human race, but rather of its error.

### Scripture references

- Matt 5:44: allusion, high confidence
- Rom 12:17: allusion, high confidence

### Translation notes

- “Almost all the citizens of almost all cities are Christians” is rhetorical exaggeration.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 37 (Mayor-Souter, 106–110; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-37).

## Apology 38

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-38
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 110
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Christians should be counted a lawful association, since they take no part in politics or partisan strife and abstain from the public shows.

### Latin text

Proinde nec paulo lenius inter licitas factiones sectam istam deputari oportebat, a qua nihil tale committitur quale de inlicitis factionibus timeri solet? Nisi fallor enim, prohibendarum factionum causa de prouidentia constat modestiae publicae, ne ciuitas in partes scinderetur, quae res facile comitia, concilia, curias, contiones, spectacula etiam aemulis studiorum conpulsationibus inquietaret, cum iam et in quaestu habere coepissent uenalem et mercenariam homines uiolentiae suae operam. At enim nobis ab omni gloriae et dignitatis ardore frigentibus nulla est necessitas coetus, nec ulla magis res aliena quam publica. Unam omnium rempublicam agnoscimus, mundum. Aeque spectaculis uestris in tantum renuntiamus in quantum originibus eorum, quas scimus de superstitione conceptas, cum et ipsis rebus, de quibus transiguntur, praetersumus. Nihil est nobis dictu, uisu, auditu cum insania circi, cum inpudicitia theatri, cum atrocitate arenae, cum xysti uanitate. Quo uos offendimus, si alias praesumimus uoluptates? Si oblectari nouisse nolumus, nostra iniuria est, si forte, non uestra. Sed reprobamus quae placent uobis. Nec uos nostra delectant. Sed licuit Epicureis aliquam decernere uoluptatis ueritatem, id est animi aequitatem, et ampla negotia Christianae.

### English translation (Claude)

Should not this school, then, have been ranked, with somewhat more leniency, among the lawful associations, since it commits nothing of the kind usually feared from unlawful associations? For unless I am mistaken, the reason for prohibiting associations rests on care for public order, lest the city be split into parties, which would easily disturb elections, assemblies, councils, meetings, and even the shows with rival clashes of partisanship, especially since men had already begun to treat the service of their violence as something for sale and for hire. But we, cold to every passion for glory and rank, have no need for combination, nor is anything more foreign to us than public affairs. We recognize one commonwealth for all: the world. We likewise renounce your shows, as far as we renounce their origins, which we know were conceived in superstition, and we stand apart from the very things with which they deal. We have nothing to do, by word, sight, or hearing, with the madness of the circus, the immodesty of the theater, the savagery of the arena, the vanity of the athletes' colonnade. How do we offend you if we prefer other pleasures? If we refuse to know how to be entertained, the loss is ours, if anyone's, not yours. “But you reject what pleases us.” Nor do our pleasures delight you. But the Epicureans were allowed to decide on some truth of pleasure, namely calmness of mind; and the Christian way has ample business of its own.

### Extrabiblical texts

- Tertullian, Spect. (On the Shows): echo, medium confidence

### Translation notes

- The closing words (et ampla negotia Christianae, “and the Christian way has ample business”) are doubtful: they may be garbled, or a heading anticipating the next chapter; translated by sense.
- The renunciation of the shows is argued at length in Tertullian's On the Shows.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 38 (Mayor-Souter, 110; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/24/#p-38).

## Apology 39

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-39
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 110–116
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Tertullian describes Christian life together: common prayer, Scripture reading, discipline, elders chosen for character, a voluntary fund for the poor and imprisoned, and the agape meal.

### Latin text

Edam iam nunc ego ipse negotia Christianae factionis, ut qui mala refutauerim, bona ostendam. Corpus sumus de conscientia religionis et disciplinae unitate et spei foedere. Coimus in coetum et congregationem, ut ad deum quasi manu facta precationibus ambiamus orantes. Haec uis deo grata est. Oramus etiam pro imperatoribus, pro ministris eorum et potestatibus, pro statu saeculi, pro rerum quiete, pro mora finis. Coimus ad litterarum diuinarum commemorationem, si quid praesentium temporum qualitas aut praemonere cogit aut recognoscere. Certe fidem sanctis uocibus pascimus, spem erigimus, fiduciam figimus, disciplinam praeceptorum nihilominus inculcationibus densamus; ibidem etiam exhortationes, castigationes et censura diuina. Nam et iudicatur magno cum pondere, ut apud certos de dei conspectu, summumque futuri iudicii praeiudicium est, si quis ita deliquerit, ut a communicatione orationis et conuentus et omnis sancti commercii relegetur. Praesident probati quique seniores, honorem istum non pretio, sed testimonio adepti. Neque enim pretio ulla res dei constat. Etiam si quod arcae genus est, non de honoraria summa quasi redemptae religionis congregatur. Modicam unusquisque stipem menstrua die, uel cum uelit, et si modo uelit, et si modo possit, apponit; nam nemo compellitur, sed sponte confert. Haec quasi deposita pietatis sunt. Nam inde non epulis nec potaculis nec ingratiis uoratrinis dispensatur, sed egenis alendis humandisque et pueris ac puellis re ac parentibus destitutis, iamque domesticis senibus, item naufragis, et si qui in metallis, et si qui in insulis uel in custodiis, dumtaxat ex causa dei sectae, alumni confessionis suae fiunt. Sed eiusmodi uel maxime dilectionis operatio notam nobis inurit penes quosdam. Vide, inquiunt, ut inuicem se diligant; ipsi enim inuicem oderunt: et ut pro alterutro mori sint parati; ipsi enim ad occidendum alterutrum paratiores erunt. Sed et quod fratres nos uocamus, non alias, opinor, insaniunt quam quod apud ipsos omne sanguinis nomen de affectione simulatum est. Fratres autem etiam uestri sumus, iure naturae matris unius, etsi uos parum homines, quia mali fratres. At quanto dignius fratres et dicuntur et habentur qui unum patrem deum agnouerunt, qui unum spiritum biberint sanctitatis, qui de uno utero ignorantiae eiusdem ad unam lucem expauerint ueritatis. Sed eo fortasse minus legitimi existimamur, quia nulla de nostra fraternitate tragoedia exclamat, uel quia ex substantia familiari fratres sumus, quae penes uos fere dirimit fraternitatem. Itaque qui animo animaque miscemur, nihil de rei communicatione dubitamus. Omnia indiscreta sunt apud nos praeter uxores. In isto loco consortium soluimus in quo solo ceteri homines consortium exercent, qui non amicorum solummodo matrimonia usurpant, sed et sua amicis patientissime subministrant; ex illa, credo, maiorum et sapientissimorum disciplina, Graeci Socratis et Romani Catonis, qui uxores suas amicis communicauerunt, quas in matrimonium duxerant liberorum causa et alibi creandorum, nescio quidem an inuitas. Quid enim de castitate curarent, quam mariti tam facile donauerant? sapientiae Atticae, o Romanae grauitatis exemplum: lenones philosophus et censor! Quid ergo mirum, si tanta caritas conuiolatur? Nam et coenulas nostras praeterquam sceleris infames ut prodigas quoque suggillatis. De nobis scilicet Diogenis dictum est: Megarenses obsonant quasi crastina die morituri, aedificant uero quasi numquam morituri. Sed stipulam quis in alieno oculo facilius perspicit quam in suo trabem. Tot tribubus et curiis et decuriis ructantibus acescit aer: Saliis coenaturis creditor erit necessarius: Herculanarum decimarum et polluctorum sumptus tabularii supputabunt: Apaturiis, Dionysiis, mysteriis Atticis cocorum dilectus indicitur: ad fumum coenae Sarapiacae sparteoli excitabuntur. De solo triclinio Christianorum retractatur. Coena nostra de nomine rationem sui ostendit. Id uocatur quod dilectio penes Graecos. Quantiscumque sumptibus constet, lucrum est pietatis nomine facere sumptum. siquidem inopes quosque refrigerio isto iuuamus, non qua penes uos parasiti adfectant ad gloriam famulandae libertatis sub auctoramento uentris inter contumelias saginandi, sed qua penes deum maior est contemplatio mediocrium. Si honesta causa est conuiuii, reliquum ordinem disciplinae de causa aestimate. Quod sit de religionis officio, nihil uilitatis, nihil inmodestiae admittit. Non prius discumbitur quam oratio ad deum praegustetur. Editur quantum esurientes capiunt, bibitur quantum pudicis utile est. Ita saturantur, ut qui meminerint etiam per noctem adorandum deum sibi esse; ita fabulantur, ut qui sciant dominum audire. Post aquam manualem et lumina, ut quisque de scripturis sanctis uel de proprio ingenio potest, prouocatur in medium deo canere; hinc probatur quomodo biberit. Aeque oratio conuiuium dirimit. Inde disceditur non in cateruas caesionum nec in classes discursationum nec in eruptiones lasciuiarum, sed ad eandem curam modestiae et pudicitiae, ut qui non tam coenam coenauerint quam disciplinam. Haec coitio Christianorum merito sane inlicita, si inlicitis par, merito damnanda, si quis de ea queritur eo titulo quo de factionibus querela est. In cuius perniciem aliquando conuenimus? Hoc sumus congregati quod et dispersi, hoc uniuersi quod et singuli, neminem laedentes, neminem contristantes. Cum probi, cum boni coeunt, cum pii, cum casti congregantur, non est factio dicenda, sed curia.

### English translation (Claude)

I will now myself set out the business of the Christian association, so that, having refuted the evil, I may show the good. We are a body knit together by a shared religious conviction, by unity of discipline, and by the bond of hope. We come together in a meeting and congregation, so that, as if forming a band, we may besiege God with our prayers. This violence is pleasing to God. We pray also for the emperors, for their ministers and authorities, for the state of the world, for the peace of affairs, for the delay of the end. We come together to call the divine writings to mind, if the nature of the present times compels us to forewarn or to recognize anything. Certainly with the holy words we nourish our faith, raise our hope, fix our confidence, and no less strengthen discipline by inculcating precepts; there too are exhortations, rebukes, and divine censure. For judgment is passed with great weight, as among people sure that they are in God's sight; and it is the greatest foretaste of the judgment to come if anyone has so sinned as to be banished from sharing in prayer and assembly and all holy fellowship. Approved elders preside, having obtained that honor not by payment but by testimony; for nothing of God's is obtained by payment. Even if there is a kind of treasury, it is not collected from entrance fees, as if religion were bought. Each one deposits a modest contribution on the monthly day, or when he wishes, and only if he wishes, and only if he can; for no one is compelled, but gives voluntarily. These are, as it were, deposits of piety. For they are not spent from there on banquets and drinking bouts and thankless eating-houses, but on feeding and burying the poor, on boys and girls without means and without parents, and on old people now confined to the house, and on the shipwrecked; and if any are in the mines, or on islands, or in prisons, provided it is for the cause of God's school, they become wards of their confession. But it is precisely the working of such love that brands us in the eyes of some. “See,” they say, “how they love one another” (for they themselves hate one another), “and how ready they are to die for one another” (for they themselves will be more ready to kill one another). And that we call ourselves brothers: they rage at this, I suppose, for no other reason than that among them every name of kinship is feigned in affection. But we are your brothers too, by the law of nature, our one mother, though you are hardly men, because you are bad brothers. But how much more fittingly are they both called and held brothers who have acknowledged one Father, God, who have drunk one Spirit of holiness, who from one womb of the same ignorance have come out trembling into the one light of truth! But perhaps we are thought less legitimate because no tragedy cries out about our brotherhood, or because we are brothers in the family property, which among you generally breaks up brotherhood. So we who are mingled in mind and soul have no hesitation about sharing property. All things are held in common among us except our wives. In this one point we dissolve partnership, the only point in which other men practice partnership: they not only usurp the marriages of their friends, but also most patiently supply their own to their friends, following, I suppose, that teaching of their ancestors and wisest men, the Greek Socrates and the Roman Cato, who shared with their friends the wives they had married for the sake of bearing children, so that children might be begotten in other homes as well; whether against the wives' will I do not know. For why should the wives care for a chastity which their husbands had so easily given away? O example of Attic wisdom and Roman gravity: a philosopher and a censor as pimps! What wonder, then, if such love as ours is defamed? For you also disparage our little suppers, apart from their being infamous for crime, as extravagant too. It was of us, no doubt, that Diogenes' saying was spoken: “The Megarians feast as though they would die tomorrow, but build as though they would never die.” But one sees a straw in another's eye more easily than a beam in his own. With so many tribes and curiae and decuries belching, the air turns sour; when the Salii are to dine, a creditor will be needed; the accountants will reckon up the cost of the tithes and feasts of Hercules; for the Apaturia, the Dionysia, and the Attic mysteries a levy of cooks is proclaimed; at the smoke of a dinner of Serapis the firemen will be roused. Only about the dining room of the Christians is there complaint. Our supper shows its reason by its name: it is called by the word for love among the Greeks. Whatever it costs, it is gain to spend in the name of piety, since with that refreshment we help all the needy; not as among you, where parasites strive for the glory of selling their liberty, hired out to their bellies to be fattened amid insults, but because with God there is greater regard for the lowly. If the cause of the banquet is honorable, judge the rest of the order of its discipline by its cause. Being a duty of religion, it admits nothing base, nothing immodest. We do not recline before prayer to God has been tasted first. As much is eaten as the hungry need; as much is drunk as is good for the chaste. They are satisfied as people who remember that even during the night they must worship God; they converse as people who know that the Lord is listening. After water for the hands and the lamps, each is invited into the middle to sing to God, as he can, from the holy Scriptures or of his own composing; from this it is proved how much he has drunk. Prayer likewise closes the banquet. From there we depart, not into gangs of brawlers, nor into bands of roamers, nor into outbursts of wantonness, but to the same concern for modesty and chastity, as people who have dined not so much on a supper as on discipline. This gathering of Christians would rightly be unlawful if it were like the unlawful ones; it would rightly be condemned if anyone could complain of it on the grounds on which complaint is made about factions. To whose ruin have we ever come together? We are the same when assembled as when dispersed, the same all together as individually, injuring no one, grieving no one. When the upright, when the good come together, when the pious, when the chaste assemble, it is not to be called a faction but a council.

### Scripture references

- Matt 7:3: allusion, high confidence
- John 13:35: echo, low confidence
- Acts 4:32: echo, medium confidence
- 1 Cor 12:13: echo, medium confidence
- 1 Tim 2:2: allusion, medium confidence
- 1 Cor 5:11: echo, low confidence

### Translation notes

- The supper is the agape (Greek “love”), the Christians' common meal, described here as opened and closed with prayer.
- Exclusion “from sharing in prayer and assembly and all holy fellowship” is the church's discipline of excommunication; compare 1 Cor 5:11–13.
- The saying about the Megarians is elsewhere attributed to Diogenes the Cynic (Diogenes Laertius) or to others; source uncertain.
- Socrates and Cato sharing their wives: a hostile reading of stories told of Socrates' household and of Cato the Younger, who gave his wife Marcia to Hortensius.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 39 (Mayor-Souter, 110–116; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-39).

## Apology 40

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-40
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 116–120
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Christians are blamed for every disaster, yet worse disasters struck before Christ; the human race has always offended God, and Christians' fasting and prayer now soften his anger.

### Latin text

At e contrario illis nomen factionis accommodandum est qui in odium bonorum et proborum conspirant, qui aduersum sanguinem innocentium conclamant, praetexentes sane ad odii defensionem illam quoque uanitatem, quod existiment omnis publicae cladis, omnis popularis incommodi Christianos esse in causam. Si Tiberis ascendit in moenia, si Nilus non ascendit in arua, si caelum stetit, si terra mouit, si fames, si lues, statim Christianos ad leonem! adclamatur. Tantos ad unum? Oro uos, ante Tiberium, id est ante Christi aduentum, quantae clades orbem et urbes ceciderunt? Legimus Hieran, Anaphen et Delon et Rhodon et Co insulas multis cum milibus hominum pessum abisse. Memorat et Plato maiorem Asiae uel Africae terram Atlantico mari ereptam. Sed et mare Corinthium terrae motus ebibit, et uis undarum Lucaniam abscisam in Siciliae nomen relegauit. Haec utique non sine iniuria incolentium accidere potuerunt. Ubi uero tunc, non dicam deorum uestrorum contemptores Christiani, sed ipsi dei uestri, cum totum orbem cataclysmus aboleuit, uel, ut Plato putauit, campestre solummodo? Posteriores enim illos clade diluuii contestantur ipsae urbes in quibus nati mortuique sunt, etiam quas condiderunt; neque enim alias hodiernum manerent nisi et ipsae posthumae cladis illius. Nondum Iudaeum ab Aegypto examen Palaestina susceperat nec iam illic Christianae sectae origo consederat, cum regiones adfines eius Sodoma et Gomorra igneus imber exussit. Olet adhuc incendio terra, et si qua illic arborum poma, conantur oculis tenus, ceterum contacta cinerescunt. Sed nec Tuscia iam tunc atque Campania de Christianis querebantur, cum Volsinios de caelo, Pompeios de suo monte perfudit ignis. Nemo adhuc Romae deum uerum adorabat cum Hannibal apud Cannas per Romanos anulos caedes suas modio metiebatur. Omnes dei uestri ab omnibus colebantur, cum ipsum Capitolium Senones occupauerant. Et bene quod, si quid aduersi urbibus accidit, eaedem clades templorum quae et moenium fuerunt, ut iam hoc reuincam non ab eis euenire, quia et ipsis euenit. Semper humana gens male de deo meruit. Primo quidem ut inofficiosa eius, quem cum intellegeret ex parte, non requisiuit, sed et alios insuper sibi commentata quos coleret; dehinc quod non inquirendo innocentiae magistrum et nocentiae iudicem et exactorem omnibus uitiis et criminibus inoleuit. Ceterum si requisisset, sequebatur, ut cognosceret requisitum et recognitum obseruaret et obseruatum propitium magis experiretur quam iratum. Eundem igitur nunc quoque scire debet iratum quem et retro semper, priusquam Christiani nominarentur. Cuius bonis utebatur ante editis quam sibi deos fingeret, cur non ab eo etiam mala intellegat euenire cuius bona esse non sensit? Illius rea est cuius et ingrata. Et tamen si pristinas clades comparemus, leuiora nunc accidunt, ex quo Christianos a deo orbis accepit. Ex eo enim et innocentia saeculi iniquitates temperauit et deprecatores dei esse coeperunt. Denique cum ab imbribus aestiua hiberna suspendunt et annus in cura est, uos quidem cotidie pasti statimque pransuri, balneis et cauponiis et lupanaribus operantibus, aquilicia Ioui immolatis, nudipedalia populo denuntiatis, caelum apud Capitolium quaeritis, nubila de laquearibus exspectatis, auersi ab ipso et deo et caelo: nos uero ieiuniis aridi et omni continentia expressi, ab omni uitae fruge dilati, in sacco et cinere uolutantes inuidia caelum tundimus, deum tangimus, et cum misericordiam extorserimus, Iupiter honoratur.

### English translation (Claude)

On the contrary, the name of faction should be applied to those who conspire in hatred of the good and upright, who cry out against the blood of the innocent, putting forward as a defense of their hatred that further folly too, that they think the Christians are the cause of every public disaster and every popular misfortune. If the Tiber rises to the walls, if the Nile does not rise over the fields, if the sky stands still, if the earth moves, if there is famine, if plague, at once the cry goes up: “The Christians to the lion!” So many to one? I ask you, before Tiberius, that is, before the coming of Christ, how great were the disasters that struck the world and its cities! We read that the islands of Hiera, Anaphe, Delos, Rhodes, and Cos sank with many thousands of people. Plato too records that a land larger than Asia or Africa was snatched away by the Atlantic sea. An earthquake drank up the Corinthian sea too, and the force of the waves cut off a part of Lucania and banished it under the name of Sicily. These things certainly could not have happened without harm to the inhabitants. But where then were, I will not say the Christians, despisers of your gods, but your gods themselves, when the flood wiped out the whole world, or, as Plato thought, only the lowlands? For that they are later than the disaster of the flood is attested by the very cities in which they were born and died, and even those which they founded; for these would not remain today unless they too were later than that disaster. Palestine had not yet received the swarm of Jews from Egypt, nor had the origin of the Christian school yet settled there, when a rain of fire burned up its neighboring regions, Sodom and Gomorrah. The land still smells of burning, and if any fruits of trees are there, they make a show only to the eyes, but turn to ashes when touched. Nor were Etruria and Campania complaining about Christians then, when fire from heaven drenched Volsinii, and fire from its own mountain Pompeii. No one at Rome yet worshiped the true God when Hannibal at Cannae measured his slaughter by the bushel of Roman rings. All your gods were worshiped by all, when the Senones occupied the Capitol itself. And it is well that, if any adversity befell cities, the disasters of the temples were the same as those of the walls, so that I may refute the idea that these things come from the gods, since they happened to the gods too. The human race has always deserved ill of God: first, as undutiful toward him, since, though it understood him in part, it did not seek him, but even invented others besides to worship; then because, by not seeking the teacher of innocence and the judge and avenger of guilt, it grew into every vice and crime. But if it had sought him, it would have followed that it would know him once sought, observe him once known, and find him, once observed, gracious rather than angry. So it ought to know now too that he is angry, the same God who always was, before Christians were named. Whose benefits it enjoyed, bestowed before it fashioned gods for itself, why should it not understand that evils too come from him whose goods it did not recognize as his? It is guilty toward him to whom it is also ungrateful. And yet, if we compare former disasters, lighter ones happen now, since the world received Christians from God. For from that time innocence has tempered the iniquities of the age, and there have begun to be intercessors with God. Finally, when summer holds back the winter rains and the year is a worry, you indeed, fed daily and ready to dine again at once, with baths and taverns and brothels busy, offer rain-sacrifices to Jupiter, proclaim barefoot processions to the people, seek heaven at the Capitol, expect clouds from the ceiling panels, turned away from God himself and from heaven; but we, dried up with fasting and wrung out by every kind of continence, kept from every enjoyment of life, rolling in sackcloth and ashes, beat upon heaven with reproach, touch God, and when we have wrung mercy from him, Jupiter is honored!

### Scripture references

- Gen 19:24: allusion, high confidence

### Extrabiblical texts

- Plato, Tim. 24e–25d (Plato (works)): allusion, high confidence
- Plato, Tim. 22d–e (Plato (works)): allusion, medium confidence
- Josephus, J.W. 4.484 (Josephus (works)): allusion, low confidence

### Translation notes

- “The Christians to the lion!” was a popular cry against Christians.
- Atlantis: Plato, Timaeus 24e–25d; the flood that destroyed only the lowlands: Timaeus 22d–e.
- Sodom and Gomorrah: Gen 19:24–25; the ash-fruit of the region is also mentioned by Josephus, Jewish War 4.484.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 40 (Mayor-Souter, 116–120; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-40).

## Apology 41

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-41
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 120
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: The pagans, not the Christians, bring disasters on the world; God sends good and ill on all alike until the final judgment, as admonition to Christians and punishment to others.

### Latin text

Vos igitur inportuni rebus humanis, uos rei publicorum incommodorum inlices semper, apud quos deus spernitur, statuae adorantur. Etenim credibilius haberi debet eum irasci qui neglegatur quam qui coluntur, aut nae illi iniquissimi, si propter Christianos etiam cultores suos laedunt, quos separare deberent a meritis Christianorum. Hoc, inquitis, et in deum uestrum repercutere est, si quod et ipse patiatur, propter profanos etiam suos cultores laedi. Admittite prius dispositiones eius, et non retorquebitis. Qui enim semel aeternum iudicium destinauit post saeculi finem, non praecipitat discretionem, quae est condicio iudicii, ante saeculi finem. Aequalis est interim super omne hominum genus et indulgens et increpans. Communia uoluit esse et commoda profanis et incommoda suis, ut pari consortio omnes et lenitatem eius et seueritatem experiremur. Quia haec ita didicimus apud ipsum, diligimus lenitatem, metuimus seueritatem, uos contra utramque despicitis: et sequitur ut omnes saeculi plagae nobis, si forte, in admonitionem, uobis in castigationem a deo obueniant. Atquin nos nullo modo laedimur; inprimis quia nihil nostra refert in hoc aeuo nisi de eo quam celeriter excedere, dehinc, quia si quid aduersi infligitur, uestris meritis deputatur. Sed etsi aliqua nos quoque praestringunt ut uobis cohaerentes, laetamur magis recognitione diuinarum praedicationum, confirmantium scilicet fiduciam et fidem spei nostrae. Sin uero ab eis quos colitis omnia uobis mala eueniunt nostri causa, quid colere perseueratis tam ingratos, tam iniustos, qui magis uos in dolore Christianorum iuuare et adserere debuerant, quos separare deberent a meritis Christianorum?

### English translation (Claude)

You, then, are the troublemakers in human affairs; you are always the ones who draw public misfortunes on yourselves, you among whom God is despised and statues are adored. For it ought to be held more credible that he is angry who is neglected than they who are worshiped; or else they are most unjust indeed, if on account of the Christians they harm their own worshipers too, whom they ought to separate from the deserts of the Christians. “This,” you say, “rebounds on your God too, if he also allows his own worshipers to be harmed on account of the profane.” Admit his dispensations first, and you will not turn it back on us. For he who has once for all appointed an eternal judgment after the end of the age does not hasten the separation, which is the condition of the judgment, before the end of the age. Meanwhile he deals equally with the whole human race, both indulgent and rebuking. He willed that both benefits should be common to the profane and misfortunes to his own, so that in equal fellowship we might all experience both his gentleness and his severity. Because we have learned this from him, we love his gentleness and fear his severity; you, on the contrary, despise both; and it follows that all the plagues of the age come from God to us, if at all, for admonition, to you for chastisement. And yet we are in no way harmed: first, because nothing matters to us in this age except to leave it as quickly as possible; then, because if any adversity is inflicted, it is put down to your deserts. But even if some things graze us too, as people bound up with you, we rejoice rather in recognizing the divine predictions, which confirm, of course, the confidence and faith of our hope. But if all evils come upon you from those you worship because of us, why do you persist in worshiping beings so ungrateful, so unjust, who ought rather to help and champion you in making the Christians suffer, and to separate you from the deserts of the Christians?

### Scripture references

- Matt 5:45: allusion, medium confidence
- Rom 11:22: echo, medium confidence

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 41 (Mayor-Souter, 120; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-41).

## Apology 42

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-42
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 120–124
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Christians are not useless to society: they live, work, trade, farm, sail, and serve as soldiers like others, and pay their taxes honestly, abstaining only from pagan rites.

### Latin text

Sed alio quoque iniuriarum titulo postulamur, et infructuosi in negotiis dicimur. Quo pacto homines uobiscum degentes, eiusdem uictus, habitus, instructus, eiusdem ad uitam necessitatis? Neque enim Brachmanae aut Indorum gymnosophistae sumus, siluicolae et exules uitae. Meminimus gratiam debere nos deo, domino, creatori: nullum fructum operum eius repudiamus: plane temperamus, ne ultra modum aut perperam utamur. Itaque non sine foro, non sine macello, non sine balneis, tabernis, officinis, stabulis, nundinis uestris ceterisque commerciis cohabitamus in hoc saeculo. Nauigamus et nos uobiscum et militamus et rusticamur et mercatus proinde miscemus, artes, opera nostra publicamus usui uestro. Quomodo infructuosi uidemur negotiis uestris, cum quibus et de quibus uiuimus, non scio. Sed si caerimonias tuas non frequento, attamen et illa die homo sum. Non lauor diluculo Saturnalibus, ne et noctem et diem perdam, attamen lauor honesta hora et salubri, quae mihi et calorem et sanguinem seruet; rigere et pallere post lauacrum mortuus possum. Non in publico Liberalibus discumbo, quod bestiariis supremam coenantibus mos est, attamen ubi de copiis tuis coeno. Non emo capiti coronam. Quid tua interest, emptis nihilominus floribus quomodo utar? Puto gratius esse liberis et solutis et undique uagis. Sed etsi in coronam coactis, nos coronam naribus nouimus; uiderint qui per capillum odorantur. Spectaculis non conuenimus; quae tamen apud illos coetus uenditantur si desiderauero, liberius de propriis locis sumam. Thura plane non emimus. Si Arabiae queruntur, sciant Sabaei pluris et carioris suas merces Christianis sepeliendis profligari quam deis fumigandis. Certe, inquitis, templorum uectigalia cotidie decoquunt: stipes quotusquisque iam iactat? Non enim sufficimus et hominibus et deis uestris mendicantibus opem ferre, nec putamus aliis quam petentibus inpertiendum. Denique porrigat manum Iupiter et accipiat, cum interim plus nostra misericordia insumit uicatim quam uestra religio templatim. Sed cetera uectigalia gratias Christianis agent ex fide dependentibus debitum, qua alieno fraudando abstinemus, ut, si ineatur quantum uectigalibus pereat fraude et mendacio uestrarum professionum, facile ratio haberi possit, unius speciei querela conpensata pro commodo ceterarum rationum.

### English translation (Claude)

But we are also charged under another head of injury: we are said to be unprofitable in business. How so, people who live with you, with the same food, dress, and furnishings, the same necessities of life? For we are not Brahmans or Indian gymnosophists, dwellers in the woods and exiles from life. We remember that we owe thanks to God, our Lord and Creator; we reject no fruit of his works; we plainly use moderation, lest we use them beyond measure or wrongly. So we live with you in this world, not without the forum, not without the meat market, not without baths, shops, workshops, inns, your markets, and other dealings. We too sail with you, and serve as soldiers, and farm, and trade with you likewise; we make our crafts and our works public for your use. How we seem unprofitable to your business, with whom and on which we live, I do not know. But if I do not frequent your ceremonies, I am nonetheless a man on that day too. I do not bathe at dawn at the Saturnalia, lest I lose both night and day; yet I bathe at a decent and healthy hour, which preserves my warmth and my blood; I can be stiff and pale after a bath when I am dead. I do not recline in public at the Liberalia, as is the custom for beast-fighters having their last meal; yet wherever I dine, I dine from your supplies. I do not buy a garland for my head. What does it matter to you how I use the flowers, which I buy all the same? I think they are more pleasing free and loose and straying everywhere. But even if they are bound into a garland, we know a garland with the nose; let those see to it who smell through their hair. We do not come together at the shows; yet if I want the things that are sold at those gatherings, I will take them more freely from their own places. We certainly do not buy incense. If Arabia complains, let the Sabaeans know that more of their wares, and more costly, are spent on burying Christians than on fumigating gods. “Certainly,” you say, “the revenues of the temples dwindle daily: how few now throw in a coin!” For we are not able to bring help both to men and to your begging gods, nor do we think it should be given to any but those who ask. In short, let Jupiter hold out his hand and receive, while meanwhile our mercy spends more street by street than your religion temple by temple. But the other revenues will give thanks to the Christians, who pay what is owed in good faith, by which we abstain from defrauding others; so that, if it were reckoned how much the revenues lose through the fraud and lying of your declarations, the account could easily be settled, the complaint about one kind of revenue being offset by the gain to all the other accounts.

### Translation notes

- Christians serving as soldiers is mentioned here without comment; compare Tertullian's later treatise On the Crown.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 42 (Mayor-Souter, 120–124; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-42).

## Apology 43

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-43
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 124
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Only pimps, assassins, magicians, and astrologers lose by the Christians, who more than repay any loss by their protection.

### Latin text

Plane confitebor, quinam, si forte, uere de sterilitate Christianorum conqueri possint. Primi erunt lenones, perductores, aquarioli, tum sicarii, uenenarii, magi, item aruspices, arioli, mathematici. His infructuosos esse magnus est fructus. Et tamen quodcunque dispendium est rei uestrae per hanc sectam, cum aliquo praesidio conpensari potest. Quanti habetis, non dico qui iam de uobis daemonia excutiant, non dico iam qui pro uobis quoque uero deo preces sternant, quia forte non creditis, sed a quibus nihil timere possitis?

### English translation (Claude)

I will plainly admit who, if any, can truly complain of the unprofitableness of Christians. First will be the pimps, procurers, and bath-attendants; then assassins, poisoners, magicians; likewise soothsayers, diviners, astrologers. To be unprofitable to these is a great profit. And yet whatever loss your affairs suffer through this school can be offset by some protection. How much do you value, I do not say those who now drive demons out of you, I do not say those who also pour out prayers for you to the true God, since perhaps you do not believe it, but those from whom you can fear nothing?

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 43 (Mayor-Souter, 124; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-43).

## Apology 44

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-44
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 124
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: The real loss to the state is the execution of so many innocent Christians, while the prisons and arenas are filled only with pagan criminals.

### Latin text

At enim illud detrimentum reipublicae tam grande quam uerum nemo circumspicit, illam iniuriam ciuitatis nullus expendit, cum tot iusti impendimur, cum tot innocentes erogamur. Vestros enim iam contestamur actus, qui cotidie iudicandis custodiis praesidetis, qui sententiis elogia dispungitis. Tot a uobis nocentes uariis criminum elogiis recensentur: quis illic sicarius, quis manticularius, quis sacrilegus aut corruptor aut lauantium praedo, quis ex illis etiam Christianus adscribitur? aut cum Christiani suo titulo offeruntur, quis ex illis etiam talis quales tot nocentes? De uestris semper aestuat carcer, de uestris semper metalla suspirant, de uestris semper bestiae saginantur, de uestris semper munerarii noxiorum greges pascunt. Nemo illic Christianus, nisi plane tantum Christianus, aut si et aliud, iam non Christianus.

### English translation (Claude)

But that loss to the state, as great as it is real, no one considers; that injury to the city no one weighs, when so many of us just people are spent, when so many innocent are paid out. For we now call your own records to witness, you who daily preside over the trials of prisoners and settle the charge sheets by your sentences. So many guilty people are listed by you under various charges: which of them, the assassin, the pickpocket, the temple-robber or seducer or thief of bathers' clothes, is also entered as a Christian? Or when Christians are brought forward under their own title, which of them is also such as so many of the guilty are? It is always with your people that the prison seethes, with yours that the mines sigh, with yours that the beasts are fattened, with yours that the producers of shows feed their herds of condemned criminals. No one there is a Christian, unless plainly only a Christian; or if he is something else as well, he is no longer a Christian.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 44 (Mayor-Souter, 124; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-44).

## Apology 45

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-45
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 124–126
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Christians alone are truly innocent, because their law, taught by God, forbids even anger, lust of the eyes, and retaliation, and they fear his eternal judgment.

### Latin text

Nos ergo soli innocentes. Quid mirum, si necesse est? Enimuero necesse est. Innocentiam a deo edocti et perfecte eam nouimus, ut a perfecto magistro reuelatam, et fideliter custodimus, ut ab incontemptibili dispectore mandatam. Vobis autem humana aestimatio innocentiam tradidit, humana item dominatio imperauit; inde nec plenae nec adeo timendae estis disciplinae ad innocentiae ueritatem. Tanta est prudentia hominis ad demonstrandum bonum quanta auctoritas ad exigendum; tam illa falli facilis quam ista contemni. Atque adeo quid plenius, dicere: Non occides, an docere: Ne irascaris quidem? Quid perfectius, prohibere adulterium, an etiam ab oculorum solitaria concupiscentia arcere? Quid eruditius, de maleficio, an et de maliloquio interdicere? Quid instructius, iniuriam non permittere, an nec uicem iniuriae sinere? Dum tamen sciatis ipsas leges quoque uestras quae uidentur ad innocentiam pergere de diuina lege, ut antiquiore forma, mutuatas. Diximus iam de Moysi aetate. Sed quanta auctoritas legum humanarum, cum illas et euadere homini contingat et plerumque in admissis delitiscenti, et aliquando contemnere ex uoluntate uel necessitate delinquenti? Recogitate ea etiam pro breuitate supplicii cuiuslibet, non tamen ultra mortem remansuri. Sic et Epicurus omnem cruciatum doloremque depretiat, modicum quidem contemptibilem pronuntiando, magnum uero non diuturnum. Enimuero nos qui sub deo omnium speculatore dispungimur, quique aeternam ab eo poenam prouidemus merito, soli innocentiae occurrimus, et pro scientiae plenitudine et pro latebrarum difficultate et pro magnitudine cruciatus non diuturni, uerum sempiterni, eum timentes quem timere debebit et ipse qui timentes iudicat, deum, non proconsulem timentes.

### English translation (Claude)

We alone, then, are innocent. What wonder, if it must be so? And indeed it must. Taught innocence by God, we both know it perfectly, as revealed by a perfect teacher, and keep it faithfully, as commanded by an inspector who is not to be despised. But to you human judgment has handed down innocence, and human dominion has likewise commanded it; so your discipline is neither complete nor so much to be feared, for the truth of innocence. Man's wisdom in showing the good is as great as his authority in demanding it; the one is as easily deceived as the other is despised. And so which is fuller: to say, “You shall not kill,” or to teach, “Do not even be angry”? Which is more perfect: to prohibit adultery, or to restrain even from the solitary lust of the eyes? Which is more learned: to forbid evildoing, or evil-speaking too? Which is better instructed: not to permit injury, or not even to allow retaliation for injury? Yet you should know that even those laws of yours which seem to lead toward innocence were borrowed from the divine law, as the older pattern. We have already spoken of the age of Moses. But how great is the authority of human laws, when a man may both escape them, often lying hidden in his crimes, and sometimes despise them, offending by choice or by necessity? Consider them also in view of the brevity of any punishment, which will not remain beyond death. So too Epicurus makes light of all torment and pain, declaring a small one contemptible and a great one not lasting. But we, who are judged under God, the watcher of all, and who foresee an eternal punishment from him, rightly alone attain innocence, because of the fullness of our knowledge, the difficulty of hiding, and the greatness of a torment not lasting but everlasting, fearing him whom even the judge who judges us, the fearers, must fear: fearing God, not the proconsul.

### Scripture references

- Exod 20:13: quotation, high confidence
- Exod 20:14: allusion, high confidence
- Matt 5:21: allusion, high confidence
- Matt 5:22: allusion, high confidence
- Matt 5:28: allusion, high confidence
- Matt 5:39: allusion, high confidence

### Extrabiblical texts

- Epicurus (Epicurus (sayings and fragments)): allusion, medium confidence

### Translation notes

- The contrasts follow the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:21–22, 27–28, 38–39), set against the commandments of Exod 20:13–14.
- Epicurus on pain: compare his Principal Doctrines 4.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 45 (Mayor-Souter, 124–126; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-45).

## Apology 46

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-46
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 126–130
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Christianity is not merely a philosophy: philosophers attack the gods unpunished, but their lives contradict their teaching, while Christians know God and live chastely and faithfully.

### Latin text

Constitimus, ut opinor, aduersus omnium criminum intentationem, quae Christianorum sanguinem flagitat. Ostendimus totum statum nostrum, et quibus modis probare possimus ita esse sicut ostendimus, ex fide scilicet et antiquitate diuinarum litterarum, item ex confessione spiritualium potestatum. Qui nos reuincere audebit, non arte uerborum, sed eadem forma qua probationem constituimus, de ueritate? Sed dum unicuique manifestatur ueritas nostra, interim incredulitas, dum de bono sectae huius obducitur, quod usui iam et de commercio innotuit, non utique diuinum negotium existimat, sed magis philosophiae genus. Eadem, inquit, et philosophi monent atque profitentur, innocentiam, iustitiam, patientiam, sobrietatem, pudicitiam. Cur ergo quibus comparamur de disciplina, non proinde illis adaequamur ad licentiam impunitatemque disciplinae? uel cur et illi, ut pares nostri, non urgentur ad officia quae nos non obeuntes periclitamur? Quis enim philosophum sacrificare aut deierare aut lucernas meridie uanas proferre conpellit? Quinimmo et deos uestros palam destruunt et superstitiones uestras commentariis quoque accusant laudantibus uobis. Plerique etiam in principes latrant sustinentibus uobis, et facilius statuis et salariis remunerantur quam ad bestias pronuntiantur. Sed merito. Philosophi enim non Christiani cognominantur. Nomen hoc philosophorum daemonia non fugat. Quidni? cum secundum deos philosophi daemonas deputent. Socratis uox est: Si daemonium permittat. Idem et cum aliquid de ueritate sapiebat deos negans, Aesculapio tamen gallinaceum prosecari iam in fine iubebat, credo ob honorem patris eius, quia Socratem Apollo sapientissimum omnium cecinit. Apollinem inconsideratum! Sapientiae testimonium reddidit ei uiro qui negabat deos esse. In quantum odium flagrat ueritas, in tantum qui eam ex fide praestat offendit; qui autem adulterat et adfectat, hoc maxime nomine gratiam pangit apud insectatores ueritatis. Quam inlusores et corruptores inimice philosophi adfectant ueritatem et adfectando corrumpunt, ut qui gloriam captant, Christiani et necessario appetunt et integre praestant, ut qui saluti suae curant. Adeo neque de scientia neque de disciplina, ut putatis, aequamur. Quid enim Thales ille princeps physicorum sciscitanti Croeso de diuinitate certum renuntiauit, commeatus deliberandi saepe frustratus? Deum quilibet opifex Christianus et inuenit et ostendit et exinde totum quod in deum quaeritur re quoque adsignat; licet Plato adfirmet factitatorem uniuersitatis neque inueniri facilem et inuentum enarrari in omnes difficilem. Ceterum si de pudicitia prouocemus, lego partem sententiae Atticae, in Socratem corruptorem adolescentium pronuntiatum. Sexum nec femineum mutat Christianus. Noui et Phrynen meretricem Diogenis supra recumbentis ardori subantem, audio et quendam Speusippum de Platonis schola in adulterio perisse. Christianus uxori suae soli masculus nascitur. Democritus excaecando semetipsum, quod mulieres sine concupiscentia aspicere non posset et doleret si non esset potitus, incontinentiam emendatione profitetur. At Christianus saluis oculis feminas non uidet; animo aduersus libidinem caecus est. Si de probitate defendam, ecce lutulentis pedibus Diogenes superbos Platonis toros alia superbia deculcat: Christianus nec in pauperem superbit. Si de modestia certem, ecce Pythagoras apud Thurios, Zenon apud Prienenses tyrannidem adfectant: Christianus uero nec aedilitatem. Si de aequanimitate congrediar, Lycurgus apocarteresin optauit, quod leges eius Lacones emendassent: Christianus etiam damnatus gratias agit. Si de fide conparem, Anaxagoras depositum hostibus denegauit: Christianus et extra fidelis uocatur. Si de simplicitate consistam, Aristoteles familiarem suum Hermian turpiter loco excedere fecit: Christianus nec inimicum suum laedit. Idem Aristoteles tam turpiter Alexandro regendo potius adolatur, quam Plato a Dionysio uentris gratia uenditatur. Aristippus in purpura sub magna grauitatis superficie nepotatur, et Hippias dum ciuitati insidias disponit, occiditur. Hoc pro suis omni atrocitate dissipatis nemo unquam temptauit Christianus. Sed dicet aliquis etiam de nostris excedere quosdam a regula disciplinae. Desinunt tamen Christiani haberi penes nos, philosophi uero illi cum talibus factis in nomine et honore sapientiae perseuerant. Adeo quid simile philosophus et Christianus? Graeciae discipulus et caeli? famae negotiator et uitae? uerborum et factorum operator, et rerum aedificator et destructor? amicus et inimicus erroris? ueritatis interpolator et integrator et expressor, et furator eius et custos?

### English translation (Claude)

We have taken our stand, I think, against the charge of all the crimes on which the blood of Christians is demanded. We have shown our whole position, and the ways in which we can prove it to be as we have shown, namely from the trustworthiness and antiquity of the divine writings, and also from the confession of the spiritual powers. Who will dare to refute us, not by verbal art, but in the same form in which we have established our proof, from the truth? But while our truth is made plain to everyone, unbelief meanwhile, though convinced of the good of this school, which has now become known from experience and dealings, does not think it a divine thing at all, but rather a kind of philosophy. “The philosophers too,” it says, “teach and profess the same things: innocence, justice, patience, sobriety, chastity.” Why then, if we are compared to them in discipline, are we not likewise made equal to them in the freedom and impunity of our discipline? Or why are they too, as our peers, not pressed to the duties for not performing which we are endangered? For who compels a philosopher to sacrifice, or to swear, or to put out useless lamps at noon? On the contrary, they openly destroy your gods and accuse your superstitions in their writings too, while you praise them. Many even bark at the emperors, and you put up with it, and they are more readily rewarded with statues and salaries than sentenced to the beasts. But rightly: for they are called philosophers, not Christians. This name of philosophers does not put demons to flight. Why should it? since the philosophers count demons next to the gods. It is Socrates' saying: “If the daimonion permits.” The same man, though he had some taste of the truth in denying the gods, yet at the very end ordered a cock to be sacrificed to Aesculapius, I suppose in honor of his father, because Apollo proclaimed Socrates the wisest of all men. Thoughtless Apollo! He bore witness to wisdom for the man who denied that the gods exist. As much as truth burns with hatred, so much does he who presents it faithfully give offense; but he who adulterates and affects it wins favor on this very ground with the persecutors of truth. The truth which the philosophers, its mockers and corrupters, affect with hostility and corrupt by affecting, as men seeking glory, Christians both seek of necessity and present whole, as men caring for their salvation. So we are not equal, as you think, either in knowledge or in discipline. For what certain answer did Thales, that chief of the natural philosophers, give Croesus when he asked about divinity, after the extensions of time for deliberation had so often come to nothing? Any Christian craftsman both finds God and shows him, and from then on assigns to him in fact everything that is sought concerning God; though Plato affirms that the maker of the universe is neither easy to find nor, once found, easy to explain to all. Further, if we make the challenge about chastity, I read part of the Athenian sentence pronounced against Socrates as a corrupter of youths. The Christian does not even exchange the female sex for the other. I know too of the prostitute Phryne inflaming the lust of Diogenes as he lay upon her, and I hear that a certain Speusippus of Plato's school died in adultery. The Christian is born male for his own wife alone. Democritus, by blinding himself because he could not look at women without lust and was pained if he did not possess them, confesses his incontinence by his cure. But the Christian, with his eyes unharmed, does not see women; in mind he is blind against lust. If I defend our uprightness, see, Diogenes with muddy feet tramples on Plato's proud couches with another pride: the Christian is not proud even toward the poor. If I contend about modesty, see, Pythagoras among the Thurians and Zeno among the Prienians aspire to tyranny: but the Christian does not aspire even to the aedileship. If I meet you on equanimity, Lycurgus chose death by starvation because the Spartans had amended his laws: the Christian gives thanks even when condemned. If I compare faithfulness, Anaxagoras refused to return a deposit to his enemies: the Christian is called faithful even by outsiders. If I take my stand on simplicity, Aristotle shamefully made his friend Hermias leave his position: the Christian does not harm even his enemy. The same Aristotle flatters Alexander as shamefully, instead of guiding him, as Plato is sold by Dionysius for his belly's sake. Aristippus plays the profligate in purple under a great show of gravity, and Hippias is killed while laying plots against his city. No Christian ever attempted this on behalf of his own, though they were scattered with every atrocity. But someone will say that some of ours too depart from the rule of discipline. Yet they cease to be counted Christians among us, while those philosophers, with such deeds, continue in the name and honor of wisdom. So what is there alike in a philosopher and a Christian? in a disciple of Greece and a disciple of heaven? in a trafficker in reputation and one in life? in a worker in words and one in deeds? in a builder and a destroyer of things? in a friend and an enemy of error? in a falsifier of truth and its restorer and expounder, its thief and its guardian?

### Extrabiblical texts

- Plato, Phaedo 118a (Plato (works)): allusion, high confidence
- Plato, Apol. 21a (Plato (works)): allusion, high confidence
- Plato, Tim. 28c (Plato (works)): allusion, high confidence

### Translation notes

- Socrates' cock to Asclepius: Plato, Phaedo 118a; Apollo's oracle: Plato, Apology 21a; “hard to find the maker … and to declare him to all”: Plato, Timaeus 28c.
- “Does not even exchange the female sex for the other”: that is, he has no relations with males (sense of the compressed Latin).
- Several anecdotes about philosophers (Diogenes and Phryne, Speusippus, Democritus's blinding) are hostile gossip from ancient tradition.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 46 (Mayor-Souter, 126–130; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-46).

## Apology 47

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-47
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 130–134
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: The philosophers and poets drew on the older Scriptures and distorted them, as heretics have since distorted the Christian rule of truth; their judgment, Pyriphlegethon, and Elysium are copies of Christian teaching.

### Latin text

Antiquior omnibus ueritas, nisi fallor, et hoc mihi proficit antiquitas praestructa diuinae litteraturae, quo facile credatur thesaurum eam fuisse posteriori cuique sapientiae. Et si non onus iam uoluminis temperarem, excurrerem in hanc quoque probationem. Quis poetarum, quis sophistarum, qui non omnino de prophetarum fonte potauerit? Inde igitur philosophi sitim ingenii sui rigauerunt, ut quae de nostris habent, ea nos conparent illis. Inde, opinor, et a quibusdam philosophia quoque eiecta est, a Thebaeis dico, et a Spartiatis et Argiuis, dum ad nostra conantur, et homines gloriae, ut diximus, et eloquentiae solius libidinosi, si quid in sanctis scripturis offenderunt digestis, ex proprio instituto curiositatis ad propria opera uerterunt, neque satis credentes diuina esse, quo minus interpolarent, neque satis intellegentes, ut adhuc tunc subnubila, etiam ipsis Iudaeis obumbrata, quorum propria uidebantur. Nam et si qua simplicitas erat ueritatis, eo magis scrupulositas humana fidem aspernata mutabat, per quod in incertum miscuerunt etiam quod inuenerant certum. Inuentum enim solummodo deum non ut inuenerant disputauerunt, ut et de qualitate et de natura eius et de sede disceptent. Alii incorporalem adseuerant, alii corporalem, ut tam Platonici quam Stoici; alii ex atomis, alii ex numeris, qua Epicurus et Pythagoras, alius ex igni, qua Heraclito uisum est: et Platonici quidem curantem rerum, contra Epicurei otiosum et inexercitum, et ut ita dixerim, neminem humanis rebus; positum uero extra mundum Stoici, qui figuli modo extrinsecus torqueat molem hanc; intra mundum Platonici, qui gubernatoris exemplo intra id maneat quod regat. Sic et de ipso mundo natus innatusue sit, decessurus mansurusue sit, uariant. Sic et de animae statu, quam alii diuinam et aeternam, alii dissolubilem contendunt, ut quis sensit, ita et intulit aut reformauit. Nec mirum, si uetus instrumentum ingenia philosophorum interuerterunt. Ex horum semine etiam nostram hanc nouitiolam paraturam uiri quidam suis opinionibus ad philosophicas sententias adulterauerunt et de una uia obliquos multos et inexplicabiles tramites sciderunt. Quod ideo suggesserim, ne cui nota uarietas sectae huius in hoc quoque nos philosophis adaequare uideatur et ex uarietate defensionum iudicet ueritatem. Expedite autem praescribimus adulteris nostris illam esse regulam ueritatis quae ueniat a Christo transmissa per comites ipsius, quibus aliquanto posteriores diuersi isti commentatores probabuntur. Omnia aduersus ueritatem de ipsa ueritate constructa sunt, operantibus aemulationem istam spiritibus erroris. Ab his adulteria huiusmodi salutaris disciplinae subornata, ab his quaedam etiam fabulae inmissae quae de similitudine fidem infirmarent ueritatis uel eam sibi potius euincerent, ut quis ideo non putet Christianis credendum quia nec poetis nec philosophis, uel ideo magis poetis et philosophis existimet credendum quia non Christianis. Itaque ridemur praedicantes deum iudicaturum. Sic enim et poetae et philosophi tribunal apud inferos ponunt. Et gehennam si comminemur, quae est ignis arcani subterraneam ad poenam thesaurus, proinde decachinnamur. Sic enim et Pyriphlegethon apud mortuos amnis est. Et si paradisum nominemus, locum diuinae amoenitatis recipiendis sanctorum spiritibus destinatum, maceria quadam igneae illius zonae a notitia orbis communis segregatum, Elysii campi fidem occupauerunt. Unde haec, oro uos, philosophis aut poetis tam consimilia? Nonnisi de nostris sacramentis. Si de nostris sacramentis, ut de prioribus, ergo fideliora sunt nostra magisque credenda, quorum imagines quoque fidem inueniunt. Si de suis sensibus, iam ergo sacramenta nostra imagines posteriorum habebuntur, quod rerum forma non sustinet. Nunquam enim corpus umbra aut ueritatem imago praecedit.

### English translation (Claude)

Truth is older than all things, unless I am mistaken; and the antiquity of the divine literature, established above, helps me in this, so that it may readily be believed that it was the treasure-house of all later wisdom. And if I were not now restraining the bulk of this volume, I would range into this proof too. Which of the poets, which of the sophists, has not drunk entirely from the fountain of the prophets? From there, then, the philosophers watered the thirst of their talent, so that it is what they have from ours that makes people compare us with them. Hence, I suppose, philosophy was even expelled by some, I mean by the Thebans and the Spartans and the Argives. While they strove after our things, being men, as we said, greedy for glory and for eloquence alone, if they came upon anything in the holy Scriptures set out in order, they turned it to their own works according to their own fondness for curiosity, neither believing sufficiently that it was divine, so as to refrain from falsifying it, nor understanding it sufficiently, since it was still somewhat clouded then, obscured even to the Jews themselves, whose own property it seemed to be. For even where truth was simple, all the more did human fastidiousness, scorning faith, change it, and in this way they mixed into uncertainty even what they had found certain. For having found God, merely that, they did not discuss him as they had found him, but went on to dispute about his quality, his nature, and his abode. Some assert he is incorporeal, others corporeal, as the Platonists and the Stoics respectively; some that he is made of atoms, others of numbers, as Epicurus and Pythagoras; another of fire, as Heraclitus thought; and the Platonists hold that he cares for things, while the Epicureans hold he is idle and inactive and, so to speak, a nobody in human affairs; the Stoics place him outside the world, turning this mass from outside like a potter; the Platonists within the world, remaining, like a pilot, within what he governs. So too about the world itself, whether it was born or unborn, whether it will pass away or remain, they vary. So too about the state of the soul, which some contend is divine and eternal, others dissoluble; as each one thought, so he introduced or remodeled. No wonder if the talents of the philosophers perverted the old document. From their seed certain men have also adulterated this newer provision of ours with their own opinions, to suit philosophical views, and from the one way have cut many crooked and inextricable paths. I mention this lest the known variety of this school should seem to anyone to make us equal to the philosophers in this too, and lest he judge the truth from the variety of its defenders. But we readily lay down against our adulterers the prescription that the rule of truth is the one that comes from Christ, handed down through his companions, to whom these various commentators will be proved to be somewhat later. Everything against the truth has been built from the truth itself, the spirits of error working this rivalry. By them adulterations of this saving discipline have been suborned; by them certain fables too have been put about, which might weaken faith in the truth by their likeness, or rather win it over to themselves, so that one might think Christians are not to be believed because poets and philosophers are not, or rather think poets and philosophers are to be believed because Christians are not. So we are laughed at when we preach that God will judge; for the poets and philosophers too set up a tribunal in the underworld. And if we threaten Gehenna, which is a store of secret fire under the earth for punishment, we are likewise laughed to scorn; for there is also a river Pyriphlegethon among the dead. And if we name Paradise, a place of divine delight appointed to receive the spirits of the saints, separated from the knowledge of the common world by a kind of wall, that fiery zone, the Elysian Fields have already taken hold of belief. Where, I ask you, do the philosophers or poets get these things, so very like ours? Only from our mysteries. If from our mysteries, as being earlier, then ours are more trustworthy and more to be believed, since even their copies find belief. If from their own minds, then our mysteries will be held to be copies of later things, which the order of things does not allow. For a shadow never precedes the body, nor a copy the truth.

### Scripture references

- Gen 3:24: echo, low confidence

### Extrabiblical texts

- Tertullian, Praescr. (Prescription against Heretics): echo, medium confidence

### Translation notes

- “The rule of truth … handed down through his companions”: the argument from apostolic succession developed in Tertullian's Prescription against Heretics.
- Gehenna and Paradise: Tertullian places Paradise beyond a fiery zone (compare Gen 3:24).

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 47 (Mayor-Souter, 130–134; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/39/#p-47).

## Apology 48

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/48/#p-48
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 134–140
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: The resurrection of the same person, body and soul, for judgment is more credible than transmigration; God who made man from nothing can remake him, and the world is full of images of resurrection.

### Latin text

Age iam, si qui philosophus adfirmet, ut ait Laberius de sententia Pythagorae, hominem fieri ex mulo, colubram ex muliere, et in eam opinionem omnia argumenta eloquii uirtute distorserit, nonne consensum mouebit et fidem infiget etiam ab animalibus abstinendi propterea? Persuasum quis habeat, ne forte bubulam de aliquo proauo suo obsonet? At enim Christianus si de homine hominem ipsumque de Gaio Gaium reducem repromittat, lapidibus magis, nec saltim coetibus a populo exigetur. Si quaecunque ratio praeest animarum humanarum reciprocandarum in corpora, cur non in eandem substantiam redeant, cum hoc sit restitui, id esse quod fuerat? Iam non ipsae sunt quae fuerant, quia non potuerunt esse quod non erant, nisi desinant esse quod fuerant. Multis etiam locis ex otio opus erit, si uelimus ad hanc partem lasciuire, quis in quam bestiam reformari uideretur. Sed de nostra magis defensione, qui proponimus multo utique dignius credi hominem ex homine rediturum, quemlibet pro quolibet, dum hominem, ut eadem qualitas animae in eandem restauraretur conditionem, etsi non effigiem. Certe quia ratio restitutionis destinatio iudicii est, necessario idem ipse qui fuerat exhibebitur, ut boni seu contrarii meriti iudicium a deo referat. Ideoque repraesentabuntur et corpora, quia neque pati quicquam potest anima sola sine materia stabili, id est carne, et quod omnino de iudicio dei pati debent animae, non sine carne meruerunt intra quam omnia egerunt. Sed quomodo, inquis, dissoluta materia exhiberi potest? Considera temetipsum, o homo, et fidem rei inuenies. Recogita quid fueris antequam esses. Utique nihil. Meminisses enim, si quid fuisses. Qui ergo nihil fueras priusquam esses, idem nihil factus cum esse desieris, cur non possis rursus esse de nihilo eiusdem ipsius auctoris uoluntate qui te uoluit esse de nihilo? Quid noui tibi eueniet? Qui non eras, factus es; cum iterum non eris, fies. Redde si potes rationem qua factus es, et tunc require qua fies. Et tamen facilius utique fies quod fuisti aliquando, quia aeque non difficile factus es quod nunquam fuisti aliquando. Dubitabitur, credo, de dei uiribus, qui tantum corpus hoc mundi de eo quod non fuerat non minus quam de morte uacationis et inanitatis inposuit, animatum spiritu omnium animarum animatore, signatum et ipsum humanae resurrectionis exemplum in testimonium uobis. Lux cotidie interfecta resplendet et tenebrae pari uice decedendo succedunt, sidera defuncta uiuescunt, tempora ubi finiuntur incipiunt, fructus consummantur et redeunt, certe semina non nisi corrupta et dissoluta fecundius surgunt, omnia pereundo seruantur, omnia de interitu reformantur. Tu homo, tantum nomen, si intellegas te uel de titulo Pythiae discens, dominus omnium morientium et resurgentium, ad hoc morieris, ut pereas? Ubicumque resolutus fueris, quaecunque te materia destruxerit, hauserit, aboleuerit, in nihilum prodegerit, reddet te. Eius est nihilum ipsum cuius et totum. Ergo, inquitis, semper moriendum erit et semper resurgendum? Si ita rerum dominus destinasset, ingratis experireris conditionis tuae legem. At nunc non aliter destinauit quam praedicauit. Quae ratio uniuersitatem ex diuersitate conposuit, ut omnia aemulis substantiis sub unitate constarent ex uacuo et solido, ex animali et inanimali, ex conprehensibili et inconprehensibili, ex luce et tenebris, ex ipsa uita et morte: eadem aeuum quoque ita destinata et distincta condicione conseruit, ut prima haec pars, ab exordio rerum quam incolimus, temporali aetate ad finem defluat, sequens uero, quam expectamus, in infinitam aeternitatem propagetur. Cum ergo finis et limes, medius qui interhiat, adfuerit, ut etiam ipsius mundi species transferatur aeque temporalis, quae illi dispositioni aeternitatis aulaei uice oppansa est, tunc restituetur omne humanum genus ad expungendum quod in isto aeuo boni seu mali meruit, et exinde pendendum in immensam aeternitatis perpetuitatem. Ideoque nec mors iam, nec rursus ac rursus resurrectio, sed erimus idem qui nunc, nec alii post, dei quidem cultores apud deum semper, superinduti substantia propria aeternitatis: profani uero, et qui non integre ad deum, in poena aeque iugis ignis, habentes ex ipsa natura eius diuinam scilicet subministrationem incorruptibilitatis. Nouerunt et philosophi diuersitatem arcani et publici ignis. Ita longe alius est qui usui humano, alius qui iudicio dei apparet, siue de caelo fulmina stringens, siue de terra per uertices montium eructans; non enim absumit quod exurit, sed dum erogat, reparat. Adeo manent montes semper ardentes, et qui de caelo tangitur, saluus est, ut nullo iam igni decinerescat. Et hoc erit testimonium ignis aeterni, hoc exemplum iugis iudicii poenam nutrientis. Montes uruntur et durant. Quid nocentes et dei hostes?

### English translation (Claude)

Come now, if some philosopher were to affirm, as Laberius says following the opinion of Pythagoras, that a man is made from a mule and a snake from a woman, and were to twist every argument to that opinion by the power of his eloquence, would he not win assent and fix belief, even to the point of abstaining from animals on that account? Would anyone be persuaded of it, lest by chance he dine on beef from some great-grandfather of his? But if a Christian promises that a man will return from a man, and Gaius himself from Gaius, he will be driven out by the people with stones rather than be granted even a hearing. If any reasoning governs the return of human souls into bodies, why should they not return into the same substance, since this is to be restored, to be what one had been? Otherwise they are no longer the same as they had been, because they could not be what they were not unless they ceased to be what they had been. We would also need much leisure in many places if we wished to make sport of this subject: who seemed to be re-formed into which beast. But rather for our own defense: we propose that it is much more worthy of belief that a man will return from a man, any given man as himself, so long as a man, so that the same quality of soul may be restored to the same condition, even if not to the same appearance. Certainly, since the reason for restoration is the appointment of judgment, the very same one who had been will necessarily be presented, to receive from God the judgment of good or contrary desert. And therefore bodies too will be brought back, both because the soul alone can suffer nothing without stable matter, that is, flesh, and because what souls must suffer at all from God's judgment they did not deserve without the flesh, within which they did everything. “But how,” you say, “can matter that has been dissolved be presented?” Consider yourself, O man, and you will find belief in the thing. Recall what you were before you were. Nothing, surely; for you would remember if you had been anything. You, then, who were nothing before you were, and will become the same nothing when you cease to be, why could you not be again from nothing by the will of the same author who willed you to be from nothing? What new thing will happen to you? You who were not were made; when again you are not, you will be made. Give, if you can, the reason by which you were made, and then ask the reason by which you will be made. And yet you will surely be made more easily what you once were, since you were made with equal ease what you never were before. There will be doubt, I suppose, about the powers of God, who set up this great body of the world from what had not been, no less than from a death of emptiness and void, animated by the Spirit who animates all souls, itself stamped as an example of human resurrection, as a testimony to you. Light, slain daily, shines again, and darkness, by equal turns, departs and comes after; the stars that have died come to life again; the seasons begin where they end; fruits are consumed and come back; seeds certainly do not rise more fruitfully unless corrupted and dissolved; all things are preserved by perishing, all are re-formed from destruction. Will you, O man, so great a name, if you understand yourself, learning it even from the inscription of the Pythian, lord of all things that die and rise, die for this, that you may perish? Wherever you have been dissolved, whatever matter has destroyed you, swallowed you, abolished you, squandered you into nothing, it will give you back. Nothingness itself belongs to him to whom the whole belongs. “So,” you say, “we shall always have to die and always rise again?” If the Lord of things had so appointed, you would experience the law of your condition against your will. But in fact he has appointed nothing other than he has proclaimed. The reason that composed the universe from diversity, so that all things should stand together in unity from rival substances, from void and solid, from animate and inanimate, from comprehensible and incomprehensible, from light and darkness, from life itself and death, that same reason has also joined the ages together by a condition so appointed and distinguished that this first part, which we inhabit from the beginning of things, flows down through a temporal age to an end, while the following one, which we await, extends into infinite eternity. When, therefore, the end and the boundary that gapes between them has come, so that even the form of the world itself, equally temporal, which is spread like a curtain before that dispensation of eternity, is changed, then the whole human race will be restored to settle the account of what it has deserved in this age, good or evil, and from then on to be paid out into the boundless perpetuity of eternity. And so there will be no more death, nor resurrection again and again, but we shall be the same as now, and not others afterward: the worshipers of God always with God, clothed over with the proper substance of eternity; but the profane, and those not wholly given to God, in the punishment of fire equally unceasing, having from its very nature, of course, a divine supply of incorruptibility. The philosophers too know the difference between secret and common fire. So the fire that serves human use is very different from the one that appears at God's judgment, whether striking thunderbolts from heaven or belching from the earth through the peaks of mountains; for it does not consume what it burns, but restores while it spends. So the mountains remain always burning, and one who is struck from heaven is safe, so that he is no longer reduced to ashes by any fire. And this will be a testimony to eternal fire, an example of the unceasing judgment that keeps its punishment alive. The mountains burn and endure. What of the guilty and the enemies of God?

### Scripture references

- 1 Cor 15:36: allusion, medium confidence
- 2 Cor 5:4: allusion, medium confidence
- 1 Cor 7:31: allusion, medium confidence
- Matt 25:46: allusion, medium confidence

### Extrabiblical texts

- Laberius (Decimus Laberius (fragments)): allusion, high confidence

### Translation notes

- Laberius, a writer of mimes, on Pythagorean transmigration.
- “Rather than be granted even a hearing”: coetibus is doubtful in the text; translated by sense.
- “The inscription of the Pythian”: the Delphic maxim “Know yourself.”

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 48 (Mayor-Souter, 134–140; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/48/#p-48).

## Apology 49

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/48/#p-49
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 140–142
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Even if Christian beliefs were false, they make people better and harm no one, so they deserve at most ridicule, not death; and Christians suffer only by their own choice.

### Latin text

Hae sunt quae in nobis solis praesumptiones uocantur, in philosophis et poetis summae scientiae et insignia ingenia. Illi prudentes, nos inepti; illi honorandi, nos inridendi, immo eo amplius et puniendi. Falsa nunc sint quae tuentur et merito praesumptio, attamen necessaria; inepta, attamen utilia; siquidem meliores fieri coguntur qui eis credunt, metu aeterni supplicii et spe aeterni refrigerii. Itaque non expedit falsa dici nec inepta haberi quae expedit uera praesumi. Nullo titulo damnari licet omnino quae prosunt. In uobis itaque praesumptio est haec ipsa quae damnat utilia. Proinde nec inepta esse possunt; certe etsi falsa et inepta, nulli tamen noxia. Nam et multis aliis similia quibus nullas poenas inrogatis, uanis et fabulosis, inaccusatis et inpunitis, ut innoxiis. Sed in eiusmodi enim, si utique, inrisui iudicandum est, non gladiis et ignibus et crucibus et bestiis, de qua iniquitate saeuitiae non modo caecum hoc uulgus exsultat et insultat, sed et quidam uestrum, quibus fauor uulgi de iniquitate captatur, gloriantur. Quasi non totum quod in nos potestis nostrum sit arbitrium. Certe, si uelim, Christianus sum. Tunc ergo me damnabis, si damnari uelim; cum uero quod in me potes, nisi uelim, non potes, iam meae uoluntatis est quod potes, non tuae potestatis. Proinde et uulgus uane de nostra uexatione gaudet. Proinde enim nostrum est gaudium, quod sibi uindicat, qui malumus damnari quam a deo excidere: contra illi, qui nos oderunt, dolere, non gaudere debebant, consecutis nobis quod elegimus.

### English translation (Claude)

These are the things that in us alone are called presumptions, but in philosophers and poets the highest knowledge and remarkable genius. They are wise, we foolish; they are to be honored, we to be laughed at, indeed, more than that, to be punished. Suppose now that what we defend is false and rightly called presumption: yet it is necessary; foolish, yet useful; since those who believe it are compelled to become better, by fear of eternal punishment and hope of eternal refreshment. So it is not expedient that things should be called false or held foolish which it is expedient to presume true. By no title is it lawful to condemn at all what is beneficial. In you, then, is this very presumption, which condemns what is useful. So they cannot be foolish either; certainly, even if false and foolish, yet harmful to no one. For they are like many other things on which you inflict no penalties, vain and fabulous, unaccused and unpunished as harmless. But in such matters, if at all, the judgment is ridicule, not swords and fires and crosses and beasts; at the injustice of this cruelty not only does this blind mob exult and insult, but some of you too boast, who court the favor of the mob by injustice. As if all that you can do against us were not at our own choice! Certainly I am a Christian if I will. So you will condemn me only if I will to be condemned; and since what you can do against me you cannot do unless I will, what you can do is a matter of my will, not of your power. So too the mob rejoices in vain over our harassment. For the joy it claims for itself is ours, since we prefer to be condemned rather than to fall away from God; on the contrary, those who hate us ought to grieve, not rejoice, since we have obtained what we chose.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 49 (Mayor-Souter, 140–142; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/48/#p-49).

## Apology 50

- URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/48/#p-50
- Source: Mayor-Souter, 142–146
- Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27

Summary: Christians suffer as soldiers fight, to win; the pagans praise heroes who died for glory but condemn Christians who die for God, yet every persecution makes more Christians: “the blood of Christians is seed.”

### Latin text

Ergo, inquitis, cur querimini quod uos insequamur, si pati uultis, cum diligere debeatis per quos patimini quod uultis? Plane uolumus pati, uerum eo more, quo et bellum miles. Nemo quidem libens patitur, cum et trepidare et periclitari sit necesse. Tamen et proeliatur omnibus uiribus, et uincens in proelio gaudet qui de proelio querebatur, quia et gloriam consequitur et praedam. Proelium est nobis quod prouocamur ad tribunalia, ut illic sub discrimine capitis pro ueritate certemus. Victoria est autem pro quo certaueris obtinere. Ea uictoria habet et gloriam placendi deo et praedam uiuendi in aeternum. Sed obducimur. Certe cum obtinuimus. Ergo uicimus, cum occidimur, denique euadimus, cum obducimur. Licet nunc sarmenticios et semaxios appelletis, quia ad stipitem dimidii axis reuincti sarmentorum ambitu exurimur. Hic est habitus uictoriae nostrae, haec palmata uestis, tali curru triumphamus. Merito itaque uictis non placemus; propterea enim desperati et perditi existimamur. Sed haec desperatio et perditio penes uos in causa gloriae et famae uexillum uirtutis extollunt. Mucius dexteram suam libens in ara reliquit: o sublimitas animi! Empedocles totum sese Catanensium Aetnaeis incendiis donauit: o uigor mentis! Aliqua Carthaginis conditrix rogo se secundum matrimonium dedit: o praeconium castitatis! Regulus, ne unus pro multis hostibus uiueret, toto corpore cruces patitur: o uirum fortem et in captiuitate uictorem! Anaxarchus, cum in exitum tisanae pilo contunderetur: Tunde, tunde, aiebat, Anaxarchi follem, Anaxarchum enim non tundis: o philosophi magnanimitatem, qui de tali exitu suo etiam iocabatur! Omitto eos qui cum gladio proprio uel alio genere mortis mitiore de laude pepigerunt. Ecce enim et tormentorum certamina coronantur a uobis. Attica meretrix carnifice iam fatigato postremo linguam suam comesam in faciem tyranni saeuientis exspuit, ut exspueret et uocem, ne coniuratos confiteri posset, si etiam uicta uoluisset. Zeno Eleates consultus a Dionysio, quidnam philosophia praestaret, cum respondisset contemptum mortis, inpassibilis flagellis tyranni obiectus sententiam suam ad mortem usque signabat. Certe Laconum flagella sub oculis etiam hortantium propinquorum acerbata tantum honorem tolerantiae domui conferunt quantum sanguinis fuderint. gloriam licitam, quia humanam, cui nec praesumptio perdita nec persuasio desperata reputatur in contemptu mortis et atrocitatis omnimodae, cui tantum pro patria, pro imperio, pro amicitia pati permissum est quantum pro deo non licet! Et tamen illis omnibus et statuas defunditis, et imagines inscribitis, et titulos inciditis in aeternitatem. Quantum de monumentis potestis scilicet, praestatis et ipsi quodammodo mortuis resurrectionem. Hanc qui ueram a deo sperat, si pro deo patiatur, insanus est. Sed hoc agite, boni praesides, meliores multo apud populum si illis Christianos immolaueritis, cruciate, torquete, damnate, atterite nos: probatio est enim innocentiae nostrae iniquitas uestra. Ideo nos haec pati deus patitur. Nam et proxime ad lenonem damnando Christianam potius quam ad leonem confessi estis labem pudicitiae apud nos atrociorem omni poena et omni morte reputari. Nec quicquam tamen proficit exquisitior quaeque crudelitas uestra; inlecebra est magis sectae. Plures efficimur quotiens metimur a uobis; semen est sanguis Christianorum. Multi apud uos ad tolerantiam doloris et mortis hortantur, ut Cicero in Tusculanis, ut Seneca in Fortuitis, ut Diogenes, ut Pyrrhon, ut Callinicus. Nec tamen tantos inueniunt uerba discipulos quantos Christiani factis docendo. Illa ipsa obstinatio, quam exprobratis, magistra est. Quis enim non contemplatione eius concutitur ad requirendum quid intus in re sit? quis non, ubi requisiuit, accedit? ubi accessit, pati exoptat, ut totam dei gratiam redimat, ut omnem ueniam ab eo compensatione sanguinis sui expediat? Omnia enim huic operi delicta donantur. Inde est, quod ibidem sententiis uestris gratias agimus. Ut est aemulatio diuinae rei et humanae, cum damnamur a uobis, a deo absoluimur.

### English translation (Claude)

“Then why,” you say, “do you complain that we persecute you, if you want to suffer, when you ought to love those through whom you suffer what you want?” Plainly we want to suffer, but in the way a soldier wants war. No one indeed suffers willingly, since he must fear and face danger. Yet he fights with all his strength, and, winning in battle, he rejoices who complained of battle, because he gains both glory and booty. It is our battle that we are summoned to the tribunals, to contend there for the truth at the risk of our lives. And victory is to obtain that for which you have contended. That victory has both the glory of pleasing God and the booty of living forever. “But we are executed.” Certainly, when we have won. So we have conquered when we are killed; in short, we escape when we are executed. Call us now, if you like, faggot-men and half-axle men, because we are burned, bound to a stake half an axle long, surrounded by bundles of brushwood. This is the dress of our victory, this our palm-embroidered robe; in such a chariot we triumph. Rightly, then, we do not please the conquered; for that is why we are thought desperate and lost. But this desperation and lostness among you raise the banner of virtue in the cause of glory and fame. Mucius willingly left his right hand on the altar: O loftiness of soul! Empedocles gave his whole self to the fires of Aetna at Catana: O vigor of mind! A certain foundress of Carthage gave herself to the pyre rather than to a second marriage: O glorious proclamation of chastity! Regulus, lest he alone should live in exchange for many enemies, suffered crosses over his whole body: O brave man, a conqueror even in captivity! Anaxarchus, as he was being pounded to death with a pestle like barley, said, “Pound, pound the bag of Anaxarchus; for Anaxarchus you are not pounding”: O magnanimity of the philosopher, who even joked about such a death! I pass over those who have bargained for praise with their own sword or with some gentler kind of death. For see, even contests of torture are crowned by you. An Athenian courtesan, when the executioner was already tired, at last spat her bitten-off tongue into the face of the raging tyrant, so as to spit out her voice too, lest she be able to betray the conspirators even if, overcome, she should wish to. Zeno of Elea, asked by Dionysius what philosophy provided, answered, contempt of death; and, exposed unflinching to the tyrant's scourges, he sealed his opinion even to death. Certainly the scourgings of the Spartans, made harsher under the eyes of their relatives, who even urged them on, confer as much honor of endurance on their house as they have shed blood. O glory that is lawful because it is human, to which neither lost presumption nor desperate conviction is imputed in its contempt of death and of every kind of atrocity, which is permitted to suffer as much for fatherland, for empire, for friendship, as is not lawful for God! And yet for all these you cast statues, inscribe images, and cut inscriptions for eternity. As far as you can by monuments, you yourselves grant the dead a kind of resurrection. One who hopes for the true resurrection from God is insane if he suffers for God! But go on, good governors; you will be much better in the people's eyes if you sacrifice Christians to them: crucify, torture, condemn, grind us down; for your injustice is the proof of our innocence. That is why God allows us to suffer these things. For recently, by condemning a Christian woman to the pimp rather than to the lion, you confessed that among us a stain on chastity is reckoned more terrible than any punishment and any death. Yet none of your more refined cruelty accomplishes anything; it is rather an enticement to our school. We become more numerous every time we are mown down by you: the blood of Christians is seed. Many among you urge endurance of pain and death, like Cicero in the Tusculans, Seneca in the Chances, Diogenes, Pyrrho, Callinicus. Yet their words do not find as many disciples as Christians do by teaching with deeds. That very obstinacy that you reproach is a teacher. For who, contemplating it, is not shaken to inquire what is really inside the matter? who, when he has inquired, does not come over? and when he has come over, does not long to suffer, so that he may purchase the whole grace of God, so that he may obtain from him full pardon at the price of his blood? For all sins are forgiven to this deed. That is why we give thanks for your sentences on the spot. As there is a rivalry between divine and human things, when we are condemned by you, we are acquitted by God.

### Extrabiblical texts

- Cicero, Tusc. 2 (Cicero): allusion, high confidence
- Seneca (Seneca): allusion, medium confidence
- Empedocles (Empedocles (fragments)): allusion, low confidence

### Translation notes

- “Faggot-men and half-axle men” (sarmenticii, semaxii): mocking names for Christians burned at the stake.
- The foundress of Carthage is Dido, who in one tradition chose the pyre rather than remarry.
- “All sins are forgiven to this deed”: martyrdom as a second baptism, a view Tertullian states elsewhere (On Baptism 16).
- Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 2; Seneca's lost work On Chances.

### Citation (SBL)

Tertullian, Apol. 50 (Mayor-Souter, 142–146; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-apologeticum/48/#p-50).